To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Inside China Today items (6/1/99)
From: bpr-list@philologos.org(BPR)
Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 09:20:50 +0000
From: "Moza" <moza@butterfly.mv.com>
CLINTON TO SEEK ONE-YEAR TRADE RENEWAL WITH CHINA
WASHINGTON -- With hopes fading of an early agreement to bring China
into the World Trade Organization, President Bill Clinton is expected
this week to ask Congress for a simple one-year extension of U.S.
trading privileges for China.
http://www.insidechina.com/news.php3?id=71366&text
RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTER LEAVES FOR CHINA VISIT
MOSCOW -- Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov flew to Bejing on
Tuesday for three days of talks with Chinese officials likely to be
dominated by the Yugoslav crisis as well as bilateral relations.
http://www.insidechina.com/news.php3?id=71365&text
CHINESE DISSIDENTS BEGIN DISCREET TIANANMEN COMMEMORATIONS
BEIJING -- Dissidents across China on Tuesday began quiet
commemorations for the 10th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square
massacre, despite heightened police surveillance, sources said
Tuesday. http://www.insidechina.com/news.php3?id=71372&text
RUSSIA WANTS TO BOOST MILITARY COOPERATION WITH CHINA
BEIJING -- Russia wants to boost military cooperation with China,
visiting Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces
Valiedin Korapierinykof said Monday, Xinhua reported.
http://www.insidechina.com/news.php3?id=71364&text
CHINA PRIVATE SECTOR TRADE MISSION DUE IN ISRAEL
JERUSALEM -- The first-ever delegation of Chinese entrepreneurs to
visit Israel will arrive on Tuesday as part of an effort to increase
technological cooperation, Israel's Industry and Trade Ministry said
on Monday. http://invest.insidechina.com/business.php3?id=71368&text
========
To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Religion Today items (6/1/99)
From: bpr-list@philologos.org(BPR)
Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 09:31:36 +0000
From: "Moza" <moza@butterfly.mv.com>
Seventy-two percent of Americans believe the world will come to a
sudden end some day, as the Bible predicts -- but not soon. A survey
conducted by Scripps Howard News Service found that only 15% say it's
"very likely" or "somewhat likely" that the arrival of the millennium
means the world will come to an end. Two-thirds said imminent global
demise is "very unlikely."
A 30-second silence turned into a vocal recitation of The Lord's
Prayer at a graduation ceremony. Prayer had long been a tradition
during commencements at Northern High School in Silver Spring, Md.
Senior Julie Schenk planned to deliver an invocation at the May 26
event, but fellow student Nick Becker objected, saying prayer is
inappropriate at a public ceremony. The state attorney general's
office agreed with a request by the American Civil Liberties Union on
Becker's behalf. It informed Calvert County officials that graduation
prayers violate the constitutional separation of church and state. As
a compromise, Schenk agreed to ask for a 30-second "time for
reflection" that did not mention God. ...But God was mentioned
nevertheless. A man in the crowd began to recite The Lord's Prayer
aloud shortly after Schenk began the moment of silence. Virtually the
entire 4,000-member audience, including many students, joined in, the
Associated Press reported. ...Becker walked out of the ceremony, and
was stopped when he tried to re-enter. Calvert County school policy
bars students who leave school events from returning. A Maryland State
Police officer told Becker he was not allowed back in. "I told the cop
"I'm getting my diploma, " the senior told The Washington Post. When
Becker tried to use another door, police detained him and threatened
to cite him for failing to obey a lawful order. "We didn't want him to
disrupt the ceremony," State Police Lt. George McKeon said. Becker was
released, but school officials also barred him from attending a
school-sponsored cruise around the Baltimore Harbor that night.
...Detaining Becker was tantamount to arresting him, ACLU spokeswoman
Suzanne Smith said. "The real loser here is the Constitution and the
right of people to express dissent," Calvert County Superintendent
James Hook said the crowd should have respected the moment of silence.
"It shows disrespect for the young lady who asked for silence and for
the young man who requested that the prayer not be done." ..."This is
a churchgoing community, and no one in Annapolis or Washington, D.C.,
is going to tell us when and where we can pray," said Linda Kelley,
president of the Calvert County Commission, who joined in the prayer.
"The school administrators did the legal thing and complied with the
law. But the audience took this one over."
http://www.religiontoday.com
========
To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Barak may skip to final status talks
From: bpr-list@philologos.org(BPR)
Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 09:33:13 +0000
From: "Moza" <moza@butterfly.mv.com>
Barak may skip to final status talks
By David Makovsky, Ha'aretz Diplomatic Correspondent
Ha'aretz 1 June 1999
http://www3.haaretz.co.il/eng/htmls/3_2.htm
Prime Minister-elect Ehud Barak is considering whether to consult with
the U.S. and the Palestinians about not implementing the Wye agreement
and instead jumping directly to final status talks, Labor Party
sources say.
According to aides, Barak is planning to omit the implementation of
the Wye agreement from the coalition guidelines, although they will
mention the Oslo accords.
Until now, the Palestinians and the U.S. have been assuming that Barak
would immediately implement the last two stages of the Wye accord when
he becomes prime minister.
In 1995, after he joined the Rabin government, Barak was the only
member of the inner circle dealing with peace negotiations who opposed
the interim pullbacks put forward in the Oslo II agreement, preferring
that everything be left for the final accord.
Should Barak hold consultations, they will be based on the premise
that his government will have the political clout - which the
Netanyahu government lacked - to deliver a final status deal, and
hence there is no need for interim steps.
According to a Labor Party source, "Barak is considering talking to
the U.S. and the Palestinians about not implementing Wye and going
straight to final status. He has not made a final decision.
"However, even if he does so, he would not unilaterally jump to final
status against the wishes of the U.S. and the Palestinians, since
[Wye] is an international agreement signed by the government of
Israel."
The Netanyahu government withdrew from 2 percent of the estimated 13
percent of the territories due to be handed over under the Wye
agreement.
Barak's thoughts of skipping over the Wye agreement comes at the same
time as he has told the National Religious Party (NRP) that settlement
activity can continue under certain conditions. "Barak said clearly
that he won't freeze settlements," stated NRP head Education Minister
Yitzhak Levy.
Even if Barak goes ahead with Wye, keeping mention of it out of the
government's statement of principles could also make it easier for
Barak to woo right-wing elements such as the NRP.
"We are worried about the intentions of this new government. During
its campaign, the Labor Party said funds would be for schools, not
settlements," said Faisal Husseini, the top PLO official in Jerusalem.
"To bring into the government parties that support settlement makes us
wonder about the intentions of this government.
========
To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Noah's Ark? Or elaborate fraud?
From: bpr-list@philologos.org(BPR)
Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 10:32:22 +0000
From: owner-bpr@philologos.org
TUESDAY JUNE 01 1999
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/
bluesky_exnews/19990601_xex_noahs_ark_br.shtml
Noah's Ark? Or elaborate fraud?
Tennessee adventurers document astonishing find
By Cathy Casper
c 1999 WorldNetDaily.com
Within recent months a great interest has been resurrected in Noah's
Ark; first it was all the jewelry and associated products hitting the
shelves of the stores with pictures and images depicting the Ark. Next
came a month of advertising for the movie and then the movie that
television moguls billed as the event of a lifetime and many
Christians viewed as historically incorrect.
Despite all the hoopla and questions on the Ark's location, a possible
finding of the Ark inspires hope for many.
Four east Tennessee men have felt that hope on the trip of a lifetime
that led them on a dangerous adventure to Turkey to view what many
claim is the final resting spot of Noah's Ark.
Attorney Ron Leadbetter, private investigator Barry Rice, physician
Jerry Lemler and his son -- currently a West Point cadet, then high
school senior -- Russell Lemler, are not explorers.
They are ordinary men who set off with intrigue in their eyes and hope
in their hearts to the mountains of Turkey; traveling to a region
explored by few before them. Recently they have chronicled their
difficult journey in a book entitled simply "Journey to Noah's Ark, "
which contains some of the only known photographs of the Noah's Ark
site.
A long-time adventurer, Leadbetter has taken many tumultuous trips in
the past, usually traveling with whatever vagabond party of friends he
can cajole into going with him. He is known for taking the kind of
trips that most vacationers would want no part of, not only because
many of them are in regions of the world not overly explored by the
human species, but many have been extremely exotic and dangerous.
"He has never been one to do the standard golfing in Saint Andrews or
touring the Vineyards of France," said traveling companion Lemler.
Leadbetter's interest in the Noah's Ark site began after he met an
amateur archeologist from Nashville, Tenn., Ron Wyatt. Wyatt, who
traveled through the mountains of Turkey many times in the '70s and
'80s was convinced he had found Noah's Ark and was instrumental in
helping to set up the visitors center presently located at the site.
The meeting between Leadbetter and Wyatt further fueled
Leadbetter's desire to see the alleged ark site for himself; thus
began a trip that took three years to plan out.
In the past the exact location of where the Ark landed has caused a
huge controversy among explorers and archeologists alike. Many believe
the ark landed at Mount Ararat, while others argue that the Bible
spoke of the "mountains of Ararat." Lemler and others believe that in
this case the word "mountains" is the clue.
"The plural mountains is the key, which does not necessarily mean
Ararat itself," said Lemler.
Wyatt's discovery was indeed several miles southwest of Mount
Ararat, on what is known as the "Duripinar site."
According to Lemler, several samples taken in the '70s and '80s and
analyzed in the U.S. proved inconclusive.
"They did not find rock, they found living matter; carbon, so there
was something actively living in that structure at one time," he said.
