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Orthodox-evangelical fighting in Ethiopia leaves two dead
Young Orthodox Christians tried to disrupt a meeting of evangelicals at the stadium in Mekele, Ethiopia, Sunday. The evangelicals were talking about drought relief and HIV/AIDS, but the Orthodox called it a breach of a ten-year-old agreement against public preaching, reports the BBC.

When police stopped the youths from entering the stadium, the young Orthodox became violent. The police, some observers said, fired into the crowd.

Violence between the two groups is rare, says BBC reporter Damian Zane, but the ban on public preaching came after another violent clash, in 1993, between the Orthodox and Adventists over pamphleteering.

Three Northwest Christian College faculty members resign over dean's firing
Betsy Clewett, Associate Dean of Education of Northwest Christian College in Eugene, Oregon, was fired from the school December 11. College President James Womack won't say why, except that the reasons "have absolutely nothing to do with race." ("The dismissal had to do with certain protocols of higher education that were not observed and in my judgment were of a serious nature," he told The Chronicle of Higher Education).

But the college's only black faculty member and two other professors in the school's teacher education program say it was about race, and have resigned from the Disciples of Christ school.

Clewett, reports the Eugene Register-Guard, sent a "strongly worded e-mail" to Womack regarding allegations that minority basketball players at the school are treated differently from white players, and that minority students face discrimination in other areas of campus life, including financial aid, housing, and student life programs.

When she was fired shortly thereafter, Cloe Veney, an instructor in the school's department of Education and School Counseling and Northwest's diversity coordinator, tendered her resignation, along with another e-mail message.

"As a well-educated black woman with 25 years of experience in public and higher education, I have a much better understanding of racial discrimination and harassment than most Oregonians," she wrote to Womack. "It is clearly present at Northwest Christian College, and you are well advised to investigate thoroughly the incidents described above."

Professor Mary Ellen Arbuckle and Assistant Professor Louise Karther, who served under Clewett, also resigned, leaving the Teacher Education and School Counseling department bereft of fulltime education professors.

Womack says the school should have faculty in place for the beginning of the winter term on January 6. He also defends the school against the allegations of racial discrimination. "We're a student body and a faculty that's in Eugene and in Oregon, and I would not for a minute say there's no latent racism in our culture," he told the Register-Guard. "But to suggest that students and faculty of this college are intentionally racist is absolutely incorrect and misses our deepest commitments."

War with Iraq:

• Church issues prayer against Iraq war | The Church of England has issued a prayer for the people of Iraq, warning that a war could unleash "crimes against humanity" (BBC)
  
  
• Also: Church's prayers condemn war but not Saddam (The Daily Telegraph, London)
  
  
• Church group says war with Iraq can be averted | A group of American Christian leaders and experts visiting Iraq said Thursday there was still a chance of averting war but expressed concern about food shortages among Iraqis (Reuters)
  
  

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December (Web-only) 2002, Vol. 46