To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Russia Today items
From: bpr-list@philologos.org(BPR)
Date: Fri, 17 Dec 1999 08:47:45 -0500

From: "Moza" <moza7@netzero.net>

Russia Vents Wrath On Foreign News Organizations (17Dec.99)
 http://www.russiatoday.com/news.php3?id=119166

RUSSIA'S PARTIES FACE LAST DAY OF POLL CAMPAIGN
MOSCOW -- Russia's politicians have only one day - Friday - left
to win over voters for Sunday's parliamentary election.
http://www.russiatoday.com/news.php3?id=119156&text

EU, Russia Broaden Crime-Fighting Cooperation (17Dec.99)
 http://www.russiatoday.com/news.php3?id=119195

Yeltsin Intends To Visit Japan Next Spring (17Dec.99)
 http://www.russiatoday.com/news.php3?id=119193

Yeltsin Says Russia Supported On World Order View (16Dec.99)
 http://www.russiatoday.com/news.php3?id=119105

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To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Infobeat News items (12/17/99)
From: bpr-list@philologos.org(BPR)
Date: Fri, 17 Dec 1999 08:56:33 -0500

From: "Moza" <moza7@netzero.net>

*** Painting of Virgin Mary vandalized

NEW YORK (AP) - A man smuggled white oil paint into an art
museum Thursday and squirted it onto a painting of the Virgin Mary
decorated with elephant dung, museum officials and police said.
The painting was cleaned and will be back on display Friday at the
Brooklyn Museum of Art, the museum said. The artwork has
incensed various groups, including the Catholic League and Mayor
Rudolph Giuliani, who tried to cut off city funding to the museum.
The man who allegedly defaced the painting, Dennis Heiner, 72,
was immediately surrounded by security guards and taken into
police custody. He was charged with criminal mischief, a felony.
Heiner brought the paint into the museum in a small plastic hand
lotion tube, said museum spokeswoman Sally Williams. See
http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2562660731-4ef

*** Israel-Syria talks adjourn till Jan. 3

WASHINGTON (AP) - Israel and Syria ended two days of
inconclusive peace talks Thursday and agreed to resume the
chase early in the new year. President Clinton assured the
longtime foes they could count on the U.S. for help "every step of
the way." Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Syrian Foreign
Minister Farouk al-Sharaa stood alongside Clinton as he described
their discussions as difficult but also said, "We are witnessing a
new beginning" in the quest for peace in the Middle East. Clinton
said the two delegations would return to Washington Jan. 3. Other
officials said the talks may be held in either Maryland or Virginia.
The test could come well before negotiations are resumed, as
Israel asked Syria to rein in guerrillas in Lebanon as a confidence-
building measure. "Both sides understood the importance of not
having terrorists damage the peace process," Secretary of State
Madeleine Albright said. See
http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2562666871-62b
*** Also: Israel-Syria talks provide little, see
http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2562667612-355

*** Russia dismisses NATO criticism

MOSCOW (AP) - In strong language reminiscent of Cold War
times, Russia told NATO Thursday to mind its own business and
not meddle in Moscow's action in breakaway Chechnya. The
announcement came after NATO foreign ministers condemned
Russia for its military offensive in Chechnya and a recent Russian
ultimatum to civilians to get out of the capital, Grozny or be
destroyed. "The latest outpouring of crocodile tears in Brussels
over human rights strikes one as flagrant cynicism," the Russian
Foreign Ministry said. Russia harshly criticized the alliance when it
launched air strikes against Yugoslavia earlier this year. Russia
already considers NATO a major threat, and has protested its
expansion east to include former Soviet satellites. See
http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2562656646-be7

*** Rich, developing countries OK goals

BERLIN (AP) - The newly-established Group of 20 - the world's
seven richest nations and 13 emerging economies - held its first
foreign ministers' summit, agreeing Thursday to general steps to
avert global economic tailspins. Participants issued a list of
achievements and goals, including the need for balanced budgets,
stable exchange rates and more financial openness. How to
achieve all that remained a topic of debate when the session
closed, but G-20 chairman Paul Martin, the Canadian finance
minister, called the meeting an important first step. Delegates
agreed the new group should pinpoint the reasons economies
suddenly turn sour, as they have recently in Mexico, South Korea,
Russia and Brazil. "Generally there was a very good feeling in the
room," said U.S. Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers. See
http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2562657697-284

*** Charity workers face prison terms

CAMBRIDGE, England (AP) - Charity workers fear police have a
new target for Britain's zero-tolerance drug policy: social workers
who try to help substance abusers. Two executives of a Cambridge
charity could be sentenced Friday to up to 14 years in prison after
being convicted of failing to stop heroin dealing outside the
homeless shelter they operate. Wintercomfort director, Ruth Wyner
and project manager John Brock were convicted last month after a
six-week trial of failing to take every reasonable step to stop the
drug sales - including giving the police names of suspected dealers
even if that violated client confidentiality. The case has alarmed
community workers, who argue their business is to help the
homeless, an estimated half of whom are drug users. See
http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2562657606-e3c

