BPR Mailing List Digest: 09/21/00

Philologos
BPR Mailing List Digest
September 21, 2000

Digest Home | 2000 | September, 2000

To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Sept 21, 2000 TV Programs
From: bpr-list@philologos.org("Moza")
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 08:37:47 -0400

8:00 PM Eastern

A&E - BIOGRAPHY - "Ceausescu: The Unrepentant Tyrant"
- Ceausescu's 1989 execution marks the violent end to a cruel
regime.(CC)(TVPG)

HIST - THE LEGACY OF AL CAPONE - The mob survives after Al
Capone is imprisoned and Prohibition is repealed.(CC)(TVG)

9:00

HIST - GREAT MILITARY BLUNDERS - "Politics by Other Means" -
Errors sometimes result from perceived political
imperative.(CC)(TVG)

10:00

ABC - HOPKINS 24/7 - Therapists work with anorexic young
women; a microchip implant allows a profoundly deaf child to
hear for the first time.(CC)

A&E - INVESTIGATIVE REPORTS - "Crimefighters: The
World Beat" - Police departments work differently because of
cultural differences.(CC)

HIST - THE ATLANTIC WALL - Fearing invasion from the sea,
the Nazis construct 3000 miles of fortifications.(CC)(TVG)

TLC - INTO THE FLAMES - "Poisoned Fire" - Chemical fires
burn hotter, faster and more explosively than any other
kind.(CC)(TVG)

From: moza@butterfly.mv.com

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To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - PBS series on death draws lament on assisted suicide segment
From: bpr-list@philologos.org("Moza")
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 08:42:58 -0400

Moyers' PBS series on death draws lament on assisted suicide
segment

By Michael Foust

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (BP)--Bill Moyers' recent PBS television series
on death and dying tackles important issues but is slanted in its
presentation of physician-assisted suicide, two leading Southern
Baptist experts on the controversial topic say.

The series, "On our Own Terms: Moyers on Dying," aired on four
consecutive nights from Sept. 10 through Sept. 13 on most PBS
stations. Two years in production, the six-hour series covers a
wide range of topics, including hospices, palliative care and
advances in medical technology. In the third episode -- titled "A
Death of One's Own -- Moyers interviews two terminally-ill
patients and their families. Both patients prefer an early death
through physician-assisted suicide.

But C. Ben Mitchell, a consultant to the Ethics & Religious
Liberty Commission, and William Cutrer, a licensed obstetrician
and Southern Baptist Theological Seminary professor, say
physician assisted suicide must be opposed.

"To present assisted death as a means of dealing with the end of
life is irresponsible and harmful," Mitchell said. "When dying
patients feel that their only option is assisted suicide, we have
failed them. Our medical system has failed them. Many dying
patients fear pain, isolation, abandonment, loss of control and
being a burden on others. Our attention must be focused on
addressing and reliving those fears, not giving in to them."

Cutrer, the C. Edwin Gheens Associate Professor of Christian
Ministry at Southern Seminary, agreed.

"It's a violation of the sanctity of life and the value of
personhood," he said. "With euthanasia, you're asking the doctor
either to pull the plug or push the button to kill somebody. With
physician-assisted suicide, you're just having the doctor give
you the weapons so you can use them yourself. The intent of those
medications is to kill the patient. ... From the biblical
perspective, that is the willing taking of a human life. That's
not part of our duty in life. We're entitled to relieve pain and
do our very best with that."

Both Cutrer and Mitchell praised Moyers for producing the series.
Cutrer said that "there was value for people to watch" the
series, while Mitchell said much of the series "showed patients
and caregivers who were nothing less than heroic."

But both criticized how the series' presented physician-assisted
suicide. The third episode begins with Moyers interviewing a
Louisiana man diagnosed with ALS, better knows as Lou Gehrig's
disease. It eventually leads to paralysis. The man has lost all
movement except for his upper body, and he wants to die after he
loses control of his arms. Because physician-assisted suicide is
illegal in Louisiana, the man will need help in killing himself.
His wife, the caregiver, says she will not do it.

"I'm going to have to do it before I would really rather do it,
and that's not fair," he tells his doctor.

Moyers then interviews a 56-year-old Oregon woman who has uterine
cancer. Given several months to live, she wants to take advantage
of Oregon's Death with Dignity law. She lives alone and has set
in motion the necessary procedures that will lawfully allow a
doctor to assist her in suicide. In her final hours she wants the
doctor to mix a lethal dose of a drug into water that she will
then drink.

After the Louisiana man loses control of his limbs and begins to
struggle with breathing, he refuses medication and food, and dies
soon thereafter. After the Oregon woman's condition worsens, her
daughters call the doctor, who makes the lethal mix. The woman
struggles to swallow it, and soon dies. The episode does not show
either death.

"If Americans continue to embrace the culture of death, the
hospice and palliative care movements will die too," Mitchell
said. "We have to put our money and energies in hospice and
palliation, not in physician-assisted death. You cannot at the
same time treat a patient with dignity and help them kill
themselves. Sadly, On Our Own Terms is a misnomer. Assisted
suicide requires someone else's help. Physicians, who are
supposed to be healers, are co-opted to become killers."

Cutrer pointed to the Netherlands as an example of what happens
when a society embraces physician-assisted suicide.

"We've got a track record from the Netherlands with what happens
when physician-assisted suicide is OK'd," he said. "You went from
doctors administering it to other people administering it for
them. The so-called slippery slope argument has demonstrated
itself to be true. The guidelines for how people got into the
program -- they had to be clearheaded, they had to sign papers --
all those rules started being skipped and worked around. Our fear
of what would happen should this become legalized is certainly
demonstrated in that experience."

Cutrer said there are other concerns to legalizing
physician-assisted suicide. One is that patients who are simply
depressed will be assisted in killing themselves.

"The Christian Medical Association has shown that one of the key
problems [with] people who are inquiring about physician-assisted
suicide has to do with depression," Cutrer said. "It's the fear
of being a burden -- a financial burden, a psychological burden
-- to their family. We don't generally treat depression and fear
of being a burden by killing the patient. We need to treat the
depression. Studies have shown that when the depression is lifted
and people have a good family support system, they desire to
live. They're not in a big hurry to die. We have made a nobility
out of [not] being a burden to your family."

Another concern of legalizing physician-assisted suicide, Cutrer
said, is that a cost-conscious managed care health system would
begin dictating who lives and who dies.

"It is not cost effective to keep somebody alive, and so it's
cheaper to terminate their life," he said.

A Christian's faith can play a large role, Cutrer said. That
point was highlighted by the Oregon woman's belief in
reincarnation. "I'm going to have to do it again," she says in
the series. "I hope I come back with my daughters and my
granddaughter."

The Louisiana man had a Christian daughter who was opposed to her
father's wishes. "The spiritual side of me says that's God's
decision," she says. "That's between you and God, dad, and when
God deems it necessary, then that's when it's going to happen."

Said Cutrer, "Even though we have the confidence as to how and
where we will spend eternity, we realize that there is value to
living now. All suffering is not bad. Suffering and tribulation
develops character and hope, and the comfort we receive is
extended to others. As we comfort and compassionately care, we
demonstrate and grow in Christlikeness. The experience of life --
the highs and the lows -- has great value."

Mitchell said Christians can win the debate on physician-assisted
suicide in a number of ways, including: spending time with dying
family and friends; providing support for caregivers;
volunteering for hospices and starting Christian hospices.

"Tell the stories of patients who died well," he said. "We must
meet the morbid and macabre with the light of truth. Families who
give of themselves to care for their terminal loved ones need to
be recognized for their love and compassion."

Christians should also get involved in the public arena when laws
pertaining to physician-assisted suicide arise, Mitchell said. On
the national scale, he said Christians should support the Pain
Relief Promotion Act (HR 2260, S 1272), which he said "promotes
pain management and palliative care for the terminally ill and
would continue to forbid the use of federally controlled
substances for assisted suicide and euthanasia."

"Citizens in Maine will vote on assisted suicide in November," he
said. "If the purveyors of death establish those states [Oregon
and Maine] as bookends, they will move rapidly toward the center.
Your state could be next."

http://www.BaptistPress.org/

From: moza@butterfly.mv.com

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

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To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Totally tropical Tokyo
From: bpr-list@philologos.org("Moza")
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 08:52:07 -0400

Totally tropical Tokyo

Downpours drench the city, but don't blame global warming

TOKYO is becoming tropical. But heat from buildings and cars rather than global climate change is mostly to blame, say Japanese meteorologists. Torrential rain has wreaked havoc in the city, prompting Japan's Environment Agency to plan a city-scale experiment to tackle the problem.

Warm, humid air rises from Tokyo during the day, forming water-laden cumulonimbus clouds as it cools, says Fumiaki Fujibe of the Meteorological Research Institute in Tsukuba Science City, 70 kilometres east of Tokyo. These clouds cause torrential rain and thunderstorms in the early evening--as in the tropics.

Fujibe blames the phenomenon on the "heat island" effect, when heat from the city warms the local area. "There seems to be a tendency towards heavy rainfall when the heat island phenomenon raises the temperatures in urban areas," he says.

In July, a cloudburst dumped 82.5 millimetres of rain on the capital in one hour, causing local flooding. Fujibe has calculated that summer rainfall over Tokyo increased by 20 per cent between 1979 and 1995, although rainfall in the suburbs was unchanged.

According to an Environment Agency report issued last month, hot air from Tokyo is being blown inland, and several prefectures downwind have recorded abnormally high temperatures compared with those in other regions adjoining the capital.

