A mass exodus of North Korean workers from the Far East of Russia is under way, according to reports coming out of the region. As the two Koreas edged towards the brink of war this week, it appears that the workers in Russia have been called back to aid potential military operations.

Vladnews agency, based in Vladivostok, reported that North Korean workers had left the town of Nakhodka en masse shortly after the escalation of tension on the Korean peninsula earlier this week. “Traders have left the kiosks and markets, workers have abandoned building sites, and North Korean secret service employees working in the region have joined them and left,” the agency reported.

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…[Augsburger Allgemeine’s] editor, Markus Günther, predicts that, after the furore accompanying its publication dies down, Light of the World will shape the public image of the pope as much as Seewald’s two earlier interviews did.

“Going into the conclave in 2005, people knew what Ratzinger thought on so many issues because of those two books,” said Günther. “There are many people who say that, without these books, Ratzinger would not have become pope.”

Regardless of one’s views on the pope, Light of the World is of general interest, even if it is only of the prurient Hello! magazine variety.

The pope, we learn, never carries a wallet and has never used the exercise bike given to him by his doctor. He says he was “shocked” at being elected pope and prayed silently for the strength to get through his first appearance on the Vatican balcony, let alone the years to come.

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From yesterday:

I plan to set off tomorrow morning, with my cotta, red stole, and biretta, to sit in choir at Bishop Andrew’s last publicly Pontifical Mass. I suspect it may be a votive – to anticipate his name-day – of S Andrew; upon whose feast ten years ago he was consecrated a Bishop in the Church of God. But my own Mass early tomorrow morning, if I live that long, will not have been of S Andrew … yet it will have been immensely Patrimonial. Let me explain. Are you sitting comfortably?

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“The contumacious actions of the Diocese of New Westminster and ECUSA have and continue to have profoundly divisive consequences within the Anglican Church of Canada, ECUSA, and the Anglican Communion as a whole. Within the Anglican Church of Canada and ECUSA, the “scandal” caused by the actions of these bodies has caused

”“some to leave for other churches,
”“some to call for more adequate Episcopal oversight,
”“some to form ecclesiastical bodies independent of the Anglican Church of
Canada and ECUSA (but in communion with one or another province of the
Anglican Communion),
”“some to withhold money for the support of their parish, diocese, and national
church.

Within the larger communion, a number of provinces have declared broken or impaired communion with both ECUSA and the Diocese of New Westminster. Some have even spoken of a break with the See of Canterbury if no action is taken to check the excessive claims to autonomy that lie behind the actions recently taken in Canada and the United States.

Finally, some of the most important ecumenical partners of Anglicans have issued strong statements about the divisive implications of the actions taken by the Diocese of New Westminster and ECUSA.

In short, the actions taken in Canada and the U.S. have set off shock waves both locally and internationally. They have produced as well a degree of bitterness and contentiousness throughout the communion that brings shame upon the ame of Christ and weakens the credibility of the witness of Anglican Christians. To ignore by silence and/or inaction such rending of Christ’s body is to stand idle as fellowship both within and between the provinces of the Anglican Communion disintegrates.”

”“Communion and Discipline, the Anglican Communion Institute submission to the Lambeth Commission, page 38, as posted on the old blog in June 2004

North Korea accused South Korea on Saturday of using civilians as human shields around military bases on an island that the North hit with an artillery attack this week. The accusation is an apparent effort to quell South Korean outrage over the barrage, which killed two civilian construction workers.

The North’s state-run Korean Central News Agency also issued new warnings about joint United States-South Korea naval exercises in the Yellow Sea off North Korea, which will include an American aircraft carrier.

“If the U.S. brings its carrier to the West Sea of Korea at last, no one can predict the ensuing consequences,” the report said, using the Korean name for the Yellow Sea.

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The FBI thwarted an attempted terrorist bombing in Portland’s Pioneer Courthouse Square before the city’s annual tree-lighting Friday night, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Oregon.

A Corvallis man, thinking he was going to ignite a bomb, drove a van to the corner of the square at Southwest Yamhill Street and Sixth Avenue and attempted to detonate it.

However, the supposed explosive was a dummy that FBI operatives supplied to him, according to an affidavit in support of a criminal complaint signed Friday night by U.S. Magistrate Judge John V. Acosta.

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In the fall of 1621, the Pilgrims reaped a bountiful harvest. To thank God for their deliverance and the help they had received from the Indians, [William] Bradford held a three-day Thanksgiving feast inviting the Indians to join them in their celebration.

Squanto remained friendly with the Pilgrims until he succumbed to an unknown fever and died in 1622. Amazingly, he bequeathed his possessions to the Pilgrims, as Bradford would document, “as remembrances of his love.”