Many people in the past have written the site off as being only a rock
formation when tests have proven otherwise.
The formation was identified as a boat by a number of skilled
photogrammetry experts, and samples taken from around the Ark by Wyatt
were identified as organic matter by Galbraith Labs in Knoxville,
Tenn.
The formation also meets the size and height as identified in the
Bible. In an American perspective that is approximately the size of
one and one half football fields.
The site was not easily reached, down 10 miles of dirt roads and over
the mountain from Iran. It is a site Americans have been discouraged
from visiting, and in recent years the visitors center has been
closed.
"Right now because of the even further escalation of hostilities in
the area, the site has been closed and we as far as we know are the
last westerners to have visited the site," Lemler said.
Lemler's group was fortunate; they not only were able to see the site,
but the guard Hassan, also known as the "guardian of the Ark," allowed
them to walk out on the site exploring it firsthand.
This walk is what convinced them; they found hundreds of seashells on
a site that was located 50 miles away from the nearest body of water
and that was a freshwater lake.
"It was not like someone took a truckload of seashells and spread them
out for our pleasure, they were there on the boat and in the immediate
vicinity, but no where else in that region," Lemler said.
He believes, as do the others that if it is not Noah's Ark, it is an
amazing engineering feat by someone.
"We are not talking about someone out in a desert who sees a flying
saucer landing; we are talking about a physician, a West Point cadet,
an attorney and a private investigator, four people who generally have
a fair level of smarts, are inquisitive and are not four nuts who
absolutely had to find something," he said.
All four of the men are convinced not necessarily that it is Noah's
Ark - - though it certainly appears to be -- but that there is a boat
on a mountain with no other explanation of how it arrived there.
Once returning to the U.S., the men began to talk to various civic and
religious groups telling of their experiences, showing the video, the
pictures, the shells and the ballast brought home with them. Each
group was curious and wanted more; that is when the idea and the
writing of the book came about.
Lemler describes the experience in Eastern Turkey as awe inspiring:
"It is like when I was a kid and touched the Liberty Bell for the
first time, only on a much larger scale," he said.
Journey to Noah's Ark is available at Barnes and Noble and from the
group's website.
========
To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - No embassy move
From: bpr-list@philologos.org(BPR)
Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 12:32:49 +0000
From: "Moza" <moza@butterfly.mv.com>
SENATORS "DISAPPOINTED" WITH POSTPONEMENT OF EMBASSY MOVE
Senators and Jewish leaders are concerned over U.S. President
Clinton's waiver yesterday of legislation to re-locate the U.S.
Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The law allows the President to
waive its deadline - which was yesterday - by six months if he feels
that national security considerations warrant it. Sen. Jon Kyl,
together with Senators Lieberman, Lott, Schumer, Helms, Brownback,
Coverdale, Landrieu, Nichols, and Fitzgerald, sent a letter to Clinton
last week in which they warned that they may have no option other than
to amend the law and rescind the Presidential waiver option.
B'nai B'rith International President Richard D. Heideman similarly
wrote President Clinton that "the United States has diplomatic
relations with nearly 200 countries. In only one of them do we
maintain our embassy in a location other than the capital. That one
anomaly is Israel." Heideman put to rest allegations that moving the
embassy would harm Arab-Israeli diplomacy: "In fact, failure to move
the embassy has encouraged Arab intransigence and unnecessarily
prolonged peace negotiations. When Israel is singled out for such
discrimination by its one major ally, why should Arab-Islamic states
opposed to its existence soften their stance, and why should Arab
countries and movements more likely to reach a settlement hurry to do
so?"
Arutz Sheva News Service
<http://www.a7.org>
Tuesday, June 1, 1999 / Sivan 17, 5759
========
To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Crew to abandon Mir in August
From: bpr-list@philologos.org(BPR)
Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 16:03:07 +0000
From: "Moza" <moza@butterfly.mv.com>
[Mir means "Peace," I believe--Moza]
11:23 AM ET 06/01/99
Crew To Abandon Mir in August
Crew To Abandon Mir in August
By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV
Associated Press Writer
MOSCOW (AP) _ The Mir's current crew will abandon the Russian space
station in August, and the orbiter will circle Earth unmanned until early
next year, when it is expected to burn up in the atmosphere, space
officials said today.
Russia's cash-strapped government has agreed to finance the 13-year-old
space station only through August, and says it should be discarded then
unless private funding is found. Repeated attempts to raise money have
failed.
A panel of top Russian space officials decided today that the best option
would be for the three-man crew to leave in August, said Vyacheslav
Mikhailichenko, a spokesman for the Russian Space Agency.
Prior to their departure, they will install and test new equipment
allowing ground controllers to command the station without a crew on
board, he said.
The officials moved to quell fears that the 130-ton station could spin out
of control and cause havoc on the ground with a fiery return. They said
ground controllers would ensure that all fragments splash harmlessly into
a remote part of the ocean.
``Prior to the crew's departure, they will install and test new equipment
allowing ground controllers to ensure a trouble-free flight,''
Mikhailichenko said.
The record of Mir's predecessor, the Salyut-7, provoked doubts about the
safety of an unmanned operation. Soviet ground controllers lost control of
the unmanned, 40-ton space station in February 1991, and people the world
over anxiously awaited its landing.
Pieces fell on a sparsely populated area in Argentina's Andes mountains
near the Chilean border, causing no injuries or damage.
But Mikhailichenko insisted there was no danger from the Mir. If there is
no money to extend the Mir's flight, its orbit will gradually descend from
its present 240 miles above Earth to 125 miles early next year, and ground
controllers will send it to burn up in the atmosphere in February or
March, Mikhailichenko said.
The U.S. space agency NASA has long urged Russia to abandon the Mir and
concentrate its meager resources on the new international space station,
which has been falling behind because of Russia's failure to build its
segments on time. The first permanent crew isn't expected to move in until
next March, almost two years behind schedule.
But Russian space officials have been reluctant to part with the Mir, the
last symbol of the nation's past space glory. They fear that without the
Mir, Russia will be left playing a secondary role in the new station,
dominated by the United States.
``Our station is like a thorn in the Americans' side,'' Sergei Gorbunov, a
spokesman for Russian Space Agency chief Yuri Koptev, said on NTV
television.
The Mir was plagued by several serious accidents in 1997, including a
fire, a near-fatal collision with a cargo ship and repeated failures of
on-board computers and other equipment.
It has been running relatively smoothly since then, but Russia can no
longer afford the $250 million a year needed for the Mir operation.
``We can't keep the station aloft, because we have no money,'' Gorbunov
said.
At the Johnson Space Center in Houston, NASA spokesman Rob Navias said the
U.S. agency was not involved in the Russian decision.
``We knew that they were going to make a decision,'' he said. ``It's their
decision.''
Russian space officials will now send their plan to President Boris
Yeltsin's government for final approval.
http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2559762447-109
========
To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Tornadoes Zapped from Space
From: bpr-list@philologos.org(BPR)
Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 18:42:16 +0000
From: "Moza" <moza@butterfly.mv.com>
[Please note the name "Eastlund" which is the same as the HAARP post
sent out a couple of days ago.--Moza]
June 1, 1999
http://www.discovery.com/news/briefs/brief3.html
Tornadoes Zapped from Space
Scientists say they've come up with a way to "kill" tornadoes; zap the
storms that produce them with microwave beams shot from space. The
Dick Tracy-like idea uses microwaves shot from a space-based platform
to "kill" twisters.The Dick Tracy-like idea uses microwaves shot from
a space-based platform to "kill" twisters.
Lyle Jenkins, a former NASA engineer, and Bernard Eastlund, of
Eastlund Scientific Enterprises Corp., introduced the idea Saturday at
the International Space Development Conference in Houston.
In 1997, Jenkins discovered that Eastlund had raised the idea of
"geoengineering" weather disasters in the 1980s. Jenkins then
convinced the European Space Agency to hire Eastlund to study whether
high-power microwaves could disrupt a tornado-producing thunderstorm,
a question not considered in Eastlund's original patents.
Those patents led to a controversial Defense Department ground-based
antenna array used for military applications in the ionosphere.
Using a sophisticated computer model of a thunderstorm cell -- called
a "mesocyclone" -- Eastlund and Ming Xue, a weather simulation
software expert at the University of Oklahoma, tested a hypothetical
space-based system.
Ming increased the resolution of the wind, water, and temperature
readings within the virtual storm to 50 meters, much sharper than that
of previous tornado simulations.
They simulated a microwave blast into the storm at 1,000 milliwatts --
more powerful than any existing microwave beam -- almost as soon as
the storm started.
"It created a storm shape Ming had never seen," Eastlund says. "So,
yes, we were definitely affecting the storm."
Eastlund and Jenkins suggested Saturday that a coordinated system of
ground- and/or space-based Doppler radars could warn of an impending
storm in time to target and power up an orbiting microwave gun.
"The bottom line is that the elements to actually control tornadoes
look like they might be there," Eastlund says. "This is not a scary
Dick Tracy beam. What we need is a great deal more study within the
space and weather research communities to see if this might be true,
and if it can be done safely."
Kelvin Droegemeier, a professor of meteorology at the University of
Oklahoma, agrees. "From a scientific perspective it sounds like it
might be doable, but there's a lot to be done before we understand
exactly where we have to hit, and for how long."
Droegemeier adds that the scheme is more credible than other plans
he's seen, such as a U.S. Air Force study that proposed using
explosive charges to disrupt the strong downdrafts that lead to
tornadoes.
