To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - New York City Cabs Are Wired!
From: bpr-list@philologos.org("Moza")
Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2000 08:30:15 -0400

 Thursday September 14 11:02 AM ET
 New York City Cabs Are Wired!

 NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York City taxi cab passengers can surf the
 Web for free if they hail the right cabs, thanks to a deal between Internet
 media services company Yahoo! Inc. (NasdaqNM:YHOO - news) and
 Medallion Financial Corp.(NasdaqNM:TAXI - news), the companies said
 Thursday.

 The cabs, which belong to one of New York City's largest taxi fleet
 operators, Team Systems Corp., are equipped with Palm Inc.'s
 (NasdaqNM:PALM - news) Palm 7 handheld computer with Internet access
 to surf for news and directions.

 The two companies said in a statement that a fleet of 10 Internet-enabled
 taxis outfitted in Yahoo's yellow and purple colors is cruising the streets of
 New York as part of a pilot program between Yahoo and Medallion that will
 run until March 2001.

 The program, which is a part of Yahoo's ``Yahoo Everywhere'' strategy,
 follows the strong response the companies got in San Francisco when the
first fleet of wired cabs hit the streets
 between September 1999 and March 2000.

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000914/od/taxis_dc_1.html

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

From: moza@butterfly.mv.com

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To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - The past decade 'warmest for 1,000 years'
From: bpr-list@philologos.org("Shophar_Sho_Good")
Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2000 11:44:53 -0500

The past decade 'warmest for 1,000 years'
September 15 2000 BRITAIN
 BY MARK HENDERSON, SCIENCE CORRESPONDENT

http://www.the-times.co.uk/
 
THE past decade has been the warmest for 1,000 years, according to an
analysis of ice cores drilled from a glacier in the Himalayas.

The findings, which were published yesterday in the journal Science, offer
new evidence of global warming, the scientists who carried out the study
said. The past ten years and the past 50 years were the warmest periods of
that length during the past millennium, the researchers found.

The ice cores, which were taken from the glacier four miles above sea level
on the Tibetan plateau, showed a record of at least eight major droughts.
They were caused by a failure of the South Asian monsoon, the worst of which
was a seven-year dry spell which killed more than 600,000 people.

The international team of researchers, including scientists from the US,
China, Peru, Russia and Nepal, took three sets of samples from cores drilled
into the glacier during 10-week expedition in 1997.

Lonnie Thompson, Professor of Geological Sciences at Ohio State University,
said that the results offered particularly significant evidence of climate
change, as early signs of global warming are always seen at high altitudes.

"This is the highest climate record ever retrieved, and it clearly shows a
serious warming during the late 20th century, one that was caused, at least
in part, by human activity," he said.

The scientists were able to separate annual layers of ice for the last 557
years, and test their chemical composition. The evidence, he said, supported
the idea that the warmer climate in recent decades was caused by human
pollution.

The professor said that another expedition which he led to the ice fields at
the top of Kilimanjaro, Africa's highest mountain, earlier this year also
supported the evidence. At least 75 per cent of the ice on the African site
had disappeared since 1912.

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To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Satellite Catholics enter world of Fantasy
From: bpr-list@philologos.org("Shophar_Sho_Good")
Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2000 11:50:00 -0500

September 15 2000 EUROPE
 
Satellite Catholics enter world of Fantasy

BY PAUL McCANN, MEDIA CORRESPONDENT

http://www.the-times.co.uk/
 
NOBODY is quite sure whether it was the soundtrack from Babes Illustrated or
from the film Stacey and the Hunt, but it was certainly not the 20 cardinals
saying prayers and singing hymns that millions of Roman Catholics around the
world had been expecting.

A mistake at a satellite television company in Luxembourg led to two hours
of the soundtrack from The Fantasy Channel, broadcaster of pornographic
films, being broadcast over pictures from a Vatican celebration of the year
2000.

In an equally confusing switch, viewers of The Fantasy Channel, expecting to
hear Stacey doing her best, were treated to the sounds coming from The Feast
of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. This was a celebration involving the 20
cardinals, assorted clergy, laypersons and a band proceeding between some of
Rome's holiest sites singing, chanting and saying prayers.

The Italian broadcaster RAI was supposed to send pictures and sound of the
festival to its satellite for broadcast to Catholic audiences around the
world, but RAI's soundtrack got mixed with The Fantasy Channel. Viewers
across Italy, Spain and Latin America were therefore treated to passionate
moans and a woman saying: "Oh God, Oh God."

A spokesman for the Roman Catholic Church in England said: "It sounded like
a very unfortunate mistake."

