World

(RNS) — Since the earliest days of the AIDS epidemic, many communities of faith have supported millions of people living with HIV and kept future generations free from HIV through their prevention efforts.

Today, communities from all faith traditions are engaged in the HIV response. Their continued leadership in ensuring respect for human dignity, justice and rights is critical.

DETROIT (Detroit Free Press) A federal judge has ruled that 114 Iraqi immigrants facing deportation can stay in the U.S. for at least two more weeks as he sorts out whether the court has jurisdiction. Supporters say the immigrants would face persecution in Iraq since many of them are Christians.

ROME (Reuters) The mother of the Italian-Moroccan jihadi who helped carry out a deadly attack in London last week said on Tuesday she had tried to keep her son from falling under the sway of Islamic State ideology, but the internet and his London friends changed him.

LONDON (RNS) Religious leaders prayed for London after another terrorist attack in Britain left seven dead and scores injured on the eve of the Christian holiday of Pentecost and during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

DAVIS, Calif. (RNS) When Ian Johnson first went to China as a student three decades ago, he pronounced religion there “dead.”

But Johnson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist now based in Berlin and Beijing, has witnessed a transformation, one he documents in “The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao,” published in April.

Nearly 700,000 tourists from the United States travel each year to Israel, accounting for about one-sixth of its tourists. Despite being considered a kind of religious pilgrimage to the “holy land,” the lands of the Bible actually stretch across several modern nations.

Leaders of religious minorities in Iraq issued a declaration of principles in January urging support for freedom of belief. The Masarat Institution for Cultural Development, a non-profit organization in Iraq that works to protect minorities, organized a series of dialogues leading to the crafting of the “Baghdad Declaration for Supporting Religious Freedom.”

NAIROBI, Kenya (RNS) As she drives her family’s donkeys to a new borehole at the base of the Uuni Hills in eastern Kenya, Eunice Wambua says the water it provides is much cleaner than what she used to get from a dam several miles away.

“It was dirty water and we believed it colored our teeth brown,” she recalled.

A documentary released last fall by EthicsDaily.com (also known as the Baptist Center for Ethics) made its Missouri debut on Feb. 1 in Kansas City. “The Disturbances” covers the previously-untold story of missionaries saving lives in the midst of genocidal violence in Nigeria in 1966. In a matter of days, thousands — and perhaps as many as 30,000 people — were killed due to their tribal identity.

On Valentine’s Day, some Kenyan pastors handed out red roses as a sign of love to HIV-positive youth suffering stigma and discrimination.

The gesture was meant as a way to reach out to youth, many of whom feel rejected by the churches.