A fertilizer bomb could have caused the blast that ripped through a building full of small shops, an official told The Associated Press on Tuesday as the FBI joined the investigation.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the smell of ammonia at the scene of Monday’s explosion on Moi Avenue indicates the possible presence of a fertilizer bomb, which is commonly made of ammonium nitrate and fuel oil.

Among the 33 people wounded was a woman who blamed the blast on a “bearded man” who left behind a bag shortly before the detonation.

Read it all.

In brutally poor neighborhoods and mansions alike, this city choked by military checkpoints seethes with rumors, paranoia and conspiracy theories. Even academics like to assert a favorite: The homegrown Islamic extremist movement that is terrorizing northern Nigeria is a CIA creation.

Others are convinced that the extremist group known as Boko Haram is a plot by the southern-led Nigerian government to create an eternal crisis in the north.

How else to explain Boko Haram’s transformation from a group of bearded radicals stashing homemade weapons to an organization that has half the country on military alert and U.S. lawmakers warning of threats to American interests?

Read it all.

Nimuli struggled to rise from a rope bed to greet pastor James Mading Bui at an Episcopal church where she lives in a suburb of Khartoum, Sudan’s capital, waiting to travel back home to the newly independent south.

Nimuli is one of as many as 700,000 South Sudanese who have become regarded as dark-skinned, often Christian outsiders in mainly Arabic Sudan since the oil-rich south seceded in July. Verbally abused as “insects” by some Sudanese on the streets, they have no citizenship or residential rights and no idea when they are going to be able to travel to South Sudan.

Read it all.

Suspected members of the Boko Haram sect yesterday killed four persons. The victims died when a bomb exploded in Maiduguri, the Borno State capital.

It was learnt that the Boko Haram suspects threw an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) from a moving vehicle, targeting members of the Joint Task Force (JTF) in a patrol vehicle.

The IED, which narrowly missed the JTF men, exploded a few metres away, killing four persons, some of who were in a moving commercial tricycle.

Read it all.

The premise of [Eliza] Griswold’s book [The 10th Parallel] is that although there is frequent and bloody tension between Christians and Muslims along the 10th Parallel, especially where resources are scarce, there is no ”˜clash of civilizations’. Rather, there is a competition for souls that is strongest among faiths, as Christians fight for Christians and Muslims fight for Muslims. “There is a proliferation of vibrant forms of religious practice. They look pretty kooky from a distance, but as any good Nigerian will tell you, religion is a market place. And it’s up to everybody to get as many people as possible to fill their Churches and Mosques.”

Enlightened religious organisations of both faiths in southern Nigeria are confronting reactionary groups in the north, groups which believe that vaccinations are poisons and that natural disasters are punishments from God. Meanwhile, Anglicanism and Catholicism are being supplanted along the 10th Parallel by flashy Pentecostals, who preach that God is the surest route to material wealth.

Read it all.

A Pretoria parish had to obtain an urgent court order to hold its church service yesterday.

The move follows a decision on Thursday by South African Council of Churches chairman Bishop Johannes Seoka to close the St Albans Anglican Cathedral for worship.

Seoka took the drastic decision following the resignation of resident priest Father Rudolph Paulse. The priest resigned last week after he was allegedly threatened with death by parishioners.

Read it all.

Security agents in Sudan’s South Darfur state have closed the offices of the Sudan Council of Churches (SCC) and relief group Sudan Aid in the state’s capital, Nyala.

Agents from the Sudanese National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) arrived at the organizations’ compound in Nyala, a city of some 550,000 people, at 8 a.m. on April 22. They ordered SCC staff members to hand over keys to the offices and vehicles and, without explanation, ordered them to leave immediately, an SCC staff worker told Compass Direct News by phone.

Read it all.

The Jewish celebration in Djerba went ahead without a hitch on May 9. Several hundred worshipers danced with Torah scrolls in a small procession outside El Ghriba synagogue. Men played the darbuka, sang songs, and prayed inside the ancient house of worship. The gathering was surrounded at all times by a small army of policemen to ensure nothing went wrong.

“To me, there is something magical about Jews and Arabs living together like they do here,” said Guy Tzinmann, a French Jew who came from Paris to take part in the event. “If you don’t come with an Israeli passport, they don’t give you any trouble. And unlike Algeria, where my mother is from, I can come here to visit.”

To be sure, turnout could have been stronger; only a few dozen people came from overseas, a far cry from the thousands who attended over the past decade. But it’s hard to see the event as anything other than a success.

Read it all.