Derek Botham, managing editor of The Fantasy Channel, was far from upset:
"We are absolutely delighted," he said. "I'm sure our stuff was a lot more
interesting than what they were expecting."

Mr Botham described Babes Illustrated and Stacy and the Hunt as "hot"
material. "Almost nothing we broadcast would get an 18 certificate in the
UK," he said.

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To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Real World News items - 09/15/00
From: bpr-list@philologos.org
Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2000 12:39:02 -0500

Selected items from...

REAL WORLD NEWS 09/15/2000

Visit Real World News online at http://www.realworldnews.net

EXPECTANT MOM KICKED OFF BUS FOR TALKING ABOUT RELIGION
A pregnant woman was put off a public transit bus in the rain for
having a private conversation about religion with a fellow passenger.
Michelle Shocks and Kelly Smith were ordered off the Snohomish County
Community Transit bus in Washington State by the driver, as they rode
home. Now transit authorities are being sued by The Rutherford
Institute (RI), whose litigation counsel Steven Alden said that the
pair had been "subjected to unfair treatment, retaliation and
humiliation." He added: "This was intolerable in the South in the
1960s, and is intolerable today."
http://www.charismanews.com/worldnews/worldnews.cgi?a=391&t=news.html

PENTAGON WATCHING IRAQI MILITARY ON MANEUVERS
U.S. forces are monitoring Iraq's military "with particular care and
closeness" during its late summer field maneuvers, the Pentagon said
Tuesday. Air reconnaissance is being stepped up, but additional
forces are not being sent. Kenneth Bacon, spokesman for Defense
Secretary William Cohen, said the Air Force is carrying out a normal
rotation of fighters and other aircraft that monitor Iraq's skies
from bases in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Until the exchange is complete
in several days, he said, the overlap will have extra U.S. aircraft
in the area. http://www.cnn.com/2000/US/09/12/us.iraq.ap/index.html

U.S. HOUSE SIDES WITH SCOUTS
The Boy Scouts of America received a major show of support in the
U.S. House of Representatives when members voted 362-12 Wednesday
(Sept. 13) to oppose revoking the organization's federal charter
because of its policy to not allow gays as Scouts or Scout leaders.
Eleven Democrats and one Republican voted for the bill, offered by
U.S. Rep. Lynne Woolsey, D-Calif. Republican leaders brought the bill
to the floor to showcase widespread support for the Scouts, and 50
Democrats refused to vote because they were upset with how
Republicans handled the bill. http://www.religionnews.com/news1.html

PEACE TALKS RESUME IN NEW YORK
Palestinian officials were arriving on Thursday morning in New York,
where stalled Middle East peace talks were scheduled to resume with
the United States taking a major role in the negotiations. One senior
Palestinian official said he had been asked to begin "to put down on
paper what we had agreed to verbally" and see where the two sides
stand in terms of agreement. A senior U.S. official described these
meetings as consultations, calling them "no big deal." He said
"people shouldn't get excited" because "there's less going on than
meets the eye."
http://www.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/meast/09/14/mideast.peace.02/index.html

HOLY JERUSALEM: THE KEY TO PEACE
With Middle East peace seemingly no nearer and the deadline for a
final status agreement between Palestinians and Israelis gone, the
key sticking point remains Jerusalem. The old city contains sites
holy to Jews, Muslims and Christians. At the heart of the bitter
Palestinian-Israeli dispute over Jerusalem is the Temple Mount or
Haram al-Sharif. What is the historical and religious significance of
these sites, and what are the options on Jerusalem being considered
by negotiators that might lead to a resolution of the 50-year
Palestinian-Israeli conflict?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/middle_east/newsid_923000/92334
0. stm

ISRAEL WANTS SOVEREIGNTY BELOW MOUNT
American officials are close to making their final conclusions on the
chances for reaching an accord in the peace process - most likely
after assessing the results of talks in the next few days with
Israeli and Palestinian delegates. Acting Foreign Minister Shlomo
Ben-Ami, who yesterday met U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright
and National Security Adviser Sandy Berger, said that Israeli and
Palestinian delegates will meet separately with American officials.
By the middle of next week, Ben-Ami said, the Americans should have a
reasonable basis for measuring any prospects for an agreement.
http://www3.haaretz.co.il/eng/scripts/article.asp?mador=14&datee=09/14
/0 0&id=92696

