AUSMAT teams start work in aged care homes today. But what does this ‘SAS of the medical world’ actually do?

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Jamie Ranse, Griffith University

The emergency response to Victoria’s COVID-19 crisis has been ramped up today with AUSMAT teams now working alongside defence force and hospital nurses in aged care homes.

This comes as the total number of active COVID-19 cases linked to aged care in Victoria is now at 913.

Federal health minister Greg Hunt recently said AUSMAT, or Australian medical assistance teams, are:

[…] the best of the best. They are the SAS of the medical world.

But what is an AUSMAT? What can they do? And what do we need to think about when deploying them?

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Read more:
View from The Hill: Aged care crisis reflects poor preparation and a broken system

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What is a medical assistance team?

A medical assistance team is a group of doctors, nurses and/or paramedics who provide clinical care and health support during a health crisis, as part of a recognised organisation.

Logistics, environmental health and other personnel often support these clinical teams.

Medical assistance teams contribute to a coordinated health response in an attempt to restore and/or maintain the health capacity of a community affected by disaster or public health emergency.

In Australia, a medical assistance team may be a civilian government team (such as AUSMAT), non-government organisations (such as Disaster Relief Australia or St John Ambulance Australia), the Australian Defence Force, or a combination of these.

While an AUSMAT is usually deployed internationally, teams were deployed in Australia during last summer’s bushfires, to help with evacuations from China to Christmas Island at the start of the pandemic, and in April to support COVID-19 efforts in northwest Tasmania.

Who’s in an AUSMAT?

Health-care professionals in an AUSMAT usually work at hospitals, health services or ambulance services in states and territories across Australia.

When required, they are released from their local duties to be deployed as part of an AUSMAT response.

They are often highly experienced and leaders in their disciplines. Members undertake additional education and training to work in disaster environments and to manage the health response.

They are also highly regarded. AUSMAT was one of the first medical assistance teams worldwide to be endorsed by the World Health Organisation.

How have they been deployed internationally?

AUSMATs were set up after the 2002 Bali bombings, then used after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.

Since then, AUSMATs have been used during crises, mainly in South Asia, Southeast Asia and Oceania, including the 2010 Pakistan floods, 2011 Christchurch earthquake and Typhoon Haiyan which hit the Philippines in 2014.

AUSMAT also assisted during last year’s Samoan measles outbreak.

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Read more:
Measles in Samoa: how a small island nation found itself in the grips of an outbreak disaster

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What are the issues when deploying them during COVID-19?

The role of an AUSMAT team will change over the duration of their deployment. Based on previous experience, AUSMAT members may provide direct patient care, coordination of care, or leadership roles.

There is the risk that temporarily sending health workers to work in Victoria as part of an AUSMAT will leave their existing hospitals and health services short-staffed.

At this stage, this is not thought to be a great concern as areas outside Victoria are not yet so significantly impacted by COVID-19, making it easier that their home states will manage without them.

However, if the situation worsens in other states, it may become harder to convince these states to release staff to support interstate efforts.

We also need to look after the physical and psychological well-being of AUSMAT health-care professionals.

We prepare them to assist with emergency health efforts but we don’t always prepare them to return to their normal roles afterwards. Some find it difficult to adjust.

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Read more:
4 steps to avert a full-blown coronavirus disaster in Victoria’s aged care homes

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What are the benefits to other states?

As well as directly helping the health response where they are sent, there are other benefits to an AUSMAT deployment.

When health workers from other states, such as South Australia and Queensland, work alongside AUSMAT and defence force teams, they can take that experience back to their home states to better prepare for a local COVID-19 outbreak.

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Read more:
Coronavirus pandemic shows it’s time for an Australian Centre for Disease Control – in Darwin

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Jamie Ranse, Senior Research Fellow; Emergency Care, Griffith University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

NRL Final Series: Then There Were Four

The NRL Final Series in Australian Rugby League is now down to only four teams in the race for the 2010 premiership. The four teams remaining are St George Illawarra Dragons, The Gold Coast Titans, West Tigers and the Sydney City Roosters.

