BPR Mailing List Digest: 08/31/00

Philologos
BPR Mailing List Digest
August 31, 2000

Digest Home | 2000 | August, 2000

To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Aug 31, 2000 TV Programs
From: bpr-list@philologos.org("Moza")
Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 08:53:34 -0400

8:00 PM Eastern

HIST - WHO DESTROYED KIEV? - After the Germans capture Kiev,
it erupts during a weeklong series of
explosions.(CC)(TVG)

9:00

DISC - SCIENCE MYSTERIES - "Monsters of the Lake" -
Scientists are skeptical about sea creatures such as the Loch
Ness monster.(CC)(TVG)

10:00

DISC - INTO THE UNKNOWN - "Mysteries of the Sea" - The
Bermuda Triangle; mermaids.(CC)(TVG)

10:30

PBS - KILLER BEES? - The African species migrates to the
United States.(CC)(TVPG)

From: moza@butterfly.mv.com

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To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Robot learns to reproduce
From: bpr-list@philologos.org("Moza")
Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 09:07:02 -0400

Robot learns to reproduce

Machine designed itself to carry out task

Back in the 1950s, science fiction writers predicted that by now robots would
be part of everyday life. So why doesn't everyone have their own personal R2-
D2 beeping around their kitchen? One reason is the time and money it takes
to design and build them.

A way round this problem is to let robots develop and construct themselves.
And taking a leaf out of evolution's book, Hod Lipson and Jordan Pollack, of
Brandeis University in Massachusetts,US, have done just that.

They have developed a computer system that uses natural selection to
design and automatically build robots.

"We carefully minimised human intervention in both the design and
fabrication stages," said Professor Pollack in the journal Nature.

"The only human work was in informing the simulation about the 'universe'
that could be manufactured."

Evolutionary path

Research could pave the way for sophisticated robots

The basic design was simple, with no resemblance at all to the sophisticated
androids of science fiction.

Instead the research team started with a handful of virtual rods, actuators
and cables in a computer.

Using sophisticated software that imitates evolution these basic components
were then allowed to "evolve" towards a machine with one goal - moving
horizontally.

Combinations of rods, actuators and cable "nerves" which proved the most
mobile were encouraged to thrive and reproduce. Less mobile arrangements -
evolutionary dead-ends - were allowed to die out.

Generations

After 600 generations had passed, the most successful mobile virtual robot
design was permitted to build a real version of itself in plastic using a
prototyping machine.

From the researchers' point of view, the important thing was that the robot
worked in just the way predicted by its virtual ancestor.

Robots have traditionally been designed to be able to operate autonomously.
Now that design and construction have also been automated, self-
reproducing machines that might, one day, merit the term "artificial life" are a
step closer.

Sophisticated robots like the Terminator are still many years into the future,
but scientists working on artificial intelligence have welcomed the experiment
as significant.

"This is a long-awaited and necessary step towards the ultimate dream of
self-reproducing machines," said Rodney Brooks, director of the Artificial
Intelligence Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_903000/903238.stm

via: Third_Watch@egroups.com

From: moza@butterfly.mv.com

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

========
To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Stop watch
From: bpr-list@philologos.org("Moza")
Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 09:11:42 -0400

Stop watch

Soon, forgetting your watch could not only make you late for work--it might
stop you from working altogether. Ensure Technologies in Ann Arbor,
Michigan, and California-based watch manufacturer Golden State
International have clubbed together to make watches that unlock your
computer when you approach it and lock it again when you walk away. Each
watch contains a tiny radio transmitter that beams a password to a receiver
on the computer. If the receiver doesn't detect the password signal, it triggers
a program in the computer to lock the keyboard, screen and mouse.
According to Ensure you can set it to work when you're anywhere between
one and 12 metres away.

