Spark

Indonesian Muslims told

to change prayer direction

Indonesia's Muslims learned on Friday they have been praying in the wrong direction, after the country's highest Islamic authority said its directive on the direction of Mecca actually had people facing Africa.

Muslims are supposed to face the holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia during prayer and the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) issued an edict in March stipulating westward was the correct direction from the world's most populous Muslim country.

"But it has been decided that actually the mosques are facing Somalia or Kenya, so we are now suggesting people shift the direction slightly to the north-west," the head of the MUI, Cholil Ridwan, told Reuters. "There's no need to knock down mosques, just shift your direction slightly during prayer."

Ridwan said Muslims need not fear that their prayers have been wasted because they were facing the wrong way.

"Their prayers will still be heard by Allah," he said.

Said Agil Siradj, head of Indonesia's largest Muslim organization Nahdlatul Ulama, told English language newspaper the Jakarta Globe that the confusion showed the MUI issued edicts too fast and that this was a lesson for them.

The MUI has, in the past, issued controversial edicts banning Muslims from chanting during yoga, and from smoking.

Indonesia is a majority Muslim but officially secular country. Reuters

Power company tells

customer she is dead

An Austrian woman has had to convince her electricity supplier that she is alive after the company wrote to her asking for information about her contract following her "passing away."

In a personally addressed letter, the Linz-based company said it had heard of her death through her bank, daily Oesterreich reported on Thursday.

"I am not the dead one," 58-year-old Christine R. wrote back in a fax and email to the company, explaining that it was her neighbor who had died and she was the custodian. She eventually went to the customer center in person to prove her existence.

"It was an unfortunate mistake," a spokeswoman for the company said. "There was a muddle in the paperwork and the letters we automatically send out. It has been resolved now."Reuters

Rain Rain

---- Pumdee Gamlin, 8 yrs

Kendriya Vidyalaya No. 2

Itanagar

Rain rain every day

why rain can’t stop

I am here to play but to

see the rain comes again

Rain Rain every day every where

I have to sit in house every day

Rain Rain every day

but I am not only one

Who wants that rain stop

Rain Rain every day every where

When rain will go

I can play and relax any body

Rain rain every day every where.