Magic Statistics

The collect for today, Monday in Whitsun-Week, from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer:

God, who as at this time didst teach the hearts of thy faithful people, by the sending to them the light of thy Holy Spirit; Grant us by the same Spirit to have a right judgement in all things, and evermore to rejoice in his holy comfort; through the merits of Christ Jesus our Saviour, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the same Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen.

For the Epistle: Acts 10:34-48
The Gospel: St John 3:16-21

The collect for today, Whit-Sunday, Day of Pentecost, from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer:

God, who as at this time didst teach the hearts of thy faithful people, by the sending to them the light of thy Holy Spirit; Grant us by the same Spirit to have a right judgement in all things, and evermore to rejoice in his holy comfort; through the merits of Christ Jesus our Saviour, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the same Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen.

For the Epistle: Acts 2:1-11
The Gospel: St John 14:15-31

Artwork: El Greco, Pentecost, c 1605-10, Oil on canvas, Prado, Madrid.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has called for independent inquiries into “credible allegations” of trafficking of organs taken from hundreds of Serbs who went missing during and after the Kosovo war.

Additional information has emerged that bolsters allegations of abductions and cross-border transfers from Kosovo to Albania after the 1998-1999 Kosovo war, Human Rights Watch said today. The Kosovar and Albanian governments should open independent and transparent investigations to help resolve the fate of approximately 400 Serbs who went missing after the war.

"Serious and credible allegations have emerged about horrible abuses in Kosovo and Albania after the war," said Fred Abrahams, senior emergencies researcher at Human Rights Watch, who investigated human rights violations in Kosovo and Albania for the organization from 1993-2000. "The Prishtina and Tirana governments can show their commitment to justice and the rule of law by conducting proper investigations."

The allegations are contained in The Hunt: Me and War Criminals, a new book by Carla Del Ponte, former chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).  HRW reports that it now possesses independent corroboration of many of the accusations.

Human Rights Watch viewed the information the ICTY obtained from the journalists and considers it well researched and credible: seven ethnic Albanians who served in the Kosovo Liberation Army, interviewed separately, gave details about participating in or witnessing the transfer of abducted Serbs and others prisoners from Kosovo into Albania after the war.  
 
According to the journalists’ information, the abducted individuals were held in warehouses and other buildings, including facilities in Kukes and Tropoje. In comparison to other captives, some of the sources said, some of the younger, healthier detainees were fed, examined by doctors, and never beaten. These abducted individuals – an unknown number – were allegedly transferred to a yellow house in or around the Albanian town of Burrel, where doctors extracted the captives’ internal organs. These organs were then transported out of Albania via the airport near the capital Tirana. Most of the alleged victims were Serbs who went missing after the arrival of UN and NATO forces in Kosovo. But other captives were women from Kosovo, Albania, Russia, and other Slavic countries.

HRW wrote letters over a month ago to the prime ministers of Albania and Kosovo requesting investigations.  Neither has responded as yet, but officials of both governments have rejected the charges.

More on the story can be found at Harry de Quetteville’s blog at the (London) Telegraph.

Previous related posts:

• German study foresees bleak future for independent Kosovo
• UN and NATO have been dishonest and cowardly in Kosovo
• Independence for Kosovo will jeopardise Christians

The collect for today, The Feast Day of Saint Philip and Saint James, Apostles, from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer:

O Almighty God, whom truly to know is everlasting life; Grant us perfectly to know thy Son Jesus Christ to be the way, the truth, and the life; that, following the steps of thy holy Apostles, Saint Philip and Saint James, we may stedfastly walk in the way that leadeth to eternal life; through the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: St James 1:1-12
The Gospel: St John 14:1-14

Paintings: Albrecht Dürer, The Apostle James and The Apostle Philip, 1516. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence.

More on St Philip and St James here.

This morning's processional hymn on the Sunday After Ascension-Day at Christ Church Cathedral, Whitehorse. (Hymn #247 in the Anglican Church of Canada's hymn book, Common Praise.)

Hail the day that sees him rise, Alleluia!
to his throne above the skies; Alleluia!
Christ, the Lamb for sinners given, Alleluia!
enters now the highest heaven! Alleluia!

There for him high triumph waits; Alleluia!
lift your heads, eternal gates! Alleluia!
he hath conquered death and sin; Alleluia!
take the King of glory in! Alleluia!