This weekend has seen the West Tigers defeat the Canberra Raiders and the Sydney City Roosters defeat the Penrith Panthers.

Next weekend will see the Sydney City Roosters against the Gold Coast Titans and the West Tigers against Saint George Illawarra Dragons. The winners of these two matches go through to the Grand Final decider.

NRL Finals Series: Manly and New Zealand Gone – 6 Teams Remain

The first weekend of the NRL final series has seen both the Manly Sea Eagles and the New Zealand Warriors eliminated from the competition. Remaining in the competition are St. George Dragons, Gold Coast Titans, Sydney Roosters, Canberra Raiders, Penrith Panthers and the West Tigers.

In week 2 of the final series St. George and the Gold Coast Titans get the weekend off.

Next weeks elimination matches will be between the Sydney Roosters and Penrith Panthers, and the Canberra Raiders and the West Tigers.

 

Karen Christians pressed between Thailand and Myanmar

The Thai government and local military leaders want to force Karen Christians back into Myanmar, and they’re willing to use military force to clear refugee camps within the next two weeks, reports MNN.

The camps are full because the Burmese army is wiping out the Karen. Wes Flint with Vision Beyond Borders says, "I’m shocked that the free world is just allowing this to continue."

The ruling junta has been battling Christian-majority Karen rebels for decades. Similar army crackdowns forced thousands of villagers to flee their homes, and they found their way across the border to Thailand’s refugee camps.

Many of the more-recently displaced were forced to hide in the Burma jungle.

Human rights groups protested the Thai plan to repatriate the refugees in Burma over concern that once back in Myanmar, the refugees will be subject to "severe human rights violations, including forced labour and rape by soldiers of the Burma Army," according to a leader at Christian Solidarity Worldwide.

No one expects the situation to improve, but VBB teams are trying to intervene. "We try to create a safe environment for them, to bring them in, to provide food for them, and medical care."

VBB’s Patrick Klein wrote this from Myanmar: "Due to rice fields and crops being destroyed and attacks on villagers by the Burmese army, we have a group of 100 children who are in urgent need of food. They are on the brink of starvation. Currently they are in hiding with their parents inside Burma. Our caretaker in our Shekinah children’s home in one of the official refugee camps asked if we can help those children with food and get them out of Burma."

It’s dangerous work, but there are friends of the ministry who are trying to get those 100 children to the VBB camp in the mountains.

Klein says, "If we are able to get them out, we will build housing for them. The parents are ready to die and give whatever food they find to their children for now. Please pray with us that God will make a way for these children and help our attempts to get them safely into one of the camps where we have a Children’s Home."

The VBB team delivered 45 bags of rice and medicines to partners who will take all the supplies to the Internally Displaced People inside Burma–those hiding from the Burmese Army.

It’s hard to imagine what is going unnoticed in front of so many international eyes. Flint explains, "There’s what they would call an ‘ethnic cleansing’ going on, but it seems that most of their targets are Christians."

Does their identity as a Christian mark them as Karen–or possibly something more? Flint says, "This persecution has really refined them. They have been great ambassadors to reach out to the Buddhist community–even to those that are persecuting them."

Report from the Christian Telegraph 

Spike in Anti-Christian Violence Feared before Burma Elections

Attacks on Christians seen as politically expedient in majority-Buddhist nation.

CHIANG MAI, Thailand, January 21 (CDN) — As Burma’s military junta gears up for its first parliamentary election in two decades this year, observers fear attacks on the Christian minority could intensify.

Mungpi Suangtak, assistant editor of a New Delhi-based news agency run by exiled Burmese journalists, the Mizzima News, said the Burmese junta has “one of the world’s worst human rights records” and will “definitely” attack religious and ethnic minorities more forcefully in the run-up to the election.

The military regime, officially known as the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), pledged to hold the election this year, and analysts believe polls will be held after July in the country, also known as Myanmar.

