To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Infobeat News items
From: bpr-list@philologos.org(BPR)
Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2000 08:15:14 -0500

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

*** Moon moves toward total eclipse

(AP) - Across the Western Hemisphere wherever there wasn't a curtain
of clouds, one of the greatest shows on Earth played overhead
Thursday night: a total eclipse of the moon. Starting about 9:30 p.m.
EST with a shadow along its left edge, the moon began moving toward
total eclipse as it crept into Earth's shadow. The darkest phase,
when the moon climbed to its height over the East Coast, was to end
at 12:22 a.m. EST Friday. The moon was expected to leave Earth's
shadow at 2:24 a.m. EST. Duke Johnson, planetarium director at
SciWorks science museum in Winston-Salem, N.C., said it was the most
impressive lunar eclipse he had witnessed in about 15 years. "It's a
much brighter eclipse than we've had in recent years. It's a nice red
color," he said. See
http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2563522246-727

*** Outcry quashes cat-killing program

EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. (AP) - An Air Force effort to save a beach
mouse from extinction by killing cats and other predators has been
put on hold after complaints from cat lovers. The Air Force has been
trying to sustain the mouse population and protect sea turtle nests
and shore birds by trapping and killing predators on 17 miles of
Santa Rosa Island owned by Eglin, the nation's largest air base. The
program was put on hold Jan. 4. "In a civilized country such as
America, there should be a non-lethal way to deal with predators,"
said Jacqueline Belczak, an opponent of the program. The moratorium
will remain while alternatives are considered, said Carl Petrick, who
heads the base's fish and wildlife management program. See
http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2563517028-6e2

*** Hacker wants to go to college

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Convicted cyberspace bandit Kevin Mitnick, who
gets out of prison Friday, wants to go to college to study computer
technology. His goal may be tough to achieve under probation rules
that bar him from touching computers for the next three years. The
restrictions are designed to prevent Mitnick from hacking again. With
today's proliferation of technology, a strict interpretation of the
rules could make life extremely difficult for Mitnick, said his
attorney, Donald Randolph. "If you read it literally, he would
probably have to stand in one place for three years,"' he said. "This
would probably include refrigerators and garage door openers. Forget
about a cellular phone." See
http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2563520265-8af

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To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Religion Today News
From: bpr-list@philologos.org(BPR)
Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2000 08:21:54 -0500

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

          C U R R E N T N E W S S U M M A R Y
              by the Editors of ReligionToday

January 21, 2000

Radio listeners are likely to hear more religious and educational
programming in the future. The Federal Communications Commission
has voted to allow hundreds of small broadcasters to run
inexpensive, low-power FM stations.
...The FCC adopted new licensing rules Jan. 20 that permit the
addition of the noncommercial stations with broadcasting ranges
as much as seven miles. That could transform the airwaves, adding
many new voices, government officials said. Small communities and
churches have complained that their issues are shut out by large,
commercial conglomerate stations.
...In addition to churches, groups planning to set up low-power
stations include schools that cannot afford full-power stations,
alternative musicians, and highway departments that want to warn
commuters about traffic problems.
...The nation's largest broadcasters, including the National
Religious Broadcasters, object. They say the so-called
micro-radio stations could create static or distorted signals for
established stations.

Cornerstone TeleVision is refusing to accept a license granted by
the Federal Communications Commission because new guidelines
would have restricted the amount of religious programming (see
link #1 below) it could air, Conservative News Service said. The
Christian television broadcaster applied for the license as part
of a business deal with public station WQED in Pittsburgh.
...The guidelines "jeopardize our ability to carry out our
mission," the ministry said. While the financial benefits of the
deal would have been good, "there is no benefit that would
justify the sacrifice of religious freedom required by the new
FCC standards," Cornerstone President Oleen Eagle said.
...The guidelines require noncommercial educational TV channels
to devote half of their air time to educational material,
excluding preaching and most church services, news reports said.
The National Religious Broadcasters and members of Congress have
criticized the guidelines, which could affect as many as 90
religious stations, NRB said.
...The FCC has had religious broadcasters "in their sights for at
least a year," a high ranking source at the commission said,
according to CNS. Some commissioners have been discussing ways to
restrict the stations on the grounds of separation of church and
state, the source said. "They've been looking for a test case,
and they found one."

Ted Turner is talking about Jesus Christ. The media mogul and
former Atlanta Braves owner alluded to the Gospel of Matthew
while sticking up for John Rocker, the Atlanta pitcher denounced
in the press for inflammatory comments about homosexuals and
"foreigners." The 25-year-old's tirade was published in Sports
Illustrated last month.
...Turner criticized Rocker but said that Rocker has apologized
and should be given another chance. "I mean he's just a kid. I
don't think we ought to hold it against him forever," Turner said
on CNN's Moneyline.
..."Jesus said we should give 90 times -- whatever -- you should
give a lot," he said in a reference to the Gospel of Matthew,
where Jesus tells His followers to forgive those who offend them
"70 times 7 times."
...Turner once professed to being a Christian but has lost his
faith, Assist Communications said. He found faith in Christ at a
Billy Graham outreach but turned away from God after his sister
died and his father committed suicide, he told Woodstock Baptist
Church several years ago. He has apologized for derogatory
comments about Christians. Turner's estranged wife, Jane Fonda,
recently became a Christian and has been attending an Atlanta
Bible study regularly, news reports say.

