Mara Hvistendahl is worried about girls. Not in any political, moral or cultural sense but as an existential matter. She is right to be. In China, India and numerous other countries (both developing and developed), there are many more men than women, the result of systematic campaigns against baby girls. In “Unnatural Selection,” Ms. Hvistendahl reports on this gender imbalance: what it is, how it came to be and what it means for the future.

In nature, 105 boys are born for every 100 girls. This ratio is biologically ironclad. Between 104 and 106 is the normal range, and that’s as far as the natural window goes. Any other number is the result of unnatural events.
Yet today in India there are 112 boys born for every 100 girls. In China, the number is 121””though plenty of Chinese towns are over the 150 mark. China’s and India’s populations are mammoth enough that their outlying sex ratios have skewed the global average to a biologically impossible 107. But the imbalance is not only in Asia. Azerbaijan stands at 115, Georgia at 118 and Armenia at 120.

What is causing the skewed ratio: abortion…

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The Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams began his Kenyan tour on Sunday with a plea to the African church to take a firm stand against corruption.

Speaking at Nakuru’s ACK Cathedral in a commemoration of the church’s 50th anniversary, Archbishop Williams told church leaders they must stand up against land and money grabbers. “It will pit you against some of the most powerful individuals but God is always on the side of the righteous,” the principal leader of the Church of England said.

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The Archbishop of Canterbury is to embark on a pastoral visit to the Anglican Church in Eastern Congo as the guest of the Most Revd Henri Isingoma, Primate of the Church of the Province of Congo. Prior to this the Archbishop will visit Kenya where he will be received by the Most Revd. Dr. Eliud Wabukala, Archbishop of Kenya, and have fellowship with the Christian community in the country.

In the course of his visit to Kenya, Dr Williams will join in with the celebrations for the 50th anniversary of the Diocese of Nakuru which will include the presentation of certificates to clergy who have completed 25 years of continuous service. He will attend the dedication of a site for the building of the proposed Kenya Anglican University (KAU) near Mount Kenya and visit local development initiatives where churches and their communities are trying to overcome poverty and adapt to climate change ”“ including a successful biogas project in Machakos Diocese. He will also participate in a symposium in Nairobi to discuss the Church’s mission in the 21st century. During the visit he will learn about the role of the Kenyan church in national reconciliation.

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Church leaders in Nigeria have urged the government to act swiftly in combating terror attacks on Christians.

The murder campaign in the North waged by Islamist Boko Haram sect known as the Nigerian Taliban could ignite a sectarian war in the South with Christians seeking revenge against Muslims, the Anglican Bishop of Awka warned.

Last week, the fundamentalist sect bombed a Roman Catholic Church and a police station in Maiduguri, killing eleven people, while on June 7 a Church of Christ in Nigeria pastor the Rev. David Usman and the church secretary were gunned down by members of the cult. Last week’s murder follows a 2009 attack on Mr. Usman’s church by Boko Haram militants, who burned it to the ground and killed several members of the congregation.

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NATO acknowledged Sunday that an errant missile had destroyed a civilian home in the Libyan capital in the early morning, saying it may have killed civilians. It was the alliance’s first such admission in the three-month-long campaign of airstrikes against the military forces of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi.

Reporters taken to the site and a nearby hospital saw at least five bodies, including those of a baby and a child. Libyan officials said at least four more civilians were killed.

The episode was NATO’s second admission of a mistaken strike in two days….

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Almighty and everlasting God, who didst enkindle the flame of thy love in the heart of thy holy martyr Bernard Mizeki: Grant to us, thy humble servants, a like faith and power of love, that we who rejoice in his triumph may profit by his example; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

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The Anglican Alliance is co-ordinating with Anglican agencies to provide support for the Episcopal Church in Sudan during the current humanitarian crisis.

More than 53,000 people have been driven from their homes, numerous villages have been bombed, and government troops have used indiscriminate violence against civilians, in the run-up to the secession of south Sudan.

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Harold Macmillan, the prime minister who watched US power rise as the British empire crumbled, used to say that Britain would play ancient Greece to America’s Rome.

These days it looks as if Rome is declining too. The US finds it increasingly hard to drive forward its vision of international trade and economics over the objections of big emerging-market countries.

