To: bprlist@egroups.com
Subject: [bprlist] Daily World Affairs Report items (1/18/01)
From: "research-bpr" <research-bpr@philologos.org>
Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 12:09:04 -0500
CARDINAL MARTINI WANTS MORE COLLEGIALITY
In a long and provocative interview with the Italian daily Corriere della
Sera, Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini has called for "more concrete forms of
collegiality" within the Church. The Milan prelate stopped just short of
calling for a Third Vatican Council. Responding to the Pope's apostolic
letter Novo Millenio Ineunte, Cardinal Martini stressed John Paul's call for
greater "communion" within the Church. This, the cardinal said, would
require a greater sharing of power among the bishops of the Church. In
October 1999, during the Synod of Bishops for Europe, Cardinal Martini
had spoken of "a more universal instrument" to express collegiality within
the Church.
Many observers had seen his remarks as a call for a Third Vatican Council.
While he said there had been some "confusion" about those remarks, the
cardinal told Corriere della Sera, "I have never excluded the possibility of a
new council." The Milan prelate went on to say that the "emerging
problems" that face the Church might be reason for a new worldwide
council. Because of the practical problems involved in convening an
ecumenical council, Cardinal Martini suggested that it might be easier to
bring together "regional convocations" prior to the "plenary convocation" of
the world's bishops. And he said that Orthodox and Protestant
representatives should participate in such a council "in one way or another."
Cardinal Martini, who is frequently identified as the most identifiable
"liberal" leader within the College of Cardinals, said nothing during his
interview with Corriere della Sera to combat that reputation. He said that all
forms of "triumphalism" should be excluded from the Jubilee. He expressed
regret that the publication of the Vatican document Dominus Jesus had "not
been well received, and created some distress." And he argued that the
Church must engage in "dialogue" with scientists involved in genetic
manipulation, using "rational and convincing arguments" rather than issuing
condemnations which "are not sufficient, and even produce the opposite
effect." (Catholic World News)
DRESDNER TO QUIT COMMERCIAL BANKING OUTSIDE
EUROPE
Dresdner Bank AG will cease commercial banking outside Europe and take
a E200mn ($188mn) charge to pay for shutting offices and eliminating 600
jobs. The chief executive of Germany's 3rd-largest bank, Bernd Fahrholz,
has been shutting less profitable units and trying to revive Dresdner's
investment bank since taking over in April as merger attempts with German
rivals Deutsche Bank AG and Commerzbank AG failed.
Dresdner said Wednesday it would stop making loans in the United States
to everyone but investment-banking clients. It will close offices in Canada,
Thailand and India and reduce its business in China and Australia. Mr.
Fahrholz disclosed the plan to shut the commercial lending business in May
without providing details. He also said Dresdner aimed to slash 5,000 jobs,
close 300 bank branches in Germany and reduce business outside Europe to
save E500mn a year. Dresdner already has taken a E330mn restructuring
charge. (Int'l Herald Tribune)
GERMANS ATTEMPT TO SEIZE POWER IN BRITAIN
E.ON is awash with euros, and it's dying to spend them. This German
electricity company with a made-up name (the branding consultants have
infiltrated Germany too) went to France, but received the response they
manage with such elegance over there. Smarting from its rebuff by Suez
Lyonnaise des Eaux, the giant has smelled the blood of an Englishman and
gone for PowerGen. Unfortunately, these German men of power have
more money (£16bn) than sense; the unfortunate Otto Majewski,
deputy chief executive, denied takeover talks on Tuesday, repeating a
mistake which earned his company an SEC fine just 18 months ago.
Yesterday the company confirmed the market rumours and admitted the
approach.
The talks, said PowerGen, were at a preliminary stage. They can say that
again: the all-powerful Ed Wallis, both chairman and chief executive of the
company, has been soaking up the sun in the Virgin Islands, and only
returns to his desk this morning. So far, this offensive doesn't look like the
last German campaign, when RWE took out Thames Water in just a week,
by sheer weight of financial ordnance. Mr Wallis knows a bit about German
utilities - he was on RWE's economic advisory board for 4 years. He is
fiercely independent, and it would take a bid on the RWE scale of
generosity to persuade him to surrender. (The London Telegraph -
Commentary)
J.P. MORGAN CHASE FALLS 65%, G.M. BY 51%
JP Morgan Chase, the investment bank created by Chase Manhattan's
$35bn takeover of JP Morgan 2 weeks ago, got off to a sticky start
yesterday when it announced a 65% drop in 4th-quarter profits. The decline
in operating earnings to $763mn from a pro-forma $2.18bn was worse than
Wall Street expectations, which had already been lowered by profits
warnings from the 2 banks last month. It was blamed on a $92mn
investment loss, a 24% increase in operating expenses to $5.74bn and a
slump in trading revenues from $1.48bn to $1.27bn. Operating revenues fell
12% to $7.57bn.
Elsewhere, General Motors announced a 51% drop in underlying 4th-
quarter profits to $609mn, driven by a slowdown in America and heavy
losses in Europe and Asia. GM Europe plunged to a $463mn loss from a
$30mn profit in the same period of 1999. The company announced the
closure of its Luton car assembly plant last month and yesterday it said
Robert Hendry, head of Germany's Adam Opel unit, had resigned. (The
London Telegraph)
AN UNEXPECTED LOSS IN CLEANUP AT BANK ONE
Bank One Corp. reported an unexpected 4th quarter loss Wednesday of
$512mn as it spent more to cover bad loans, cut jobs and improve
efficiency. Bank One's loss contrasted with net income of $411mn, or 36
cents, in the like period in 1999. Jamie Dimon, the company's chief
executive for the past 10 months, raised pretax loan-loss reserves by $1bn
and took pretax charges of $575mn to clean up the Chicago-based bank,
which stumbled in 1999 as it lost credit card customers. "This is probably
our last messy quarter." The 4th-quarter loss surprised investors, however.
"Very few expected it would be as bad as it ended up being," said James
Ellman, a fund manager at Merrill Lynch Investment Managers. (Int'l
Herald Tribune)
SADDAM: ALLAH GRANTED IRAQ VICTORY IN GULF WAR
Saddam Hussein yesterday claimed the mantle of Islamic heroes past,
marking the 10th anniversary of the Gulf war by declaring that Allah had
granted Iraq victory over America and its allies. Saddam's appeal to Arab
and Muslim sentiment reached a bizarre new extreme with an apocalyptic
speech describing the war as a kind of prelude to the battle of the End of
Days. His address was long on rhetoric and short on substance. It made no
mention of how he intends to lead Iraq out of sanctions.
Saddam did not repeat the conciliatory signals to the US made a day earlier
by Tariq Aziz, the deputy Prime Minister, who said Iraq was ready for a
dialogue with Washington, that it would reciprocate any positive gestures,
and that Baghdad did not threaten US interests. Saddam chose instead to
cast himself in the role of a divinely-inspired visionary, above everyday
politics. He compared his army to the Companions of the Prophet
Muhammad. His soldiers, he said, fought like an exploding volcano, a
roaring ocean, the Tigris in full flood and a lion defending its cubs.
A few hours earlier, about 1,000 Iraqis were bused to a rally in the centre
of Baghdad roughly the time when Allied aircraft dropped their first bombs
in 1991. Gathered outside the offices of the UN representative in Iraq, the
demonstrators protested against the sanctions, burned American flags and
chanted, "Down, down, USA" and "Down, down, British crown". (The
London Telegraph)
* Temperate in comparison to some of this other public statements - in the
past he urged the overthrow of "throne dwarves" in other Arab nations -
Mr. Saddam's remarks come at a time of strong oil prices and steady
political rehabilitation. Apparently reacting to rumors that he is dying of
cancer or has suffered a stroke, Iraqi television has been frequently
replaying appearances of Mr. Saddam meeting with his cabinet or firing one
handed rifle shots at a military parade.
With Gulf War memories of his decision to fire Scud missiles at Israel still
lingering, Mr. Saddam is hailed today as a hero by Palestinians engaged in
new violence with the Jewish state. Still, Mr. Saddam remains estranged
from Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, which are still wary of Baghdad's repeated
threats and unrepentant reading of history. The Iraqi deputy prime minister,
Tariq Aziz, said this week that Kuwait "got what it deserved" in 1990
because it was undermining Iraq's oil prices and stealing Iraqi oil by drilling
beneath the border.
The president's son Uday Hussein, a member of Parliament, suggested this
week that parliamentary maps be modified to include Kuwait "as part of
larger Iraq." But Mr. Saddam's isolation from other Arab states is easing.
The Iraqi vice president, Taha Yassin Ramadan, is in Egypt this week to
sign a free trade agreement. And Iraq has been working with Syria, an
ideological foe, on the restoration of an oil pipeline that could help Iraq
further skirt an international embargo.
The situation is a profound reversal for a man whose regime was teetering
a decade ago. Sticking to their announced intention of only driving Iraq from
Kuwait, allied forces halted their advance outside Baghdad, and the war
ended with the regime still in power. Mr. Saddam was faced almost
immediately with a political uprising among the country's Shiite Muslim
majority, with economic sanctions so restrictive that they helped contribute
to large-scale malnutrition and disease, and with the task of rebuilding
power plants, bridges, roads and other infrastructure destroyed by the war.
Yet Mr. Saddam has survived and declared in his speech: "Iraq has
triumphed over the enemies. It will triumph in all the remaining rounds."
(Int'l Herald Tribune)
BUSH TO ADD ECONOMIST TO NATIONAL SECURITY STAFF
President-elect George W. Bush plans a major change in his National
Security Council, adding economics experts to involve it far more in the
economics changes that have caused upheaval around the world. Mr. Bush,
who described his plans on a hike on his ranch in Texas, said he had asked
his national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, and his chief economic
adviser, Lawrence Lindsey, to "share a desk" that would work to coordinate
the United States' foreign policy objectives with its economics strategy.
"It's a way to make sure the economic people don't run off with foreign
policy and vice versa," Mr. Bush said, apparently referring to the major role
the Treasury Department has had over the last 8 years in setting policy
toward China, Japan and, to a lesser degree, Russia. "Globalization has
altered the dynamics in the White House, as well as between the White
House and the Treasury. We have to respond to that."
In an interview Monday from her home in California, Ms. Rice said that she
and Mr. Lindsey would jointly run a staff that would deal with international
economic policy and coordinated responses to the types of crises that have
occurred in Mexico, Asia and Russia, crises that have frequently brought
down governments. The staff would be "physically located within the NSC
offices," she said, but would report both to her and Mr. Lindsey.
Mr. Bush's plan appears to be an effort to build upon, but also substantially
alter, President Clinton's crack at the same problem. In 1993, he created
the National Economic Council, a White House unit that he initially
described as an equivalent, and a counterweight, to the long-established
National Security Council. The economics council became a strong force in
developing domestic economic policy and was particularly powerful under
its first chairman, Robert Rubin, but in size, budget and influence, it never
grew to rival the National Security Council.
A version of the economics council will still exist, and Mr. Lindsey will run
it. But international economic issues will belong to a separate staff, run by a
deputy assistant to the president, reporting to the heads of both councils.
"International economic issues are still not as integrated as they should be in
the national security process," Ms. Rice said Monday. "So we are going to
try to do this in as seamless a way as possible. We are still thinking through
the details."
Before Mr. Clinton took office, other administrations talked about making
the national security directorates more savvy about economic forces. But
that effort was often halfhearted, and forgotten as soon as a military crisis
arose that focused attention elsewhere. The pressure has grown, however,
as it has become obvious that the Central Intelligence Agency and the State
Department have been slow to reorient themselves toward the challenges
of economic interdependence - and slow to hire or promote staff members
with economics skills.
The CIA was widely criticized for having failed to identify the internal
economic rot that contributed to the breakup of the Soviet Union in the
administration of Mr. Bush's father. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, senior
officials of the agency talked a great deal about reorienting their mission to
protecting America's economic lead, and they devoted considerable
resources to studies of how foreign governments use under-the-table
payments to steal business from U.S. companies.
The intelligence officials also provided more resources to U.S. trade
negotiators, at one point going as far as listening in on the telephone
conversations of Japan's minister of international trade and industry during
tense negotiations in 1995 over American access to the Japanese
automobile market.
The US has repeatedly been taken by surprise by economic crises that
created political risks. The Mexican currency crisis crept up unnoticed in
Washington, and in 1997 the CIA and the State Department's economics
officers failed to detect early signs of the currency crisis in Asia that
ultimately spread to Indonesia and brought down President Suharto.
Investors with billions of dollars at stake in Mexico and Asia missed the
same signals. (Int'l Herald Tribune)
BOMBSHELL: JESSE JACKSON LOVE CHILD; MISTRESS PAID IN
CASH
Spiritual adviser to President Clinton Reverend Jesse Jackson took his
pregnant mistress to an Oval Office meeting at the height of the Lewinsky
Impeachment saga, a stunning new report claims. Washington will soon be
jolted and storm clouds will form over Inauguration Weekend after a
NATIONAL ENQUIRER expose alleges Jesse Jackson fathered a
daughter conceived out of wedlock by a part-time RAINBOW
COALITION staffer who was given $40,000 to relocate to Los Angeles
where she now lives in $365,000 multi-bedroom spread and receives a
$10,000 a month stipend from Jackson, it is alleged.
The NEW YORK POST is rushing to splash the story in fresh editions,
according to newspaper sources. "JESSE JACKSON'S LOVE CHILD" --
the ENQUIRER is planning to blare in its Page One splash of its January
30 edition. "A $40,000 moving expense is outrageous," one RAINBOW
COALITION source tells the ENQUIRER. The ENQUIRER names the
mother, aged 39. It does not name the young miss, aged 2.
Clinton administration officials were bracing for yet another photograph,
obtained by the ENQUIRER, which pictures Jesse Jackson, the pregnant
mistress, President Bill Clinton, and RAINBOW COALITION executives
smiling in the Oval Office. The picture was taken on December 3, 1998 --
at the height of the Clinton sex scandal. "Here was Rev. Jackson
counseling Bill Clinton on his infidelity and Jackson's pregnant mistress was
smiling along?" asked a publishing source. (Drudge Report)
MICHAEL TURNER
(mykelturner@airmail.net)
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To: bprlist@egroups.com
Subject: [bprlist] (Fwd) Mitchell Committee delays arrival
From: "research-bpr" <research-bpr@philologos.org>
Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 09:45:09 -0500
------- Forwarded message follows -------
Date sent: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 05:17:22 -0500
From: imra@netvision.net.il
To: imra@imra.org.il
Subject: Mitchell Committee delays arrival
until after elections
Mitchell Committee delays arrival until after elections
Aaron Lerner Date: 18 January 2001
Israel Radio's senior diplomatic correspondent Yoni Ben Menachem
reported on the noon news program today that the Mitchell Committee
has postponed its arrival in Israel until after the February 6
elections.
The Mitchell Committee, an international fact-finding committee set
up at Arafat's request to investigate the violence in the
territories, became engulfed in controversy after its technical staff
failed to coordinate a visit to the Temple Mount with Jerusalem.
The team visited the Mount on Saturday without even informing Israel,
and no Israeli official was present. The tour was conducted entirely
by the Palestinian waqf.
Israel's Foreign Ministry protested the incident and Israeli
officials are considering halting all cooperation with the committee.
Ben Menachem also reports that the size of the technical staff now in
Israel has been significantly reduced.
Dr. Aaron Lerner, Director
IMRA (Independent Media Review & Analysis)
(mail POB 982 Kfar Sava)
Tel 972-9-7604719/Fax 972-3-5480092
INTERNET ADDRESS: imra@netvision.net.il
pager 03-6750750 subscriber 4811
Website: http://www.imra.org.il
--------------------------------------------
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To: bprlist@egroups.com
Subject: [bprlist] (Fwd) Ha'aretz: Jordanian-Palestinian tension
From: "research-bpr" <research-bpr@philologos.org>
Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 09:45:09 -0500
------- Forwarded message follows -------
Date sent: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 02:10:19 -0500
From: imra@netvision.net.il
To: imra@imra.org.il
Subject: Ha'aretz: Jordanian-Palestinian tension
Ha'aretz: Jordanian-Palestinian tension
For some, the Intifada is an Israeli conspiracy against Jordan
By Zvi Bar'el Ha'aretz 18 January 2001
"There's no need to take the soccer games so seriously. People shout all
kinds of things which they don't mean. They get excited and overwrought, the
defeat is disappointing, and then all kinds of nonsense is spoken," says a
Jordanian news commentator.He was referring to the public and parliamentary
debate that followed increasingly frequent incidents of Jordanian soccer
fans taking advantage of the atmosphere in the football stadium in order to
express their opinions of the Palestinians in general, and particularly of
the Intifada and its victims. This expression of opinion included curses
against the Palestinians, and especially against the mothers who gave birth
to them. Such verbal altercations between native Jordanians and Jordanians
of Palestinian origin, based on national differences, are of concern to the
Jordanian government which, contrary to the Jordanian commentator, is
determined to try and stop what it considers a dangerous deterioration in
the relations between Palestinians and Jordanians in Jordan.
The dispute between Jordanians and Palestinians is not a new one. It is fed
by the historical grievances that are a legacy of the annexation of the West
Bank to Jordan and the events of Black September. But from the time when the
late King Hussein decided to remove the Jordanian political patronage, which
he had previously offered the Palestinians, and severed Jordan even from its
historical presence in Jerusalem, there was no longer any immediate excuse
for political confrontation between the Palestinian leadership and Jordan.
King Abdullah reinforced his father's approach when he gave his wholehearted
support to the founding of an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem
as its capital, and no longer mentioned the special connection Jordan has in
Jerusalem, a connection which is anchored in a special letter that
accompanies the peace agreements between Jordan and Israel.
But the political positions of the government are not automatically adopted
by the public. When the king speaks, for example, about the fact that the
Jordanians, both the original ones and those of Palestinian origin, are one
family united under the Jordanian flag, there are those who react cynically.
"We are one family, but with many problems of blood revenge," as a Jordanian
member of parliament once said after an impressive speech by Abdullah on the
subject of national unity.
The question of national unity has become increasingly fraught since the
outbreak of the Intifada. After Jordanian security forces intervened to
prevent mass demonstrations and the trip to the bridge organized by the
heads of the trade unions, the Jordanian Information Ministry widely
publicized the number of assemblies which the Jordanian government had
allowed, in order to prove its identification with the Intifada. But
immediately afterward, Jordanian newspaper columnists did not hesitate to
point out that "the Intifada is there, and not here," and that Jordan must
prevent a situation in which identification with the Intifada causes
suffering to the Jordanians, dismantling of their cars or smashing of
windows.
In the past two weeks, those in Jordan who consider the Intifada a danger
have become increasingly vocal. This is not the opinion of the majority, but
the marginal engaged in the debate are managing to make enough noise to
force the government and the king to react with determination. At one of the
discussions in the Jordanian parliament, one of the MPs, Ahmed al-Abadi, who
represents the Abad tribe, described the Hamas as representatives of the
Israeli Mossad, whose purpose in Jordan is to incite riots. He also
characterized the Palestinian Intifada as an Israeli conspiracy designed to
export the Intifada to Jordan in order to undermine its government; this
would enable Israel to implement the ideas of Likud candidate Ariel Sharon,
who considers Jordan the alternate homeland of the Palestinians.
