Category: Uncategorized

The Muslims in Nigeria have quickly replaced Sultan Mohammadu Maccido who was killed in a plane crash Sunday morning.
From the BBC:

Nigeria gets new Islamic leader
The new Sultan served as a peacekeeper in Sierra Leone
A new Sultan of Sokoto, the spiritual leader of Nigeria’s 70m Muslims, has been announced.
Colonel Muhammadu Sada Abubakar, 53, is the brother of Sultan Mohammadu Maccido, who was killed in a plane crash on Sunday, along with 95 others.
Col Abubakar had been serving as Nigeria’s military attache to Pakistan.
Like all sultans, Col Abubakar is descended from Uthman Dan Fodio, who led a 19th Century jihad to spread Islam across northern Nigeria.

I find the last statement very interesting. Pray for Nigeria. Pray for peace between the Christians and Muslims and pray that God’s love will be shown to all.

From the BBC:

UK oil worker seized off Nigeria
Attacks on foreign workers are common in the oil-producing region
A Briton has been kidnapped from an oil ship off the Nigerian coast, company sources said.
The Foreign Office is investigating claims militants seized two expatriate oil workers – from the US and Britain – during an armed raid.
A spokesman for Petroleum Geo-Services, based in Norway, has confirmed two of its workers have been taken.
Another unnamed official said they were taken from the southern coast by gunmen, who sped away in boats.

I love this.
From the BBC:

In biblical times they said “turn your swords into ploughshares”, now in northern Ethiopia a tradesman is bringing the saying into the 21st Century.
In his workshop in Mekele, just 120 km from Ethiopia’s border with Eritrea, Azmeraw Zeleke is turning burnt-out shells into cylinders used in coffee machines.
Most of the shells are left over from the 1998-2000 war between the two countries.

Here’s some of the latest happenings at encounter:

Here’s more from the Red Cross:

The most recent UNICEF data show that only 26 per cent of Cambodia’s rural population has access to adequate drinking water compared to 55 per cent of the rural population living in the world’s least developed countries. The situation is particularly bad in four remote and impoverished north-eastern provinces – Kratie, Mondulkiri, Rotanakiri and Stung Teng – where the main sources of drinking water are springs, rivers, streams and rainwater.
Slightly more than one-fifth of children under the age of five living in these provinces have diarrhoea in a given two-week period, according to the 2000 Cambodia Demographic and Health Survey. The same survey says more than 50 per cent of under-fives in the north-east have moderately or severely stunted growth, an indication of chronic, incapacitating malnutrition.
“The health status of the Cambodian children is grim. Almost one in 10 Cambodian children dies before his or her first birthday,” says Charles Lerman, regional health coordinator of the American Red Cross, which is supporting the CRC’s Community Hygiene and Water Purification (CHWP) project, along with the International Development Enterprises and the Freeman Foundation.
The locally produced ceramic water filter is part of the CHWP project, a one-year scheme that concludes in December that aims to reduce childhood illness and death from diarrhoeal disease by providing safe water containers and disseminating health and hygiene messages to communities.
The CRC is distributing one ceramic water filter to some 6,000 households in 53 villages.
The ceramic filter is a clay pot that holds approximately 10 litres, allowing a family to produce up to 30 litres a day. “It is cheap, portable, effective and can be used and maintained even by the poorest families,” Lerman says.
The CWF is impregnated with colloidal silver, which neutralises any pathogens not already captured by a clay matrix through which the water passes.

A short term missionary to Cambodia told me about a process this afternoon to filter water using a clay pot and a special lining.
They’re using it all over Cambodia apparently to remove pathogins in the water.
I found some info on the web about the process, or a similar one.

A handful of clay, yesterday’s coffee grounds and some cow manure are the simple ingredients that could bring clean drinking water to developing countries around the globe.
An innovative new technology, developed by ANU materials scientist Mr Tony Flynn, allows water filters to be made from commonly available materials and fired on the ground using manure, without the need for a kiln. The filters have been shown to remove common pathogens including E-coli. Unlike other water filtering devices, they are simple and inexpensive to make.
“They are very simple to explain and demonstrate and can be made by anyone, anywhere. They don’t require any western technology. All you need is terracotta clay, a compliant cow and a match,” said Mr Flynn.
“Everyone has a right to clean water, these filters have the potential to enable anyone in the world to drink water safely.”

Click here to read the DIY instructions.
“Where you live should not determine whether you live or die.”