In the latest sign of the nation’s shifting racial and ethnic composition, births to Asian, black and Hispanic women in the United States are on the verge of surpassing births to non-Hispanic whites.

Minorities accounted for 48 percent of all births in the nation in the 12 months that ended in July 2008. While it will most likely take years for health statisticians to confirm precisely when the 50 percent benchmark will have been reached, demographers said it could occur this year. Depending on variables like the recession, which has depressed birth rates, it will almost certainly happen within a year or two, they said.

“It looks like ‘majority’ births would drop below 50 percent around 2012,” said Carl Haub, senior demographer for the Population Reference Bureau.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • * International News & Commentary • America/U.S.A.

Many governments have used the internet to curtail freedom of expression at home, the US state department says in its latest annual human rights report.

In many cases new forms of electronic communications are restricted to control domestic dissent, it says.

The wide-ranging report also highlights continuing human rights violations in China against the Uighurs and extra-judicial killings in North Korea.

Iran, Sri Lanka, Burma and Switzerland also come in for criticism.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • Globalization • Law & Legal Issues • Science & Technology • * International News & Commentary • America/U.S.A.

For a little over a year, five Canadian and six African dioceses have engaged in diocese-to-diocese theological dialogue on matters relating to human sexuality and to mission. With one exception, each diocese has established a theological working group to prepare papers and responses which were shared with their partner diocese on the opposite continent (see below for list of participants). Ontario and Botswana exchanged documents related to sustainability in the context of mission. These dialogues have emerged from, and are a deepening of, relationships established during the Indaba and Bible Study processes at the Lambeth Conference of 2008.

From February 24 to 26, the bishops of these dioceses met at the Anglican Communion Office, St. Andrew's House in London, England. In a context grounded by common prayer and eucharistic celebration we reflected together on our local experiences of mission and the challenges facing the Church in our diverse contexts. Though the initial exchange of papers had been related in most cases to matters of human sexuality and homosexuality in particular, our face to face theological conversation necessarily deepened to explore the relationships between the Gospel and the many particular cultural realities in which the Church is called to mission.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • - Anglican: Primary Source • -- Reports & Communiques • Anglican Provinces • Anglican Church of Canada • * International News & Commentary • Africa

China's government considers public corruption a serious problem because it could threaten Communist Party rule if left unchecked.

"We will give high priority to fighting corruption and encouraging integrity," China Premier Wen Jiabao said Friday in his annual State of the Union-style address. "This has a direct bearing on the firmness of our grip on political power."

Li Tangtang joins at least 14 other ministerial- or provincial-level officials sacked for corruption last year, a record high for the past 30 years, according to the Global Times newspaper. In 2009, the number of officials caught embezzling more than 1 million Chinese yuan ($146,000) soared by 19% over 2008, the discipline committee said.

China ranked 79 out of 180 countries in 2009 on Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index, which bases its findings on 13 independent surveys. That's worse than the previous year (72) and below bribe-infested Cuba. New Zealand is No. 1 in transparency, the United States No. 19.

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Filed under: * Economics, Politics • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • Asia • China • * Theology • Ethics / Moral Theology

When the “American Idol” judge Simon Cowell recently predicted the departure of the contestant Jermaine Sellers, the young singer shook his head in disagreement. “I know God,’’ he replied, pointing upward.

Two days later, when Mr. Sellers failed to make the cut, he still had faith. “What God has for me is for me,’’ he said. “In God there is no failure.’’

Mr. Sellers is not alone in his belief that God pays attention to reality television contests. New research shows that most Americans believe God is directly involved in their personal affairs, and that the good or bad things that happen are “part of God’s plan,’’ according to a report in the March issue of the journal Sociology of Religion.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Movies & Television • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • America/U.S.A.

The Dalai Lama lashed out at China on Wednesday, accusing it of trying to "annihilate Buddhism" in Tibet and rebuffing all his efforts to reach a compromise over the disputed Himalayan region.

China shot back, accusing the Tibetan spiritual leader of using deceptions and lies to distort its policy in the region. The passionate back-and-forth highlighted the distrust, anger and frustration that separates the two sides and leaves little hope for success in recently resumed talks.

Beijing has demonized the Dalai Lama and accused him of wanting independence for Tibet, which China says is part of its territory. The Dalai Lama says he only wants some form of autonomy for Tibet within China that would allow Tibetan culture, language and religion to thrive.