Months of warnings have failed to prevent a serious malnutrition crisis in Niger, Save the Children has said.

The charity says more than six million people are affected there, and about 18 million across West Africa.

It says a rising number of children now need medical treatment for the condition, as the crisis is reaching a new level of seriousness.

Read it all.

Bishops in South Sudan have said that they are ready to do “all in their power” to put an end to the conflict with Sudan.

Episcopal and Roman Catholic bishops held a meeting from 9 to 11 May, attended by the Archbishop of York, Dr Sentamu. They called on the international community to implement a UN resolution that demands an immediate cessation of hostilities, and the resumption of negotiations, under threat of international sanctions.

Read it all.

Episcopal and Catholic bishops from South Sudan have said that together they “stand committed to do all in [their] power” to realise an end to war between Sudan and South Sudan.

Following a three-day meeting in Yei, South Sudan, lead by Archbishop Paulino Lukudu Loro and Archbishop Daniel Deng Bul, the 14 bishops issued a ”˜Message of Peace’ which laid out their hopes and plans for an end to conflict.

Referencing the famous Martin Luther King speech, the bishop’s said: “We dream of two nations which are democratic and free, where people of all religions, all ethnic groups, all cultures and all languages enjoy equal human rights based on citizenship. We dream of two nations at peace with each other, co-operating to make the best use of their God-given resources, promoting free interaction between their citizens, living side by side in solidarity and mutual respect, celebrating their shared history and forgiving any wrongs they may have done to each other….”

Read it all.

We are keenly aware of the great suffering caused by the non-implementation of several key parts of the CPA. The cry of pain continues to be heard from South Kordofan, Blue Nile and Abyei, as well as from those affected by the escalation of conflict in the border region between Sudan and South Sudan. I pray that the UN Security Council Resolution and the AU Roadmap will result in real progress in settling the outstanding issues.

The church’s dedicated efforts in peace-building and advocacy continue to represent a powerful witness to the gospel. We are inspired by the untiring efforts to bring peace in Jonglei. We also stand in special solidarity with the church’s situation in the Republic of Sudan and will continue to press for freedom of religion and worship and the safety of the Christian community.

Read it all.

South Sudan’s years of conflict were meant to be over when it won its independence from Sudan last July after generations of fighting with the people of the north. But the jubilation quickly faded, and now, not even a year later, after weeks of pointed barbs and border skirmishes, this vast and vastly underdeveloped country is once again mobilizing for war ”” and asking some of the poorest people on earth to pay for it, with whatever they have at hand….

Sudan and South Sudan have yet to resolve a number of prickly and vital issues, not least of which is how to demarcate a border of more than 1,000 miles and share billions of dollars of oil revenue. Border clashes escalated in late March, killing hundreds, and strategic oil fields have switched hands.

Read it all.

Soldiers in the northern Nigerian city of Kano killed four suspected members of Boko Haram Islamist sect in a raid on their hideout on Sunday, an army spokesman said.

“We carried out an operation today on a terrorists hideout”¦where we killed four of them and arrested many after a prolonged shootout,” Lieutenant Iweha Ikedichi told AFP. Troops from military special Joint Task Force (JTF) had stormed the hideout in the Hotoro Kwari suburb of the city notorious for Boko Haram attacks.

Read it all.

The leader of Nigeria’s bishops is criticizing the government’s response to the growing threat from radical Islamist groups, saying Christians are increasingly at risk of attack.

Archbishops Ignatius Kaigama, president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria, along with Archbishop John Onaiyekan of Abuja spoke with Aid to the Church in Need about the plight of Christians in the country, and how the government is handling the situation.

The statement came after at least 21 people were killed and more than 20 others were injured last Sunday in coordinated attacks targeting worship services at a university campus in Kano, and a chapel in Maiduguri belonging to the Church of Christ in Nigeria.

Read it all.

When a suicide bomber drove an explosives-packed car into the flagship church of one of Nigeria’s largest denominations, angry Christian youth retaliated by burning Muslim shops and killing nearby motorcycle riders.

The February incident, which killed 12 and injured 40 at the Church of Christ in Nigeria’s Jos headquarters, fueled the global debate over whether Nigeria will erupt into a religious civil war. Christmas Day bombings of northern churches by Islamist extremists, which killed 44, also fueled such fears. The headlines haven’t stopped since. On Sunday, gunmen attacked church services in Kano and in Maiduguri, killing at least 21 people, including a pastor preparing for Communion.

Read it all.