From New Scientist magazine, 02 September 2000.

http://www.newscientist.com/nl/0902/stopwatch.html

From: moza@butterfly.mv.com

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

========
To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Fuss about the human genome just hides the brutality of global capitalism
From: bpr-list@philologos.org("Moza")
Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 12:37:39 -0400

GUARDIAN (LONDON) Thursday June 29, 2000

This is a war of all worlds
BY George Monbiot

Fuss about the human genome just hides the brutality of global capitalism

Nearly everyone debating the mapping of the human genome now agrees on
one thing: that the identification of our genes invokes an unprecedented
danger, as it might assist a handful of companies to seize something which
belongs to all of us. I wish this were true.

Terrifying as the impending capture of the essence of humanity is, it is
far from unprecedented. The attempt to grab the genome is just one of many
symptoms of a far graver disease. We are entering an age of totalitarian
capitalism, a political and economic system which, by seizing absolute
control of fundamental resources, destitutes everyone it excludes.

On Saturday I met a campaigner from Kerala, in southern India, who told me
that, to the tribal people he works with, the ownership of land is as
inconceivable as the ownership of air would be in the northern hemisphere.
I told him the bad news. In several American cities, blocks of air, which
(once legally transferred to a suitable site) allow their owners to build
skyscrapers, change hands for tens of millions of dollars. There have been
a number of legal disputes over the ownership of clouds, as firms battle
for the right to make them drop their rain where they want it. Companies
are now claiming they own asteroids and landing spaces on the moon.

None of these presumptions is any more absurd than the claim to possess
exclusive control over part of our own planet. But, as property rights
proliferate, almost everything which once belonged to all of us is being
seized.

In Britain, for example, despite repeated pledges by the government,
playing-fields and allotments are disappearing faster than ever before.
Public squares are being turned into private shopping malls. Traditional
stopping sites for travellers, some of which survived for five millennia,
have nearly all disappeared during the past 15 years.

Knowledge is rapidly becoming the exclusive preserve of those who can
afford to buy it. Intellectual property companies are monopolising image
banks and picture archives, while academic publishers, concentrated in
ever fewer hands, are able to charge outrageous prices for access to the
work they publish. Companies are asserting ownership in perpetuity of the
material in their electronic databases. A firm called West Publishing has
tried to insist that it owned the entire archive of US federal law.

The biotech companies have been empowered to seize the human genome
by the very people - Tony Blair and Bill Clinton - who are now begging them
not to do so. Blair's government helped drive through the European directive
on the legal protection of biotechnological inventions, which enables private
companies to claim not only human genes, but also plant and animal
varieties and even human body parts.

Every asset, once secured by the new totalitarian regime, is surrounded by
a Berlin wall equipped with border guards. There are ranches in the United
States in which you would be shot on sight if you tried to take a walk.
Disproportionate responses to the feeblest threats are assisted by the
private prison and security industries now seizing control of another
fundamental asset: human freedom. We cross the economic frontiers at our
peril.

The worst global inequality in history is a direct result of this
totalitarian capitalism. Two hundred people now own as much wealth as half
the world's population, for the simple reason that they have been
empowered to steal it from the rest of us.

This empowerment emerges from an unwholesome union of neoliberal
economics and feudal law. Our legal framework, which pre-dates democracy,
protects property above individuals and individuals above society. We can't
expect our governments to address this inversion of democratic priorities.
The three men who could begin to reform our legal system - the home
secretary, the lord chancellor and the prime minister - are all lawyers, and all
wedded (literally in the prime minister's case) to the profession which
benefits from its iniquities. Property-based law favours the interests of the
rich, which, in turn, favours the interests of its practitioners.

The walls rising around us are beginning to look impregnable. But before
we can decide how they might best be demolished, we must first recognise
that the enclosure of the human genome is just a single cell in the
privatised global prison the new regime has built.

via: isml@egroups.com

From: moza@butterfly.mv.com

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

========
To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Orwellian nightmare or brave new world?
From: bpr-list@philologos.org("Moza")
Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 13:34:29 -0400

Thursday 31 August 2000

Orwellian nightmare or brave new world?
By Rachel Sylvester

MEG and Joe live in Brightlands, a secure estate protected by a siren
which sounds whenever outsiders try to cross the barbed wire perimeter.
They were lucky to pass the vetting procedure because Joe's tag, for a
10-year-old conviction, was removed only a few months ago.

