BPR Mailing List Digest: 04/06/00

Philologos
BPR Mailing List Digest
April 6, 2000

Digest Home | 2000 | April, 2000

To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - From Russia with guns
From: bpr-list@philologos.org("Shophar_Sho_Good")
Date: Thu, 06 Apr 2000 07:55:23 -0500

From Russia with guns

A glossy weapons catalog offers wimpy nations a chance to
buy new respect from their neighbors.
-
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2000/04/03/arms/index1.html

By Ken Silverstein

April 3, 2000 | The most publicized nightmare for U.S.
national security planners is Russia's arsenal of 20,000
nuclear weapons -- a threat made known by a classified
report President Clinton publicized on Moscow's loose
nukes, and made better known when George Clooney and Nicole
Kidman stopped a Serbian terrorist from blowing up New York
with a stolen Russian atomic bomb in (another bomb) "The
Peacemaker." </sept97/entertainment/peace970926.html>

But U.S. policy makers probably became even more worried
last week when they saw soon-to-be Russian president
Vladimir Putin trolling about in a Russian MiG. Because
while Armageddon-style scenarios capture the imagination,
it's Russia's frantic effort to export conventional arms --
big guns, big warplanes, and lots of ammo -- that remains
on the top of Russia's defense priority list, including
that of Putin.

Desperate for hard currency, and with weapons one of its
few quality exports, Moscow is eagerly peddling arms to any
and all comers. The country expects to sell $4.3 billion
worth of arms this year, Deputy Prime Minister Ilya
Klebanov has said. That's sharply down from Cold War
levels, but up by nearly 75 percent from two years ago and
a record since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
That would put Russia at the same general level as France
and England, and behind only the United States, which in
1998 (the last year for which figures are fully available)
sold $7.1 billion worth of weapons for a 30 percent market
share.

Russia's biggest customers are China and India, which
combined account for roughly 80 percent of sales. Short-
term prospects are bright because China has increased its
military budget this year by 16 percent, while India has
upped its by 26 percent. Russia is also making inroads in
Bangladesh, Indonesia and Myanmar.

-- more --

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

About the writer Ken Silverstein is a contributing editor
for Harper's magazine. His book "Private Warriors," a look
at the post-Cold War arms trade, will be published in May

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To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Iran completes Shihab-3 missile devlopment
From: bpr-list@philologos.org("Moza")
Date: Thu, 6 Apr 2000 09:15:13 -0400

Iran completes Shihab-3 missile development

By Steve Rodan
SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
Wednesday, April 5, 2000

Iran has completed the development of the Shihab-3 surface-to-surface
missile with the capability of striking Israel, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

Israeli and U.S. intelligence sources agreed in their assessment that
Teheran is now capable of deploying the medium-range Shihab-3 missile,
with a range of 1,300 kilometers, after the success of a secret test in late
February.

"The Iranians have essentially completed the Shihab-3," a senior Israeli
defense official said. "It won't be accurate. But it will be able to strike
anywhere in Israel."

The Shihab-3 has been equipped with a North Korean engine, one of a
shipment of engines that arrived from Pyongyang in November. A senior
Israeli defense source said the test around Feb. 20 was regarded as a
demonstration of the integration of the engine and missile subsystems.

A U.S. intelligence source said the Shihab launch took place from a
transportation-and-launch vehicle in what was regarded as an operational
test. "The Iranians don't seem to have any plans to set up a production line
of the missile," a U.S. intelligence source said. "Instead, the Iranians have
been working on Shihab after Shihab and now they have several missiles that
can all reach deep in Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Israel."

The source said launch took place at a new airbase of the Islamic Revolution
Guards Corps at Mashhad. The launch was supervised by the commander of
the Revolutionary Guards, Maj. Gen.Yahya Rahim Safavi.

"I think that without a doubt this test shows the continued effort by Iran,"
Rep. Curt Weldon, chairman of the House Military Research subcommittee
said. "It is of very great concern especially we assessed that deployment
would not take place for another 5-10 years. My own feeling is that those
doing the assessment only looked at [Iranian] indigenous development."