By Michael Ray Taylor in Houston, Discovery News Brief
via: bible_prophecy-news@onelist.com
========
To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - June 2, 1999 TV Programs
From: bpr-list@philologos.org(BPR)
Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1999 08:27:43 +0000
From: "Moza" <moza@butterfly.mv.com>
7:00 PM Eastern
HIST - 20TH CENTURY - Detectives of Death - Forensic Science
8:00
PBS - STEALING TIME: THE NEW SCIENCE OF AGING - "Quest for
Immortality; Turning Back the Clock; Mastering the Mind" -
Extending human life span; caloric restriction;
weightlifting; mind.(CC)(TVPG)
TLC - EXTREME MACHINES - "Smart Weapons" - The future
technology of battlefield weaponry.(CC)(TVG)
9:30
TBN - JACK VAN IMPE PRESENTS
--- BPR
BPR Web Site - http://philologos.org/bpr
========
To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - China News Digest items (6/2/99)
From: bpr-list@philologos.org(BPR)
Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1999 08:36:37 +0000
From: "Moza" <moza@butterfly.mv.com>
China Reportedly Holds World's Largest Stock of Landmines
[CND, 06/01/99] China has 110 million anti-personnel mines, the
largest share of the 250 million landmines stored by 108 countries
around the world, according to the Landmine Monitor Report 1999,
released on Saturday by the International Campaign to Ban Landmines,
AFP reported.
Russia came in the second, with a total of 60-70 million. In 1998,
landmines had claimed 1,249 casualties in Cambodia alone, said the
report. At least three countries--Angola, Guinea-Bissau and Senegal
--had "apparently used anti-personnel mines in 1998 after signing the
treaty," the report said. However, it also noted that the number of
countries producing landmines have decreased from 54 to 16, and fewer
landmines have been laid since the treaty banning landmines was signed
two years ago. (Xiayi KE, WU Yiyi).
____ ____ ____
Tibet Celebrates Sagadawa
[CND, 06/01/1999] Tibet celebrated the Buddhist festival Sagadawa on
Monday, with believers buying and releasing fish and ducks in in Lhasa
and giving money to lamas and beggars, the China Daily reported.
The festival is to celebrate Sakyamuni's completion of his nirvana and
reaching the buddha-hood. The festival falls on the 15th day of the
fourth month in the Tibetan calendar.
In another news, more than 200,000 Buddhists in Hong Kong paid tribute
to the Buddha's tooth during its seven-day tour. The Buddha's tooth
returned to Beijing over the weekend. (Jijun TANG, WU Yiyi)
========
To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Weekend News Today items (6/1/99)
From: bpr-list@philologos.org(BPR)
Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1999 08:42:38 +0000
From: "Moza" <moza@butterfly.mv.com>
Water turned off in some place is Israel due to drought
Weekend News Today
By Andra Brack
Source: Arutz 7
Tue Jun 1 , 1999 -- Two agricultural communities - Yevul, close to the
Egyptian-PA-Israel border, and Nogah in the Lachish region - have had
their water turned off by Mekorot Water Company, because they have
already used up their yearly quota. Benny Sanker, Yevul Council
Chairman, said that the quota allotted to Yevul this year was only
slightly more than a third of what it used last year, and that this is
"something on which is totally impossible for us to sustain
ourselves." He explained that between January and April of this year,
"we used up about 750,000 cubic meters, largely because of the lack of
rain this winter. We didn't even receive the notification of the
cut-back until after we had already passed the new quota. I have been
met with a lot of apathy on this matter from the officials." Sanker
said that with a little "straight thinking," the problem can be
solved: "For instance, there are places in central Israel that don't
use water for agricultural purposes, and still have water allotments.
These can be transferred to those places that need water. In ddition,
the reservoirs didn't empty out suddenly. There has been a constant
drop for the past seven years. In another country, the Water
Commissioner would likely have been fired in a similar situation
without a need for a board of inquiry. A solution must be found for
farmers who support themselves exclusively from agriculture, and whose
settlements were founded by the State at a tremendous cost." Sanker
rejected the idea of government reparations in exchange for simply not
watering their crops this year: "We would like to sustain ourselves.
Other solutions can be found, such as re-assigning quotas in
accordance with need."
IDF keeps watch out for PA protests
Weekend News Today
By Andra Brack
Source: Jerusalem Post
Tue Jun 1 , 1999 -- The Palestinian call for protests against Jewish
settlements is being closely monitored by the IDF. "Any decision to
beef up a military presence in Judea and Samaria will be based on an
assessment of the situation," the source said, adding that IDF
officials believe however that recent statements condemning settlement
activity made by Palestinian leaders will not go beyond talk. Settlers
in various communities say they have been placed on high alert for
Thursday's planned "Day of Anger." Yehudit Tayar, spokeswoman for the
Council of Jewish Communities in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, declared
that "the continuous call by Palestinian leaders for violence and
protest directed against the men, women and children who live in
Judea, Samaria and Gaza is unacceptable and dangerous." Others
expressed suprise that government officials refrained from commenting
on the fact that newly elected MK Ahmed Tibi spoke at the Ramallah
gathering on Sunday where the protest day was decided. "With their
incitement they are arming the next terrorists to kill innocent
people," charged Tayar, adding "a somber, responsible leadership calls
for diplomatic negotiations and not violence." Meanwhile, reports that
Prime Minister-elect Ehud Barak intends to reach a compromise on
settlement activity among the different parties that he hopes to pull
into his coalition received a mixed response. The compromise would
legalize all construction carried out in settlements before December
when new elections were announced. Any activity after that would have
to be reviewed, but Barak would permit construction in communities
according to natural growth needs. Council director-general Aharon
Domb said Barak's formula was unacceptable, but Tayar said there was
time to wait and see. "The policy being adopted by Barak was
acceptable under the Netanyahu government and the settlers, so there
was no need to vote for Barak to continue it," she said.
Over 250 percent increase in the number of rabbis in Israel state
schools
Weekend News Today
By Andra Brack
Source: IsraelWire
Tue Jun 1 , 1999 -- According to recent figures, the number of rabbis
serving in public schools has almost tripled over the past three years
during a time period when NIS 1.4 billion has been cut from the annual
budget of the Ministry of Education. When the late Zevulun Hammer of
the NRP took his position as Minister of Religious Affairs, the
Ministry of Education allocated 1,100 hours annually for school
rabbis. At present, the number of hours being allocated is 2,728. This
a direct result of efforts by the National Religious Party, which has
controlled the Ministry of Education, to instill more Jewish identity
in the nations school curriculum. Critics of the move insist the
monies which are sorely needed to assist remedial students has gone
for the rabbinical posts - leaving the system without the resources to
meet the minimal standards of schools as we approach the turn of the
century. According to Haaretz, a recent survey indicated that most of
the school rabbis serving the nation's public schools have served in
the IDF while only about 27 percent have a university education and
only 60 percent are ordained clergymen. This, while most of the rabbis
are paid as teachers with an academic degrees. Opponents to the
program insist they do not need a rabbi posted in a school to lecture
on Judaism while monitoring skirt lengths and dictating to boys about
hair length and the proper minimum size of a skull cap
Russian immigration to Israel increase 100% this year
Weekend News Today
By Andra Brack
Source: IsraelWire
Tue Jun 1 , 1999 -- Approximately 8,000 new immigrants from the CIS
arrived in Israel in the first quarter of 1999 compared to 3,700
during the same time last year. Government officials estimate 60,000
immigrants will arrive by year's end. Government officials explain
most immigrants will make the decision to move based on their concerns
for their children's future.
SLA to withdraw from Jezzine within 2 weeks
Weekend News Today
By Andra Brack
Source: IsraelWire
Tue Jun 1 , 1999 -- General Antoine Lahad, the commander of the Israel
allied Southern Lebanese Army held a press conference on Monday in
Marjeyoun, where he officially announced his forces would withdraw
from Jezzine, north of the security zone of southern Lebanon. Lahad
stated the withdrawal would be accomplished within 15 days - issuing a
warning to Hizbullah not to use the area to launch attacks against SLA
and Israeli forces. Israel Radio on Monday afternoon reported the
withdrawal of SLA militiamen would get underway on Tuesday. Lahad
added, "We hope that peace be achieved and that Jezzine does not
become a headquarters, passageway or base for the (Lebanese)
resistance so that the Israeli Army, which is stationed close to the
Jezzine area, is not forced to bombard it and displace its people."
via: bible_prophecy-news@onelist.com
========
To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Pope's trip to Poland
From: bpr-list@philologos.org(BPR)
Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1999 08:56:59 +0000
From: "Moza" <moza@butterfly.mv.com>
Pope Brings Business Blessings For Some
By Jan Strupczewski
On his long trip home to Poland Pope John
Paul will have a chance to admire the
growing business flair of his fellow
countrymen, much of it aimed at covering the
costs of his expensive visit.
An air of mystery surrounds the finances of
the Pontiff's 13-day trip, his longest ever
to Poland, with the Roman Catholic church
refusing to say how much it will be spending
on building altars, transporting pilgrims
and protecting the Pope.
But in an admission that local church
coffers are not as deep as they were, the
clergy has rounded up some 30 corporate
sponsors, including most of Poland's
blue-chip companies, who will contribute at
least $1 million.
That will be a start to covering the Zl 4.5
million ($1.13 million) cost of organizing
media coverage alone, with donations, state
grants and local authority funding from
tight government budgets defraying other
costs.
"This time the costs are much higher because
the visit is much longer than previous
ones," said Dariusz Fajkowski, chief
financial officer of the Polish Information
Agency, which is in charge of press coverage
of the trip that starts on Saturday.
The government has budgeted Zl 20 million
for security and transporting the Pope by
helicopter to the 21 locations he is
visiting and Zl 2.5 million for medical
services.
