CIS (ex-USSR)

By BosNewsLife News Center in Budapest with BosNewsLife's Stefan J. Bos ASHGABAT/BUDAPEST (BosNewsLife)-- A Pentecostal pastor remained in police custody Tuesday, August 31, in Turkmenistan where he faces five years imprisonment and confiscation of properties for "large-scale swindling", charges his wife and church members strongly deny, rights activists said.

By BosNewsLife Special Correspondent Marshall Ramsey with BosNewsLife News Center in Budapest TASHKENT/BUDAPEST (BosNewsLife)-- Police in Uzbekistan reportedly jailed ten Baptists for up to five days and fined three others 80 times the monthly minimum wage on charges of unauthorized worship at home, BosNewsLife monitored Friday, August 7.

By BosNewsLife News Center in Budapest MOSCOW/BUDAPEST (BosNewsLife)-- Friends and family have buried the assassinated pastor of the largest Pentecostal church in Russia's volatile Dagestan region, Christian missionaries told BosNewsLife Friday, July 23.

By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent BosNewsLife MAKHACHKALA/BUDAPEST (BosNewsLife)-- The pastor of the largest Pentecostal church in Russia's violent, mainly Muslim republic of Dagestan, has died after being shot in the head, in an apparent bid to intimidate converts from Islam, Christian rights activists and police said Friday, July 16.

By George Whitten, Jerusalem Bureau Chief MOSCOW/AQUILA (BosNewsLife) -- Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has called for a new global currency to replace the dollar as the World's Reserve Currency.

By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent BosNewsLife OSH/BUDAPEST (BosNewsLife)-- Kyrgyz Christians were risking their lives Thursday, June 17, to help and shelter Uzbek believers in southern Kyrgystan, where ethnic clashes killed at least 190 people, injured 1,800 others and uprooted some 400,000 residents, Christian aid workers said.

By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent BosNewsLife BISHKEK/BUDAPEST (BosNewsLife)-- New clashes in southern Kyrgyzstan have killed dozens of people and wounded more than 500 in the city of Osh, a little over two months after the uprising that toppled the Central Asian nation's former government. The United States and Russia - both of which have military bases in Kyrgyzstan - and China are watching the situation with concern.

By BosNewsLife News Center in Budapest TASHKENT/BUDAPEST (BosNewsLife)-- An influential evangelical organization, which claims to represent over 400 million Christians worldwide, expressed concerns Tuesday, June 1, about police raids on Protestant congregations in Uzbekistan and the detention of several Christians in the former Soviet republic.

By BosNewsLife News Center in Budapest BUDAPEST/TASHKENT (BosNewsLife)-- An assistant pastor and two other members of one of Uzbekistan capital's largest Protestant churches began serving 15-day jail terms Wednesday, May 19, on charges that included "violating" strict religious regulations of the former Soviet nation, trial observers said.

By BosNewsLife News Center in Budapest TASHKENT/BUDAPEST-- Police in Uzbekistan broke up a Protestant youth conference, detaining dozens of Christians, and separately raided and Protestant church feeding homeless people for allegedly violating local regulations, a religious rights group said Wednesday, April 21.