• This Day (Nigeria) aagm: Political Economy of Sustainable Democracy in Nigeria (2)

mobile cabinet ministers meeting in the southern city of Hat Yai in December 2002, these protesters rallied and attempted to present a petition to the meeting. Police-primarily units brought in from the Central Region-moved in on the demonstrators with batons, injuring several demonstrators, arresting many others, and violently dispersing what had been a peaceful protest. The actions of the police caused public condemnation, and the Thai Senate's Human Rights Commission has attempted to carry out an investigation of the incident, but has been stymied by lack of cooperation from TRT. Subsequently, in fact, TRT delivered a similar message to another AOP group. Having decided in January 2003 not to support the Pak Moon group's call for decommissioning of the Pak Moon dam, Thaksin authorized the demolition of the AOP's protest village outside Government House in Bangkok, where many displaced Pak Moon villagers reside at different times of the year. (The task was carried forward with relish by right-wing Bangkok Mayor Samak Sundaravej.) These events marked a clear break between TRT and the popular social movements that had helped bring TRT to power (Glassman 2004a, 56-58).
Yet Thaksin's actions against the AOP did not openly invoke terrorist threats of the sort being advertised in the Philippines or Indonesia. Rather, they were couched in fairly conventional rhetoric about the "national interest." What began to give the break with popular organizations more of the aura of the "war on terrorism," however, was the contemporaneous development-clearly noted by popular organizations for its implications-of two other high profile wars: TRT's "war on drugs" and "war on 'dark influences'."
Here it is useful to note that Thaksin, though by self-description a populist and a nationalist, is also both one of Thailand's wealthiest businessmen and a long-time friend of George Herbert Walker Bush, dating back to the days Thaksin received his PhD in criminology from Sam Houston State University. Thaksin's political style is very much that of the CEO, and Thaksin the CEO has been intent on maneuvering Thailand into a favorable position vis-à-vis the US government's war on terrorism in order to gain inclusion in a free trade agreement with the United States that would benefit Thai companies (Hewison and Rodan 2004,14-16). Furthermore, Thaksin's managerial style also draws regularly on the imagery of campaigns against various dangerous Others, a style that has been so much a part of the political imagery of the US right. To be sure, such characterizations of dangerous Others (e.g., Communists, drug dealers) have long been a part of Thailand's own political landscape, but this phenomenon has itself been connected with the Thai security state's evolution in relation to US activities in the region (Glassman 2004b).
Thaksin the CEO aggressively made use of the political atmosphere created by the US "war on terror" and the Homeland security campaign to promote campaigns that would weaken sources of opposition to TRT. The first campaign, announced at the same time as relations between TRT and the AOP were becoming violent, was the war on drugs. Thaksin announced in late 2002 that the governors of each of Thailand's 76 provinces would be required by early 2003 to submit lists with at least 30 suspected drug dealers known to live in their provinces. The stated purpose was to eliminate Thailand's metamphetamine and opium industries, but few observers believe this is a credible goal and unless Thaksin is extraordinarily benighted regarding the dynamics of drug industries (which is unlikely) it would seem that the actual goal of the campaign was to weaken the financial base of some of the provincial "political bosses" who have long been a thorn in the side for Bangkok-based political leaders that hope to govern the country without the distractions of low-level "money politics."
In any event, whatever the precise reasons for the campaign, it had a predictably bloody outcome. As the governors began putting together their lists, a spate of killings occurred. The government claims that most deaths were cases of one drug dealer killing another to insure that they would not be named by investigators. Some are acknowledged to have been extra-judicial executions of suspected drug dealers by police, and many more such extra-judicial executions may have occurred than are actually acknowledged. Moreover, the line between the categories "drug dealers" and "police" is a highly porous one in Thailand, and many of the killings are assumed to be cases of higher-ranking provincial officials and/or police officers silencing subordinates. In addition, as inevitably occurs in such campaigns, there were a number of killings of innocent bystanders, including at least one child. Overall, by the time the three-month campaign was completed at the end of March 2003, more than 2,000 people had been killed, leading to condemnationfrom both Thai and international organizations-of the Thai government's failure to recognize basic human rights (Ilchmann 2003). Thaksin shrugged off such criticism, arguing that outsiders have no right to judge the Thai government's actions and that the death of more than 2,000 drug dealers is in fact good for the well-being of the country. In any event, Thaksin could rest assured that no substantive criticism would issue forth from the US government, given Thaksin's favorable relationship with the Bush family and given that the Bush Administration would be in an especially poor position to criticize an ally for human rights violations. Indeed, though the US State Department did officially raise concerns about Thailand's human rights record during the "war on drugs" as well as in relation to the military campaign in the South (Hewison and Rodan 2004,16), Thaksin has dismissed these concerns without the Bush Administration taking any action.
