Source: Beliefnet

Wire Service: AP

http://www.beliefnet.com/story/209/story_20963_1.html

HONG KONG, Jan. 13 - Something was strange about the little brown bird found dead from bird flu in one of Hong Kong's busiest shopping districts.

The scaly breasted munia usually lives in rural areas of the territory. So how did it and five others come to be in a bustling urban district--raising the threat of exposing residents and tourists to...

Author: RACHEL PINDER

Source: The Buddhist Channel/Hawkes Bay Today

http://www.buddhistchannel.tv/index.php?id=50,3614,0,0,1,0

Hawke's Bay, New Zealand -- The house on Tamatea's Norfolk Street looks like any other, but it's not. Six months ago, Hawke's Bay people from the Thai and Laos communities decided to club together and buy a house to convert into a temple, and so the Samma Patipadaram Monastery was born.

It is a centre of...

Author: Bridget Gutierrez

Source: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/stories/2007/01/10/0111metbible.html

State Board of Education members Thursday approved new academic courses on the Bible, allowing Georgia's public high schools for the first time to offer taxpayer-funded classes devoted to the "Good Book."

The two half-credit, voluntary electives will teach interested high...

Author: Waveney Ann Moore

Source: St. Petersburg Times

http://www.sptimes.com/2007/01/10/Neighborhoodtimes/Monk_reflects_on_a_gr.shtml

The Buddhist monk sat lotus-style before a small group of rapt devotees in a nondescript Pinellas Park home. He taught about "loving friendliness" to all beings, about truth and about peace.

Bhante Henepola Gunaratana, who was visiting from a monastery he founded in West Virginia...

Source: The Buddhist Channel

http://www.buddhistchannel.tv/index.php?id=46,3602,0,0,1,0

XI'AN, China -- With jobs hard to get, graduates are stalking the corridors of holy temples. Famen Temple, one of the four most famous Buddhist Temples in ancient China, employed four graduate students and five with bachelors degrees at a job market at Northwest Agriculture...

Author: Cathie Rowand

Source: CourierPress

http://www.courierpress.com/news/2007/jan/08/buddhism-thriving-at-northern-indiana-temples/

FORT WAYNE, Ind. - Fort Wayne has always embraced immigrants - from Germans more than a century ago to the influx of Burmese in the past 10 years.

Large numbers of Burmese started coming after the 1998 pro-democracy uprisings in their homeland.

There are now...

Author: Dennis Camire

Source: The Buddhist Channel

http://www.buddhistchannel.tv/index.php?id=60,3603,0,0,1,0

WASHINGTON, USA -- While a new, Muslim member of Congress sparked a controversy for taking his oath of office with a Quran instead of a Bible on Thursday, another new member who is Buddhist was sworn in with no book at all.

Rep. Mazie Hirono, a Hawaii Democrat who was raised in the Buddhist tradition, said, "I don't have a...

Author: Justin Berton

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/01/03/MNG73NC2QC1.DTL

Inside the community room of the Raman Hotel, a single-room occupancy hotel at Howard and Sixth streets, Jana Drakka set up a makeshift altar for a tenant named Guillermo who had died a week earlier.

"Memo," as his fellow residents and caseworkers knew him, was a 76-year-old World War II veteran as well as an alcoholic who had ricocheted among the city's streets and...

Author: Chris Outcalt

Source: Portsmouth Herald

http://www.seacoastonline.com/news/01022007/nhnews-ph-nmk-meditation.html

NEWMARKET -- Sandra Woodworth can feel a certain energy on New Year's Day. It's a peaceful feeling she tries to harness through meditation.

"It helps me to connect, knowing that this happens all over the world this time of year," she said.

Woodworth was one of several people who...

Author: Cathie Rowand

Source: The Buddhist Channel/The Journal Gazette

http://www.buddhistchannel.tv/index.php?id=62,3590,0,0,1,0

Fort Wayne, IN (USA) -- Fort Wayne has always embraced immigrants -- from Germans more than a century ago to the influx of Burmese in the past 10 years.

The Mons, a minority group in Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, chose Fort Wayne for the high-paying factory jobs and low cost of living....

Author: Elaine Lies

Original Source: swissinfo

Wire Service: Reuters

https://www.oneindia.com/2007/01/01/japan-sees-in-year-with-...

Source: The Buddhist Channel

http://www.buddhistchannel.tv/index.php?id=3,3576,0,0,1,0

Istanbul, Turkey -- Among the 450 homes ordered built by Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a Buddhist region of Sri Lanka hit hard by the tsunami two years ago, a Buddhist temple was also built with Turkish funds.

State Minister Mehmet Ali Sahin yesterday recounted his impressions of the work done in Sri Lanka following the tsunami to the Council of Ministers...

Author: Jim Vertuno

Source: Ottawa Citizen

Wire Service: AP

http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/story.html?id=230e0892-c185-4950-bef3-f7d5af8fa9d6&k=41881

AUSTIN -- When a pastor created a rehabilitation program for parolees near his church, the city of Sinton stepped in to stop it.

Within months of the program’s start in 1998, officials in the small city just...

Source: The Buddhist Channel

http://www.buddhistchannel.tv/index.php?id=65,3567,0,0,1,0

Seattle, WA (USA) -- Sayadaw Gyi U Vimalaramsi Maha Thera, American Buddhist Monk, preferring to be known today as Venerable Bhante Vimalaramsi, received word Friday, December 15th that he was officially confirmed as the first Representative from the United States of America to the Buddhist Summit, World Buddhist Supreme Conference.

As part of his new position he will...

Source: The Buddhist Channel

http://www.buddhistchannel.tv/index.php?id=65,3568,0,0,1,0

Berkeley, CA (USA) -- The Buddhist Peace Fellowship (BPF), the nation’s first socially engaged Buddhist organization, announced that it has received a $15,000 grant from the San Francisco Foundation to help launch “Coming Home,” an innovative new spiritually-based project that will serve ex-prisoners and the greater San Francisco Bay Area community.

BPF Board...