Occupy Wall Street movement welcomed by St Paul’s

Anti-capitalist demonstrations that started off with the ‘Occupy Wall Street’ movement a month ago have spilled over into England with a ‘Occupy the London Stock Exchange’ demonstration.

Rather than objecting to protesters setting up a makeshift camp in the square in front of the church, clergy actually invited protesters to join in the Sunday morning service, while police were asked not to take up positions on the front steps of St. Paul’s.

Canon Chancellor of St Paul’s Cathedral, the Rev Dr Giles Fraser, said while he appreciated the police were trying to protect the building, he felt it “didn’t feel it needed that sort of protection”.

“[The protesters] didn’t do any damage and church went off as normal this morning,” he informed The Telegraph.

“It has all been very peaceful. I am very much in favour of people’s right to protest peacefully. We have only seen good-natured protesters and police doing their job.”

Protesters were forced to move to St Paul’s after a High Court injunction prevented them from gathering as planned in front of the nearby London Stock Exchange.

One protester even turned up dressed like Jesus and holding a placard that read: “I threw out the moneylenders for a reason.”

One protester, Ian Chamberlin said the camp was well organized and peaceful.

"We have shared rules about things like not drinking, not taking drugs. We want to make sure the camp is a safe place to be," he said. "There's something symbolic about staying here, near the stock exchange, to pass on our message that the banking system isn't serving the needs of ordinary people, it is not a democratic force."

Protesters are vowing to continue the protest until Christmas. Police say they cannot evict the Protesters as they have the permission of the landlord to be there.

Protests in Britain were peaceful unlike other places in Rome, Italy where police had to use water cannons to restore control after protesters started rioting and burning vehicles.

World coffee supply under threat by climate change

Starbucks sustainability chief Jim Hanna has expressed his concerns that the world coffee supply is under serious threat due to climate change.

Hanna said the coffee giant has been pushing the U.S. government to act on the matter with little effect. Hanna added that farmers were already seeing the effects of a changing climate, with severe hurricanes and more resistant bugs reducing crop yields.

"What we are really seeing as a company as we look 10, 20, 30 years down the road – if conditions continue as they are – is a potentially significant risk to our supply chain, which is the Arabica coffee bean," Hanna told The Guardian in a telephone interview.

Hanna said the company's suppliers, who are mainly in Central America, were already experiencing changing rainfall patterns and more severe pest infestations with even well-established farms seeing a drop in crop yield.

"Even in very well established coffee plantations and farms, we are hearing more and more stories of impacts."

This warning follows on from another earlier this month when new research from the the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture warned it would be too hot to grow chocolate in much of the Ivory Coast and Ghana, the world’s main producers, by 2050.

Hanna will brief members of Congress on climate change and coffee at an event sponsored by the Union of Concerned Scientists this week. Starbucks are part of a business coalition that is trying to push Congress and the Obama administration to act on climate change, without much success.

Farming techniques questioned in rush to feed Africa

While the global drive to banish hunger from Africa is welcomed, a new report has warned that the farming techniques being advocated by many aid agencies and governments will actually harm the land in the long run.

In the report, Christian Aid, a development agency, cited the example of a similar drive in Asia in the the '60s, '70s and '80s that allowed large areas to drastically increase farming yields and reduce hunger. However, in the ‘90s the damage caused by some of the farming practices became apparent resulting in widespread soil degradation, a loss of biodiversity, and an increase in greenhouse gas emissions from industrial agriculture.

Christian Aid’s “Healthy Harvests” report urges that African governments and other important decision makers should first study and understand the problems in Asia and not rely upon the same farming techniques as “quick-fix solution.”

“Governments and donors need to significantly re-balance their current focus on quick-fix, external-input-intensive ‘solutions’ towards a much greater support for sustainable agro-ecological approaches,” the report says.

The report argues the use of successful techniques in sustainable agriculture including diversification, nutrient recycling – where waste from one sub-system is used as an input in another - the adoption of natural solutions to pests, and the greatest possible use of renewable and locally available resources like seeds and manure.

The reports adds that measures minimising the use of chemical inputs, and incorporating resource-conserving technologies are already being successfully practised by farming communities in Asia and Africa and are helping to produce larger crop yields.

“In recognition of the challenges facing agriculture, donors and governments have in recent years made welcome new political and financial commitments to smallholder farming, especially in Africa," the report said.

“However, as this report outlines, the solutions for Africa advocated by donors, governments and the initiatives of private foundations have tended to centre around the promotion of synthetic fertilisers and pesticides, which are costly for farmers and very often resource depleting.

“This drive for a new ‘Green Revolution’ for Africa has tended to sideline more sustainable, farmer-led approaches.

"For example, recent input-subsidy programmes in Africa have brought significant short-term benefits in certain cases, but they are looking increasingly unsustainable and risk sidelining investment in greener alternatives.

“The experience of Asia’s Green Revolution holds some very important lessons for policy-makers globally.”

'58: The Film' challenges viewers to end global poverty

Approximately 925 million people do not have enough to eat in 2011, according to The World Hunger Education Service. A new movie made by a father and son team seeks to highlight the endemic problem of global poverty while painting the possibility of ending it via a united, global effort.

The film is called “58: The Film” and it urges Christians to fight against global poverty and injustice. Based on God's call in Isaiah 58 to “loose the chains of injustice” it focuses on the problem of global poverty and oppression, and then challenges Christians to act on their faith.

Filmed over the course of two years in 15 different countries, ’58’ features powerful stories of the impoverished and of those working alongside them. The film takes its audience from the drought-ridden Ethiopian plains to the slums of Kenya. It includes stories of people struggling to survive amidst gang violence, chemical addictions, the sex trafficking trade and more.