RUSSIA SETS OUT TO TACKLE '2003 PROBLEM'
Russia's Parliamentary leaders and President Vladimir Putin agreed on
Wednesday to embark on a three-year crash course to thwart what they
said was an anticipated chain of disasters due to hit the country in
2003. "(These are) issues of extraordinary importance, strategic
issues which may degenerate into a serious threat for the existence,
I want to stress this, for the existence of Russia," former Prime
Minister Yevgeny Primakov told reporters. Some experts have singled
out 2003 as the year when three problems - a big debt bill, eroding
infrastructure and an aging population - could combine to throw
Russia into turmoil. http://www.russiatoday.com/news.php3?id=199009

85 CHRISTIANS MAY FACE PRISON TERMS IN CHINA
Eighty-five Christians in central China now face an almost guaranteed
prison sentence. They are being charged with meeting together for a
Bible study. Those arrested are members of the Fang Cheng Church in
Henan, China. A total of 130 Christians from the church had been
taken into custody last month. The indictments charge church members
with "using an evil cult to obstruct justice." The charges fall under
China's so-called "evil cult" law that was passed last year. The law
was created to crack down on the Buddhist-like Falun Gong sect.
http://www.cbnnow.com/Newsstand/stories/000914d.asp

PAKISTAN SENDS NUCLEAR WARNING TO INDIA
Father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb warned India Wednesday his country
had enough nuclear bombs to destroy major Indian cities several times
over. "India should not underestimate Pakistan. We have enough bombs
and missiles to destroy major Indian cities thrice," said Dr. Abdul
Quadeer Khan, the man who is credited as the pioneer of Islamabad's
nuclear program. According to the Pakistani newspapers, Khan made the
remarks while addressing an award distribution ceremony for local
scientists in the Pakistani capital. Made amid mounting tensions
between India and Pakistan, Khan's remarks received prominent
coverage on the front pages of the Urdu language newspapers. About a
dozen English language newspapers, which generally advocate better
relations between the two rival nations, down-played the remarks.
http://www.vny.com/cf/News/upidetail.cfm?QID=117507

BUSH VOWS TO FIGHT RELIGIOUS BIGOTRY
On the eve of the anniversary of this century's deadliest church
shooting, Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush promised
to aggressively fight religious bigotry and said the Clinton
Administration should be held accountable for labeling Southern
Baptists as 'perpetrators of religious hatred.'
http://www.baptistpress.org/Archive/BaptistPress/view.cgi?file=2000091
3. html#STORY0

HUNGER FOR GOD FUELS REVIVAL AT CHRISTIAN BOOKSTORES
The charismatic revival has reached your local Christian bookstore.
Sellers who once turned their noses up at charismatic books are now
rushing to stock them as publishers and readers snap up titles by
Spirit-filled authors, according to "Publisher's Weekly," the
industry's leading publication. The bonanza is evidence of broader
acceptance of the charismatic movement and recognition of its
members' hunger for more of God, said the magazine in a survey that
found the one-time "poor cousins" of the Christian bookselling scene
now "the belles of the ball."
http://www.charismanews.com/news.cgi?a=413&t=news.html

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To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Panel to Offer Guidelines for U.N. Intervention Study
From: bpr-list@philologos.org("Moza")
Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2000 19:10:05 -0400

Friday, September 15, 2000

Panel to Offer Guidelines for U.N. Intervention Study:
An independent commission will help the world body decide when to step in
to protect human rights, with consideration for a nation's sovereignty.

By MAGGIE FARLEY, Times Staff Writer

UNITED NATIONS--A Canadian-led commission on Thursday launched an
effort to help the U.N. decide whether to step in when a country faces a
crisis within its borders, even if the intervention is unwanted. The independent
commission will produce guidelines for U.N. action to stop tragedies in the
making, while heeding the objections of such countries as Russia and China,
which believe that internal conflicts are not international affairs. But the task
of defining the line between human rights and sovereign rights has become
contentious. "The debate has become extremely polarized," said Gareth
Evans, a former foreign minister of Australia and one of the chairmen of the
panel. The panel's goal is to find common ground between interference and
indifference. "What on earth do we do if we find ourselves facing another
Rwanda, another Srebrenica?" Evans asked Thursday. "Is it possible to craft
some new approach to make it possible for the Security Council to reach
some kind of consensus?" Secretary-General Kofi Annan is haunted by a
series of humanitarian disasters that the U.N. had neither the force nor will to
prevent: Opposition from the United States and doubts about the severity of
ethnic fighting delayed the deployment of U.N. peacekeepers to Rwanda,
where more than 800,000 people were massacred in 1994. Outnumbered and
unarmed peacekeepers in Bosnia-Herzegovina failed to stop the killing of
Muslims when Serbs overran the U.N. "safe area" of Srebrenica in l995. In
the hopes that he would never again have to say "never again," Annan
declared last year that the world's duty to stop genocide should override the
legal notion of sovereignty. "If humanitarian intervention is indeed an
unacceptable assault on sovereignty, how should we respond . . . to gross
and systematic violations of human rights that offend every precept of our
common humanity?" Annan wrote in his Millennium Report this year. But a
bloc of mostly developing nations contend that what happens within their
borders is their own affair. This view also has won support among lawmakers
in the U.S. Congress who are wary of the erosion of the principle of national
sovereignty. Canadian Foreign Minister Lloyd Axworthy organized the
independent panel to tackle the issue because humanitarian intervention is
such a sensitive topic within the United Nations. The International
Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty will present a volume of
nonbinding recommendations to the U.N. by next September. The
commission is co-chaired by two former foreign ministers, Evans and
Mohamed Sahnoun of Algeria, and funded by the Canadian government and
three U.S. organizations--the Carnegie Corp., the MacArthur Foundation and
the Rockefeller Foundation. It includes scholars, diplomats, activists and
politicians representing all sides of the debate; countries opposed to the
concept of intervention that do not have a representative on the commission
will be engaged privately. "I think people are receptive to the idea and [will]
say, 'At least let's have an honest look at this,' and not try to push it under
the rug," Axworthy said.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/20000915/t000087103.html