Shortly after the "war on drugs" was concluded, Thaksin announced a similar war on "dark influences," designed to undercut the financial base of corrupt provincial elites. This campaign did not have quite the deadly outcome of the "war on drugs," but it solidified the TRT's strategy of ruling by quickly announced administrative campaigns, rather than by recourse to laws and official procedures. This trend was in a sense only sealed by the announcement in August 2003 of a series of anti-terrorist measures, pushed into law by executive decree at precisely the time of the Hambali arrest (Mongkol 2003; Surasak 2003; Bangkok Post 12-16 August 2003). In short, through its turn against popular organizations and its re-engagement of a Cold War-era style of authoritarian politics, TRT has now placed itself fully within the ranks of the authoritarian governments that are part of Washington's anti-terrorism alliance. The purposes of such a shift have had nothing to do with the terrorist threat announced in Washington, and TRT in fact made little of such a threat before 2003-2004. But the need for an authoritarian state that violates basic civil liberties in the name of the national interest and international security-a need so forcefully announced in Washington and made a condition for favorable trade relations with the United States (Hewison and Rodan 2004, 15)- has clearly provided a crucial part of the context in which TRT is able to launch its own authoritarian project.
It is in this sense that I call Thailand's participation in the US-led "war on terrorism" quasi-hegemonic. The US is no longer quite the hegemonic power it once was in Thailand, and economically it has been increasingly displaced by Japanese and Chinese capitalists (both from among the Sino-Thai and the overseas networks of Chinese capitalists). Yet the national security state doctrines the US helped cultivate during the Cold War have had lasting impact-an impact that popular organizations struggling for democracy in Thailand have only partially overcome. The "war on terror" has provided a context where TRT leaders can re-deploy national security state doctrines, even if for reasons that are neither those of the Cold War nor those of the "war on terror." In the concluding section I will reflect on the implications of this particular-and most indirect-effect of US imperialism in Southeast Asia.
Conclusion
The "war on terrorism" has provided an opportunity for US neo-conservatives to implement an agenda for Southeast Asia that was agreed upon by US elites across the policyrelevant spectrum since before 9/11. The agenda is that of a challenged imperial power whose hegemony in East and Southeast Asia has been in decline and which hopes to restore that hegemony through re-emphasizing its military capabilities. It is an agenda that is broad and uniform in its basic goals, but given the differing realities on the ground in the various areas of Southeast Asia, it has different manifestations, these reflecting among other things the diverse projects of various national elites.
To be sure, in all of the contexts discussed, the immediate impacts seem to have included an increased foothold for Cold War-style, militarist politicians and policies, this being reflected in the 2004 electoral victory of Arroyo in the Philippines (against a right wing populist candidate) and the 2004 electoral success of Golkar (formerly Suharto's political machine), within a field of exclusively right-wing Indonesian political parties. Meanwhile, Thaksin's TRT has continued to consolidate its seemingly unassailable position, benefiting from some public support for the idea of cracking down on drug dealers and other threats to "national security." Yet the specifics of particular national campaigns being carried out under the cover of US imperial policy-which I have labeled as predominantly neo-colonial in the Philippines, sub-imperial in Indonesia, and quasi-hegemonic in Thailand-have varied, reflecting specific national and historical contexts as well as the aspirations and activities of particular elite groups and the popular organizations that (in these instances weakly) oppose them.
The short-term resurgence and long-term decline of US imperial power in East and Southeast Asia-insofar as this is an accurate characterization-suggests that these kinds of national (as well as sub-national and regional) specificities of struggles are likely to become more rather than less important as the so-called war on terrorism proceeds. And in this regard, there is perhaps more to be learned about the deleterious effects of remilitarization from the Thai case than from any other. The "war on terrorism" clearly provides an easy pretext for despotic leaders the world over who wish to settle internal, regional problems with maximum sub-imperial force and minimal attention to human rights concerns. Such a prospect is evident not only in Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand, but also in places like Burma, China, Russia, Turkey, Columbia, Peru, Nigeria and any number of others. Indeed, the "war on terrorism" openly threatens to ignite or intensity a series of internal wars against regional opposition groups, all legitimized by the very same principles the US government invokes to justify its own imperial project.
Yet in some respects, quasi-hegemony seems to me to be of even more pervasive significance. Not every country in the world has significant regional separatist struggles. But all countries have internal opposition groups, corrupt officials and the other features of social and political life that have served as the excuse for TRT's actions. Insofar as the US "war on terrorism" legitimizes a resurrection of the national security state it offers an opportunity for every elite group in the world to participate in the retrenchment of human rights in the name of the "national interest"-provided the elites in question do not run afoul of Washington. As such, the "war on terrorism" threatens to have an impact well beyond the direct impact of US military interventions or direct support for local militaries. In an era when US hegemony is arguably in decline, this could be one of the most enduring and problematic faces of this declining hegemony. World leaders, in any event, do as hegemons do and not as they say. Washington's example of authoritarian militarism at home and abroad will be actively seized on by capitalist elites around the world-each with their own agendas-to legitimize militarist and anti-democratic activities. Even