It is so unsafe to leave "walled" areas that they work from home,
although their computers are linked into the company network so their
bosses can tell exactly when they log on and off. Like all respectable
citizens, Meg and Joe have registered ID signatures which allow them to
shop on the internet, using "virtual booths" to try on clothes.

They carry personal radar devices, which warn them if an "unregistered"
individual is nearby. Their car has a government-installed breathalyser
which cuts off the engine automatically if the driver has had a drink.
They eat "chicken in a bottle", a new animal-friendly product which
allows them to grow their own meat at home from tissue culture. Perhaps
not surprisingly, they drink too much.

This is not a science fiction fantasy world, but the Government's own
description of how Britain could look in 2020. In the analysis of the
businessmen, academics and scientists on the Foresight panels, the
internet will have as dramatic an impact on society as the Industrial
Revolution.

Genetics will create as many changes in health care as the discovery of
penicillin; the traditional family will lose its place as the
"foundation" of society; communities will be broken down by
"self-centred, self-indulgent and hedonistic psychologies". Ministers
are gearing up for some difficult discussions about their policy
proposals.

Tony Blair is both infatuated and terrified by the future. He speaks
constantly about the importance of modernity, rejecting the symbols of
the past (Beefeaters, hereditary peers, foxhunting) in favour of the
emblems of the future (Millennium Dome, Liam Gallagher, Cool Britannia).

Even the Labour Party was turned "new", a modern and young party for a
modern and young nation. But in recent speeches, Mr Blair has expressed
growing unease about the pace of change. "The world feels in a state of
perpetual revolution," he told the Women's Institute, for example. "We
all share the anxieties."

It is perhaps for this reason that he has turned to his own Mystic Megs,
commissioning a raft of research on what to expect from the new
Millennium. The Foresight programme, set up by the Conservatives in
1994, has been expanded by the Labour administration, with Ł15 million
allocated for the implementation of its most urgent recommendations in
the recent science White Paper.

Meanwhile, the Downing Street think-tank, the Performance and Innovation
Unit, has been commissioned to map out its own long-term projections and
Cabinet ministers have been instructed to monitor potential developments
in their fields.

Of course, many of the visions are as fantastical as those in a crystal
ball would be. They describe a time long after the Prime Minister will
have moved on to the international lecture circuit. But they are still
disturbing for Mr Blair.

The trouble for politicians of any party, and particularly for those in
power, is that the issues of the future do not fall into the usual
Westminster boxes. The most important decisions - about human cloning or
digital ID cards, say - are ethical, rather than political, as the
Government's decision to give a free vote to MPs on therapeutic cloning
shows.

While Labour and Tory politicians disagree within their own parties, the
people dictating policy in these areas are non-partisan. The Foresight
programme is run by civil servants, the Human Genetics Commission made
up of scientists and lawyers, and the Government's e-envoy is not an
elected minister but a former diplomat, Alex Allan (once private
secretary to John Major).

Mr Blair can touch the tiller to change direction a little, but he
cannot turn the supertanker around. It is hardly surprising that the
future planners predict a decline in interest in the conventional
channels of power.

"Who controls the past controls the future," George Orwell wrote in
1984. "Who controls the present controls the past." The Prime Minister
must be beginning to wonder just who is in control now.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/et?ac=000140326706927&rtmo=LlxLbyKd&atmo=
LlxLbyKd&pg=/et/00/8/31/nfor531.html

via: isml@egroups.com

From: moza@butterfly.mv.com

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

========
To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - BPR...where do we go from here? RSVP
From: bpr-list@philologos.org("Moza")
Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 13:09:41 -0500

This email list was started as a way for us to share what we
found interesting in the news or in books we were reading/studies we
were doing, thinking our main focus would be the website. We also
thought there'd be back and forth on different aspects of what we were
sending through, although we seem to have evolved into an almost
exclusive news list. We've come to a crossroads and have been
wondering
if the list is fulfilling what we had intended in the first place or
is
filling another niche we hadn't anticipated.

