• SIERRA LEONE
  40 Talking Bibles in the Krio language have been provided by the Barnabas Fund for distribution in Sierra Leone. Talking Bibles look like a printed book of Scripture and play a recording of the New Testament - they are particularly used in countries where many adults cannot read.
  Source: Barnabas Fund
  
• SUDAN
  The Church in Sudan is facing increasing hostility since the secession of South Sudan in July. 5 Church members in Omdurman West who were constructing a new church building were recently attacked. The Sudanese Church of Christ continues to meet for Sunday worship in spite of opposition from Local Authorities. The church has been trying to erect the building since 1997 but delaying actions by the authorities have prevented its completion. An estimated 1 million Christians still live in Sudan, but in October, Sudan President Omar al-Bashir again asserted that Sudan will have a strictly Islamic identity.
  Source: Compass Direct News
     

• BANGLADESH
  FEBA's "House of Peace" programme has been extended from 15 to 30 minutes each morning in Bangladesh and the format has changed to include practical explanations of concepts and teaching for new believers. The evening programme, "Lighthouse" is a 30-minute magazine programme including a 3-minute Bible story with related dialogue, health issues, drama, song teaching and a phone-in.
  Contact: Jonathan Frank jfrank@feba.org.uk
   
• KAZAKHSTAN According to the World Evangelical Alliance, Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazabayev has said the two restrictive laws on religion that he signed on October 13 are intended to check Islamist extremism. The two new laws ban prayer rooms in government buildings; require existing religious organisations to dissolve and re-register - and provide stricter penal provisions for offences relating to activities of unregistered organisations. To register at a local level, a religious group must have 50 members, with regional levels requiring at least 500 members and national levels requiring 5,000. Some Human rights groups including the OSCE and religious communities have told President Nazarbayev that instead of controlling extremism, the restrictions will actually encourage it.
  Contact: Rev. Dr Geoff Tunnicliffe via www.worldevangelicals.org
   

• BARRIERS TO CHRISTIAN FAITH IN AUSTRALIA
  A survey of 1,094 Australians, carried out by McCrindle Research on behalf of Olive Tree Media, has revealed the top ten barriers to Christian faith in Australia. National census data shows that 60% of Australians mark the Christianity box, but when the option of Spirituality is added to that question the figure drops to 40%, with only 8% indicating that they are involved in practising their religion or worship regularly as part of a group. The survey listed the top 10 barriers to faith as being Church abuse; hypocrisy; judging others; religious wars; suffering; issues about money; church being outdated, hell and condemnation; homosexuality and exclusivity. The survey also identified that the dominant influences on religious belief come from family first, followed by mass media, social media and the internet.
  Contact: Karl Faase info@olivetreemedia.com.au
  

• AUSTRALIA NETWORK TENDER HALTED
  The ABC Network in Australia will continue to run the country's international TV Channel, which reaches more than 44 countries across Asia, the Pacific and the Indian subcontinent, until at least August 2012, after a tender process to continue the service was cancelled. Sky News had been bidding against ABC to run the free-to-air Australia Network for the next 10 years, but various leaks of confidential information to the media led authorities to decide that a fair decision on who should take on the new A$223m (US$230m) contract could no longer be made.
  Source: C21Media.net
   

• INTERNET EXPLORER
  Since October, Internet Explorer can no longer claim more than half of the web's traffic, ending more than a decade of the default Microsoft browser's reign. Safari's hold on 62.2% of Mobile traffic has reduced IE's overall share of web browsing, despite still having 52.6% of desktop traffic, according to Netmarketshare.com. IE's diminishing share (49.6%) reflects its absence from mobiles and tablets, which now make up 6% of web traffic. Firefox is the second most popular web browser(21.2% of traffic), followed by Chrome (16.6%) and Safari (8.7%).  
  Source: Mashable
  
• HCJB & FEBA UK JOIN FORCES
  HCJB Global and FEBA UK have joined forces to form the OneSheep Consortium, aimed at equipping Christians with new media skills and develop new ways of communicating the Gospel through social media. Research will look at how young people are using social media. Content will be published on a dedicated website: www.onesheep.org
  Contact: Jonathan Frank jfrank@feba.org.uk

MIDDLE EAST

• CYPRUS
  SAT-7 is hosting "Network 2012" from 21-23 March 2012 in Cyprus. Ziya Meral will provide an updated perspective on the year of change across the Middle East and Africa and will highlight the challenges of being a Christian in this region. Visit www.sat7.org/network
  Contact: Terence Ascott web@sat7.org
   

• QATAR
  Church City, on the outskirts of Doha, is becoming known as the home of the Christian community in Qatar. Land was allocated by the government to the Christian community so that all the main church denominations could build their church buildings there. The Catholic Church was the first to build, followed by the interdenominational church, Indian Churches, Orthodox and Anglican Churches. The Bible Society has just celebrated the inauguration of a Bible Resource Centre in the newly-built Anglican Church. According to the 2010 Census the total Qatari population is 1,758,793, with only 20% being Qatari and the remaining 80% being expatriates. There are about 100,000 people in the Christian expatriate community.
  Contact: Hrayr Jebejian hrayrj@mtnmail.com.cy
   

• BILLY GRAHAM ARCHIVES
  The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA) plans to make more than 1,600 messages from more than six decades of Billy Graham's ministry available for streaming online at www.billygraham.org. Ken Barun, Communications Senior Vice President, said, "Billy Graham's messages have inspired millions around the world and will continue to do so with the release of this audio library. His messages can now be accessed by many for easy listening and sharing". The searchable database will direct users to messages based on queries of specific dates, locations, message titles or topics. The streaming audio will be played via an embedded media player on the BGEA website and will be compatible with both desktop computers and mobile devices.
  Contact: Ken Barun kbarun@bgea.org
  
• USA
  CBN has recently celebrated its 50th Anniversary in Television broadcasting. Reinhard Bonnke was the Keynote Speaker, with music from Dove Award Winning band MercyMe amongst others. The festivities concluded with a Zambelli Fireworks display over the CBN building in Virginia Beach. CBN was founded by Dr Pat Robertson and was the first Christian TV station in USA - it now reaches all around the world. Robertson still hosts the daily 700 Club programme, with his son Gordon now serving as CBN's CEO.
  Contact: Michael Little michael.little@cbn.org
   ________________________________________________________________

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