Cricket: The Ashes Report – 15 July 2013

In the end it was a very close match that England won and Australia lost. The first test of the current Ashes series is over with plenty of controversy and action a plenty. It was a great game, though sadly it will be remembered for the controversy surrounding the DRS as much as for the game itself. But having said that, Australia really did a bad job in the way it used the DRS system, while England handled the DRS masterfully and full credit to them. With just 14 runs between the two sides, the second test has a lot to live up to following this match.

I can’t really make any useful comments on the English team, but as far as Australia is concerned I think it is time for Ed Cowan to be shown the door and for David Warner to return. Failing the return of Warner, who I believe has been sent to Africa with Australia A for some batting practice, perhaps it is time for the return of Usman Khawaja. The Australian batsmen really need to lift their game, because in reality the match was a lot closer than it should have been and they have the lower order to thanks for that – particularly the bowlers.

As for the bowling effort – work needs to be done also. There was far too much waywardness in the fast bowling ranks. Thankfully Nathan Lyon should be banished to the sidelines given the performance of Ashton Agar – a spinner who actually spins the ball and he can bat, which is very handy in the absence of a reliable upper order.

Unprecedented Appearance of Foreign Evangelist in Vietnam

Luis Palau preaches at Protestant centennial in spite of government putting up obstacles to event.

HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam, April 11 (CDN) — The first appearance by a U.S.-based evangelist preaching at a major event since the 1975 communist victory in Vietnam helped the country’s Protestants to celebrate their centennial last weekend after government officials gave last-minute approval.

In what seems to have become standard government procedure in Vietnam, permission requested months in advance was granted – at a venue several kilometers from the one organizers sought – just three hours before the first major celebration of the Centennial of Protestantism in Vietnam (1911-2011) at Thanh Long Stadium in Ho Chi Minh City on Saturday (April 9) was scheduled to begin. Argentine-born Luis Palau, who has preached in person to 28 million people in 72 countries, delivered the gospel
message.

A second night of celebration began at 7 p.m. on Sunday.

The venue change meant equipment staged in one part of the city had to be moved to the new location before it could be assembled, church leaders said. It also meant notifying many thousands of people invited to one venue about the change to the other, they said.

Given the lack of government cooperation, the leader of Vietnam’s Evangelical Fellowship (of house churches) said the fact that the event went ahead at all was “an absolute miracle.”

By word-of-mouth, Internet, Twitter, Facebook, and especially phone texting, thousands of people got word of the change as technicians and hundreds of volunteers made heroic efforts to ready the stadium. Vietnamese police proved surprisingly helpful in redirecting people from the original site to the new location.

At 9 p.m. – two hours after the schedule start – huge banners reading “PRAY FOR VIETNAM” and “GOD LOVES VIETNAM” were unfurled to welcome the Luis Palau Team and thousands of people to the festival, which joyfully combined the centennial celebration with Easter.

After opening prayers and welcome by Vietnamese leaders, Palau’s son Andrew Palau gave testimony to how God delivered him from alcoholism and drug addiction and called him to Christian service. An Intel Corp. vice-president also gave testimony to how God blessed his life and his business. Pastor-musician Don Moen, known for songs such as “Give Thanks,” “God is so Good,” and “God will Make a Way,” provided inspirational music followed by exuberant congregational singing.

Palau began his message at 11 p.m., delivering a concise and clear evangelistic sermon, and about 800 came forward as he invited people to receive Christ. It was after midnight before people began to depart for their homes.

The second celebration proceeded Sunday evening (April 10) in a more orderly and timely fashion. More than 12,000 people filled the seats and most of the chairs set up on the stadium field. In response to Palau’s second message, more than 1,000 people, according to one organizer, came forward in response to the call to follow Christ.

Photos and Vietnamese text on the events are readily available at http://www.hoithanh.com, and clips of the arrival of Palau and Moen in Vietnam may be found on YouTube. They were welcomed at Ho Chi Minh City’s Tan Son Nhut airport by hundreds of enthusiastic young people carrying banners and flowers.

Dr. Nguyen Xuan Duc, president of the Vietnam World Christian Fellowship, said he was very encouraged about the future of the church in Vietnam.

“These are watershed days for Protestantism in Vietnam,” he said. “There is no fear, but rather wonderful spontaneity and irrepressible joy. Events like this happen in spite of the government and without the blessing of some overly conservative church leaders. What we see is young, vibrant, lay-led, internationally connected and very media-savvy.”

