The Archbishop of Jos Province and Bishop of Maiduguri Anglican Diocese Rt. Rev. Emmanuel Kanamani has called on Nigerians to be united and promote peaceful co-existence even as he commended the Borno State Government and the security operatives in the state for their cooperation and maintenance of security in the state.

The Archbishop in a 10 point communiqué issued by the Diocesan Synod at the end of the third session of the 7th Synod held at the Holy Trinity Cathedral Maiduguri, stated that as stakeholders in the progress and development of Borno state they called on the relevant bodies to work hard in achieving lasting peace in the state and the country at large.

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A seemingly intoxicated moose has been discovered entangled in an apple tree by a stunned Swede.

Per Johansson, 45, says he heard a roar from his vacationing neighbour’s garden in southwestern Sweden late Tuesday and went to have a look. There, he found a female moose kicking about in the tree. The animal was likely drunk from eating fermented apples.

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[Alasdair MacIntyre’s]…minatory warning was: “The barbarians are not waiting beyond the frontiers; they have already been governing us for quite some time.” That was a scary thing to hear from one of the world’s great philosophers. I soon began to hear it from other leading intellectuals also, such as Philip Rieff, Christopher Lasch and Robert Bellah. That is what I heard in the echoes of 9/11: that all great civilisations eventually decline, and when they begin to do so they are vulnerable. That is what Osama bin Laden believed about the West and so did some of the West’s own greatest minds.

If so, then 9/11 belongs to a wider series of phenomena affecting the West: the disintegration of the family, the demise of authority, the build-up of personal debt, the collapse of financial institutions, the downgrading of the American economy, the continuing failure of some European economies, the loss of a sense of honour, loyalty and integrity that has brought once esteemed groups into disrepute, the waning throughout the West of a sense of national identity; even last month’s riots.

These are all signs of the arteriosclerosis of a culture, a civilisation grown old. Whenever Me takes precedence over We, and pleasure today over viability tomorrow, a society is in trouble. If so, then the enemy is not radical Islam, it is us and our by now unsustainable self-indulgence.

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As fires are raging across the state, parishes in Diocese of Texas are working to help tame the blazes and care for the homeless. At last report, over 1,000 homes have been destroyed and thousands of families have been evacuated as drought stricken forests and high winds fuel the flames.

One of the worst fires is burning just outside the town of Bastrop, east of Austin. Calvary Episcopal in Bastrop first acted a shelter for some families, but was then evacuated as the fires approached downtown.

“[Recently]…when I spoke to the Rev. Lisa Hines (rector of Calvary), 12 parishioners had lost their homes,” said the Bishop of Texas, the Rt. Rev. Andy Doyle.

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Belgian security firm GlobalSign has temporarily stopped issuing authentication certificates for secure websites.

It comes after an anonymous hacker claimed to have gained access to the company’s servers.

If confirmed, it would be the second security breach at a European certificate authority in two months.

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The Archbishop’s visit, even though the Church insists it is purely pastoral, could carry more weight than an official visit by a senior politician because the Church is so strong in southern and central Africa. More than 85 per cent of Zimbabweans are Christian.

Given that many no longer recognise Mugabe as their leader, the Anglicans, at least, certainly regard Dr Williams as being in possession of comparable if not greater authority, secular as well as moral and spiritual….

Dr Williams is walking into a den as bad as Daniel’s, where he has no guarantee of achieving anything. But speaking to Anglicans in Zimbabwe yesterday, their hope for what the visit might bring was palpable. For that alone, for bringing the gift of hope to those traumatised Christians, the visit is a risk worth taking.

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Here is part of one answer from musician Matt Redmon:

During the first few days we spent in the United States [after returning from being overseas in England on 9/11], it seemed that, in all the shock and vulnerability, many people were heading to church for comfort and clarity. I was so impressed by the preachers: every place we visited, we heard messages of hope and reminders of God’s sovereignty.

