South Sudanese wept openly as they celebrated their independence Saturday, cheering, whistling and dancing down the streets in a ceremony fitting for the birth of a new nation.
“We are free at last,” some chanted, flags draped around their shoulders.
A man on his knees kissed the ground.
As predominantly Christian and animist South Sudan stands on the threshold of independence, one man who helped bring world attention to the suffering of believers there is no longer here to savour the day.
On Feb. 10, 1993, Pope John Paul made a tense visit to Khartoum and pulled no punches in a highly charged meeting with the country’s president, General Omar Hassan Ahmed al Bashir. In his meeting, the outspoken pope left diplomacy at the door, as was often his custom when he wanted to speak from the heart. He bluntly compared the suffering of Sudan’s Catholics to the crucifixion of Christ and told the Islamic government that only guaranteeing the rights of Christians and other minorities would bring peace….
After five decades of guerrilla struggle and two million lives lost, the flags are flapping proudly here in this capital. The new national anthem is blasting all over town. People are toasting oversize bottles of White Bull beer (the local brew), and children are boogieing in the streets.
“Free at Last,” reads a countdown clock.
But from the moment it declares independence on Saturday, the Republic of South Sudan, the world’s newest country and Africa’s 54th state, will take its place at the bottom of the developing world. A majority of its people live on less than a dollar a day. A 15-year-old girl has a higher chance of dying in childbirth than she does of finishing primary school. More than 10 percent of children do not make it to their fifth birthday. About three-quarters of adults cannot read. Only 1 percent of households have a bank account.
A petition of more than 2,000 signatures was handed into 10 Downing Street last week in opposition to Pakistan’s controversial Blasphemy Laws.
Organised by Wilson Chowdhry and the British Pakistani Christian Association, the petition’s aim is to protect Christians and other religious minorities in Pakistan.
The U.S. Special Envoy for Sudan Princeton Lyman this week expressed confidence that the breaking up of the North and South will take place peacefully but warned of many serious challenges ahead.
“Both sides really feel that a return to general war would be disastrous for both of them,” he said at a news conference.
The Archbishop of Burundi today (Tuesday) gave a passionate appeal to the UK government to restore its bilateral funding to Burundi ”“ one of the poorest and most fragile countries in the world.
The call came when he gave evidence at the International Development Select Committee’s enquiry into the UK government’s decision to end its bilateral aid programme for Burundi and shut the DfID office in Bujumbura.
At least 10 people have been killed in a series of attacks blamed on Islamist militants in the north-eastern Nigerian city of Maiduguri, officials have said.
Military commander Gen Jack Nwaogbo said five people were killed when a bomb exploded on Sunday inside a bar frequented by soldiers and policemen.
Gunmen also shot dead four people late on Saturday and one person on Sunday.
The letter arrived out of the past, addressed to former G.I. William Graver.
In a one-page note, the government of South Korea told Graver he was a hero and the country wanted to recognize his service fighting there in 1953. They were offering a flight back to Korea where he would join other aging soldiers as national guests.
“We hope that you will see what you made possible,” the kind note said. “And hope that your families will feel renewed pride in what you did for us many years ago.”
The reason a currency union needs a political union is simple. The centre has to have some way of stopping parts of the union from borrowing too much in the common currency at the common interest rate. If some borrow too much they are free riders on the backs of the more prudent areas.
If they go on borrowing too much they undermine the credit rating of the whole area, and force up the cost of borrowing for the prudent parts. To achieve discipline, the centre also needs to send subsidies and payments to the poorer parts, to compensate them for their inability to devalue to price themselves back into a competitive position.
Today the single currency system is suffering from the double stresses of too much borrowing by countries such as Greece and Portugal, who have spent too much and raised too little in tax, and from the need of countries like Ireland to bail out their overstretched banking systems….
The Episcopal Church of Sudan (ECS) consecrated Stephen Dokolo as the new Rt. Rev Bishop for the Diocese Lui in Mundri East, Western Equatoria stae, South Sudan, …[this past] Sunday.
The consecration came after his appointment by Archbishop Daniel Deng Bul to succeed the late Bishop Bullen Doli.
The co-consecrators were bishops from all the Episcopal dioceses in Western Equatoria, including Bishop Peter Munde of Yambio and Bishop Samuel Enos Peni of Nzara. Foreign church leaders included Swiss missionaries and the World Gospel Mission from Arua, Uganda.
Anglicans from Melbourne and all over the world are offering prayers and support to Sudan and striving to find ways to help the chaos-torn nation, which is soon to be split into two separate countries.
Bishop Phillip Huggins of Melbourne’s North West Region said the city’s large Sudanese population still bore the scars of earlier civil wars.
“We hold the people of Sudan in our prayers, and as a community we will continue to offer what support we can to them,” Bishop Huggins said.
The Anglican Synod of Enugu Diocese Sunday joined the growing condemnation of the forum of state governors over their call for removal of fuel subsidy, saying doing so would render useless, the new minimum wage.
Accordingly, the Synod advised the government to among other ways reduce cost of governance as a means of paying the new wage, explaining that cost of running the democracy of the country has continued to increase by the day.
“We are facing the nightmare of genocide of our people in a final attempt to erase our culture and society from the face of the earth.”
That’s the warning of African Episcopal Bishop Andudu Adam Elnail in northern Sudan’s Nuba Mountains. His warning is echoed by Operation Broken Silence.