If you could take a few minutes to answer a few questions for us, this
would help us on deciding in which direction to focus our attention in
the coming months (including whether we should discontinue this
service
altogether and concentrate on other areas). We have been very
disappointed in the past with the number of people who have taken the
time to participate and will take that into consideration when
deciding
where to go from here...a simple "everything is fine the way it is"
would be appreciated.

Some questions we have been pondering (please feel free to comment on
anything else):

1. Is the info on the website important to the list?
2. What email messages do you consider important?
3. What would you like to see more of/less of?
4. Are there too many posts going out daily? (we can't control how
"heavy" a news day is, so would you like info that is late or more
posts, etc.?)
5. How can we improve the website?

Thank you,
Moza

From: moza@butterfly.mv.com

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

========
To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - 69 Cattle Mysteriously Drop Dead In Canadian Pasture
From: bpr-list@philologos.org
Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 13:10:28 -0500

via: hblondel@tampabay.rr.com

69 Cattle Mysteriously Drop Dead In Canadian Pasture

8-27-00

SASKATOON (CP) - Nearly 70 cattle have dropped dead in a field in
south-central Saskatchewan and no one can figure out why. Lab tests
have
ruled out all infectious diseases including anthrax, which has
recently
killed several cattle in Manitoba. "It's perplexing, I think it's
unlikely that we'll ever know definitively," Dr. Eugene Janzen of the
Western College of Veterinary Medicine said Tuesday. "These
catastrophic
losses in one field are very, very rare."

The dead cattle were found Friday [August 18, 2000] in a 120-hectare
communal pasture near Meyronne, a town of 47 people in south-central
Saskatchewan.

Another 150 cattle in the same field had no noticeable injuries or
illness. A team of veterinarians from the University of Saskatchewan
visited the site Monday and took specimens from 61 cows and eight
calves.

They ruled out starvation since grass was plentiful in the field.
There
was also plenty of water which originated from the same source as the
town drinking supply. Most of the dead animals were dehydrated, but
Janzen isn't sure why.

Lightning sometimes kills several cattle at once if they are huddled
together, but the carcasses were scattered throughout the field. Foul
play or poisoning would also be nearly impossible to time so that all
69
died on the same day, Janzen said. "There are not a whole lot of other
possibilities," he said.

Farmers Calvin Gavelin and Norm Bouvier, who each owned about 30 of
the
dead cattle, say they have never seen anything like this before. "It's
so sad. It was a little like losing family," said Gavelin. "We don't
know what's happened out there, but we're relieved that no more cows
are
dying."

At $1,500 to $2,000 per cow, it's also a significant financial blow.
Neither farmer's insurance will cover the loss. Scott Brown of
Saskatchewan Agriculture said provincial assistance won't be
considered
until the investigation is complete.

Veterinarians will continue their investigation but it's unclear
whether
they will find any more clues. Janzen said the fact the cattle weren't
analysed until several days after their death makes things extremely
difficult.

"The evidence is a little bit like footprints in the snow," he said.
"The footprints have melted and we're trying to put together a story."

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

========
To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Earth to activists
From: bpr-list@philologos.org
Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 16:31:12 -0500

August 31, 2000

Earth to activists
Kenneth D. Smith

A scientist, said famed philosopher Will Rogers, "is a man that can
find out anything, and nobody in the world has any way of proving he
really found anything or not." It is a continuing complaint of those
predicting imminent environmental apocalypse that they rarely have
sufficient evidence to prove it to the uncomprehending Americans who
stolidly decline to share activists' enthusiasm for the cause. It is
not for want of effort by the media.