Considering the trials of his own life, it would have been understandable for Squanto to sow bitterness and seek war against the Pilgrims. Instead, his generosity and forgiveness enabled their survival.

Exemplifying St. Paul’s challenge to “not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good,” Squanto’s cooperation would not be forgotten by the Pilgrims. Nor should it today.

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‘We should cure cancer,” James Watson declares in a huff, and “we should have the courage to say that we can really do it.” He adds a warning: “If we say we can’t do it, we will create an atmosphere where we just let the FDA keep testing going so pitifully.”

The man who discovered the double helix and gave birth to the field of modern genetics is now 82 years old….[his] determination began””at least formally””in Hyde Park at the age of 15. “The University of Chicago always used to be ranked in the U.S. News and World Report as the third most unpleasant college to go to in the United States,” he chuckles. “It was a place that was knocking you down and expecting you to get up by yourself. Nobody was picking you up.”

He says he’s the better for it because it taught him how to be a leader, something he thinks there are too few of nowadays. “The United States is suffering from a massive lack of leadership. There are some very exceptional, good leaders. I’m not saying they don’t exist, but to be a good leader you generally have to ruffle feathers,” which Dr. Watson believes most people aren’t willing to do.

The whole thing is just wonderful–take the time to read it–KSH (And yes, you guessed it perhaps, the emphasis is mine).

Twelve suspected militants have been arrested in connection with a deadly church siege in Baghdad last month, Iraq’s interior minister says.

Jawad Bolani said the arrests were made in raids over recent days and described them as a blow to al-Qaeda.

More than 50 people were killed when militants took over the Our Lady of Salvation church on 31 October.

The gunmen seized the Catholic church during Sunday Mass, demanding the release of al-Qaeda prisoners.

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This is just wonderful.

We give thee hearty thanks, O heavenly Father, for the rest of the past night, and for the gift of a new day, with its opportunities of pleasing thee. Grant that we may so pass its hours in the perfect freedom of thy service, that at eventide we may again give thanks unto thee; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

–From the Daybreak Office of the Eastern Church

Do nothing from selfishness or conceit, but in humility count others better than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.

–Philippians 2:3-7

Election to the General Synod by his fellow deans in 1995 took him into a prominent role as an uncompromising upholder of the Church’s liberal tradition. He spoke frequently in the debates, but his abrasive style sometimes alienated rather than attracted support. This was not a problem for the media, which made much use of him.

From 2006 Slee was a member of the Crown Nominations Committee, where he fought ”“ without much success ”“ to inhibit Evangelical influence over the appointment of diocesan bishops. When the Evangelical Bishop Nazir-Ali of Rochester refused to attend the 2008 Lambeth Conference, Slee accused him of trying to form a rival Church and questioned whether he should remain an Anglican bishop.

A proposal that a formal Anglican Covenant should be entered into by the many provinces of the Anglican Communion in order to safeguard the Church’s essential unity at a time of sharp disagreements about such matters as biblical interpretation, women clergy and homosexuality, also earned his strong disapproval. He believed that this would restrict freedom, and said that centralised Church government was something the English Reformation had abolished.

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Like six others before it in the last eight years, a grand Brockton church built by immigrants and shoe industrialists in the city’s heyday will close Sunday, its expenses too high and its buildings too difficult to maintain for its shrinking congregation.

The closing of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church follows those of several other once-prominent area churches, including the 156-year-old Elmwood New Church in East Bridgewater, which faces demolition because of its decrepit condition.

In Brockton, the recent closings began in 2002 with Our Lady of Ostrobrama; most recently, St. Casimir Church, a 110-year-old Lithuanian parish, shut down in 2008.

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The Bishop of Bath and Wells, the Rt. Rev. Peter Price, insisted that the Covenant process was underway well before the election of Gene Robinson in New Hampshire. He referred to an Anglican Consultative Council document, Belonging Together (1992), which had a direct influence on The Virginia Report, much of which formed the basis of Covenant drafts.

Traditional Catholics, in the persons of the Bishop of Blackburn and the Rev. Simon Killwick (leader of the Catholic Group), signalled support for the Covenant as a means to provide greater coherence and integrity in Anglicanism.

A succession of speakers aired doubts. Would the Covenant undermine the autonomy of the Church of England or its prophetic spirit? Some thought that Covenant language like “relational consequences” spells a legalistic threat. Foremost among the doubters was the soon-to-retire Bishop of Lincoln, John Saxbee, who thought a Covenant is unnecessary since “Anglicanism is a covenant.”

Canon Elizabeth Paver, a member of the Anglican Communion’s Standing Committee, introduced a note of realism: in practice the Covenant will advise, never dictate; and it is vital that the Church of England “give some leadership” on the matter.

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