Stories of those seeking to serve alongside the poor include an American business owner selling Fair Trade coffee, a Brazilian man who assists those struggling with addiction, and a group of youth people in New York who fast and pray for those living in poverty.

"The purpose of the film is really to stimulate and to motivate and really to challenge Christians to respond to the biblical mandate for social concern and action,” said co-director Tony Neeves.

Neeves, who made the documentary with his son, is a former vice president of Compassion International, a Christian organization that assists children around the globe who live in poverty.

"The Bible is really clear that God loves the poor and the oppressed, and has a very special concern for them, and really calls his children, his followers, to have that same heart,” added Neeves.

Wess Stafford, Compassion’s president and CEO, makes several appearances in the film, challenging viewers to believe that eradicating global poverty is possible. In approximately 20 years, according to Stafford, global poverty has been cut in half. Stafford believes God has given Western Christians the financial capital to end the dire living situations that many face all over the globe.

Hitchens receives ‘Free Thinker’ award

After an enforced absence for the last few months, a gaunt and tired looking Christopher Hitchens made his first public appearance last weekend.

The renowned author and philosopher who is suffering from esophageal cancer accepted the “Richard Dawkins Freethinker of the Year” award at the annual convention of the Atheist Alliance of America and Texas Freethought.

Hitchens, who is along with Dawkins known as one of the “Four Horsemen of the Counter-Apocalypse,” because he uses his undoubted intelligence and erudition to passionately denounce all matters of faith. Over the last few years, Hitchens has engaged a number of leading Christian thinkers in debate.

In giving the award, Dawkins praised Hitchens for his continuance of atheism even in the face of death, proving that there were indeed, “atheists in foxholes.”

The author of ‘God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything’ and ‘Is Christianity Good for the World?’ coughed his way through his speech and admitted his weakened state by quoting the words of a Roman poet, “I’m not as I was.”

“And though as I know as well as you do, there’s no point in arguing about the actual date, or time of departure, because I would like to think there would be no good time.”

“I feel very envious of someone who’s young and actually starting out in this argument,” he smiled. “Just think of the extraordinary things that are happening to us, go for example to the Smithsonian Museum... to the new hall of human origins, magnificently curated.”

“What a wonderful thing to be starting out in this tremendous new field of endeavor.”

“We have the same job we always had,” Hitchens added, “to say that there are no final solutions; there is no absolute truth; there is no supreme leader; there is no totalitarian solution that says if you would just give up your freedom of inquiry, if you would just give up, if you would simply abandon your critical faculties, the world of idiotic bliss can be yours.”

Hitchens said “grand rabbis... infallible popes, mutant quasi political religion and worship,” should be shunned, saying,“We have no need of any of this and looking at them and their record and the pathos of their supporters, I realize it is they who are the grand imposters...”

(Image from file).

Archbishop asks Mugabe to intervene in Zimbabwean church crisis

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has officially requested President Robert Mugabe to intervene over the harassment of Anglican churches in Zimbabwe.

Williams is visiting Zimbabwe and recently met with President Mugabe. Williams confirmed that after the meeting a joint dossier had been presented to Mr Mugabe giving a “full account of the abuses to which our people and our church has been subject” over the last four years.

The dossier outlines how Anglican congregations have suffered “systematic harassment and persecution at the hands of the police, often in direct contravention of court rulings”.

The abuses cited include false imprisonment, violence, denial of access to churches, schools, clinics and mission stations, and the misappropriation of church property.

The dossier points out Dr Nolbert Kunonga as the main instigator of the abuse. Dr. Kunonga was excommunicated in 2007 and has since attempted to establish his own Anglican Church in Zimbabwe.

“Every week tens of thousands of Anglicans are denied their basic right to worship because of the lies and falsifications being propagated by Dr Kunonga.”

“We are dismayed that our continued calls for justice go unheard. Meanwhile threats made to our personal freedoms and security have continued to multiply over the last few months.

“We respectfully ask you, as head of state and of the executive in Zimbabwe, put an end to this illegal harassment by some members of the police, whose mandate is to protect civilians, and allow us once again to use the properties which are rightfully ours so that we may worship God in peace and serve our communities and our country.”

“We are proud of our church and our people who have suffered so much, but who continue to serve with love and with hope,” added the dossier.

“For our part we pray, and invite you to join us in praying, that the Anglican Church in Zimbabwe be allowed to carry out its mission in peace, and serve its communities with love.”

(Image from file).

Christian protest in Egypt leads to further clashes

Deadly clashes left at least 23 people dead and over 200 injured following protests by Coptic Christians in Cairo against growing religious persecution.

While initial news reports are unclear, it seems the Copts were protesting the growing number of attacks on churches and then were attacked by suspected Islamist forces.

Groups of men chanting, “Islamic, Islamic!” were seen in the area, while another group chanting, “Allahu Akbar,” were seen standing next to a group of Central Security Forces. Christians have previously accused security forces of siding with Islamist groups in these attacks.

The protest began over a September 30 attack on the Marinab church in Aswan, which was pulled down by a mob because it was claimed the church did not have the license for the construction of a dome.

Troops later fired on the protesters as they reached the state television building, known as Maspiro. Troops also allegedly assaulted journalists in the area, one of whom was a pregnant woman. Journalists were not allow to film the violence.

The recently formed left-liberal Egyptian Social Democratic Party claimed that Egypt’s military council was seeking to abort the country’s democratic transition by “engineering” violence. However, Information Minister Osama Heikal denied any official involvement and accused “external forces” as being responsible for the clashes.

Christians make up only 10 percent of Egypt’s total population of 80 million. They are anxious about their future since extremist Muslim groups have become increasingly influential after the ousting of president Hosni Mubarak.