{"id":1379,"date":"2008-12-25T05:14:41","date_gmt":"2008-12-25T13:14:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/eaf.net\/mvp\/?p=1379"},"modified":"2008-12-25T05:14:41","modified_gmt":"2008-12-25T13:14:41","slug":"a-gift","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/2008\/a-gift\/","title":{"rendered":"A Gift"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href='http:\/\/news.yahoo.com\/s\/ap\/20081225\/ap_on_re_mi_ea\/ml_iraq_131'>For first time, Christmas official holiday in Iraq<\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Iraq&#8217;s Christians, a scant minority in this overwhelmingly Muslim country, quietly celebrated Christmas on Thursday with a present from the government, which declared it an official holiday for the first time.<\/p>\n<p>But security worries overshadowed the day for many, particularly in the north where thousands of Christians have fled to escape religious attacks.<\/p>\n<p>Overall security in Iraq has improved markedly in the past year, but a fatal car bombing in Baghdad on Christmas morning was a gruesome reminder that serious problems remain.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>A senior Shiite cleric, Ammar al-Hakim, attended the Mass flanked by bodyguards in a gesture of cooperation with Christians.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>Iraq&#8217;s Christians, estimated to number only a few hundred thousand of the country&#8217;s 26 million people, have often been the target of attacks by Islamic extremists in Iraq. Tens of thousands have fled; many of those who stayed were isolated in neighborhoods protected by barricades and checkpoints.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>And joyous Christmas to you as well!<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For first time, Christmas official holiday in Iraq Iraq&#8217;s Christians, a scant minority in this overwhelmingly Muslim country, quietly celebrated Christmas on Thursday with a present from the government, which declared it an official holiday for the first time. But security worries overshadowed the day for many, particularly in the north where thousands of Christians &#8230; <a title=\"A Gift\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/2008\/a-gift\/\" aria-label=\"More on A Gift\">Read more<\/a><!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6,8,10],"tags":[730,400,39],"class_list":["post-1379","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-endangered-christians","category-politics","category-religion","tag-christmas","tag-iraq","tag-persecution"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/prJUJ-mf","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1379"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1379\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}