The Environment Agency has drawn up a list of measures to reduce heat build-up, including using lighter-coloured concrete for buildings to reflect more light, planting more trees and digging more lakes. The agency plans to test these measures next year, possibly in the smaller northern city of Sendai, before unleashing them on the capital.

Peter Hadfield

From New Scientist magazine, 23 September 2000.

http://www.newscientist.com/nl/0923/totally.html

From: moza@butterfly.mv.com

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

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To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Infobeat News items (9/21/00)
From: bpr-list@philologos.org("Moza")
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 09:02:49 -0400

*** Judge clears U.S. in Waco case

WACO, Texas (AP) - A federal judge cleared the government of any
wrongdoing in the deaths of 80 Branch Davidians during the 1993
standoff with federal agents at the cult's compound. U.S. District
Judge Walter Smith's ruling, issued late Wednesday, mirrors the
conclusions an advisory jury and Special Counsel John Danforth
reached in July. Both have said Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and
Firearms agents and others were not responsible for the deaths on the
final day of a 51-day standoff. In his ruling Wednesday, Smith said
ATF agents acted within the limits of the law and, under the
circumstances of the standoff, could not be held liable. See
http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2569972300-cbe

*** Israel continues with highway plan

JERUSALEM (AP) - Israel pressed ahead Wednesday with a highway around
Palestinian neighborhoods of Jerusalem, handing out eviction notices
to Arab landowners even as negotiators for both sides resumed
low-level contacts. Palestinians pledged to stop the highway project,
charging that Israel intends to confiscate more than 250 acres of
Palestinian land, though Israel might end up handing parts to the
Palestinians in peace negotiations now in progress. Contacts between
Israel and the Palestinians sputtered on with no progress reported,
after Israel suspended the talks Tuesday and then quickly renewed
them. Hindering the talks is a dispute over control of holy sites in
the Old City of Jerusalem. Palestinians complain Israel is blocking
them from renovating Islamic holy sites there. See
http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2569963376-fd4 ***
Also: Clinton works on Mideast talks, see
http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2569965373-e6a

*** 'Missile' fired at Britain's MI6

LONDON (AP) - Unknown attackers fired a "small missile" at the
headquarters of Britain's MI6 intelligence agency in central London
late Wednesday, causing an explosion on the eighth floor, police
said. The blast caused limited damage and no injuries at the 10-story
structure at the heart of Britain's intelligence abroad. Witnesses
reported hearing two explosions, large enough to send up a plume of
white smoke and to rattle buildings across a railway. The blast
brought firefighters, police and ambulances to the site on the south
bank of the River Thames, and police closed the area around the
headquarters. The blast caused minimal damage and the work of the
intelligence service was not disrupted. No claim of responsibility
for the attack has been made. See
http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2569976511-e1c

*** EU ministers criticize france

MADRID, Spain (AP) - European Union transport ministers criticized
France on Wednesday for giving a tax break to truckers protesting
high fuel prices, a move that inspired similar anti-tax blockades
across Europe. While EU ministers held an emergency meeting and
failed to coordinate their tax policies amid the protests, thousands
of fishermen and farmers shut down ports in Spain, surrounded
wholesale fish markets and blockaded fuel distribution centers for a
sixth day. Almost 200 farmers on tractors and in trucks shut off fuel
delivery to parts of southern and eastern Spain when they temporarily
surrounded three fuel distribution centers. On the Balearic Islands
in the Mediterranean, about 60 fishing boats blockaded the ports of
Palma de Mallorca and Alcudia, even blocking passenger ferries. See
http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2569976598-d34

*** Berezovsky scoffs at Gore report

NEW YORK (AP) - Russian businessman Boris Berezovsky scoffed
Wednesday at a report by leading House Republicans that the Clinton
administration failed in its policy to build democracy in Russia and
allowed corruption to flourish. Berezovsky - in the United States to
seek support in a battle with Russian President Vladimir Putin over
control of the ORT, or Channel One, television network - defended
President Clinton and the U.S. pointman on Russian policy, Vice
President Al Gore. The White House was defending itself against the
209-page report released Wednesday that "however well intentioned the
policy" to Russia "it didn't work" - turning a blind eye to
corruption. Democrats calls the report a political attack on Gore
seven weeks ahead of the presidential election. See
http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2569973513-5b4

*** Iraq: Kuwait is stealing oil

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Iraq on Wednesday renewed its accusation that
Kuwait has been stealing its oil, a charge that in the past week has
heightened tensions in the Persian Gulf region with its echoes of the
prelude to the 1990-1991 war. The ruling Baath party newspaper,
Al-Thawra, said in a front-page editorial that Kuwaiti officials have
"implicitly" acknowledged they are stealing Iraqi oil by drilling
wells that may stretch horizontally to reach Iraqi reservoirs close
to the border, "depleting (Iraqi) crude via this vicious method."
Kuwait has rejected the charges as an attempt by Iraq to destablilize
in the region. See
http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2569971452-162

*** Harry Potter China campaign begins

BEIJING (AP) - Children across China are being primed for a
revolution, this time through the bewitching world of boy wizard
Harry Potter. A publicity and printing campaign unprecedented for
China began this week to introduce the globally popular Harry Potter
book series to a Chinese audience. If the plan works, Harry Potter -
or "Ha-li Bo-te" as he is known in Chinese - could be the biggest
thing since Chairman Mao's little red book, and shake up the staid,
preachy world of Chinese children's books. Shepherding the ambitious
undertaking is the stately, state-owned People's Literature
Publishing House. Its editors compressed into four months the
translation, marketing and distribution of the first three of the
four books in author J.K. Rowling's series for a planned Oct. 6
launch. See
http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2569961553-5bc

From: moza@butterfly.mv.com

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

========
To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Daily World Affairs Report items (9/21/00)
From: bpr-list@philologos.org("Moza")
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 09:51:13 -0400

POPE PROVOKES ANGER IN BEIJING

China expressed fury yesterday at the Pope's plans to canonise 120
Chinese Catholic martyrs on Oct 1, the date of the foundation of the People's
Republic by Mao Tse-tung and the country's most sacred holiday. "The
Vatican's actions have seriously hurt the feelings of the Chinese people and
the dignity of the Chinese nation, which is absolutely not tolerated by the
Chinese government and people," the Chinese Foreign Ministry said. A high-
level Vatican delegation cut short an unofficial "academic" visit to Beijing at
the weekend. It was reported to have come under intense pressure from
Beijing to cancel the October ceremony.

The diplomatic row appears to have sent Sino-Vatican relations into the deep
freeze after a recent thaw. China also expressed anger that some 80 of the
martyrs being canonised were killed during the Boxer Uprising of 1900,
delegation sources said. Communist propaganda hails the Boxers - fanatics
who believed that foreigners were baby-eating devils - as early patriotic
heroes. Hundreds of Chinese Catholic nuns, priests and missionaries were
butchered during the uprising.

The Pope announced the canonisations this year after a campaign lasting
more than 20 years led by Chinese bishops in Taiwan. All the martyrs died
before 1930 and some as early as the 17th century. None of the many
Christians murdered and tortured by the atheist Chinese Communist Party is
included. Delegation sources insisted that the choice of Oct 1, which is the
feast of St Theresa of Lisieux, was not meant as a provocation. Beijing
offered a very public insult to the Vatican in January, when it created 6
"patriotic" bishops in Beijing on the same day that the Pope traditionally
consecrates new bishops. (The London Telegraph)

STASI FILE EXPECTED TO UNMASK MORE SPIES

German intelligence will soon be on the trail of thousands of further Stasi
spies when a file codenamed Rosewood is returned to Berlin by the CIA later
this year. The Rosewood dossier, smuggled to a KGB operative from East
Berlin's Stasi headquarters in the days before reunification and which then
landed in American hands, will act as a key for other Stasi files exposing
names, places and operations of East Germany's secret police.

Rosewood (Rosenholz in German) contains the names and registration
numbers of 450,000 West German spies, part-time agents, victims and
others associated with the East German intelligence service - a police force
that turned 1 in 3 of the 17mn citizens of the Soviet satellite into an informer,
as well as many thousands more abroad. By marrying the Rosewood
information with files at the Gauck Commission in Berlin, the archive
responsible for the storage and analysis of the bulk of Stasi material kept on
120 miles of shelving, intelligence agents believe they can solve many of the
remaining riddles of the Cold War.

They include nailing "IM Zeitz," Stasi shorthand for Inoffizieller Mitarbeiter or
"unofficial employee". Zeitz was believed to be a Free University of Berlin
professor who sold secrets of the West German Green Party as well as
peace activists. Then there is "IM Akker", a staff member of the Social
Democrat party (SPD), a coalition partner in the current Government, who
had access to important national security documents and who, intelligence
sources say, probably still works for the party.

An even bigger fish would be the suspected spy who worked in the highest
levels of the Bundesbank, allegedly feeding his controllers detailed
information on the West German economy, interest rate moves and other
material. Another search would concentrate on a suspected agent at
Pullach, home of the BND, Germany's MI5. There are at least a further 7
agents that the Stasi planted inside the conservative CDU not yet named, a
further 5 in the SPD, and 5 in the liberal Free Democrats (FDP).

At present the Gauck material, contained on a database codenamed SIRA,
lists only agents' codenames and the material delivered. Marrying the
information to Rosewood gives the potential for the biggest hunt for Stasi
operatives since the Wall fell. It is doubtful whether there will be trials for the
majority. Apathy, the statute of limitations and a political reluctance to relive
a painful chapter of recent history means there will not be a flood of trials.
Public prosecutors can begin proceedings only where treason can be clearly
shown, and that might involve just a handful of the names in Rosewood.