Suangtak told Compass that the Buddhist nationalist junta would target Christians particularly in Karen state, bordering Thailand, and in Chin State, bordering India and Bangladesh.

Many Christians are part of the Karen National Union and the Chin National Front, armed resistance groups that have been demanding freedom or autonomy for their respective states for decades, and therefore the junta sees the Christian minority as a threat, said Suangtak.

There are over 100,000 Christian Chin refugees in India who have fled the junta’s attacks in the past two decades, according to Human Rights Watch.

Christians in Karen state are not safe. A Karen Christian worker living in the Mae La refugee camp on the Thailand-Burma border told Compass that ethnic Christians were facing human rights abuses by the junta “on a daily basis.” Most recently, Burma army soldiers attacked a church, murdered a local farmer and injured others in Nawng Mi village on Dec. 19, 2009, reported Burma Campaign UK.

Parts of Karen state fall under the “Black Zone” – identified by the Burma army as an area under the control of armed resistance groups where its soldiers are free to open fire on anyone on sight – and the junta has been launching indiscriminate attacks to take control of village after village, said the Karen Christian.

“Those who are not able to flee across the border during such attacks are either killed or forcibly relocated in and confined to temporary camps set up by the junta,” the Christian said. “Since the army litters surrounding areas with landmines, many local people die or get injured while trying to run away from or coming to the camps to look for their relatives.”

Over 150,000 refugees from Karen and neighboring Karenni states of Burma are living along the Thai side of the border, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. More than half of them are Christian.

A representative of the Free Burma Rangers (FBR), which trains and sends teams of local people to help victims of the junta’s attacks inside Burma, said youths have been forced to become Buddhists in Chin state, where over 80 percent of the people are Christian.

Printing of Bibles is restricted, and churches are destroyed on a regular basis in the state, the source told Compass on condition of anonymity.

Access for foreign visitors to Chin state is, with some exceptions, prohibited, and the state is widely acknowledged to be the poorest part of the country, said Rogers.

“According to one Chin, the reason Chin state is denied resources, and foreigners are denied access, is specifically because the overwhelming majority of Chins are Christian,” stated a 2009 report by London-based advocacy group Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW). “The SPDC has, it is believed, taken a deliberate decision to discriminate against Chin Christians.”

The report cited a Chin Christian man who had served in the Burma army who faced discrimination.

“I had a colleague who was a Chin who became a Buddhist and he was promoted,” the Christian says in the report. “I was told to change my religion if I wanted to get promotion. I refused to convert.”

The report also quoted a Chin Christian as saying that students from a Christian youth fellowship at a university in Kalaymyo, in Chin state’s Sagaing Division, collected funds among their own community to construct a small church.

“However, in 2008 and again in 2009, ‘extremist Buddhists’ destroyed the church building, and when the students reported the incident to the local authorities, the youth fellowship leaders were arrested, detained and then released with a warning,” he said.

Religious Pretext

Suangtak said successive governments in Burma have promoted Buddhism since General Ne Win took power in 1962, leaving Christians insecure.

“There is a general feeling in Burma that the state represents Buddhism, and most Christians, particularly from conservative sections, cannot trust the regime,” said Suangtak.

Benedict Rogers of CSW said the junta doesn’t differentiate between individual Christians involved in armed struggle and ordinary Christians who have not taken up arms.

“And when it attacks villages in conflict zones, churches and pastors are often among the first to be attacked,” Rogers said.

A Christian worker from Burma’s Mandalay city, however, told Compass that thus far he has heard no reports of any major anti-Christian incidents there. He said he was hoping the junta would try to woo people with peace rather than violence.

“But nothing can be said about the unpredictable junta,” he said, adding that it was difficult to receive or send information in Burma. “Even in cities, the information infrastructure is limited and expensive, phones are tapped and e-mails are monitored. And the press is owned by the state.”

Rogers, deputy chairman of the human rights commission for the U.K.’s Conservative Party, said the Buddhist nationalist regime “distorts and perverts Buddhism for political purposes and is intolerant of non-Burman and non-Buddhist ethnic and religious minorities, including Christians and Muslims.”