*** White House bash one for ages

WASHINGTON (AP) - Tapping his long list of famous friends,
President Clinton is throwing a millennium celebration so glitzy and
large that it might be easier to guess who's NOT coming to dinner.
Roughly 1,000 people will descend upon the White House New
Year's Eve. The guests are not hangers-on either - they range from
Muhammad Ali to Elizabeth Taylor. "It's meant to reflect all that's
best about America," said Marsha Berry, the first lady's
spokeswoman. "These people have been invited because they
achieved greatness." The nation's capital will begin turn-of-the-
millennium festivities Dec. 31 with opening ceremonies on
Constitution Avenue near the White House, featuring the Marine
Corps band and the 100-member New Millennium Choir, a young
people's choir created especially for the occasion. See
http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2562657029-4cd

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To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Arutz-7 News items (12/17/99)
From: bpr-list@philologos.org(BPR)
Date: Fri, 17 Dec 1999 09:06:57 -0500

From: "Moza" <moza7@netzero.net>

BARAK IS CONVINCED

Prime Minister Ehud Barak returned to Israel this morning after the
conclusion of the first round of talks with Syrian Foreign Minister
Farouk A-Shara. The Americans, Israelis and Syrians declared at
the end of yesterday's talks that they were "better than expected,"
although no agreement was reached on "mutual gestures" between
the sides as Israel had hoped. The chilly atmosphere of the talks
was reinforced by U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright in a
press conference last night, when she denied that A-Shara had
shaken Barak's hand in private. IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Sha'ul
Mofaz greeted Barak at the airport this morning. Barak is slated to
return to Washington in 2-3 weeks time for a more intensive round
of talks. Foreign Minister David Levy said today that the two sides
plan to begin formulating principles of agreement between the
countries.

The ballistic capabilities of Middle Eastern states have made much
of the Golan Heights' security value obsolete. So said Prime
Minister Barak in a briefing session with the Israeli delegation in
Washington yesterday, according to Israel's former liaison to
Congress, Yoram Ettinger. Citing a conversation he had with an
Israeli delegation member, Ettinger writes that Barak told the group
that "the Golan's water resources are not crucial to Israel, and
shouldn't interfere with the progress of the talks with the Syrians,
because in 4-5 years, Israel will have been able to desalinate
enough water for its needs. Until then," Barak added, "Israel can
import water from Turkey."

Barak's attitude towards the Syrian track is quite worrisome for
additional reasons, Ettinger told Arutz-7 today. According to
Ettinger, a friend of his, a former high-level IDF officer who
supported Barak in the last elections met privately with Barak two
months ago, and concluded that "as far as the Golan is concerned,
Barak is a lost cause." Ettinger said that his friend quoted Barak
as saying that a total withdrawal from the Golan "would have a
shock-wave effect on Assad, the Syrians, and the Arabs as a
whole, transforming the Middle East from a conflict-ridden arena to
an area of peace."

TEMPLE MOUNT FINDS

Remnants from both the First and Second Temple Periods - mostly
pottery and stone vessels, but also fragments of buildings - were
discovered in archeological examinations of the piles of refuse from
under the Temple Mount. The piles were formed by over 100
truckloads of dirt and remains dumped by the Moslem Waqf into
the Kidron Valley this week. Archeologist Dan Bahat discovered
this morning that of the materials extracted by Chai Vekayam
members, one-fifth of the materials date to each of the First Temple
period and Second Temple periods. Additional archeologists will
further review the material later today.

In light of the recent desecration of the ancient Jewish sites under
the Temple Mount, MK Rabbi Benny Elon (National Union) has
called upon Israel's Chief Rabbis Lau and Bakshi-Doron to
reconsider their pronouncement that Jews are forbidden to enter
the Temple Mount. Elon notes that Jewish law permits Jews to
enter several locations on the Mount under certain conditions, and
that the present blanket prohibition serves the purposes of the
Moslem. Elon fears that in the end, the Beilin-Abu Mazen plan will
be implemented, Jerusalem will be divided, and the Temple Mount
will be officially transferred to the sovereignty of the Palestinian
Authority.

POLICE PAY FOR MOSLEM PRAYER

The local Jerusalem paper "Kol Ha'ir" reports today that the
Ministry of Public Security is paying for the transport of Moslems
to the Temple Mount mosques. Dozens of buses chartered by the
ministry each Friday, at a cost of hundreds of thousands of
shekels, transport Moslems from the roadblocks around Jerusalem
to the Temple Mount. Ministry officials explain that the bus line is
aimed at increasing police control over the traffic movement of
Moslems to and from the Temple Mount, and preventing traffic
jams.