The file is of immense importance in finishing the mosaic of the Stasi spy
network. Rosewood is coming home to Germany after a decade of wrangling
with the Americans - the suspicions being that many of the names within it
were also agents for the CIA. Many spies have evaded discovery precisely
because Rosewood was missing. Its value was shown in 1993 when the CIA
released a tiny portion that identified the West German spy Rainer Rupp who
leaked information on NATO. (The London Times)

E.U. DAMAGING TO IRISH IDENTITY, SAYS MINISTER

The encroaching role of "Brussels bureaucracy" is seriously impinging on
Irish identity, culture and traditions, an Irish government minister has said.
The arts minister, Sile de Valera, who is the grand-daughter of the founder of
the Irish Republic, Eamon de Valera, broke ranks with her government and
party, Fianna Fail, by warning against further European integration during a
speech she gave in the US. Her criticism is significant not just because Miss
de Valera is close to Bertie Ahern, the Republic's prime minister, but
because until now the Irish Republic has been one of the most enthusiastic
of EU members.

The Irish Times, the Republic's newspaper of record, welcomed Miss de
Valera's remarks in its main editorial and expressed the hope that her view
would open a wider public debate. In July, the deputy prime minister, Mary
Harney, also came out against European integration, saying it would be
against the interests of Ireland which was "spiritually a lot closer to Boston
than Berlin". Miss de Valera, speaking at Boston College on Monday, said
that participation in the EU had been good for Ireland. "But it is not the
cornerstone of what our nation is and should be." She looked forward to a
future in which Ireland would exercise "a more vigilant, a more questioning
attitude to the EU."

Miss de Valera said that when the Republic joined the European Economic
Community in the 1970s there were fears that membership "would make us
less Irish", but it did not happen because the emphasis was on economic
development. But as the EEC became the European Community and later
the European Union, decisions other than economic ones began to be taken.
"They seemed secondary to us at the time. But we have found that directives
and regulations agreed in Brussels can often seriously impinge on our
identity, culture and traditions. The bureaucracy of Brussels does not always
respect the complexities and sensitivities of member states. Brussels,
Birmingham, the Burren; the same EU, different worlds." (The London
Telegraph)

THE E.U. & N.A.T.O.: ONE FOR THE HISTORY BOOKS

Luxembourg's Tageblatt writes a footnote for the history books by pointing
out that the EU and NATO on Tuesday officially discussed security and
defence issues for the first time ever at an ambassadors meeting in
Brussels. "This meeting marks a turning point after decades when NATO
alone was seen as the European continent's defence," the paper quotes a
European diplomat - who asked not to be named - as saying. "The US
welcomes the progress achieved by the EU in this area, but it remains
concerned over a possible unravelling of transatlantic ties." (BBC)

EUROPE'S BLURRED VISION

Superpower status confers many privileges, but one, certainly, is to be
sublimely indifferent to what the rest of the world thinks or says. While few
Americans say it openly, many quietly wonder why they should bother with
all that foreign stuff on foreign affairs (especially if it is written in German or
French). But those who agree that a European tour outside the laager can be
useful should peruse International Affairs, published by Chatham House in
London. Under its current editor, Caroline Soper, the journal has developed
into a lively and accessible forum for debate on a whole raft of new problems,
from biodiversity to globalization.

Contributors to the July issue wrestle with the question, "Europe: Where
does it begin and end?" William Wallace of the London School of Economics
poses the query in graphic fashion: How far east and how far south will
Europe eventually go? There are no easy answers, but as Wallace points out
-- more in sorrow than anger, one suspects -- most of the significant thinking
about the future shape of the Continent over the last 10 years has not been
done in Europe but in the US.

Martin Walker, former U.S. bureau chief of the London Guardian and current
public policy fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center in
Washington, D.C., furnishes proof of Wallace's particularly contentious (but
unfortunately accurate) thesis. In a wonderful piece that combines historical
sweep with insider knowledge of the Clinton administration's thinking about
Europe, Walker says more about transatlanticism in a few pages than most
academic texts do in hundreds.

His article, "Variable Geography: America's Mental Maps of Greater Europe,"
argues that at least 6 "mental maps" of Europe have dominated
Washington's view of the continent since 1989: a security map, an economic
map, a cultural map, a religious map, a geographical map, and a political
map. These different but overlapping ideas suggest that a "Greater Europe"
is emerging -- but also that Europe today remains a work in progress.

Certainly, "Variable Geography" makes for uncomfortable reading, especially
for the French, but also for those many Europeans who assumed the 1990s
would be their decade. Walker's message is clear: The US not only remains
firmly entrenched in Europe but is more dominant than ever. A combination
of the war in Yugoslavia, the decision to expand NATO, and the decline of
the fledgling euro has put paid to many a European fantasy, according to
Walker.

Walker also rebukes Clinton haters, ever so gently. What critics see as
policy incoherence in the White House, Walker reveals as a flexible style of
management that more often than not produced reasonably sound decisions,
from choosing to participate in the North Ireland peace process after 1993 to
pushing the boundaries of the NATO alliance eastward. The process may
have been "chaotic" at times, but it allowed disparate players in the
administration with different perspectives on Europe to promote their views
"without feeling that their advice had been frozen out."

If complexity defines the decision-making process in Washington, then
asymmetry defines the underlying power relationship between the US and
Europe. Until balance is restored, says Walker, then any talk of a new
European order is moot. But even though policymakers in Washington might
encourage European efforts to develop a common foreign and security policy,
one suspects they prefer a Europe dependent on U.S. largesse to a Europe
singing from its own hymn sheet. (International Affairs)

PAKISTAN'S SOLE HOPE FOR SURVIVAL

Imagine Yugoslavia and President Slobodan Milosevic with nukes. Scary?
Well, there is a country with an equally disintegrating, dysfunctional
collection of diverse ethnic and linguistic groups. President Clinton has
called the area ''the most dangerous place on earth.'' The country is Pakistan
- and it has nuclear weapons. Like so many other post-colonial states,
Pakistan is a cobbled-together, artificial nation. Since its birth in 1947,
however, it has lived with the delusional dream that the Muslims could regain
the hegemony over the Hindus that they enjoyed before the British came.

It has squandered its vast potential, devoting almost all of its intellectual and
material resources to the military - including its nuclear program - and to
servicing a growing debt in an obsessional and vain effort to keep up with a
far larger India. Even when it gained independence, Pakistan was more an
acronym than the homeland for Muslims of the Indian subcontinent. ''P'' was
for Punjab, ''A'' was for the Afghan-border region of the northwest frontier, ''K''
for Kashmir, ''S'' for Sind, and ''TAN'' for Baluchistan. More Muslims in Hindu-
majority states of British India were left behind than were included in the new
Islamic nation.

During the Cold War, Pakistan became a satellite of the US. It provided a
base for American U2 planes to spy on the Soviet Union, helped the US
establish relations with China and assisted the Afghans in ejecting the Soviet
Army. Islamabad's support for radical Islamic groups dates back to this
struggle, when the CIA helped Pakistan's Inter-Service Intelligence Agency
create the Taleban - a Frankenstein's monster for both countries.

But while the US was lavishing money and weapons on the Pakistan
military, the country was unraveling. Its eastern wing, now Bangladesh,
broke away after a bloody war in 1971. A violent rebellion was suppressed in
Baluchistan. The Pashtuns in North-West Frontier Province began pushing
for an independent Pashtunistan. And Sind, Pakistan's second most
populous province, which produces two thirds of the country's revenue
through its port city of Karachi, is being torn apart by violence between the
indigenous population and the immigrants from India, known as mohajirs.
Only Punjab, whose elites dominate the civil service and officer corps,
remains relatively stable.

Pakistan's sole hope for survival is to take dramatic action. It should forget
India and concentrate on what is best for Pakistan. It should announce that it
will end its nuclear program, following the lead of South Africa, Argentina and
Brazil onto the non-nuclear high road. What would it gain? Everything. The
US would again become a major benefactor, moving Pakistan into the same
league as Israel and Egypt. Other Western countries, Japan and
international financial institutions would also provide aid and investment.

If anyone can take such a revolutionary step it is General Pervez Musharraf,
the secular-minded, level-headed ''chief executive'' who came to power last
October in a bloodless coup. A mojahir, born in New Delhi and raised in
Karachi and Turkey, he is consolidating his power base by removing hard-
liners with Islamist sympathies from decision-making positions and replacing
them with moderates.

As important, he has a close relationship with the American military,
including his friendship with General Anthony Zinni, who just stepped down
as U.S. commander responsible for South Asia. General Zinni told the U.S.
Senate Armed Services Committee, ''when the United States isolates the
professional Pakistan military, we deny ourselves access to the most
powerful institution in Pakistan society.''

General Musharraf will need all of the army's muscle to break the back of the
feudal social structure in Pakistan. Land must be redistributed. Every internal
ill - fiscal bankruptcy, Islamic extremism, terrorism - flows from the few
thousand feudal landlords and business oligarchs. They pay no taxes, and
the land barons exercise a quasi-medieval control over millions of serf-like
agricultural workers and keep them largely illiterate.