True to his belief, Abadi demanded that the Jordanian information minister
order Jordanian television to cease covering events in the territories and
interviewing Palestinian leaders, and suggested that they cover instead the
"Intifada of the hungry," those Jordanians who, he says, live in harsh
conditions in the south of Jordan.
In interviews and in speeches, Abadi explains to anyone who is interested,
the heavy damage caused to Jordan by the Intifada. He estimates that the
monetary damage has so far reached about $100 million, including the loss of
income from tourism, the loss of the export market to the territories, and
direct damage to property inside Jordan. Abadi estimates that if the
Intifada continues, the monetary damage to Jordan is likely to reach about
$450 million.
These words gave rise to excoriation by other members of parliament, and
especially by his rival, Halil Atia, who cast doubt on "Abadi's Jordanian
credentials." Atia reminded the public of Abadi's relations with Israel and
Israelis, and did not forget to mention his visits to Israel.
These arguments do not end with verbal exchanges in parliament, but are also
joined by trade union activists, journalists and businessmen, some of whom
argue in closed circles, while others express their opinions in articles or
in letters to the editor. "Not everyone agrees with Abadi's ideas, and his
insinuations that this is a conspiracy hatched by Israel," says a Jordanian
journalist. "But there is definitely a fundamental fear of the consequences
of the Intifada on the social fabric in Jordan. The king's words about
national unity in Jordan are no longer a sociological slogan, but almost a
security need. The king had good reason for declaring unequivocally that he
would use an iron hand against anyone trying to damage our national unity."
The Jordanian opposition claims that many of the soccer fans who were caught
shouting in favor of the Intifada were detained for questioning, and that
some are still under arrest, whereas some of those who cursed the
Palestinians are walking around free. Prime Minister Ali Abu Al-Ragheb had
to declare three times that Jordan will not agree to absorb even one more
Palestinian refugee, and said that the right of return and the right to
compensation are sacred. But these declarations did not remove the fears and
the doubts. Two weeks ago, Marwan Barghouti, head of the Tanzim, the
military arm of Fatah, in an interview for a Jordanian paper, declared
specifically that the Palestinians have no intention of exporting the
Intifada to Jordan or to any other country. This statement only aroused more
questions.
"In a society shrouded in conspiracies, such a statement means that he does
in fact intend to export the Intifada, or at least that is how people here
understand it. Otherwise, why did he bother to deny it in such a manifesto,"
says the Jordanian journalist. Newspaper columnists demand that the
government reveal more details about the negotiations to the public, in
order to prevent the flourishing of rumors, which give rise to doubts as to
the determination of the Jordanian government.
A Jordanian journalist wrote in the newspaper "Al-Dustur" that the
government should not stint on information, because "when the citizen does
not receive information from the government, he turns to the Israeli and
Western newspapers, and to the satellite stations, which add confusion to
the situation. And if the prime minister accuses the press of causing panic,
it's because there is no exact information from the government." The
journalist feels that there are those who want to keep Jordan out of the
negotiations in order "to build a solution [to the refugee problem] at its
expense." This expression has one meaning, i.e. settling the refugees on
Jordanian soil.
When that is the great fear, there is someone ready to try to pull the
carpet out from the other side, saying that Jordan was too hasty in ceding
its holdings in Jerusalem, and that the Palestinians should receive control
over the holy sites only when a recognized Palestinian state is founded. In
other words, if the Palestinians are threatening Jordan with concessions on
the question of the right of return, they should be aware that, at least in
theory, Jordan has some legal holdings in Jerusalem, which it can still
exploit.
About two million Palestinians live in Jordan, and the demographic change
likely to result from the decision to settle additional refugees is Jordan's
greatest fear, but not its only one. The difficult economic situation, which
has worsened in the wake of the Intifada, the loss of income and of
investments, the closing of the Palestinian market as a result of the
closures and encirclements, the rising unemployment, accompanied by new
taxes and the plan to raise fuel prices, are an important enough reason to
reject any plan to settle additional refugees in Jordan.
Some Jordanians are of the opinion that settling refugees in their country
is likely to bring about economic momentum, cause the real estate market to
start moving, make new lands available and bring foreign currency to Jordan,
thus helping the frozen economy; on the other hand, opponents point out that
if we are talking about an economic promise, where is the economic promise
which was given to Jordan's citizens with the signing of the peace agreement
with Israel?
"The public has no confidence in such promises; they understand that the
ones who will benefit from the investments will be the usual rich people,
large contractors and businessmen, who always take the cream for
themselves," says a lecturer at the University of Amman. "This money will
first be transferred to the government, and from there, to those close to
it. The public suspicions of economic promises are always reconfirmed. If we
want to help the Palestinians, we can develop the Palestinian market,
transfer the refugees there, raise the level of demand among them, and thus
open an important channel for export of Jordanian merchandise. But
absorption of refugees in Jordan, setting up more refugee camps and
burdening Jordan's weak market with additional manpower with no way of
making a living, is a guaranteed formula for economic and social ruin.
--------------------------------------------
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To: bprlist@egroups.com
Subject: [bprlist] Russia Today items (1/17/01)
From: "research-bpr" <research-bpr@philologos.org>
Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 09:45:09 -0500
Russians Angered by Bush Remarks
(http://www.russiatoday.com/news.php3?id=257385)
EU'S PATTEN HEADS TO RUSSIA, KALININGRAD ON AGENDA
BRUSSELS -- European Commissioner for External Relations Chris Patten
travels to Russia on Wednesday for talks set to be dominated by the
European Union's plans to admit new members from Moscow's former
sphere of influence.
http://www.russiatoday.com/news.php3?id=257645&brief=text
RIGHTS ENVOYS END CHECHEN TRIP, RUSSIA WARNS REBELS
MOSCOW -- Officials from rights monitoring body the Council of Europe
ended a visit to war-torn Chechnya on Wednesday as Moscow vowed to
"neutralize" rebel leaders.
http://www.russiatoday.com/news.php3?id=257643&brief=text
Russia, France Discuss U.S. Missile Shield Plans (17Jan.01)
http://www.russiatoday.com/news.php3?id=257568&brief=text
Russia Thwarts Turner Bid to Purchase NTV (17Jan.01)
http://www.russiatoday.com/news.php3?id=257548&brief=text
Russia to Launch Ship to Bring Mir Era to End (17Jan.01)
http://www.russiatoday.com/news.php3?id=257547&brief=text
Russia's Putin Gives Extremist Zhirinovsky Top Merit Award (17Jan.01)
http://www.russiatoday.com/news.php3?id=257549&brief=text
Russians Arrest Dozens of Chechens in Search for Abducted U.S. Aid
Worker
(17Jan.01)
http://www.russiatoday.com/news.php3?id=257308&brief=text
Envoy Urges Russians to Show "Decency" in Chechnya (17Jan.01)
http://www.russiatoday.com/news.php3?id=257307&brief=text
Chechen Web Site Says Russians Use Weapons With Depleted Uranium
(17Jan.01)
http://www.russiatoday.com/news.php3?id=257552&brief=text
Chechen Guru Dreams up Fed Air Strikes on Civilians Before Lord Judd's
Visit
(17Jan.01)
http://www.russiatoday.com/news.php3?id=257396&brief=text
Council of Europe Group Visits Chechen 'Filtration Camp' (17Jan.01)
http://www.russiatoday.com/news.php3?id=257388&brief=text
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Subject: [bprlist] Scientists Bring Light to Full Stop, Hold It, Then Send It on Its Way
From: "research-bpr" <research-bpr@philologos.org>
Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 09:49:01 -0500
1/18/01
Scientists Bring Light to Full Stop, Hold It, Then Send It on Its Way
By JAMES GLANZ
Researchers say they have slowed light to a dead stop, stored it and then
released it as if it were an ordinary material particle.
The achievement is a landmark feat that, by reining in nature's swiftest an=
d
most ethereal form of energy for the first time, could help realize what ar=
e
now theoretical concepts for vastly increasing the speed of computers and
the security of communications.
Two independent teams of physicists have achieved the result, one led by Dr=
.
Lene Vestergaard Hau of Harvard University and the Rowland Institute for
Science in Cambridge, Mass., and the other by Dr. Ronald L. Walsworth and
Dr. Mikhail D. Lukin of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics,
also in Cambridge.
Light normally moves through space at 186,000 miles a second. Ordinary
transparent media like water, glass and crystal slow light slightly, an
effect that causes the bending of light rays that allows lenses to focus
images and prisms to produce spectra.
Using a distantly related but much more powerful effect, the Walsworth-Luki=
n
team first slowed and then stopped the light in a medium that consisted of
specially prepared containers of gas. In this medium, the light became
fainter and fainter as it slowed and then stopped. By flashing a second
light through the gas, the team could essentially revive the original beam.
The beam then left the chamber carrying nearly the same shape, intensity=20
and
other properties it had when it entered. The experiments led by Dr. Hau
achieved similar results with closely related techniques.
"Essentially, the light becomes stuck in the medium, and it can't get out
until the experimenters say so," said Dr. Seth Lloyd, an associate professo=
r
of mechanical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who
is familiar with the work.
Dr. Lloyd added, "Who ever thought that you could make light stand still?"
He said the work's biggest impact could come in futuristic technologies
called quantum computing and quantum communication. Both concepts rely
heavily on the ability of light to carry so-called quantum information,
involving particles that can exist in many places or states at once.
Quantum computers could crank through certain operations vastly faster than
existing machines; quantum commmunications could never be eavesdropped=20
upon.
For both these systems, light is needed to form large networks of computers=
.
But those connections are difficult without temporary storage of light, a
problem that the new work could help solve.
A paper by Dr. Walsworth, Dr. Lukin and three collaborators =97 Dr. David
Phillips, Annet Fleischhauer and Dr. Alois Mair, all at Harvard-
Smithsonian =97 is scheduled to appear in the Jan. 29 issue of Physical=20
Review
Letters.
Citing restrictions imposed by the journal Nature, where her report is to
appear, Dr. Hau refused to discuss her work in detail.
Two years ago, however, Nature published Dr. Hau's description of work in
which she slowed light to about 38 miles an hour in a system involving beam=
s
of light shone through a chilled sodium gas.
Dr. Walsworth and Dr. Lukin mentioned Dr. Hau's new work in their paper,
saying she achieved her latest results using a similarly chilled gas. Dr.
Lukin cited her earlier work, which Dr. Hau produced in collaboration with
Dr. Stephen Harris of Stanford University, as the inspiration for the new
experiments.
Those experiments take the next step, stopping the light's propagation
completely.
"We've been able to hold it there and just let it go, and what comes out is
the same as what we sent in," Dr. Walsworth said. "So it's like a freeze
frame."
Dr. Walsworth, Dr. Lukin and their team slowed light in a gas form of
rubidium, an alkaline metal element.
The deceleration of the light in the rubidium differed in several ways from
how light slows through an ordinary lens. For one thing, the light dimmed a=
s
it slowed through the rubidium.
Another change involved the behavior of atoms in the gas, which developed a
sort of impression of the slowing wave.
This impression, actually consisting of patterns in a property of the atoms
called their spin, was a kind of record of the light's passing and was
enough to allow the experimenters to revive or reconstitute the original
beam.
Both Dr. Hau's original experiments on slowing light, and the new ones on
stopping it, rely on a complex phenomenon in certain gases called
electromagnetically induced transparency, or E.I.T.
This property allows certain gases, like rubidium, that are normally opaque
to become transparent when specially treated.
For example, rubidium would normally absorb the dark red laser light used b=
y
Dr. Walsworth and his colleagues, because rubidium atoms are easily=20
excited
by the frequency of that light.
But by shining a second laser, with a slightly different frequency, through
the gas, the researchers rendered it transparent.
The reason is that the two lasers create the sort of "beat frequency" that
occurs when two tuning forks simultaneously sound slightly different notes.
The gas does not easily absorb that frequency, so it allows the light to
pass through it; that is, the gas becomes transparent.
But another property of the atoms, called their spin, is still sensitive to
the new frequency. Atoms do not actually spin but the property is a
quantum-mechanical effect analagous to a tiny bar magnet that can be=20
twisted
by the light.
As the light passes through, it alters those spins, in effect flipping them=
.
Though the gas remains transparent, the interaction serves as a friction or
weight on the light, slowing it.
Using that technique, Dr. Hau and Dr. Harris in the earlier experiment
slowed light to a crawl. But they could not stop it, because the transparen=
t
"window" in the gas became increasingly narrower, and more difficult to pas=
s
through, as the light moved slower and slower.
In a recent theoretical advance, Dr. Lukin, with Dr. Suzanne Yelin of
Harvard-Smithsonian and Dr. Michael Fleischhauer of the University of
Kaiserslautern in Germany, discovered a way around this constraint.
They suggested waiting for the beam to enter the gas container, then
smoothly reducing the intensity of the second beam.
The three physicists calculated that this procedure would narrow the window=
,
slowing the first beam, but also "tune" the system so that the beam always
passes through.
The first beam, they theorized, should slow to an infinitesimally slow
speed, finally present only as an imprint on the spins, with no visible
light remaining. Turning the second beam back on, they speculated, should
reconstitute the first beam.
The new experiments bore those ideas out.
"The light is actually brought to a stop and stored completely in the
atoms," Dr. Harris said. "There's no other way to do that. It's been done =
=97
done very convincingly, and beautifully."
http://partners.nytimes.com/2001/01/18/science/18LIGH.html?Partner=3DAltaVi
sta&RefId=3D_WLmY_WEFnnunuu-ly
via: Third_Watch@egroups.com
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Subject: [bprlist] The Eastern U.S. Keeps Its Cool
From: "research-bpr" <research-bpr@philologos.org>
Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 09:50:25 -0500
NASA Science News for January 18, 2001
While surface temperatures across most of the globe are on the rise, the
eastern U.S. appears to be slowly cooling. Scientists say the trend could be
a result of increasing cloud cover triggered by warming Pacific waters.
FULL STORY at
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2001/ast18jan_1.htm?list110823
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Subject: [bprlist] Farewell to arms control
From: "research-bpr" <research-bpr@philologos.org>
Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 10:00:53 -0500
Farewell to arms control
In a dangerous world, Bush prefers weapons to international agreements
"THE outcome of great battles is often determined by decisions on funding
and technology made decades before." So says George W. Bush in his
policy statement on defence. But experts in Europe and the US fear
decisions the new president must make soon will mean those battles will be
fought using horrific weapons that other leaders have spent decades trying to
control.
Bush's policy statements highlight the threat from chemical and biological
weapons. "But the response seems more likely to be in terms of Fortress
America than international controls," says Oliver Meyer of Vertic, a pro-arms-
control group in London. A key phrase in Bush's defence pronouncements
has been "homeland defence", a preference for protecting American soil over
international arms control efforts.
Bush has made it clear that a high priority for defending American soil will be
the National Missile Defense (NMD) system--a scaled-down version of
Ronald Reagan's "Star Wars" programme (see opposite). But such a system
is prohibited under the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, signed by the US and
former Soviet Union in 1972. "The idea of the treaty was that each side
promised to be vulnerable, so nuclear deterrence would work," says Tom
McDonald of the British American Security Information Council, an arms-
control think tank based in London and Washington DC. "The US no longer
wants to be vulnerable, or deterred."
Defending this position in the Chicago Tribune last month, Condoleezza
Rice, Bush's nominee for national security adviser, wrote that deterrence
only worked during the Cold War. "Today, the principal concerns are nuclear
threats from the Iraqs and North Koreas of the world." To achieve NMD, Bush
says he will either talk Russia into amending the treaty, or will abandon it.
The danger then will be China, whose few missiles would become useless if
NMD ever works. According to McDonald, "China typically retaliates against
moves it doesn't like by selling missile technology to proliferation states," as
it did to Pakistan recently. "US insistence on NMD could end up aiding the
rogue states it is meant to oppose."
But, says Meyer, opposition to NMD is so strong in Europe that the US may
need to make concessions in other areas to achieve it. One might be to
ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, a move which was narrowly
defeated in the Senate last year. But the CTBT could still die, says
McDonald. China, too, has not ratified. "To counter NMD, China would need
missiles with multiple warheads. Now it has only single warheads." To scale
up, China would have to resume testing, which in turn might prompt India and
Pakistan to resume as well.
The CTBT is under pressure from another direction. Nuclear weapon
designers at US national labs such as Los Alamos are pressing the
government to abandon the treaty so they can test a new generation of small
nuclear weapons aimed at breaking hardened targets such as underground
bunkers. Bush has pledged $20 billion more funding during his term for
weapons research.
There is even less optimism about the Biological Weapons Convention. A
system for verifying the treaty, requiring countries to declare biological
activities and submit to inspections of labs, is due to be agreed this year.
But the US has so far blocked the most stringent measures, and a new team
may be unlikely to take a softer line, says Barbara Rosenberg of the State
University of New York at Purchase, an expert on the treaty. "They won't
offend their friends in the biotechnology industry by agreeing to intrusive
inspections," agrees McDonald.
At least one area of arms control seems likely to be supported by the new
administration: the Chemical Weapons Convention, a pet project of Bush's
father when he was president. When the US enacted the CWC in 1998, it
exempted itself from the verification inspections required by the treaty, and
from the obligation to allow samples taken during inspections to be tested
out of the country. "One would hope the son will fix what Washington did to
his father's treaty," says Amy Smithson of the Henry L. Stimson Center, a
defence think tank in Washington DC.
Debora MacKenzie
From New Scientist magazine, 20 January 2001.
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns22746
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To: <bprlist@egroups.com>
Subject: Re: [bprlist] Farewell to arms control
From: Lion0Juda
Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 14:26:25 EST
I personally am very happy to say, "It's about time!" We Americans are being left out in the cold. We are not the heros we used to be in other countries. We are sitting ducks. Our military is everywhere except here. We need to be realistic. We cannot make rational agreements with irrational people. That is a big problem in all of the arms control agreements, they are only as strong as the weakest character.
(me, stepping down off my soap box)
Kimberly
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Subject: [bprlist] Computer chips might one day be cooled by armies of microscopic fans
From: "research-bpr" <research-bpr@philologos.org>
Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 10:03:56 -0500
Cool running
Computer chips might one day be cooled by armies of microscopic fans
Microchips inside a PC could one day be cooled by armies of microscopic
fans actually grown on the surface of the chips and removing the need for a
large, noisy cooling fan.
The inventors of the microfan, which is small enough to sit on the head of a
pin, speculate that it could also be used to propel tiny flying machines or
pump chemicals around lab-on-a-chip analysis devices.
The fan has eight blades, each less than half a millimetre long. It was made
by etching shapes into thin silicon sheets. "You have to think in two
dimensions when you design it, but know how it will turn out once it's been
folded into position," says Paul Kladitis of the University of Colorado at
Boulder. "It's like being some kind of pop-up book artist."
"I'm impressed they got such an elaborate structure to rotate so well with
integrated motors," says Kris Pister, who is working on insect-like
micromachines at the University of California at Berkeley.
