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ALC Noticias Nov 13 2004 Brazil, Argentina, Peru Venezuela


From Worldwide Faith News <wfn@igc.org>
Date Sat, 13 Nov 2004 18:33:50 -0800

ALC NEWS SERVICE
E-mail: director@alcnoticias.org

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CONTENT

BRAZIL: WACC proposes National Right to Communication Day
ARGENTINA: Lutherans and IERP support legal bill on sexual education
PERU: Evangelical party registers for elections
VENEZUELA: Event underscores challenges in communication
BRAZIL: Kobia emphasized that ecumenism is living through a new moment

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BRAZIL
WACC proposes National Right to Communication Day

SAO LEOPOLDO, Nov 12 (alc) The World Association for Christian
Communication (WACC) Brazil Region will call on Brazil s Congress to
declare a National Right to Communication Day.

The proposals were drafted during the WACC-Brazil meeting held November 6-7
in Sao Leopoldo, with the participation of communicators, professors,
students and Brazilian journalists.

The Brazilian organization will seek government support to hold five
university forums to debate the right to communication.

The Brazilian Christian Union of Social Communication (UCBC) will be
responsible for promoting the proposals and suggestions that were
formulated in the meeting of communicators affiliated with the WACC.

Gustavo Gindre, of the World Association of Community Radios, said that
mass communication is a concession that is granted by the government and
therefore the media should be submitted to public interest.

He admitted, however, that the slightest move in this direction would be
strongly criticized and labeled as censorship. But, let us be honest: the
censure already exists as economic interest say what can or cannot be
published. If there is censure, it is of a commercial nature, he said.

Gindre affirmed that the struggle of the Churches is very important to keep
big business and industry from patenting God s creation. They can patent
what they invent, but not what was discovered or what was present in
nature, he said.

He also underlined the enormous power concentration that exists regarding
communication. Of Every 100 movie tickets that are sold, 92 come from six
companies. Five recording studios produce 96 of every 100 CDs. The AOL-Time
Warner Company not only owns magazines, television and internet companies
but also invests a great deal in the sports sector.

Gindre also touched on the issue of intellectual property. The existing
legislation offers an incredible margin, he said. No one can use, for
example, the yellow color of the post-it because it is patented. The same
thing is true for Tarzan s jungle cry.

Communication, he affirmed, is treated like merchandize. Next year, the
World Trade Organization will discuss whether or not it will regulate the
international transit of culture. It is not possible to apply the same
rules to culture as to soap, he said.

If the United States had applied the intellectual property law in the XIX
century that it is currently trying to impose on the world it would not
have become so powerful, he said.

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ARGENTINA
Lutherans and IERP support legal bill on sexual education

BUENOS AIRES, nov 12 (alc) - The Evangelical Church of the River Plate
(IERP) and the Evangelical United Lutheran Church (IELU) jointly expressed
their support for a legal bill that seeks to include an Integral Sexual
Education course in school curriculum in Buenos Aires.

The Project is being discussed by the legislature in Buenos Aires. The
position of the two Argentine Lutheran World Federation member Churches was
expressed in a statement signed by its presidents: Pastor Federico Schdfer,
for the IERP and Pastor Alan Eldrid of the IELU

The IERP-IELU statement underscores the importance that the State, through
the school, assume a decisive role in the formation/education of our
children.

The Public School, in its role to form and promote citizen values, cannot
remain passive or be absent regarding something as important as integral
sexual education in the classroom, it noted.

Finally, it sustained that the task of the government of the Autonomous
City of Buenos Aires is to guarantee and promote citizen diversity in the
framework of the education it promotes and sustains and that in this city
no one can be excluded, or stigmatized or marginalized in the full exercise
of their rights as individuals.

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PERU
Evangelical party registers for elections

LIMA, Nov 10 (alc). The National Restoration political party, defined by
its leader Humberto Lay as non Confessional party with Christian
principles, has requested that the Nacional Elections Board (JNE) register
it to participate in 2006 elections in Peru.

National Restoration presented 135,000 signatures and proof that it has 70
committees in the provinces, legal requirements in order to register as a
political party to participate in upcoming presidential and parliamentary
elections.

Prominent Evangelical Christian leaders in the business and political
fields as well as those who work to defend values are participating in this
new initiative, said organizers.

The president of the party is the Rev. Humberto Lay Sun, pastor of the
Emmanuel Biblical Church, a 70-year-old architect with five children. He
was a member of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which presented a
report to the government about human rights violations committed during the
struggle against subversion between 1980 and 2000.

Eduardo Yaipen, member of the Christian Way Church is secretary general of
the new party and Congressman Walter Alejos, member of The Verb Church is
secretary of political affairs.

The proposal seeks to contribute to strengthening democratic life in the
country, based on solid institutions that are constructed and developed as
an encounter between ethical and political values, so necessary in our
nation, Lay told ALC.