General Musharraf's role models are Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the founding
father of Pakistan, and Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, who forced Turkey to break
free from its stultifying past. Like them, he wants a secular Muslim state. A
prosperous, progressive, tolerant, non-nuclear Pakistan would be a model for
Muslim and non-Muslim countries alike. Now that is a dream worth pursuing.
(Int'l Herald Tribune - Opinion)

BISHOPS OPPOSE SUDAN MEMBERSHIP IN U.N. SECURITY COUNCIL

Sudan's nomination for UN Security Council membership is unacceptable as
long as the government in Khartoum remains the principal threat to the
safety of Sudan's population, the Sudanese Episcopal Conference said on
Saturday. The likelihood of a Sudanese nomination to the powerful council
depends on the US. The UN sanctions against Sudan and its government's
continuing bombing of southern regions of the country where numerous
humanitarian relief operations are being carried out make Sudan "unfit for
that role," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said.

The document released by the Sudanese bishops called on countries and
multinational corporations to bring their involvement in Sudan's petroleum
industry to an immediate halt. The bishops said their help is prolonging the
war that will inevitably annihilate the peoples of the Nubian mountains and
the southern Blue Nile region. Since 1983, the Islamic government of
Khartoum has been waging a civil war against the Sudan People's Liberation
Army (SPLA) in the south where the majority of the population are black
Christians.

But ethnic and religious factors at not the only ones behind the conflict: it is
increasingly clear that control over the oil wells in the southern part of the
country lie behind the government's offensive in the area. "Petroleum has
been discovered in southern Sudan. In addition to the war, are we slaves of
international cartels as well? Do we have a right to peace or are we slaves to
petroleum?" Bishop Gassis, vice president of the bishops' conference said.
He has been forced to live in exile since 1990 and has has only been able to
operate in those areas of the country controlled by the rebel forces.

In their statement, the bishops expressed their "profound and unanimous
concern over the continuous bombings of civilian targets carried out by the
Sudanese government." They called for both parties to the conflict to commit
themselves to a cease-fire and the military no-fly zones in force to be lifted to
facilitate humanitarian operations in southern Sudan. The bishops' plea
follows a series of "indiscriminate bombings of civilian targets" in several
areas in recent months. "The authorities in Khartoum use [military] aircraft to
terrorize civilian populations. The bombings' targets are churches, schools,
and hospitals run by religious orders," sources said.

The bishops' called on the UN to monitor the cease-fire and enforce a ban on
military flights in southern Sudan. The document also requests the
Sudanese government to acknowledge the legitimacy of humanitarian
operations being carried in the area by NGOs and the Church and to exclude
these as military targets. (Catholic World News)

via: origin@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] - Daily World Affairs Report items (9/20/00)
From: bpr-list@philologos.org("Moza")
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 09:51:13 -0400

HOLY SEE & LITHUANIA SIGN ACCORDS

Today in the Vatican, there was an exchange of instruments of ratification on
3 Accords between the Holy See and Lithuania which were signed on May 5,
2000 in Vilnius, and which regard juridical questions, collaboration in
educational and cultural matters and religious assistance to Catholics in the
army. Cardinal Secretary of State Angelo Sodano signed for the Holy See,
and Algirdas Saudargas, Lithuanian foreign affairs minister, signed for his
country. Present at the ceremony were representatives of the Holy See, the
government of Lithuania and the Episcopal Conference of Lithuania. (Vatican
Info Service)

RATZINGER SEVERELY CRITICIZES U.N.'S PROPOSAL FOR NEW
WORLD ORDER [!!!]

The so-called U.N. Millennium Summit, the largest gathering of heads of
State and government in history, held in New York from September 6-8,
reflected on the role this international organization should play and the
reforms that must be made to fulfil its mission of peace and defense of
human rights. Now, the voice of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, prefect of the
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, is raised in reflection on the
United Nations' role in this new millennium.

Following the failure of Marxism and the obvious limitations of the liberal
model, the "New World Order" emerges, increasingly referred to by the U.N.
and international conferences, Cardinal Ratzinger points out in today's issue
of the Italian newspaper "Avvenire." Meetings, such as the one on Population
held in Cairo in 1994, and on Woman in Beijing in 1995, have clearly revealed
"a real and proper philosophy of the new man and new world," the cardinal
explained.

"A philosophy of this kind no longer has the utopian burden that
characterized the Marxist dream," he clarified. "On the contrary, it is very
realistic, in as much as it sets limits to the means available for reaching it
and recommends, for example, without by so doing attempting to justify
itself, not being concerned with the care of those who are no longer
productive or who can no longer hope for a determined quality of life."

This philosophy, the Cardinal says, "no longer hopes that men, used to
wealth and well-being, will be disposed to make the necessary sacrifices to
attain a general welfare, but rather proposes strategies to reduce the number
of guests at the table of humanity, so that the presumed happiness they
have attained will not be affected. The peculiarity of this new anthropology,
which should be at the base of the New World Order, is evident especially in
the image of woman, in the ideology of 'Women's Empowerment,' born from
the Beijing Conference. The objective of this ideology is woman's fulfilment.
However, the principal obstacles to her fulfilment are the family and
maternity."

"Because of this," the Bavarian cardinal said, reflecting on the positions of
U.N. agencies, "Woman must be liberated especially of what characterizes
her, namely, her feminine specificity. This must be annulled before a 'Gender
equity' and 'equality,' before an indistinct and uniform human being, in whose
life sexuality has no other meaning than a voluptuous drug, that can be used
without any criteria. In the fear of maternity that has taken hold of a great
part of our contemporaries, there is at stake something that is even more
profound: in the end, the other is always an antagonist who deprives us of a
part of life, a threat to our self and our free development."

"Today there is no longer a 'philosophy of love,' but only a 'philosophy of
selfishness.' It is precisely here that people are deceived. In fact, at the
moment they are advised not to love, they are advised, in the final analysis,
not to be human. For this reason, at this stage of the development of the new
image of the new world, Christians -- and not just them but in any case even
more than others -- have the duty to protest," the Cardinal concluded. (Zenit)

QUEEN "SHOULD LOSE ROLE AS HEAD OF THE CHURCH"

The Queen should be stripped of her historic constitutional role as head of
the Church of England, Lib Dems have decided. Members also voted
overwhelmingly to back a move to allow the heir to the throne to marry a
Roman Catholic. Although the policies were hugely popular among
grassroots members, some officials feared that they could cost the party
votes among more traditionally-minded voters.

The Liberal Democrats backed first an amendment to their constitutional
policy which called for "the Head of State to be barred from holding a position
of high authority within any denomination, church or faith". They then voted
for reform of the Act of Settlement of 1701 and other legislation "to remove
discrimination in the succession".

The calls were led by Alex Feakes, a member of Liberal Democrats Youth
and Students, who said it was anomalous for the Head of State
automatically to be head of the Church. "This gives the wrong signals to the
people of this country who are not Anglican who would otherwise like to
participate in the governance of this country. Don't get me wrong, I've no
bone to pick with the Queen . . . but she does not, in her role as head of the
Church of England, represent the millions of people from Muslim, Hindu or
Jewish backgrounds in this country, let alone those who have a different
Christian denomination or faith."

Baroness Thomas, a Liberal Democrat peer and Transport spokesman, said
that if monarchs were allowed to marry someone from a different faith, they
could not at the same time hold high authority in any one church. She
praised the Prince of Wales for saying in the past that "he wished to be the
defender of all faiths. That is the attitude that we want from an heir to the
throne and any holder of that throne." (The London Times)

via: origin@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] - Hackers try to sabotage Russia-US emergency exercises
From: bpr-list@philologos.org("Moza")
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 15:33:33 -0400

Hackers try to sabotage Russia-US emergency exercises

MOSCOW (AFP) - - Computer hackers have tried to sabotage joint US-
Russian exercises aimed at tackling major natural disasters, the Russian
ministry of emergency situations said Thursday, quoted by the ITAR-TASS
news agency. Hackers based in the United States tried to break into the
Russian ministry's database programmes but were blocked immediately by
information technology experts.

The exercises, designed to develop ways of cooperating and sharing
information during simulations of an earthquake and an oil slick, are being
held simultaneously in Moscow, Russia's Far East and Hawaii.

The databse was fully operational again Thursday and the exercises were
continuing.

From Voila,
http://www.voila.co.uk/News/afp/media/000921041341.281gbniw.html

via: cyberwar@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] - Future chips
From: bpr-list@philologos.org("Moza")
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 15:39:47 -0400

Thursday, 21 September 2000

Future chips
"I'm nobody! Who are you?" asked the poet Emily Dickinson.

Emily died in 1886 but only recently has the technology developed that could
adequately address her concerns. Better late than never, we say.

For the last few years, computer scientists have been experimenting with
chip implants that would render it impossible for you to be a nobody.
Researchers now say it is possible to implant a dime-sized computer chip
under your collarbone, which would abort any possibility of an identity
crisis.

The chip could record volumes of information - your name and address, your
nearest relatives and their telephone numbers, your bank and credit card
numbers, your blood pressure, heart rate, temperature and any medications
you may be taking.

There even are rumors that chips can be used to control the behavior of
violent inmates in the prison system. Forget about Valium. Forget Ritalin.
Forget Thorazine. Instead, sedate an inmate long enough to implant a chip
somewhere on his body, then send signals to the chip to control different
parts of the brain. A particularly dangerous inmate could be kept drowsy all
day long.

Some of this, we grant you, remains pure speculation, but much of it is
already here. In England, an adventurous cybernetics professor - yes, we
know the word is strange to a poet born in 1830 - had a silicon chip
implanted above his left elbow. Using radio waves, the chip communicated
with computers. The computers, in turn, sent messages to other machines
that turned on lights, opened doors and even hailed him with a sprightly
"Hello!" as he moved from room to room at the University of Reading.

Kevin Warwick, the professor, said he felt "bereaved" when the chip was
removed after nine days. He also said his experiment was just the beginning.
Next he will get a new chip implant "and this one will send signals back and
forth between my nervous system and a computer."