The Dalai Lama spoke Wednesday in an address marking the anniversaries of two failed uprisings against China, one 51 years ago that sent him into exile in India and the other two years ago that was quashed by a government crackdown that is still continuing.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • Asia • China • India • Tibet • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Faiths • Buddhism

Churches have joined together to protest against plans for a mosque that would tower over the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst, with one minister describing it as a “supremacist statement” for Islam.

A collective comprising every church in Camberley, Surrey, has lambasted plans for the giant mosque, warning that will create only “division and discord” in the town.

The proposal has already caused security concerns in military circles as the mosque includes 30m (100ft) minarets that would overlook Sandhurst.

The planned mosque lies just 360m from the academy, where hundreds of newly commissioned Army officers take to the parade ground each year for their passing out ceremony. The event attracts senior members of the Royal Family as well as important military figures.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Church of England (CoE) • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • England / UK • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Other Faiths • Islam • Muslim-Christian relations

The experience reinforced for me the reality of terror in the sky. Sitting in an aircraft, 37,000ft over the Atlantic, there is nowhere to go, no escape and, confronted by passengers behaving suspiciously, a total sense of helplessness.

The nonchalant manner with which the male passenger was allowed to walk through the plane and enter the toilet during the landing approach, and to remain out of sight and control for around five minutes, was simply incredible and extraordinarily alarming.

Afterwards, I complained to the United Airlines desk. I was informed that an armed air marshal was probably on board the flight, as is most likely the case on high-risk routes between the United States and the UK.

However, I wondered what difference the marshal's presence would have made had the passenger beside me turned out to be a suicide-bomber. Would he - could he - have shot the suspect through the toilet door and saved our lives?

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Travel • * Economics, Politics • Terrorism • * International News & Commentary • England / UK • --Ireland

Sex abuse scandals in the Roman Catholic Church are proof that that "the Devil is at work inside the Vatican", according to the Holy See's chief exorcist.

Father Gabriele Amorth, 85, who has been the Vatican's chief exorcist for 25 years and says he has dealt with 70,000 cases of demonic possession, said that the consequences of satanic infiltration included power struggles at the Vatican as well as "cardinals who do not believe in Jesus, and bishops who are linked to the Demon".

He added: "When one speaks of 'the smoke of Satan' [a phrase coined by Pope Paul VI in 1972] in the holy rooms, it is all true – including these latest stories of violence and paedophilia."

In lieu of comments, I am asking you to pray for those involved. Read it all--KSH.

Filed under: * International News & Commentary • Europe • Italy • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic • Pope Benedict XVI

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The euro is under attack like never before, as the promises on which it was based turn out to be lies. Hedge funds are speculating against Greek debt, while euro-zone politicians work behind the scenes to cobble together rescue packages. But fundamental flaws in the monetary union need to be fixed if Europe's common currency is to survive.

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Filed under: * Economics, Politics • Economy • Credit Markets • The Banking System/Sector • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • Europe • France • Germany • Greece • Spain

Ehrenreich is most effective when she writes journalistically with an eye for the telling detail, such as in this description of Joel Osteen and his wife, Victoria: "In one way, the two of them seem perfectly matched, or at least symmetrical: his mouth is locked into the inverted triangle of his trademark smile, while her heavy dark brows stamp her face with angry tension, even when the mouth is smiling."

Pastors who serve in quite different settings from the Osteens' and who interpret the gospel differently than they do may take some delight in seeing them skewered so skillfully. But pastors might not want Ehrenreich to train her eye on their own churches. Increasingly, I encounter churches that have done away with corporate prayers of confession in worship because they are "too negative." Funerals are now often approached as "celebrations of life," where death is spoken of only in euphemisms. I have heard far too many sermons recently that substitute a glib positive message for the gospel.

Ehrenreich insists that the alternative to positive thinking is not despair; it is realism. Although she does not make this a theological argument, I think she would appreciate the distinction between positive thinking and the gospel. Positive thinking can be a lulling mixture of illusion and denial. By contrast, the gospel is based on hard realities, like sin and death, but can remain ultimately hopeful because it is also based on the reality of a God who triumphs over both. It seems to me, then, that any attempt to dismantle the shallow optimism that Ehrenreich critiques relentlessly—and, at times, effectively—is in service to the gospel.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Books • Health & Medicine • Psychology • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • America/U.S.A.

