Church attacks in Nigeria leave at least 27 worshippers dead

Islamist group claims responsibility amid growing concern about government's inability to tackle sectarian violence

Tracy McVeigh / guardian.co.uk

A fresh wave of violence against churchgoers in Nigeria has left at least 27 people dead and heightened fears over security in Africa's most populous country.

The religiously motivated massacres, three in as many days since Thursday, targeted Christians in Mubi and Gombe, both towns in the north-east where a state of emergency was declared by President Goodluck Jonathan last week. Some 17 other deaths have been reported in other regions.

There is growing concern that the government's inability to tackle the rising levels of sectarian violence, blamed on radical Islamic group Boko Haram, may result in hundreds of people fleeing their homes. The group is now carrying out weekly attacks on churches and police stations in northern and central areas. Islamic clerics who speak out against the violence have been assassinated.

Last year saw an upsurge in Boko Haram's bloody activities, with some 550 people killed, culminating in a co-ordinated bombing campaign on Christmas Day across Nigeria which left 39 dead and dozens wounded, including at a church near the capital, Abuja.

The Gombe attack took place during a church service on Thursday, leaving six worshippers dead, while on Friday gunmen opened fire on Christians gathered in Mubi to mourn the deaths of three people killed the previous night.

A Red Cross official told Reuters: "On Friday, as people gathered to mourn the deaths, the gunmen, believed to be the same attackers, killed 18 people, totalling 21."

The Mubi shooting came as Boko Haram members attacked a beauty salon and fought government forces in other regions on Friday night.

"Three gunmen with their faces covered with black cloth burst into my salon and started shooting at customers, chanting, 'God is great, God is great,'" said Stephen Tizhe, 35.

On the same night a Christian couple were shot dead in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state and the focus of Boko Haram's violence over the past 18 months. Mubi is in Adamawa state, just south of Borno, where Boko Haram was formed in 2002 to promote a form of Islam which makes it "haram", or forbidden, for Muslims to take part in any political or social activity associated with western society, including non-Islamic education, voting in elections and wearing shirts and trousers.

The group, suspected of having support from outside Nigeria, was blamed for the country's first suicide bomb attack last August, which left 24 people dead at a UN compound.

The Red Cross official said members of the predominantly Christian Igbo community were fleeing the north-east. A Nigerian newspaper published a warning from Boko Haram last week that Christians had three days to leave majority-Muslim areas or be killed.

In a statement on Friday to the Daily Trust newspaper in Nigeria's north, a Boko Haram spokesman, using the name Abul Qaqa, claimed responsibility for the attacks in Gombe and Mubi.

"We want to prove to the federal government of Nigeria that we can always change our tactics," the spokesman said.

RussiaSyria hails visit of Russian warships to Tartus

Syrian authorities have called the visit of a Russian naval task force to the port of Tartus a “show of solidarity with the Syrian people,” the official SANA news agency reported.

A Russian task force, led by the Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier, arrived in Tartus on Sunday to replenish water and food supplies during a long-term training mission in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean.

“We highly respect Russia’s honorable stance in support of the Syrian people,” SANA cited Governor of Tartus Atef al-Naddaf as saying.

Russia maintains a Soviet-era naval maintenance site near Tartus as its only military foothold in the Mediterranean. Moscow is planning to modernize the facility to accommodate large warships, including missile cruisers and even aircraft carriers after 2012.

The Russian Defense Ministry reiterated on Sunday that the visit of Russian warships to Tartus was not related to the current political crisis in Syria, and said the task force would leave the port on January 9 to continue with the training mission.

X-37B spaceplane 'spying on China'

America's classified X-37B spaceplane is probably spying on China, according to a report in Spaceflight magazine.

The unpiloted vehicle was launched into orbit by the US Air Force in March last year and has yet to return to Earth.

The Pentagon has steadfastly refused to discuss its mission but amateur space trackers have noted how its path around the globe is nearly identical to China's spacelab, Tiangong-1.

There is wide speculation that the X-37B is eavesdropping on the laboratory.

"Space-to-space surveillance is a whole new ball game made possible by a finessed group of sensors and sensor suites, which we think the X-37B may be using to maintain a close watch on China's nascent space station," said Spaceflight editor Dr David Baker.

