Refugees: who should come in?
24 Feb 2017
In the wake of the closure of the Dubs scheme (see article 1 in the Europe section) allowing unaccompanied minors from Calais into the UK, the Government has come under fire. Lord Dubs (himself a refugee from Nazism), who introduced the scheme, is outraged at its closure. The Archbishop of Canterbury was ‘shocked’ over the decision and asked the Government to reconsider. Home Secretary Amber Rudd said the French authorities did not want the scheme to continue because it encourages people-traffickers. Deut.10:18,19 says, ‘He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing. You are to love those who are foreigners, for you yourselves were foreigners in Egypt’. Also Job 31:32 says, ‘No stranger had to spend the night in the street, for my door was always open to the traveller.’
Black-majority churches growing fast
24 Feb 2017
Andrew Rogers, a lecturer in practical theology at the University of Roehampton, speaking on Pentecostalism, said that the number of black majority churches in Southwark is so high that, at 240, they are nearly twice as numerous as all the other churches in the borough put together. Black churches are growing as fast as ever while white churches continue to decline. There is a greater concentration of African Christianity in south London than anywhere in the world outside Africa. Most black churches are 'Pentecostal', featuring long services with exuberant and often loud worship. Many of the pastors are first-generation migrants to Britain. Although it is acknowledged that black-majority churches have enjoyed rapid growth, it is difficult to determine precisely why. While Southwark may currently be the most intense case, there is significant growth of black churches in Leeds, Manchester and Birmingham. Sadly few BMCs are managing to reach out beyond the black community.
Nuclear bunker raid finds £1m cannabis farm
24 Feb 2017
Wiltshire police have said a large-scale cannabis factory has been found in an underground former nuclear bunker with an estimated street value of £1m. The plants were seized in a midnight raid on Regional Government Headquarters Chilmark. Six men were arrested on suspicion of cannabis production in twenty rooms in the building, with almost every room converted for the wholesale production of cannabis plants.
France: child refugees and traffickers
24 Feb 2017
The UK Government’s decision to refuse lone child refugees (see last week’s Prayer Alert) has been a boost to traffickers, who are ‘helping’ desperate teenagers rejected by official schemes. Labour MP Yvette Cooper, chair of the home affairs select committee, said that MPs felt misled by the premature closure of the scheme after only six months. It takes councils time to set up systems, and we are back to square one, with teenagers and children at risk of traffickers in Dunkirk. Desperation is what the traffickers want. Traffickers tell children, ‘Every route has been closed, but I can help you’. Volunteers have no hope to offer them, to make them go back to the official centres. Almost 100 under-18s believe they are eligible for transfer to the UK. Hundreds are sleeping rough (about 200 are teenagers), with no shelter and donated sleeping bags. See also the article in the British Isles section.
Spain: IS threat to tourist hotspots
24 Feb 2017
IS fanatics have issued ‘direct threats’ to Spanish tourist hotspots where millions of Britons are expected to visit this year, according to a government report. The warnings were reportedly found on social media, amid fears that the terror group is also recruiting translators and foreign jihadists from the country. Its bid to find Spanish speaking fanatics started last summer, the report claims, adding that extremists are increasingly publishing in the language. It comes just weeks after police in San Sebastian, in the country’s north, arrested a Moroccan boxing coach suspected of recruiting for IS.
Syria: peace talks under way
24 Feb 2017
UN-sponsored peace talks between the Syrian government and opposition began in Geneva on Thursday. The two sides will not meet face-to-face to begin with. Staffan de Mistura, the UN's special Syria envoy, said on Wednesday he was ‘not expecting a breakthrough’, though we can pray for one. The opposition insists that the fate of President Bashar al-Assad must be on the agenda, but the government refuses to discuss this. For the sake of the 300,000+ people killed since the war began, the 4.8m who have fled the country and 6.3m displaced inside Syria, ask God in His mercy to be in the midst of these negotiations and for His will to be done on earth as it is in Heaven.
It has been six years since the world had a famine, but now UNICEF report that nearly 1.4 million children are at ‘imminent risk’ of death from famines in Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen. The World Food Programme says over 20 million lives are at risk in the next six months. Time is running out. Famine was formally declared on Monday in parts of South Sudan, mired in civil war since 2013. The conflict has split the country along ethnic lines, leading the UN to warn of potential genocide. South Sudan has also been hit by the same east African drought as Somalia, where six years ago 260,000 people starved to death. A World Food Programme report said, ‘By 2050, climate change and erratic weather patterns will have pushed another 24 million children into hunger. Almost half of these children will live in sub-Saharan Africa.
USA: how are Americans dying?
24 Feb 2017
Donald Trump wants to impose a temporary ban on access to the USA from seven Muslim nations. 9/11 Islamists were mostly Saudi Arabian (not on his list). Some statistics indicate that guns, not Islamism, are the biggest killer of Americans. Annual figures for unnatural deaths in America are: Islamic jihadists - 2; far-right Caucasian terrorists - 5; US-born Islamic jihadists - 9; toddlers playing with a gun - 21; lightning strikes - 31; lawnmower accidents - 69; hit by a bus - 26; shot by a fellow American - 11,737. Many believe that the efforts of conservative Republicans to ‘protect Americans’ are at best misplaced and at worst deceived. The gun lobby is seemingly unquestioned and manages to avoid the spotlight even when there is a mass shooting. Many say the gun lobby, like the fossil fuel lobby, has been pulling strings of successive US governments. Pray for the Trump administration to look again at the issue of guns.