Consider the case of the New York Times, which had bad news, very bad
news for readers this month. The North Pole, it reported solemnly
Aug. 19, is "melting," a grim portent of global warming and a major
disappointment to a boatload of tourists who had gone there hoping to
have their pictures taken standing at the top of the world. Why all
the journalistic concern? "The last time scientists can be certain
the pole was awash in water," New York Times reporter John Noble
Wilford explained, "was more than 50 million years ago." Mr. Wilford
helpfully quoted a Harvard University scientist named James McCarthy
to the effect that passengers on the trip could see with their own
eyes that global warming "was real."

A spate of similarly troubling accounts followed. ABC News spoke to
another scientist on the voyage who expressed shock that "Santa's
Workshop is now underwater." A day later, The Washington Post
reported, "The world, it seems, is melting from the top down." The
Christian Science Monitor cited "growing evidence" that the Earth's
climate is changing, particularly in the Arctic region, a
"bellweather" for the rest of the world.

The implication of the stories was that man had somehow tipped the
world out of a delicate environmental balance — perhaps through his
insatiable appetite for luxuries like electricity, agriculture and
ESPN — into a dizzying descent toward death and destruction. He would
have to repent his ways or else.

As it turned out, however, things weren't quite as bad as all that.
Ten days after the original New York Times story ran, the paper ran a
correction on the story, not on the front page, of course, but on
page 2. The Aug. 19 account "misstated" the routine conditions of sea
ice at the North Pole, the paper said. In fact: "A clear spot has
probably opened at the Pole before, scientists say, because about 10
percent of the Arctic Ocean is clear of ice in a typical summer." In
other words, it hasn't been 50 million years since the sea was
"awash" in water, but, well, last year. Further, the correction said,
the fact that there is water rather than ice "is not necessarily
related to global warming." Perhaps, as The Post reported, the fluid
conditions have more to do with the 50 degree temperatures at the
Pole during the summer when the days there are 24 hours long. At any
rate, Santa need not worry about getting his workshop rezoned for
resort activities yet.

-- more --

http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/ed-column-200083118507.htm

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

========
To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Evil-doers Beware! Space Scientists are on the Case
From: bpr-list@philologos.org("Moza")
Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 18:45:33 -0400

NASA Science News for August 31, 2000

Two NASA scientists are working with the police
and the FBI to track down criminals using
out-of-this-world video technology. The new
technique, called VISAR, is also expected to
improve military reconnaissance, medical research
and video on home computers. This story includes
pictures and video of VISAR in action.

FULL STORY at

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2000/ast31aug_1.htm?list

From: moza@butterfly.mv.com

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

========
To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Infobeat News items (8/31/00)
From: bpr-list@philologos.org("Moza")
Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 18:50:29 -0400

*** ACLU to represent group

BOSTON (AP) - The American Civil Liberties Union will represent a
group that advocates sex between men and boys in a lawsuit brought by
the family of a slain 10-year-old. The family of Jeffrey Curley of
Cambridge said the North American Man/Boy Love Association and its
Web site - which is now offline - incited the attempted molestation
and murder of the boy on Oct. 1, 1997. One of two men convicted in
the killing, Charles Jaynes, 25, reportedly viewed the group's Web
site shortly before the killing, and also had in his possession some
of NAMBLA's publications. Also convicted in the killing was
24-year-old Salvatore Sicari. The ACLU said the case, filed in
federal court in mid-May, involves issues of freedom of speech and
association. See
http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2569355725-7d7

*** Estonia to expel Russian diplomats

TALLINN, Estonia (AP) - Estonia moved to expel two Russian diplomats
accused of spying, prompting Russia to retaliate by kicking out two
Estonian diplomats, officials in both countries said Thursday. The
two Russian diplomats were given 48 hours to leave the Baltic state,
although Estonia's Foreign Ministry declined to offer names or other
details, including when the notice was given or when the expulsion
would be carried out. The two Russians were accused of "activities
incompatible with their status," the Russian Foreign Ministry said in
a statement Thursday in Moscow. The phrase is a diplomatic euphemism
for spying. See
http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2569360088-29c