America is the exemplification of what I call the project of modernity. That project is the attempt to produce a people who believe that they should have no story except the story that they choose when they had no story. That is what Americans mean by freedom. The institutions that constitute the disciplinary forms of that project are liberal democracy and capitalism. Thus the presumption that if you get to choose between a Sony or Panasonic television you have had a “free choice.” The same presumption works for choosing a President. Once you have made your choice you have to learn to live with it. So there is a kind of resignation that freedom requires.

I try to help Americans see that the story that they should have no story except the story they choose when they had no story is their story by asking them this question — “Do they think they ought to be held accountable for decisions they made when they did not know what they were doing?” They do not think they should be held accountable for decisions they made when they did not know what they were doing. They do not believe they should be held accountable because it is assumed that you should only be held accountable when you acted freely, and that means you had to know what you were doing.

I then point out the only difficulty with such an account of responsibility is it makes marriage unintelligible. How could you ever know what you were doing when you promised lifelong monogamous fidelity? I then observe that is why the church insists that your vows be witnessed by the church: because the church believes it has the duty to hold you responsible to promises you made when you did not know what you were doing. And if the story that you should have no story but the story you choose when you had no story makes marriage unintelligible, try having children. You never get the ones you want. Of course Americans try to get the ones they want by only having children when they are “ready” — a utopian desire that wreaks havoc on children so born, to the extent they come to believe they can only be loved if they fulfill their parents’ desires.

Of course the problem with the story that you should have no story except the story you choose when you had no story is that story is a story that you have not chosen. But Americans do not have the ability to acknowledge that they have not chosen the story that they should have no story except the story they choose when they had no story.

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Church History • * Culture-Watch • History • Psychology • Religion & Culture • * Economics, Politics • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • America/U.S.A.

Pastor Yohanna Gyang Jugu, of Church of Christ in Nigeria, sat outside his burned-down church, tears in his eyes.

"We were sleeping and we heard gunshots all around," he said. "I woke up and went outside. There was nowhere to pass. Fulani men had surrounded the village. They caught my wife and killed her, and my daughter. They were cutting people down with machetes."

During the burial service, Solomn Zang, the commissioner for works and transport in Plateau State, where Dogo Nahawa is located, said that the military was not sufficient for protection.

"God willing, we will do something about this," he said. "Next time if this happens you shouldn't call the police or the military, call on your neighbors to come and fight."

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Violence • * International News & Commentary • Africa • Nigeria • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Faiths • Islam • Muslim-Christian relations

The Reformation was bad for England, and the nation would do well to become a Catholic country again.

This was the affirmation proposed by Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor on Tuesday during a debate hosted by The Spectator magazine as part of its debate series. The topic under discussion was "England Should Be a Catholic Country Again," and the cardinal -- who is a retired archbishop of Westminster -- was joined by author Piers Paul Read and Dom Antony Sutch, parish priest of St. Benets Catholic Church, in speaking for the motion.

Speaking against the motion were Lord Richard Harries, retired Anglican bishop of Oxford; Matthew Parris, former Conservative Member of Parliament and currently a columnist for the Times; and Stephen Pound, Labour Party Member of Parliament.

Though affirming that the Reformation "brought a tremendous loss to this country," the core of Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor's contribution focused on an ecumenical vision.

"My vision is for the English Church, united with all its history and genius, is to be aligned and in communion with the billion and more Catholic Christians throughout the world, with 4,000 or 5,000 bishops and in communion with the Bishop of Rome, the Pope," he said.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams • Anglican Provinces • Church of England (CoE) • CoE Bishops • * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • England / UK • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic

Urgent warnings have been circulated throughout Nato and the European Union for secret intelligence material to be protected from a recent surge in cyberwar attacks originating in China.

The attacks have also hit government and military institutions in the United States, where analysts said that the West had no effective response and that EU systems were especially vulnerable because most cyber security efforts were left to member states.

Nato diplomatic sources told The Times: “Everyone has been made aware that the Chinese have become very active with cyber-attacks and we’re now getting regular warnings from the office for internal security.” The sources said that the number of attacks had increased significantly over the past 12 months, with China among the most active players.

In the US, an official report released on Friday said the number of attacks on Congress and other government agencies had risen exponentially in the past year to an estimated 1.6 billion every month.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Science & Technology • * Economics, Politics • Defense, National Security, Military • * International News & Commentary • America/U.S.A. • Asia • China • England / UK • Europe

China’s central bank chief laid the groundwork for an appreciation of the renminbi at the weekend when he described the current dollar peg as temporary, striking a more emollient tone after months of tough opposition in Beijing to a shift in exchange rate policy.