Of the 56 million people in Burma, around 89 percent are Buddhist, with only 4 percent Christian.

Given that the junta merely uses religion for political power, it doesn’t target Christians alone, Suangtak said.

“The junta has no respect for any religion, be it Christians or Buddhists, and anyone who opposes its rule is dealt with harshly.”

Burma was ruled by military regimes from 1962 to 1990; at that point the National League for Democracy party, led by Nobel Laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, won the parliamentary election. But the regime seized power again by imprisoning members of parliament after the election.

Rogers, who has co-authored a soon-to-be-published biography of SPDC chairman Senior General Than Shwe, said that while the armed groups are not perfect, they are essentially fighting to defend their people against a “brutal regime” and are “not in any way terrorists.”

“The armed groups have sometimes launched pre-emptive attacks on the military, but they have never attacked non-military targets and have never engaged in indiscriminate acts of violence,” he said. “Even the pre-emptive acts are conducted for defensive, rather than offensive, purposes.”

Rogers added that resistance groups were fighting to defend their people.

“Individual Christians who have joined the armed ethnic groups do so out of a perfectly biblical concept of just war, the right to defend your people from gross injustice.”

Added an FBR source, “In Burma, no one protects except the pro-democracy resistance groups, and all relief inside the country is only possible because of them.”

International Disrepute

The 2009 annual report of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom states that Burma’s military junta had “one of the world’s worst human rights records.”

“Burma’s Christian populations face forced promotion of Buddhism and other hardships in ethnic minority areas where low-intensity conflict has been waged for decades,” the report states. “In addition, a new law passed in early 2009 essentially bans independent ‘house church’ religious venues, many of which operate because permission to build church buildings is regularly denied.”

The report also pointed out that in January 2009, authorities in Rangoon ordered at least 100 churches to stop holding services and forced them to sign pledges to that effect. Burma, which the ruling junta describes as “The Golden Land” on its official website, has been designated as a Country of Particular Concern by the U.S. Department of State since 1999.

Even after the 2010 election, little is expected to change.

The FBR source said the election was not likely to be free and fair, pointing out that the new constitution the junta adopted after an apparently rigged referendum in 2008 virtually enshrined military power.

“However, having an election is better than not having one at all,” the source said.

Report from Compass Direct News 

TURKEY: MURDER DEFENDANT AGAIN ADMITS PERJURY

Prosecutors suspect he’s protecting ‘masterminds’ of slaying of three Christians in Malatya.

ISTANBUL, August 25 (Compass Direct News) – Turkish murder suspect Emre Gunaydin admitted in court last week that he had again committed perjury in the trial over the savage murders of three Christians in southeast Turkey.

Gunaydin, 21, faced off in Malatya’s Third Criminal Court on Friday (Aug. 21) with Varol Bulent Aral, whom he had named as one of the instigators of the attack at Zirve Publishing Co.’s Malatya office in a previous disposition before state prosecutors. Gunaydin, the alleged ringleader of the murderers, told the court that he had lied in a previous disposition before state prosecutors by implicating Aral.

“I named Varol Bulent Aral to reduce the sentence,” Gunaydin said under questioning.

His admission came after Aral testified at length, painting an elaborate scenario of himself as a key player in the “Ergenekon” conspiracy – said to include top level political and security officials, among others – suspected of orchestrating the 2007 Malatya attack with Gunaydin and four other defendants.

“Varol Bulent Aral has no connection with these events,” Gunaydin insisted. “He is explaining things that he has imagined. There was not any threat against me, nor any instigator.”

Gunaydin initially failed to appear at Friday’s hearing where Aral was expected to testify, sending a note to the court that he was feeling unwell. But the judge abruptly announced a short court recess and ordered Gunaydin brought immediately from prison to the courtroom.

