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January 2nd, 2013
12:34 PM ET
Nigerian forces kill 13 Boko Haram militants after church attacksBy Ben Brumfield, CNN (CNN) - Islamist militants in Nigeria's restive north have taken the lives of 34 people since Christmas, including 27 Christians attending church services. On Tuesday, the country's military took the fight to Boko Haram's stronghold, killing 13 suspected combatants. Read more: Nigeria guilty of abuses in pursuing Boko Haram militants Joint Task Force Operation Restore Order lost one soldier during the afternoon gunfight in the isolated town of Maiduguri in Nigeria's far northwest corner, said spokesman Sagir Musa. The task force condemned alleged Boko Haram attacks going back to July 2012 in a statement, calling them "incessant callous, brutal, barbaric and impious killings." These included attacks on mosques, churches and businesses. FULL STORY Tibetans at a protest in Taipei in 2011 display portraits of people who killed themselves by self-immolation.
January 2nd, 2013
07:00 AM ET
My Take: Blood on Chinese hands in Tibetan self-immolations
By Stephen Prothero, Special to CNN (CNN) -China Daily, an English-language newspaper and a mouthpiece of the Chinese government, last week published an article called “Western Voices Question Tibetan Self-Immolation Acts.” The first of the voices quoted was mine—for a Belief Blog piece I wrote last summer criticizing the Dalai Lama for averting his gaze from the spate of self-immolations protesting Chinese rule in Tibet. "If the Dalai Lama were to speak out unequivocally against these deaths, they would surely stop. So in a very real sense, their blood is on his hands," I wrote in a passage quoted in the Chinese Daily piece. In my post, I wrote of an “epidemic of self-immolations,” noting that from mid-March to mid-July 2011 more than 40 Tibetans had set themselves on fire to protest the Chinese occupation of Tibet. Since then, the pace of these protests has accelerated. According to the International Campaign for Tibet, 94 Tibetans have set themselves on fire since March 2011, and the pace in November was nearly one a day.
January 2nd, 2013
04:31 AM ET
Belief Blog's Morning Speed Read for Wednesday, January 2, 2013
By Arielle Hawkins, CNN Here's the Belief Blog’s morning rundown of the top faith-angle stories from around the United States and around the world. Click the headlines for the full stories. From the Blog:
CNN: Googling the Dead Sea Scrolls
CNN: Iranians seek relief in Christmas celebrations |
  About this blog
The CNN Belief Blog covers the faith angles of the day's biggest stories, from breaking news to politics to entertainment, fostering a global conversation about the role of religion and belief in readers' lives. It's edited by CNN's Daniel Burke with contributions from Eric Marrapodi and CNN's worldwide news gathering team.  |
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Editor's note: Stephen Prothero, a Boston University religion scholar and author of "
