Not The BBC News: 8 January 2014

A Christian woman in Israel was miraculously healed of a large and virulent cancer through prayer, causing so much surprise that TV stations and newspapers have been reporting it, and hospital staff have travelled to her home and tasted her food and water to see if there is another explanation.  The sarcoma tumour, which was the size of an orange, was biopsied and tested in both Israel and the USA, and doctors told the lady (who was in her 30s or 40s) that they’d have to amputate her leg. But her operation was postponed at the ‘last minute’ three times, and then the lady’s mother became ill, so she took this as a sign from God that she should not go ahead with the amputation and left hospital to care for her mother. Three months later she reappeared at the hospital with a  greatly shrunken tumour and  no sign of cancer in her blood tests. The hospital’s oncology professor said, “If someone had told me this story, I would have said they were crazy and sent them to a mental hospital. But I saw it with my own eyes.”

A mega-church in Colombia organised its annual rally for revival, healing and for people to commit their lives to God. The rally was held in a large park in the capital, Bogota. This year, over a million people turned up. There are reports of a religious revival throughout South America.

In an event that mirrors the controversy in the USA surrounding Duck Dynasty’s Phil Robertson, the boxer Evander Holyfield was publicly reprimanded by producers of the TV show Celebrity Big Brother for expressing his view (in a one to one conversation) that homosexuality is not normal, and compared it with a “handicap that needed fixing.” The grounds for the reprimand were that his remarks were “offensive to the majority of viewers.” There has been considerable reaction on social media; the producers apparently failed to consider that reprimanding someone for exercising free speech might be offensive to a majority of viewers.

A Lebanese Christian priest was accused of having an anti-Islamic pamphlet within one of the books of his extensive library. Although he met with Islamic leaders in the city and denied any connection with the pamphlet, his library was burned, and two-thirds of the 80,000 books and manuscripts were destroyed.

The research ship that became stuck in Antarctic ice has escaped after a change in wind direction opened a crack in the ice. One of the icebreaker ships that came to help it, which itself became icebound, has also escaped.

In technology news, a 3-D printer has been unveiled at a convention in Las Vegas that is capable of ‘printing’ foodstuffs. It can currently produce chocolate and sugar-based confectionery.

And finally, a Christian dating website is launching an advertising campaign on the London Underground next week. Christian Connection’s advertising lines include “Another dating website? Thank God!”; “Christians make Better Lovers” (on the grounds that “Love One Another is written into their code”); and “God Knew You Would See This.” The campaign’s creator said, “We [want to] create a campaign that is contemporary and relevant – not something many church organisations are known for!”