Friction drive
Each fan blade is connected to a central hub by a hinge. To pull the flat
blades up into position, Kladitis deposited gold pads on either side of the
hinge. He then dropped a small blob of solder onto the gold pads. Surface
tension between the solder and gold pads raised the blade. "The solder wets
the gold pads and pulls the wing up into a fan blade position," he says.
The fan is powered by a so-called "scratch drive", which nudges it around. At
the hub end of the thin silicon plates are silicon "feet". These rest on an
insulating layer of silicon nitride that coats a silicon substrate beneath the
fan (see diagram).
To drive the fan, the scratch plate and the silicon base are connected to an
alternating power supply. The difference in electrical potential between the
scratch plate and the base produces cycling electrostatic forces that rapidly
pull the scratch plate down onto the insulator coating and up again. Each
time the scratch plate bows downward, the foot pushes against the insulator
and nudges the fan around.
"We used nine scratch plates in a circle like a merry-go-round," says
Kladitis. "When we drive them with a voltage alternating at two kilohertz, we
get speeds from 50 to 180 revolutions per minute." At three kilohertz, an
electrostatically induced wobble in the scratch plate makes the foot push in
the opposite direction, driving the fan into reverse at 100 rpm.
Kladitis says the fan could be used to pump chemicals around microchip-
based chemistry labs. "You could also put this fan right next to an electronic
component in a computer to cool it, or even use it as some kind of micro-
vehicle propulsion system," he says.
One million revs
Mark Spearing, currently testing microturbines at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, calls the fan "ingenious", but says the speeds
achieved are "rather slow".
"We're striving for in excess of one million rpm in our motor," he says.
Spearing has other concerns too. "I am not a big fan of frictional or sliding
contacts in micro electro-mechanical devices," he says. "Friction and wear
tend to be potential show-stoppers at these scales."
Correspondence about this story should be directed to
latestnews@newscientist.com
1900 GMT, 17 January 2001
http://www.newscientist.com/dailynews/news.jsp?id=ns9999330
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Subject: [bprlist] Mobile phone channels could be trebled by exploiting the reflection of radio waves
From: "research-bpr" <research-bpr@philologos.org>
Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 10:05:49 -0500
3D data
Mobile phone channels could be trebled by exploiting the reflection of radio
waves
Tall buildings scatter and reflect radio waves but US physicists have found
the effect can be used to triple the information carried. This could boost the
number of channels available for mobile phones in big cities, for example.
"We found three times the wireless real estate was there than people knew
about," says Mike Andrews at Lucent Technologies' Bell Labs in Murray Hill,
New Jersey.
Andrews came across the effect while studying how radio waves travel
through built-up environments. The electric and magnetic fields that make up
radio waves oscillate in three dimensions. But when a radio wave is sent
from one point straight to a receiver, the oscillations in the direction of travel
are not picked up by the receiver.
The result is that information can be carried by radio waves in only two
orientations or polarisations - vertical and horizontal. Andrews found that
when a radio wave is reflected off a surface, such as the side of a building,
the vibrations in the direction of travel change orientation and can then be
picked up at the receiver.
The scattering also allows the magnetic fields associated with the radio
waves to carry information in all three directions; normally they contain no
information not already carried by the electric field.
3D transmitter
Andrews reasoned that the extra vibrations could be used to carry
information if the transmitter and receiver were redesigned to detect signals
polarised in three dimensions.
So the team built such equipment and for both the transmitter and receiver,
they connected three antennae together at right angles to each other. By
sending separate signals to each of the antennae of the transmitter, they
found they could beam radio waves polarised in three dimensions.
To demonstrate the 3D wireless system, Andrews and his colleagues
beamed the image of a painting across their canteen to a receiver 25 metres
away and hidden round a corner. The image was transmitted three times
faster, because three channels of different polarisation were used, not just
one.
Shlomo Shamai of the Technion in Israel says the idea "is most interesting,
but calls also for much further work to assess the real implication on actual
technology."
Source: Nature (vol 409, p 316)
Correspondence about this story should be directed to
latestnews@newscientist.com
1900 GMT, 17 January 2001
Jeff Hecht
http://www.newscientist.com/dailynews/news.jsp?id=ns9999335
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Subject: [bprlist] Keeping it in the family
From: "research-bpr" <research-bpr@philologos.org>
Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 10:08:09 -0500
Keeping it in the family
English cattle inbred for over 300 years are almost clones but remain as
fertile as ever
Members of a herd of cattle that has been inbred for at least 300 years are
almost clones, yet the herd remains as fertile as ever, says a British team.
This discovery supports suggestions that extreme inbreeding can sometimes
result in a "purging" of bad genes, rather than extinction. And it raises hopes
that inbreeding or even cloning of extinct or endangered species might
produce some successful new populations.
A team led by Peter Visscher of Edinburgh University studied DNA from
members of the now 49-strong herd of Chillingham cattle. These cattle live in
isolation in a park in northern England.
Records indicate that no new cattle have joined the herd in over 300 years.
They also reveal that the fertility of the herd has not declined over this time.
This is despite a population crash in 1947, which left only eight bulls and five
cows.
The new DNA analysis shows that the herd "is almost a clonal organism,"
says Stephen Hall of De Montford University, UK, one of the researchers.
"This is unprecedented in mammals - no other population is so uniform."
"This study doesn't alter the likelihood that inbreeding will lead to extinction.
But it does suggest that purging can happen," says Hall.
So while inbreeding small numbers of endangered animals may often result
in poor fertility and even extinction, Hall thinks that in some "lucky" cases,
gene purging could lead to viable populations.
Lucky line
The team examined 25 "microsatellite markers" in DNA taken from 13
calves, cows and bulls. They found that 24 of the 25 markers were identical
in all the cattle. Samples from a normal herd would have shown that around
70 per cent of the markers were different, says Hall.
The inbred herd's survival may be due to harmful genetic mutations cropping
up only infrequently. This would allow the mutations to be purged by cattle
deaths without the herd being wiped out, says Hall.
But this successful purging probably happens infrequently, he says, as
previous research suggests that inbreeding usually does weaken a
population. One key study on mice in the 1960s found that 19 out of 20
inbred lines died out.
"There are other white cattle populations, but most would have died out if
they hadn't been cross bred," says Hall. "It's possible that we've had 20
populations and we've got one left."
Domestic bliss
Luck may have had a significant part to play in the Chillingham herd's survival
but other factors probably contributed to its success, says Hall. Most
significantly, the herd was once domesticated.
"They're now running wild, and they're feral, but there may have been some
human help in the gene purging during domestication," says Hall. "There is a
theory that during domestication, you select for genes that tolerate
inbreeding."
If genes that promote tolerance of inbreeding do exist, tracking them down
may be important for the successful breeding of small numbers of
endangered species in the future, he says.
More at: Nature (vol 409, p 303)
Correspondence about this story should be directed to
latestnews@newscientist.com
1900 GMT, 17 January 2001
Emma Young
http://www.newscientist.com/dailynews/news.jsp?id=ns9999333
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Subject: [bprlist] For Your Consideration
From: Pam Baker
Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 15:55:24 -0500
Answers to Questions.
Studies, in the Bible, have led me to conclude the ‘place prepared of
God´, Revelation 12, is the Nation of Israel and this is where the
woman, Israel, will flee at the beginning of the seven years, where she
will be nourished for 1,260 days. At the mid-point of the seven years
we are told she is to fly into the wilderness on the wings of a great
eagle. This indicated, to me, that she would, literally, fly out of
Israel to the US, the great eagle, where she will be for the next 1,260
days. However, I was uncertain as to how valid this could be since,
apparently, the beast would be able to impose the ‘no seal, no buy or
sell,´ edict everywhere. However, it came to my attention this morning,
the new president of the US, in his defense policy statements, has been
stressing ‘home defense´ in place of arms control. His policy
statements have highlighted the threat from chemical and biological
weapons but, as Olive Meyer says: "But the response seems more likely
to be in terms of Fortress America than international controls."
It is possible, therefore, that, between now and the mid-point of the
seven years, the US could set up defenses that would allow it to repel
attacks from all quarters, including attacks from the revived Roman
Empire during the second half of the seven years. In that event, when
Satan takes over the beast, the US (the great eagle) could, and I think
would, mount an airlift of Israelites to the US. The beast would send
out a flood of fighters to destroy the planes of the airlift but God
would already have arranged to make the US defenses powerful enough for
‘the earth´ to ‘swallow up the flood´, literally, in the Atlantic ocean.
At the present time, the population of the US probably includes people
from every nation in the world. If not, people from the ‘missing´
nations could wind up in the US during the seven years, so that, when
the end comes there would be a remnant from every nation to survive the
vial judgments and enter the millennium kingdom in their natural state,
with the remnant of the Jews, and repopulate the earth. Praise the
Lord!
In old testament times God raised up the Babylonian empire and used
them to punish the Jews and it is possible He has raised up the US to
save a remnant of all nations, including the Jews. Praise the Lord!
An unbridled arms build-up between now and the time of Armageddon would
ensure that enough destructive power is available to effect the total
destruction God said would come. He is God!!!
Charles Baker January 18, 2001
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Subject: Re: [bprlist] For Your Consideration
From: <owner-bpr@philologos.org>
Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2001 10:01:27 -0500
Hello Charlie,
I appreciate your thoughts on Rev 12:14, however, I must respectively disagree with much of it, especially the part about the United States being "the great eagle." I present my viewpoint Charlie only with the intent that we can learn from one another -- not to suggest a "I'm right, you're wrong" type of argument.
Revelation 12:14
"And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent."
If I may, please allow me to suggest that the phrase "two wings of a great eagle" is a figure of speech, bringing to mind, specifically the Jewish mind, the event of the exodus out of Egypt where the care and nurturing nature of God was abundantly revealed to the Israelites. I believe the wings of the (and most texts suggest the article should be "the" and not "a") eagle is symbolically referring to God's intervention, not a nation's.
Exodus 19:4
"Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles' wings, and brought you unto myself."
Deut 32:9-14
For the LORD'S portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance. He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness; he led him about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye. As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings: So the LORD alone did lead him, and there was no strange god with him. He made him ride on the high places of the earth, that he might eat the increase of the fields; and he made him to suck honey out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty rock; Butter of kine, and milk of sheep, with fat of lambs, and rams of the breed of Bashan, and goats, with the fat of kidneys of wheat; and thou didst drink the pure blood of the grape.
Isaiah 40:31
"But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint."
Aside from the many biblical references to eagle's wings, Jewish literature also has similar symbolism. In addition to what I've quoted below, one interesting Judaic principle is that proselytes or converts to Judaism are brought under the "wings of the Divine Presence" or "wings of the Shechinah".
"Among mortals, it is the slave who carries his master, but of God we read 'And how I bore you on eagles' wings' (Ex. XIX, 4). Among mortals, it is the master who sleeps, while the slave stands by, but God is the guardian of Israel, for it says, 'Behold, He that keepeth Israel doth neither slumber nor sleep' (Ps. CXXI, 4)." [Midrash Rabbah - Exodus XXV:6]
"'YE HAVE SEEN WHAT I DID UNTO THE EGYPTIANS. AND HOW I BARE YOU ON EAGLES' WINGS. What do 'eagles' wings' denote? According to R. Judah, the 'eagles' are a symbol of mercy, as it says: 'As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings, so the Lord...' (Deut. XXXII, 11). As the eagle watches lovingly over its own young, but is cruel towards others, so does the Holy One manifest His loving mercy to Israel and His severe judgement to the heathen nations." [Soncino Zohar, Shemoth, Section 2, Page 80b]
"The gazelle gives birth to her young on the topmost point of a rock, and it would fall into the abyss and be crushed to death, if I did not send an eagle thither to catch it up and carry it to its mother. Were the eagle to appear a minute earlier or later than the appointed time, the little gazelle would perish. It hath never happened that the proper minute of time was missed. Should I, then, have mistaken Job for another?" [Louis Ginzberg, "Legends of the Jews," Volume II, Job.]
"The words that Moses was to address to the women as well as to the men, to the Sanhedrin as well as to the people, were as follows: "You yourselves have seen - for it is not from writings, or through tradition, or from the mouths of others that ye learn it - what I did for you in Egypt; for although they were idolaters, slayers of men, and men of lewd living, still I punished them not for these sins, but only for the wrong done to you. But ye will I carry on the wings of eagles, on the day of the revelation at Sinai, and ye will I bring to Me when the Temple shall be erected. Since I have wrought for you so many miracles, even before you had received the Torah and observed the laws, how many more miracles will I work for you, when you will have received the Torah and observed the laws! The beginning of all things is hard, but as soon as you will have grown accustomed to obedience, all else will be easy to you. If you will now observe the Abrahamic covenant, the Sabbath, and the commandment against idolatry, then will you be My possession; for although everything belongs to Me, Israel will be My especial possession, because I led them out of Egypt, and freed them from bondage." [Ginzberg, Volume III, The Torah Offered to Israel]
One might still argue that the U.S. is the "instrument" that God will use to carry the "woman" to the wilderness. While it is true that the eagle is an American emblem, at the time that Revelation was written, it was also an emblem of the Roman empire. If "a great eagle" is to suggest a nation, to the first century hearers of this book then, the nation brought to mind would have been Rome -- and that just doesn't fit into the interpretation of Revelation 12 I believe. Also note that the emblem being referenced is the wings of an eagle, not the eagle itself.
As an interesting side issue here, the similarities between Rome and the U.S. are worth looking at. I sent this to the list a year or so ago, and found it most telling:
To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Rome & America
From: bpr-list@philologos.org(BPR)
Date: Thu, 17 Jun 1999 11:51:10 -0500
From: <owner-bpr@philologos.org>
Hi guys...
Found this comparison quite interesting:
From 100-300 AD most of pagan Rome converted to Christianity.
When America was founded, 67% of the population was
Christian.
Christians in Rome suffered severe persecution.
Christians in America were fleeing European persecution.
Rome was the melting-pot of the world.
America is the melting-pot of the world.
Rome was a democracy based upon a two-party system (the
Optimates and the Populares).
The USA is a democracy based upon a two-party system
(Democrats and Republicans).
Rome had a divided balance of power (Roman Tribune and his
Senate).
America has a divided balance of power (President and
Congress).
Rome was based on specific laws (Rome's 12 tables).
America is based on specific laws (the Constitution).
Rome protected the rights of its citizens.
America protects the rights of its citizens (Bill of Rights).
In Rome all men were equal (International Law of Rome).
In America all men are equal (Declaration of Independence).
Rome had a sordid history of slavery.
America had a sordid history of slavery.
Rome was capitalistic.
America is capitalistic.
Rome practiced abortion as a means of population control.
America practices abortion as a form of population control.
Rome loved R-rated entertainment (history of Pompeii).
America protects R-rated entertainment under the First
Amendment as freedom of speech.
Rome had a welfare program funded by taxes.
America's welfare budget rivals its military budget.
Rome had a thriving business in lawsuits.
America has a thriving business in lawsuits.
Sports was Rome's pastime.
In America football dominates fall and winter, basketball winter
and spring, and baseball spring and summer.
Ancient Rome's national emblem was the single-headed eagle
pointing west.
America's national emblem is the single-headed eagle pointing
west.
From 300-500 AD the Roman Church was weakened spiritually
because of pagan infiltration.
After 200 years the Church in America has been weakened
spiritually because of Masonic infiltration.
(Daniel, John. "Scarlet and the Beast," Vol. I, pgs 698-699,
(c)1995; quoting Randy Shupe, "Is America Mystery Babylon the
Great?" (c)1990, pg 79)
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To: bprlist@egroups.com
Subject: Re: [bprlist] For Your Consideration
From: tracy
Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 02:33:28 -0500
> If I may, please allow me to suggest that the phrase "two wings of a great eagle" is a figure of speech, bringing to mind, specifically the Jewish mind, the event of the exodus out of Egypt where the care and nurturing nature of God was abundantly revealed to the Israelites. I believe the wings of the (and most texts suggest the article should be "the" and not "a") eagle is symbolically referring to God's intervention, not a nation's.
I would like to add something to this if I may.
I was meditating after reading some parts of the bible. I had questions
as to the symbolic meaning and questions as to translation from many
languages to english. I know that is not always easy.
A couple of thoughts appeared to me and I saw them, this is how I
understood them to mean. If GOD inspired the written text would not GOD
have known how the meaning of words change with time and through
translation. So as to inspire certain people through out history in
their part of the world?
GOD also has to get a message through to people that are not in
existence yet in a place that is not there and a language that does not
exist. Futher complicated by a prophets ability to describe what they
could not understand. Like a rocket or a gun to atomic explosion. So
GOD put prophesy in patterns like he told Nostradamus to do. Like a
paraphrase. Or a Tom Cruse movie.
Here is an example of what I mean by pattern or form. All of his movies
are basicaly the same. tom plays a nderprivliged kid with talent in
conflict with privliged kid who because of economic status is seen as
superior. Toms character (call him x) has some success against rich
kid (call him d). x meets girl that is wanted also by or currently
with d. Success gets her attention and they find "True" love, soul
mates. X gets big head. X stumbles. X admits within himself that he
has problems and faces them. X has a comeback and beats d at his own
game and in great fashion. X wins girl. Most movies out today fit one
formula or anouther. Scripter seems this way.
I see the Eagle as FREEDOM. GOD created us a FREE people. The
freedom to pursue happiness the freedom to learn and grow. The freedom
to pursue the delights of your imagination. To pursue what GOD engraved
within you.
With freedom to pursue GODs will for you and a atmosphere that
encourages growth, (something we need to get back to) you have a place
that will breed contentment and happiness. But that is the last thing
that Babylon wants. By Babylon I mean the economic forces that have
been entrenched for centuries. The money behind the power. When people
are content with little more than they need for there pursuits and
simple living they tend to not work very hard. Why bother with that
when you can get back to living within GOD? Not to mention that if you
dont have a need you tend not to buy this gadget or that.
I see the Beast as the United Nations under agenda 21 with Ba' hai as
the second beast. Fire could be the Wold press orginization with all of
the deciet that comes through the air waves. When The lady is symbolic
of Lady Liberty and the Eagle symbol of power and freedom. Freedom and
encouragement have given us the understanding that words really can't
hurt you and that to me is a wonder of Heaven. For to me heaven is
salvation from your accurser. So people that understand that have a
little piece of Heaven in their lives.
Any way this is the vision that came to me. Thank you for your time.
GOD bless you all.
Tracy
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To: bprlist@egroups.com
Subject: [bprlist] Harpazo.net News items (1/18/01)
From: "research-bpr" <research-bpr@philologos.org>
Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 18:43:31 -0500
Turkey Warns France On Genocide Bill
Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit has warned that relations with France
are on the verge of a serious crisis. The French parliament is due to vote on
Thursday on a bill which seeks to recognise as genocide the killing of
Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. In one last effort to sway French political
opinion, Mr Ecevit summoned the French ambassador on Wednesday to
warn that relations between the two countries would suffer what his office
called "great and durable harm" if the bill is approved. BBC
Egypt In On The Ground Floor With Incoming Bush Administration
Egypt has begun talks with the transition team of President-elect George W.
Bush and hopes that the incoming administration will bolster U.S. strategic
relations with Cairo.