So far, the sources said, the Shihab-3 does not contain a sophisticated
conventional or unconventional warhead. But the senior Israeli defense official
said Iran would continue to try to develop an unconventional warhead for the
missile.

The failure to install a lethal warhead, another senior Israeli defense official
said, means the Shihab-3 has few military applications. "The Shihab-3 test
doesn't change anything," the official said. "Iran is not ready yet."

In December, the U.S. military commander in the Persian Gulf, Gen.
Anthony Zinni, told the Association of the United States Army in Washington
that the Shihab-3 will eventually carry a nonconventional warhead. He said
Iran has replaced Iraq as the greatest threat to the United States in the
Middle East and the Gulf, pointing to Iran's investments in sea mines,
submarines and relocatable missiles.

U.S. defense officials and analysts don't expect the Iranian parliamentary
elections in February, won by reformers aligned with President Mohammed
Khatami, to affect Teheran's missile or nonconventional weapons programs.

"I have seen no evidence as yet that President Khatami has ended or
reduced proliferation, but at least there's an opportunity," said Anthony
Cordesman, a leading defense researcher in testimony to the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee on March 28 in Washington.

Wednesday, April 5, 2000

http://www.worldtribune.com/tout-2.html

Link via:
http://www.newsviewtoday.com/

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========
To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Gene test helps scientist trace family names
From: bpr-list@philologos.org("Moza")
Date: Thu, 6 Apr 2000 09:25:25 -0400

Gene test helps scientist trace family names

Curious about your noble forebears? Eager to see if you are related to
someone else with the same last name?

April 06, 2000, 09:10 AM

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Curious about your noble forebears? Eager to see if
you are related to someone else with the same last name? An Oxford
genetics professor can answer your questions.

Brian Sykes, an expert in genetics at Britain's Oxford University, said on
Tuesday he had checked the DNA of dozens of men who had the same surname
and found, to his surprise, that they all seem to have descended from the
same ancestor.

Examining men with the same surname as his own, Sykes used a technique
known as genetic fingerprinting to examine the men's Y chromosome, which
is handed down with very little change from father to son.

"I wrote 250 men, a random sample, with the same surname and I wrote to
Sykeses because I felt confident approaching people with the same name as
mine," Sykes said in a telephone interview.

He tracked the men down in three English counties known to have many
people with the Sykes name -- York, Cheshire and Lancashire. He sent them
home DNA kits that included a brush to take a few cells from the inside of
the mouth.

"I got 61 returns of DNA on little brushes and of those, half had a Y
chromosome microsatellite fingerprint which showed they had exactly the
same Y chromosome," Sykes said.

Microsatellites are little repeated sequences of the four nucleotides --
A, C, T and G -- that seem to carry no important genetic instructions but
which can be used as "fingerprints" to identify genes.

Sykes, who reported his findings in the American Journal of Human
Genetics, said he was surprised to find the same fingerprint in so many
different men who had no idea they were related. © 2000 Reuters

http://www.arabia.com/article/0,1690,ArabiaLife-17524,00.html

See http://philologos.org/bpr for additional info.

========
To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Eilat quake
From: bpr-list@philologos.org("Moza")
Date: Thu, 6 Apr 2000 12:43:34 -0400

EILAT QUAKE
A 5.0-Richter scale earthquake struck the Gulf of Eilat this morning. Eilat
residents did not feel the quake, whose epicenter was 85 kilometers south of
their city - but it was felt along the Sinai coast.

Arutz Sheva News Service
<http://www.arutzsheva.org>
Thursday, April 6, 2000 / Rosh Chodes Nissan 5760

See http://philologos.org/bpr for additional info.

========
To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Law lord attacks 'oppressive' inquiry into Masons
From: bpr-list@philologos.org("Shophar_Sho_Good")
Date: Thu, 06 Apr 2000 15:31:24 -0500

Law lord attacks 'oppressive' inquiry into Masons

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/UK/Legal/2000-04/masons060400.shtml

By Robert Verkaik, Legal Affairs Correspondent
6 April 2000

Britain's most senior Masonic judge has launched a bitter
attack on the Government's investigation into Freemasonry
in the judiciary and the police force.