Another Zl 37 million is being used to
repair and smooth Poland's potholed roads
for use by the "Popemobile."
But when asked if the Pope was aware that
funds were being diverted from health and
social services to pay for his trip Vatican
spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said the
Pontiff was unlikely to worry about the
cost.
"I don't think he'll be concerned by the
economic impact, especially when he's
visited 25 African countries where the GDP
per head is a fifteenth of Poland's," said
Navarro-Valls. "This is the calling of
Jesus, you can't put a price on it."
Winners and Losers
Wooing sponsors is common in entrepreneurial
post-communist Poland and as a benefit the
Church has offered a private audience with
the Pope for chief executives and the
opportunity to place logos on press
material.
The 16 dioceses John Paul II is to visit
have turned to commerce to cover their
costs, commissioning souvenirs and religious
trinkets for sale during the pilgrimage.
But more material rewards will flow to the
secular world with small town hotels, road
builders, tour agencies and public
television expected to benefit the most from
the seventh trip home of the 79-year-old
Pontiff.
For the Atlekikon hotel in the small
northern city of Elblag, where the Pope will
say mass on June 6, the visit means full
rooms at a time when business is very slow.
"Normally at this time of the year 85
percent of our rooms are empty," said Anna
Krasowska of the Atlekikon.
Hotels in bigger cities on the Papal route,
such as Gdansk, Warsaw, Torun, Bydgoszcz or
Krakow are less thrilled.
"June is the high season and we are usually
fully booked anyway -- Papal visit or not,"
said the Novotel hotel in Gdansk.
Some six million people are expected to
attend open-air services during the trip,
with 60,000 pilgrims anticipated from
abroad. Pious Polish-Americans are the
juiciest market.
"The Pope's visit has boosted the number of
travellers by up to 15 percent," said an
official from the PolAmer tourist agency.
All economy class seats on the Polish
airline LOT from New York and Chicago to
Warsaw are fully booked from Saturday.
Road builders, who get little business in
Poland, have won tenders to modernise roads
from local airports and along pilgrim
routes, a practical benefit the government
points to as justification for its spending
on the Papal trip.
Advertisers See Blessings
The biggest money is in the advertising that
will run alongside the transmission of Papal
events, which are expected to draw a huge
audience.
Polish public television TVP, which will
supply live coverage of the visit, has
quadrupled its prices.
"We expect the Pope's welcoming ceremony
will be watched by 25 percent of Poles above
15 years of age," said Jadwiga Kozien of
TVP's advertising department.
"A 30 second spot in that time will cost
68,000 zlotys," she said, adding the price
change reflected the expected jump in
viewership numbers from the four percent the
station usually has at that time of day.
"There will be a total of 160 minutes of
advertising time during the papal visit,"
Kozien said.
Some firms want to take advantage of the
opportunity by using huge video screens to
display Papal services, with advertisements
before and after.
A large screen costs Zl 8 million, a smaller
one six million, said Zbigniew Bokun of the
Video Wall company.
"So far we are leasing them. This costs us a
million zlotys and this is just the start.
Profits? We want to break even," Bokun told
the Gazeta Wyborcza daily.
Some Companies Will Suffer
Not all advertisers will benefit. The church
has demanded images of scantily-clad women
promoting lingerie sales be removed from
billboards, lest the Pope be offended.
Others to suffer include employers whose
workers will be unable to reach their
offices on days when whole cities are shut
down to ensure the safety of the visiting
Pope.
But the only company poised to lose
handsomely on the Pope's trip is the Polish
State Railways (PKP), whose finances have
been largely unreformed by a decade of
economic transformation and which makes a
loss on every passenger it carries.
PKP expects to transport two million
pilgrims on 644 special trains at a cost of
Zl 5 million. Another Zl 5 million will be
spent on modernizing stations.
Some of the most aggrieved merchants can be
found in Warsaw, where an alcohol sales ban
will be in force during the two days the
Pope spends in the city.
"I'll have to hire people to protect my
shop. People will become aggressive if they
can't get beer," moaned Janusz Luck.
"If someone wants a drink he'll smuggle
alcohol into the prohibition zone. It makes
no sense," said city council member
Malgorzata Wojcik. ((c) Reuters)
http://www.centraleurope.com/features.php3?id=71739
========
To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Russia's population drops
From: bpr-list@philologos.org(BPR)
Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1999 12:07:45 +0000
From: "Moza" <moza@butterfly.mv.com>
Russia's Population Drops Some
200,000 Over Three Months
MOSCOW, Jun 2, 1999 -- (Agence France
Presse) Russia's population shrank by
209,700 over three months this year to stand
at 146.1 million people at the end of March,
Interfax reported Tuesday.
Citing figures from the state statistics
committee, Interfax said the 0.14 percent
decline over the three-month period compared
to a 0.09 percent drop over the same time in
1998, the report said.
Russia's population fell by 401,000, or 0.3
percent, in 1998. ((c) 1999 Agence France
Presse)
http://www.russiatoday.com/news.php3?id=71767&text
========
To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Plea over bug crime
From: bpr-list@philologos.org(BPR)
Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1999 12:12:52 +0000
From: "Moza" <moza@butterfly.mv.com>
South China Morning Post
Wednesday June 2 1999
Plea over bug crime
JASPER BECKER in Beijing Amnesty International has appealed to
Guangdong authorities to release a prisoner given an eight-year
sentence for writing "counter-revolutionary" messages on tiny pieces
of paper and attaching them to the legs of locusts.
Liu Baiqiang, 31, had just started a 10-year sentence for theft in
1989 when the Tiananmen protests took place.
On June 6 that year, he was sentenced to an additional eight years for
counter-revolutionary incitement and propaganda.
According to an official report, Liu secretly wrote counter-
revolutionary messages such as "Down with Deng Xiaoping and Li
Peng ",and attached them to the legs of locusts and released the
insects into the air.
Liu is being held at Shaoguang prison. His sentence has been reduced
by 15 months on two occasions, in June 1995 and July 1997. His
sentence will be completed in December 2003.
http://www.scmp.com/news/template/China-
Template.idc?artid=19990602031859037&top=china&template=Default.
htx&maxfieldsize=866
========
To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Arutz-7 News (6/2/99)
From: bpr-list@philologos.org(BPR)
Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1999 12:16:58 +0000
From: "Moza" <moza@butterfly.mv.com>
DAY OF FURY: VIOLENCE OR APATHY?
Preparations for the Palestinians' "Day of Fury" against the Yesha
communities on Thursday continue, but the organizers are disappointed
with the results so far. Apathy about tomorrow's demonstrations
appears to be the rule among the masses. Either despite this or
because of this, they have announced that Friday and Saturday will
also be "Days of Fury." The Israeli police did not allow the PLO's
Fatah wing to convene in a hotel in eastern Jerusalem for this purpose
last night.
Arutz-7 correspondent Haggai Huberman reports that the decisions made
this past Sunday by the Palestinian National Committee Against
Settlements included a clause calling upon the public to "take part in
Friday prayers in the Al-Aksa Mosque [on the Temple Mount]." They
also called "to take active part in the demonstrations at Ras el-Amoud
against the attempts to establish a settlement in the heart of the
holy city." In addition, "public clashes" are planned in places that
"face the burning threat of land expropriations and the construction
of settlements there." The committee called these activities the
"active beginning of the popular fury that can be called the 'uprising
of the land.'"
Huberman reported that Israeli security services will be on special
alert in areas such as the Ayosh junction north or Ramallah and
Joseph's Tomb in Shechem. As of now, however, Jewish residents have
not been advised to change their routines for tomorrow. The
Palestinian Authority is interested in ensuring that events do not
"get out of hand," and PA senior Yasser Abed Rabbo said today that he
expects the activities to be only symbolic. "The Palestinians are
upset at Barak for not meeting with them," Huberman said. "Even
Netanyahu, a day after his election, sent his advisor Dore Gold to
meet with them. True, they have met with Yossi Beilin, but they don't
feel that he represents Barak. They're also talking about grabbing
and taking over more lands, in longer-term projects."
REPORTS OF ASSAD'S DEATH - "GREATLY EXAGGERATED;" ARAFAT ILL
Reports that Syrian President Hafez Assad and/or PA Chairman Yasser
Arafat had died abounded in Israel last night, fanned largely by the
media. Arutz-7 News Editor Haggai Segal reported today that Voice of
Israel radio planted the first seeds of the rumors when, at 6:30 PM,
it "suddenly and mysteriously" announced that the security cabinet had
just been convened for an unexplained emergency meeting. The radio
announcers immediately began theorizing as to what had happened,
suggesting that Assad may have died. Despite their constantly
emphasizing that this was merely 'conjecture' and 'speculation,' the
impression began to take hold that this is in fact what had happened.
Channel 2 Arab affairs reporter Aharon Barne'a made a surprise
appearance at the end of the evening news to offer "unconfirmed
reports" that Assad had been hospitalized with heart problems.
Later in the evening, Barne'a was again interviewed, but barely
offered
more than a "half-retraction" for the report. Only much later in the
evening did Channel two retract the story, saying that it was found to
be baseless." Channel One was more accurate, according to Segal, and
explained that the security cabinet meeting was called in response to
the escalation in Lebanon.
Rumors that Arafat is ill are apparently not farfetched, however.
Palestinian papers wrote several days ago that "Yasser Arafat has
reportedly developed early signs of senility, as well as other health
problems... Arafat is increasingly showing signs of memory loss,
speech interruptions, as well spasmodic reactions." The article adds
that Arafat did not attend Sunday's "Day of Fury" planning session
"due to ill health and dwindling mental concentration."