But it left me wondering: What could we sing to God at a time like this? It was as if our worship songs were missing some important vocabulary””the language of tragedy and struggle, of the valley at the bottom of the mountain””which I found surprising, as the Psalms are full of lament.

Soon after the tragedy, my wife and I wrote “Blessed Be Your Name.” It’s a simple worship offering about choosing to worship and trust God no matter what the season.

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As Afghan army forces constructed a patrol base in a volatile stretch of Helmand province this spring, insurgents turned to one of their most effective weapons against the troops: They told area residents that their new, uniformed neighbors were godless “fake Muslims.”

The battle over Islam has become a crucial front in the war between the Taliban and the country’s growing security forces, prompting the Afghan army to create a strategy for proving that its soldiers are true Muslims.

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Levels of violence against women in parts of the Pacific are “horrific” and must be addressed if development is to have any chance in the Pacific region, said an Australian aid agency head today. Speaking from the Solomon Islands, CEO of Anglicord Misha Coleman said that over 60% of women in Solomon Islands report some kind of violence by an intimate partner.

“Over half of the women in the Solomon Islands have been forced into sex against their will,” she said.

Ms Coleman, responding to a campaign released yesterday by Amnesty International, “Change the Lights on Women’s Rights”, said that women in many parts of the Pacific were especially vulnerable to gender based violence because few of the countries had effective laws specifically to tackle it, and those countries which do have legislation to prevent domestic violence don’t necessarily enforce them.

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The central Nigerian city of Jos was the site of violent Christian-Muslim clashes as Ramadan drew to a close last week.

Fighting Aug. 29 left some 20 dead and some 50 wounded; the next day, another 10 were killed. And dozens of cars, homes and businesses were destroyed and set on fire.

Although the particulars of the incidents are unknown, according to the local media, including the daily The Vanguard, pandemonium broke out after a dispute between groups of young Christians and Muslims. “There was a disagreement between a group of Muslims who were heading toward a particular area, and another group of young Christians who went to pray in the same area. A discussion over who owned the area broke out,” Archbishop Ignatius Ayau Kaigama of Jos told the Fides agency. He added, however, that he did not have all the details.

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Carol Willison has made lots of financial sacrifices for her two children over the years, including paying most of her older daughter’s medical school tuition. But Willison’s generosity has reached its limits.

Not only doesn’t the 60-year-old Seattle woman plan to leave her daughters an inheritance when she dies, she’s trying to spend every last dime on herself before she goes.

“My goal is when they carry me away in that box that my bank account is going to say zero,” Willison said. “I’m going to spoil myself now.”

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The Paris-based organization expects the economies of euro-zone powerhouse Germany and fiscally troubled Italy to contract. Germany’s gross domestic product is set to fall 1.4% in the fourth quarter on an annualized basis, leading the weighted average GDP of the three biggest euro-zone economies to fall 0.4%, according to the OECD’s interim economic forecasts.

The forecasts suggest Italy’s GDP will fall 0.1% in the third quarter on an annualized basis before barely returning to growth at 0.1% in the fourth quarter.

“Growth is turning out to be much slower than we thought three months ago, and given the high uncertainty, the risk of a period of negative growth … has gone up,” OECD chief economist Pier Carlo Padoan said.

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O Lord, who hast called us to be thy witnesses to all the nations: Have mercy upon us, who have known thy will but have failed to do it. Cleanse us from sloth and unbelief, and fill us with zeal and love, that we may do thy work with hope and courage, and set forth thy glory; who with the Father and the Holy Spirit art one God, world without end.

Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. Do all things without grumbling or questioning, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain.

–Philippians 2:12-16

A crane has collapsed at the National Cathedral, falling in two different buildings on the grounds and crushing several vehicles.

The 500-foot crane, erected after a 5.8 earthquake damaged the cathedral, partially fell on Herb Cottage, which houses the cathedral gift shop.

The gift shop was temporarily closed following last month’s temblor.