The X-37B, also known as the Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV), looks like a mini space shuttle and can glide back down through the atmosphere to land on a runway, just like Nasa's re-usable manned spaceplane used to do before its retirement last July.

Built by Boeing, the Air Force's robotic craft is about 9m long and has a payload bay volume similar to that of a small van. But what goes in the payload bay, the USAF will not discuss.

The current mission was launched on an Atlas rocket and put into a low orbit, a little over 300km up, with an inclination of 42.79 degrees with respect to the equator - an unusual profile for a US military mission which would normally go into an orbit that circles the poles.

The X-37B's flight has since been followed from the ground by a dedicated group of optical tracking specialists in the US and Europe, intrigued by what the vehicle may be doing.

These individuals have watched how closely its orbit matches that of Tiangong.

The spacelab, which China expects to man with astronauts in 2012, was launched in September with an inclination of 42.78 degrees, and to a very similar altitude as the OTV.

"The parallels with X-37B are clear," Dr Baker says in Spaceflight, the long established magazine of the British Interplanetary Society.

"With a period differential of about 19 seconds, the two vehicles will migrate toward or against each other, converging or diverging, roughly every 170 orbits."

No-one can say for sure what sort of mission the spaceplane is pursuing; all the USAF has said is that the OTV is being used as a testbed for new technologies.

But the suggestion any new sensors in the X-37B might take an interest in Tiangong's telemetry is certainly an interesting one.

Washington retains a deep distrust of Beijing's space ambitions - even its apparently straightforward human spaceflight missions.

Part of the problem is that China draws little distinction between its civilian and military programmes, unlike in other parts of the world, such as Europe, where the bloc's space agency, Esa, is committed by charter to "exclusively peaceful" programmes. European military space projects are the preserve of national governments.

In the US, also, that distinction is pretty clear with Nasa being charged with the majority of civilian projects.

In China, on the other hand, the lines are more blurred and the military reaches across all its space programmes.

"If this is what the X-37B is doing, I think it really is no bad thing," Dr Baker told BBC News. "As with the Cold War, the proliferation of space surveillance systems enabled us to get arms agreements that would not have been possible without each side knowing fully what the other side was doing."

Not everyone is convinced by the latest analysis.

Brian Weeden is a technical adviser to the Secure World Foundation and a former orbital analyst with the USAF.

He published his own assessment last year of the X-37B's capabilities and role as a platform to trial technologies before they are incorporated into a full-up spy satellite.

Mr Weeden still thinks the Middle East is a more likely target for any new sensors that the X-37B might be carrying.

"A typical spy satellite is in a polar orbit, which gives you access to the whole Earth," he told BBC News.

"The X-37B is in a much lower inclination which means it can only see a very narrow band of latitudes, and the only thing that's of real interest in that band is the Middle East and Afghanistan.

"Is it spying on Tiangong-1? I really don't think so. I think the fact that their orbits intersect every now and again - that's just a co-incidence. If the US really wanted to observe Tiangong, it has enough assets to do that without using X-37B."

The latest edition of Spaceflight, with its analysis on the X-37B, is published this weekend.

by Mark Stone, defence reporter


The UK would respond militarily if Iran carries out its threat to close the Strait of Hormuz, the Defence Secretary has warned.

Philip Hammond used a speech in Washington DC to warn Iran that any attempt to close the key Gulf trade route would be "unsuccessful" and could be stopped in part by the Royal Navy.

"Any attempt by Iran to do this would be illegal and unsuccessful," he said in a speech at the Atlantic Council.

"Our joint naval presence in the Arabian Gulf, something our regional partners appreciate, is key to keeping the Strait of Hormuz open for international trade.

"It is in all our interests that the arteries of global trade are kept free, open and running. Disruption to the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz would threaten regional and global economic growth."

Iran has threatened to block the 34-mile wide strait in retaliation for a planned EU trade embargo on Iranian oil.

It is understood that EU governments have reached agreement on a trade embargo, but are yet to say when it will be implemented.

Each day, 15.5 million barrels of oil pass through the narrow stretch of water between Iran and the United Arab Emirates.

Its closure would have a significant global impact. One of the UK's leading energy suppliers has warned an embargo will force up oil prices in the UK.

Volker Beckers, chief executive of npower, told Jeff Randall Live on Wednesday: "It is very important and it will have effects on oil prices."

