A tiny, frail lady - her silver grey hair tucked under a white head scarf with a red floral trim - stands defiantly at a relief camp she set up for minority people displaced by Pakistan’s recent deadly flooding. Eighty-one-year-old German nun Dr. Ruth Pfau is surveying the needs of hundreds whose homes were washed away. Two months since they sought shelter in Hyderabad, on disused land by the side of a busy road, she and her team have provided them with tents, food, water, medicine and a school.

Dr Pfau’s service to Pakistan’s most neglected began more than 50 years ago. She took on the country’s leprosy problem, rescuing children holed up in caves and cattle pens for years as their disfiguring and suffering worsened, abandoned by distraught parents terrified they were contagious. She trained Pakistani doctors and attracted foreign donations, building leprosy clinics across the country... READ MORE

Local mosque launches protests against Christians Waris Pura, a sub-urban area of Faisalabad (Punjab) is a former Christian ghetto, population about 100,000. A large number of Christians are fleeing the area for the fear of anti- Christian violence, as the local Mosque has launched protest action against Christians, as two Christian brothers, Sajjid and Rashid were accused of blasphemy and were arrested on 1 July 2010 for allegedly writing insulting words in a booklet against the Prophet Muhammad. Both brothers rejected the accusation and said that they were innocent... READ MORE

The U.S has historically been at the forefront of the debate between biblical creation and scientific explanations for the origin of life. This has been a central subject for the Texas Board of Education which has recently been in the media spotlight because of its amendments to the state’s public school curriculum. These amendments have been accused of putting a conservative, Christian fundamentalist stamp on education in Texas due in some part to its insistence on teaching biblical creation and scepticism of science in the classroom. Views on the origin of life can be set on a belief scale. At one end are the religiously informed creationists who believe that if the Bible is to maintain its authority, it must be literally true. At the other end are atheist evolutionary theorists who see the Genesis stories as myths that prove the Bible has no more authority than any other book. These two groups are the most vocal in the origin of life debate.... READ MORE

Stories of Christmas, Editorial, What Christmas Means to Me...

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