Zhou Xiaochuan, governor of the People’s Bank of China, gave the strongest hint yet from a senior official that China would abandon the unofficial dollar peg, in place since mid-2008. He said it was a “special” policy to weather the financial crisis.

“This is a part of our package of policies for dealing with the global financial crisis. Sooner or later, we will exit the policies.”

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Globalization • * Economics, Politics • Economy • The Credit Freeze Crisis of Fall 2008/The Recession of 2007-- • The U.S. Government • The United States Currency (Dollar etc) • * International News & Commentary • Asia • China

Iraq election workers began tallying votes from 47,000 polling stations across the country Monday, a day after the country pulled off a landmark vote despite scattered dozens of explosions that went off in Baghdad and in other parts of the country.

At the bustling headquarters of the Iraqi High Electoral Commission (IHEC), cheers went up as the first boxes of tally sheets from individual polling stations arrived. The boxes, from polling sites from the Rasafah district of Baghdad, were put through metal detectors before dozens of IHEC employees began unsealing the envelopes.

The IHEC said 62.4 percent of eligible Iraqis voted. That's down from an official figure of 79.6 percent in the last parliamentary elections, when Shiite Arab and Kurdish voters turned out in huge numbers, but represents the first national parliamentary elections with wide Sunni Arab participation.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Violence • * Economics, Politics • Iraq War • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • Middle East • Iraq

Certainly, religion is one of the many dividing lines in Jos and elsewhere in Nigeria. But it is not the main one.

In Jos, as elsewhere, the cause of fighting has, more often been the struggle for resources than it has religion. In Jos, my AFP colleague Aminu Abubakar reports that the original cause of the latest clash was the alleged theft of cattle, blamed by a group of settler-farmers on a group of cattle herders. Often the fighting in the north is between the semi-nomadic cattle herders (who happen to be mostly Muslim) and settler-farmers (who happen to be mostly Christian), fighting about the diminishing access to land.

"For all those who will go out and fight their Muslim or Christian brothers on the streets, there are many more (Nigerians) who will take them into their home to protect them, when fighting breaks out," a Nigerian Islamic law student once told me, attending an animist festival in the south.

The reason these conflicts turn deadly in Nigeria is not any greater degree of religious animosity there than elsewhere, however much exists. The reason is poor government: one that fails to send in troops early enough to quell trouble when it flares and never jails those responsible when it is over. Mediation of disputes is too often left to others, too.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Church of Nigeria • * Culture-Watch • Violence • * International News & Commentary • Africa • Nigeria • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Faiths • Islam • Muslim-Christian relations

...any time the word "bomb" comes up at all — in a lesson on a war in history, in a novel in literature class — kids start laughing and pointing at ...[my nephew].

It's a problem that's affecting his slang.

"Everybody's favorite phrase is 'That's the bomb.' You know, like 'That video game's the bomb.' But I can't say that because kids will make fun of me."

What's a parent to do?

"Do the teachers know this is going on?" I asked.

"Sure, they see it and they hear it. But they'd rather not get involved. Mostly, they just pretend that it's not there."

"I've told him I can come to his school and talk to the principal, the teachers, the kids, whoever," said his father, an immigrant from India who works as an engineer and moved to this particular suburb for the good schools and seeming openness to diversity.

My nephew reacted like I would have when I was 14 — as if he'd rather be run over by a truck than have his father come to school to talk about what a great religion Islam is....

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Children • Education • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • America/U.S.A. • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Faiths • Islam

I agree with Richard Harries' defence of faith groups who want to conduct civil partnerships in places of worship. But I really dislike the way he poses as a defender of religious liberty. We Lords-spiritual have no right to oppose them holding civil ceremonies in places of worship, he loftily says: "it would harm no one, and it accords with their deepest religious convictions. Religious freedom is indivisible". This is laughable. For an Anglican bishop to say this is like a Thatcherite saying "compassion must always come first".

The Church of England has many things going for it: it has lovely buildings, lovely music, lovely liturgies, lovely literature, and a lovely habit of theological vagueness. But it does not have the moral high ground in terms of religious liberty. Indeed it is founded on the denial of religious liberty. This is too often obscured by its reputation for "liberalism", which is based in the fact that it is more liberal than certain other churches on certain issues, and manages to find a few nice people to say nice things on Thought for the Day.