were the Bush Administration and subsequent US governments to wish to challenge such behavior, they would be in a poor position to do so, given the US state's own project and its declining ability to enforce its agenda by means other than direct military coercion (with even this power being evidently limited). Thus, the decline of US hegemony may represent the simultaneous rise of a more decentered global capitalism, led by elites that are adroit at exercising national security politics in the US image. In Southeast Asia, there is great potential for this unsavory outcome as the US makes a last ditch effort to re-assert its historical position of preeminence against the rise of perceived competitors like China. Certainly, the avoidance of such a dire outcome will depend on the ability of people in the region to collectively resist the latest elite onslaught-including the onslaught of nationalist and national security rhetoric that shields authoritarian actors and their projects from the popular scrutiny they so richly deserve.
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The victims of 9/11 include not only those killed in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon but the numerous innocents who have perished either in the US-led "war on terror" or as a result of the war's less immediate consequences. Among such consequences are the seeming reversal of processes of democratization and de-militarization in Southeast Asia-processes that had taken root and made significant strides in many countries of the region since the end of the Cold War. This article examines how US geo-political economic ambitions have interacted with the geo-political economic ambitions of elites in the Philippines, Indonesia, and Thailand to affect such a reversal.] [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]
Copyright Journal of Contemporary Asia 2005 | Endnotes | *** A shorter version of this article is to be included in the Derek Gregory and Allan Pred, eds., Inhuman Geographies: Spaces of Terror and Political Violence, forthcoming in 2005. | 1. The authors credit Dr. Zalmay Khalilzad of Project AIR FORCE with providing the intellectual framework for their project (Sokolsky et al. 2000, xvii). Khalilzad, a consultant for the energy firm Unocal and member of the National Security Council, was to become the equivalent of US Ambassador to Afghanistan after the US war to oust the Taliban. | 2. The CFR task force members range from Douglas H. Paal, a former member of the George W. H. Bush administration's National Security Council, and James Clad, a Research Professor in Southeast Asian Studies at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service, who was also involved in the RAND report discussed here, to J. Robert Kerrey, former Democratic Senator from Nebraska and Vietnam War veteran, and Sidney Jones, the Executive Director of the Asia Division of Human Rights Watch, who was also involved in the International Crisis Group reports on Indonesia discussed below, until she was forced by the Indonesian government to leave the country in June of 2004 (Associated Press, "Indonesia Expels US Think Tank Expert," I June 2004). | 3. I use the term "political Islamist" throughout, following the lead of commentators like Samir Amin. Although this is far from unproblematic, given that there are many varieties of Islam that advocate specific (and varying) political projects, I nonetheless find it preferably to alternative terms such as "Islamic fundamentalist" or "radical Islamic." | 4. For an excellent account of these issues, which in fact directed my own attention to the RAND and CFR studies, see Symonds 2002. More generally, coverage of Southeast Asia by Symonds and other analysts at the World Socialist Web Site has been excellent, and 1 cite these author's writings fairly extensively below-especially the reports of John Roberts. | 5. The International Peace Mission was organized jointly by Focus on the Global South, the Institute for Popular Democracy, and Akbayan Citizen's Action Party, and visited Basilan in March 2002. It included 16 men and women from ten different countries, including Matt Wuori of Greenpeace International and the European Parliament, Lee Rhiannon of the New South Wales Legislative Council, Aijaz Ahmad from Jawaharlal Nehru University, Walden Bello from the University of the Philippines, and Victoria Brittain, a former associate foreign editor for The Guardian newspaper. | 6. The International Crisis Group is a fundamentally conservative, US-backed organization, and includes on its Board former Australian Foreign Minister Gareth Evans, former US National security Advisors Richard Alien and Zbignew Brzezinski, Costa Rican Nobel Laureate Oscar Arias Sanchez, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Wesley Clark, former US Trade Representative Carla Hills, Indonesian Human Rights lawyer Todung Mulya Lubis, former Thai Foreign Minister Sunn Pitsuwan, former Philippine President Fidel Ramos, British journalist William Shawcross, and financier George Soros. | 7. For a very useful analysis of the concept of preman, see Ryter 2001, 127-31. | 8. One further, interesting JI connection is worth mentioning, since it indicates the integration of JI operatives with other elites in Indonesian society. ICG investigations found that reputed al-Qaeda operative Omar al-Faruq was alleged to have met in May 2002 with the head of Riau Islands District, Hurzin Hood. Hood is a suspect in a case involving the illegal sale of sand to Singapore for land reclamation projects (ICG 2002b, 12). | 9. This was not the only such incident but merely the illustrative case which the Indonesian commission chose to examine for 2003. | 10. Particularly noteworthy, here, were a series of articles in The Nation, which ran for a week, just before the arrest of Hambali and Thaksin's issuing of anti-terrorism decrees, including articles citing US terrorism authorities on the dangers to Thailand and its need to participate more aggressively in the "war on terrorism." | Jim Glassman* | * Department of Geography. University of British Columbia
Document PJCA000020050607e11100002
Missiometrics 2005: A Global Survey of World Mission
Barrett, David B; Johnson, Todd M; Crossing, Peter F