The Royal Navy currently has a strong presence in the Arabian Gulf as part of the Combined Maritime Forces headquartered in Bahrain. British mine counter-measure vessels also operate in the area.

Mr Hammond is in Washington DC for his first meeting with his US counterpart since he took over from Liam Fox as Defence Secretary last year.

He and US defence secretary Leon Panetta held private talks at the Pentagon.

As well as discussing Iran, the two discussed the mission in Afghanistan and the combat troop withdrawal at the end of 2014.

Pakistan's continued refusal to re-open Nato supply routes into Afghanistan is also thought to have been covered.

Mr Hammond's speech repeated concerns made by his predecessor over the willingness of some Nato member nations to "meet their responsibilities".

"Libya and Afghanistan have highlighted the significant difficulties we face in ensuring that Nato continues to serve the needs of collective security," he said.

"Too many countries are failing to meet their financial responsibilities to Nato, and so failing to maintain appropriate and proportionate capabilities.

"Too many are opting out of operations or contributing but a fraction of what they should be capable of. This is a European problem, not an American one. And it is a political problem, not a military one."

British defence officials will not be drawn on where he is directing his frustration, but Germany is one member state which choses not to take part in the Libyan intervention and whose involvement in Afghanistan is severely restricted.

Mr Hammond also reflected on the financial restraints both within the Pentagon and the British Ministry of Defence.

Echoing the views of the head of the British military, General Sir David Richards, Mr Hammond said that a strong economy is key to a secure nation.

"The debt crisis should be considered the greatest strategic threat to the future security of our nations," he said.

"Without strong economies and stable public finances it is impossible to build and sustain, in the long-term, the military capability required to project power and maintain defence."

Did the Maya predict the world would end in 2012?

Archeologists say Maya made no such prophecy

By Daniel Schwartz, CBC News

For true believers, the ancient Maya calendar is a prime source for the prophecy that something very big is going to happen this year, 2012. Perhaps even the end of the world, or a transformation into a new age.

To backup the apprehension over 2012, some will also point to the I Ching and Nostradamus as predictors of note. Though it may also be worth observing that only a few days into this new year, the Rapture Index is just one point below its all-time high.

The index, a feature on Rapture Ready, an evangelical Christian website, tracks natural and political events that may portend how close we are to the apocalypse and the Second Coming of Christ.

The website doesn't have a date for the big day but quotes the Bible on why such a date cannot be known in advance.

That is not the case for other doomsdayers, however, who predict Dec. 21, 2012 is when time, or the world, will end. (Rapture Ready advises that it could happen before December.)

Still, it is the Maya, a civilization in southern Mexico and northern Central America for about 2,500 years, that seems to be taking centre stage these days, perhaps particularly in Canada where they are the subject of a special exhibition at the Royal Ontario Museum as well as a documentary tonight (Thursday, 9 ET) on CBC TV's Doc Zone.

Um, might the doomsayers be right?

'Complete nonsense'

Until recently, Maya scholars had been reluctant to respond to the discussion about the 2012 prophecy because "it's all complete nonsense," as one of the foremost scholars, David Stuart, put it in the preface to his 2011 book, The Order of Days: the Maya and the Truth about 2012.

Back in 1999, in another scholarly book on the Maya, The Code of Kings, Linda Schele and Peter Mathews thought that a footnote was sufficient to dismiss the belief that the Maya predicted the end of the world in 2012.

They noted that a Maya ruler of Palenque had written about specific dates and events to come long after our calendar's 2012.

"The world-ending myth is a modern 'prophecy' that has no basis in the ancient Maya texts," Schele and Mathews wrote.

Since then, however, the myth has only grown in popularity.

That popularity, of course, has created both opportunity and a challenge for the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, which is currently exhibiting "Maya: Secrets of their Ancient World."

The Maya calendar is just one part of the exhibition, but archeologist and co-curator Justin Jennings says that some visitors expect more. "People want to see the Calendar Stone," he told CBC News. "They want to see the 2012 reference, they want to see the prophecy about the end of days and that's the thing about the Maya, people come with so many misconceptions."

Although frequently misidentified as Maya, what's known as the Calendar Stone, or Sun Stone, is Aztec and not referenced in the ROM show. It dates from the early 15th century, near the end of the Aztec empire and is now a national symbol of Mexico. The stone has nothing about 2012, nor is there any historical record that even suggests the Aztecs were aware of the Maya date.