*** Ukraine region declared disaster

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) - President Leonid Kuchma on Thursday declared
four southern Ukrainian villages an ecological disaster zone,
following an outbreak of a mysterious illness some have blamed on
leaks of Soviet-era rocket fuel. About 400 residents of the villages
near Mykolaiv, 320 miles south of the capital Kiev, have been
reported sick since July 4, but only a few new cases were registered
this week, Health Minister Vitaliy Moskalenko said. Health officials
were checking nearly 6,000 residents of nearby villages for signs of
the illness, a chemical poisoning that causes skin rashes and affects
the liver and pancreas, he told a state investigative commission. See
http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2569358779-3dd

From: moza@butterfly.mv.com

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

========
To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Virgin Mary appearing over southern Egyptian church, Copts claim
From: bpr-list@philologos.org("Moza")
Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 19:34:19 -0400

Virgin Mary appearing over southern Egyptian church, Copts claim

CAIRO, Aug 31 (AFP) - The Virgin Mary has been making occasional
appearances over a church in the central Egyptian city of Assyut since
August 17, an Egyptian Orthodox priest claimed Thursday.

"She appears in an spiritual atmosphere of bright light, very quietly, without a
sound," Father Mina Hanna said by telephone.

"Since August 17, she appears on an irregular basis but the spiritual
phenomena continue," he said, adding that "yesterday (Wednesday) she
appeared in a complete image."

The Egyptian Orthodox, or Coptic, Church of Assyut issued a statement
saying that Egyptians have occasionally seen the Virgin Mary over the
domes of St. Mark Church in Assyut.

The church's neighbors noticed almost a month ago, at different times of the
night, spiritual phenomena such as "hovering groups of large white pigeons."
"On August 17, the Virgin Mary appeared," the statement said.

Father Hanna said the Virgin Mary appeared a few years ago at The Virgin
Mary monastery in the Assyut mountains, a few kilometers away, but this is
the first time she came into Assyut itself.

People from several Egyptian cities have come to Assyut and were waiting
on rooftops, streets and alleys around the Church to receive the Virgin
Mary's blessings, the statement said, adding that "spiritual matters are not
subject to human aspirations or time limits."

From: moza@butterfly.mv.com

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

========
To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Vatican will have observer role at Arab League meeting
From: bpr-list@philologos.org("Moza")
Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 19:36:32 -0400

Vatican will have observer role at Arab League meeting

CAIRO, Aug 31 (AFP) - The Vatican will take part as an observer at the next
session of the Arab League's ministerial council, dubbed "the Jerusalem
session," due Monday and Tuesday in Cairo, League spokesman Talaat
Hamed told AFP Thursday.

"The Vatican asked to take part as an observer at the meeting and will be
represented by the papal nuncio in Cairo, Monsignor Paolo Giglio," said
Hamed.

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat is due to attend the inaugural session of the
meeting and give a speech to the foreign ministers of the 22 member states
of the League on the peace process.

Control over the holy sites of east Jerusalem, which was conquered and
annexed by Israel in 1967, is the main area of disagreement stopping Israelis
and Palestinians from reaching a permanent settlement of their conflict by
their self-imposed deadline of September 13.

The Vatican wants the future status of Jerusalem to include international
guarantees to preserve the sacred nature of the holy sites of the three main
monotheistic faiths.

From: moza@butterfly.mv.com

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

========
To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Annan appeals for Olympic truce
From: bpr-list@philologos.org("Moza")
Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 19:39:51 -0400

Annan appeals for Olympic truce

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 31 (AFP) - UN Secretary General Kofi Annan
appealed on Thursday to all those at war to cease fire during the Olympic
Games which begin in Sydney on September 15 and end on October 1.

"The Olympic Games display the very best of our common humanity," he
said in a message to the games of the 27th Olympiad.

"Coming together across every virtually every line of race, ethnicity,
language, religion, gender and national identity, the athletes -- on their own
or as members of a team -- will scale new heights, set new records and give
the world a lesson in international understanding," he said.