2,120 words

1 January 2005

International Bulletin of Missionary Research

IBMR

27

Volume 29; Issue 1; ISSN: 02726122

English

Copyright (c) 2005 Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved.
Counting in the Christian tradition has a long and respectable history, stretching from its biblical roots "Take a census" (Numbers 1:2), to "Count the worshippers" (Revelation 11:1), to the massive annual surveying that today we call "the megacensus." This report continues in the missiometric tradition, bringing the reader up-to-date on the art and science of counting, on global documentation, on numbers of religionists and growth rates, on key trends related to Christian mission, and on the megacensus as a central ongoing phenomenon. In light of this collecting of statistics that occupies millions of Christian workers and costs over $1 billion annually, we hope to provide a reliable quantitative framework for understanding global Christianity.
Missiometrics is accounting, not bookkeeping
The annual collecting of statistics on church membership and religion can be compared to the bookkeeping aspect of accounting-simply recording financial transactions. Missiometrics, in contrast, is parallel to accounting in the financial world, defined as "the system of classifying, recording, and summarizing business and financial transactions in books of account and analyzing, verifying, and reporting the results" (Webster's Unabridged). The emphasis here is on analyzing large amounts of data that may or may not be comparable. In light of financial scandals around the world in both business and ecclesiastical arenas, it would be absurd to suggest that "accounting" is not needed. Missiometrics serves this function in the assessment of the quantitative status of global Christianity.
Challenges to the discipline
In recent times many forces have worked to diminish the significance of missiometrics. One of these is innumeracy or mathematical illiteracy, which continues to plague Christian agencies from all national backgrounds. Although numbers and mathematics are ubiquitous in the 21st century, most Christians do not see the need to become numerate. This results in an unhealthy dependence on the intuition of Christian leadership. Preferring not to wrestle with the numbers, many instead rely on off-the-cuff remarks from Christian leaders. Yet another force is found among academics and journalists who continue to assert that religious statistics are "notoriously unreliable" or "exaggerated."
Four trends reinforcing missiometrics
One can identify at least four significant trends in missiometrics that highlight its resilient nature in such a potentially hostile environment. First, new Christian research centers are sprouting up around the world. This fact reverses a recent trend when such centers were being closed down in rapid succession. In 1970 over 900 Christian research centers operated around the world, dropping precipitously to only 300 by mid-2000. The main reason for this decline appears to have been organizational fatigue over negative findings such as declining church membership. Today this trend is turning around. New research centers are emerging, not surprisingly, among Christians in the Southern Hemisphere, where Christianity is vibrant and growing most rapidly. The Center for the Study of Christianity in Asia, based at Trinity Theological College in Singapore, opened its doors in 2001. Recent initiatives in Beijing, Hong Kong, and Chiang Mai, Thailand, are focused on analyzing the growth of Christianity in China. The Nigerian Evangelical Missions Association is sponsoring a state-by-state inventory of Christians in Nigeria. The India Missions Association has similar goals for India. These examples show that the rise of Christianity in the South is accompanied by a growing investment in research.
Second, a potential setback for missiometrics has been averted. With the rise of the postdenominational churches (Independents), we expected an aversion toward counting and, consequently, a dearth of reports of membership figures. Surprisingly, these movements have shown that they are intensely interested in keeping track of their members. Leaders of African Independent Churches and Chinese house churches have continuously published their own stories, insisting that accountability is a central feature of their movements. Accountability implies some sort of counting, and even for what would seem to be the most disorganized and diffuse movements, figures are available on the number of cells, their growth rates, and the location of new cells. Today many of these churches have elaborate web sites and produce detailed reports.