While Moen, Palau and others spoke on Sunday night, also appearing in Ho Chi Minh City was iconic singer/songwriter Bob Dylan – whose performance sold only about half of the 8,000 seats at RMIT university.

A week before in Beijing, censors who reviewed Dylan’s song list allowed an unabashedly Christian song beginning, “Jesus said be ready for you know not the hour in which I come,” but did not allow “Blowin’ in the Wind” and “The Times They Are A-Changin’,” according to The Associated Press. Brad Adams of Human Rights Watch complained that, in an earlier day, Dylan – whose music contributed to opposition to the Vietnam War – would never have let a government tell him what to sing, according to the AP.  

Vietnamese organizers and the Palau team now travel north to Hanoi for similar events on Friday and Saturday (April 15-16). As yet there is no indication whether authorities there will be more accommodating than they were in Ho Chi Minh City.

Report from Compass Direct News
http://www.compassdirect.org

Pakistani Officials Back Muslim Land-Grabbers, Christians Say

Senior district authorities accused of supporting desecration of 150 Christian graves.

LAHORE, Pakistan, March 9 (CDN) — Christians in south Punjab Province are accusing senior district officials of supporting local Muslims who allegedly demolished 150 Christian graves and desecrated holy relics – and are now threatening Christians seeking legal redress.

In the Kot Addu area of Muzaffargarh district, Waseem Shakir told Compass by telephone that an influential Muslim group last Nov. 6 took illegal possession of a 1,210-square yard piece of land designated as a Christian cemetery and set up shops on it. Official records state that the portion of land was allotted as a Christian cemetery, he said.

“Local Muslims demolished 150 Christians’ graves and desecrated the cross and biblical inscriptions on the graves in a bid to construct shops on the property,” said Shakir, a resident of Chak (Village) 518, Peer Jaggi Morr, Kot Addu. “Only five marlas [151.25 square yards] are all that is left for the Christians to bury their dead now.”

Shakir said that all Muzaffargarh area authorities, including the local politicians, were supporting the alleged land-grabbers even as Christians feared a mob attack.

“The situation has come to point where even the local police have warned their higher-ups that the tension could provoke a Gojra-type incident,” he said, adding that Muslim instigators were now openly trying to intimidate him and Boota Masih, who registered a case with police, into dropping the matter.

In Gojra on Aug. 1, 2009, Muslim hordes acting on an unsubstantiated rumor of blasphemy of the Quran – and whipped into a frenzy by local imams and banned terrorist groups – killed at least seven Christians, looted more than 100 houses and set fire to 50 of them. At least 19 people were injured in the melee.

Shakir said Christians had approached police and the district administration to register a case against the Muslims for desecrating their sacred relics and hurting religious sentiments, but authorities have shown little attention to their grievance. Masih registered the complaint on behalf of area Christians, but the station house officer of the Daira Deen Panah Police, Waseem Leghari, altered it to state that Muslims had only occupied a piece of the cemetery land, Shakir said.

“Leghari registered a case against the Muslims under Section 297 of the Pakistan Penal Code [trespass of a place for the dead], which is a bailable offense, despite the fact that a case under the blasphemy law should have been registered against the Muslims for desecrating the Christian holy relics,” Shakir said.

Police took no measures to arrest the 11 named suspects, he added.

“No one seems bothered over the desecration of our cross and biblical inscriptions,” Shakir said.

Section 297 of the penal code states, “Whoever, with the intention of wounding the feelings of any person, or of insulting the religion of any person, or with the knowledge that the feelings of any person are likely to be wounded, or that the religion of any person is likely to be insulted thereby, commits any trespass in any place of worship or on any place of sculpture, or any place set apart for the performance of funeral rites or as a depository for the remains of the dead, or offers any indignity to any human corpse or causes disturbance to any persons assembled for the performance of funeral ceremonies, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to one year, or with fine, or with both.”

Shakir said that, besides the 150 demolished graves, the illegal occupants had thrown garbage on another 50 graves. The police’s indifferent attitude towards the Christian community had been hurtful, he said, and Christians had repeatedly taken up the issue with District Police Officer (DPO) Chaudhry Manzoor and District Coordination Officer Tahir Khurshid.

They did not take the issue seriously, Shakir said.

DPO Manzoor rejected the Christians’ accusations.

“It’s not as serious a case as they are portraying,” he told Compass. “The people who have built shops on the land are not illegal occupants but the real owners.”

He said Christians were furious because the shopkeepers put some of their belongings on the graves.