These experiments seem whimsical on one level, and yet they carry profound
implications, especially for individuals suffering from severe spinal
injuries. Is it possible that a computer chip can be implanted in a
quardraplegic and that communication between the chip and the brain can
reverse a crippling injury? There is a temptation to think of such
possibilities as farfetched, and yet 25 years ago - when the advanced chip
technology we know today was not available - scientists at the University of
Utah had already shown that similar brain and nerve stimulation could allow
blind individuals to see tiny specks of light.

Next month, one company plans to unveil a new product called a "Digital
Angel," which will enable parents to keep track of their toddlers and allow
adults to keep track of elderly parents who may be suffering from Alzheimers
Disease.

The new chips function a little like a Global Positioning System but
communicate with computers rather than an orbiting satellite. Some of these
chips reportedly are already being used in Italy by wealthy families who are
worried about being kidnapped.

Clearly, the chip implants offer extraordinary possiblities in the world of
biomedical engineering, but there are other implications -privacy issues,
behavior control questions, and others - that will have to be addressed
eventually. One of those questions may go well beyond Emily's, "Who are
you?"

Warwick, thinking about the astonishing possibilities of chip implants, sums
it up this way: "I was born human. But this was an accident of fate - a
condition merely of time and place. I believe it's something we have the
power to change."

Think about that one. Someday you could be an eggplant.

http://www.azstarnet.com/public/dnews/000921editimplant.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] - Discover Magazine (10/00)
From: bpr-list@philologos.org("Moza")
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 15:42:23 -0400

                    Discover
                    Magazine is
                    devoted to the
                    progress of the
                    next 20 years. The
                    articles include "20 Ideas That Will
                    Rule Research" and "20 Young
                    Scientists To Watch." Some of the
                    articles are redundant, and others
                    surely fall short of the mark, but
                    overall it is a positive issue.

                    Read the Table of Contents, with
                    links to full online versions of all the
                    articles.

http://www.transhuman.memetree.com/article.pl?sid=3D00/09/20/130236

DISCOVER Vol. 21 No. 10 (October 2000)
Table of Contents

  FEATURES
  20 Ways the World Could End By Corey S. Powell
  And why we might never see it coming.

  What You'll Need to Know In 2020 That You Don't Know Now By
  Joseph D'Agnese
  You'll need nimble fingers and a nimble mind to deal with all the cool n=
ew
  tools.

20 Species We Might Lose By Jack McClintock
Snapshots from the cusp of extinction..

20 Young Scientists to Watch By William Speed Weed
A guide to the best and brightest=96and what they may do in the next 20
years.

  Biocrops By Bruce McCall
  Polka-dot zucchini and skyscraper-sized squashes=96the farms of the futu=
re
  could be frightful to behold.

  20 of the Greatest Blunders in Science in the Last 20 Years By Judith
  Newman
  Some were silly screwups. Others were errors that cost lives and fortune=
s.

  20 Things That Will Be Obsolete in 20 years By Eric Haseltine
  Say good-bye to DVDs, bypass surgery, and even internal combustion
  engines.

  20 Ideas That Will Rule Research in the Next 20 YearsBy Matt
  Mahurin
  Steven Pinker, Francis Collins, and others ponder the big questions.

20 Things That Won't Change By Brad Lemley
Keep those pencils sharpened, folks.

DEPARTMENTS

Letters

  R&D
  BREAKING NEWS: Space station stowaways, a machine that turns
dreams
  into ice, a cosmic crash-up to come, a geological time bomb off the New
  Jersey coast, and more.

  The Physics of. . . Foul Shots By Curtis Rist
  An underhanded approach to shooting would help Shaquille O'Neal improve
  his free-throw percentage dramatically.

  Works in Progress by Karen Wright
  A really big iceberg breaks off from Antarctica only once every few deca=
des.
  This one is the size of Connecticut.

  Vital Signs By Claire Panosian Dunavan
  A red spot on the patient's arm was the first clue that he had brought h=
ome
  more than memories from an African safari.

  Sky Lights by Bob Berman
  The odds against surviving a manned mission to Mars, or beyond, turn out=

to
  be nothing less than astronomical.

  Future Tech By Mark Sincell
  In a quest to build smart computers, microchip engineers look beyond
silicon
  and light to living nerve cells.

  Reviews
  Museums: Magic and the science of illusion.
  TV: Building big things.
  Books: A new look at Egyptian mummies; a dictionary gets wordy.

  Bogglers by Scott Kim
  This month's collection of puzzles, concocted to honor Discover's 20th
  anniversary, will have you painting, planting, and pondering.

BrainLab by Eric Haseltine
Ever wonder why you can pick out a single voice in a room full of voices=
?

http://www.discover.com/oct_00/main.html

From: moza@butterfly.mv.com

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

========
To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Asteroid busters urge Australia to help avert the killer blow
From: bpr-list@philologos.org("Shophar_Sho_Good")
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 16:36:52 -0500

Asteroid busters urge Australia to help avert the killer blow
http://theage.com.au/news/20000922/A11755-2000Sep21.html

By RANDALL ASHBOURNE
ADELAIDE
Friday 22 September 2000

Hollywood's view: An asteroid causes mischief in Deep Impact.

International pressure is mounting for Australia to establish new long-range
telescopes to track killer asteroids that could devastate life on Earth.

Adelaide University vice-chancellor Mary O'Kane agreed yesterday with calls
by British scientists for international cooperation to establish an early
warning system.

British Science Minister Lord Sainsbury in January set up a taskforce, which
has made a plea for a new $45 million telescope in the southern hemisphere
because scientists are losing track of potential killer asteroids.

The three-member taskforce, headed by Dr Harry Atkinson, a former head of
the European Space Agency, has concluded that the risk to life on Earth is
not science fiction. According to the team, a 100-metre asteroid hits Earth
every 10,000 years with the force of a 100-megaton nuclear bomb. Every
100,000 years, an asteroid strikes with a force equivalent to 10 million
Hiroshima bombs.

They have recommended a global early-warning system and more research into
deflecting or striking threatening asteroids to stop the sort of disaster
blamed for wiping out dinosaurs 65 million years ago.

Professor O'Kane said Australia and the rest of the world had been
"relatively lucky" to avoid having city areas hit by even small meteors.

"The risk is real - the South Australian outback and central Australia are
pockmarked with famous craters," she said.

Adelaide University has two space research telescopes in SA - one at Ceduna
on the coast, and a new 10-metre gamma ray telescope at Woomera, being
operated with the Japanese Government to search for black holes and trace
signals from the origins of the universe.

According to Professor O'Kane, central Australia is the only real option for
siting the new asteroid hunter telescope.

"Our only rival would be South America, but they can't match our scientific
expertise and our signal processing capabilities," she said.

One of Adelaide University's top former space scientists, Dr Duncan Steel,
who is now working in Europe, has constantly warned governments that Earth
is in danger from asteroids, but Dr O'Kane says political leaders still have
not recognised either the risk, or the high level of skill available in
Australia.

In 1996 the Howard Government withdrew funding for Australia's only asteroid
tracking research project at the Siding Springs observatory in central New
South Wales. In 1994, the SA Government announced plans for a $140 million
optical telescope at Freeling Heights in the Flinders Ranges and a $200
million particle detector radio telescope near Woomera, but they were not
built.

Dr Robert MacNaught, who won NASA funding to continue asteroid tracking from
Siding Springs after Australian government funding was cut, has warned there
is a huge blind spot because Canberra is not taking the threat seriously.

"Up until now there has been no dedicated telescope in the southern
hemisphere," he said. "That means much of the southern sky simply isn't
being observed at all, and objects that they've discovered in the north and
which pass into the southern sky become lost through not being adequately
followed up."

He said there had been "a general scientific consensus" for some time that
Earth was in danger and has backed the British calls for an early warning
system and research .

"We need to keep tabs on them to calculate more accurately what their orbits
are and to predict their future passages to the Earth."

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

========
To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Infobeat News items (9/21/00)
From: bpr-list@philologos.org("Moza")
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 19:01:16 -0400

*** Clinton, others guilty of war crime

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (AP) - A Belgrade court found President Clinton
and other world leaders guilty of war crimes and sentenced them - in
absentia - to 20 years in prison for NATO's bombing campaign against
Yugoslavia. The four-day trial was held in an attempt to resurrect
anti-NATO sentiment here and win votes for President Slobodan
Milosevic ahead of Sunday's elections. Belgrade's district court
pronounced Clinton and 13 other leaders and NATO officials "guilty as
charged" and ordered warrants be issued immediately for their arrest.
Court-appointed lawyers were hired to represent the defendants. As
each 20-year sentence was read out separately, the crowd behind a row
of 14 empty chairs bearing nameplates of the accused, stood and
applauded. See
http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2569990542-45e

*** Japan city cuts ties with U.S. Navy

TOKYO (AP) - A second Japanese city is ending friendly ties with the
U.S. Navy to protest noisy aircraft-landing exercises at a nearby
airfield, a local official said Thursday. Yamato City made the
decision after local residents lodged more than 550 complaints about
noise from nighttime takeoff and landing exercises at Atsugi Naval
Air Station near Tokyo, said municipal official Ryoichi Shimazaki.
The Navy conducted night landing drills Sept. 5-8 and launched a
weeklong round of exercises on Monday, ignoring requests by local
officials to relocate the practice, Shimazaki said. Yamato City's
decision to end friendly ties with the Navy is the second this week
by a Japanese city. See
http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2569984032-1ff