From: moza@butterfly.mv.com

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To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - ID Them By the Way They Walk
From: bpr-list@philologos.org("Moza")
Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2000 21:28:12 -0400

ID Them By the Way They Walk
by Kathleen Ellis

8:20 a.m. Sep. 15, 2000 PDT
GAITHERSBURG, Maryland -- Forget voice print matching and face
recognition: Future technology could identify someone by the way they
walk.

Pattern-recognition software soon will be able to analyze the stride
of a person, University of Maryland professor Larry Davis said
Thursday at the Biometric Consortium 2000 Conference co-sponsored by
the National Security Agency.

Davis said his research group has created a prototype that can filter
out noise from a video image and recognize whether a person is walking
past the camera, even in windy or cloudy conditions.

"We can now detect a person -- any person -- walking in field of view
outdoors with a moving camera," Davis told about 350 people who showed
up at the two-day event also sponsored by the National Institute of
Standards and Technology and the U.S. Army.

Davis added that Daimler-Benz is planning to use the technology to
alert drivers to potential collisions.

The next step: Distinguishing one person's gait from another's,
something Davis said his group will be able to do reliably enough in
the future to aid in "surveillance situations," even when someone's
face is not visible.

By isolating what he called a "signature of human motion," the
technology could be used to perform bulk surveillance in public areas,
assuming that information about who walks in what way is on file.

Other new techniques could also be used by law enforcement agencies.

Visionics' FaceIt system works by isolating human faces in still
pictures and then comparing them to photos in a database containing a
specific population, such as licensed drivers, known criminals or
missing children. The system then ranks each photo in the database by
likelihood that the two images, when paired together, represent the
same person.

Visionics Vice President Paul Griffin said the system is currently
being used by the state of Virginia to search for duplicate state ID
cards and driver's licenses. He said that at least two other states
are testing the technology for their own use.

ANSER, a government-funded research institute, uses FaceIt as part of
their project to locate missing children on the Internet.

ANSER spokesperson Joe Iseman said the algorithms are still being
trained to accommodate for factors such as aging, image resolution and
lighting variances in different photos.

"But when you incorporate known variables such as age, hair color,
race, and gender into the search criteria, the chance of getting a
match is very high," Iseman said.

Other uses for FaceIt technology -- while beneficial for law
enforcement -- are more problematic, privacy activists contend.

The use of FaceIt in Newham, England, in closed-circuit video
surveillance systems of public outdoor areas, earned the town the
dubious distinction of a Big Brother Award last year from the Privacy
International group.

Newham is a borough in East London that has installed a
face-recognition system that -- when coupled with over 200 cameras --
picks out known criminals, authorities say.

Backers say the Newham system's purported benefits include reducing
area crime by 40 percent.

"Biometric technology is definitely a double-edged sword," said David
Sobel, general counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center.
"On the one hand, you have these great tools for computer security and
user authentication which will enhance user privacy, but on the other
you have the Newham situation. We'll be monitoring this field's
progress very closely."

The U.S. government has invested heavily in biometrics technology.

Other technologies that were showcased at the conference included a
new system designed by CyberSign. CyberSign works by incorporating an
electronic pen and pad system into a common Windows-based PC. The user
can attach unique, verifiable and legally binding hand-written
signatures to electronic documents.

http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,38775,00.html

via: Third_Watch@egroups.com

From: moza@butterfly.mv.com

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