Third, the secularization myth has been soundly discredited. A short time ago it was considered preferable in the academic world to hate the subject that one was studying in order to attain some kind of objectivity. Tragically, this led to a bias against religion and, indirectly, against counting religionists. Pundits like sociologist Peter Berger, in a famous comment in the New York Times in 1968, predicted the extinction of religion by the year 2000, while missionaries projecting the growth of Christianity and other religions in Africa, Asia, and Latin America were ignored as biased. Belief that religious statistics are exaggerated may have had its roots in the idea that "superstitious people" (i.e., committed religionists) did not know how to count. Now that this myth has been overturned, there will likely be much more serious reflection on statistics of religious communities.
Fourth, over half of the world's governments continue to ask a question about religion in their censuses. These questions provide a rich source of data in trying to assess the status of both Christianity and other religions around the world.
The future of missiometrics
Missiometrics, then, has a potentially bright future under the leadership of Christians from across the world. In the South, where Christianity is growing the fastest, research centers, detailed membership reports, and a concern for accuracy are proliferating. In the postmodern North, one finds a struggle for balance in the qualitative/quantitative research continuum. In both cases, understanding and interpreting numbers related to global Christianity and world evangelization are essential.
Documenting Global Statistics of World Mission
The table opposite is the twenty-first in an annual series describing statistics, trends, and documentation supporting the Christian world mission. A document is here defined as anything written or printed, relied upon to record or prove something past, present, or future for reference or as evidence; it can be a tablet, scroll, codex, sheet, card, pamphlet, tape, article, report, journal, book, or encyclopedia. A record is a more concise fact, figure, statistic, or event formally written down as past, present, or future evidence. If the worldwide situation is being described, the adjective "global" may be added.
Thus the table opposite contains 72 Lines with 432 numbers each of which could be termed a global record. (Six other Lines, 38^43, each refer to only one continent.) Together, these 72 global records constitute a global document. And global documentation is the vital process of organizing and making sense of global records and documents covering both religious and nonreligious materials in 5 Epochs over the last 6,000 years.
The First Epoch of Global Documentation, BC 4000-AD1450
A more picturesque title would be: The Age of Limited Library Access Only to the Privileged. In BC 4000 the Mesopotamian citystate Ur invented clay tablets to record double-entry accounting, banking, mathematics, astronomy, religion, and cosmogonies. Libraries arose in most great temples (BC 2500 Nippur, also in China, Egypt, Greece, Rome). The Assyrian conqueror Ashurbanipal (BC 650) maintained a personal archive of 25,000 clay tablets. And the Old Testament emerged as a vast storehouse of censuses and statistical data.
Outstanding in size was the Great Library of Alexandria, commissioned by Ptolemy I. In BC 284 its first superintendent Zenodotus organized its 500,000 papyrus scrolls, classifying them alphabetically. His successor, mathematician Eratosthenes, became the first to prove Earth is a sphere, calculating its global circumference at 30,000 miles (a "global record," to us).
Throughout the medieval Christian era libraries existed only for the privileged-rulers, generals, officials, scholars, popes, bishops, clerics, abbots, monks, scribes. Ordinary Christians owned no scriptures or documents and had no access to Scripture except through hearing portions read aloud in church services.
This Epoch can be said to have ended in AD 1450 as pope Nicholas V founded the elite Vatican Apostolic Library in Rome.
The Second Epoch of Global Documentation, AO1450-AD1900
Picturesque title: The Age of Public and Private Libraries Accessible to All Literates. Suddenly the emphasis on privilege collapsed as Gutenberg invented movable type and printed the whole Bible. Europe's 30,000 books in AD 1450 mushroomed by AD 1500 to 15 million copies of books, mostly on Christianity. And this surge continued throughout the Epoch's 450 years to AD 1900 as Christian literates rose from 2 million to 200 million.