Lo! the heaven its Lord receives, Alleluia!
yet he loves the earth he leaves; Alleluia!
though returning to his throne, Alleluia!
still he calls mankind his own. Alleluia!

See! he lifts his hands above; Alleluia!
See! he shows the prints of love: Alleluia!
Hark! his gracious lips bestow, Alleluia!
blessings on his Church below. Alleluia!

Still for us he intercedes, Alleluia!
his prevailing death he pleads, Alleluia!
near himself prepares our place, Alleluia!
he the first fruits of our race. Alleluia!

Lord, though parted from our sight, Alleluia!
far above the starry height, Alleluia!
grant our hearts may thither rise, Alleluia!
seeking thee above the skies. Alleluia!

There we shall with thee remain, Alleluia!
partners of thy eternal reign, Alleluia!
there thy face forever see, Alleluia!
find our heaven of heavens in thee, Alleluia!

Words: Charles Wesley (1707-1788), 1739
Music: Ascension (William Henry Monk, 1823-1889)

The Cyberhymnal has a version with several more verses and an alternate tune.

Previous related post: The Ascension-Day

The collect for today, Sunday After Ascension-Day, from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer:

O God, the King of glory, who hast exalted thine only Son Jesus Christ with great triumph unto thy kingdom in heaven; We beseech thee, leave us not comfortless; but send to us thine Holy Ghost to comfort us, and exalt us unto the same place whither our Saviour Christ is gone before, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen.

The Epistle: 1 St Peter 4:7-11
The Gospel: St John 15:26-16:4

Over a month after the presidential election, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) finally released official results: Incumbent thug president Robert Mugabe received 43.2 percent of the vote, while Morgan Tsvangirai won 47.9 percent.  Both men have now announced they will contest a run-off election.

Mr Tsvangirai and his supporters in the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) have long maintained that he won the election outright with over 50 percent of the vote, but the ZEC appears to have short-circuited that claim by selectively leaking the results.

[T]he presidential election candidates or their agents yesterday met Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) officials to tackle the crisis triggered by the withholding of results — more than a month later — due to a demand by President Robert Mugabe for a recount of the votes.

Yesterday’s emergency meeting took place against a backdrop of a fresh problem sparked off by ZEC’s leakage of official results to defeated Zanu PF leaders who in turn passed them on to the international media in a bid to sustain their pursuit for a run-off.

ZEC and Zanu PF were anxious to ward off mounting pressure for results to come out and build a case for a run-off, especially against a background of MDC’s claims that Tsvangirai had won the election outright.

MDC claims that the ruling Zanu-PF party and state security forces have already unleashed a campaign of violence and intimidation in hopes of bolstering Mugabe’s chances in the run-off.

The run-off election must be held within 21 days of the official announcement of first-round results.

Previous related posts:

• It’s official: Zimbabwe’s ruling party has lost Parliament
• Zimbabwe opposition claims victory

Trenchant insights from one of the great social philosophers of the late 20th century:

The unexpectedly rigorous business of bringing up children exposed me, as it necessarily exposes almost any parent, to our "child-centered" society's icy indifference to everything that makes it possible for children to flourish and to grow up to be responsible adults.  To see the modern world from the point of view of a parent is to see it in the worst possible light.  This perspective unmistakably reveals the unwholesomeness, not to put it more strongly, of our way of life: our obsession with sex, violence, and the pornography of "making it"; our addictive dependence on drugs, "entertainment” and the evening news; our impatience with anything that limits our sovereign freedom of choice, especially with the constraints of marital and familial ties; our preference for "nonbinding commitments"; our third-rate educational system; our third-rate morality; our refusal to draw a distinction between right and wrong, lest we "impose" our morality on others and thus invite others to "impose" their morality on us; our reluctance to judge or be judged; our indifference to the needs of future generations, as evidenced by our willingness to saddle them with a huge national debt, an overgrown arsenal of destruction, and a deteriorating environment; our inhospitable attitude to the newcomers born into our midst; our unstated assumption, which underlies so much of the propaganda for unlimited abortion, that only those children born for success ought to be allowed to be born at all.

Source: Christopher Lasch, The True and Only Heaven: Progress and Its Critics (New York and London: Norton, 1991), pp. 33-34.

