Yarden Nahara becomes first company to launch bath and beauty product line for Christians made with water from Jordan River
Just in time for the Christmas shopping season, Yarden Nahara Ltd., an Israeli company, announcesd the launch of a line of bath and body care products developed for "Christian women and people of deep spiritual faith". The Nahara Collection is the only line of beauty  
care products available in the world today that is made with water drawn from the Jordan River.
Nahara, which means “River” in ancient Aramaic, the language spoken by Jesus Christ, is the first cosmetics company ever to extract water from the Jordan River for use in its products after consulting with local authorities. Drawing on the deep, spiritual history of the Jordan River, Nahara hopes to transform the essence carried within this ancient river into a line of bath and body care products.  
The Jordan River is one of the most sacred places, both historically and symbolically, for Christians and other pilgrims to Israel throughout the world. According to the Bible, Joshua, Elijah, Elisha, John the Baptist and Jesus all crossed it during their lifetimes. For Christians, the most momentous event associated with ...   more »

By Wolfgang Polzer
Special to ASSIST News Service
BLANKENBURG (ANS) -- Persecution is coming to the West. Under the guise of tolerance Bible believing Christians of all confessions are subjected to suppressive intolerance, warns a declaration issued at the Ecumenical Confessional Convention in Blankenburg, East Germany.
The event with 130 Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox representatives was convened by the evangelical missiologist Prof. Peter Beyerhaus. The so-called Blankenburg Proclamation speaks of a dangerous anti-Christian influence on legislation, academic life and school education.
Scientists, who believe in God as the creator, were subjected to public defamation. Christians, not willing to compromise their faith, had to face ridicule, intolerance, stigmatization and career obstacles.
The declaration refers specifically to the plight of German homeschoolers. Approximately 150 families were subjected to fines or jail, because they refused to send their children to state registered schools and thus broke the German law.
According to the proclamation this “concealed affliction” may soon turn into open persecution. The threat could come from several directions - from globalization favoring the formation of totalitarian regimes, from growing syncretism, and from Islam.
Europe could be subjected to an enforced Islamization accompanied by the introduction of Sharia law. This danger was increased ...   more »

WASHINGTON – Who hates whom in America?
If the latest FBI hate-crime statistics are any indication, of the 1,314 verified offenses motivated by religious bias, 68.5 percent were anti-Jewish.
Only 11.1 percent were anti-Islamic, despite claims of rampant anti-Muslim bigotry in the U.S. by groups like the Council on American Islamic Relations.
Across the board, hate crimes in the U.S. dropped last year by 6 percent, according to the 2005 FBI report release last week, although violence against people based on their race accounted more than half of the reported incidents.
Police nationwide reported 7,163 hate crime incidents in 2005, targeting victims based on their race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation and disabilities. That was down from 2004, when the FBI reported 7,649 incidents.
The vast majority of hate crimes in both years were motivated by race, according the reports, which detailed the data based on so-called "single-bias" incidents. That means the crime was motivated by only one kind of bias against the victim, according to the FBI.
Race-based criminal activity accounted for 54.7 percent of hate crimes last year, up slightly from 52.9 percent in 2004, the FBI found.
Another 17 percent of hate crimes in 2005 targeted victims for ...   more »