A major reason for this increase must be the proliferation of all kinds of libraries: national, public, private, religious, church, school, college, university, special, city, archive, research. Almost all were open to all literate seekers after knowledge.
Near the close of this Epoch, new documentary organizations arose of significance to the churches: 1895, the Institut Internationale de Bibliographie (IIB) later renamed the International Federation for Documentation (FID) emphasizing research with 300 affiliated bodies in 60 countries; and 1896, the International Bibliography of Periodical Literature in the Humanities and Social Sciences (IBZ).
The Third Epoch of Global Documentation, AD1900-AD1970
Picturesque title: The Age of Bibliometrics (Library Science) Organized by Librarians. In 1902 the Book Review Digest appeared, eventually with reviews from 600 periodicals; then in 1927, the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA), relating in 1946 to the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), which promulgated the ??-digit International Standard Book Number (ISBN); in 1949, Religious and Theological Abstracts/Religion Index One/Periodicals, indexing articles annually from 645 journals, linked to the Association of Theological Libraries of America (begun 1946) whose database holds 1,315,000 records with 12,000 new records annually; in 1957, the Christian Periodical Index/Association of Christian Librarians; in 1963, the Association of International Librarians; and in 1963, the International Bibliography of Book Reviews Index with 4 million reviews of 2 million book and periodical titles.
This expansion parallels our table: in these 70 years, literates increased by 5 times (Line 5), Christians by 2 times (Line 12), Bibles by 4 times (Line 66), denominations by 10 times (Line 44).
The Fourth Epoch of Global Documentation, AD1970-AD 2000
Picturesque title: The Age of Large-Scale Computerized Information Databases Operated by Professionals. Several computer developments began this Epoch. In 1971 OCLC (Online Computer Library Center) began its work. By 2004 it had grown to 9,000 member institutions with the world's 50,000 largest libraries in 84 countries totalling 55 million titles (bibliometric records).
Two other documentation developments now swept the world. First, from its origins in 1968, the Internet had by 1983 become commercially available. second, in 1989 staff at the European Centre for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva invented the World Wide Web. By 1991 a million users were online.
Churches and mission agencies soon found themselves spending vast sums, estimated at US$12 billion a year, for armies of professionals to operate increasingly complex computer systems numbering 328 million by 2000 (Line 61).
The Fifth Epoch of Global Documentation, AD 2000-AD 2050
Picturesque title: The Age of Total Information Instantly Accessible to All. Suddenly, as in the year 1450, a professional-dominated Epoch ended as some 640 millions now discovered they were online and so able to instantly consult 70 million book titles, 8 billion web pages, and a host of other documentation.
The number of Christians active online has now passed 350 million, using over 4,000 languages, producing on the Internet 2,470 million web pages. Library books primarily on Christianity number 5.7 million titles. Denominations working online number 8,000. Christian global documentation covers 190 subject areas producing over one million new statistics each year reported in the annual Christian megacensus, described here on the fourth page of this report.
Users wanting reliable numbers on any subject within this vast web of related global records can now get instant response.
Counting in the Christian tradition has a long and respectable history, stretching from its biblical roots to the massive annual surveying. Here, Barrett et al discuss the concept of missiometrics, its challenges, the trends reinforcing missiometrics, and the future of missiometrics.
Copyright Overseas Ministries Study Center Jan 2005 | This four-page report, which is also available as a separate offprint, was prepared by David B. Barrett, a contributing editor, Todd M. Johnson, and Peter F. Crossing, who publish widely in the field of missiometrics. Most subjects mentioned in this report are expanded in detail in their World Christian Encyclopedia (2982, 2001) and World Christian Trends (2001) and in www.WorldChristianDatabase.com.
Document IBMR000020050123e11100004
Boustead PLC - Interim Results
1,365 words