“No one has desecrated any Christian holy symbol, book or grave,” he said. “Any fears that the issue could lead to another Gojra are baseless.”

Manzoor said the matter would be resolved amicably.

Napolean Qayyum, leader of the Minorities Wing of the ruling Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), told Compass that open desecration of the Christian symbols and places and the police’s alleged support of the culprits showed the prejudice of the Punjab government towards minority groups.

“An application regarding this incident is lying in the Punjab chief minister’s secretariat, but it seems the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s [PML-N] government in Punjab wants another Gojra-like incident to take place in Kot Addu,” he said, adding that it was curious that all major violence against Christians usually takes place when the PML-N is in power in the province.

Qayyum said that he had taken up the matter with the PPP leadership.

“It’s a case of blasphemy, and the culprits should have been rounded up under Section 295-A,” he said. “I have contacted Farahnaz Ispahani, the political adviser to President Asif Zardari, and she has assured me of the federal government’s support in this matter.”

He added that stern action against local police and administrative authorities was necessary to set an example for others.

Report from Compass Direct News

Plinky Prompt: My Favorite Celebrity

Bourne Ultimatum

Who is my favorite celeb? Now there’s a question. Now to answer this I’m thinking of my favorite current movies. My favorite movies at the moment are the Jason Bourne movies – they have been for a while. So with that in mind I’ll have to say Matt Damon.

Having commented above, I have to say I know nothing about Matt Damon, so my thoughts relate simply to the movies and his performance in them. I’m also a fan of Mel Gibson in Braveheart and The Patriot, Russel Crowe in Master and Commander, Julia Roberts in Notting Hill, etc – but their lifestyles are not big on my ‘like’ list. It is simply about their performances as actors and actresses, and that is all.

CALVIN ANNIVERSARY PROMPTS QUESTIONING OF PROTESTANT ‘WORK ETHIC’

German Bishop Margot Kässmann has criticised the Protestant work ethic ascribed to the 16th century theologian Jean Calvin, saying it has excesses in the current social and economic climate, reports Ecumenical News International.

“God’s grace does not only apply to those who are strong and productive in society,” Kässmann said in comments at a forum organized in the year that marks the 500th anniversary of the birth of Calvin, known for his role in Geneva, a cradle of the Protestant Reformation.

Kässmann said she believed it important to make her point at a time when performance-related achievement seems to be so central in society, the German Protestant news agency epd reported.

Report from the Christian Telegraph

TAJIK PRESIDENT SAYS HE WON’T AMEND NEW LAW ON RELIGION

Tajikistan’s recently adopted law on freedom of conscience and religious organizations will not be changed because it is “clear and accurate,” Tajik President Emomali Rahmon said in his annual address to parliament on Wednesday, reports Interfax-Religion.

“The Republic of Tajikistan guarantees ideological pluralism and equal rights for all religions and faiths,” Rahmon said.

The new law signed by the Tajik head of state in late March has provoked a mixed response both within the country and abroad. The document permits the authorities’ censorship of religious literature, limits the performance of religious rites officially allowed in certain religious venues, allows the authorities to control the activities of religious organizations, and bans prayers at work, in military units and other institutions.

The Islamic Revival Party, Tajikistan’s second largest party and the only legal Islamic party in the CIS, said this week that it would ask parliament to adopt amendments to the law in question because, according to it, this document discriminates against believers and their rights.

Report from the Christian Telegraph

NRL FINAL SERIES

With the NRL final series now having arrived, it is now time to put my nominally followed team to bed – the Parramatta Eels. What a disappointment the Eels have been yet again! So much talent with so little performance was the result for 2008.

Already this weekend the Brisbane Broncos, Cronulla Sharks and the Manly Sea Eagles have won having defeated the Sydney City Roosters, the Canberra Raiders and the Saint George Dragons. This means that the Saint George Dragons are gone for this season. Remaining in the first weekend of the final series is the Melbourne Storm – New Zealand Warriors match, which has the minor premiers up against the team that pipped the Newcastle Knights for the final spot in the top 8 for 2008.

As has been my tip for the entire season it is difficult to go past the Melbourne Storm not only for the match today, but for the premiership title for 2008. There seems very little hope for the Warriors as they come up against the might of the Storm, a team which is a class above the others in the competition.

As I say, it is difficult to go past the Melbourne Storm for the title.

Visit: http://www.nrl.com.au/

In the video below, the Melbourne Storm’s Billy Slater scores a hat trick of tries against the New Zealand Warriors in March 2008.