Arutz Sheva News Service
<http://www.a7.org>
Wednesday, June 2, 1999 / Sivan 18, 5759
========
To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Rabbi says pope coming to Israel in 2000
From: bpr-list@philologos.org(BPR)
Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1999 18:08:13 +0000
From: "Moza" <moza@butterfly.mv.com>
RABBI SAYS POPE COMING TO ISRAEL IN 2000
A leading rabbi says Pope John Paul II is planning to visit Israel next
March, HA'ARETZ reported. Rabbi David Rosen, director of the Israel office
of the Anti-Defamation League and president of the International Council
of Christians and Jews, said on Tuesday that the visit is expected to
encourage millions of Christians to participate in Millennium celebrations
in Israel.
Rabbi Rosen expressed optimism that millions of Christian pilgrims will be
encouraged to visit Israel next year after the Pope's visit, despite
skepticism in the tourist industry. Rosen also praised recent efforts by
the Catholic Church to combat anti-Semitism.
Rosen made his comments during a lecture on Catholic-Jewish relations at
Tel Aviv University in which he also reviewed recent changes in the
attitude of the Pope and the Catholic Church toward the Jewish people.
via: Consulate of Israel - New York <nycon@interport.net>
Israel Line 06-02-99
========
To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - New cybercrime unit targets crackers
From: bpr-list@philologos.org(BPR)
Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1999 18:12:00 +0000
From: "Moza" <moza@butterfly.mv.com>
NEW CYBERCRIME UNIT TARGETS CRACKERS
Recent raids by FBI agents on several suspected computer crackers are
part of the U.S. government's new Dallas-based cybercrime force -- a
collaboration among the FBI, the Secret Service, the U.S. Attorney's
Office and the Defense Department, according to Paul Coggins, the U.S.
Attorney who is overseeing the effort: "It's probably the most
far-reaching investigation of its kind. It's an investigation with
national and international implications." The crackers are suspects
in recent break-ins at federal government Web sites, including those
run by the FBI and the U.S. Congress. Federal prosecutors, who've
been working on the investigation for a year, have issued 16 warrants
in 12 jurisdictions, but have not yet charged anyone with a crime.
(New York Times 2 Jun 99)
http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/mo/biztech/articles/02hack.html
NewsScan Daily, 2 June 1999 ("Above The Fold")
========
To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Infobeat News items (6/2/99)
From: bpr-list@philologos.org(BPR)
Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1999 18:17:00 +0000
From: "Moza" <moza@butterfly.mv.com>
*** Report: Japan to forgive debts
TOKYO (AP) - Japan plans to waive $3.3 billion in official
development assistance loans to some of the world's most impoverished
countries, the Asahi newspaper reported Wednesday. A Foreign Ministry
official confirmed that Japan was considering offering such debt
relief up to 41 of the Third World's most indebted countries. But the
official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the sum of the
debts to be forgiven was still undecided. The debt relief will be a
major topic at the Group of Eight meeting in Germany later this month,
the official said. Japan, the biggest provider of Official Development
Aid loans, will also ask other donor nations to provide more money to
help impoverished nations extinguish more debt, the Asahi newspaper
said. See
http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2559773941-484
*** Vatican, Lutherans resolve dispute
VATICAN CITY (AP) - Coming to terms in a centuries-old dispute, Roman
Catholic and Lutheran officials will release an accord next week on
the means of salvation, both sides said Wednesday. The Joint
Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification is meant to resolve a
doctrinal debate at the heart of the 16th-century Protestant
Reformation, which split Western Christianity. The Vatican and
Lutheran World Federation crafted compromise language on one of the
key unresolved points regarding what theologians call "justification,"
or how humankind achieves salvation. For the Lutherans, it depends on
the grace of God, while Catholics maintain that good works are also
involved. With the declaration, Catholics and Lutherans have agreed
that divine forgiveness and salvation come "solely by God's grace" and
that good works flow from that. See
http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2559775336-f55
*** Astronomers measure orbit of sun
CHICAGO (AP) - It may seem like the sun is just creeping through the
heavens, but a new technique for measuring cosmic motion has found
that sol is clipping along at an eye-popping 135 miles per second in
its orbit of the Milky Way. Astronomers using a radio telescope system
to make the most precise measurement ever of the solar system orbit
found that it takes the sun and its family of planets 226 million
years to circle the center of its home galaxy. That means that the
last time the sun was at this point in its orbit of the Milky Way,
dinosaurs ruled the world and human beings were not yet on the scene.
See http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2559775023-79d
*** Also: Dwarfs gain cosmic respect, see
http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2559770880-011
*** NASA measure of universe questioned
CHICAGO (AP) - A new radio-telescope technique has established a
"golden ruler" for measuring cosmic distances and raises doubts about
the claim last week that NASA astronomers had determined the age and
expansion rate of the universe. Jim Herrnstein of the National Radio
Astronomy Observatory said his method produces "the most precise
distance ever measured to a remote galaxy" and suggests a 15% to 20%
margin of error in the technique used by the astronomers sponsored by
the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. "Ours is a direct
measurement, using geometry, and is independent of all other methods
of determining cosmic distances," Herrnstein said Tuesday at a
national meeting of the American Astronomical Society. See
http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2559771081-9d0
*** Apple crunch guarantee sought
KENNEWICK, Wash. (AP) - Washington's apple industry wants to make sure
that a bite into a Red Delicious will yield a satisfying crunch, not a
mouth full of mush. Rich Ozanich and Al Robinson hope their research
into systems to test apples' crunch without destroying the fruit will
bring that certainty a little closer. Ozanich's small Richland
company, Berkeley Instruments, is a few months away from unveiling a
new generation of near-infrared devices to detect bad apples without
harming good ones. And Al Robinson, a former Battelle Pacific
Northwest Laboratories researcher and president of Columbia Basin
Instruments, is building his own nondestructive test to find crisp
fruit using air pressure chambers. See
http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2559770305-a4f
========
To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Astronomers puzzled by brightening of star
From: bpr-list@philologos.org(BPR)
Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1999 18:24:50 +0000
From: "Moza" <moza@butterfly.mv.com>
End Times News Update
Re: Signs in the Stars
Scripture: Luke 21:25
News Source: Reuters
Date: 6-2-99
================================================
Astronomers puzzled by brightening of star
CHICAGO, June 2 (Reuters) - The brightest known star in the universe
is radiating twice as much light as it did 20 years ago, puzzling
astronomers who said on Wednesday they could not explain the sudden
change.
The star, known as Eta, is about 7,500 light-years from Earth, and is
visible to the naked eye in the southern hemisphere. The star sits
between two huge lobes of gas and dust that were formed by a
tremendous explosion observed about 150 years ago.
Astrophysicists at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society in
Chicago said they had expected Eta's spectrum to change in 1998, but
did not foresee a major jump in brightness. The central star has more
than doubled in brightness since 1977, after dimming somewhat from
1992 to 1997.
``Eta's brightness routinely wiggles plus or minus 10 percent,'' said
Kris Davidson, an astrophysicist at the University of Minnesota. ``But
we've gotten four spectra from (the Hubble Space Telescope) in the
last two years, and its brightness is rising at an incredible rate.''
Eta's brightening was all the more puzzling because it was happening
uniformly at all wave lengths. Scientists had expected that as the
object cooled off, its spectrum would dim at the more energetic
ultraviolet wavelengths. Instead, its across-the-board brightening was
similar to some kind of cosmic shroud was being lifted, said Roberta
Humphreys, another astrophysicist at the University of Minnesota.
``The clearing of dust in our line of sight could do that kind of
thing, but that's a lot to ask of dust,'' Humphreys said. ``Dust is
coming out from Eta in all directions. Therefore, it's unlikely that a
cloud of dust just moved across our line of sight and is now
clearing.''
Astrophysicists consider Eta one of the most enigmatic celestial
objects. The star radiates a stream of energetic particles, called a
stellar wind, that is 100 to 1,000 times stronger than the winds
generated by most massive stars. Every millennium, Eta loses enough
mass to equal that of our sun, Davidson said.
via: End_Times_News@onelist.com
[eta--the seventh letter in the Greek alphabet--Webster's]
========
To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - June 3, 1999 TV Programs
From: bpr-list@philologos.org(BPR)
Date: Thu, 3 Jun 1999 08:44:12 +0000
From: "Moza" <moza@butterfly.mv.com>
8:00 PM Eastern
HIST - THE LOST CITY OF ATLANTIS - Ancient tales
describe a sunken city.(CC)(TVG)
9:00
DISC - SCIENCE MYSTERIES - "Extra-Sensory Perception" - The
military employs people with ESP for intelligence
operations.(CC)(TVG)
10:00
ABC - THE POWER OF BELIEF (Repeat) - John Stossel shows how
the silliest of superstitions and the strongest of faiths can
have a big effect on the mind, body and wallet.(CC)
--- BPR
BPR Web Site - http://philologos.org/bpr
========
To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Zhirinovsky's Falling Star
From: bpr-list@philologos.org(BPR)
Date: Thu, 3 Jun 1999 09:27:00 +0000
From: "Moza" <moza@butterfly.mv.com>
June 3, 1999
Zhirinovsky's Falling Star
At least one Russian "kid" -- the l'enfant
terrible of Russian politics, Vladimir
Zhirinovsky -- didn't enjoy International
Children's Day (June 1). On that day, the
leader of the nationalist Liberal Democratic
party suffered a humiliating defeat in the
Belgorod region's gubernatorial elections
(Belgorod is a southern region, bordering on
Ukraine). He was defeated by incumbent
Yevgeny Savchenko, a member of the Agrarian
Party. What is worse for Zhirinovsky,
however, is that he didn't even come in
second. Savchenko polled 53.4 percent of the
vote; communist-backed Mikhail
Beskhmelnitsyn took 19.7 percent; and Mad
Vlad got just 17.7 percent.