22 December 2004

01:31 PM

Regulatory News Service

RNS

English

(c) 2004
RNS Number:7668G Boustead PLC 22 December 2004
BOUSTEAD plc (Incorporated and registered in England and Wales under the Companies Act
and registered number 110665)

Unaudited Interim Results for the period ended 30 September 2004


Chairman's Statement
The results for the six months ending 30th September 2004 show a loss of £169,000. The business is progressing along the lines indicated in my statement accompanying the 2003/04 year end accounts. To enable shareholders to form a better picture of current activities, there follows hereunder a detailed progress report from the managing director, Robert Lyons.
"The small amount of income during the period reflects the conservative method of recognition of income rather than activity. During the six months to 30 September 2004 the company's main activity was the representation of international engineering companies in the territory of Nigeria, through the company's subsidiary Edward Boustead & Co Limited. Several agreements were signed by the company's clients that should generate commissions during the next period. These commissions are accounted for when our client has been paid by their customer.
Edward Boustead & Co Limited's current major area of activity is in West Africa and to capitalise on the contacts built up by the managing director over the past years, a subsidiary has been formed called Edward Boustead (West Africa) Limited in which Edward Boustead & Co Limited holds eighty per cent of the share capital. The balance is held locally.
The West African subsidiary has the following projects in hand the rewards of which should start to be seen during 2005:
1. A twenty five per cent interest in a joint venture agreement with a Chinese manufacturer of telephone equipment and a local Nigeria partner to build a factory in Nigeria producing mobile phones for the West African markets. This interest incurred the company no capital outlay but was the compensation for introducing the parties and managing the project.
2. The company has introduced two Western companies which will assist Nigeria Telecommunication plc (NITEL) in monitoring calls and providing technical assistance. The company will receive a share of the gross revenues.
3. The company has signed an agreement to represent one of the largest companies in Singapore that manufactures FPSOs (floating, production, storage, off loading facility for the oil and gas industry) and oilrigs.
4. The company is working with a consortium company from the Far East that can offer Nigeria Oil & Gas Industries solutions to environmental issues.
5. The company has agreed to represent Vulcan Energy Inc, a United States based manufacturer of generators, in Nigeria.
6. The company has a joint venture agreement with a leading United Kingdom manufacturer of pre-engineered buildings.
7. The company has been invited to find local sponsors for engineering companies producing equipment for the major oil and gas companies. These companies wish to establish a presence in Nigeria.
Neither Boustead plc nor its subsidiaries will act as a principal in the above transactions, except in those cases where the compensation relates to a share of profits. The source of revenue is either from introductory commissions, or management fees."
Shareholders should be aware that the circumstances giving rise to the Auditors' qualification of the Company's annual accounts for the year ended 31 March 2004 have not yet been resolved to the their satisfaction.
Sir Thomas Macpherson 22 December 2004
Consolidated Profit and Loss Account (unaudited) For the period ended 30 September 2004
6 months ended 6 months ended Audited for the

30 September 30 September year ended 31

2004 2003 March 2004

£'000 £'000 £'000

Turnover 55 44 601

Cost of sales - - (523)

---------- ---------- ----------

Gross profit 55 44 78

Net operating

expenses (184) (153) (520)

---------- ---------- ----------


Operating loss before
exceptional items (129) (109) (442)

Exceptional items - (50) (50)

---------- ---------- ----------

Operating loss

before interest (129) (159) (492)

Net interest (40) (7) (38)

---------- ---------- ----------


Loss on ordinary activities before
taxation (169) (166) (530)

Taxation - - 2

---------- ---------- ----------

Retained loss for

the period (169) (166) (528)

========== ========== ==========

Loss per share Pence Pence Pence

Basic and diluted

loss per share (2.29) (2.29) (7.20)


All the results relate to continuing activities of the group.
Total recognised gains and losses
There were no recognised gains or losses in the six months ended 30 September 2004 other than the losses incurred as disclosed above.
Consolidated Balance Sheet (unaudited) As at 30 September 2004
As at As at Audited for

the

30 30 Year ended 31

September September March

2004 2003 2004

£'000 £'000 £'000