Egyptian diplomats said Bush has already contacted President Hosni
Mubarak and Secretary of State-designate Colin Powell has spoken on the
telephone with Egyptian Foreign Minister Amr Mussa. The talks concerned
bilateral relations and Middle East issues.
Egypt's ambassador to Washington, Nabil Fahmi, said the Bush team
envisions visits by Egyptian senior officials to the United States in the
second half of this year. Fahmi told the Egyptian state daily Al Ahram that
he expects relations to be bolstered during the Bush administration. world
tribune
Sunrise In California Could Plunge State Into Blackout
Experts fear California will face another power crisis Thursday morning, when
thermostats are moved up, coffee makers started and offices switch on
copiers and computers. That surge in power usage could drop electrical
reserves down enough to cause blackouts around 7 a.m. PST (10 a.m. EST).
California's Independent System Operator (ISO) expects to receive less
electricity from other states or Canada on Thursday than it did Wednesday,
which means that blackouts, if they occur, would range statewide from near
the Oregon border to San Diego.
State power officials warned that the rolling blackouts may resume around 10
p.m. PST (1 a.m. EST) Wednesday, though some said that scenario was
unlikely, since many residents are using less power at that hour.
Jim Detmer, managing director of ISO operations, said if the blackouts were
reinstituted later in the day, "it will be a statewide event." He said, "The
situation is very serious, extremely serious." CNN
Astronomers Close-In On Alien Signal
A detailed look at the point in space from where an intelligent signal might
have come has revealed nothing unusual. The observations, using the
multiple radio dishes of the Very Large Array (VLA) in New Mexico, add to
the mystery of what has been called the "Wow" event. In August 1977 radio
astronomers in the United States detected what could have been a signal
from intelligent life in space. But it happened only once. Now, two
astronomers, Robert Grey and Kevin Marvel, have used the VLA to look at
the spot with unprecedented sensitivity. They saw nothing strange or
anything that could explain the signal. BBC
Today In Italy: Day of Christian - Jewish Friendship
At the end of today's general audience the Holy Father told the pilgrims
present in the Paul VI Hall that "today in Italy we are celebrating the Day for
Jewish-Christian Friendship. As I express appreciation and support for this
initiative of the Italian Church, I hope with all my heart that it contributes to
the development of an authentic Jewish-Christian dialogue." He also recalled
that "tomorrow starts the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, during which
the Churches and ecclesial communities will pray together so that the will of
Christ, that is, that His disciples be one only, will be realized. ewtn
Supremes Won't Hear Baptist Temple Case
The Supreme Court decided yesterday not to hear the case of a church
awaiting seizure by U.S. Marshals -- an action set in motion by an appeals
court that said the church owes $6 million in back taxes, interest and
penalties.
The church did not withhold certain employment taxes from employees'
paychecks, leaving individuals to decide whether or not to pay the taxes due.
About 60 church employees passed IRS audits. But the agency determined
the taxes should have been withheld and paid by the church, not individuals,
and successfully sued the Indianapolis Baptist Temple.
As reported by WorldNetDaily, the Indianapolis Baptist Temple stands by its
convictions that a church and its property belong only to God. However, what
individuals choose to do with the money they receive from the church is their
own decision, says IBT's attorney Al Cunningham. Members and friends of
IBT are holding a rally today in response to what they say is "the death of
religious liberty in America." The rally begins at the church in Indianapolis at
noon. world net daily
Coalition Helps Kids Avoid 'Homosexual Curriculum'
A coalition of traditional-family advocates has announced the release of a
comprehensive "opt-out" form for parents who disagree with pro-homosexual
education programs and curriculum content in California public schools.
The form is similar to one Designed to give parents more control over what
their children learn in government schools, the opt-out form was created by
the California Student Exempt Project. Member organizations include the
Campaign for California Families, Life Legal Defense Foundation, Pacific
Justice Institute, the Pro-Family Law Center and United States Justice
Foundation.
"With homosexual curriculum coming into all public schools, it is imperative
that parents and grandparents take action now to protect their children's
eyes, hearts and minds," said Andrea Franklin, team coordinator for project
and field operations director for Campaign for California Families. "The
Student Exemption Form is the most helpful opt-out form ever created for
California parents. It will save children from dangerous new laws promoting
perverse sexual behavior." world net daily
www.harpazo.net/news.html
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========
To: bprlist@egroups.com
Subject: [bprlist] BNI.Priority News 1,2 (1/18/01)
From: "research-bpr" <research-bpr@philologos.org>
Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 18:43:32 -0500
1. More on murder of 16-year-old Ashkelon resident=09
2. Peace partners continue to boycott Israeli products=09
3. Shooting in Kfar Darom and at Rafiah crossing=09
4. Holon bounty hunter apprehended by Israeli security agents=09
5. No injuries in shooting attack against Egged bus in Samaria=09
6. Soldiers attacked by gunfire during =91hot pursuit=92 of terrorists=20
7. Peace partners continue to boycott Israeli products=09
8. Shooting in Kfar Darom and at Rafiah crossing=09
9. 40 collaborators living in Israel turn themselves over to PA=09
10.Sharon agrees to Palestinian statehood=09
11.Hunger strikers call it quits after 19 days=09
12.Terror victim released from hospital=09
13.PM condemns murder of 16-year-old=09
=20
***************************
18-JAN-01 =96 9:30pm
***************************
1. More on murder of 16-year-old Ashkelon resident
(BNI-JAN.18) Police report that it appears a 16-year-old resident of
Ashkelon left his home earlier this week to rendezvous with an Internet
lover or acquaintance, a resident of the PA autonomous city of Ramallah.
Family members indicated they were uncertain of his destination when he
left home, reportedly carrying a significant amount of cash. The family of
the victim has been notified by police and the body has been positively
identified. At this time, the name is not being released for publication.
Family members reported the youth missing on Wednesday. Police=20
launched an
investigation.
The bullet-ridden body of an unidentified man believed to be an informant
who was executed, was located on a road near the Jewish community of
P=92sagot on Wednesday, inside the PA autonomous area. The body was
transported to a Ramallah hospital. When Israeli officials circulated the
photograph to their PA counterparts in the ongoing search for the missing
Ashkelon resident, the corpse in the Ramallah hospital found near P=92sagot
was identified as the missing teenager.
The slain teen was seen together with an Arab female inside Ramallah by
IDF Soldiers on Wednesday, reporting that at about 11:00am Wednesday
morning, a car stopped in Ramallah and persons dressed in plainclothes got
out of the vehicle and opened fire on him, killing him.
It is being reported that he was shot =93multiple times=94. PA officials ar=
e
turning over the body to the Ramallah area IDF District Coordinating
Office on Thursday night. PA security officials report several suspects
have been arrested for the murder.=20
The teenager became the 47th victim of Islamic terrorists since the start
of the PA orchestrated Intifada on Sept. 29, 2000.
BNI will provide additional details as they are made available.=20=20
=20
++++
2. Peace partners continue to boycott Israeli products
(BNI-JAN.18) PA residents are stepping up their boycott of Israeli
products, doing their utmost not to purchase items manufactures in Israel.
Many stores throughout PA autonomous areas are proudly displaying that
they have removed all Israeli products from their shelves while motorist
display bumper stickers calling for a total boycott of Israeli goods.
Marwan Barghouti, a senior commander of the PA=92s Tanzim terrorist force,
has called for increasing the boycott, pointing out that in addition to
the ongoing daily attacks, the PA residents must place an economic
stranglehold on Israel as well.=20=20
++++
3. Shooting in Kfar Darom and at Rafiah crossing
(BNI-JAN.18) IDF forces at Kfar Darom and at the Rafiah border crossing to
Egypt in southern Gaza came under attack by PA gunfire on Thursday
evening. There were reports of heavy exchanges of gunfire. There were no
reported casualties among IDF forces.=20=20
++++
4. Holon bounty hunter apprehended by Israeli security agents
(BNI-JAN.18) Holon resident Shmuel Ashakota, 50, was apprehended by
Israeli security forces after it was learned that he was receiving money
from PA security officials for the apprehension of former Arab
collaborators who assisted Israeli security forces.
According to preliminary reports, Ashakota would attempt to convince a
collaborator to accompany him into the PA area to close a business deal,
then setting him up with PA security officials who were waiting to make
the collar upon their arrival.
One such collaborator, who was apprehended and injured, then transported
to a PA hospital in Hebron, managed to escape and tell his story to agents
of the General Security Service (GSS/Shin Bet) who subsequently moved in
and made the arrest, assisted by police.
Ashakota=92s wife told reporters that her husband was not successful in
providing a livelihood and became despondent. She added that the NIS 5,000
check received from the PA bounced so they received nothing for the effort
and her husband was under arrest.
When police came to apprehend him, he pulled out a knife and threatened to
harm his wife and himself. He was taken into custody without incident.=20
++++
5. No injuries in shooting attack against Egged bus in Samaria
(BNI-JAN.18) An Egged bus traveling in northern Samaria, south of the
Jewish community of Shavei Shomron, was attacked by gunfire on Thursday
evening. There were no reports of casualties but bullets did cause damage
to the armor-plated vehicle.=20=20
++++
6. Soldiers attacked by gunfire during =91hot pursuit=92 of terrorists
(BNI-JAN.18) IDF soldiers in =91hot pursuit=92 of terrorists that fired on =
a
commuter bus near Ofra earlier in the evening were attacked with gunfire
in the Arab village of Silwad, which is under PA civil and IDF security
control. There were no reported casualties. Soldiers returned fire. (Kol
Rina =96 formally Kol M=92Hashetach)=20=20
=20
++++
7. Peace partners continue to boycott Israeli products
(BNI-JAN.18) PA residents are stepping up their boycott of Israeli
products, doing their utmost not to purchase items manufactures in Israel.
Many stores throughout PA autonomous areas are proudly displaying that
they have removed all Israeli products from their shelves while motorist
display bumper stickers calling for a total boycott of Israeli goods.
Marwan Barghouti, a senior commander of the PA=92s Tanzim terrorist force,
has called for increasing the boycott, pointing out that in addition to
the ongoing daily attacks, the PA residents must place an economic
stranglehold on Israel as well.=20=20
++++
8. Shooting in Kfar Darom and at Rafiah crossing
(BNI-JAN.18) IDF forces at Kfar Darom and at the Rafiah border crossing to
Egypt in southern Gaza came under attack by PA gunfire on Thursday
evening. There were reports of heavy exchanges of gunfire. There were no
reported casualties among IDF forces.=20=20
++++
9. 40 collaborators living in Israel turn themselves over to PA
(BNI-JAN.18) Fearing for their lives, about forty former collaborators
that worked for the General Security Service (GSS/Shin Bet) and live in
Israel, turned themselves over to the PA during the past week.=20
Earlier in the week, PA Minister of Justice Freih Abu Meidan announced
that any former collaborator who turns himself in, and agrees to provide
the name of his handler and other informants, would receive clemency.=20=20
Security officials are having an increasingly difficult time obtaining
intelligence information from areas throughout Yesha as a result of the PA
crackdown on collaborators and more stringent rules governing the
operation of GSS agents and their interrogation methods, aimed at
conforming to international human rights standards. Opponents of the
implementation of GSS guidelines insist that the result will be increased
Islamic terrorist attacks.=20=20
++++
10. Sharon agrees to Palestinian statehood
(BNI-JAN.18) Likud candidate for Prime Minister, MK Ariel Sharon, on
Thursday revealed his plan that would be implemented if elected to office
on Feb. 6.
Sharon announced that a Palestinian state would be established on 42
percent of Judea and Samaria already in PA control and additional Jewish
communities throughout Yesha would not be uprooted. He added that new
communities would not be constructed.
Sharon=92s multi-stage plan is based on reciprocity, explaining on Thursday
that the PA would have to ensure that law and order were maintained and
Islamic terrorism would be stopped.=20=20
Sharon explained that Jerusalem would remain as it is presently without
and changes in the status quo arrangement over the Temple Mount and other
holy sites.
Other points of the Sharon plan include;
a) No peace negotiations with Syria at this time,=20
b) Major Israeli construction drive in the Galilee Region,
c) An end to closures on PA autonomous areas,
Sharon repeated earlier statements that the education ministry portfolio
would remain in Likud hands but promised National Religious Party allies
that they NRP would not be excluded and would be well cared for in his
government. He did not elaborate. Earlier in the week, Zevulun Orlev, the
NRP representative to the Sharon campaign, resigned with the consent of
party leader MK Rabbi Yitzhak Levy, after it was learned the NRP would not
receive the sought after educational portfolio that has been in NRP hands
during the overwhelming majority of governments during the past decades. =
=20
++++
11. Hunger strikers call it quits after 19 days
(BNI-JAN.18) Safra Square hunger strikers in Jerusalem on Thursday have
called it quits following their 19-day effort. The participants of the
strike were protesting the ongoing government peace negotiations with the
PA while daily terror attacks continued.
Strike leaders explained that the decision to bring the effort to an end
was several fold. The end of the Clinton administration on Saturday marks
the end of any real chance of a substantial agreement prior to the
elections. Prof. Eli Pollack, strike leader and senior member of the
Professors for a Strong Israel organization, pointed out that any
agreement signed between Israel and the PA following Clinton=92s stepping
down was not binding and of little significance other than a Labor Party
pre-election ploy.
They added that following requests from President Moshe Katzav and Chief
Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau to end the strike, they deemed it appropriate to
comply.=20=20
++++
12. Terror victim released from hospital
(BNI-JAN.18) Ohz Guata, 12, who was shot in a northern Jerusalem terrorist
attack on Jan. 8, was released from Jerusalem=92s Hadassah Hospital on
Thursday.=20=20
++++
13. PM condemns murder of 16-year-old=20
(BNI-JAN.18) In response to the reports of the murder of a 16-year-old
Ashkelon resident on Wednesday in the PA autonomous city of Ramallah,
Prime Minister/Defense Minister Ehud Barak condemned the act and added
that negotiations could not continue while terrorism was ongoing.
=93The brutal murder was most tragic and we see it in a very serious
light=85It is most difficult to continue negotiations during an atmosphere
of violence such as this latest attack. There are many legitimate voices
among the Israeli people calling for an end of talks in light of such
events. This does not help and it is most serious=85=94 added the prime
minister.=20=20
---------------------
1. Abducted IDF soldiers reported to be alive=09
2. PA condemns murder of Ashkelon teen=09
3. APC carried attacked by gunfire in Gaza=09
4. Israel likely to agree to marathon talks with PA in Taba=09
5. Israel: PA did not cooperate in search of missing Ashkelon youth=20
6. Barak: PA to receive over 90 percent of Yesha=09
7. Infant found in Herzliya Pituach=09
8. Friday declared =93Day of Rage=94=09
***************************
18-JAN-01 =96 10:42pm
***************************
1. Abducted IDF soldiers reported to be alive
(BNI-JAN.18) According to a report by a German intermediary, the three IDF
soldiers kidnapped from northern Israel by the Hizbullah terror
organization in Oct of last year are alive although one=92s condition is
reported as =93sensitive=94.
It is being reported that efforts to obtain the release of the three are
underway with the assistance of foreign intermediaries. To date, Hizbullah
has refused to permit International Red Cross or other officials visit the
soldiers in order to confirm they are alive and well.
The three are Sergeant Adi Avitan, Staff-Sergeant Avraham Binyamin, and
Staff-Sergeant Omer Suaed.=20=20
++++
2. PA condemns murder of Ashkelon teen
(BNI-JAN.18) As reported earlier by BNI, PA officials=92 report that severa=
l
suspects have been taken into custody, alleged to be connected to the
murder of a 16-year-old Ashkelon resident on Wednesday. The name of the
victim has not yet been cleared for release.
Senior PA officials have condemned the attack in an official statement
released on Thursday night.=20=20
++++
3. APC carried attacked by gunfire in Gaza
(BNI-JAN.18) An armored personnel carried was attacked by gunfire in Gaza
on the Karnei/Netzarim road. There were no injuries to Israeli forces that
returned fire, injuring two assailants.=20=20
++++
4. Israel likely to agree to marathon talks with PA in Taba
(BNI-JAN.18) Analysts report it is likely that the so-called Security
Cabinet will on Friday approve PA requests for marathon negotiations to
achieve some type of agreement prior to the Feb. 6 election for prime
minister in Israel. The talks would be hosted in Taba.=20
With various popularity polls showing the Likud candidate leading Prime
Minister Barak by 13-20 percentage points, it appears that PA Chairman
Arafat is working to sign a document with Barak to create facts on the
ground prior to the election of a right-wing government under the
leadership of Ariel Sharon.=20=20
Raviv Druker, a political correspondent for Galei Tzahal/IDF Radio,
reported that the one common denominator of the various polls is there is
no narrowing of the par between Sharon and Barak.=20
The ongoing negotiations during this week and the possibility of the
marathon talks are in contradiction to recent statements made by PM Barak
who promised talks would not resume until there was an end to daily
shooting attacks.
++++
5. Israel: PA did not cooperate in search of missing Ashkelon youth
(BNI-JAN.18) Israeli security officials on Thursday night report that with
the discovery of the dead body of the missing Ashkelon teenager in the
autonomous city of Ramallah, the PA did not cooperate with police during
the search.
The senior sources reported that they turned to their PA counterparts
during the search for the missing Ashkelon teenager but did not receive
cooperation from the PA, adding that PA officials attempted to cover-up
facts in the case and interfere with the search and investigation.=20=20
PM Barak stated that those responsible would be punished, adding that such
attacks only make the negotiating process increasingly difficult and
complicated.
The ongoing investigation into the terrorist murder indicates that the
female who met the victim was involved in luring him to the area and
setting up the shooting attack.=20
++++
6. Barak: PA to receive over 90 percent of Yesha
(BNI-JAN.18) During Labor Party election ads aired on Israel Television
Thursday night, Prime Minister Ehud Barak stated that in an agreement with
the PA, over ninety percent of Yesha (Judea, Samaria & Gaza) would be
turned over to PA control.=20
Barak added that a special situation and governing body would oversee free
access to holy sites for all in Jerusalem=92s Old City. The Western Wall,
Mount of Olives and Old City would remain under exclusive Israeli
sovereignty and the Temple Mount would not be given away to the PA, added
Barak.=20=20=20=20
++++
7. Infant found in Herzliya Pituach
(BNI-JAN.18) A one-day-old infant was found inside a bag on Kaplan Street
in Herzliya Pituach on Thursday night. The infant was transported to
Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv by an EMS ambulance where doctors report he
is in good health.=20=20
++++
8. Friday declared =93Day of Rage=94
(BNI-JAN.18) Intifada leaders have declared this Friday as another =93Rage
Day.=94 Official PA marches and assemblies calling for increased unrests an=
d
violence accompanied such days during past weeks. The days also signaled
increased attacks against Israeli military and civilian targets.=20=20
++++
=20
++++
News items published by BNI (=93BreakingNews-Israel=94) and/or =93BNI.Elect=
ion=94
lists, may be distributed, copied, posted providing the websites and other
forums carrying the stories display the footer below instructing readers
how to subscribe in plain view on the same page with the news.=20=20
++++
1. To subscribe to the BreakingNews-Israel list, send a blank email
message to 44828-subscribe@listbot.com=20=20=20
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To: bprlist@egroups.com
Subject: [bprlist] Nightline: Part two of series on CIA predictions for year 2015
From: "research-bpr" <research-bpr@philologos.org>
Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 18:52:04 -0500
TONIGHT=92S SUBJECT: Part two of our series on the CIA predictions for the
year 2015. Tonight we look at three main areas, the change in the world=92s
population and demographics, the threat posed by new diseases, and believe
it or not, water, rather than oil, becoming a cause of regional conflicts.