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The ruling is “a clear rejection of eurobonds”, said Otto Fricke, finance spokesman for the Free Democrats (FDP) in the governing coalition.

Above all, the court ruled that the Bundestag’s fiscal sovereignty is the foundation of German democracy and that Article 38 of the Basic Law prohibits transfer of these prerogatives to “supra-national bodies”.

By stating that there can be no further bail-outs for the eurozone without the prior approval of the Bundestag’s budget committee, the court has thrown a spanner in the works and rendered the EFSF almost unworkable.

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As Father Matthew Kozlowski sits in his office at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, he reflects on his calling to the priesthood.

“I grew up in the Episcopal Church,” he said. “I was active in church and chapel in college but I never really thought about the priesthood until I was working as a chaplain at an Episcopal school.”

Kozlowski, 28, saw that goal become a reality this summer when he was ordained in the priesthood and hired in June as assistant rector at St. Mary’s .

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Recent studies are showing how tumors sidestep targeted cancer drugs by activating other growth-promoting molecules. The findings may help doctors develop new drug combinations that squelch the resistance, said Pasi Janne, senior author of the study and a medical oncologist at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School in Boston.

“Until now we didn’t know what caused acquired resistance to Erbitux,” Janne said in a telephone interview. “Our hope is that this will very rapidly translate into clinical trials” of new drug combinations. The study, done in collaboration with researchers at Kinki University School of Medicine in Osaka, Japan and other universities, is published today in Science Translational Medicine.

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You can find the audio here (about 4 minutes). Listen to it all.

Americans consider religious freedom a cornerstone of society, but fall short in their tolerance of Muslims, according to a poll released Tuesday (Sept. 6) that probes Americans’ attitudes toward immigrants and the nation’s safety 10 years after 9/11.
The “What It Means to Be American” poll found that a small majority (53 percent) say the country is safer now than before the 9/11 attacks. Attitudes toward Muslims, however, are far less straightforward.

More than 8 in 10 Americans say that self-proclaimed Christians who commit violence in the name of Christianity are not really Christians. By contrast, less than half (48 percent) say that self-proclaimed Muslims who commit acts of violence in the name of Islam are not really Muslims.

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Inside the narrow valley, Taliban insurgents were dug into the high ground and hidden inside a village, pouring down deadly fire at Afghan forces and their American advisers. Armed militants swarmed the low ground to try to finish off the troops.

[Marine Cpl. Dakota] Meyer’s team was pinned down near the village. He wasn’t going to wait and see whether they would get out. Defying orders to stay put, Meyer set himself in the turret of a Humvee and rode straight into the firefight, taking fire from all directions. He went in not once, but five times, trying to rescue his comrades.

During about six hours of chaotic fighting, he killed eight Taliban militants and provided cover for Afghan and U.S. servicemen to escape the ambush, according to a Marine Corps account of the events.

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While many Americans worry that the Social Security Administration won’t have enough money left to pay their benefits when they retire, the agency is doling out millions of dollars to people who aren’t even alive.

The Social Security inspector general estimates that the agency has made $40.3 million in erroneous payments to deceased beneficiaries — even though the administration had already recorded their deaths in its records. The estimate is based on a sample tested during its most recent audit in January 2008, the watchdog agency said.

One man told CNNMoney that he notified Social Security four years ago that his mother had passed away, but he still can’t get the agency to stop sending her checks every month.

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The sanctuary of Grace Episcopal Church, a historic downtown parish, is off limits for at least a few weeks because of damage caused by the Aug. 23 Virginia earthquake and its aftershocks.

An electronic sensor in the west clerestory wall “showed significant movement” over a seven-hour period on Friday. Technically, five different wythes of brick inside the wall were “delaminating,” or separating from one another, according to Craig Bennett of 4SE Structural Engineers, the firm overseeing the church’s ongoing “Saving Grace” building reinforcement program.