The Visigoths and the Vandals who sacked Rome and undermined its empire, though far more cultured and sophisticated than their popular reputation, were unable to replicate the Pax Romana order it had established. European territories previously under Roman rule fractured into an unstable array of weak kingdoms and embattled city-states. Similarly, the vacuum created today by the erosion of US hegemony and the turmoil in the eurozone is resulting in stasis rather than a new direction.

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Along with the Christian leaders represented in the Sudan Ecumenical Forum and Council of Churches and many more throughout the world, we deplore the mounting level of aggression and bloodshed in South Kordofan State and the indiscriminate violence on the part of government troops against civilians. Numerous villages have been bombed. More than 53,000 people have been driven from their homes. The new Anglican cathedral in Kadugli has been burned down. UN personnel in the capital, Kadugli, are confined to their compound and are unable to protect civilians; the city has been overrun by the army, and heavy force is being used by government troops to subdue militias in the area, with dire results for local people. Many brutal killings are being reported.

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GERARD POWERS (University of Notre Dame): Thanks for having me, Kim. I think there are three broad questions. One is, were we morally justified in going in in the first place? The second is are the means that we are using morally justified, or are we proving through the means we are using that humanitarian invention, as some allede, is really just an oxymoron? And three, I think we have to think about what an ethics of exit means in Libya.

[KIM] LAWTON: Well, let’s unpack all of that. Were we justified in going in? The president said it was to protect civilians.

POWERS: I think humanitarian intervention in extraordinary cases to protect the civilian population is justified, and not only that, there’s a duty in some cases to do that. My concern is that that objective seems to be subsumed by other objectives.

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NATO’s leaders are scrambling to find tactics that might force Kadafi to give up: military escalation, aid to the rebels, Russian mediation. They’re contemplating outcomes in which Kadafi might not have to leave Libya or stand trial before the International Criminal Court. “All options are open,” Sarkozy said last month. “We are not saying that Kadafi needs to be exiled. He must leave power, and the quicker he does it, the greater his choice.”

But Kadafi shows little interest in a graceful exit, and NATO may soon face a tough decision. British newspapers have already reported that former British soldiers are on the ground spotting targets for NATO airstrikes, reportedly under contract to an unnamed Arab regime. If the air war stalls, Britain and France will have to consider sending in ground forces as the quickest way to finish the job. Hague has already acknowledged that Britain will probably send peacekeeping troops if and when the conflict ends.

In a contest of wills between NATO and Kadafi, NATO still appears likely to win in the long run.

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Already, in nine major cities tracked by Rosealea Yao, an analyst at market-research firm Dragonomics, real-estate prices fell 4.9% in April from a year earlier. Last year, prices in those nine cities rose 21.5%; in 2009, the increase was about 10%, as China started to recover from the global economic crisis, with much steeper increases toward the end of that year.

A downturn in property and apartment prices would harm Chinese industry and investment, and crimp consumer spending. China is a “housing-led economy,” says UBS economist Jonathan Anderson, who estimates that property construction alone accounted for 13% of gross domestic product in 2010, twice the share of the 1990s.

While China’s anticipated growth is still well above that of other large economies, any reduction could have deep consequences. The global economy is now even more dependent on China for demand for anything from commodities to luxury goods, given the tepid recovery in the U.S. and Europe’s continuing sovereign-debt problems.

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…this is not about technology alone. As Russian historian Leon Aron has noted, the Arab uprisings closely resemble the Russian democratic revolution of 1991 in one key respect: they were both not so much about freedom or food as about ”dignity”. They each grew out of a deep desire by people to run their own lives and to be treated as ”citizens” – with both obligations and rights that the state cannot just give and take by whim.

If you want to know what brings about revolutions, it is not GDP rising or falling, says Aron, ”it is the quest for dignity”. We always exaggerate people’s quest for GDP and undervalue their quest for ideals. ”Dignity before bread” was the slogan of the Tunisian revolution. ”The spark that lights the fuse is always the quest for dignity,” said Aron. ”Today’s technology just makes the fire much more difficult to put out.”