In his book, Stuart writes that its misrepresentation as Maya "reflects a dismissive and woefully ignorant collapsing of two very distinct Mesoamerican cultures."

And with no evidence there ever was such a Maya prophecy about 2012, there's no artifact for a museum to procure.

The end of a baktun

The Maya long count calendar does have a baktun ending in 2012, an epoch-like period for the Maya that corresponds to about 394 years, or 144,000 days.

In a correlation of the Maya's long-count calendar to our Western one, the end of this current baktun, the 13th, happens on Dec. 21, 2012 (or Dec. 23. See sidebar).

The long-count calendar counts the time since creation, which the Maya date to what we would call a day in August 3114 BC.

Obviously, baktuns have come and gone. This year just happens to be the one when the 13th baktun ends. The 12th baktun ended on Sept. 18, 1618, which was when Europe's very destructive Thirty Years' War was just getting started.

Stuart writes that, "any such statements about the Maya predicting the world's demise or alternatively, some 'transformation of consciousness' in 2012 is, to put it as simply and directly as possible, wrong."

So where does such a misunderstanding come from?

The myth is indeed a modern one but Stuart noted there was a reference made in the late 19th century by Ernst Forstemann, one of the first decipherers of the Maya's long-count calendar. (Forstemann was a German librarian in Dresden; the other main decipherer at the time was American journalist Joseph Goodman.)

Working with a Maya document known as the Dresden codex, Forstemann interpreted a scene on the last page as symbolizing world destruction. The scene portrays gods, some holding weapons, and a giant serpent with water spilling out of its mouth.

However, he did not connect that to the ending of the 13th baktun and, "Ironically, the scene is related to world creation," Stuart said.

"That set the stage for people to come at this with the idea that there was a Maya myth about the end of the world," he added.

In 1966, in the first edition of The Maya (the 8th edition of the book was published in 2011), Michael Coe, an American renowned for his expertise on the subject, speculated about the ways the Maya might have thought about the ending of the 13th baktun.

One way might have been the destruction of the world, based primarily on the nearby Aztecs' myths about world creation and destruction, Coe suggested.

However, Stuart said that Coe would admit, "then as now, no Maya source makes any such claim about 2012."

The 2012 idea catches on

In 1971, a popular American writer, Frank Waters, picked up on Coe's speculation in his book, Mexican Mystique.

Stuart told CBC News that until he began researching his own book, he was unfamiliar with Waters book but that he now considers it the foundation for those who really popularized the 2012 doomsday idea.

For Stuart that idea, "really has its origins in new age counter-culture mysticism as it tries to tie into Native American cosmology and world view."

Arguably the person who did the most to popularize the 2012 myth is Jose Arguelles, author of The Mayan Factor in 1987.

Arguelles is also famous for organizing the "Harmonic Convergence" in 1987, which was described as the first synchronized global meditation, with large-scale social change to follow, he predicted.

Arguelles believes that 2012 will be a year of cataclysmic change on Earth, followed by a new golden age, views which resemble the fundamentalist Christian belief in the End Times.

He also suggests that the ancient Maya were inter-galactic travellers who came to Earth, stayed a few centuries and left their clues, then moved on. (Arguelles also says that he channels a 7th century Maya ruler, Pacal Votan.)

The 2012 date important to the Maya

Meanwhile, the ROM's Jennings notes that while this new-age mythology is a modern idea, not from the ancient Maya, these "ends of time cycles for the Maya were huge deals," since they were fascinated with the passing of time.

"There's a grain of truth, in the sense that 2012 would have been a momentous year for classic Maya," he says, comparable to the start of a new century in the Western world.

Thirteen was also a significant number for the Maya as most Mesoamerican cosmologies divided the sky into 13 zones.

The ending of the 13th baktun, "probably would have been bigger than the ending of any of the other baktuns," Jennings speculated.

For his part, however, David Stuart cannot wait for it all to be over. He told CBC News that he find it "hilarious" that archeologists like himself "who are trying to communicate about this stuff are completely drowned out by the noise out there."

"The whole 2012 business is of our own making, not something the Maya ever talked about, and certainly didn't prophesize," he said, with some exasperation.