According to the vague, lazy orthodoxy about our history, the C of E is deeply entwined in the story of British liberalism. From the time of the first Elizabeth, did this Church not nurture the distinctive English tradition of toleration, pluralism, fair play? Did it not reject the authoritarian ways of another church we won't name, and choose freedom? No, actually. It is truer to say that our tradition of liberty arose in opposition to the established Church.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Church of England (CoE) • * Christian Life / Church Life • Church History • * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • England / UK

The Rt Revd Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, has complained of a “strident and bully­ing campaign” to marginalise Chris­tianity in the UK.

At a symposium organised in the House of Lords last week by the Christian Broadcasting Council, Lord Carey said: “Christianity, which has given so much to our country, is now being sidelined as never before as though it is a stranger to our nation.”

Britain had “reached a point”, he said, “where politicians are mocked for merely expressing their faith. I cannot imagine any politician expres­sing concern that Britain should remain a Christian country. That reticence is a scandal and a disgrace to our history.”

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • England / UK

I mention that some Christian theologians seem to say that Allah is not the same God as the Judaeo-Christian God. At that question, Dr Nazir-Ali becomes visibly uncomfortable. He pauses a long time, formulating his reply, as if his life depended on the answer.

The terrifying truth is that, in modern Britain, his life could indeed depend on how he answers this question. He knows this well, for he has received death threats in the past, and has been under police protection.

"I would say that Islam has a sense of the God of the Bible but, for various reasons, understands the nature of that God, and God's action in the world, quite differently," he says.

Read more...

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Church of England (CoE) • CoE Bishops • * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • England / UK • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic • Other Faiths • Islam • Muslim-Christian relations • * Theology

While Britain was panicking about a sterling crisis and the terrifying financial consequences of a hung parliament, I spent last week in Japan. It was a good vantage point to put Britain’s financial and political travails into perspective.

Japan’s budget deficit of 10.5 per cent of GDP is this year second to Britain’s among the G7 countries, but in every other respect the fiscal situation in Japan is far worse. Because the Japanese Government has borrowed similarly prodigious sums almost every year since 1990, it carries by far the world’s heaviest debt load, with net public debt now running at 115 per cent of GDP, about the same as in Italy and Greece. And there is not the slightest prospect of any reduction in borrowing in the foreseeable future because of the political situation in Japan. It has had four prime ministers in three years, its civil service is in more or less open warfare with the elected politicians and there has been no effective government since the resignation of Junichiro Koizumi in 2006.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Globalization • * Economics, Politics • Economy • The Credit Freeze Crisis of Fall 2008/The Recession of 2007-- • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • Asia • Japan • England / UK

To the young Tom Hanks, history was as dull as an algebra equation. For Hanks — a classic baby boomer, born in 1956 — World War II was just a string of long-ago muzzle flashes in black-and-white. Yet he did have a more direct connection to the global cataclysm. His father had been a U.S. Naval mechanic (second class) in World War II. But Amos Hanks wasn't the type to tell his son tales of bravery and sacrifice. "Growing up, I always knew Dad was somewhere in the Pacific fixing things," Hanks says. "He had nothing nice to say about the Navy. He hated the Navy. He hated everybody in the Navy. He had no glorious stories about it."

Occasionally, Hanks enjoyed a war thriller like Battle of the Bulge, but he much preferred the Three Stooges, James Bond and any film with Sophia Loren. Like a lot of Americans, he found memorizing historical facts boring. Because his family was directly related to Nancy Hanks Lincoln, mother of the 16th U.S. President, he routinely recycled the same short paper he had written about her for easy classroom grades. "My idea of American history was just a course you were forced to take," Hanks says, laughing.