He said it was "a matter of great significance" that the International Olympic
Committee had revived the ancient Greek tradition of suspending hostilities
during the games.

Annan endorsed a resolution passed in November 1999 by the UN General
Assembly urging all member states to observe an Olympic truce during the
Sydney games.

"This may sound unrealistic, but as any athlete will tell you, nothing happens
without a dream," he said.

"Olympic ideals are also United Nations ideals: tolerance, equality, fair play,
and most of all, peace," he said.

"Together the Olympics and the United Nations can be a winning team, but
the contest will not be won easily," he added.

"War, intolerance and deprivation continue to stalk the earth. We must fight
back. Just as athletes strive for world records, so must we strive for world
peace."

Annan will be represented at the Sydney games by Sergio Vieira de Mello,
who heads the UN administration of the war-wrecked territory of East Timor.

Annan's spokesman Fred Eckhard said "the UN flag will fly over the
Olympiad, which is a young tradition that started in 1996."

In addition, Eckhard said, following a request by Annan, the IOC had
"authorised several East Timorese athletes to compete in the games as
individuals under the Olympic flag."

East Timor, a former Portuguese colony which was annexed and run by
Indonesia for 25 years, is under UN administration while it prepares for
independence.

From: moza@butterfly.mv.com

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

========
To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Security Council at centre of Millennium Summit
From: bpr-list@philologos.org("Moza")
Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 19:42:42 -0400

Security Council at centre of Millennium Summit

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 31 (AFP) - The Security Council, which UN
Secretary General Kofi Annan has urged member states to reform "without
delay," has decided to dramatise its importance at next week's Millennium
Summit.

Annan's recommendation came in a landmark report which he sent to the UN
General Assembly in April in a bid to set the agenda for the three-day
summit starting on September 6.

"The United Nations must adapt itself to the changing times," he said, and
"one critical area" was reform of the Security Council.

Some of the 150 heads of state and government attending the summit may
take up Annan's challenge in the four plenary sessions and in the four private
round-table meetings they are due to hold.

But the council itself, and its five permanent members in particular, have
underscored their centrality to the work of the world body by scheduling
meetings of their own.

The full council is to meet at the level of heads of state and government for
90 minutes, starting at 1730 GMT on September 7.

The meeting will take place in public and has been timed not to conflict with
any plenary or round-table.

The council, chaired by President of Alpha Oumar Konare of Mali, is
expected to pass a resolution endorsing a new report calling for radical
reforms of the UN's methods of peacekeeping.

One permanent council member observed that a resolution requires a vote,
and that the session would be "more photogenic if 15 heads of state or
government raise their hands."

Mali, one of the 10 non-permanent members elected for two years by
regional blocs in the General Assembly, holds the rotating presidency of the
council for September.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair and presidents Jiang Zemin of China,
Jacques Chirac of France, Vladimir Putin of Russia and Bill Clinton of the
United States will represent states with permanent seats and the power to
veto council decisions.

In his report, Annan recalled that these were the powers which emerged
victorious from World War II and wrote:

"Based on the distribution of power and alignments in 1945, the composition
of the Council today does not fully represent either the character or the
needs of our globalised world."

The P-5, as they are known in diplomatic jargon, have nevertheless decided
to hold a session of their own, behind closed doors.

One ambassador said he expected the meeting to focus on Kosovo, a
subject which has deeply split the P-5, and on the Middle East.

But he said he did not expect it to consider the equally divisive topic of Iraq,
because "they would be able to say little of use only weeks before the US
presidential election."

The diplomat added that he did not expect much discussion of council
reform, although the question of members' contributions to the UN budgets
was bound to arise.

Among proposals being informally discussed by council members is one to
increase the membership to 24, with five of the nine new seats being held
permanently by a country from each region.

Council reform was the only recommendation in Annan's report which would
entail changing the UN Charter.

From: moza@butterfly.mv.com

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

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