Voters and political observers are
dismissing Zhirinovsky's claims that the
vote was falsified through substitution
and/or stuffing of ballot boxes. Little
credence is also given to Zhirinovsky's
allegations that voters were intimidated by
Savchenko supporters.
Further, Belgorod voters were not impressed
by Zhirinovsky's attacks on Savchenko, whom
he accused of corruption and embezzlement.
Nor were they moved by his free distribution
of LDPR t-shirts or the song book "Vladimir
Zhirinovsky's favorite songs."
In the end, the 1.5 million inhabitants of
Belgorod region voted with their purses --
or rather for their pensions. "What has
Savchenko done wrong to me?" a babushka from
Belgorod said on ORT 1st TV channel. "I have
already received my pension for May, so why
would I vote against our governor?!"
The defeat in Belgorod is the last nail in
the coffin of Zhirinovsky's political
career. He badly needed the governor's seat
in Belgorod. Given LDPR's plummeting
popularity with voters, Zhirinovsky feared
he would not be reelected to the Duma next
December. But a victory in Belgorod would
have given him a seat in the Federation
Council -- the upper house of parliament.
Perhaps Zhirinovsky's excessive and
aggressive rhetoric are now an obsolete
weapon in Russia. More precisely, the
cynical reality has become all too clear:
for all his rhetoric, Vladimir Volfovich has
earned a reputation as a venal politician
whose votes in the Duma could be bought and
paid for, largely by the Kremlin. As
Segodnya daily's political observer Leonid
Radzihovsky put it, Zhirinovsky is always
with the authorities, as long as they pay.
"And they do pay," Radzikhovsky writes.
"Today, the LDPR is about the only major
political supporter of the Kremlin."
Though Radzihovsky is exaggerating (after
all, Yeltsin also has the oligarchs behind
him), it is true that Zhirinovsky's support,
though considerably weakened, contributed to
Yeltsin's recent victory over the Duma's
leftist opposition.
But, after Belgorod, it is now clear to all
serious political players -- including
Zhirinovsky himself -- that Mad Vlad's days
are numbered. Catapulted to the top of
Russian politics in the early 1990s, this
eloquent demagogue will now have to find
another niche.
Zhirinovsky's polemical talents and
machine-gun speech may well push him to try
his hand at TV commentary or political
analysis. After all, he was the only one to
vote against Primakov's candidacy last fall
and didn't fail to give himself credit for
Primakov's ouster. He predicted with a
minimal margin of error the number of votes
by which the communists would fall short in
the impeachment vote. Finally, he was the
first to forecast that Prime Minister Sergei
Stepashin would be endorsed by the Duma with
more than a comfortable margin. No other
Russian politician (let alone political
observer) can boast such a gift for
prophecy. True enough, once he loses his
political clout along with his Duma seat,
Vladimir Volfovich may "all of a sudden"
lose the precious sources of information
which helped him to make such predictions.
Alternatively, he may want to use many of
his other talents and hit the lecture
circuit (like ex-premier Yevgeny Primakov,
who is reportedly expected to deliver a
series of lectures on Russian politics in
Switzerland). The LDPR leader could also
capitalize on his knowledge of foreign
languages or sexuality (which he recently
wrote a book about). And, heaven forbid, he
could also pursue his "singing career."
In short, all roads are open except for high
politics. It seems that Zhirinovsky has
exhausted his potential in this particular
field.
http://www.russiatoday.com/features.php3?id=71962
========
To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Beijing warns US against using force against China
From: bpr-list@philologos.org(BPR)
Date: Thu, 3 Jun 1999 09:33:42 +0000
From: "Moza" <moza@butterfly.mv.com>
Beijing Warns US Against Using Force
Against China
BEIJING, Jun 3, 1999 -- (Agence France
Presse) The Chinese government warned the
United States Thursday against ever
contemplating using force against China
along the lines of the NATO campaign against
Yugoslavia.
"NATO's attack against the sovereign State
of Yugoslavia is a violation of
international principles," foreign ministry
spokesman Zhu Bangzao told a press
conference.
"Recently, I heard some people say that in
the future, force should also be used
against China to solve the Tibet question
among others," he said, without identifying
the source of the suggestions.
"If anyone dares to impose war on China,
they will lift a stone to hit themselves on
the foot. We hope the US should learn
lessons from the Kosovo incident."
Zhu reiterated China's call for Washington
to hold an inquiry into the NATO bombing of
China's embassy in Belgrade last month and
punish those found responsible.
"It is imperative that the US conduct a
thorough, just and responsible investigation
and take concrete actions to punish the
perpetrators so as to give a satisfactory
explanation to the Chinese government and
people," he said.
Zhu added that Beijing was discussing with
Washington the prospect of a US envoy being
sent to China to deliver the results of the
investigation into the cause of the bombing
that the US insists was accidental. ((c)
1999 Agence France Presse)
http://www.insidechina.com/news.php3?id=72029&text
========
To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Signs of oil in Israel
From: bpr-list@philologos.org(BPR)
Date: Thu, 3 Jun 1999 12:31:47 +0000
From: "Moza" <moza@butterfly.mv.com>
SIGNS OF OIL
The Avner Company announced today that it had made "positive findings"
at the oil drilling station Noah-1, opposite the Ashkelon coast.
Preliminary results at the 2000-meter deep drilling site indicate that
it may contain significant oil deposits, but further testing is
required.
Arutz Sheva News Service
<http://www.a7.org>
Thursday, June 3, 1999 / Sivan 18, 5759
========
To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Egypt reopen restored Giza Pyramid
From: bpr-list@philologos.org(BPR)
Date: Thu, 3 Jun 1999 12:48:13 +0000
From: "Moza" <moza@butterfly.mv.com>
Egypt Reopens Restored Giza Pyramid
June 3, 1999; 11:19 a.m. EDT
CAIRO, Egypt (AP) -- Egypt reopened the biggest of the three ancient
Giza Pyramids to tourists Thursday following yearlong restorations.
The restoration of the Great Pyramid, built as a tomb for King Cheops
about 4,500 years ago, included mending cracks, cleaning up graffiti
and installing new lighting and ventilation systems.
Gaballah Gaballah, Egypt's chief archeologist, said the work of French
and Egyptian restorers was "compatible with the loftiness of the great
monument."
The year's work cost the government $29,500. Donations kept the price
down.
A French company provided a ventilation system to relieve the ancient
structure from built-up humidity, the result of the breathing of
thousands of visitors who visit the pyramid daily.
To prevent further damage, only 300 visitors will be allowed inside
the pyramid each day, down from the daily droves of 5,000 before the
restoration.
In addition to the Cheops' main chamber, the nearby Sphinx temple and
three other tombs, along with the pyramid's first and second chambers,
were opened to tourists for the first time Thursday.
The empty first and second chambers were believed to have originally
been intended for the pharaoh's burial before engineers changed their
minds and carved him another burial chamber on a different level
inside the pyramid.
Egypt will usher in the millennium by affixing a gold-encased capstone
on the Great Pyramid, making it whole again, if only for New Year's
Eve.
via: New Millennium <hblonde1@tampabay.rr.com>
========
To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Training bees to detect mines
From: bpr-list@philologos.org(BPR)
Date: Fri, 4 Jun 1999 09:06:57 +0000
From: "Moza" <moza@butterfly.mv.com>
http://www.timesofindia.com/today/04worl5.htm
-
Training bees to detect mines
RICHLAND (Washington): Honeybees equipped with radio tags no larger
than a grain of rice may one day be used to detect anti-personnel land
mines on battlefields and elsewhere.
As farfetched as it might seem, a collaborative project seeks to train
and track entire colonies of bees that may be conditioned to prefer
something other than honey, such as TNT, the primary component of land
mines.
Ultimately, it may be possible to carry a hive to a site and release
the bees to search for explosives or other things, such as
methamphetamine-making ingredients or nuclear waste, said Ron Gilbert,
who works on electronic systems at the Pacific Northwest National
Laboratory (PNNL). ``This system is not unique for land mines,'' he
said.
The project, led by University of Montana entomologist Jerry
Bromenshenk, depends on several factors, particularly whether
bees can smell and be taught to find TNT. ``It's amazing what you can
train a bee to do,'' said postgraduate student Bob Seccomb, who took
part in a media demonstration with the bees. ``We've got them flying
through mazes.''
The Red Cross estimates there are 80 million to 120 million land mines
in 70 countries around the world and that 60 people a day are killed
or maimed by buried mines. In some developing countries, thousands of
acres of productive land are unusable because they are death traps.
If the bees can indeed be trained to seek out explosives, the next
step is to find a way to keep track of them. That's where the radio
tags come in. Several years ago, PNNL developed a first generation of
radio-frequency tags for the garment industry to track inventory. The
tags are similar to the microchips implanted by veterinarians as
permanent identification for cats and dogs.
The researchers brought some 20,000 bees in two hives to Richland for
three days of tag testing. University of Montana student Jason Volkman
carefully glued the tiny tags to the bees. To make them easier to work
with, he chills the bees in a college dormitory-style refrigerator for
four minutes, then attaches the tags to the bees' abdomens with
tweezers.