At a hearing three months ago, Gunaydin retracted similar allegations he had made against Huseyin Yelki, a former volunteer at the Christian publishing house where Turkish Christians Necati Aydin and Ugur Yuksel and German Christian Tilmann Geske were bound hand and foot, tortured and then slain with knives.

Jailed for three months on the basis of Gunaydin’s allegations, Yelki was finally brought to testify at the May 22 hearing.

“Huseyin Yelki is not guilty. He’s in prison for nothing,” Gunaydin told the court after Yelki testified. When questioned why he previously had implicated Yelki, Gunaydin said, “I did it to lessen my punishment. That’s why I said he was a missionary.”

Despite glaring discrepancies in his testimony, Yelki was released for lack of evidence. Aral was also ordered released for insufficient evidence, although he remains jailed in the Adiyaman Prison on unrelated criminal charges.

Plaintiff lawyers have expressed skepticism about Gunaydin’s two retractions, questioning whether he has been pressured to change his testimony in order to shield the actual instigators of the plot. They also remain unconvinced that Aral and Yelki were not collaborators in the attack.

Prosecution Failures

“An investigation does not just consist of claims, it must consist of proofs,” plaintiff lawyer Ali Koc told journalists on the courthouse steps after last week’s hearing. “One of the underlying missing elements of the Zirve Publishing trial in Malatya stems from the failure to pursue the investigation with sufficient objectivity, depth and careful attention.”

The only reason Aral and Yelki were charged in the case, the attorney noted, was because one of the defendants claimed they were accomplices. Koc stressed it was “the duty of the state and the judiciary to uncover those responsible for this event – the instigators, and the climate in which they emerged.”

He also declared that Aral should be investigated for his relations with intelligence officials, which he hoped would expose new evidence.

“If the Malatya case is not joined with the Ergenekon trial, then we’re probably looking at a verdict against the killers within the next three to five court hearings,” plaintiff lawyer Erdal Dogan said. “But I have hope – I hope for merging it with the Ergenekon case, in order to uncover the perpetrators behind the scenes.”

After two failed summons, Burcu Polat also appeared to testify at the Aug. 21 hearing. Now 18, Polat was Gunaydin’s girlfriend at the time of the murders. She stated that she had used two different cell phones in the weeks previous to the murders. Both telephones were registered in the name of her father, Ruhi Polat, a provincial council member of the Nationalist Movement Party previously called to testify at the trial.

The court summoned intelligence officer Murat Gokturk from the Malatya gendarmerie headquarters to appear at the next hearing, set for Oct. 16. Yelki had contacted Gokturk frequently by telephone in the weeks preceding the murders.

Detailed Informant Letter

Two months ago, an informant in the military intelligence division of the Malatya gendarmerie headquarters sent an extremely detailed report to state prosecutors regarding what Turkish media have dubbed the “Malatya massacre.”

The two-page letter fingered former Col. Mehmet Ulger, gendarmerie commander of Malatya province at the time of the murders, as a key instigator within the murder plot.

With precise, documented details, the report outlined Ulger’s targeting of the Malatya Christians and their activities during the weeks surrounding the attack, including a secret briefing for selected officials, unregistered meetings and the tapping of gendarmerie personnel named for specific assignments at various stages.

At the actual day and hour of the killings, the report said, Ulger received a telephone call from his commander while he was in a furniture shop in the city center. Ulger immediately promised to go to the scene, taking two sergeant majors and an official car, and arriving just as the police teams pulled up.

“The event had just happened, and the police teams had not yet gone to the scene, and Mehmet Ulger’s superiors informed him about it,” the report noted.

The letter goes on to describe frequent visits Inonu University professor Ruhi Abat made to Ulger’s office, where the colonel had specifically ordered his subordinates to never record Abat’s visits in the official record book.

Although Ulger and Abat testified on April 13 that they had sponsored a seminar regarding missionary activities for gendarmerie personnel, the informant declared it could be easily proved that such a seminar had never been held.