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At least a million Christians celebrated the Uganda Martyrs’ Day at Namugongo shrine yesterday with the lead celebrant calling for “serious dialogue to address political and social problems in the country”.

Clad in the ceremonial catholic robes, Archbishop Sabino Ocan Odoki of Arua Diocese, told pilgrims that this will be the only way to amicably solve the country’s problems instead of “the walk-to-work campaign and teargas”.

“Uganda is known for her beauty and hospitality but it is also known for political turbulence and tribalism. We should address this through dialogue,” he said to a crowd which included the newly-appointed Vice President Edward Kiwanuka Sekandi who represented the President, and pilgrims who had trekked from Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Sudan, DR Congo, among other countries.

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The Church of Nigeria, Anglican Communion, has urged Moslem leaders in the country to call their members involved in the killing of Christians in the North to order, warning that Christians could no longer continue to be on the receiving end during riots in any part of Nigeria.

In a speech delivered at the second session of the 28th synod of the Diocese on the Niger, taking place at the Immanuel Church, Onitsha, the Bishop of the Diocese, Rt. Rev. Owen Nwokolo, wondered why Christians should be massacred in the guise of protesting in favour of a political candidate who lost during the recent general elections.

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Thousands of pilgrims yesterday flocked to both the Catholic and Anglican shrines at Namugongo, near Kampala, to mark the Martyrs day.

Every June 3, Christians of the two denominations in the region and the rest of Africa pay homage to the 45 Martyrs, who were killed by Buganda King Muwanga II in 1884, for converting to Christianity.

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O God, by whose providence the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church: Grant that we who remember before thee the blessed martyrs of Uganda, may, like them, be steadfast in our faith in Jesus Christ, to whom they gave obedience even unto death, and by their sacrifice brought forth a plentiful harvest; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Sixteen church-goers have been arrested and priests have been turned out of their homes in Zimbabwe’s Diocese of Harare ”“ where the Anglican Church is facing persecution at the hands of an ex-communicated bishop.

The Rt Revd Chad Gandiya, Bishop of Harare, said the arrests were illegal and that those detained ”“ including a elderly woman ”“ were traumatised.

The diocese is now trying to arrange bail and has asked for prayers for those in prison and their families.

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Podo is grotesque. In severe cases, the victim’s feet appear to be turning into cauliflower””horrible, rotting cauliflower””or something that grows under a rock in 20 feet of water. These are nightmare feet, seeming to bubble and melt, producing unbearable odors.

An estimated one million Ethiopians suffer from podo, as do perhaps three million more, mostly Africans. In affected areas””typically mountains with red volcanic soil””1 out of every 20 people have it. A village of 2,000 will have 100 victims, permanently disabled. In certain areas of Ethiopia, the podo infection rate surpasses that of HIV/AIDS.

Though prevalent and severe, the disease was not identified until 35 years ago. Doctors had been diagnosing the symptoms as infectious elephantiasis until a Christian doctor named Ewart Price realized that the diagnosis didn’t fit.

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Anglican Archbishop of Jos, Rev. Benjamin Kwashi, has advised Gov. Jonah Jang of Plateau to appoint only God-fearing people as commissioners.

Kwashi gave the advice on Sunday in his sermon at the inauguration of Jang and his deputy, Ignatius Longjan, in Jos. He tasked the governor to ensure that he cared for the less privileged during his second term in office. Kwashi also advised Jang to drop some of the commissioners who served in his first term.

“The list of your commissioners would have been ready by now but I advise you to review it.

“Godly people, who feel the plight of the poor, orphans and widows, should be brought on board in your second term to execute your programmes for the people,” Kwashi said.

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Moammar Gadhafi insists he will not leave his country, South Africa’s president said Tuesday after he met the embattled Libyan ruler.

South Africa President Jacob Zuma’s office said he had pressed Gadhafi to agree to an African Union proposal for a cease-fire and dialogue to settle the Libya conflict and that the Libyan leader agreed.
“Col. Gadhafi called for an end to the bombings to enable a Libyan dialogue,” it said. “He emphasized that he was not prepared to leave his country, despite the difficulties.”