Sudan’s President Omar Hassan al-Bashir told Chinese media the impending split of his country’s south risked triggering “time bombs”, but said his government’s bond with China would not be shaken by Beijing’s courting of the secessionist south.
He made the comments in interviews published on Monday, the day he begins a state visit to China, his powerful patron and a major buy of Sudanese crude oil.
Beijing has been building ties with the emerging state in southern Sudan but continues to be one of the major supporters of Bashir, who faces indictment from the International Criminal Court over war crimes charges stemming from long-running fighting in the Darfur region.
[Rowan] Williams outlined several challenges churches will encounter this century and urged them to use new means of communication and social media to spread the gospel more effectively.
“There is virtually nowhere you can go in the world where you won’t see a mobile telephone. The church needs to learn how use these new means of communications more effectively for the sake of the gospel. If we have social media, they can also be media for communion,” he said.
Speaking about his morning in Kibera, the Archbishop praised the remarkable work being done by the local churches:
“The work being done here is so inspiring because it shows what can be done when people are prepared to identify the problems that they face – not as someone else’s issue, not as doing good to someone else, but actually standing alongside as God in Christ stands alongside – that is the beginning and end of all real Christian mission and service.”
The Archbishop concluded his visit to Kibera by giving a homily at Holy Trinity Church in which he spoke about the meaning of Emmanuel ”“ ‘God with us’, explaining how God is at work in every human being and every part of the universe, restoring hope to those whose situation may seem hopeless, and being ever present in the face of those we live amongst and serve.
The European Union seems to have adopted a new rule: if a plan is not working, stick to it….But their strategy of denial””refusing to accept that Greece cannot pay its debts””has become untenable…
An orderly restructuring [for which the Economist advocates] would be risky. Doing it now would crystallise losses for banks and taxpayers across Europe. Nor would it, by itself, right Greece. The country’s economy is in deep recession and it is running a primary budget deficit (ie, before interest payments). Even if Greece restructures its debt and embraces the reforms demanded by the EU and IMF, it will need outside support for some years. That is bound to bring more fiscal-policy control from Brussels, turning the euro zone into a more politically integrated club. Even if that need not mean a superstate with its own finance ministry, the EU’s leaders have not started to explain the likely ramifications of all this to voters. But at least Greece and the markets would have a plan with a chance of working.
No matter what fictions they concoct this week, the euro zone’s leaders will sooner or later face a choice between three options: massive transfers to Greece that would infuriate other Europeans; a disorderly default that destabilises markets and threatens the European project; or an orderly debt restructuring. This last option would entail a long period of external support for Greece, greater political union and a debate about the institutions Europe would then need. But it is the best way out for Greece and the euro. That option will not be available for much longer. Europe’s leaders must grab it while they can.
Investors are withdrawing cash from money market funds heavily exposed to short-term debt issued by European banks out of fear that a Greek default could spark contagion across the region’s financial sector.
At the same time there is increasing reluctance among US banks to lend to their European counterparts in the past two weeks because of growing worries over Greece, according to brokers and bank traders.
The strategic argument for a fast drawdown is premised on the claim that Al Qaeda is already crippled and therefore we have nothing to fear by pulling 10,000 or more troops out of Afghanistan this summer, another 10,000 early next year and 10,000 more by the end of 2012. If White House leaks are to be believed, some senior administration officials concluded that the counterinsurgency campaign launched only last year is a waste of time; all we need to do is rely on targeted air and commando strikes of the kind that have devastated Al Qaeda’s senior leadership in Pakistan.
What that argument misses is the extent to which our presence in Afghanistan enables us to project power into Pakistan. It was from Afghanistan, after all, that the Navy SEALs took off to kill Osama bin Laden. If we pull back in Afghanistan, the Taliban will gain ground and the willingness of the Afghan government to provide us the bases we need will decline. That, in turn, will make it markedly more difficult to keep the pressure on Al Qaeda and prevent it from regenerating itself as it has in the past.
Moreover, we shouldn’t get overly fixated on Al Qaeda….
Pakistan’s blasphemy laws were introduced in the 1980s. Though they were supposed to be used to protect the religious sensitivities of the country’s Muslim majority, in practice they are often used to persecute religious minorities.
In 2009 almost 100 people were charged with blasphemy, including 67 Ahmadi Muslims and 17 Christians.
Many of those accused or suspected of blasphemy have been assaulted or tortured. Some people detained in prisons on blasphemy charges have been killed by fellow inmates or prison wardens. Others suspected of blasphemy, but not under arrest, have been unlawfully killed without the police taking any action to protect them.
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.
ESPN’s Between the Lines at its best–watch it all.
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.
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.
…McIlroy definitely put an exclamation point on the topic when he strode to the No. 10 tee at Congressional Country Club in Bethesda, Md. He had a nine-shot lead, disaster long left in his wake, but this marked the same spot in the tournament where McIlroy came unglued in the Masters last April. That 10th hole featured a drive McIlroy hooked so far left it landed in somebody’s yard. This No. 10 is a devilish par-3 that has swallowed unsuspecting players.
McIlroy stepped up and dropped his tee shot so gently uphill from the hole that it rolled teasingly toward the cup. It came to rest only inches from a hole in one, McIlroy grinning at it all the way…
A protest march against Pakistan’s draconian Blasphemy Laws is planned for London on 2 July. Supported by the former Bishop of Rochester, the Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, the march will begin in Knightsbridge and head towards Downing Street. In Pakistan, anyone who insults Islam could be subject to a death sentence under current laws.
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.
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.