Pioneers, an evangelical mission movement, is reporting that thousands of Christians from Ghana, Nigeria and the Philippines are asking to be trained in the principles of “church-planting movements” (CPMs).

Today, cross-cultural church planting is taking place in regions fraught with poverty and persecution. By necessity, the local church often takes root in its simplest form. In these places, churches are essentially groups of believers gathering in homes, under trees, or cafe back rooms to worship, pray, study the Bible and teach others to do the same. And it is in response to these realities that Pioneers has adopted the “church-planting movements” approach.

Read it all.

A gunman detonated a grenade in a Nairobi church on Sunday, killing one worshipper and wounding 16 in the latest in a series of attacks in Kenya since it sent troops into Somalia to crush Islamist militants blamed for cross-border raids.

Nairobi has said al Shabaab militants, who merged with al Qaeda earlier this year, are behind the surge in violence and kidnappings that has threatened tourism in east Africa’s biggest economy and wider regional destabilization.

Read it all.

The Consecration of a new Area Bishop for the Horn of Africa within the Episcopal / Anglican Diocese of Egypt with North Africa and the Horn of Africa

In an amazing gathering that brought together bishops and archbishops from the Coptic Orthodox Church, the Greek Orthodox Church, the Roman Catholic Church, the Coptic Catholic Church, and well as representatives of the Grand Imam of Al Azhar, government officials, Ambassadors, prominent writers, and politicians, the Episcopal / Anglican Diocese of Egypt with North Africa and the Horn of Africa celebrated the consecration of The Rev. Dr. Grant LeMarquand as a new Area (Assistant) Bishop for the Horn of Africa.

The Most Rev. Dr. Mouneer Hanna Anis, together with The Rt. Rev. Michael Lewis (Diocesan Bishop of the Diocese of Cyprus and the Gulf), The Rt. Rev. Dr. Bill Musk (Area Bishop for North Africa), and The Rt. Rev. Ghais Abdel Malek (the retired Diocesan Bishop of Egypt) par-ticipated in the consecration of The Rev. Dr. Grant LeMarquand.

Many people sent greetings, including The Most Rev. & Rt. Hon. Dr. Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury. Other representatives from around the Anglican Communion attended, including: Archbishop Robert Duncan of ACNA; Bishop Peter Tasker of Sydney; representatives of The Diocese of Singapore and The Diocese of South Carolina (our companion dioceses); The Diocese of Pittsburgh; The Diocese of Tennessee; The Diocese of Texas; the Honorary Chairman and Secretary of the Egypt Diocesan Association in the UK; Trinity School for Ministry in Am-bridge, Pennsylvania; The Church Missionary Society, UK; and The Church Missionary Society, Australia.
It was very meaningful to have this consecration on 25 April 2012, on the Feast of St. Mark the Evangelist, the Patron Saint of Egypt, in the presence of the Orthodox churches that were started in the first century by St. Mark. It was also the same day of the consecration of All Saints Cathedral at its present site in Zamalek, Cairo in 1988.

In his sermon, Bishop Mouneer said, “Grant, today you will walk in the steps of St. Frumentius, the first Bishop of Axum in Abyssinia, who was ordained by St. Athanasius, the Patriarch in Alex-andria, here in Egypt in the 4th Century. In this tradition, we are consecrating you an Area Bishop for the Horn of Africa.” He added that we “need to be ready to stand firm in the faith we once re-ceived from the saints.”

Bishop Mouneer reminded Grant that he “will go to harvest the fruit of the seeds that were sown by many great servants of the Lord, including Bishop Andrew Proud who proceeded you.”

He added that “the church in Africa needs to be grounded in the faith and grow in the knowledge and love of Jesus Christ, so that she can replay the role she played in the first millennium in shap-ing the Christian mind. As you know, the church in Africa is growing numerically in an amazing way however, there is a great need for theological education and making true disciples.”

It is worth mentioning that since their establishment, both Episcopal Areas (North Africa and the Horn of Africa) within the Diocese of Egypt, are flourishing and growing. The installation of Bishop Grant LeMarquand will take place at St. Matthew’s Anglican Church in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on 27 October 2012, when the church celebrates the Feast of St. Frumentius.

The Primate of the Church of Nigeria has denounced as “satanic” the calls for the impeachment of the President of Nigeria after an Italian construction firm refurbished a church in the president’s home town.

Speaking to reporters last week, Archbishop Nicholas Okoh said the claim put forward by the opposition ACN party that there was an element of corruption in the refurbishment of a church was nonsense.

