(ADDS DETAILS RELEASE CO-WORKER, CORRECTS DAY OF RELEASE)BEIJING, CHINA (BosNewsLife)-- One of China's most outspoken evangelists, Pastor Zhang 'Bike' Mingxuan and his wife have been released after three weeks of detention because of their Christian activities, representatives said.

BHUABENESWAR, INDIA (BosNewsLife)-- Tens of thousands of Christians, most of them Catholics, were hiding Saturday, August 30, in the jungles of India's eastern state of Orissa where anti-Christian violence killed at least 36 people, Catholic officials said.

BHUBANESWAR, INDIA (BosNewsLife)-- Hindu militants are forcing Christians to leave their homes and become Hindus in India's troubled state of Orissa, where attacks on churches and homes already killed at least 11 people in recent days, a priest told BosNewsLife Thursday, August 29.

VIENTIANE, LAOS (BosNewsLife)-- Authorities in Laos have ordered families of three detained Christians in Savannakhet province to sign documents renouncing their faith in Jesus Christ, rights investigators said Thursday, August 28.

BHUBANESWAR, INDIA (BosNewsLife)-- Pope Benedict XVI has condemned anti-Christian violence in India's eastern state of Orissa, which officials said killed at least 11 people, most of them Christians. The pontiff also condemned the murder of a Hindu leader that sparked the state's worst communal clashes in more than a decade.

BEIJING/WASHINGTON (BosNewsLife)-- An American pastor who disappeared after being detained by Chinese authorities for his involvement in human rights protests has arrived in the United States, but a Chinese bishop has been jailed, friends and representatives said Tuesday, August 26.

BHUBANESWAR, INDIA (BosNewsLife)-- Two persons, including a woman, were burned to death, a pastor critically injured and at least a dozen churches torched as anti Christian violence rocked the Indian state of Orissa, officials confirmed Tuesday, August 26.

TBLISI/MOSCOW (BosNewsLife)-- In a move Christians fear could lead to more tensions, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Tuesday, August 26, that Russia has formally recognised the independence of Georgia's breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

BHUBANESWAR, INDIA (BosNewsLife)-- A nun was raped, a priest beaten and several other Christians missing or injured as anti-Christian violence re-erupted in India's state of Orissa Monday, August 25, sparked by the killing of a local Hindu leader, a church official told BosNewsLife.

BEIJING, CHINA (BosNewsLife)-- As the Beijing Olympics drew to a close Sunday, August 24, with televised fireworks and a multi-million dollar show, there was concern over rights abuses of Christians in Communist-run China, amid reports that an American pastor disappeared.