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Updated: 5/9/2008 8:58:32 AM
Evangelist Franklin Graham opposes missionary work at Olympics

BEIJING -- The son of American evangelist Billy Graham said today he is opposed to missionary work at this summer's Beijing Olympic Games.
Franklin Graham, also an evangelist, was speaking to reporters during a visit to Beijing for meetings with the Communist Party-controlled Protestant church movement.
He said he wanted to encourage authorities to resolve conflicts with the church, but would not criticize policies that critics say limit the church's independence and religious rights.
While some Christian groups have said they plan to proselytize during the August games, Graham said he was against that because Chinese law does not permit such actions.
"I would not support any illegal activity at all," Graham said.
While the Protestant church has grown rapidly in China in recent years, the party maintains strict control over the official church, seminaries and individual congregations. Christians who meet in independent, unauthorized congregations -- often private homes -- are frequently subject to harassment and arrest.
In the most recent such report, police raided a gathering of about 40 members of the Chengdu Qiuyu Blessings Church at a resort near the southwestern city of Chengdu on May 2, New York-based Human Rights Watch reported.
Officers joined by officials of the local religious affairs bureau told the participants they were "suspected of being involved in illegal religious practices," the group said. Members were detained for hours and photographed, and Bibles, hymnals and Bible study materials were confiscated.

UN halts aid to Myanmar

YANGON, Myanmar -- A U.N. official says the World Food Program is suspending cyclone aid to Myanmar because its government seized supplies flown into the country.
He says the WFP has no choice but to suspend the shipments until the matter is resolved.
WFP spokesman Paul Risley said today that all "the food aid and equipment that we managed to get in has been confiscated." The shipment included 38 tons of high-energy biscuits.
Risley said it is not clear why the material was seized.