Yet over the past two decades — from his movies Saving Private Ryan and Charlie Wilson's War to the HBO miniseries he has produced, From the Earth to the Moon, Band of Brothers, John Adams and The Pacific, which begins March 14 at 9 p.m. — Hanks has become American history's highest-profile professor, bringing a nuanced view of the past into the homes and lives of countless millions. (HBO is owned by TIME's parent company, Time Warner.) His view of American history is a mixture of idealism and realism, both of which have characterized all the work he has produced; he's a Kennedy liberal with old-time values, the kind that embraces Main Street on the Fourth of July. The success of Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers turned him into a Tom Brokaw–like spokesperson for the Greatest Generation. When he visits Johnson Space Center in Houston or Fort Bragg in North Carolina, he is feted as if Neil Armstrong had entered the room. He's the visual David McCullough of his generation, framing the heroic tales of explorers, astronauts and soldiers for a wide audience. (McCullough's John Adams has sold about 3 million copies; Hanks' John Adams brought in 5.5 million viewers per episode.) And in the history world, his branding on a nonfiction title carries something like the power of Oprah.

But the context for Hanks' history lessons has changed. Band of Brothers, HBO's best-selling DVD to date, began airing two days before 9/11; The Pacific, his new 10-hour epic about the Pacific theater in World War II, plays out against a very different backdrop, when the country is weary of war and American exceptionalism is a much tougher sell. World War II in the European theater was a case of massive armies arrayed against an unambiguous evil. The Pacific war was mainly fought by isolated groups of men and was overlaid by a sense that our foes were fundamentally different from us. In that sense, the war in the Pacific bears a closer relation to the complex war on terrorism the U.S. is waging now, making the new series a trickier prospect but one with potential for more depth and resonance....

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • History • Movies & Television • * Economics, Politics • Defense, National Security, Military • * International News & Commentary • America/U.S.A.

Read it carefully and read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti

Rioters armed with machetes slaughtered more than 200 people overnight Sunday as religious violence flared anew between Christians and Muslims in central Nigeria, witnesses said. Hundreds of people fled their homes, fearing reprisal attacks.

The bodies of the dead - including many women and children - lined dusty streets in three mostly Christian villages south of the regional capital of Jos, local journalists and a civil rights group said. They said at least 200 bodies had been counted by Sunday afternoon.

Torched homes smoldered after the 3 a.m. attacks that a region-wide curfew enforced by the country's police and military should have stopped.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • Violence • * International News & Commentary • Africa • Nigeria • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Faiths • Islam • Muslim-Christian relations

The first thing you notice about Julie Etchingham is the hair, a perfect bob that frames her face like a bonnet. It is several hours before she will present ITV's News at Ten live to three million people but she looks ready to go now, immaculately groomed and dressed. Everything from her posture to her voice screams "efficiency", and it's little wonder she is known to her co-host Mark Austin as "head girl"....

She is also one of a handful of broadcasters who, as a Roman Catholic, is unembarrassed to discuss her faith. "Religion is an important part of my home life," she says, "If you have a faith, you are bound to be influenced by it. Would that ever show itself on air? I don't think so. The key place where my faith influences me is in how I hope to handle people." Although she believes religion "is not a work thing", she laments that ours is a "very secular" media, and that "Christians can be discriminated against", before carefully steering the conversation on to the joys of our multi-cultural age.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Media • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • England / UK • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic

It was one of the most complex military logistical and medical operations ever undertaken – and it saved the life of a young British soldier critically injured in Afghanistan.

It involved hundreds of doctors, air and ground crews of several nations, travelling many thousands of miles, revolutionary and experimental medical equipment, several planes and helicopters and communications between three continents and cost millions of pounds.

For months, details of the massive operation to save one man’s life have been shrouded in secrecy. The injured soldier was not shot by the Taliban but was almost certainly wounded accidentally at his camp near Sangin in Helmand province in late July last year.

What a fantastic, inspiring story--read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Health & Medicine • Science & Technology • * Economics, Politics • War in Afghanistan • * International News & Commentary • America/U.S.A. • England / UK

China offered its first real sign of flexibility in years over the exchange rate of its currency, a growing source of friction with the U.S., but gave little hope that it would accommodate Washington on Iran and other thorny foreign-policy issues.

Central bank Gov. Zhou Xiaochuan said China will eventually move away from its current exchange-rate policies, which he described as a temporary response to the global financial crisis, but played down the idea that a move could come in the near future.

Mr. Zhou's comments Saturday at a press conference during the annual session of China's legislature, the National People's Congress, could fuel optimism in the U.S. and other countries upset over China's currency policy that Beijing may start letting the yuan appreciate, although not as quickly as many foreign governments desire. Critics complain that the yuan's suppressed value makes China's exports unfairly inexpensive, disadvantaging other countries.