It also seeks to be a means to improve the quality of Christian
participation in politics, overcoming previous, frustrated experiences. For
this it will seek to develop the active organization and formation of
followers through the Samuel Inman Institute of Social and Political
Sciences, added the pastor.

Lay said that they are not currently planning put to forward a presidential
candidate but will seek to run for Congress and as mayors. We want to build
in the future, he said.

He discarded any relationship with the government and presumed presidential
candidates, Later, we will see because surely new candidates will emerge,
he said.

We do not want to be used politically he noted, referring to the
participation of Evangelicals in the election of ex President Alberto
Fujimori in 1990.

Many parties have approached us seeking the support of Evangelicals, but
now we will form our own party, he said.

He said, however, that National Restoration does not represent the
Evangelical Church but rather a group of Christian citizens. Close to 14
percent of Peru s population are believers in our country. We are growing.
However, the Evangelical people vote according to their own conscience, he
said.

For his part, Walter Alejos underscored that the specific political
proposals are part of an effort to build a long term vision that will solve
major national problems.

The people who form part of National Restoration are Peruvian Christians
and citizens committed to the effort to renew Peru at an individual and
social level, he said.

The political practice is affirmed in faith in God and in the Christian and
universal values of justice, truth, quality, liberty, solidarity and
integrity, as the foundation for the construction of a nation, said Alejos.

The vision of National Restoration, he said, is based on three principles:
A Peru restored with moral values and principles based on the Laws of God,
a Peru with a restored democracy and with a restored economy.

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VENEZUELA
Event underscores challenges in communication

CARACAS, Nov 9 (ALC).  From the faith and hope that mobilizes us, in unity
and respect for diversity, we confirm that abundant life in Latin America
is viable.

The statement is from the Final Declaration of the Regional Event Social
Communication and its impact on Human Rights in Latin America, which took
place November 3-6 in Caracas.

The event was organized by the Network of Laity Centres from the Southern
Cone. Representatives came from social action centers in Guatemala, El
Salvador, Cuba, Colombia, Ecuador and Argentina and Venezuela.

The Network of Laity Centres CONOSUR is a member of OIKOSNET, the Global
network of Christian Laity Centers, Academies and Movements of Social
Concern, linked to working group Education an Ecumenical formation of the
World Council of Churches (WCC).

The event, stated the declaration, was a key space to reflect and to
recognize challenges, in a bid to consolidate the democracy of information
in the region.

What we have learned, regarding human rights, has filled us with profound
satisfaction and hope, it underlined.

In order to democratize spaces for citizen participation in Latin America
we need actions that help strengthen work, defense of life through
formation programs and awareness and impact in public opinion.

Another challenge is to come up with voices that transmit the truth of our
peoples, using mass communication media as tools and denouncing acts where
human rights are violated.

At the same time we must encourage rescuing the identity of our cultures,
support for indigenous groups, accompaniment for immigrants, the displaced
and all those who are excluded from community benefits.

The declaration concluded by saying that communication among brothers and
sisters is part of the language of God. For this, we affirm, another
Communication is possible.

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BRAZIL
Kobia emphasized that ecumenism is living through a new moment

BRASILIA, Nov 8 (alc).	Ecumenism is experiencing a new moment, said the
general secretary of the World Council of Churches (WCC) Samuel Kobia who
participated last Saturday in a working meeting of the National Council of
Christian Churches of Brazil (CONIC) in this capital.

The WCC leader said that he is observing a displacement in the axis of
Christianity toward the southern hemisphere and forecast that by 2050 the
majority of Christians will live in this part of the planet.

Kobia said that he believes that inter-religious dialogue will take on
greater importance in the future and that the classic model of ecumenism is
changing, giving rise to Churches where the denomination limits are
disappearing.

In the meeting with CONIC representatives, that also included the
participation of Catholic Archbishop of Brasilia, Joao Braz de Aviz, Kobia
expressed interest in the preparation leading up to the 2005 Ecumenical
Fraternity Campaign, under the theme Solidarity and Peace and the slogan
Blessed are the Peacemakers.

The 2005 Fraternity Campaign marks the halfway point in the Decade to
Overcome Violence (2001-2010) promoted by the international ecumenical
organization which, in a certain way, is preparation of the IX General WCC
Assembly, to take place in Porto Alegre in 2006.

This will be the second Fraternity campaign that is ecumenical,
traditionally organized by the Catholic National Brazilian Bishops
Conference (CNBB).

Also in Brasilia on Friday night Kobia preached during an ecumenical
service in the Anglican Cathedral in the federal capital. Kobia, a
Methodist pastor from Kenya, said that currently the world is not safer
than it was during the Cold War and after the Iraq War.

He called on Christians to look to their spirituality to find encouragement
and strength. Spiritual strength is essential. We need each other to
confront the changing winds, as a family, as a nation and as a world. This
is the greater current challenge, where individualism is triumphing, he said.
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Latin American and Caribbean News Agency
P.O. Box 14-225 Lima 14 Peru
Tel. (511) 462 0189  Telefax (511) 463 2496
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