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For a small cadre of CIA veterans, the death of Osama bin Laden was more than just a national moment of relief and closure. It was also a measure of payback, a settling of a score for a pair of deaths, the details of which have remained a secret for 13 years.

Tom Shah and Molly Huckaby Hardy were among the 44 U.S. Embassy employees killed when a truck bomb exploded outside the embassy compound in Kenya in 1998.

Though it has never been publicly acknowledged, the two were working undercover for the CIA. In al-Qaida’s war on the United States, they are believed to be the first CIA casualties.

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In early 2008, Libya’s sovereign-wealth fund controlled by Col. Moammar Gadhafi gave $1.3 billion to Goldman Sachs Group to sink into a currency bet and other complicated trades. The investments lost 98% of their value, internal Goldman documents show.

What happened next may be one of the most peculiar footnotes to the global financial crisis. In an effort to make up for the losses, Goldman offered Libya the chance to become one of its biggest shareholders, according to documents and people familiar with the matter.

Negotiations between Goldman and the Libyan Investment Authority stretched on for months during the summer of 2009. Eventually, the talks fell apart, and nothing more was done about the lost money.

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Religion, like politics, is often a dangerous business in this country.

As President Robert Mugabe, 87, pushes for an election this year, the harassment of independent churches seen as hostile to his government has intensified.

Truncheon-wielding riot police officers stormed a Nazarene church here in the capital last month to break up a gathering called to pray for peace. Days later, the authorities in Lupane arrested a Roman Catholic priest leading a memorial service for civilians massacred in the early years of Mr. Mugabe’s decades in power.

Mr. Mugabe, a Roman Catholic, recently denounced black bishops in established churches as pawns of whites and the West, singling out for special opprobrium Catholic bishops who have “a nauseating habit of unnecessarily attacking his person,” the state-controlled Herald newspaper reported.

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(ENS) As Sudan’s wanted President Omar al-Bashir said that he would not remove his Khartoum troops from the disputed oil-producing Abyei region, church and world leaders are insisting that advocacy for the war-torn south and for a lasting peace must continue.

“It seems only a little while ago that we were ratcheting up our advocacy with our government and other friends of the international community to ensure a safe and timely referendum,” said Richard Parkins, executive director of the American Friends of the Episcopal Church of Sudan (AFRECS), referring to the historic January plebiscite when southerners voted almost unanimously to secede from the Islamic north….

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As NATO’s military campaign against Moammar Gadhafi’s Libyan regime continued last week, the 60-day deadline for U.S. participation expired, based on the 1973 War Powers Resolution. So it’s debatable whether President Obama has the legal authority for continued use of U.S. forces in the Libyan campaign.

The “witching hour” has arrived.

So far, the president hasn’t made a persuasive case for ignoring the deadline. He owes the American people an explanation.

Polls show declining public support for this intervention, despite the president’s repeated upbeat assessments of its progress….

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….for Mr. Jallow and for many others who arrived before them, often after days at sea without food or water, Europe has offered hardships they never imagined. These days Mr. Jallow survives on two meals a day, mostly a leaden paste made from flour and oil, which he stirs with a branch.

“It keeps the hunger away,” he said.

The authorities estimate that there are perhaps 10,000 immigrants living in the woods in the southern Spanish province of Andalusia, a region known for its crops of strawberries, raspberries and blueberries, and there are thousands more migrants in areas that produce olives, oranges and vegetables. Most of them have stories that echo Mr. Jallow’s.
From the road, their encampments look like igloos tucked among the trees. Up close, the squalor is clear. Piles of garbage and flies are everywhere. Old clothes, stiff from dirt and rain, hang from branches.

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If it wasn’t already clear, India’s announcement of $5 billion in development deals in Africa should certainly put to rest any question of whether India is dedicated to doing business on the African continent over the long haul.

The pledge of development aid to African countries ”“ essentially a fund to help African countries to meet their development goals ”“ stands in stark contrast to Africa’s largest single trading partner, China.

While China trades large infrastructure projects (built mostly by Chinese labor) for access to African raw materials, India spends money on training Africans to develop their own countries. And while Indian countries certainly have come into Africa as investors, Indian diplomats are quick to stress that the relationship between India and African countries is more one of equal partners.

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