China's foreign minister sounded a defiant note on other sensitive issues with the U.S. in a separate briefing Sunday. Yang Jiechi told reporters it is up to the U.S. to mend frayed relations, which he said had been hurt by American arms sales to Taiwan and by President Barack Obama's meeting with exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama.

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Filed under: * Economics, Politics • Foreign Relations • * International News & Commentary • America/U.S.A. • Asia • China

Iraq's second parliamentary election since the 2003 invasion has been hit by multiple attacks, with at least 24 people being killed.

Two buildings were destroyed in the capital and dozens of mortars were fired across Baghdad and elsewhere.

The border with Iran was closed, thousands of troops were deployed, and vehicles were banned from roads.

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Filed under: * Economics, Politics • Iraq War • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • Middle East • Iraq

The Church of England has warned that basic human rights cannot be made contingent on the exercise of responsibilities. In a response to the Ministry of Justice Green Paper on Rights and Responsibilities, the Mission and Public Affairs Council argues that connecting rights too closely with responsibilities risks undermining the inalienable nature of fundamental human rights.

Some less fundamental rights - perhaps better understood as entitlements - may follow from the exercise of social responsibility, the response argues, but the Green Paper does not give enough emphasis to the ways in which responsibilities are owed primarily to other persons, groups and communities and not always to the state.

Read it all and also peruse the full response (11 page pdf) there.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Church of England (CoE) • * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * Economics, Politics • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • England / UK • * Theology • Anthropology

Germany's Protestant and Catholic churches may be facing the biggest credibility crisis in decades after an unprecedented bout of scandal-fueled negative media coverage.

Bishop Margot Kassmann, the first woman to lead the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD), resigned as leader of German Protestants on Feb. 24 after she was arrested for drunk driving, just four months into office.

In the same week, Catholic bishops met in Freiburg to address allegations of widespread sexual abuse of children by clergy that had surfaced late in January, prompting a possible criminal probe by state officials.

Germany is the birthplace of both the Protestant Reformation and Pope Benedict XVI, and religion plays a key role in German life; indeed, both churches are among the nation's largest employers.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • Europe • Germany • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic • * Theology • Ethics / Moral Theology

In a move described as "dreadful" for Perth's CBD, the Anglican church has withdrawn from the $81 million Cathedral Square project pushed by national property developer Mirvac.

The church's decision means demolition of its eyesore Law Chambers Building on Hay Street will be shelved indefinitely.

On February 22, the church told Mirvac and Perth City Council it would not proceed with the project - planned for the existing Cathedral Square beside recently-renovated St George's Cathedral.

The council has been a strong advocate of the project since 1992 after City Vision chair, architect/planner Ken Adam, first proposed it in 1991.

"I'm absolutely distraught," Mr Adam said when WAtoday.com.au told him of the church's decision.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Anglican Church of Australia • * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • Australia / NZ

As an Anglican archbishop who spent decades working to defeat apartheid and is widely considered the moral conscience of South Africa, what do you make of your country’s current president, Jacob Zuma, who is in the headlines again for fathering a child out of wedlock?

I think we are at a bad place in South Africa, and especially when you contrast it with the Mandela era. Many of the things that we dreamt were possible seem to be getting more and more out of reach. We have the most unequal society in the world. We have far too many of our people living in a poverty that is debilitating, inhumane and unacceptable.

But why is Zuma still president? He sets such a poor example — a polygamist with three wives who just fathered a 20th child with yet another woman. Why is that tolerated?

It’s not. Two of the major churches have spoken out very strongly. The Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Church have said that he’s undermining his own government’s campaign to deal with the H.I.V. pandemic. That campaign speaks about being loyal to one partner, practicing safe sex and generally using condoms, and he hasn’t done that.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Church of South Africa • * Culture-Watch • Children • Marriage & Family • Religion & Culture • * Economics, Politics • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • Africa • South Africa • * Theology • Ethics / Moral Theology

South Koreans exulted last week in Kim Yu-na's matchless performance in Vancouver. So, too, on Sunday, at Yoido Full Gospel Church, where the figure skater, a Roman Catholic, wasn't mentioned by name but everyone knew whom the pastor was talking about when he lifted up the country's Olympic athletes in prayer.

Yoido Full Gospel is the mega-est of megachurches. With a membership of more than 850,000, it bills itself as the world's largest Christian congregation, and that's probably right. At the 11 o'clock service last Sunday, there were more people in the 120-singer choir than in the entire congregation of the country church I attend in New England.