*** Dying prohibited in Riviera town

PARIS (AP) - Renowned for its breathtaking scenery, pine trees, rocky
coastline and a clear blue Mediterranean Sea, the Riviera town of Le
Lavandou is drawing headlines for a new local law that makes dying a
grave offense. The town's only cemetery is full, and the project for
a new one near the coast was rejected earlier this month by a
regional court, which ruled that the plan violated a law on sea shore
constructions. Facing the lack of cemetery space, Le Lavandou, 25
miles east of Toulon, on Tuesday passed a law: "It is forbidden
without a cemetery plot to die on the territory of the commune."
Currently, 19 people are awaiting a final resting place. See
http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2569987495-c86

From: moza@butterfly.mv.com

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

========
To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Pope Paul II
From: bpr-list@philologos.org("Moza")
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 19:01:16 -0400

Does anyone have any information that would corroborate/deny the following?
I'm having a private email discussion with someone and would appreciate any
help.:

"In the early 1940s, the I.G. Farben Chemical Company employed a Polish
salesman who sold cyanide to the Nazis for use in Auschwitz. The same
salesman also worked as a chemist in the manufacture of the poison gas.
This same cyanide gas along with Zyklon B and malathion was used to
exterminate millions of Jews and other groups. Their bodies were then
burned to ashes in the ovens. After the war the salesman, fearing for his llfe,
joined the Catholic Church and was ordained a priest in 1946. One of his
closest friends was Dr. Wolf Szmuness, the mastermind behind the
November/78 to October/79 and March/80 to October/81 experimental
hepatitis B vaccine trials conducted by the Center for Disease Control in New
York, San Francisco and four other American cities that loosed the plague of
AIDS upon the American people. The salesman was ordained Poland's
youngest bishop in 1958. After a 30-day reign his predecessor was
assassinated and our ex-cyanide gas salesman assumed the papacy as
Pope John Paul II."

http://www.gibnet.gi/~gus/comet/coopnwo1.htm

From: moza@butterfly.mv.com

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

========
To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - A Good Month for Asteroids
From: bpr-list@philologos.org("Moza")
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 19:01:17 -0400

A Good Month for Asteroids
NASA Science News

Asteroid hunters have enjoyed a close-up look at two new potentially hazardous space rocks as they passed close to the Earth in September.

September 20, 2000 -- This has been a good month for astronomers studying Near-Earth asteroids (NEAs). No fewer than five sizable space rocks have flown past our planet since the beginning of September -- three of them in the last four days.

There was no danger of a collision at any time, say researchers. All of the asteroids missed our planet by comfortable margins of 11 to 75 lunar distances. Still, by cosmic standards, they were close at hand.

Among the parade were two asteroids, 2000 QW7 and 2000 RD53, that were brand-new discoveries. NASA's Near Earth Asteroid Tracking system spotted 2000 QW7 on August 26, 2000 -- less than a week before its closest approach. Then, 11 days later on Sept. 6th, MIT's LINEAR program detected 2000 RD53. Both were passing by our planet no farther away than 12 times the distance to the Moon. As news of the discoveries spread, astronomers rushed to their telescopes for a closer look.

"Dozens of observers, including many skilled amateurs, are monitoring these bright objects," says Eleanor Helin, the principal investigator for JPL's Near- Earth Asteroid Tracking (NEAT) program. "The close approaches of these asteroids offer a rare opportunity to learn about their physical characteristics, including what they're made of and their rotational periods," she added.

2000 QW7 and 2000 RD53 belong to a group known as "Potentially Hazardous Asteroids" or PHAs. There are 271 known PHAs, which by definition are asteroids larger than about 150 meters that can come closer to Earth than 0.05 AU (about 20 lunar distances). In spite of their menacing name, none of the PHAs we know of now are destined for a collision with our planet. But that could change.

"PHA orbits can be chaotic. Perturbations -- such as a gravitational nudge from Mars or Earth -- could change their orbits. We have to monitor them -- it's highly recommended," remarked Helin with a note of understatement.

September 2000 Near-Earth Asteroids

           Asteroid DATE R Vr H D
                       mmm-DD HH:MM (AU) (km/s) (Vm) (km)
         2000 QW7 Sep-01 12:54 0.0317 6.48 19.5 0.3-0.7
         2000 ET70 Sep-04 10:39 0.1895 12.84 18.2 0.6-1.4
         2000 RD53 Sep-17 13:20 0.0288 7.77 20.0 0.3-0.6
         2000 DP107 Sep-19 13:20 0.0478 12.35 17.9 0.7-1.5
         2000 QS7 Sep-20 04:54 0.0872 10.28 20.7 0.2-0.5

Legend: R is the asteroid's miss distance in AU (astronomical units) on the indicated DATE. For comparison, the distance between the Earth and the Moon is approximately 0.0026 AU. Vr is the relative velocity between the Earth and the asteroid at the time of the flyby. H is the asteroid's absolute magnitude (the visual magnitude an observer on Earth would record if the asteroid were placed 1 AU away). D is the size of the asteroid estimated from its absolute magnitude.

A group of astronomers led by Jean-Luc Margot of the National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center detected radar echoes from 2000 QW7 and 2000 RD53 as they passed over the powerful Arecibo radar in Puerto Rico and NASA's Goldstone radar in the Mojave desert. By analyzing the echoes, researchers can construct three-dimensional maps of the asteroids and reduce the uncertainty of their orbital elements.

"Goldstone radar observations of 2000 QW7 and RD53 permitted velocity measurements accurate to better than 4 millimeters per second," says Jon Giorgini, a senior engineer in JPL's Solar System Dynamics Group "For 2000 RD53, it was possible to make direct range measurements to the asteroid, from both Arecibo and Goldstone planetary radars, accurate to at least 300-400 feet."

With a precise orbit determined by radar data, Giorgini ran 2000 RD53's motion backwards and found that it had made an even closer approach at 9.3 lunar distances in 1933, but no one saw it. The next close encounter as near as this week's won't come until 2198.

According to Giorgini's calculations, 2000 QW7 will be back sooner than 2000 RD53. On Sept. 15, 2019, it will pass our planet 14 times farther away than the Moon -- about the same distance as this week's encounter.

"Evidence from the radar data suggests that 2000 QW7 is a slow rotator," added Jean-Luc Margot. "Its spin period is on the order of days, which is a puzzle for an object this size."

Collisions within the asteroid belt are expected to give space rocks plenty of spin, but 2000 QW7 joins at least two other NEAs (1999 JM8 and Toutatis) that rotate slowly.

"Various exotic possibilities have been proposed to explain how NEAs could lose their angular momentum," continued Margot. "These include close encounters with a planet, tidal despinning of a binary system, or disruption from a larger asteroid. Obtaining these radar measurements will help us understand ... their dynamical history."

Slow rotation is just one of many puzzles attending Potentially Hazardous Asteroids, says Brian Marsden, director of the Minor Planet Center. Researchers still don't know how many PHAs inhabit the inner solar system, what they're made of, or exactly where they come from.

"There are two obvious possibilities," says Marsden. "PHAs could come from the asteroid belt or they might be inert comets. Undoubtedly it's a mixture of the two, but we don't know the fractions."

"We would expect some to be bona fide rocky asteroids," he continued. "After all, there are mechanisms that can bring main belt asteroids into Earth- crossing orbits. The principal one, involving what are called secular planetary perturbations, takes millions to hundreds of millions of years -- a short time compared to the age of the Solar System."

"As for the comets, it may be that they can masquerade as asteroids after their ices have been vaporized by solar heating. Is there enough particulate material for such a spent comet to remain coherent, or does it break up? Comet LINEAR broke up very nicely (when it passed by the Sun earlier this year)! An alternative is that a rocky crust might completely cover the comet's ice. We just don't know."

Distinguishing between cometary and rocky NEAs is important in case we ever need to nudge one away from our planet. One of the most-often discussed scenarios for diverting a PHA involves launching a nuclear-armed rocket to intercept it. Exploding the warhead in the wrong spot could have unintended consequences. Scientists caution that a hailstorm of asteroidal fragments could be worse than one big piece -- like being hit by a shotgun instead of a rifle. Knowing what PHAs are made of and how they are put together is vital.

It's also vital to find such asteroids as early as possible. 2000 QW7 and 2000 RD53 didn't provide much advance warning. They were discovered 5 and 11 days, respectively, before their closest approaches to Earth.

"We can miss bright asteroids like 2000 QW7 for several reasons," explains Helin. "For instance, if an asteroid moves across the Milky Way during its closest approach, it might be hard to identify among the densely-packed background stars. Or if the asteroid is close to the Sun as it approaches, it could be lost in the Sun's glare. Many NEAs (like QW7 and RD53) are in highly elliptical orbits and spend most of their time as dim specks beyond the orbit of Mars. They brighten only as they come close to the Sun, then we can see them from Earth."

"The way to look at these objects is over a long period of time," noted Marsden. "Yes, some will come close to Earth and miss us -- as 2000 QW7 and RD53 have done -- but it's the subsequent passes that we have to worry about. Follow-up observations to establish precise orbits are very important if we wish to predict future encounters."

"Radar helps a very great deal (in refining asteroid orbits). We can also look for newly discovered asteroids in old images, and that helps, too. Nowadays we look for pre-discovery images as a matter of course."

Indeed, soon after NEAT identified 2000 QW7, a colleague of Marsden's found this asteroid in early-August data from MIT's LINEAR search program. Such prediscovery observations, and in particular confirmed "precovery" observations from an earlier year, can immediately refine an asteroid's orbit and make continued tracking easier.