Additional electronic sensors recorded slight movement on two occasions since, church officials said.

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Standing in the nave of the Cathedral, Alonso, the head stonemason, watches as crews begin attaching the nets to the 100-foot vaulted ceiling. He jingles the chips in his hand ”” the same hands that 20 years ago helped put the final touches on the gothic-style cathedral.

“It’s heartbreaking to me, because I know what went into building this building. When I look at a piece of stone, I can tell you what that stone went through, from [when] it was designed by the architect, sculpted, carved [and] laid in place by the stonemason,” Alonso says. “This is a handmade building.”

Construction on the Episcopal cathedral began in 1907, after Congress granted a charter, and it took 83 years to finish.

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Switzerland is once again at the top of the World Economic Forum’s annual Global Competitiveness Report, followed by Singapore, which has overtaken Sweden, then Finland with the US now in fifth place, slipping two slots since last year.

The report was published Wednesday morning 7 September by the Geneva-based organization that organizes an annual meeting of world business and political leaders in Davos, Switzerland every January. The full report is available online.

Japan remains the top Asian country, at number 9 and China has advanced one place to number 26. Slovenia and Montenegro had steep falls of more than 10 places, while Sri Lanka rose by an impressive 13.

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The decision seemed to place fewer restrictions than some had expected on Chancellor Angela Merkel’s ability to react to the European debt crisis, while the high public standing of the court should lend broader legitimacy to government efforts to shore up the European currency. But, some analysts said, the ruling could hamper Mrs. Merkel’s power to take quick measures.

The court’s president, Andreas Vosskuhle, said the ruling did not represent a “blank check for additional rescue packages.”

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Six years after clubbing the night away in Leeds as a student, a young Anglican pastor is returning to her former haunts ”“ as “pioneering minister” to the night-time economy.

Beth Tash, 27, is taking on hundreds of after-dark venues in the Yorkshire city as a new form of parish, as part of a scheme already serving the local business community and residents of city centre flats.

The archdeacon of Leeds, the Ven Peter Burrows, said: “If you go into Leeds on any Friday or Saturday night and see the huge number of young people coming into the city, it is obvious that the church isn’t engaging with the club culture. Because of that, this is a very significant and exciting appointment.”

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The Auckland Diocesan Synod has decided that people in same-sex relationships should not be excluded from ordination.

After a debate lasting much of yesterday, Synod also agreed that sexual orientation should not be an impediment to ordination or any other offices in the church.

The mover was Rev Glynn Cardy, and the seconder Margaret Bedggood.

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To dissuade the owners of electric cars from recharging their vehicles at peak times, and encourage them to do so in the wee, small hours of the morning instead, some electricity companies are introducing off-peak pricing for electric cars. Off-peak pricing is a common way of persuading people to run appliances such as washing machines at times of low demand. It is, though, a rigid arrangement that cannot respond to fluctuations in the requirement for power. Far better, reckon Alex Rogers and his colleagues at Southampton University, in England, for car owners to be represented in their interactions with the local power supplier by agents that can negotiate a deal on their behalf. These agents would bargain with one another, and with the power company, to charge the cars in an area in the most efficient way. The twist is that the agents Dr Rogers proposes to recruit for the task are not people, but computer programs.

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[Archdeacon Michael] Thompson succeeds Archdeacon Michael Pollesel as chief operating officer for General Synod on Nov. 1. The Council of General Synod (CoGS) ratified Thompson’s appointment by an e-mail vote on Sept. 2.

“Michael brings a lot of gifts to the ministry,” said Archbishop Fred Hiltz when he announced the appointment to Church House staff in Toronto on Sept. 6. The primate of the Anglican Church of Canada then went on to describe Thompson as a gifted communicator and noted his contribution as the principal author of Vision 2019, the church’s strategic plan. In tandem with the primate, the General Secretary “represents the heart and the voice of the church,” Archbishop Hiltz told the Anglican Journal.

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