Magic Statistics

The University of Sheffield has created an online project called Worldmapper, a collection of 56 maps of the world with the countries re-sized in proportion to the activities shown on each map.  Some maps focus on economic activities, e.g., imports and exports, tourism, transportation, etc.; others on demographic characteristics: births, deaths, population projections, etc.  The two maps showing net immigration and net emigration are especially interesting and are copied below.

Each country of the world appears in only one of the two maps: Countries that have more immigrants than emigrants are shown only on the net immigration map, while those with more emigrants than immigrants appear only on the net emigration map.  The source of the data is given as “World Bank WDI [World Development Indicators], 2005”; but the precise reference year for each country is not listed.  World Bank data would include only data from official sources, and thus the maps do not reflect illegal immigration.  (Click on the maps for larger versions.)

Above is the net immigration map, which shows that North America, Western Europe, and the Middle East have very large net immigration.  This is the descriptive sidebar text:

Richer territories tend to experience net immigration (greater immigration than emigration). Just under half of the 200 territories mapped currently experience net immigration. Those territories with net emigration (greater emigration than immigration) have size zero on this map.

Regions experiencing the highest net immigration are North America, Western Europe and the Middle East. Together these three regions account for 79.5% of world net immigration. The United States alone receives 37.1% of the world net total.

Besides the United States, other particularly large countries on this map are: France, Germany, Netherlands, Canada, South Korea, Japan, Australia, Singapore, and Libya.  (Some Middle East countries are also prominent, but the map is so distorted that I can’t tell for sure which country is which.)  The table at the bottom of this page lists countries with highest net immigration as a percentage of resident population.  Over half of the top ten are in the Middle East.

Above is the net emigration map, which shows all the countries that do not appear in the first map.  Latin America, Eastern Europe, South and Southeast Asia, and most of Africa figure prominently here.  The sidebar text says:

Over half of the territories in the world are currently experiencing net emigration. More people are leaving them than are coming to them. Territories with net emigration generally are poorer than those with net immigration.

Mexico is the country with the highest net emigration, with a net loss of 8.8 million people in 2000. Mexico is in North America, the region whose territories have the largest net immigration. The United State's high immigration rate is linked to Mexican emigration. Were the United States and Mexico combined to be one territory then this movement of people would not be recorded as immigration nor emigration.

Individual countries with the greatest net emigration appear to be: Mexico, Philippines, India, Cuba, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Colombia, Guatemala, and Egypt.  The table at the bottom of this page ranks countries by number of net emigrants as a percentage of resident population.  Most of the top ten are in the Caribbean and South America.

via The Brussels Journal

The Diocese of the Arctic has begun fundraising to replace St Jude’s Cathedral, Iqaluit, that was destroyed by arson last November.  The committee hopes to raise $3 million in total to re-build, with about half being raised within the next three months so that building materials can be shipped in this summer.

The man in charge of the "Arctic Appeal" campaign says fundraising will begin in about two weeks.

"This is a bigger task than the whole Diocese of the Arctic can do, so we're reaching out all across Canada, to other Anglican churches, to individuals, to corporations and we're reaching out to foundations," Doug Little said.

Little hopes to raise up to $1.5 million by the end of July.

Local members of the Anglican Church are also raising money to replace the contents of the church, such as pews and hymn books.St. Jude's member Methusalah Kunuk says it will cost about $30,000 to replace a piano that was destroyed in the fire.

The new cathedral will be built at the same location as the old one.

The parish webpage says that the new cathedral will be bigger than the old and will “mimic the natural environment of snowdrifts”.  This page has photos of the former cathedral before and after the fire.

Although prosecution for conversion is rare, fifteen Muslim-majority countries have criminal laws against "apostasy" from Islam.  These countries make conversion from Islam a capital crime:

Afghanistan, the Comoros, Iran, Mauritania, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Yemen and, most likely, Iraq.

Jordan, Kuwait, Malaysia, the Maldives, Oman and Qatar impose lesser penalties.

Nina Shea, Director of the Freedom House Center for Religious Freedom, last week spoke about this to the Congressional Human Rights Caucus.  She points the finger at the United States for allowing constitutions to be enacted in Aghanistan and Iraq that do not adequately protect freedom of religion.  Although President Bush has consistently espoused religious liberty as a principle of US foreign policy, the State Department and other parts of the government have not ensured its implementation.

During the political reconstruction of Afghanistan and Iraq, American policy has labored under false multiculturalism, unfamiliarity with sharia law, and a misguided "respect for the democratic process" that could result in the negation of democracy itself; American officials, time and again, have shied away from promoting religious freedom.

Laws against “apostasy” from Islam and laws against blasphemy have been invoked in Afghanistan and Iraq to arrest or harass Christians and others who dissent from Islamic teaching.  Thus, says Ms Shea, the constitutions of Iraq and Afghanistan contain “the same fatal flaw for religious freedom and freedom of speech”.

Realising that the Afghanistan constitution was deficient in protection of individual rights, American advisors pushed for recognition of freedom of religion in Iraq’s constitution.  However, the Iraqi constitution also contains a clause forbidding any law contrary to sharia, which could be used to nullify religious rights.

As Felice Gaer, vice chair of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom puts it, there is an “unresolved tension in certain Muslim countries between the application of Islamic law and protection of human rights”.

Pakistan Daily Times link via Western Resistance.