"LINEAR did record 2000 QW7 almost a month before its closest approach," says Marsden, "but poor weather limited the observations to a few images on a single night, and it was moving too slowly to be picked out as unusual." It's another example of how search programs can miss PHAs. When they are faint, far away, and moving slowly against the background stars, PHAs can appear to be harmless main belt objects.

"We're accumulating asteroids at a furious rate," says Marsden. "At the turn of the century we knew of only 500 minor planets; now we've cataloged 17,349 with excellent orbit determinations. The rate of discovery is approximately doubling every two years."

The rate could increase further if a new British government initiative to identify hazardous asteroids bears fruit. With more telescopes on the lookout, astronomers will undoubtedly enjoy many more -- and perhaps uncomfortably numerous -- opportunities for close-up studies of these ever-scary space rocks.

The Anatomy of Asteroid Names

Sometimes it seems that astronomers enjoy picking inscrutable names for the objects they study. What person on the street would guess that "2000 QW7" is a fascinating space rock? Nevertheless, there is a method to this naming madness.

So many new asteroids are discovered each month that astronomers need an efficient way to catalog them. The first part of "2000 QW7" is simple -- it identifies the year of the asteroid's discovery (2000).

Then comes "QW7." The first letter tells us that the object was identified during the second half of August. Each half-month is identified with a letter of the alphabet. January 1st-15th = "A"; January 16th-31st = "B"; August 16th-31st = "Q", etc. The letter "I" is omitted in this system.

The second and third characters "W7" are a shorthand way of counting the number of asteroids found during the 2nd half of August 2000. The first asteroid discovered was "2000 QA"; the second was "2000 QB;" The second letter cycles through the alphabet until it reaches "Z" and then it goes back to the beginning with an extra number. So, the 26th asteroid discovered during the second half of August 2000 was "2000 QA1". Remember that "I" is omitted, so "A1" corresponds to the 26th asteroid, not the 27th. This means that 2000 QW7 was the 197th asteroid found in the second half of August 2000!

NEAT is managed by JPL for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC. The National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center is operated by Cornell University under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation and with additional support from NASA.

Web Links

Near Earth Objects - learn more about nearby space rocks:

http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov

http://spacescience.com/headlines/y2000/ast20sep_1.htm

via: transhumantech@egroups.com

From: moza@butterfly.mv.com

========
To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - JVIM Update items (9/21/00)
From: bpr-list@philologos.org("Moza")
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 19:12:43 -0400

BLASPHEMOUS ‘JESUS SEMINAR� EVEN
QUESTIONS GOD�S EXISTENCE
Sept. 21, 2000

Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported: “After declaring that Jesus was not born of a virgin and that many biblical reports of his life were conjured by early Christians, the Jesus Seminar is taking on God. The small band of religion specialists often criticized by even established scholars for their iconoclastic statements on Jesus will vote on whether God is all-powerful, whether he intervenes in the affairs of humans and, more radically, whether God even exists. ‘We are opening up a new phase of the seminar,� said the group's founder, Robert Funk, director of the Westar Institute in Santa Rosa, Calif. ‘We are discussing the future of God, so to speak.�...During its semiannual meeting next month in Santa Rosa, about 75 seminar participants will engage in discussions on several papers and return to their system of using colored beads to cast ballots on questions related to God. Funk, who has just returned from speaking tours in England and Australia, is a Guggenheim Fellow and Senior Fulbright Scholar, and author of `Honest to Jesus: Jesus for a New Millennium,' and `The Acts of Jesus.' He is co-author of `The Five Gospels.'...One of the most controversial votes during October's meeting will be on whether Jesus of Nazareth is actually a manifestation of God, Funk said...”

IRAQI FORCES SAID TO BE ON
MAXIMUM ALERT
Sept. 21, 2000

UPI reported: “Iraq has placed its armed forces on a state of full alert in anticipation of any possible U.S. strike following recent threats against Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, according to a London-based Arab newspaper. The Al-Zaman newspaper in a report to be published on Thursday and made available to United Press International Wednesday said, ‘Iraqi authorities evacuated positions and headquarters of important administrations in anticipation of a U.S. strike following Iraq's recent escalation against Kuwait and its media campaign against Saudi Arabia.� The newspaper quoted Iraqis who left Baghdad recently as saying that the Iraqi forces were in a state of maximum alert...”

CHECHNYA SAID TO BE ‘OUT OF
CONTROL�
Sept. 21, 2000

The Washington Post reported: “At the side of a road near this town in west-central Chechnya, Russian soldiers sitting atop a broken-down armored car scan the horizon nervously. The soldiers ride on top of the tracked vehicle, explains one, so that in case it hits a mine, ‘we're just thrown off, instead of burned alive.� ‘They are everywhere,� says the soldier, Boris M., referring to Chechen rebels. ‘This is their home. We are just like cosmonauts. If we step too far from our ship, we are lost.� This is Chechnya behind the facade of victory declared by Russia seven months ago in its war against the separatist rebels. The Russians occupy almost all of the breakaway region, yet control little of it. After besieging its towns and cities, they now are the besieged. Neither Russian nor Chechen forecasts about the course of the conflict have come remotely true. Russian authorities had predicted that ‘normal life� would be returned to Chechnya by now. Chechen leaders anticipated the retaking of Grozny, the ruined capital, and the beginning of the Russians' exit. Instead, Russian soldiers die at the rate of about 10 per week, according to official figures. In all, about 3,200 Russians have died since Moscow launched an offensive last year, according to the official count...”

47 NATIONS PARTICIPATE IN BABYLON
FESTIVAL IN IRAQ
Sept. 21, 2000

Agence France Press reported: “More than 47 countries will take part in the 10-day Babylon cultural festival which opens on September 22 in sanctions-hit Iraq, Information Minister Human Abdel Khaleq said Wednesday. ‘Several artistic groups representing more than 47 friendly countries will take part in the Babylon festival,� the official INA news agency quoted Khaleq as saying. Their participation in the festival bore ‘witness to the solidarity of several countries with Iraq in its struggle to get the embargo lifted and put a stop to the plots by the US and British administrations, supported by the Saudi and Kuwaiti regimes,� he said. According to the festival organizers, the Arab countries participating include Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Sudan, Tunisia and the United Arab Emirates. The annual festival in the historic city of Babylon, some 90 kilometresmiles) south of the Iraqi capital, was launched in 1987. Last year, 38 countries took part...”

U.S. TO ORDER SMALLPOX VACCINE
DUE TO POTENTIAL THREAT OF
TERRORIST ATTACK
Sept. 21, 2000

The Financial Times reported: “The US government, prompted by fears of bio-terrorist attack, has awarded Peptide Therapeutics, a small UK biotechnology company, a contract to produce 40m doses of vaccine against smallpox - a disease ‘eradicated� more than 20 years ago. Barbara Reynolds of the Centers for Disease Control, the Atlanta-based government agency, said: ‘There is increasing concern about bio-terrorism.� Of a possible smallpox attack, she said:�"Even though there may only be a low probability of it occurring, if it did occur it would be catastrophic.� US defense officials have long feared that laboratory samples of smallpox might have fallen into the hands of potential terrorists or rogue states. The last case of smallpox was eliminated in Somalia in 1977. Samples have been stored in laboratories in the US and Russia. This year, the US opposed plans to destroy remaining specimens. Attention was refocused on smallpox in the early 1990s after a Soviet defector told US authorities that Moscow had a big bio-warfare program, including smallpox...”

RUSSIAN ANTI-MISSILE TEST FAILS
Sept. 21, 2000

Associated Press reported: “Russian officials on Wednesday confirmed the armed forces had conducted tests of an anti-missile missile that would guard against short-range rocket attacks, but would not comment on a report one of the weapons had crashed into its launcher shortly after it was fired. The daily Moskovsky Komsomolets said a Russian S-300 air-defense missile had turned upside down but by ‘fantastic luck� had failed to explode after crashing back into its launcher, which was just 200 yards from a launcher containing another missile...”

www.jvim.com/cgi-bin/update.cgi

From: moza@butterfly.mv.com

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

========
To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Weekend News Today items (9/21/00)
From: bpr-list@philologos.org("Moza")
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 19:25:29 -0400

Japanese Volcano Threatens to Explode

                         Weekend News Today
                         Lead: faith
                         Source: Discovery Earth Alert

Thu Sep 21,2000 -- Hundreds of earthquakes have jolted the region near
central Japan's Mount Asama Volcano since the beginning of the week,
triggering fears that an eruption is imminent. On Monday, at least 138
tremors shook the mountain, located on the border between Nagano and
Gunma prefectures. Although there were no evacuations, the country's
Meteorological Agency issued warnings on Tuesday that the number of
tremors had increased to an average of 40 an hour. Volcanologists at the
Nagano Prefecture Observatory reported that it was too early to know if
Asama, located 90 miles northwest of Tokyo, would erupt. Other than
spewing small amounts of steam, the 8,423-foot-high volcano has been
quiet for the past 217 years. A major explosion in 1783 killed 1,151
people. Volcanoes in a number of different areas of Japan have exploded
this year. Earlier this month, 4,000 residents on the Isu Island chain
were forced to evacuate following several volcanic explosions. On Sept.
4, Mount Komagatake on Japan's northern main island of Hokkaido also
erupted for the first time in almost two years.

Mexican Volcano Threatens Major Eruption!