Already this morning, I heard from three different people who said that
last night=92s broadcast scared them so much that they couldn=92t watch the
whole thing. Clearly from a ratings standpoint, this is not good.=20
Seriously though, that surprised me. Those of you who saw the program
know that the analysis put together by the CIA is a little bleak. But I
think their purpose, and our purpose in running these broadcasts, is to
raise these issues now so that the government, and the public, can prepare
for them, and hopefully take the necessary steps to head off the more dire
predictions, or at least be more prepared to react to some of these
developments. As Ted said in the interview last night, paraphrasing
Dickens, we=92re seeing the shape of things that may come to pass, not
things that will come to pass. But maybe I=92m just being optimistic.
Tonight=92s show will look at three specific issues. The first is the
emergence of new and more virulent diseases. The danger here is seen as so
great that some argue that the U.S. military should not be deployed to
certain parts of the world so that they will not be exposed. Secondly,
we=92ll look at how the population of the world is changing. First, the
numbers are exploding, mostly in those parts of the world where the
infrastructure to support larger populations does not exist. Huge numbers
of people are moving from the countryside to the cities, bringing a whole
new set of problems. And lastly, water is looming as a scarce and
valuable resource over the next few years. With larger populations comes
greater demand for water for irrigation and just personal use. Some
countries are beginning to dam off the rivers passing through their
territories, cutting off needed supplies for the countries further
downstream. If oil was a reason to go to war before, water certainly will
be. It=92s sobering stuff.
[...]
Nightline <listeditor@abcnews.go.com>
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To: bprlist@egroups.com
Subject: [bprlist] Russia halts military cuts as hawks take over in US
From: "research-bpr" <research-bpr@philologos.org>
Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 18:52:57 -0500
Russia halts military cuts as hawks take over in US
Missile defence plans strengthen the Kremlin hardman's arm
Ian Traynor in Moscow
Thursday January 18, 2001
The Kremlin has shelved plans to cut and restructure the Russian armed
forces radically, a decision seen by Moscow analysts as its first concrete
response to the incoming Bush administration's decision to press ahead with
the "son of Star Wars" national missile defence system.
In November, after months of infighting between military commanders,
President Vladimir Putin ordered them to put their house in order by reducing
the 1.2m under arms by 360,000 in the next five years. He also ordered a
shift in emphasis from the strategic nuclear missiles to conventional forces.
The reshaping was to have begun last month, but nothing will happen until
March at the earliest. "The main reason for the delay is the first steps of the
new US leadership," the respected military analyst Viktor Litovkin said.
Only time will tell whether Presidents Putin and Bush will strike up a friendly
relationship, but the early signs are of increasing hostility between Moscow
and Washington on security, arms control and economic and financial
issues.
In the past few weeks Washington has accused Moscow of covertly
deploying battlefield nuclear weapons in Kaliningrad, its westernmost
enclave, and has been angered by Russian moves to invigorate arms sales
to Iran.
Moscow, in turn, accused the US last week of breaching the Start-I nuclear
arms reduction agreement by going ahead with the national missile defence
system (NMD). Mr Putin described the Kaliningrad allegation as "total
rubbish."
George W Bush indicated at the weekend that his administration would halt
much financial aid to Russia.
Yesterday the chairman of the Russian parliament's budget committee,
Alexander Zhukov, brusquely responded: "Russia does not need large loans
from foreign countries at the moment."
Yuri Gladkevich, a military observer at Moscow's independent Military News
Agency, said: "There are signs of a worsening in relations, and it looks as
though things will get a lot worse yet."
Moscow analysts see the people Mr Bush has named for his key cabinet
posts - Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice -
as hawks from a bygone era.
"These are people who see themselves as the victors of the cold war," said
Alexander Golts, military commentator on the news magazine Itogi.
"The Kremlin and the generals are flattered by that, because it reminds them
of the days of the USSR when they were a great power. But the new
American administration is making a very strong and negative impact on our
military."
Moscow sent three warships on patrol in the Pacific on Monday, its most
ambitious naval display since the Soviet Union collapsed a decade ago.
Mr Putin has been pushing for a radical overhaul of the armed forces since
the Kursk submarine disaster August, and that has provoked a public brawl
between the defence minister, Igor Sergeyev, and the chief of the general
staff, Anatoly Kvashnin, who wants the currently separate strategic missile
forces integrated with the army, navy and air branches and scarce resources
redirected to building up conventional forces.
Gen Kvashnin was generally supposed to be getting the better of the
struggle, but Marshal Sergeyev's hand may have been strengthened by the
new US administration's robust militaristic signals and "new realism" in
international relations.
"Sergeyev wants to maintain the strategic missile forces as a political-
military instrument, as the main lever for pressure on the US and Nato," Mr
Gladkevich said.
"The new US administration means Putin won't weaken the strategic
missiles forces to the degree that Kvashnin wants."
In the past year the Kremlin has repeatedly stated that it wants major arms
reductions, including cutting its stockpile of nuclear warheads to 1,500. But
Alexei Arbatov, an influential moderate on the parliamentary defence
committee, now argues that Russia needs 4,500 nuclear warheads to
maintain parity with the US.
"The Kremlin sees NMD as as threat to Russia's national security which will
ignite a new arms race it can't afford," Mr Gladkevich said.
http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/russia/article/0,2763,423745,00.html
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To: bprlist@egroups.com
Subject: [bprlist] (Fwd) PRESIDENT KATSAV TO VISIT
From: "research-bpr" <research-bpr@philologos.org>
Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 08:52:24 -0500
------- Forwarded message follows -------
Date sent: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 19:25:08 -0500
From: imra@netvision.net.il
To: imra@imra.org.il
Subject: PRESIDENT KATSAV TO VISIT RUSSIA,
UKRAINE AND GEORGIA
PRESIDENT KATSAV TO VISIT RUSSIA, UKRAINE AND GEORGIA
(Communicated by the President's Spokeswoman)
Jerusalem Thursday, January 18, 2001
President Moshe Katsav will, from 21-26.1.2001, visit Russia, Ukraine
and Georgia, at the invitation of their heads of state, Vladimir Putin,
Leonid Kuchma and Eduard Shevardnadze, respectively. This will be the
first official visits by a President of Israel to these countries and
President Katsav's first trip abroad.
The visits are designed to strengthen Israel's relationships with each
of the three countries. President Katsav will discuss various issues -
including the peace process, the Middle East situation, and bilateral
issues - with his interlocutors who will include the aforementioned
heads of state, as well as senior government officials in each country.
President Katsav will also meet local Jewish community leaders in each
country. He will be accompanied by Deputy Foreign Minister Nawaf
Massalha, Jewish Agency for Israel Chairman Sallai Meridor, National
Security Council Chairman Maj.-Gen. Uzi Dayan, Netiv Chairman Tzvi Magen
and a 25-person delegation of leading Israeli industrialists.
President Katsav has invited two lone immigrant IDF soldiers - who have
not met with their parents since immigrating to Israel - to accompany
him.
In accordance with articles 22 and 23 of Basic Law: The President of
the State (<http://www.israel-mfa.gov.il/mfa/go.asp?MFAH00hc0>), Knesset
Speaker Avraham Burg will serve as Acting President while President
Katsav is abroad.
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Subject: [bprlist] Humanism
From: "research-bpr" <research-bpr@philologos.org>
Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 09:01:26 -0500
[Link from a list member.]
HUMANISM
by Pastor Bob Hallstrom
I would hope that everyone is familiar with or at least
has heard of the Communist Manifesto. Its ten planks
provide us with the basic tenets of Marxism, and
actually, all the ism's.
But today there is a new manifesto among us -- it is
called the Humanist Manifesto. The Humanist
Manifesto, like the Communist Manifesto, provides
the basic tenets of Humanism, which are given to us
in their Humanist Manifesto I (1933) and Humanist
Manifesto II (1973).
We are going to look at some of these tenets because
it is one way we can understand what Humanism is
all about.
Full article:
http://www.melvig.org/hall/humanism.html
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Subject: [bprlist] Molestation as protected behavior
From: "research-bpr" <research-bpr@philologos.org>
Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 09:06:25 -0500
Molestation as protected
behavior
=A9 2001 WorldNetDaily.com
OK, that does it. I've seen everything, now.
America has gone off the deep end. There's no
other explanation for this kind of insanity.
Here's what has me shocked, mortified, shaking
my head in disbelief, appalled and, nearly,
speechless.
This from the Las Vegas Review-Journal: A
narcotics detective suspected of molesting a
16-year-old boy won't be charged with any sex
crimes by prosecutors, who said such action
would be (are you ready for this?)
"discriminatory toward homosexuals."
Detective Vinten Hartung (that's his name, folks,
it's not a typo), 42, is still being investigated for
two lesser charges of stalking and furnishing
alcohol to a minor. But the big charge -- the
felony -- of "soliciting a minor to engage in the
infamous crime against nature" will be
dropped. Neither will there be a federal felony
charge of using the Internet to solicit a minor for
sex.
"We in essence concluded neither the state nor
the federal authorities are able to pursue the
sexual offenses," said Clark County District
Attorney Stewart Bell. "It discriminates against a
class of people, and that's not allowed under the
equal protection clause of the Constitution."
Do you believe these people?
Here are some more pertinent details: Hartung
was placed on paid leave in November after the
father of the 16-year-old boy complained that
the detective would not leave his son alone. An
investigation found that Hartung and the boy
were, in the words of the newspaper, "involved
in an intimate relationship after making contact
in an America Online chat room."
Intimate relationship? A cop is chasing around a
16-year-old boy, plying him with alcohol,
stalking him and molesting him. And in 2001 we
call that an "intimate relationship."
Here's some more from the absolutely
incredible newspaper report: "Prosecutors said
they had to grapple with the fact that Nevada's
law on soliciting a minor to engage in the
infamous crime against nature makes it a felony
to engage in homosexual sex with anyone under
the age of 18, but the state's age of consent is 16."
Deputy District Attorney Doug Herndon said
using the law "would be singling out
homosexuals, which is bad. We don't want to do
that." Herndon said the intent of the law is to go
after pedophiles who solicit children. Well,
guess what? That's exactly what this creep is -- a
pedophile. The 16-year-old boy is a child.
Now, folks, do you see the problem with all
these so-called anti-discrimination laws that are
being enacted to "protect the rights of gays,
lesbians and transgendered people." What they
are doing, in effect and among other things, is
legalizing child molestation.
The Vinten Hartung case is a prime example.
This monster is on paid leave from the police
department. Paid leave! In other words, he has
been rewarded with a paid vacation for
molesting this boy. There won't be any charges
and he'll probably get his job back.
Do you think he and the 16-year-old boy will
settle down together? Or do you suspect this
pedophile will be back on AOL soliciting other
kids, getting them intoxicated and molesting
them?
What would you do now if this were your son?
He's being stalked, intoxicated and molested by
a police officer. You report the problem. An
investigation shows your fears were justified.
But the authorities say there is nothing they can,
should or will do. What now?
In other words, the state -- in the form of an
armed policeman -- is raping his kid and then
turning around and saying it can't do anything
about it because it would be discriminatory.
Think of it. Put yourself in the father's place -- or
the boy's.
I can tell you exactly where this kind of
state-mandated insanity will lead: It will lead to
street justice.
Just like our basic, common-sense framework of
morality has been turned on its head, our justice
system is totally upside-down. And this is a
perfect example. All the right laws are on the
books -- even new ones about using the Internet
to prey on kids. But the problem is it is
"discriminatory" to apply them.
Well, of course it is discriminatory. Anytime the
law is applied it is discriminatory -- against
criminals. What's wrong with that? That kind of
discrimination is a good thing.
Now do you begin to understand why the Boy
Scouts don't want homosexual scoutmasters in
their ranks? It would be an invitation to this
kind of sexual abuse. And, worse yet, the
abusers might not even get prosecuted.
Joseph Farah is editor and chief executive officer of
WorldNetDaily.com and writes a daily column.
via: Third_Watch@egroups.com
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Subject: [bprlist] China's Sinking City Highlights Water Crisis
From: "research-bpr" <research-bpr@philologos.org>
Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 09:09:37 -0500
China's Sinking City Highlights Water Crisis
CANGZHOU, Jan 18, 2001 -- (Reuters) Cangzhou is sinking.
From his house on the banks of China's Grand Canal, Cao Anguo has
watched his hometown subside almost two meters (yards) in the last three
decades.
As the city's flourishing chemical industry sucks the water table dry, the
ground slips another few centimeters (inches) every year, buckling roads,
tilting and toppling old buildings, and prising lamppost bases from
pavements.
"When I was a kid, there was water everywhere," says Cao, 62, a retired
engineer, standing on a bridge sagging dangerously over a parched river bed.
"We never imagined it could run out."
"Now we know water is our most precious natural resource."
Cangzhou is one of the worst casualties of a man-made water crisis that has
gripped northern China and now threatens to undermine the nation's
economic development and social stability in the 21st century.
More than two decades of overpumping and unbridled industrial development
have turned rivers and streams to dust, dried up wells and springs, and made
entire lakes disappear.
Full story:
http://www.insidechina.com/news.php3?id=258793&brief=text
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Subject: [bprlist] How Your Brain Knows Your Face
From: "research-bpr" <research-bpr@philologos.org>
Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 09:11:46 -0500
How Your Brain Knows Your Face Breakthrough tests show self-recognition
is an ability of the right lobe
Keay Davidson, Chronicle Science Writer
San Francisco Chronicle
Thursday,January 18, 2001
Somewhere inside the brain, obscured by thickets of neural circuitry and
throbbing blood vessels, is the "self" -- that murky whatever-it-is that makes
you feel like a conscious, self-aware human being.
For centuries, scholars have debated what the self is. Is it a nonmaterial
entity -- a little ghost, as
it were -- that can't possibly be explained in terms
of biology, physics or chemistry? Or is it a purely material thing, one that
generates a person's sense of selfhood as a cathode-ray tube generates TV
images?
Now -- with a little help from Marilyn Monroe, Princess Diana, Bill Clinton and
Albert Einstein -- scientists are beginning to analyze the neurological
machinery that enables one to look in a mirror and say: "That's me."
In a remarkable new experiment, scientists at Harvard University have found
powerful new evidence that the right hemisphere of the brain controls one's
ability to recognize one's image, according to results published in today's
issue of the journal Nature.
The scientists demonstrated this by alternately anesthetizing -- temporarily
putting to sleep, as it were -- the left and right hemispheres of several
patients' brains. When the left hemisphere was anesthetized, the right
hemisphere was the sole repository of consciousness; when the right
hemisphere was anesthetized, the left.
Then the scientists showed the subjects computer-merged or "morphed"
images of their own faces combined with those of each celebrity.
Afterward, the subjects were asked to recall what they'd seen. "The results
were spectacular, really amazing," in the words of scientific team leader Dr.
Julian Paul Keenan of Harvard Medical School's neurology department.
He and his three colleagues found that in almost every case, patients whose
right hemisphere had been anesthetized -- leaving the left hemisphere in
charge -- recalled the morphed picture as an image of the famous person,
not of themselves.
The results were diametrically opposite for subjects whose left hemisphere
had been anesthetized, leaving the right side in control. Those subjects
remembered the morphed image as one of themselves, not of Monroe,
Clinton, Einstein or the princess. This is strong evidence that self-recognition
is centered in the right hemisphere.
A brain hemisphere is anesthetized by injecting sodium amytal, an
anesthetic, into an artery leading to that hemisphere. Such anesthesia is
also employed for medical purposes, when surgeons conduct an operation to
relieve epileptic seizures by using a probe to electrically burn out a small,
seizure- generating part of the brain, Keenan said.
Keenan's team also tested patients' response to the photos while they were
exposed to brief, harmless magnetic pulses from a transcranial magnetic
stimulator (TMS). The magnetic pulses trigger transient electrical activity in
selected parts ofthe brain -- in this case, either the left or right hemisphere. If
they target the right part of the brain,they cause the brain to send a signal to
the patient's thumb that makes it jerk.
Amazingly, the subject's thumb jerked more vigorously (as measured by by
electrodes attached to the thumb) when he was simultaneously experiencing
the TMS in his right hemisphere and looking at a picture of his face.
Why? The likely reason, according to Keenan: The brain's recognition of
itself excites right hemisphere nerve cells. Hence an even stronger signal
surges to the thumb.
Keenan, 31, is a cognitive neuroscientist who co-authored the Nature article
with Aaron Nelson, Margaret O'Connor, and Alvaro Pascual-Leone, also of
Harvard.
"What Julian Keenan and his colleagues have managed to demonstrate is
that you can literally turn self-recognition on and off by anesthetizing one half
of the brain or the other. Self-recognition has profound implications for what it
means to be human," said Keenan's former graduate adviser, Prof. Gordon
G. Gallup Jr. of the psychology department at the State University of New
York- Albany, in a phone interview.
Self-recognition is a major neuroscientific mystery partly because it isn't a
universal trait of animals. For decades, for example, animal psychologists
have known that chimpanzees can recognize themselves in mirrors. The
scientists know this because they put traces of paint atop the creatures'
heads, then watch their puzzled reactions as they gaze in mirrors at their
colored domes.
By contrast, monkeys don't react to the paint. This suggests that monkeys
lack a sense of self-awareness -- at least in the human sense of that
admittedly vague term. Chimpanzees are genetically "significantly closer" to
humans than are monkeys, Keenan says.
Keenan's is "a very interesting and elegant experiment," says Dr. Todd
Feinberg, an associate professor of neurology and psychiatry at Albert
Einstein College of Medicine in New York City.
Neurologists recognize a dizzying variety of disorders of self-recognition,
Feinberg noted. For example, a condition called prosopognosia prevents a
patient from recognizing any faces, including her or his own.
Also, a sufferer from "Capgras syndrome" -- named after the scientist Joseph
Capgras, who identified it in a paper published in 1923 -- will recognize his
face, yet he'll insist it isn't really his face; rather, it's the face of a "double."
One of the strangest syndromes is asomatognosia: An otherwise rational
patient vigorously denies that his left arm belongs to him. In one case
reported from England, Feinberg notes, the patient "argued that the arm
must have been sewn on overnight."