My Peculiar Aristocratic Title is: Very Lord Scott the Careless of Waterless St Mildred Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title

h/t: Rev (aka Bishop Lord James the Surprised of Hope End) at 2 Worlds Collide

The Supreme Court of Nigeria has upheld death sentences for six Muslims who slaughtered Abdullahi Umaru for allegedly insulting Mohammed.  The execution-style murder took place in 1999 in Kebbi, one of twelve Muslim-majority states in northern Nigeria that have implemented sharia law.

The case has prompted renewed calls by the twelve states to incorporate a national law against blasphemy in constitutional revisions now under discussion.

With sharia (Islamic law) in force in Kebbi and 11 other states in northern Nigeria – though supposed to be applied only to Muslims – the high court judgment has further prompted Muslim calls for legislation against “blasphemy.” The National Assembly has begun amending the 1999 constitution.

Muslim leaders in northern Nigeria’s Kano state have called for a national law on “blasphemy,” leaving Christian leaders with the fear that Islamic law could be used to arbitrarily put Christians to death. The secular court convictions for the murder of Umaru are in part behind the agitation for “blasphemy” legislation, they say.

Bauchi state Gov. Mallam Isa Yuguda has called for sharia to be enshrined in the Nigerian constitution. Besides Bauchi and Kano, other northern states enforcing sharia are Gombe, Niger, Yobe, Borno, Kaduna, Katsina, Jigawa, Kebbi, Sokoto, and Zamfara.

Christian leaders oppose an anti-blasphemy law, fearing that it would be used to legitimate unjust attacks on Christians.  Anyway, says Samuel Salifu of the Christian Association of Nigeria, Islam needs to clean up its own act.

“Why should Muslims complain about blasphemy when their holy book, the Quran, blasphemes Jesus Christ?” he said. “The Quran says Jesus is not the son of God, and is this not blasphemy? Muslims must learn to be tolerant and allow peace to reign in this country.”

Also, Christians are not prone to butchering Muslims for blasphemy.

Previous related posts:

• Sharia alert, Nigeria: Convicts sentenced to death by stoning
• Muslims riot in northern Nigeria over alleged blasphemy
• Nigerian Christians murdered after call for jihad

Zimbabwe Dollar Devalued — Financial Gazette (Harare), 1 May

In response to a blog post last month about planned construction of a mosque in Inuvik, Northwest Territories, I received this intriguing comment:

James Snapp, Jr. says:

Hmm. I wonder how they plan to measure the appropriate times for the Islamic daily prayers so close to the Arctic Circle. And what about Ramadan?? The usual rule is, I think, that nothing is to touch one’s mouth from dawn to dusk. So what happens when that’s, like, 23 hours? Just wondering.

Inuvik is north of the Arctic Circle, so, for part of the winter, the sun never rises; conversely, for some time during the summer, the sun never sets.  (Inuvik is at 68.37° N latitude, while the Arctic Circle is 66.56° N.)

According to a blog run by two Inuvik residents, this year’s annual Sunrise Festival was celebrated on the evening of 6 January 2008, marking the end of a month without sunshine.

For 30 days, between December 6th and January 6th, the sun does not rise above the horizon. Darkness settles in, with periodic instances of twilight, where things fade from deep black to a quiet gray.

How do Inuvik Muslims know when to observe their five set daily prayers?  How can they have the Dawn Prayer or the Sunset Prayer when neither dawn nor sunset occurs between 6 December and 6 January every year?

This completely baffled me, so I searched the internet for information indicating how Muslims living in extreme latitudes know when they’re supposed to pray.  I found the mind-boggling answer online in an article entitled “Seeking Mecca in Inuvik”, written by Allen Abel and published in the January-February 2001 issue of Canadian Geographic.

We're not halfway in from the airport when Mr. Emam invites me to join him and his friends for sundown prayers, even though I am not an adherent of Islam.

"How can you have sundown prayers if the sun doesn't go down?" I wonder.

"We looked to the Holy Koran for guidance on this matter," Ebaid Emam says. "We are going by Edmonton time."

Unfortunately, if Mr Abel asked which Sura in the Quran mentions Edmonton, he doesn’t tell us.

Previous related post: Mosque planned for Inuvik