The informant claimed that 40,000 Turkish lira (US$30,800 at the time) was paid out during 2007 by Malatya’s gendarmerie intelligence staff “solely to direct close surveillance on missionary activities.” Instead of using the funds to help “break apart illegal organizations or recover a lot of drugs,” he said, a large portion of the money was handed over to Abat, he said.

The informant’s letter was sent simultaneously to Malatya Prosecutor Seref Gurkan and State Prosecutor Zekeriya Oz, who heads the Ergenekon investigation in Istanbul.

The anonymous informant claimed he had much more information that he could not pass along safely without revealing his own identity.

“Because I regret that I was involved myself in some of this, I am sending this letter to both prosecutors,” he wrote. “I hope that I am being helpful in solving this dark event.” He enclosed a CD of Ulger’s 2007 briefing as well as a list of the people whose telephones were being tapped.

It is not known how seriously the latest informant’s letter is being taken by the Malatya prosecutors.

“But we are seeing the continuation of a long chain of information coming out,” plaintiff lawyer Orhan Kemal Cengiz commented. “We have at least achieved something in the eyes of the Turkish public, because everyone is now convinced that it was not just these five young men who planned this; there were much larger and more serious forces behind the scenes.”

Report from Compass Direct News 

GFA women missionaries harassed by mob of boys in India

Three Gospel for Asia-supported women missionaries were cornered and harassed by a mob of nearly 30 boys. Chameli, Harshita and Vinaya were giving out tracts and sharing the love of Jesus in one of India’s coastal cities when the incident took place, reports Gospel for Asia to ASSIST News Service.

They had been able to reach out in the community for a while that day without incident. Then, as they were walking down one street, two young boys approached, demanding to know if the women were there to convert people.

They came toward them in full force, took away their tracts and began hitting Harshita and Vinaya in the head with them. Chameli, the other woman, tried to calm the boys, but the boys were so enraged that they began to verbally harass the women, even calling them prostitutes.

They grabbed all the tracts the women had been carrying, tore them into pieces and threw the fragments into the air.

Chameli, Harshita and Vinaya tried to escape into another street but saw two more boys standing in front of them. When they looked around, they saw more boys standing at every possible way of escape. Soon, the mob grew to close to 30 boys surrounding them and verbally abusing them.

This went on for half an hour, and the boys did not allow the women to leave. The women called a GFA-supported district pastor, Rushil, on a mobile phone, and he came out to help them. When he arrived, the boys began to slander him as well.

But somehow Rushil was able to help the women escape to safety.

“Though this incident traumatized the sisters, they are continuing the ministry with hope that those who opposed the Gospel will come to the Lord very soon,” writes GFA’s correspondent in the area.

Women’s teams like this one can be especially effective in reaching other women with the news of Christ’s love. It can be harder for men to reach them because of cultural restrictions. These teams have touched the lives of many women, showing them their worth in Christ’s sight.

GFA leaders ask for prayer for women like Chameli, Harshita and Vinaya as they daily share the Good News of Christ, that they will have the Lord’s heart, that their opposers will be drawn to Him through their witness and for their protection as they courageously reach out in challenging areas.

Report from the Christian Telegraph

HUMANITARIAN GROUPS WARN OF REFUGEE CRISIS LOOMING IN PAKISTAN

As Pakistan continues its press on the Taliban, thousands are fleeing the Swat Valley. A brief lull in the violence over the weekend saw many people loading their families and possessions into anything that moved in order to leave the area, reports MNN.

A “peace” pact with the Taliban broke down 11 days ago when security forces began an assault to push the militants back into their territory. The rebels, well-established in their stronghold, had begun to encroach upon Islamabad in a blatant grab for land and power.

The result when the two forces met was volatile. The government is now preparing for up to 500,000 internal refugees, the largest displacement crisis in Pakistan’s history.

Even when the refugees arrive at refugee camps, it’s not a guarantee of safety or comfort. Jacob Kramer is with the Christian Reformed World Relief Committee. He says,”These camps are now full. New places will have to be made in order to help them and have an opportunity to distribute the most essential things to maintain life.”