Where next for Keenan's research? He's testing how people's self-
recognition is affected when their photos are morphed with famous
personalities who tend to elicit more, shall we say, powerful emotional
reactions: Adolf Hitler and Richard Nixon.
via: isml@egroups.com
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========
To: bprlist@egroups.com
Subject: [bprlist] (Fwd) Ha'aretz: Details of Barak's alternative peace plan
From: "research-bpr" <research-bpr@philologos.org>
Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 09:14:08 -0500
------- Forwarded message follows -------
Date sent: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 01:39:54 -0500
From: imra@netvision.net.il
To: imra@imra.org.il
Subject: Ha'aretz: Details of Barak's alternative
peace plan
Ha'aretz: Details of Barak's alternative peace plan
By Akiva Eldar Ha'aretz 19 January 2001
Wealthy French Barak backer, Jean Friedman says that Prime Minister Ehud
Barak told him this week that it is possible that upon the conclusion of the
Clinton presidency tomorrow, he will make public his peace plan. Its gist is
the following:
"Israel will inform the United Nations that it accepts the principle of two
states - Israel and Palestine - and considers this the implementation of [UN
General Assembly] Resolution 194 [of December 11, 1948]. In addition, Israel
will announce officially that it rejects the right of return [of Palestinian
refugees] in the area of Israel. Simultaneously, Israel will annex the three
large settlement blocs and evacuate the rest of the settlements in the West
Bank and the Gaza Strip (anyone who decides to stay will do so on his own
responsibility). The negotiations on the permanent borders and on Jerusalem
will be conducted between two sovereign states."
--------------------------------------------
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To: bprlist@egroups.com
Subject: [bprlist] (Fwd) Ha'aretz: Court will review petitions to halt talks
From: "research-bpr" <research-bpr@philologos.org>
Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 09:15:13 -0500
------- Forwarded message follows -------
Date sent: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 01:42:18 -0500
From: imra@netvision.net.il
To: imra@imra.org.il
Subject: Ha'aretz: Court will review petitions to
halt talks
Ha'aretz: Court will review petitions to halt talks
By Moshe Reinfeld Ha'aretz 19 January 2001
A High Court panel composed of seven justices will renew discussions this
morning on five petitions which demand that the government be stopped from
conducting talks with the PA before the elections. Responding to the courts
request after the last heari ng, Attorney General Elyakim Rubinstein
submitted a brief arguing that the government is entitled to negotiate, so
long as it exercises suitable caution. The public is to be the arbiter of
what counts as suitable caution, Rubinstein said. Responding yesterday for
the petitioners, attorney Akiva Nof described Rubinsteins position as
evasive and insubstantial.
--------------------------------------------
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To: bprlist@egroups.com
Subject: [bprlist] (Fwd) Ha'aretz: Moslems gave special importance to Western Wall
From: "research-bpr" <research-bpr@philologos.org>
Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 09:18:53 -0500
------- Forwarded message follows -------
Date sent: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 01:55:32 -0500
From: imra@netvision.net.il
To: imra@imra.org.il
Subject: Ha'aretz: Moslems gave special importance
to Western Wall in reaction to Jewish focus on site
Ha'aretz: Moslems gave special importance to Western Wall in reaction to
Jewish focus on site
By Nadav Shragai Ha'aretz 19 January 2001
(Excerpts)
Al- Buraq was the Prophet Mohammed's magical winged steed. According to
Islamic tradition, Mohammed tied it to one of the walls of the Temple Mount
after his night journey from Mecca to Jerusalem. The Muslims believe the
wall in question was the Western Wall, attributing even more holiness to
this site than the other walls and recesses around Haram al-Sharif (the
Temple Mount).
However, this veneration of the Western Wall as the place where Mohammed
tethered al-Buraq was not unrelated to the fact that this site had became
the focus of Jewish nationalist yearnings in the 19th century. In his new
book "The Wars over the Holy Places," Dr. Shmuel Berkowitz reveals that it
was actually the southern and eastern walls of the Temple Mount that were
sacred to Islam. The attribution of holiness to the Western Wall began only
in the last hundred years.
Berkowitz, a legal expert and respected authority on the holy places in
Israel, says the motive was political. Until the 11th century, there was no
agreement between Islamic scholars on where Mohammed had tethered his horse,
and various spots around Haram al-Sharif were suggested as possibilities.
Over the years, some scholars reached the conclusion that Mohammed entered
Haram al-Sharif through the eastern wall, south of the Mercy Gate. Others
said he tethered al-Buraq outside the southern wall. No one said anything
about the western wall.
In the 11th century, Muslim inhabitants of Jerusalem and Muslim geographers
pointed to a specific spot outside the Temple Mount's southern wall as the
place where the prophet tied up his horse, today known as the Double Gate or
the Gates of Hulda the Prophetess. Even in the 17th century - less than 400
years ago - the tethering place of al-Buraq was said to be on the outer side
of the southern wall, outside the Temple Mount compound, near the
southwestern corner, which is also the southwestern corner of the Western
Wall. The distance from this corner to the prayer plaza of the Western Wall
is about 100 meters.
Berkowitz says that in all the Islamic literature he examined from the 17th
century to the 20th century, he found not a single discussion of al-Buraq's
tethering place. He claims that the association between the Western Wall and
al-Buraq commenced around the time of the famous clash over the wall in
1929, when the Jews began to bring in chairs, tables, Torah scrolls and
Jewish ceremonial objects, and tried to purchase the site from the Waqf
Muslim religious trust. The Arabs saw this as a violation of the status quo,
and responded with violence.
It was during this period that the al-Buraq mosque was built at the eastern
corner of the Western Wall (today part of the Temple Mount compound), with a
subterranean chamber claimed to be the place where Mohammed tied up his
horse. In all the years of Arab rule over Jerusalem - 638-1099, 1187-1917,
1948-1967 - the Western Wall was never a Muslim prayer site. Moreover, in
the official guides published by the Waqf in 1914, 1965 and 1990, no such
claim is ever made. Even the entry for "al-Buraq" in the Encyclopedia of
Islam makes no mention of the Western Wall as a holy site or the steed's
tethering place. The entry for "Haram al-Sharif" does mention the "Wailing
Wall," which is what Jews called it over the ages, but not a word is said
about it being sacred to Islam.
In talks with the Palestinians in recent months, Israel has drawn upon
Berkowitz's material, especially when the Palestinians argued that the
Temple Mount was never the site of a Jewish temple and the story of the
Western Wall is a "Jewish invention."
...
Nineteen years of Jordanian Arab rule over Jerusalem had left their mark.
Clause 8 of the 1949 cease-fire agreement between Israel and Jordan stated
that Jordan would permit Jews and Israeli Christians free passage to the
holy places. But for 19 years, no Jews could visit the Western Wall, the
Mount of Olives, Rachel's Tomb and other sites listed in the agreement.
Moreover, 60 synagogues, many of them magnificent ancient structures, were
destroyed during the period of Jordanian rule. Not only that, but Torah
scrolls were set on fire, leaving only scraps of burnt parchment. The
cemetery on the Mount of Olives was completely vandalized. Thousands of
graves were dug up, bones were strewn over the ground, tombstones were
smashed or used to build houses and pave roads.
The Jordanians were not the first to restrict Jewish access to the Western
Wall. In the early 20th century, the Mufti ordered Muslim believers to go to
battle to save Haram al-Sharif and "al-Buraq" from being taken over by the
Jews. The Arabs would smear the prayer site with excrement, bring their
flocks there to litter the place with animal droppings, and use it as a
garbage dump. The homes of the Mughrabi neighborhood were built right up to
the Western Wall, and some of the toilets actually leaned against it. Such
things are not done in places sacred to Islam - which could be seen as
further proof that the Western Wall was not a Muslim holy place.
The laws of custodianship over the holy places passed in 1981 say nothing
about the Temple Mount, the site most sacred to the Jewish people, but they
do mention the Western Wall and the Western Wall plaza. These laws attribute
holiness not only to the wall and plaza, but to "every building and every
passageway, above or below ground, that are entered from the plaza." By
definition, the excavated passageways and Hasmonean tunnel (whose northern
entrance was opened by Benjamin Netanyahu in 1996) are thus Jewish holy
places, too.
At Camp David and Washington, the Israeli delegation drew the Palestinians'
attention to these laws. They also brought up historical claims. They
reminded the Palestinians that even the British commission of inquiry,
established in 1929 in the wake of the riots, determined that the Muslims
had never used the Western Wall as a prayer site and it was never sacred to
Islam. The Palestinians preferred to dwell on another conclusion reached by
this international commission, according to which the Western Wall and the
prayer plaza, as property of the Waqf, should remain under exclusive Muslim
control.
During these talks, Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami donned his historians'
cap several times. The Western Wall, he said, was a remnant of the Temple
Mount 635 years before the Al Aqsa mosque was built there in 705 C.E., and
thus it was not "the western wall of Al Aqsa," as Arafat kept insisting. The
mosque did not exist when the Second Temple was destroyed. The Israelis even
cited the bill of rights bestowed upon the Jews 450 years ago by the Turkish
sultan, Suleiman the Magnificent, which recognizes the right of the Jews to
the Western Wall.
The Palestinians quoted passages from Islamic law, repeated last week by the
Mufti of Jerusalem, about the holiness of Al Aqsa pervading the ground
beneath it, the air above it, and every one of its walls. The Palestinians
were willing to accept Israeli administration of the Western Wall and the
Jewish quarter, but not Israeli sovereignty. The Israelis, who offered the
Palestinians a corridor to reach the Temple Mount at the beginning of the
talks, found themselves haggling over the width of a corridor leading to the
Western Wall.
...
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To: bprlist@egroups.com
Subject: [bprlist] How About Glow-in-the-Dark Birthday Cake?
From: "research-bpr" <research-bpr@philologos.org>
Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 09:27:51 -0500
How About Glow-in-the-Dark Birthday Cake?
Steven Levingston International Herald Tribune Thursday, January 18, 2001
Jellyfish Gene Leaps From the Test Tube to Tickle Entrepreneurs' Imagination
PARIS Martin Chalfie, a professor of biology at Columbia University, had
studied the tiny worm Caenorhabditis elegans for nearly two decades - "far
too many years," he muses - when his big breakthrough finally came.
.
In 1994, he and his team inserted the fluorescence gene of a jellyfish into
his favorite creepy crawly with glowing results: the worm's nerve cells
shone bright green.
.
Mr. Chalfie's triumph launched a scientific mad dash to set the world aglow.
Now researchers are lighting up so many parts of life that bioluminescence
has emerged as one of the hottest tools in genetics.
.
Today, things glow that were never intended to glow: cancer cells,
zebrafish, potatoes, bunnies. In the latest feat, scientists announced last
week that they had used the jellyfish gene in an attempt to create a glowing
monkey.
.
The fluorescence-driven research is primarily aimed at shedding light on
biological processes. A jellyfish gene inserted into an organism triggers a
green glow to alert scientists of a particular cellular activity. What was
once invisible is now witnessed in real time, allowing researchers to peer
inside live cells and track the development of disease.
.
In the case of the monkey, scientists inserted the fluorescence gene as a
first step toward creation of primates with human diseases in order to test
therapies. If the monkey glows green under blue light, which is needed to
activate bioluminescence, then scientists will know the gene transfer
worked.
.
Success would raise the possibility of producing families of genetically
modified monkeys with Alzheimer's, hereditary blindness and other diseases.
So far, researchers have proof that the gene has entered the monkey's cells
but they have not detected a glow.
.
Experimentation with the jellyfish gene is so popular that researchers have
trouble keeping track of all the projects. "If it were something bad, you'd
say it was an international plague - it's everywhere," says William Ward, a
professor of biochemistry at Rutgers University.
.
Scientists now hope the fluorescence gene will serve as an aid in cleaning
polluted waters, discovering how food poisoning spreads, perhaps even in
creating Christmas trees that light up on their own. Already the business
world is racing to cash in with production of luminous makeup and toy
pistols that shoot glow-in-the dark liquid. Jokesters have discovered the
humor of a man-made glow, and artists are attracted to the gene as a tool to
expand the boundaries of their craft.
.
Such wide and novel use has ignited fears among ethicists and some
scientists and has drawn the jellyfish gene into the long-running battle
over biogenetic modification. The rancorous debate is widening to include,
among other things, a cloned sheep named Dolly, genetically engineered
corn
containing a possible human allergen and now a monkey named ANDi that
may
glow green.
.
The ocean brims with creatures that glow. For 650 million years, jellyfish
have lighted up the briny deep, and tiny plankton have turned swaths of the
sea surface to glittering blankets. There are many luminous shrimp and squid
and a luminous octopus, in Japan, and there is the aptly named flashlight
fish in Indonesia that has large light organs below its eyes.
.
Scientists say that the light show beneath the waves may represent the most
common form of communication in the natural world. Marine creatures
recognize members of their own species by their glow, play luminous mating
games, lure prey by flashing, and confuse attackers by squirting a cloud of
light.
.
Things that glow have fascinated humans ever since the first clans stared
into a fire or gazed up at the stars. A flickering candle can mesmerize the
eye and the flash of the firefly delight the soul. In art and film, angels
soar in radiant halos and ghosts drift in luminous bodies. "A glow has a
beatific aspect," says Stuart Newman, professor of cell biology and anatomy
at New York Medical College. "Something that emits its own light appears to
have some kind of intrinsic virtue to it."
.
Nearly 2,000 years ago, the Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder was dazzled by
a clam that spit phosphorescent green slime when frightened. Even more
intriguing, he found, was that anyone who ate the bizarre mollusk was left
with luminescent lips. The culinary novelty set off a first-century fad:
Romans threw clam feasts in the dark and frolicked with glowing green
mouths.
.
With advances in genetics, things that glow moved from the natural world
into the lab. At the heart of the research is the jellyfish Aequorea
victoria, whose genes instruct cells to produce a green fluorescent protein
that is responsible for the glow. Insert the jellyfish gene successfully
into another organism and its cells will produce the protein that stimulates
the glow.
.
Efficient and time-saving, the revolutionary process has given life to
several dozen genetically altered small minnows, called golden longfin
zebrafish, that shine in polluted waters. Scientists at the University of
Cincinnati hope that large numbers of the fish can be bred to flash early
warnings of toxic chemicals in rivers and lakes.
.
Some researchers dream in rainbow colors. New genes have recently been
discovered that offer the hope of a red protein and a blue one.
.
In a competition sponsored last year by the British Biotechnology and
Biological Society Research Council, a team of postgraduate students at
Hertfordshire University proposed the creation of a Christmas tree that
lighted up on its own. They described how to genetically modify a Douglas
Spruce and included a business plan for a company to produce and market
the
glowing tree.
.
Deri Morgan, one of the students, believes it would be possible to go beyond
creating a Christmas tree that merely shines green, blue and red.
Eventually, he says, the tree could be genetically instructed to glow just
at its tips. The project was among the eight finalists in the competition
but failed to garner the top prize. The team did attract some criticism,
however. "Some people thought we were trying to take God into our own
hands," Mr. Morgan said.
.
Biogenetics raises such delicate issues that many observers find it hard to
accept even the most serious medical efforts, much less have any sense of
humor about the most bizarre prospects.
.
Not so at Australasian Science, a popular science magazine in Australia. Its
April issue last year carried a story about a brewer who planned to
introduce a genetically altered beer that caused the faces of heavy drinkers
to glow green. The article described how the yeast to brew beer had been
engineered with the green fluorescent protein in a bid to help police
identify drunk drivers.
.
Understandably, the piece set off a storm of concern and anger. But those
who read the article carefully would have been tipped off to a ruse. The
last sentence instructed readers to look at the first letter in each
paragraph, which spelled out April Fool. "People killed themselves laughing
when they realized it was a hoax," says Guy Nolch, editor of Australasian
Science.
.
Few people were laughing when a Chicago artist, Eduardo Kac, persuaded
the
National Institute of Agronomic Research near Paris to loan him a
genetically modified bunny to display as an exhibit at a show in Avignon.
.
The institute had created 10 bunnies with the green fluorescent protein as
part of program aimed at cloning rabbits for research into cystic fibrosis.
Louis-Marie Houdebine at the institute says that, viewed through special
glasses under ultraviolent light, the bunnies glow green mainly at the eyes,
and also at the ears, nose and hair roots. Mr. Kac wanted to display one
bunny to inaugurate what he called a new era of transgenic art. The uproar
was deafening as genetic ethicists howled that Mr. Kac had crossed a
dangerous line by proposing to use altered life forms for artistic purposes.
.
Mr. Kac offered that he hoped the exhibit would spark meaningful discussion
on all issues of biogenetics. In the end, the institute demurred, and the
bunny was a no-show at the Avignon exhibition. Still, Mr. Kac is pushing
forward with his dreams of transgenic art and hopes one day to put on
exhibit a glowing dog.
.
In the world of bioluminescence, the serious and the frivolous merge at
Prolume Ltd., a start-up company in Pittsburgh. Prolume, founded by a
surgeon and an oncologist, does bioluminescence-based cancer research. In
its bid for funding, the company also is working on glowing foods, beverages
and cosmetics. Among its projects: cake frosting that will glow Happy
Birthday after the candles are blown out. The company already has marketed
a
glow in-the-dark water pistol. George Finley, an oncologist and chief
executive officer of Prolume, recognizes that critics may believe it is
wrong to commercialize genetics research. "One could construe what we do
as
frivolous," he says. "But we don't think there's any harm in creating a
revenue model to fund basic science. Bioluminescence is a great venue to
introduce biotechnology to consumers. Our products are very compelling,
really 21st-century in appeal, novelty and fun value."
http://www.iht.com/articles/7927.html
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To: bprlist@egroups.com
Subject: [bprlist] (Fwd) Radio Analysis and Excerpts:
From: "research-bpr" <research-bpr@philologos.org>
Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 09:29:29 -0500
------- Forwarded message follows -------
Date sent: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 05:54:41 -0500
From: imra@netvision.net.il
To: imra@imra.org.il
Subject: Radio Analysis and Excerpts: The
Voice of Palestine-January 19, 2001
Radio Analysis and Excerpts: The Voice of Palestine-January 19, 2001
Prepared by Michael Widlanski. Michael Widlanski lectures at the Rothberg
School of the Hebrew University and is doing doctoral research at Bar Ilan
on Palestinian broadcast media.
Israel Resource News Agency
Beit Agron Int'l Press Center
Jerusalem, Israel
tel. (+972-2) 623-6368 or cellphone (+972-53) 710-737
http://www.israelbehindthenews.com/
SUMMARY
The mosque sermon of Friday noon broadcast on VOP concentrated on an
Islamic justification for the execution of "traitors" and "agents," while
comparing Israel to a "cancer" in the region and characterizing the White
House as "The Black House" for "supporting the Jews."
In the news programs, VOP ignored the murder of the young Israeli near
Ramallah.
PA ministers and officials said great gaps still existed with Israel,
and they were quoted criticizing the International Commission of Inquiry
for delaying its visit to the region until after the Israeli election.