For the first time, a Roman Catholic pope is going to the land of
the pharaohs. John Paul II will visit Egypt Feb. 24-26 as part of
a series of trips to biblical sites in 2000, Reuters said. He
will meet with government and religious leaders, including
President Hosni Mubarak, Coptic Orthodox Pope Shenouda, and the
country's top Islamic leader. The pope will celebrate Mass in the
Catholic Coptic Cathedral in Cairo, then visit the monastery of
St. Catherine in the Sinai desert, thought to be near the site
where Moses received the Ten Commandments.

Scotland's largest Protestant church is divided over allowing
public schools to teach about homosexuality. John Cairns, senior
official in the Church of Scotland, called a law that prevents
schools in the United Kingdom from teaching about homosexuality
"completely useless" and said it has created "fear and stigma"
against homosexuals. England and Wales appear to be ready to
repeal the law, but in Scotland businessmen and the Roman
Catholic Church are working to keep the ban in place.
...By a 2-1 margin, Scottish citizens want the ban to remain. "We
are inundated with people in the Church of Scotland who are very
dismayed that the church as a whole has not come out against" the
idea, church official Ann Allen said.

The church in Congo perseveres despite a civil war and tribal
conflicts. More than 1.1 million people have been displaced from
their homes by a civil war that broke out in 1998. More than half
of the country is under the control of three rebel groups
opposing the government of Laurent Kabila, news reports say.
Thousands of people have been killed and 150,000 displaced in
recent ethnic fighting in the northeast, Reuters said.
...The church is continuing with its activities, Congo Church
Association said. The Anglican diocese of Bega is ruled by a
rebel group but "the church administration is going well," Samuel
Alio, a minister, said. A youth group organized evangelistic
outreaches to every marketplace in the area, several seminars
have been held for women, and a three-day conference is being
organized for church leaders, Alio said. "All these activities
are to make the church alive in time of war."
..."We need your prayers for the end of the war," and personnel
to evangelize more people in difficult situations, he said. "We
need material aid for those who lost property."

-----------
RELATED LINKS:
1: http://www.religiontoday.com/Archive/FeatureStory/view.cgi?file=20000107.s1..html

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To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Helms urges new start in rocky UN-US relations
From: bpr-list@philologos.org(BPR)
Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2000 08:29:12 -0500

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

Thursday January 20 3:56 PM ET

 Helms Urges New Start in Rocky
 U.N.-U.S. Relations

                  By Anthony Goodman

                  UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Jesse
                  Helms, one of the most powerful American
                  senators, appealed on Thursday for a new
                  beginning in U.N.-U.S. relations -- and
                  then set about smashing some of the most
                  cherished icons in the temple of
                  international diplomacy.

 ``If the United Nations is to survive into the 21st century, it must
 recognize its limitations,'' he told Security Council members in a
 speech filled with warnings against U.N. dictation over U.S.
 foreign or domestic affairs.

 ``As matters now stand, many Americans sense that the U.N. has
 greater ambitions than simply being an efficient deliverer of
 humanitarian aid, a more effective peacekeeper, a better
 weapons inspector, and a more effective tool of great power
 diplomacy,'' said the arch-conservative Republican chairman of
 the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and one of the most
 vocal critics of the United Nations in the U.S. Congress, .

 ``They see the U.N. aspiring to establish itself as the central
 authority of a new international order of global laws and global
 governance. This is an international order the American people
 will not countenance,'' he said.

 Although he spoke in the Security Council chamber, at the
 invitation of council President Richard Holbrooke of the United
 States, it did not count as a formal council meeting.

 With council members and others bracing for a denunciation of
 the United Nations, Helms opened by saying -- superfluously --
 that ``it may very well be that some of the things I feel obliged to
 say will not meet with your immediate approval, if at all.''

 U.S. Not 'Deadbeat Nation' Says Helms

 He then rejected charges that the United States was a ''deadbeat
 nation'' for not paying its U.N. dues on time; said Americans
 would never accept the United Nations as the ``sole source of
 legitimacy on the use of force'' in the world; denounced plans for
 an international criminal court as ``a power grab;'' and charged
 that, ``more often than not, 'international law' has been used as a
 make-believe justification for hindering the march of freedom.''

 Helms told the gathering: ``I am here to plead that from now on
 we must all work together, to learn from past mistakes...But
 candor compels that I reiterate this warning: the American people
 will never accept the claims of the United Nations to be the 'sole
 source of legitimacy on the use of force' in the world.''

 The need for Washington to pay its U.N. dues in full and on time
 was a constant theme of replies delivered by council members.

 Britain's Sir Jeremy Greenstock said the U.S. arrears problem
 ``has probably hindered and not helped'' the move toward U.N.
 reform that all members wanted.

