Magic Statistics

London Telegraph correspondent Harry de Quetteville reports from Moldova, the tiny former Soviet Socialist Republic sandwiched between Romania and Ukraine.  With an economy dominated by agriculture, the country is the poorest in Europe.  Moldova’s GDP per capita is about one-fifth the world average.

It is a major source of girls who are kidnapped and compelled to work as prostitutes.

The awful stories have been around for years - girls as young as 12 forced to work in brothels across Europe. But things have changed. Now the Gulf is the big destination for sex slaves. I was told by one official here yesterday "The prices are cheap but they paid extra for one girl because she was a guaranteed virgin".

A few years, most of the girls were sent to the Balkans to service UN peacekeepers, but top brass finally put a stop to that.  The trade goes on; only the destinations have changed.

In 2000-2003 81 percent of Moldovan girls were smuggled to the Balkans. Last year, it was 8 percent.

But the trade gap has been quickly filled - now Turkey, Russia and the UAE are the big destinations for Moldovan girls, and the US and international organisations have said Moldovan authorities are getting worse, not better at tackling the problem.

It is estimated that tens of thousands have been forced into the sex trade in Europe and elsewhere.

About a million Moldovans—over 20% of the population—live abroad.  Their remittances to relatives at home account for over 30% of the country’s GDP.

The Newfoundland cat fight that I blogged yesterday is back in the news again today—and funnier than ever.  RCMP were called after a cat owner attacked some SPCA workers who tried to seize her animal.  She claims it wasn’t her fault.

"I was very calm, I was very rational," said Grand Falls-Windsor, N.L., resident Heather LeBlanc, describing how she approached an SPCA worker's car after her kitten was taken.
. . .
LeBlanc's story is totally different from the one told by local SPCA president Jean Mercer, who said LeBlanc raced out of her home in a rage after Jasper was put in the car. Mercer said LeBlanc bit her during an ensuing dispute.

What both women agree on is that LeBlanc somehow ended up in the car, with Mercer's arm in her mouth.

"I bit her in self-defence," LeBlanc said.

We finally find out exactly why the SPCA sought to take the kitten.  Ms LeBlanc acquired the kitten at a local shelter and wrote a rubber cheque as payment.

Previous related post: Newfoundland RCMP intervene in cat fight

A few days ago, Nigeria’s State Security Service reported arresting ten people with links to al-Qaeda and the Taliban.  The Sultan of the northern Nigerian state of Sokoto is sure there must be some mistake.  He told a Washington, DC, audience yesterday that neither al-Qaeda nor the Taliban is present in his country.

Neither the Al-Qaeda group nor the Taliban movement exist in Nigeria and there was no planned terrorist attack in the country, Sultan of Sokoto Alhaji Muhammadu Sa'ad Abubakar said in Washington, D.C yesterday.

Speaking to a multi-racial audience at the Institute of Peace in the American capital, the Sultan said, "There is no Al-Qaeda cell or Taliban in Nigeria." He said if there was any, he would have known about it through the village and district heads as well as other Nigerian emirs.

Of course!  If al-Qaeda or Taliban were present, or a terrorist attack planned, surely someone would have told him.

A member of the Sultan’s entourage backed up his boss.

He said the incident attributed to Al-Qaeda or Taliban in the North was probably the handiwork of some few or misinformed extremists who probably do not properly understand the Arabic translation of the word Taliban and Al-Qaeda.

If you can’t "properly understand" the word in its original language, you can’t belong to the club.

Previous related posts:

• Al-Qaeda agents arrested in northern Nigeria
• Nigerian Christian children kidnapped, forcibly converted to Islam
• Nigerian Taliban

Joe Velaidum, a religious studies professor at the University of Prince Edward Island, says that church congregations are aging and shrinking because individual spirituality is a growing trend among young people. 

"What we're finding, especially with the technological revolution, is that more people do things individually," Velaidum told CBC News this week.

"It's called the bowling alone syndrome. More people will go bowl alone than they will as parts of a club, for example. And religion isn't immune to any of these movements."

The CBC report hastens to add that today’s young people are not necessarily any "less religious" than previous generations, and quotes a couple of UPEI students in support.  Ryan Taylor and Lauren Murphy insist they are spiritual even though they don’t attend church.  They reject traditional Christianity (specifically Roman Catholicism) because it teaches stuff they don’t agree with—like about sin and the uniqueness of Christ.  How intolerant!

Both apparently practice what Robert Bellah famously described in his 1986 book Habits of the Heart.

Sheila Larson is a young nurse who has received a good deal of therapy and describes her faith as "Sheilaism." This suggests the logical possibility of more than 235 million American religions, one for each of us. "I believe in God," Sheila says. "I am not a religious fanatic. [Notice at once that in our culture any strong statement of belief seems to imply fanaticism so you have to offset that.] I can't remember the last time I went to church. My faith has carried me a long way. It's Sheilaism. Just my own little voice."

Making traditional religion relevant to such unreflective individualists is a real challenge.

Previous related posts:

• Neuhaus: Christianity banished from Canadian public life
• Individualistic religion on the rise in Canada