FRIDAY MORNING HEADLINES:
7am news bulletin:
*--Israeli occupation forces close Salahadin Road that links north and
south Gaza;
*--And a night-time Israeli shelling of the houses of citizens near the
Palestinian-Egyptian border;
*--And other Israeli attacks throughout the homeland;
*--Mr. Ahmad Qreia says that the gaps between the two sides, the
Palestinian and Israeli, remain great. He made his comments after a
Palestinian-Israeli political meeting held last night;
*--Minister of Information and Culture Yasser Abd-Rabbo expressed his
disappointment with the performance of the investigating commission into the
implementation of the understandings of the Sharm al-Sheikh summit,
(particularly) delaying for three weeks its visit to the region. And
Abd-Rabbo said that the commission was being subjected to pressures by
Israel;
*--In a message sent to the Voice of Palestine, President Bill Clinton
sends a message to the Palestinian people at the end of his term, in which
he asserts the steadfastness, bravery and resistance of our people, and
re-affirming that it (the people) must have self-determination in its land
and the establishment of an independent state;
*--Resigning Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak proposes a special regime
for the occupied city of Jerusalem under which Israel would continue its
control over the Jewish Quarter and the Buraq Wall (i.e. The Western Wall
sometimes known as the Wailing Wall, regarded by Muslims as the "Buraq" or
"Burak" wall, where some Islamic traditions say the Prophet Muhammad
tethered his mythic steed, Buraq), but Barak stressed his refusal to execute
an agreement that consolidates sovereignty over Haram al-Sharif (in the
hands of) to the Palestinian side;
*--The special representative of UN Secretary General Kofi Anan in
Southern Lebanon, Steven Stora, supported an investigation into Israeli use
of depleted uranium in Southern Lebanon;
*--A Vietnamese delegation visits Iraq on a humanitarian mission, and
this is the first time Vietnam initiates a humanitarian visit to Baghdad,
following its occasionally expressed support for Iraq and for the lifting of
the siege on the Iraqi people;
*--A summit between the North Korean leader Kim il-Jung, who is visiting
China, and Chinese President Jiang ze-Min in Peking (Beijing) yesterday."
(Apologies for spelling errors here: Arabic rendition of Chinese and Korean
names is no picnic.)
8 AM FRIDAY NEWS ROUND-UP
*--"At this hour, Israeli occupation forces storm Silwad near Ramallah
and place a curfew on it;
*--The American President Bill Clinton says in a message to the
Palestinian people at the end of his term tomorrow that the Palestinian
people had never been so close to the realization of its goals;
((REMAINING ITEMS SIMILAR TO 7 AM))
ATTITUDE TO VIOLENCE
THE MURDER OF THE SIXTEEN-YEAR-OLD ISRAELI BOY WHOSE BODY WAS FOUND NEAR
RAMALLAH (the discovery of whose unidentified body was mentioned in VOP
broadcasts two days ago) WAS NOT MENTIONED IN ANY OF THE MORNING VOP
BROADCASTS. SIMILARLY THERE WAS NO CONDEMNATION.
HOW EVER, IN PALESTINIAN NEWSPAPERS AND IN THE WAFA NEWS SERVICE, THE PA
ISSUED A STATEMENT DISAPPROVING OF SUCH ACTIONS, DESPITE THE CONTINUATION OF
ISRAELI AGGRESSION. (In Arabic, the term used for disapproval was "rafd"
which literally means "refuses" or "rejects".)
((more material will be filed Saturday night or Sunday morning))
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To: bprlist@egroups.com
Subject: [bprlist] (Fwd) Newsflash: Supreme Court
From: "research-bpr" <research-bpr@philologos.org>
Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 09:30:05 -0500
------- Forwarded message follows -------
Date sent: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 06:42:03 -0500
From: imra@netvision.net.il
To: imra@imra.org.il
Subject: Newsflash: Supreme Court stops
prime minister from taking action until after
elections (Prime Minister Netanyahu - 1999)
Newsflash: Supreme Court stops prime minister from taking action until
after elections (Prime Minister Netanyahu - 1999)
By Sari Bashi The Associated Press
J E R U S A L E M, May 11 1999 - Israel's Supreme Court stopped the
government from closing the Palestinian headquarters in Jerusalem today,
defusing a potentially explosive showdown just six days before general
elections.
Peace activists had asked the court to block a closure of Orient House until
after next week's elections, saying Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's
decision smacked of electioneering.
Judge Dalia Dorner ordered Israel's police minister and Palestinian
officials to explain within seven days why they failed to achieve a
compromise.
... Netanyahu, who is trailing opposition leader Ehud Barak in the polls,
has tried with little success to turn the future of disputed Jerusalem into
a major campaign issue.
--------------------------------------------
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To: bprlist@egroups.com
Subject: [bprlist] Arutz-7 News (1/19/01)
From: "research-bpr" <research-bpr@philologos.org>
Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 09:36:29 -0500
Arutz Sheva News Service
<http://www.IsraelNationalNews.com>
Friday, Jan. 19, 2001 / Tevet 24, 5761
TODAY'S HEADLINES:
1. DEADLY PALESTINIAN ARSENAL NOW INCLUDES INTERNET
2. TERRORIST CAUGHT IN TEL AVIV
3. SHARON LEADS BOTH BARAK AND PERES
4. ARAFAT OFFERS MARATHON TALKS
5. CONVOY TO GIVAT ZE'EV
6. ROSS' PARTING WORDS
7. LOVE FOR JERUSALEM UNDER FIRE
***SPECIAL INSERT: Avital Sharansky's speech at the "Jerusalem - I
Pledge!"
rally
1. DEADLY PALESTINIAN ARSENAL NOW INCLUDES INTERNET
The funeral of Ophir Rachum, 16, was held this afternoon in Ashkelon. He
was murdered by Palestinians on Wednesday after having been enticed to
the
Ramallah area by an Arab girl he had "met" over the internet. He set off
from his home on Wednesday with what police called a "large sum" of
money;
after he met up with the Arab woman, he was brutally beaten and shot to
death - apparently by Tanzim terrorists. The shots were heard by IDF
soldiers, who thought they were directed at them and returned the
fire. Another error was made when the body was later found and assumed to
be that of an Arab. The IDF allowed the PA to take the body, which was
returned only after the mistake was discovered. The Palestinian
authorities were reported last night to have been unhelpful in the efforts
to ascertain the identity of the victim and related matters.
Prime Minister Barak condemned what he called "the brutal murder,
committed
by lowly, despicable murderers, lacking in human likeness." He said that
they will be found and punished.
2. TERRORIST CAUGHT IN TEL AVIV
An Arab terrorist was apprehended at the Central Bus Station in Tel Aviv
this morning. The 37-year-old resident of Kalandia, north of Jerusalem,
later told policemen that he had planned to kill as many Jews as
possible. Four Palestinians were arrested in a Shomron village last night;
they confessed to having thrown firebombs and large rocks at Israeli
vehicles, as well as to having set up roadblocks against Israeli
traffic. Arutz-7's Kobi Sela reports that the police promise to continue
the recently-begun wave of such arrests in the coming days.
3. SHARON LEADS BOTH BARAK AND PERES
The polls: Today's weekly public-opinion polls - which themselves are
attracting more interest as the election nears and as the Peres-Barak
tensions intensify - show that the gap between Sharon and Barak remains
wide, while Peres' small lead over Sharon has turned upside-down into a
small lead for Sharon. Potential voters said they would choose Sharon over
Barak by a margin of between 18 and 20%. If, however, Peres replaces
Barak
in the race - which he may do up until Feb. 2, four days before the
election - he, too, would lose to Sharon, but only by 1%, according to the
surveys published today. Peres, to the consternation of Barak and his
staffers, continues to keep his virtual candidacy alive by not stating in
absolute terms that he will not run.
In other poll news, a survey by the Degani Survey Institute finds that more
than half of the population feels that there is no point in continuing
peace efforts given the current circumstances.
4. ARAFAT OFFERS MARATHON TALKS
It was decided this morning that Prime Minister Barak's "peace cabinet"
will not convene today. The cabinet was to have convened to decide on the
government's response to Yasser Arafat's invitation to begin marathon talks
next week. Barak is against such talks, while most of his colleagues -
Ministers Ben-Ami, Beilin, Shachak, and MK Sarid - are pressing for a "yes"
answer. The cabinet may convene tomorrow night. Barak admitted publicly
for the first time last night, on his nightly television political
commercial, that the peace agreement he hopes to conclude will involve the
"painful concessions" of dividing Jerusalem and giving away "more than 90%"
of Judea and Samaria.
5. CONVOY TO GIVAT ZE'EV
A convoy of some 200 Israeli cars set off this morning on its way from the
Ben Shemen interchange, near Ben Gurion International Airport, to the
direction of Givat Ze'ev, north of Jerusalem. They traveled along the
Modiin-Givat Ze'ev highway, in protest of the security dangers
there. Several Palestinian shooting attacks have occurred there in the
past weeks; Eliyahu Cohen of Modiin was murdered, Yossi Baruch of N'vei
Tzuf is still in a coma, and others have been wounded in such attacks since
last month.
6. ROSS' PARTING WORDS
American mediator Dennis Ross, whose job will cease tomorrow with the
inauguration of George W. Bush as President of the U.S., says that the
Palestinian leadership misled its public about what would be achievable
through negotiations and has missed a historic opportunity for a peace
settlement with Israel. He told The Jerusalem Post, "The Palestinians have
to do more to tell the truth to their own public about what's possible and
what isn't possible." Regarding the current violence, he diplomatically
blamed the Palestinians: "It is difficult to see what possible stake
Israel has in violence, and there are clearly some on the Palestinian side
who seem to think violence serves their cause." Ross said that what he
most regretted was not having more effectively ensured that there was no
incitement.
7. LOVE FOR JERUSALEM UNDER FIRE
The Barak campaign accused Avital Sharansky of calling for a "war" for
Jerusalem - and drew the ire of her husband Yisrael B'Aliyah party leader
MK Natan Sharansky. Referring to her speech last week at the giant rally
for Jerusalem, the Knesset Member said, "My wife described the Jewish
people's love for Jerusalem wonderfully in the rally, and I was very
proud. It is a revelation to me that her words of love for Jerusalem can
be interpreted as a call for war." The Jerusalem Post reported that
Sharansky said that his wife's speech had been praised all across the
political spectrum, and that hundreds of requests for copies of the speech,
from individuals and schools, had been received. A complete translation of
her speech appears below.
***SPECIAL INSERT:
The following is the text of the speech delivered by Avital Sharansky at
the giant "Jerusalem - I Pledge!" rally on Jan. 8th. Mrs. Sharansky led a
years-long international struggle for the release of her husband - former
refusenik Natan (Anatoly) Sharansky, currently a Knesset Member and
leader
of the Yisrael B'Aliyah party - from Soviet prison for his Zionist activities.
Jerusalem - together with the Temple Mount and the Western Wall - was
not
all that was liberated during the Six Day War. Also liberated was the
spirit of that part of the People of Israel that was caught behind the Iron
Wall of the Soviet Union. During the Six Day War, this spirit was revived
and came to life, like a sleeping giant awakening from his slumber. For
the first time, we - millions of Jews who had been distanced from their
land and their legacy - felt our Jewish identity. We felt Jewish
brotherhood, we felt Jewish pride. We dreamt of a return to Zion, of our
return home.
This dream drew tens of thousands and millions back to Eretz Yisrael, out
of a feeling of great uplifting faith. This belief is that which, in the
end, knocked the Iron Wall to the ground, and broke an international
superpower into tiny pieces.
Sylva Zalmanson, during her trial in Soviet Russia, read aloud to the
judges the verse, "If I forget thee O Jerusalem, let my right hand
wither." My husband Natan, at the end of his trial there, when he was in
genuine danger to his life, declared in unforgettable words, "Next year in
Jerusalem." We always knew that the liberty of Israel and that of
Jerusalem are one and the same.
What is the connection between Jerusalem and world Jewry? What power
does
this city have to arouse the entire House of Israel to new life?
Jerusalem has forever been the heart of the nation. When the heart is
healthy and strong, it streams life to the entire body, even to the distant
organs. "G-d is the builder of Jerusalem, He will gather all the dispersed
of Israel," is written in Psalms. When Israel liberated Jerusalem with
G-d's help, vitality was restored to every corner of the Jewish nation; the
flow of Jewish oxygen was renewed to Jewish communities in the Diaspora,
to
Jews in Moscow and Siberia, in New York and Melbourne. The Jews of
America, of Russia, of the entire world now live more complete Jewish
lives, and their Jewish awareness is much stronger. All this in the merit
of Jerusalem - the heart of the nation, the heart that after 2,000 years of
exile is now beating strongly once again.
As we declared a generation ago, let us announce once again all of us
together here today: "Am Yisrael Chai" - the People of Israel lives! A
live nation does not allow anyone to harm his heart!
Jerusalem: Thirty years ago, you restored to us our national Jewish
identity and awareness. You gave us a gift. Today, thirty years later,
we, appreciative of this kindness, gather in the shadow of your walls to
assure you: "We have not forgotten, you have not abandoned us and we will
not abandon you."
When we worked for the freedom of our imprisoned brothers in the Soviet
Union, we felt that we were the mouthpiece of hundreds of thousands who
could not, or who were afraid to, speak out. Today, too, there were people
who wanted to speak out - but were afraid. Jerusalem was defined by some
as a "political" issue. To our great disappointment, there were those who
surrendered and retreated.
But, "For Zion I will not be mute, and for Jerusalem's sake I will not be
silent." Just like thirty years ago, today too we are willing to be a
voice for the Jewry of Silence - for all those who wished to be here but
were not allowed to, or who did not find within themselves the courage to
come. We speak for them, and through us their voices, too, will be heard.
Honored audience:
You are expressing the silent cries of millions of Jews in the Diaspora
who were unable to be here tonight; of millions of Jews in previous
generations - our fathers and mothers - who dreamt of Jerusalem but did not
merit to fulfill the dream; of millions of Jews - our children and
grandchildren - who have not yet been born.
I close my eyes and see with us in this rally - filling the plaza without
an extra inch of room - all the generations of Israel. Here is Avraham
Avinu, there is Sarah Imeinu, here is David, King of Israel. We will not
retreat. We will not be deterred. We will build Jerusalem -- all of it,
and we will be built -- all of us, in Jerusalem.
Next year, and the year afterwards, and after that, and after that - in
Jerusalem, forever rebuilt!
Hebrew News Editor: Uzi Baruch
English News Editor: Hillel Fendel
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Bible Prophecy Research
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========
To: bprlist@egroups.com
Subject: [bprlist] Mir Space Station Loses Balance
From: "research-bpr" <research-bpr@philologos.org>
Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 09:41:21 -0500
Mir Space Station Loses Balance
by Viktoria Loginova
Moscow (AFP) Jan. 18, 2001 The sequence of disasters that has plagued
Russia's ailing Mir space station continued on Thursday after it lost balance
in orbit, forcing a delay in a hazardous operation to bring it back to Earth.
"The system that stabilises Mir in space has switched itself off as a result of
problems with the station's batteries which are out of date and
malfunctionning," officials at Russia's space centre told AFP.
The latest crisis forced space agency chiefs to postpone the launch of the
supply ship Progress, which had been due to blast off from the cosmodrome
in Baikonur, Kazakhstan, at 9:56 am Moscow time (0656 GMT) on
Wednesday.
Russian space officials said the 140-tonne unmanned space station had lost
its orientation overnight Wednesday. The launch of Progress would now take
place either on Sunday or Wednesday next week, they said.
But they sought to play down fears that Mir could soon be hurtling out of
control, saying the "technical problem" was confined to the batteries, which
needed recharging, and the subsequent lack of full power.
Full Story:
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/mir-01c.html
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========
To: bprlist@egroups.com
Subject: [bprlist] Israel Update (1/19/01)
From: "research-bpr" <research-bpr@philologos.org>
Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 09:45:01 -0500
"ISRAEL UPDATE"
Issue #11 - 19 JAN. 2001
http://aish.com/israel
"Better a critical editorial than a praiseworthy obituary." -- Golda Meir
In this email:
1) Links to Great Articles
2) Poetic Palestinian Protesters
3) John Madden on the Scene
4) Obstacle to Peace
5) The Crazy Hero
6) Blowing Up the Mount
- Submit your own findings to: media@aish.com
- List of major media contacts -- http://aish.com/israel/contacts.asp
- Read the "7 Rules of Media Objectivity" -- http://aish.com/a/r/5.asp
- Archives of media objectivity is at http://aish.com/a/r/9.asp
========
1) LINKS TO GREAT ARTICLES
- Arab-American Joseph Farah shatters the myth of Palestinian "refugees."
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=21270
- The best article I've seen to date on the refugee issue. A rebuttal to a
virulently distorted piece which appeared in the American Bar Association
Journal.
http://www.abanet.org/journal/jan01/perspective.html
- An American woman visits Rachel's Tomb, Judaism's third holiest site, and
learns how Jewish destiny embraces all generations.
http://aish.com/a/r/21.asp
- Senator Connie Mack of Florida gave a speech on the Senate floor two
years ago, calling for peace based on security, freedom, and a change of
heart. It is prophetic.
http://aish.com/Israel/articles/voice_from_the_senate.asp
==========
2) POETIC PALESTINIAN PROTESTERS
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/p/nm/20010105/ts/mdf144088.html
This "news" photo from Reuters shows Palestinians youths throwing stones.
The picture is almost surreal -- heroically silhouetted on a mountaintop, their
stones float triumphantly through the majestic clouds.
A little too poetic for a war, don't you think?
Complain to: editor.reuters@reuters.com
(submitted by Adam Kaplan)
============
3) JOHN MADDEN ON THE SCENE
In The Weekly Standard (http://weeklystandard.com), Stephanie Gutmann
writes an in- depth article about the effects of PA intimidation on journalists.
Below is an excerpt, followed by the e-mail address to thank the editor. (This
article does not appear online.)
If we had a John Madden of the Intifada, with a grease pencil and a
transparent overlay, he could freeze the frame and annotate the pictures. He
could draw an arrow to the upper right-hand corner of the frame, for instance,
and point out a smudge of black -- an inch of rifle barrel protruding from a
nearby minaret, a sign that a sniper is perched there. He might draw a circle
around a man in the dense center of a crowd, a man who (one can see on
closer inspection) is older and armed with something more than a slingshot.
(Terrorist groups and ragtag rebel armies from Somalia to Iraq have learned
to surround themselves with civilians, both for cover and to discourage the
other side from shooting.)
He might analyze minute differences in clothing and bearing and show us
that some of these young boys are not just "children" drawn by what looks
like a game, but militia who have been groomed Hitler Youth-style to kill
Jews or die trying. He might point out that the Palestinian Authority
ambulance parked on the side of the rock-throwing action is here not just to
ferry the wounded; PA ambulances have been used as command and control
vehicles, actually delivering "troops" and carrying the makings of Molotov
cocktails.
Write thanks to: editor@weeklystandard.com
(courtesy of camera.org)
============
4) OBSTACLE TO PEACE
BBC presents a pair of photo captions that are frighteningly misleading:
- "Some Israelis have objected to proposals to divide Jerusalem"
- "Other Israelis are calling for peace"
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/middle_east/newsid_1109000/1109392
.stm
BBC implies that only Israelis who want to divide Jerusalem are seekers of
peace, while those who oppose dividing Jerusalem are necessarily "anti-
peace."
Further, BBC implies equal division in the Israeli public on the issue of
Jerusalem. Yet BBC contradicts itself in a news article on January 8, 2001:
"[Barak] has also said he would never give the Palestinians sovereignty over
the Temple Mount in Jerusalem's Old City, which Mr. Barak has said he
regards as central to Jewish culture and identity."
http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/middle_east/newsid_1106000/1106
775.s t m
So how does BBC justify its photo captions?