MORE P.A. BEATINGS

LAW - the Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights -
reports with "grave concern" that yet another Palestinian Legislative
Council member was beaten this week by official PA security
agents. The victim, Abdul Jawad Saleh, was brutally beaten by
General Intelligence agents after he took part in a sit-in in Jericho
protesting the detention of persons who had signed some
colleagues who had signed a petition against PA civil rights
abuses. Saleh was treated in a hospital as a result of the beating.
LAW reports that in the summer of 1998, six Legislative Council
members were similarly physically assaulted in two separate
incidents by Palestinian security officers.

The Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group reported this week
that a Palestinian prisoner had died in prison - the 22nd death in
Palestinian custody since the establishment of the Palestinian
Authority. Mahmoud Hasan al-Bajjali, 33, died in Ramallah prison
on December 6, 1999, after having spent five years in prison
without trial. The prisoner did not suffer from any illness, and his
mother found him in good health only three weeks before his death.
 No medical or autopsy reports were given his family.

Arutz Sheva News Service
  <http://www.arutzsheva.org>
Friday, December 17, 1999 / Tevet 8, 5760

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To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Millennium's final full moon to include unusual combination
From: bpr-list@philologos.org(BPR)
Date: Fri, 17 Dec 1999 10:40:55 -0500

From: owner-bpr@philologos.org

12/17/99 -- 3:19 AM

Millennium's final full moon to include unusual combination

WASHINGTON (AP) - The final full moon of the millennium comes
Dec. 22 on the first day of winter and during the closest lunar
approach to the Earth, but the combination is not as rare as
some people have thought, experts say.

Sky and Telescope magazine reports on its Web site that people
have been sending e-mail and faxes insisting that the
combination of closeness to Earth and the winter solstice will
make next Wednesday's full moon the brightest in more than a
century.

Not so, says Roger W. Sinnott, associate editor of the magazine.

Approximately the same combination of things happened in
December 1991, and it was very close to the same in December
1980. Furthermore, the full moon passed nearer to the Earth in
1930 and 1912 than in this year, Sky & Telescope says.

"This is a cool combination of things and the poet in me loves
it," Sten Oldenwald, an astronomer who works for Raytheon at the
Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, said in an interview
Thursday. "But it is not particularly rare."

The winter solstice, which occurs when the tilt of the Earth's
axis puts the sun directly over the Tropic of Capricorn, comes
every December. It marks the first day of winter. Oldenwald said
it is not unusual for the full moon to come within 24 hours of
the solstice. Perigee, when the moon is closest to the Earth,
also happens quite often in December, he said.

"About every 10 years or so you will get approximately this
combination," he said. "It will happen five to seven times in a
lifetime."

The full moon on Wednesday will be at its closest approach to
Earth in about 70 years, but it will take an exceedingly sharp
eye to spot any difference from an average full moon, Oldenwald
said.

The moon makes an elliptical orbit of the Earth, ranging on
average from about 227,000 miles away at the closest to about
254,000 miles at the farthest. On Wednesday night, the full moon
will be 221,620 miles from Earth.

In January, 1930, the full moon perigee was about 160 miles
closer, according to Sky & Telescope. The magazine said the
record closeness for a full moon was on Jan. 4, 1912, when the
lunar sphere was 221,447 miles from Earth.

"The full moon would have been about 25 percent brighter than
average in 1912," said Oldenwald, "but I doubt that you could
have told the difference with the naked eye."

People living near the ocean may notice that the tides may run
slightly higher than normal on Wednesday because of the perigee
full moon, said Oldenwald. But even that is not unusual.

"Beach front property owners should be attuned to it," said
Oldenwald. "If you live on the beach and you remember 1991 when
this last happened, well it is going to happen again."

via: hblondel@tampabay.rr.com

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To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - What's New at BPR?
From: bpr-list@philologos.org(BPR)
Date: Fri, 17 Dec 1999 13:37:06 -0500

From: owner-bpr@philologos.org

Bible Prophecy Research
Additions and updates made since Nov 22, 1999
Issue #37
December 17, 1999
=========================

Hi everyone...

Just a couple of quick items to mention in this update.

> Added: The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah
by Alfred Edersheim
http://philologos.org/__eb-lat

Books I and II are currently online. Although copies of this
public domain work has been on the internet for some time, we
felt the format (at least the only copy that we were able to
find) was bit bulky for most people to work with. So Moza
"chopped" it up into smaller bite size pieces for online readers.

---------

> Added: Angels
http://philologos.org/bpr/files/a011.htm

Lots of miscellaneous info on angels, mostly taken from
Ginzberg's Legends of the Jews. We also added a link to an
article by Lambert Dolphin on angels. Edersheim's Life and
Times also has some information on angels in Appendix 13, which
we don't have online yet, but hope to soon.