The church stands on an island in the Han River in central Seoul, not far from the National Legislature. The main sanctuary holds 10,000 people. Nearby are several church-owned buildings, including a high-rise filled with offices, meeting rooms and banquet halls. There are satellite churches elsewhere in Seoul and around the country.

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • Science & Technology • * International News & Commentary • Asia • South Korea • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Evangelicals

It was announced this week that the Pope will visit Spain in November. The news comes during a tense phase in Church-State relations after the Spanish Senate approved a new abortion law on 25 February. It is the latest round in a battle that the secularising government seems to be winning

Last year an estimated one million people demonstrated in Madrid when the proposals to liberalise the abortion law became public. Now that it looks set to become law, the Spanish bishops’ conference has approved a new campaign of protest marches by pro-lifers – describing the proposals as a “licence to kill” children, and an attack on the institution of the family. “This law gives a sealed envelope to a woman to sort herself out, and frees the father of any responsibility,” declared the conference’s spokesman, Bishop Juan Antonio Martínez Camino.

In a country where a majority of the population still identifies itself more or less as Catholic, one would have thought that this is one issue Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero would be advised not to pick a fight over. In fact, Zapatero appears to have taken on the bishops over an issue that alone is unlikely to threaten his political survival.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • Europe • Spain • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic

A politician widely accused of running death squads might not be expected to have an easy time running for public office.

But this is Iraq. In a nation sadly inured to years of sectarian bloodletting, Hakim al-Zamili not only has a place on a prominent Shiite election slate, but stands poised to win a place in the Parliament, as early voting began Thursday morning for the infirm, people with special needs and members of the military and the police.

It is an astonishing turnabout that shows the limits of political reconciliation. While some Sunni candidates have been barred from running in the election for their alleged support of the Baath Party, Mr. Zamili’s candidacy has provoked nary a protest from the nation’s leading Shiite politicians. That runs the risk that Shiite leaders will be seen as taking steps against only those who persecuted Shiites, not Sunnis.

Mr. Zamili’s new political role has heightened concerns that for all the talk of cross-sectarian alliances among some Shiite and Sunni factions, Iraq may be unable to firmly break with its troubled past.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • History • Religion & Culture • * Economics, Politics • Iraq War • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • Middle East • Iraq • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Faiths • Islam

As the attention of the public and Congress has been drawn away to other global hotspots, the Interfaith Sudan Working Group hopes U.S. lawmakers will assist Sudan in grappling with an upcoming election, a recent cease-fire agreement with a Darfur rebel group and a referendum on independence for southern Sudan.

“Political milestones such as the upcoming election, cease-fire agreements and referendum carry great promise and great peril,” said Ruth Messinger, president of the American Jewish World Service. “That’s why we need the U.S. government’s focused attention now. If the agreements and peace process fall apart, they can’t just be put back together, again.”

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Poverty • Violence • * Economics, Politics • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • Africa • Sudan • * Religion News & Commentary • Inter-Faith Relations

Chile's reconstruction will take "three to four years" as the country recovers from the earthquake that killed some 800 people, its president has said.

"There are rural areas where everything has tumbled to the ground... infrastructure has been destroyed," Michelle Bachelet told Chilean radio.

It would take foreign aid and most of the mandate of President-elect Sebastian Pinera to rebuild, she added.

Three days of national mourning have been declared, to begin on Sunday.

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Filed under: * International News & Commentary • South America • Chile

The 25 per cent fall in the value of the pound over the past couple of years has amounted to a bigger depreciation than in any single post-war sterling crisis. Most see this as a healthy correction of an over-valued currency, which has given us a more competitive exchange rate just when we needed it.

This benign devaluation now threatens, however, to turn into a rout. For this week's fall in the pound has been prompted not by worries over Britain's prospects, but by doubts about the economic credibility of the Government. The Tories' diminishing poll lead has raised the spectre of a hung parliament, and of chaos and gridlock in government at the worst possible time. The markets have taken fright: as Kenneth Clarke, the shadow business secretary, observed yesterday, it has only been the prospect of a Conservative victory, and the arrival of a government prepared to tackle the fiscal crisis head on, that has held down interest rates and sustained sterling in recent months. The possibility that this may not happen has alarmed foreign investors, for it is uncertainty that spooks the markets.

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Filed under: * Economics, Politics • Economy • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • England / UK