Complaints to: newsonline@bbc.co.uk
================
5) THE CRAZY HERO
Last week, a Jewish passerby saved hundreds of lives by disconnecting the
wires on a cellular telephone that was attached to a bomb in Jerusalem. Yet
in the world of CNN, even this certified hero is derided. He "believes he was
on a mission from God," reports CNN -- and his wife "thinks he's nuts."
http://www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/meast/01/12/mideast.defuse.reut/index.ht
ml
Contrast this with the matter-of-fact story about the firing-squad execution of
Palestinians whose crime was "providing Israel with information that led to
the killing of Palestinian activists." CNN fails to mention the many human
rights violations inherent in the Palestinian justice system -- e.g. that these
men were sentenced to death after a trial that lasted just two hours, without
due process or chance of appeal. And in the world of CNN, Israel has been
targeting who? Benign "activists."
http://www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/meast/01/13/palestinian.executions/index.
html
Complaints to: eason.jordan@turner.com / tom.johnson@turner.com
====================
6) BLOWING UP THE MOUNT
BBC'S article "Jerusalem Bomb Plot" (16 January 2001) suggests that
religious Jews seek to blow up the mosques on the Temple Mount in
Jerusalem. It includes some blatant violations of journalistic objectivity.
BBC generalizes that religious Jews are seeking to blow up the mosques on
the Temple Mount. The article leads with a casual reference to a film about
"ultra religious Jews" who want to blow up the mosques. BBC then writes
that "Near the Wailing Wall there have been sit-down protests by religious
Jews." And BBC closes the article speaking of "the cataclysmic effects
predicted by the religious Jews trying to build the temple."
Had BBC bothered to poll a sampling of the one million religious Jews living
in Israel, they would have found that but a tiny fringe group -- one that is
rejected by the religious mainstream -- have ever called for violent action to
destroy the mosques. BBC's generalization, which demonizes all religious
Jews with no counter- point, is cause for great concern about BBC's
standards.
BBC also reports of "angry demonstrations in Jerusalem's old city as fears
grow among religious Jews that Israel will surrender control of the holy sites,"
and then mentions that "30 hardliners have already attempted to storm the
Temple Mount."
BBC does not identify these angry demonstrations. When did they occur?
And why does BBC ignore the fact that on January 8, just days before this
article appeared, a quarter-million Jews -- religious, secular, left and right --
demonstrated peacefully in support of united Jerusalem. No speaker called
for the destruction of Arab religious sites; no signs were held aloft calling for
the battle of Armageddon. In the words of The Wall Street Journal: "The
protest, in which both Israeli and diaspora Jews participated, was remarkable
for its size, but also for its peacefulness."
By focusing on the provocative actions of 30 people -- and ignoring the
peaceful
actions of 250,000 - BBC shows troubling indications of bias.
See the article at:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/middle_east/newsid_1118000/1118459
.stm
Complaints to: newsonline@bbc.co.uk
(courtesy of HonestReporting.com)
======================================
If you find this email helpful, please pass it along to a friend. This way we are
partners in making a difference in the fight for truth.
Comments for "Israel Update" can be submitted at: israel-update@aish.com
Submit your own findings on Media Objectivity to: media@aish.com
For reprints and redistribution, please give proper attribution:
Article from Israel Update -- http://aish.com/israel
======================================
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========
To: bprlist@egroups.com
Subject: [bprlist] Weekend News Today items (1/19/01)
From: "research-bpr" <research-bpr@philologos.org>
Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 18:39:41 -0500
China develops anti-satellite weapon=20
Weekend News Today=20
Lead: Leo=20
Source: WorldNetDaily=20
Fri Jan 19,2001 -- China has developed and successfully ground-tested a=20
new anti-satellite weapon designed to "stick" to the body of enemy satellit=
es=20
so as to go unnoticed, then rendering it ineffective through jamming when=20
activated.=20=20
The anti-satellite weapon, called a "parasitic satellite," will be deployed=
=20
experimentally and tested in space in the near future, according to the Hon=
g=20
Kong newspaper Sing Tai Jih Pao.=20=20
Germany to introduce euro starter kits=20=20
Weekend News Today=20
Lead: Leo=20
Source: New Jersey Online/AP=20
Fri Jan 19,2001 -- Germans will be able to pick up euro "starter kits" so t=
hey=20
can familiarize themselves with the continent's common currency before it=20
replaces the country's beloved mark, the German central bank announced=20
Friday.=20=20
The Bundesbank hopes the plan will help avert confusion when Germany and=20
11 of its European Union neighbors using the euro retire their national=20
currencies Jan. 1, 2002, and adopt euro-denominated bills and coins. The=20
Bundesbank will start shipping new euro cash to local commercial and=20
savings banks throughout Germany on Sept. 1, with special bundles set=20
aside as starter kits for bank customers. Individuals can pick up their sta=
rter=20
kits, which will contain 10.23 euros in coins, beginning Dec. 17.=20=20
Brown calls for EU to show world leadership in economic growth as U.S.=20
economy slow down=20=20
Weekend News Today=20
Lead: Kelly=20
Source: BBC=20
Fri Jan 19,2001 -- Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown has urged=20
European Union finance ministers to show leadership as the US economy=20
slows down. "The world is looking increasingly to Europe to discharge a=20
greater responsibility in the promotion of stability and global economic=20
growth," said Mr. Brown. He also called for the EU to push ahead with=20
economic reform, whilst adopting a more "radical and realistic" timeframe f=
or=20
achieving economic growth. Mr. Brown was speaking at a meeting of=20
European finance ministers in Brussels.=20=20
Mr. Brown highlighted several measures that the EU should adopt to achieve=
=20
its targets, and avoid a parallel slowdown to the one happening in the US.=
=20
These include the reduction of all state aid and unfair tax competition,=20
ploughing more money into research and innovation and resolving its trade=20
differences with the US. The Chancellor also advocated the full opening of =
the=20
telecoms market by the end of 2001, the energy markets by the end of 2002=20
and the capital markets by the end of the 2003.=20=20
Fear exists that Europe could be dragged into recession, if the slowdown in=
=20
the US does accelerate. The European Central Bank left interest rates on=20
hold on Thursday, having decided to wait for more evidence on the extent of=
=20
any slowdown in the US economy before lowering rates. The Fed, the US=20
central bank, has already lowered rates by 0.5% over fears of a recession.=
=20
European growth rates are expected to fall back to around 2.5% next year,=20
compared to around 3% this year, as a result. Many economists believe that=
=20
rate cuts, or tax cuts, or both, will be necessary if Europe is to avoid a=
=20
slowdown.=20=20
China and Italy pledge to safeguard UN authority=20=20
Weekend News Today=20
Lead: Leo=20
Source: China Daily=20
Fri Jan 19,2001 -- China and Italy will work together to safeguard the=20
authority of the UN, strengthen its role, and closely consult on the necess=
ary=20
reform of the UN Security Council.=20=20
President Jiang Zemin, Vice-Premier Qian Qichen and visiting Italian Prime=
=20
Minister Giuliano Amato agreed upon all of this during meetings yesterday.=
=20
The United Nations has a unique role in safeguarding international peace an=
d=20
security and promoting nations' development and co-operation between=20
them, Amato said.=20=20
During the meeting with Jiang, Amato called for more effort to eliminate=20
poverty and create a war-free environment for development. The United=20
Nations should play a bigger role in these areas, he said. Jiang said the=20
world should be a colourful one, noting that political leaders should be fa=
r-
sighted and co-operate for peace and development. The growth of Sino-Italia=
n=20
ties has demonstrated that countries with different social systems can co-
operate on the basis of mutual respect and benefits and equality, Jiang sai=
d.=20
Jiang voiced his appreciation of the Italian Government's stance in adherin=
g=20
to the one-China policy and in advocating dialogue instead of confrontation=
in=20
the human rights arena. Amato said Italy, which is chairing the G8 summit=20
this year, is willing to help developing countries develop their economies =
and=20
promote world stability in hand with other countries=20=20
Christian Unity week begins=20=20
Weekend News Today=20
Lead: Leo=20
Source: IrishNews.com=20
Fri Jan 19,2001 -- A Week of Prayer for Christian Unity was launched=20
yesterday with sermons by the assistant bishop of Down and Connor,=20
Anthony Farquhar, and the bishop of Ferns, Brendan Comiskey. Dr Anthony=20
Farquhar addressed a congregation on the subject of ecumenism at Abbey=20
Presbyterian Church in Dublin last night. He said that there are three=20
ecumenical principles:=20=20
1. to balance speaking in love with listening in love. 2. to build on the=20
security of what unites us to face up to what divides us in trust and respe=
ct.=20
3. to have the ecumenical confidence to realise that just as we can be=20
enriched by the traditions of others that we each hold a tradition which=20
should in itself be a source of enrichment to others.=20=20
=93The Christian message is not just one of love of God and neighbour,=94 h=
e=20
said. =93We are called to love our neighbours as ourselves. Strong love of=
=20
neighbour is built upon a healthy love of oneself. I believe that if this i=
s true of=20
individuals it is also true of denominations and traditions.=94 Dr Farquhar=
said=20
one of the prerequisites of meaningful ecumenism was to articulate and hear=
=20
differences with charity, trust and respect. He described how he personally=
=20
had been enriched by contacts with people who professed a different faith,=
=20
citing among others the Rev Ray Davey, founder of Corrymeela. Dr Comiskey=20
discussed the recent Vatican document Dominus Jesus at the Church of=20
Ireland Union in Kilscoran. He said that the Vatican document did not say=20
the true church of Christ existed only in the Catholic church. He said the=
=20
document=92s presentation was =93a communications disaster=94. Dr Comiskey=
=20
ended his sermon with the declaration that ecumenism was very much alive=20
in the Church.=20=20
Peruvians rely on religion to help clean up streets=20=20
Weekend News Today=20
Lead: Leo=20
Source: CNN=20
Fri Jan 19,2001 -- Authorities have painted images of Jesus and the Virgin=
=20
Mary on walls along some of the capital's filthiest streets in a bid to sto=
p=20
Peruvians in this deeply Roman Catholic nation from indiscriminately=20
dumping garbage.=20=20
"It's one thing to break municipal law. It's another to lack respect for Go=
d,"=20
leading Ojo tabloid said Wednesday. Lima's seven million inhabitants are=20
renowned for their capacity to treat the city's streets as an open garbage=
=20
dump. Municipal officials said pilot projects in Lima's dirty colonial cent=
er=20
were a huge success and made God-fearing Peruvians wary of tossing aside=20
any rotten food or broken bottles under the angelic gaze of a Virgin Mary. =
=20
Lima authorities are trying to attract tourists to the colonial center, hom=
e to=20
many Spanish colonial churches from the 16th and 17th centuries. The=20
improvement there prompted municipal officer Maria Medina to quip: "The=20
saints have made a miracle."=20=20
Lebanon asks Europe to solve Mideast crisis=20=20
Weekend News Today=20
Lead: Kelly=20
Source: UPI=20
Fri Jan 19,2001 -- Lebanese President Emile Lahoud Friday called on Europe=
=20
to revive the stalled Middle East peace process. Earlier, French President=
=20
Jacques Chirac said Israel should return the occupied Golan Heights to Syri=
a=20
and resolve the issue of the Palestinian refugees in order to achieve peace=
in=20
the region. In a letter to Lahoud handed over by Yves-Aubin de La=20
Messuziere, head of the Middle East and North Africa Department at the=20
French Foreign Ministry, Chirac said France and its European partners were=
=20
concerned about tensions in the occupied Palestinian territories and the=20
situation in south Lebanon. He said peace could not be achieved without=20
Syria and Lebanon.=20=20
Lahoud called on Europe to play a greater role in solving the crisis. He=20
blamed Israel for the freeze in the talks. De La Messusiere told journalist=
s=20
the situation in south Lebanon was shaky and called on Israel and Hezbollah=
=20
to exercise self-restraint. The region has been the scene of recent unrest.=
De=20
La Messusiere was in Syria Thursday where he handed an invitation from=20
Chirac to Syrian President Bashar Assad to visit France.=20=20
UN CEDAW committee badgers Burundi to allow abortion=20=20
Weekend News Today=20
Lead: Leo=20
Source: LifeSite.net=20
Fri Jan 19,2001 -- The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination=20
against Women has begun meeting again to monitor implementation of the=20
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.=
=20
The exercise has proven over the years of its existence to be an opportunit=
y=20
for radical UN feminists to demand that countries which are party to the=20
Convention promote abortion, among other radical feminist goals (despite th=
e=20
fact that abortion is not mandated by the Convention).=20=20
Yesterday, the Committee, comprised of 23 UN "experts" from various=20
countries, took up the report of Burundi. After hearing the country's repor=
t=20
presented by Burundi's Minister of Social Affairs and Advancement of=20
Women, Romaine Ndorimana, the committee "experts" used classic pro-
abortion argumentation to urge the "decriminalization of abortion." The UN=
=20
report on the proceedings notes: "Several speakers said that prohibition of=
=20
abortions led to illegal abortions, and the statistics showed that many=20
women died from secret abortions." Another "expert" said "that a striking 4=
5=20
percent of those admitted to hospitals as a result of abortions were young=
=20
girls."=20=20
Ben-Ami in Turkey to discuss peace negotiations=20=20
Weekend News Today=20
Lead: Kelly=20
Source: Reuters=20
Fri Jan 19,2001 -- Israel and Turkey, its Muslim ally seeking a greater rol=
e in=20
Middle East peacemaking, held talks on Friday focusing on efforts to end 16=
=20
weeks of bloodshed between Israelis and Palestinians. Foreign Minister=20
Shlomo Ben-Ami, who met Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat in=20
Cairo on Thursday, visited his Turkish counterpart Ismail Cem in Ankara. He=
=20
was also scheduled to meet Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit. Turkey sees a=20
role for itself in the delicate negotiations over the future status of Jeru=
salem=20
and the holy site known to Muslims as al-Haram al-Sharif and to Jews as=20
Temple Mount.=20=20
Ben-Ami flew in as Prime Minister Ehud Barak's inner "peace cabinet"=20
prepared to weigh Arafat's proposals for marathon peace talks that might be=
=20
held in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Taba. Turkey maintains close ties=20
with both Israel and the Palestinians, though its relations with the Arab=20
states and some of the Muslim world have been strained in the last five yea=
rs=20
by close links between the Turkish and Israeli military. Turkish forces too=
k=20
part in manoeuvres with Israeli forces earlier this week. Iran fiercely=20
condemned the exercises. "But the criticism from the Arab world was more=20
muted this time," Israeli analyst Ephraim Inbar said. "Gradually, the Middl=
e=20
East absorbs this."=20=20
Al Hayat: Arafat to visit Damascus=20=20
Weekend News Today=20
Lead: Kelly=20
Source: Ha'aretz=20
Fri Jan 19,2001 -- Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat will visit=
=20
Syria in the next two weeks, according to a report published in Arabic=20
newspaper Al Hayat, Israel Radio reported Friday. According to the London-
based daily, a Palestinian document in Syria revealed that Arafat called th=
e=20
head of the Palestinian Front in Syria, Khaled Faroum, and told him that he=
=20
agreed with Syria's conditions for renewing contacts with Israel. Before th=
e=20
Palestinian leader's visit, a delegation headed by Yasser Arafat's deputy A=
bu=20
Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas) will arrive in Syria to work out the agreements.=20=20
Assad: Syrian military presence in Lebanon is temporary=20=20
Weekend News Today=20
Lead: Kelly=20
Source: Ha'aretz=20
Fri Jan 19,2001 -- Syrian President Bashar Assad told a delegation of=20
Lebanese attorneys visiting Damascus that the Syrian military presence in=20
Lebanon is temporary, Israel Radio reported. Assad told the delegation that=
=20
Syria had removed some of its military from Lebanon in the past, and it was=
=20
likely to do so again.=20=20
GCC launches air exercise amid Iraqi threats=20=20
Weekend News Today=20
Lead: Kelly=20
Source: Middle East Newsline=20
Fri Jan 19,2001 -- The Gulf Cooperation Council launches an air exercise as=
=20
members express concern over renewed threats by Iraq. The GCC exercise=20
is called Sakr El Jezira and will begin on Saturday in Qatar. The maneuvers=
=20
will last about 10 days. Officials said the aim is to improve the skills of=
pilots=20
from the six-nation GCC as well as improve interoperability. Another goal i=
s=20
to test the effectiveness of a new early-warning network.=20=20
GCC air forces are largely composed of U.S., British and French warplanes.=
=20
Saudi Arabia has by far the biggest air force in the council. The Gulf regi=
on=20
has been the target of renewed Iraqi threats. Baghdad has repeated that=20
Kuwait is part of Iraq as President Saddam Hussein has wooed Egypt to=20
restore diplomatic relations.=20=20
Bush urged to reduce role in Middle East talks=20=20
Weekend News Today=20
Lead: Kelly=20
Source: Middle East Newsline=20
Fri Jan 19,2001 -- President-elect George W. Bush is being urged to lower=20
his profile in Arab-Israeli peace efforts. A bipartisan group including for=
mer=20
officials of the CIA, National Security Council, State Department and=20
Pentagon said Bush should focus on preventing a Middle East war. But he=20
should keep out of Arab-Israeli talks except to either avoid their collapse=
or=20
ensure a breakthrough. "Until that time, the president should invest his=20
secretary of state with his personal authority for managing the U.S. role i=
n=20
the peace process," the report by the group said.=20=20
Fingerprint scans replace lunch money in Pennsylvania=20=20
Weekend News Today=20
Lead: Leo=20
Source: ABCNews.com=20
Fri Jan 19,2001 -- A new system which uses fingerprint scanners to let kids=
=20
pay for school lunches is getting raves from students and school=20
administrators, but is making privacy advocates nervous. The scanners make=
=20
stealable lunch money, lose-able swipe cards and the stigma of being known=
=20
as the free-lunch kid things of the past, says Walter Curfman, superintende=
nt=20
of the Tussey Mountain School District in western Pennsylvania.=20=20
"You always have your finger with you, unless you cut it off," he said. But=
=20
Andrew Shen of the Electronic Privacy Information Center worries about how=
=20
well the information will be protected from being spread around throughout=
=20
the government. "Once you have a collection of fingerprints starting from=20
such an early age, I can imagine this being used for other purposes in the=
=20
future" such as law enforcement, he said.=20=20
http://216.219.160.226/cgi-
bin/readnews.cgi?day=3D01_01_19&item=3D#979926171
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========
To: bprlist@egroups.com
Subject: [bprlist] Bush to be sworn in with same Bible used by Washington
From: "research-bpr" <research-bpr@philologos.org>
Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 18:55:35 -0500
Bush to be sworn in with same Bible used by Washington
NEW YORK - The Bible used to swear in the first President George W. -
George Washington - will be used to swear in George W. Bush.
The 1767 King James Bible also was used at the inaugurations of Presidents
George Bush, Jimmy Carter, Dwight Eisenhower and Warren Harding.
St. John's Masonic lodge of New York City has owned the Bible for 200
years and offers it for every inauguration. President Clinton opted to use his
grandmother's.
The book is so fragile that not even Supreme Court Justice William
Rehnquist - who administers the oath - is allowed to touch it. It's held on a
red cushion.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-
bin/WebObjects/SeattleTimes.woa/wa/gotoArticle?zsection_id=268448413&t
ext_only=0&slug=money19&document_id=134261313
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