“The call for the impeachment of the president over the renovation of the church in his town is satanic and it is capable of causing religious bigotry which we don’t want. The ACN should apologise and retract the statement. We call on the National Assembly to disregard the call,” the archbishop said.

Read it all.

One person was killed and nine others were injured last night after suspected Islamic extremists attacked a TV viewing center in a Christian area of Jos where a crowd had gathered to watch soccer.

At about 10:15 p.m. at the viewing center, one of many such establishments popular in Nigeria for watching soccer matches, the attackers drove past the site and threw an explosive device at hundreds of Christians watching the match, eyewitnesses told Compass.

Read it all.

The Anglican archbishop who was instrumental in delivering peace to Sudan has raised the spectre of full-blown war and appealed for restraint from the presidents of Sudan and South Sudan.

Archbishop Daniel Deng Bul Yak, leader of the Episcopal Church of Sudan, urged the two presidents to pursue peace in spite of the difficulties following the major clashes threatening the fragile peace that churches helped to broker in 2005.

Read it all.

Britain’s drift away from its Christian moorings is impacting its ability to support Christians being attacked in other countries, the Archbishop of Nigeria has warned.

Archbishop Nicholas Okoh made the comments during a meeting at the House of Lords on Tuesday night where he gave a report on widespread attacks against churches in Nigeria.

Read it all.

Prelate of the Methodist Church, Dr. Sunday Ola Makinde, has described as ”˜careless and unguarded statement’ the comment made by American government that years of neglect and poverty led to the insurgence of Boko Haram sect in Nigeria.

Speaking at the weekend during the launch of a book titled “Women as Teachers and Character Moulders” written by Mrs. Ezinne Elizabeth Abimbola Makinde at Hoare’s Memorial Methodist Cathedral, Yaba, Lagos, the prelate declared the premises on which such a statement was based as poor research that lacks every credibility.

Read it all.

Sudan and newly-independent South Sudan accused each other of launching fresh attacks on their territories on Sunday as neither side showed any sign of bowing to global pressure to return to the negotiating table.

South Sudan said Sudanese troops attacked settlements about 10km (6 miles) on its side of the border and carried out air raids in a range of areas including its oil-producing Unity state.

Read it all.

As war looms between Sudan and South Sudan, Christians of southern origin living in Sudan fear retribution from its Islamic government.

As of April 8, at least half a million ethnic southerners (the majority of whom are Christian) living in Sudan are now considered foreigners if they have not registered for citizenship. Officials in Khartoum, Sudan’s capital, gave southerners another 30 days to register or leave the country.

Read it all.

The Nigerian religious sect Boko Haram had been sporadically attacking police stations and people for years with machetes and sometimes guns to create an Islamic state in its corner of Africa’s largest nation.

Then, in 2010, the group exploded into violence with suicide bombings, car bombs and coordinated assaults, months after an al-Qaeda leader in Algeria disclosed that the terror group had decided to help the Nigerian radicals….

“This new Jihadist nexus in Africa” is a rising danger that the West has yet to fully comprehend,” said Max Boot, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Read it all (my emphasis).

Sudan’s Khartoum government says the country is officially in a state of war with South Sudan.

The top United Nations human rights official confirmed that statement by condemning Sudan’s indiscriminate bombing raids that resulted in civilian casualties in South Sudan.

Khartoum began the week with a wave of air raids on Southern border areas, killing several civilians and hitting a UN peacekeeper base. South Sudan struck back with a vow to hold their positions in a contested oil field seized from Khartoum’s army.

Read it all.

For many years now, we’ve heard sombre warnings that the white countries’ easy dominance of the world would be eclipsed by the developing nations.

One day, we were told, the fast-growing economies of the poor countries would be bigger than those of the more sclerotic rich countries.

The Australian Treasury has now calculated this is no longer a looming prospect but that, on a key measure, it has already happened. The Treasury estimates the developing countries’ collective gross domestic product overtook that of the rich world last month.

Read it all.

The recommendations come in the report from the UK Parliament’s International Development Select Committee who held an inquiry into prospects for peace and development in the world’s newest country. The Anglican Alliance brought together the Episcopal Church of Sudan, the Diocese of Salisbury and Lambeth Palace to provide evidence to the inquiry.

Rebecca Coleman, representing the Episcopal Church of Sudan, and Canon Ian Woodward of the Diocese of Salisbury, gave oral evidence to the Select Committee, focusing especially on the church’s education services in South Sudan, and the role played by the Church, in particular by Archbishop Daniel Deng Bul Yak, in peace-building.

Read it all.