 Netherlands ambassador Peter van Walsum said much had been
 done to spread democratic ideas around the world, thanks to a
 large extent to ``this ineffective and talkative and deadbeat
 organization.''

 Chinese ambassador Qin Huasun told the staunchly
 anti-communist senator, in a masterpiece of understatement, that
 ``our views may not be completely identical,'' adding that the
 United Nations could be effective only if it respected sovereignty,
 equality among states and non-interference.

 Helms said that while the United States had agreed, under certain
 conditions, to pay $926 million toward U.N. arrears of well over
 $1 billion, it actually spent $8.779 billion last year to support
 ``various U.N. resolutions and peacekeeping operations around
 the world.''

 He was referring to U.S. forces in such places as Bosnia and
 Kosovo which, while authorized by the Security Council, do not
 count as U.N. operations.

 Helms said Americans ``know instinctively that the U.N. lives and
 breathes on the hard-earned money of the American taxpayer,''
 while hearing ``U.N. officials declaring absurdly that countries like
 Fiji and Bangladesh are carrying America's burden in
 peacekeeping.''

 Helms's Southern Accent

 Russian U.N. envoy Sergei Lavrov, who joked that his Russian,
 like Helms's English, had ``a southern accent,'' said the U.N.
 budget was approved by consensus and all members were
 expected to keep their word.

 French ambassador Alain Dejammet said that, despite fears
 expressed by the North Carolina senator, ``your warm accent
 from the south was entirely understood'' by U.N. interpreters.
 ``But the idea in this house is that others must be heard as well.''

 Helms said the American people had a ``long history of coming to
 the aid of those struggling for freedom.'' It was a ''fanciful notion
 that free peoples need to seek the approval of an international
 body (some of whose members are totalitarian dictatorships) to
 lend support to nations struggling to break the chains of tyranny
 and claim their inalienable, God-given rights.''

 While sovereignty must be respected, nations could lose their
 legitimacy when they ruled without the consent of the governed
 and brutally oppressed their people, he said.

 ``Slobodan Milosevic cannot claim sovereignty over Kosovo
 when he has murdered Kosovars and piled their bodies into mass
 graves. Neither can Fidel Castro claim that it his sovereign right
 to oppress his people. Nor can Saddam Hussein defend his
 oppression of the Iraqi people hiding behind phony claims of
 sovereignty,'' Helms said.

 As the meeting broke up, Cuba's ambassador Bruno Rodriguez,
 who is not a council member, shouted out that Helm's remarks
 about his country were ``unacceptable and slanderous.''

 Earlier Stories

      Helms Urges New Beginning in U.N.-U.S. Relations
      (January 20)
      U.N. Critic Sen. Helms to Address Security Council
      (January 18)

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000120/pl/un_helms_4.html

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To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Son of Japan Doomsday Cult Guru Kidnapped
From: bpr-list@philologos.org(BPR)
Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2000 12:38:48 -0500

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

Friday January 21 7:12 AM ET

Son of Japan Doomsday Cult Guru Kidnapped

TOKYO (Reuters) - Several followers of Japan's doomsday cult, which has
admitted involvement in nerve gas attacks in the Tokyo subway system five
years ago, on Friday kidnapped their guru's oldest son, police said.

A police spokesman said six followers of the Aum Shinri Kyo (Supreme
Truth Sect), which recently announced a name change, broke into the sect's
facility in Asahimura, northeast of Tokyo, and took away the seven-year-old
son of guru Shoko Asahara.

The spokesman said there was no clear motive for the abduction.

The cult struck fear in Japan with the gas attack, which killed 12 people and
made thousands ill.

Earlier this week it announced drastic reforms, including a name change to
the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, ''Aleph.''

It also said that Asahara, currently on trial for 17 charges including the
subway attack, may have been involved in the crimes.

The cult has apologized for the crimes committed by its followers and
pledged to pay compensation to the victims.

Japan has become increasingly focused on the activities of fringe religious
groups in Japan.

Police said earlier on Friday that they found two mummified bodies of
children in a house believed to have been used by a religious group. The
body of a six-year-old boy was found lying on a bed, while another body of an
infant, whose sex has not been identified, was found in a wooden box near
the boy, said a spokesman for Miyazaki Prefectural Police in southwestern
Japan.

Authorities arrested two occupants of the house, Junichiro Higashi, 55, and
Akemi Togashi, 49, on suspicion of abandoning the corpses of the two
children, believed to have been dead for over a year.

Higashi headed a group called ``Kaieda-juku'' which media reports described
as a quasi-religious group treating children with illnesses as well as those
with problems in school.

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000121/wl/japan_cult_6.html

via: End_Times_News-owner@onelist.com

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To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Solar Cinema
From: bpr-list@philologos.org(BPR)
Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2000 12:47:13 -0500

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

[The file is huge--200k. The prominence looks like a figure "8" coming off the
left side of the sun.--Moza]

Science@NASA Space Science News for January 20, 2000

Solar Cinema: The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory captured
images of a dramatic solar prominence on January 18, 2000. As the
solar maximum approaches, such events will become more and more
frequent. FULL STORY AT

            http://spacescience.com/headlines/y2000/ast20jan_1.htm

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