The tags have a ten-character code that identifies each bee
individually. The tags are read by sensitive instruments attached to a
portable hive which records when the bees leave to forage, the
direction they go and when they return. A special spectrometre would
be installed in the hive to ``sniff'' the bees for the presence of TNT
residue. Land mines leak small amounts of explosives into nearby soil
and water, and the TNT residue eventually makes its way into some
plants.
In the tag tests, researchers learned that the bees were not dissuaded
from returning to the hive by the radio-tag reading equipment, Gilbert
said. They also found that the 27-milligram tags they planned on using
were a little too heavy for the bees -- 25 mg is better. ``We know how
to make them lighter,'' he said.
The Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico, the Oak Ridge National
Laboratory in Tennessee and the US Environmental Protection Agency
also are part of the project, paid for by the Federal Defence Advanced
Research Projects Agency.(AP)
via: isml@onelist.com
--- BPR
BPR Web Site - http://philologos.org/bpr
========
To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Biological computer born
From: bpr-list@philologos.org(BPR)
Date: Fri, 4 Jun 1999 09:08:35 +0000
From: "Moza" <moza@butterfly.mv.com>
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_358000/358822.stm -
Wednesday, June 2, 1999 Published at 13:12 GMT 14:12 UK Sci/Tech
Biological computer born
Living computer: interconnected leech neurons can add up
A computer made of neurons taken from leeches has been created by US
scientists.
At the moment, the device can perform simple sums - the team calls
the novel calculator the "leech-ulator".
But their aim is to devise a new generation of fast and flexible
computers that can work out for themselves how to solve a problem,
rather than having to be told exactly what to do.
Professor Bill Ditto, at the Georgia Institute of Technology, is
leading the project and says he is amazed that today's computers are
still so dumb.
"Ordinary computers need absolutely correct information every time to
come to the right answer," he says. "We hope a biological computer
will come to the correct answer based on partial information, by
filling in the gaps itself."
Well connected
The device the team has built can "think for itself" because the leech
neurons are able to form their own connections from one to another.
Normal silicon computers only make the connections they are told to by
the programmer.
This flexibility means the biological computer works out it own way of
solving the problem. "With the neurons, we only have to direct them
towards the answer and they get it themselves," says Professor Ditto.
This approach to computing is particularly suited to pattern
recognition tasks like reading handwriting, which would take enormous
amounts of power to do well on a conventional computer.
The neurons are harnessed in a petri dish by inserting
micro-electrodes into them. Each neuron has its own electrical
activity and responds in its own way to an electrical stimulus.
These features can be used to make each neuron represent a number.
Calculations are then performed by linking up the individual neurons.
Leech neurons are used because they have been extensively studied and
are well understood.
Though much simpler, the neuron computer works in a similar way to the
human brain. Professor Ditto says a robot brain is his long-term aim,
noting that conventional supercomputers are far too big for a robot to
carry around.
"We want to be able to integrate robotics, electronics and these type
of computers so that we can create more sentient robots," he says.
However, in the immediate future, the team from Georgia Tech and Emory
University are working on enabling their computer to do
multiplication.
The biological computer is featured on BBC One's Tomorrow's World at
1930 BST on Wednesday 2 June 1999.
via: isml@onelist.com
========
To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Spaceprobe to smash into moon
From: bpr-list@philologos.org(BPR)
Date: Fri, 4 Jun 1999 09:09:45 +0000
From: "Moza" <moza@butterfly.mv.com>
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_359000/359782.stm -
Thursday, June 3, 1999 Published at 12:47 GMT 13:47 UK Sci/Tech
Spaceprobe to smash into Moon
Lunar Prospector is set for collision with the Moon on 31 July
By BBC News Online Science Editor Dr David
Whitehouse
The Lunar Prospector spacecraft will be deliberately crashed into the
Moon at the end of its mission, Nasa has confirmed.
The impact - equivalent to smashing a heavy car into a wall at a speed
of more than 1,100 mph - is an attempt to confirm the presence of ice
at the lunar poles.
On 31 July, the probe will be targeted to hit a shadow-filled crater
near the Moon's south pole which is thought to contain hidden ice. The
scientists hope the controlled crash will "liberate" up to 18
kilograms (40 pounds) of water vapour that could be detected by
observatories Earth and in space.
A risk worth taking
"While the probability of success for such a bold undertaking is low,
the potential science payoff is tremendous," Guenter Riegler, a Nasa
official, said.
"Since the implementation costs are minimal and the mission is
scheduled to end anyway, it seems fitting to give Lunar Prospector the
chance to provide scientific data right up to the end of its highly
successful mission," he said.
The Lunar Prospector probe went into lunar orbit in January 1998 as
the first US moon mission since the Apollo 17 astronauts walked on the
lunar surface in 1972.
Now, the Lunar Prospector team at Nasa's Ames Research Centre is
preparing to send the 161 kg (354 pound) probe crashing into a polar
crater on July 31.
One in 10 chance
Scientists said that, while they were excited by the prospect of the
impact, failure to detect any water vapour as a result of the
experiment should not be taken as proof that water ice is not present.
David Goldstein of the University of Texas at Austin, one of the
proposers of the crash study, estimated the overall probability of
success at about 10%
He pointed out that the spacecraft may not make impact in the desired
region or may not crash with enough force to send water traces high
enough to be observed.
via: isml@onelist.com
========
To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Infobeat News items (6/4/99)
From: bpr-list@philologos.org(BPR)
Date: Fri, 4 Jun 1999 09:14:43 +0000
From: "Moza" <moza@butterfly.mv.com>
*** Milosevic accepts western peace plan
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (AP) - Caving in to Russian and Western demands,
Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic accepted a peace plan for Kosovo
Thursday that is designed to end mass expulsions of ethnic Albanians
and 11 weeks of NATO airstrikes. Even though the draft appeared to
signal a victory for NATO, President Clinton and other U.S. officials
reacted cautiously, waiting for signs that Milosevic would begin
pulling his troops out and allow the return of more than 855,000
refugees. In the meantime, NATO's bombing campaign continued, with
airstrikes reported in Kosovo and elsewhere Thursday night. The plan
contained tough conditions Milosevic had until now resisted, including
the deployment of foreign troops on Yugoslav soil. See
http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2559795152-2d4 ***
Also: Milosevic must do more than promise, see
http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2559792474-de3 ***
Also: Negotiator says deal meets NATO demands, see
http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2559790602-9ac ***
Also: Refugees skeptical of Kosovo deal, see
http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2559790415-05d ***
And: Latest developments in Kosovo, see
http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2559795020-49f
*** Saudi crown prince visits Jordan
AMMAN, Jordan (AP) - Jordan and Saudi Arabia urged Israel Thursday to
resume negotiations with its Arab neighbors, saying peace is the
desire of the people in the Middle East. A joint statement issued at
the end of a 90-minute meeting between Jordan's King Abdullah and
Saudi Arabia's crown prince reiterated support for the Palestinian
"right to set up an independent state." The statement called for
"resuming the Middle East peace process on all tracks" and voiced
"support to all sincere efforts to achieve progress towards a just,
lasting and comprehensive settlement desired by all the people of the
region." See
http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2559793920-4ad
========
To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Jordan hit by 'unprecedented' drought
From: bpr-list@philologos.org(BPR)
Date: Fri, 4 Jun 1999 12:07:19 -0500
From: <owner-bpr@philologos.org>
Jordan hit by 'unprecedented' drought-UN agencies
June 3, 1999
9:22 PM EDT (0122 GMT)
ROME (Reuters) -- Jordan has been hit by an "unprecedented"
drought which has devastated food crops and affected hundreds of
thousands of people, two Rome-based U.N. food agencies said on
Thursday.
The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and World Food
Program (WFP) said in a joint report following an assessment mission
that the kingdom would need emergency aid and financial assistance
to help the cash-strapped country cope.
Jordan has declared 1999 a drought year, saying poor rains have
brought water resources to their lowest level in years.
"The unprecedented drought could not have come at a worse time,"
the agencies said in their report.
"The U.N. trade embargo on Iraq and loss of the all-important Saudi
Arabian-Gulf States market for goods and services in the wake of the
Gulf war have reduced exports and dampened investment in the
production sectors.
"A fall in foreign currency revenues and debt repayment of $850
million per annum means that the country's capacity to increase
imports is seriously constrained," it said.
The report said cereal and other food crops had been decimated and
sheep farmers were facing financial ruin.
Food security for around one-quarter of the country's 4.75 million
people was now threatened, the report said.
It highlighted 180,000 people whose situation was of particular
concern. They comprised small scale herders and landless members of
rural households and would need an estimated 14,400 tons of wheat
and 1,300 tons of pulses in emergency food aid over the next eight
months, the report said.
The report forecast a domestic cereal harvest of just 13,000 tons,
enough to cover just 0.6 percent of domestic need, instead of the 10
percent usually expected.
The irrigated farming sector is suffering a serious reversal of the
growth seen in the past six years and total vegetable production in the
sector was 23 percent lower than last year.
The livestock sector has also been hit hard with domestic production
of red meat and milk some 40 percent below usual levels. An outbreak
of foot and mouth disease has exacerbated the problem and further
disease outbreaks are anticipated.
FAO and WFP said they estimated Jordan's cereal import requirement
for the marketing year 1999/2000 at 1.936 million tons, comprising
742,000 tons of wheat, 725,000 tons of barley, 370,000 tons of maize
and 99,000 tons of rice.
"Because of the serious economic difficulties facing the country, only
80 percent of that need is expected to be met commercially, leaving a
deficit of 387,000 tons which will need to be covered by emergency
food aid," the report said.
It added that 100,000 tons of aid had already been pledged.