It’s hot, overcrowded, and there are inadequate sanitation facilities as well as a lack of electricity. Add to that: diseases and a lack of medical help, and the situation deteriorates quickly. Kramer says their teams are mobilizing. “We’ve been in contact with our partners, and they are trying to get a more detailed picture so that we can start with food and non-food responses to help the people.”

CRWRC reaches out in God’s name to people who are struggling with poverty, hunger, disaster, and injustice to help them find lasting ways to improve their lives.

The teams are the hands and feet of Christ in this horrific situation. Kramer urges people to “pray for the people, that God’s grace may abide with them and peace may return as soon as possible. This is a population which has been tormented from so many sides, so often, that they are highly-affected by trauma.”

Report from the Christian Telegraph

ARREST WARRANT ISSUED FOR SUDAN’S PRESIDENT OVER DARFUR

The Hague issued a warrant for the arrest of Sudan’s President, Omar al-Beshir, over the trouble in Darfur. He becomes the first sitting head of state to be charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity, reports MNN.

The International Criminal Court wants answers from Mr. Bashir for a range of crimes, including the attempt to destroy ethnic groups deemed to be supporting rebel factions.

In addition, there are worries that the warrant could worsen Sudan’s deadly conflicts and raises issues of double standards.

Todd Nettleton with Voice of the Martyrs says Khartoum’s response is not encouraging. “It’s not promising that their initial step was to kick out aid workers who are helping to meet the needs of the Sudanese people. That really shows that their interest is not in having the Sudanese people better taken care of; their interest really is in making a point to the international community: ‘We didn’t like this. We’re going to strike back at you.'”

The death toll from the trouble in Darfur is at nearly 300,000 since rebels began fighting with the government in 2003. The United Nations estimates the internal displacement at nearly 2.5 million Darfuris.

Although Darfur’s issues were separate from those that engulfed the rest of the country in civil war, the warrant issue seems to have and an unexpected unifying effect.

A referendum is slated for 2011 to determine whether or not the South, which is mainly Christian, should remain a part of Sudan.

However, now there is animosity aimed at all things deemed “Western,” which includes Christianity. Nettleton says that animosity raises the stakes for their ministry partners. “Times of uncertainty and of unsettledness can be great times of revival as people think about eternity. They think about things beyond their government, and so that can be a time of spiritual awakening. We need to pray that that will happen also.” Keep praying for the ministry teams as they work to share the hope of Christ during a tense time in Sudan.

Report from the Christian Telegraph

CRICKET: CURRENT WORLD BATTING RATINGS

The latest International Cricket Council World Batting Ratings list has West Indian batsman Shivnarine Chanderpaul at the top, which quite ironic given the current status (7^th out of 9 test playing teams) of the once great West Indian cricket team. However, Chanderpaul has been a standout batsman for the Windies for quite some time and is most certainly one of cricket’s most reliable batsmen.

Sliding just out of the top ten at 11 is ‘Mr Cricket’ or Michael Hussey (753). The once reliable Hussey has been in something of a form slump just lately and this has also seen his batting average (61.56) come down to earth and be more representative of Hussey’s true batting potential. Matthew Hayden’s (678) fall has continued and he now rests at number 18 in the ratings. Sachin Tendulkar (683) is at 16 with V. V. S. Laxman.

The top 10 are:

1.    Shivnarine Chanderpaul (West Indies) 900

2.    Mohammad Yousuf        (Pakistan)       880

2.    Kumar Sangakkara        (Sri Lanka)      880

4.    Mahela Jayawardena     (Sri Lanka)      854

5.    Kevin Pietersen              (England)         832

6.    Ricky Ponting                 (Australia)        827

7.    Graeme Smith                (South Africa)  810

8.    Younus Khan                  (Pakistan)         799

9.    Michael Clarke                (Australia)        772

10. Gautum Gambhir          (India)               771    

 

BELOW: Footage of Shivnarine Chanderpaul reaching 100 in the 3^rd test against England at Old Trafford on the 11^th June 2007.