Lord Millett, a sitting law lord, accused a parliamentary
inquiry as having "absolutely no basis". He also described
Chris Mullin MP, who chaired the1998 Commons Select
Committee on Home Affairs, which investigated the
Freemasons, as a publicity-seeker who behaved
"oppressively".

Lord Millett has told the magazine Freemasonry Today: "He
[Mr Mullin] was wielding some power as chairman of a
Commons committee just as a judge does, and no judge would
dream of behaving the way he did."

The law lord took particular exception to the way Mr
Mullin, Labour MP for Sunderland South, questioned
Commander Michael Higham, grand secretary of the United
Grand Lodge, who represented the Freemasons in the inquiry.

"I think he treated Higham unfairly. He [Mr Higham] was a
secretary and so on, and did not have the power to deal
there and then with Mullin's requests. I saw some of that
interview on television and I thought he [Mullin] behaved
oppressively."

Since the Mullin inquiry the Lord Chancellor, Lord Irvine
of Lairg, has asked judges to disclose their Masonic
membership. Lord Millett says that this has encouraged
litigants to demand to know whether a judge sitting on
their case is a Mason. "In a way, the Government has given
litigants ammunition," he said.

Lord Millett said that not enough barristers were now
joining the Freemasons because "it could do their career
prospects harm". He said: "They don't trust the assurances
that are given and they say well, even if the assurances
are right, why take the risk."

Lord Millett also said that he thought every judge who was
a Mason had now revealed this to the Lord Chancellor. The
20 per cent of judges who had not replied to Lord Irvine's
questionnaire had not done so because they resented being
ask such a question, not because they were Masons, he said.

A decision of the law lord is being taken to the European
Court of Human Rights in a case that will challenge the
number of Masons sitting as judges. In the European case a
litigant is attempting to "upset a will". Lord Millett
refused the litigant's appeal against the decision of a
deputy high court judge, who was also a Freemason. The
deceased and the solicitor of the litigant's opponent are
also Masons.

Lord Millett told Freemasonry Today: "I knew the deputy
high court judge was a Freemason because we are in the same
lodge but the idea that I would dismiss an appeal [against
his ruling] because he was a fellow member of my lodge is
ridiculous."

The Lord Chancellor's Department confirmed yesterday that
it would be defending the case at the European Court in
Strasbourg and that it concerned "judicial Freemasonry."

Lord Millett, 66, has spoken out before against the
Government's attempts to set up a register of Freemasons in
the criminal justice system. He has described it as an
invasion of privacy.

See http://philologos.org/bpr for additional info.

========
To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Planets Gathering 'Round Moon
From: bpr-list@philologos.org("Shophar_Sho_Good")
Date: Thu, 06 Apr 2000 15:32:42 -0500

Planets Gathering 'Round Moon

http://www.discovery.com/news/briefs/20000404/space_planets
html

By Discovery.com News

April 4, 2000 -- Jupiter, Saturn and Mars will gather
around the crescent moon for a spectacular show just after
sunset on Thursday.

Wednesday will see the new moon, and on Thursday around 8
p.m ET, the planets will converge in a tight circle just
off the side of the crescent moon, low in the southwest
sky, NASA says in a press release.

Jupiter will be closest to the moon, at about three
degrees west. Saturn will be north of Jupiter, and Mars,
the smallest of the three, will be northwest of Jupiter.

Despite their tight appearance, the bodies are at whopping
distances from each other. The moon is 238,000 miles away
from us this week; Mars is 217 million miles away; Jupiter
is 543 million miles away and Saturn is 927 million miles
away.

Thursday's night sky will also bring what is regarded as
one of the most beautiful and delicate sights: a slender
crescent moon with Earthshine. Earthshine happens when
sunlight bounces off the Earth and illuminates the dark
side of the moon, making the ghostly outline of full moon
dimly glow. The Earthshine effect may not be visible from
urban areas, but should be easy to view in dark-sky
regions, according to NASA.

On April 15, the three planets will appear to squeeze even
closer for the most compact grouping of any three planets
for the entire year.

The April alignments of Jupiter, Mars and Saturn are
precursors for a spectacular alignment on May 5, when the
moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn will appear
near each other in the sky. But the sun will be in the
middle of the convergence, blocking Earth's view of the
event.