                         Weekend News Today
                         Lead: faith
                         Source: Discovery Earth Alert

Thu Sep 21,2000 -- Mexican officials reported on Wednesday that a new
lava dome had formed on Popocatepetl Volcano, causing fears that a major
eruption could soon occur. Carlos Navarette, of the National Disaster
Prevention Center, said the explosion could equal that of one that shook
the region in 1994, when the 17,259-foot volcano roared to life after a
67-year dormancy. The current level of alert around the mountain is not
expected to be raised, and Navarette stressed there was no immediate
danger to the thousands of residents living near Popocatepetl, located
only 37 miles from the capital city of Mexico, Mexico City, home of
millions. The closest community is located
less than 5 miles from the ice- capped dome.

Yet another Typhoon named Sonamu, heads for Kuril Islands

                         Weekend News Today
                         Lead: faith
                         Source: Discovery Earth Alert

Thu Sep 21,2000 -- Typhoon Sonamu moved away from Japan's
northernmost island of Hokkaido on Monday and continued on a NNE path
toward Russia's Kuril Islands. Japan's Meteorological Agency reported
that the storm was packing winds of up to 124 mph as it brushed past the
east coast of Hokkaido. By early Tuesday, Sonamu's winds had diminished
to 86 mph as it headed toward the Russian Far East. The storm is
predicted to weaken to a tropical depression later in the day.

Typhoon Saomai Kills 9 in Russia

                         Weekend News Today
                         Lead: faith
                         Source: Discovery Earth Alert

Thu Sep 21,2000 -- After wreaking havoc in South Korea, Typhoon Saomai
continued on its deadly path on Monday to Russia's Far Eastern region,
where nine people were killed and 76 others injured. The storm which
first reached the region during the past weekend, also caused widespread
flooding and power disruptions. All of the victims had been killed in
the numerous traffic accidents caused by the extreme weather. Flooding
from the powerful storm caused the Kazachka River to burst its banks and
forced the evacuation of dozens of homes nearby. Saomai also left roads
impassable and flooded coal mines in the region of Luchegorsk, causing
power disruptions throughout the area as it
roared through, packing winds of 85 mph.

Blair accused of treason over Europe

                         Weekend News Today
                         Lead: Kelly
                         Source: London Telegraph

Thu Sep 21,2000 -- Protesters will accuse Tony Blair of treason today to
highlight the perceived threat to British sovereignty posed by the
forthcoming European Union summit in Nice. A "notice of treason" -
naming Mr Blair, Robin Cook, the Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, the Home
Secretary, and Lord Williams of Mostyn, the Attorney-General - is to be
handed in at courts across the country. Campaigners say that by the end
of the week they will have submitted at least 500 notices laying
information under Section One of the Treason Act 1795 and Section 3 of
the Treason Felony Act 1848.

A group calling itself Sanity - Subjects Against the Nice Treaty - says
ministers are preparing to give up national control over justice and
home affairs matters. While the Government is adamant that decisions
over foreign policy, defence, taxation and borders should remain subject
to the veto, they have been more equivocal over
these two areas.

Iran official given State Department's permission to lobby
Iranian-Americans across America

                         Weekend News Today
                         Lead: Kelly
                         Source: WorldNetDaily

Thu Sep 21,2000 -- In a move unprecedented since the Ayatollah Khomeini
revolution 21 years ago, the U.S. government has authorized an Iranian
cabinet officer to lobby Iranian-American citizens in meetings across
America, the State Department acknowledged under questioning yesterday.
Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi traveled to Cambridge, Mass.,
yesterday to give a speech to faculty and students at Harvard
University, before heading out to Los Angeles for three days of
closed-door meetings with Iranian-American businessmen.

Until yesterday, the U.S. government has placed travel restrictions on
top Iranian government officials similar to those placed on Soviet
diplomats at the height of the Cold War. Those travel restrictions were
aimed at curtailing spying by Soviet intelligence officers traveling
under diplomatic cover. The State Department policy has allowed the
Iranians to attend meetings hosted by international organizations, but
forbids them from holding public meetings with Iranian-Americans or from
traveling outside of the metropolitan areas of New York and Washington.
Only diplomats from Iraq and North Korea face similar restrictions
today.

Possible powerful X-class solar flares from Sun

                         Weekend News Today
                         Lead: faith
                         Source: Spaceweather.com

Thu Sep 21,2000 -- BIG SUNSPOT: The largest sunspot in more than 8
years, active region 9169, is rotating toward the center of the Sun's
visible disk. It covers an area a dozen times larger than the surface of
the planet Earth! Magnetic fields above the spot have a configuration
that likely harbors energy for powerful X-class solar flares.

X-ray Solar Flare Classification (basics). The classification of a solar
flare is based on its x-ray energy output. Lowest class to highest -- B,
C, M, then the highest most powerful class X. C-type flares are common.
M-class flares are larger and more rare. X-class flares are even less
common and are considered to be major events.

British police believe MI6 attackers could have used launcher

                         Weekend News Today
                         Lead: Kelly
                         Source: Ha'aretz

Thu Sep 21,2000 -- Scotland Yard stopped traffic near the MI6
headquarters in central London on Thursday, after a small missile was
fired at the eighth floor of the building some time after midnight
Israel time (21:00 GMT). No one was hurt in the attack, but the building
suffered minor damage. Attackers who blasted the headquarters of
Britain's intelligence service may have used a type of rocket launcher
readily available to the Irish Republican Army and the hardline splinter
groups which reject a cease-fire, police said Thursday.

Deputy Assistant Commissioner Alan Fry, head of Scotland Yard's anti-
terrorist branch, told reporters that the missile may have been fired by
a rocket launcher from a range of 200 to 500 yards. Similar devices had
been found in republican arms caches in Northern Ireland and the Irish
Republic and may have been used in attacks in Britain, he said, adding
that such weapons devices are freely available from Russia and the
former Yugoslavia.

Israel, PA sign agreement for construction of Gaza sea port

                         Weekend News Today
                         Lead: Kelly
                         Source: Ha'aretz

Thu Sep 21,2000 -- Israel and the Palestinian Authority signed an
agreement Wednesday for the construction of a sea port in Gaza. The
agreement was signed by Oded Eran and Saeb Erekat, the chief Israeli and
Palestinian negotiators. Israel agreed in principal to the port's
construction in the Sharm al Sheikh agreement of 1999. The Prime
Minister's Bureau said that following the signing of the agreement, the
Palestinians intended to begin construction immediately, and estimated
that the port could become operational within 18 months. According to an
agreement with the PA, companies from France and Holland will build the
port and will be paid $60 million each by their respective governments.
The PA reportedly did not intend to invest funds in the construction.

U.S. pushes for deal without Jerusalem, Arafat now claims guardianship
of Jerusalem's holy sites

                         Weekend News Today
                         Lead: Kelly
                         Source: Ha'aretz

Thu Sep 21,2000 -- The United States has been trying in recent days to
wrest consent from Israel and the Palestinians to a non-comprehensive
agreement which would exclude final status arrangements in Jerusalem.
The current American effort follows an approach incorporated in the
draft Beilin- Abu Mazen accord. The Americans believe that the prospects
of convincing PA Chairman Yasser Arafat to concede full Palestinian
sovereignty over Jerusalem's Temple Mount are virtually nil. This
American view was underscored this week in diplomatic contacts involving
American, European and Egyptian officials.

According to information which has reached U.S. officials, Arafat has
recently spoken of himself as the guardian of Jerusalem's holy sites,
and as the successor to Jordan's King Hussein and Morocco's King Hassan
II in this role. Arafat, these intelligence reports affirm, is
determined to unfurl the flag of Palestine at the Temple Mount when he
declares Palestinian statehood. With these intentions in mind, the U.S.
officials believe, Arafat is currently inclined to reject proposals
recommending that solutions to the Jerusalem issue be deferred to some
later date.

Jellyfish overrunning Gulf of Mexico in unprecedented numbers

                         Weekend News Today
                         Lead: faith
                         Source: MSNBC

Thu Sep 21,2000 -- Jellyfish are swarming through the northern Gulf of
Mexico in unprecedented numbers, signaling an ecological shift that
could mean sweeping and catastrophic changes for Gulf fish populations.
Hordes of jellies are positioned in prime spawning areas just as
breeding season for many popular gamefish kicks into high gear.
Scientists say the animals have already started eating eggs and larva at
an alarming rate. “I�M JUST dazed,” Joanna Shultz, a fish larvae
specialist with the National Marine Fisheries Service lab in Pascagoula,
Miss., said after learning the extent of the jellyfish swarms, both
inshore and offshore. “This is pretty serious. It could be totally
devastating.” This explosion of native jellies could, threaten the
future of commercial and recreational fishery in the northern Gulf,
scientists say.

From record heat to winter storm warnings

                         Weekend News Today
                         Lead: faith
                         Source: Weather.com

Thu Sep 21,2000 -- Parts of the Northern Rockies are in for an abrupt
change, as the record heat of just a few days ago gives way to an early
blast of wintry weather. Winter storm watches and warnings have been
issued for the mountains of Montana, Wyoming and western South Dakota.
Motorists should have a winter storm kit that includes tire chains,
booster cables and blankets. The wintry weather coming right after
record heat in the area, is expected to continue through Friday night.

http://www.upway.com/cgi/readnews.cgi?day=00_09_21&item=#969572800

From: moza@butterfly.mv.com

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

========
To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - (Fwd) Free Online Courses at Barnes & Noble University!
From: bpr-list@philologos.org("Moza")
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 19:33:50 -0400

------- Forwarded message follows -------
From: "Barnes & Noble.com" <BNcom_University@email.bn.com>
To: research-bpr@philologos.org
Subject: Free Online Courses at Barnes & Noble University!
Date sent: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 16:29:40 -0400 (EDT)

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