The report recommends a series of measures, including increased
credit facilities to help farmers recover.
via: New Millennium <hblonde1@tampabay.rr.com>
========
To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - NATO chief named EU security head
From: bpr-list@philologos.org(BPR)
Date: Fri, 4 Jun 1999 18:06:08 +0000
From: "Moza" <moza@butterfly.mv.com>
6/4/99
NATO Chief Named EU Security Head
By PAUL AMES
.c The Associated Press
COLOGNE, Germany (AP) -- European Union leaders today selected NATO
Secretary-General Javier Solana as the EU's first head of foreign and
security policy, a new position designed to give the union more clout
on the international scene.
The move came a day after EU leaders approved a blueprint for
achieving a stronger defense and security role by the end of 2000 to
lessen their long-standing reliance on American power.
Solana, a 56-year-old Spanish former foreign minister, was named by
the 15 EU leaders after a late-night debate at the Union's regular
midyear summit.
German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, the summit host, said EU foreign
ministers will set a date for Solana to take up his new assignment.
Solana's term at NATO runs out at the end of the year and he has
indicated he wants to stay on at the alliance at least until a Kosovo
peace settlement is firmly in place.
``At this very moment my unique concern to which I am dedicated and
continue to dedicate all my energy is to bring to an end the crisis in
Kosovo,'' Solana told reporters at NATO headquarters in Brussels,
Belgium.
Since taking over as NATO secretary general in 1995, Solana has
impressed European leaders with his ability to maintain allied resolve
and cohesion during the air campaign against Yugoslavia. Behind his
urbane, relaxed manner, diplomats close to him say he is an astute and
determined negotiator.
``We are delighted by the appointment of Javier Solana,'' said British
Prime Minister Tony Blair. ``He is an excellent candidate. We have
total confidence in him,''
Solana is also respected in Washington.
``He is an extraordinary consensus-builder who works behind the scenes
with leaders on both sides of the Atlantic to ensure that NATO is
united when it counts,'' Alexander Vershbow, the American ambassador
to NATO said recently.
On Thursday, EU leaders approved a blueprint for implementing the new
strategy by the end of 2000, saying the EU must be able to respond to
international crises without having to rely on U.S.-provided hardware,
communications and intelligence.
Driving the security initiative is the fact that the EU has
consistently played second fiddle in post-Cold War European security.
Washington has been in the lead of war and peacemaking, first in
Bosnia, now in Kosovo.
Autonomous European military operations have long been on the drawing
board, but they never were put into practice because of a lack of will
and a fear that the plan would undermine NATO.
The leaders signaled the agreement was not a break with NATO, which
remains the key European security provider, but merely an effort by
western European countries to take a greater role in crisis prevention
and peacekeeping on their continent.
``This is a big step in the history of the European Union,'' German
Deputy Foreign Minister Guenter said. ``Europe has to prepare an
active policy in crisis management with its own means.''
via: End_Times_News@onelist.com
--- BPR
BPR Web Site - http://philologos.org/bpr
========
To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - More on the Bilderberg Meetings
From: bpr-list@philologos.org(BPR)
Date: Sat, 5 Jun 1999 07:30:21 -0500
From: <owner-bpr@philologos.org>
The News Weekly
Portugal's Weekend Newspaper in English
http://www.the-news.net/archives/bilburg05-6.htm
5 June 1999
The Bilderberg wall of silence suffered substantial damage this
week. The Edinburgh based Sunday Herald, WorldNetDaily and
the famous Drudge Report all commented on the rendezvous of
world leaders currently taking place in Sintra.
The Scottish Sunday Herald published the story (May 30) and
the internationally-respected WorldNetDaily led with the agenda
linking directly to The News site. The Portuguese national radio
station, RFM, reported on Wednesday the expected presence of
Bill Clinton who, they reported, would be unaccounted for over
this weekend.
The Sunday Herald said in its article: "Every year the
international media competes to be the first to reveal the location
and agenda for the conference". The Herald continued by
saying: "The winner of the Bilderberg scoop this year was a
Portuguese newspaper, The News, which boasts that it is the
country's largest-circulation English language newspaper. It has
published the location and the detailed agenda of the
conference".
P'Ablico refers to a "Lusa News Agency alert" quoting a
newspaper, 'The News'.
The BBC Worldwide Monitoring Service this week printed a text
of a report by the Yugoslav News Agency, Tanjug, which said
the plan to bring about a Balkan Vietnam was drawn up secretly
back in 1996 and reactivated at a meeting of the Bilderberg Group
held in Scotland last year, citing the May 27 edition of the
Yugoslav newspaper "Vojska".
Vojska said that a thorough investigation conducted by
independent US journalists had disclosed that the group
members included David Rockefeller, Giovanni Agnelli, Helmut
Kohl, Lord Peter Carrington, Queen Sophia of Spain, Valery
Giscard D'Estaing, Baron Rothschild, Margaret Thatcher, Lord
Robert Owen and Henry Kissinger. The newspaper claimed that
US journalists had disclosed that the Bilderberg Group had in
fact made plans for the "third Balkan war" in this century.
Under the plan, drawn up at a session chaired by Lord
Carrington, the first move was to be to try and arrest "war
criminals from among the Serbs" with extensive help of the
Hague tribunal, set up for that very purpose. The move was to
provoke a stormy reaction by Serbs, which was to be used as a
pretext for a military intervention.
However, developments prevented the idea from being translated
into practice, which required a reserve variant - the fanning of
interethnic conflicts in Kosovo-Metohija.
All indications are that a group is now going back to the original
variant, the outcome of which is the indicting of Yugoslav
officials by the Hague tribunal, said the newspaper.
According to the same scenario, Greece, Albania, Bulgaria,
Macedonia, Russia and Turkey are to be drawn into the war, in
addition to Yugoslavia, with Nato adding fuel to the fire.
In yet another 'extraordinary coincidence' one of the items on the
Bilderberg agenda for this weekend (as revealed to The News by
Canadian based researcher John Whitley) is the formation of a
Western European Army which is high on the agenda of the
meeting of European leaders in Cologne on Thursday.
Stop press: As we went to press on Thursday we received the
official press release from the Bilderberg Meeting. It said: "The
47th Bilderberg Meeting will be held in Sintra Portugal June 3 to 6
to discuss the Atlantic Relationship in a Time of Change. Among
others the conference will discuss NATO, Genetics, Emerging
Markets, The New Economy, European Politics, US Politics,
International Financial Architecture, Russia. Approximately 120
participants from North America and Europe will attend the
discussions. The meeting is private in order to encourage frank
and open discussion.
"What is unique about the about Bilderberg as a forum is the
broad cross-section of leading citizens that are assembled for
nearly three days of informal and off-the-record discussion about
topics of current concern especially in the fields of foreign affairs
and the international economy; the strong feeling among
participants that in view of the differing attitudes and experiences
of the Western nations, there remains a clear need to further
develop an understanding in which these concerns can be
accommodated; the privacy of the meetings, which has no
purpose other than to allow participants to speak their minds
open and freely. In short, Bilderberg is a small, flexible, informal,
off-the-record international forum in which different viewpoints
can be expressed and mutual understanding enhanced.
"Bilderberg's only activity is its annual Conference. At the
meetings, no resolutions are proposed, no votes taken, and no
policy statements issued. Since 1954, forty-six conferences have
been held. The names of the participants as well as the agenda
are made available to the press. Participants are chosen for their
experience, knowledge, and their standing; all participants attend
Bilderberg in a private and not an official capacity.
"There usually are about 120 participants of whom about two-
thirds come from Europe and the balance from North America.
About one-third are from government and politics, and two-
thirds from finance, industry, labor, education, communications.
"Participants have agreed not to give interviews to the press
during the meeting. In contacts with the news media after the
conference it is an established rule that no attribution should be
made to individual participants of what was discussed during the
meeting.
There will be no press conference. A list of participants is
appended."
========
To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Kosovo refugees to receive "high-tech" I.D. cards
From: bpr-list@philologos.org(BPR)
Date: Sat, 5 Jun 1999 09:46:26 -0500
From: <owner-bpr@philologos.org>
June 4, 0:52 p.m. ET
Kosovo refugees to receive "high-tech" I.D. cards
SARAJEVO(Reuters)- The U.N. refugee agency said on Friday it
would introduce a high-tech registration system to facilitate the return
of Kosovo Albanian refugees whose passports and identity cards
were destroyed by Serb authorities.
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Sadako Ogata said
her organization had already helped with more simple registration
forms for refugees from the war-torn province.
But the UNHCR would on June 15 launch what she described as a
"fairly advanced, technically speaking, registration which is using the
Microsoft software."
"We have a central database bringing in all the already existing
registrations, verifying them and also giving them identification which
has their picture on it," she said.
"We are hoping that this will be used as a basis for their identification
when they go back," she told reporters.
Neil Wright, UNHCR coordinator for former Yugoslavia and Albania,
said the documents could be used not only for refugees to gain
access to Kosovo but also to start the whole process of defining
property ownership and in tracking down records.
He said documentation was one of the difficulties ahead, "but we are
doing everything we possibly can with this very high-tech system."
Serb authorities have seized and destroyed thousands of passports
and identity cards from refugees who fled or were expelled from
Kosovo since March 24, when the NATO bombing campaign started.
via: New Millennium <hblonde1@tampabay.rr.com>
Please be advised that this domain (Philologos.org) does not endorse 100 per cent any link contained herein. This forum is for the dissemination of pertinent information on an end-times biblical theme which includes many disturbing, unethical, immoral, etc. topics and should be viewed with a mature, discerning eye.