An event of this magnitude, when five naked-eye planets
appear together in such a close range, occurs approximately
once every 57 years.

The next five-planet lineup will occur on Sept. 8, 2040,
at 7:30 p.m.

See http://philologos.org/bpr for additional info.

========
To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Are planets conspiring to end the world?
From: bpr-list@philologos.org("Shophar_Sho_Good")
Date: Thu, 06 Apr 2000 15:35:12 -0500

Doomsday theories debunked

Are planets conspiring to end the world?
By MATTHEW FORDAHL -- The Associated Press

http://www.canoe.ca/CNEWSSpace0004/05_alignment.html

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Next month, the sun and six of the
planets will line up like cosmic billiard balls in a
configuration doomsayers warn could shift the Earth's
poles, trigger earthquakes, ruin the stock market and usher
in the Age of Aquarius if anyone survives.

Astronomers are bracing for the May 5-16 alignment, too,
but not out of fear their observatories will crumble.

They will be busy debunking the end-of-the-world
predictions, just as they did when the planets lined up in
1982, 1962 and about every 20 years before that. They will
have to do it again in 2020, too.

"If people are determined to be anxious about something, I
think it would be a lot better if they were anxious about
their driving on the freeways," said E.C. Krupp, director
of the Griffith Observatory <http://www.griffithobs.org> in
Los Angeles.

The alignment will involve the sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth,
Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, and comes just when you thought
it was safe to ditch those Y2K survival kits.

The May show won't even be visible because it will be
obscured by the sun's glare. So if there is to be any
earthly excitement, it will have to come from all those
quakes, tidal waves and volcanoes.

On Thursday, in a celestial preview, three planets --
Mars, Jupiter and Saturn -- will appear close in the sky as
they march toward the grand alignment. The crescent moon
will be crammed into the same area.

"It's very pretty," said Dennis Mammana, astronomer at San
Diego's Reuben H. Fleet Science Center
<http://www.rhfleet.org>. "I think that's the limit to the
significance of this thing."

There's no risk of a collision: The moon is 239,000 miles
away; Mars 216 million miles away; Jupiter 543 million
miles away; and Saturn 927 million miles away.

Each one of these planetary alignments brings a new round
of doomsday predictions.

A book called "The Jupiter Effect" received wide attention
with its prediction that California would be rocked by a
major earthquake indirectly caused by the 1982 alignment of
the planets. It turned out to be all wrong.

Another book ominously titled "5/5/2000: Ice, The Ultimate
Disaster" predicts the alignment and increased solar
activity will unleash a complex chain of events causing the
Earth's crust to slide and poles to shift.

"Quite frankly, it would be a geological Armageddon," said
author Richard Noone <http://www.rnoones.com>. "You'd have
volcanism going on globally.

Earthquakes beyond the scale anything Richter ever dreamed
of. Tsunamis hundreds of feet high, sweeping hundreds of
miles inland."

The 390-page book uses "pole shifting" to explain
everything from the disappearance of the civilization that
built the pyramids to why woolly mammoths appear to be
flash-frozen in Siberia.

Noone has moved his family to safety in Georgia, but
astronomers say he and everybody else have nothing to worry
about because the extra pull and stretching from the
aligned planets is a small fraction of the moon's tidal and
gravitational strength.

Astrologers, though, say the planetary alignment signals a
change from the Age of Pisces to the Age of Aquarius. And
that's not a good thing.

The "pileup of energy" is going to lead to "some very
serious reversals in the stock market," said astrologer
Norman Arens. He also predicts cataclysmic quakes, floods
and volcanoes as well as a movement away from 2,000-year-
old Christian principles.

Mammana countered that nobody has ever been able to
explain how rocks in space can influence lives.

"It's a shame that they have to fall into the traps of
things like this," he said. "The universe is a grand and
wonderful place, and the fact that we can understand it and
predict the way it behaves is a wonderful testament to our
intelligence and our ingenuity."

And besides, Krupp said, if the end of the world is near,
so what? "There's no reason to get upset about it. If it is
the end of the world, there's very little you can do," he
said.

See http://philologos.org/bpr for additional info.

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