===================
VIDEO RECOMMENDATION

Matthew: The Visual Bible

Available from Christian Book Distributors
http://www.chrbook.com

Vendor: Visual Entertainment Inc.
ISBN: 0849985951
CBD Stock Number: WW85951
CBD Price: $74.95
Availability: Ships immediately.

Description: Magnificent, breathtaking, powerful, this movie
epic transports you back to the Israel of A.D. 62, as Matthew
(now an apostle) begins to reflect on the turbulent events he
witnessed as a disciple of Jesus. Shot on location in Morocco
and South Africa with more than 2,000 performers, Matthew boasts
stunning performances by Richard Kiley and Bruce Marchiano.
Taken from the NIV, the script ensures that this film is
faithful to God's Word. Four 60-minute videocassettes in a
slipcased set.

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

"Within the last century man has leaped ahead in scientific
achievement but has lagged behind morally, with the result that
he is now technically capable of destroying the world and
morally incapable of restraining himself from doing so."

A. W. TOZER (1897–1963)

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

Bible Prophecy Research: http://philologos.org/bpr
Download Online Books: http://philologos.org
The BPR Reference Guide: http://philologos.org/guide

Suggestions or comments? Please send them to
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====================

Thanks!
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To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Conjuring ads out of thin air
From: bpr-list@philologos.org(BPR)
Date: Fri, 17 Dec 1999 18:22:10 -0500

From: "Moza" <moza7@netzero.net>

Conjuring ads out of thin air

Using pinpoint technology based on military tracking, virtual
advertising can impose images tailored to particular countries,
tweaking the display to complement the market. Jim Davies reports
 

SPORTING events - particularly those with global audiences - have
become major shop windows for international brands. Can you
imagine Tiger Woods taking a swing without the Nike swoosh on
his cap? Or Manchester United stepping out wearing plain old red
shirts without the word Sharp emblazoned across them?

Sports-oriented marketeers have looked into every possible
opportunity to flaunt their logos - in golf competitions ads sit inside
the cup of the hole, so that brand names are visible via an aerial
camera as the player holes his shot. But the latest, and potentially
most revolutionary, avenue for getting your message across to
armchair sports fans is so-called "virtual advertising".

These are ads which aren't actually there at the stadium, but
appear to be if you're at home watching proceedings on television.
The technology is based on military tracking and navigation
expertise and it's perhaps telling that two of the four major players
in the industry are of Israeli origin (the others French and
American).

Virtual advertising works by tampering with the digital broadcast
signal before it reaches our homes. Co-ordinates of, say, a
perimeter hoarding at a stadium or a prime patch of turf are keyed
into a computer program. An image is then superimposed on to the
designated area, which from then on, is tracked electronically as
the cameras move across the screen. A continuous image is
generated in real time without disrupting the broadcast. The images
can be changed at given intervals and can even feature two- or
three-dimensional animations.

The technology has existed for several years but the performance
wasn't acceptable for prime-time television until about a year and a
half ago, explains Dennis Wilkinson, CEO of Princeton Video
Image, one of the medium's major players. "Previously, images
didn't stay put, but now there are no glitches and it really looks as
if it exists within the environment in which it is placed. It's a highly
sophisticated form of artificial intelligence."

When it is properly up and running, as it already is in several
territories including the US, Australia and South America, virtual
advertising opens up all sorts of possibilities, as well as a few cans
of worms. On the positive side, it allows specific signals to be
channelled to different parts of the world, so the advertising
message can be tailored to particular markets - this is known as
"narrowcasting". In theory, the same billboard could at the same
time be received as a Mandarin language ad in China, an Arabic ad
in the Middle East, a German ad in Germany, and so on. There are
also various potential safety benefits. For many, the highlight of
competitive skiing is watching participants lose control and crash
violently into the advertising hoardings on the sidelines. Replace
these hard metal objects with virtual ads, and unfortunate skiers
will be able to hurtle into soft snow, their pride hurt, but their limbs
intact. This theory applies equally to all forms of motor sport.

On the downside, there's a potential for distracting, tacky
application of the medium. A domestic broadcast of a recent Greek
Cup Final, for example, showed the players running around, and
occasionally through, giant deodorant cans, which appeared to be
magically squirting their contents into the enthusiastic - but
unaccountably dry - crowd. Entertainment programming is also
being targeted for the digital advertising treatment. A prime-time US
series called Seven Days recently experimented with product
placement. Nothing unusual there, you might think. But the
products weren't actually there during filming - they were dropped in
afterwards during post-production.

Full story:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/et?ac=000343180237640&rtmo=falrY
N3s&atmo=99999999&pg=/et/99/12/9/ecfad09.html

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