BPR Mailing List Digest: 03/28/01

Philologos
BPR Mailing List Digest
March 28, 2001

Digest Home | 2001 | March, 2001

From owner-bpr@philologos.org Wed Mar 28 08:41:57 2001
Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2001 13:41:57 -0000
Reply-To: bprlist@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [bprlist] Dam construction an act of war?

Dam construction an act of war?
Turkey, Iraq, Britain battle over life's most precious resource

Editor's note: WorldNetDaily.com international correspondent Anthony
C. LoBaido has traveled through Kurdistan and reported on events in
that turbulent region of the world. In this update, LoBaido examines
the scramble for control of the water resources in the region.

By Anthony C. LoBaido
=A9 2001 WorldNetDaily.com

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID22199

KARS, Turkey -- The planet's most precious resource -- water -- has
become the latest point of conflict in the Middle East, as the UK and
Arab nations in the area battle over a proposed dam in Turkey, a
facility that could cause the perpetual flooding of countless Kurdish
villages in the region.

It has long been thought that oil would bring about the next great
war in the Middle East. In reality, however, the next conflagration
will most likely be fought over something more basic to survival and
prosperity in the region -- water resources.

Some nations, like Iraq and Turkey, are rich in water resources.
Others in the region, like the Jordanians and Palestinians, lack
water. Israel also is rapidly running out of water.

Now, a new development is emerging in the area. After interviewing
scores of Iraqi and Kurdish dissidents in Scandinavian refugee camps,
WorldNetDaily has identified one of the pillars undergirding Iraqi
President Saddam Hussein's intentions in Kurdistan -- it involves the
construction of a dam.

Kurdistan is a dangerous and rugged place. The Kurds are persecuted
by Iran, Turkey and Iraq. They have no homeland. The area is believed
to be home to the biblical Noah's Ark, yet the Kurds can find no safe
refuge, as did Noah and his family. The U.S./UK bombings of Iraq and
the northern "No Fly Zone," as well as United Nations sanctions and
other actions to help the Kurds, have proven futile. Saddam's mega
corporation "Asia" has made him a billionaire as he sends consumer
goods, oil and water through Turkey via Kurdistan to beat the
ineffective U.N. sanctions on Baghdad. There is also uranium in the
region. The Iraqis seek control of both uranium and water resources.

Turkey wants to build dams on the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers. Those
rivers are the keys to the water supply of the entire Middle East.
One of those dams will be called Ilisu Dam, near the border to Syria
and Iraq.

According to Anna Van Meter, a Scandinavia Red Cross worker currently
working in Kurdistan, "When the dam is completed, it will flood over
many Kurdish cities, including one of Kurdistan's oldest cities. But
that is just one of many water dams which Turkey has planned over the
next 20 years."

Van Meter continued: "Turkey will make electricity, and lots of it,
at plants it hopes to construct on the river. The financiers of the
project are from Great Britain. And Norwegian engineers will bring
the project to life. Syria, Iraq, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates
have now made an official complaint to Great Britain and warned
Turkey that the construction of this dam is an act of war. Some of
the Christian Kurds told me this is the fulfillment of a prophecy of
the book of Revelation, that the Euphrates River will be tied up so
the 200-million-man armies of China and south Asia will enter into
the Middle East."

The Socialist Labor government of Tony Blair has been criticized by
some members of Parliament over the UK's backing of the Ilisu dam
project.

According to The Guardian -- a British newspaper that shocked
Parliament by exposing the existence of the project and that the UK
would fund it -- members of the Trade and Industry Select Committee
said plans to spend =A3200 million of taxpayers' money on the dam would
have to be dropped unless the Turkish government agreed to certain
guarantees.

The main stumbling block is trade secretary Stephen Byers' insistence
that Turkey consult Syria and Iraq on its proposal to restrict the
flow of the Tigris into their territory. Turkey will not do so,
according to Olcay Unver, president of the Turkish administration in
charge of the project.

The British Parliament seems to have conceded that British commercial
interests in Turkey and political relations between the two countries
would be damaged if Britain did not pledge the =A3200 million.

"At the same time, it would be quite wrong to go ahead regardless of
the potential ill effects of the dam in the hope that matters would
sort themselves out," said one committee member.

The committee demanded that Byers obtain assurances from the Turkish
authorities that they had consulted downstream neighbors before
agreeing to the project.

"Objections from neighboring states, however charged in the political
context, deserve to be taken seriously," the committee stated.

MPs said their worst fears were for the Kurdish people whose homes
would be drowned and their livelihoods lost. The failure to consult
even the mayors of the affected towns was "lamentable."

The committee said: "The principal result of the dam will be the
movement of yet more people from the land to overcrowded cities ...
and the absence of remedies in the courts for those aggrieved will
leave many people without access to justice."

The committee "shares the view of ministers that the greatest
remaining obstacle to granting export credit for the dam is the
prospect of a program of displacing thousands of local residents
without proper consultation, compensation and resettlement."

On the issue of secrecy, some Parliament members demand that those
involved in the scheme "address the deplorable and counter-productive
lack of transparency in the way in which documentation has been kept
from the public on the Ilisu dam project."

Some MPs also criticized the government's delayed publication of
environmental and resettlement reports until just before Parliament
adjourned for the Christmas recess so MPs could not raise any issues
involved.

Tony Juniper, policy director of Friends of the Earth, said: "This
report highlights how the government's commitments to the
environment, human rights and democracy and ethical foreign policy
are not reflected in the policies of the ECGD. Mr. Byers should
refuse support for the Ilisu dam and instead concentrate on
overhauling the rules that decided which British companies gain
taxpayers' assistance for their work overseas."

An Iraqi delegation is attending a summit of Arab nations this week
in Amman, Jordan. Saddam Hussein sent a message to the summit
yesterday, offering to send Iraqi troops to liberate "all of
Palestine." In the past, funding for the Palestinian Authority has
been promised by many Arab regimes, but has been delivered only in
dribs and drabs. The PA is calling for a large and immediate infusion
of arms and cash from her Arab neighbors, perhaps in anticipation of
a war with Israel.

Last week, Ezer Weizman, a former dovish president of Israel,
said, "Yasser Arafat is a liar. It is as simple and tragic as that."
Weizman, 77, was a brilliant commander in the Israeli air force.

"I have explained to foreign leaders that Arafat is just a liar, and
I clarify to them that he is responsible for the ongoing killings,"
said Weizman.

Another prominent Israel leader, Yitzhak Molcho, who engaged in
hundreds of hours of negotiations with Arafat, called him "a seven-
headed snake."

Concluded Van Meter, "Turkey always wanted to go inside the European
Union and solidify her position in NATO. This is why Turkey has
entered into war games with her archenemy Greece -- it is all because
Turkey knows a war may be coming with her Arab neighbors. This is a
great story that is now just unfolding."

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From research-bpr@philologos.org Wed Mar 28 08:43:57 2001
Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2001 08:43:57 -0500
Reply-To: bprlist@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [bprlist] Some US forces may have been exposed to nerve gas

Some US forces may have been exposed to nerve gas

By Andrea Shalal-Esa

WASHINGTON, March 27 (Reuters) - A small advance group of U.S. special
forces may have been exposed to nerve gas when a U.S.-led coalition
bombed an Iraqi weapons site during the Gulf War, the U.S. Defense
Department said in a report on Tuesday.

It was still uncertain whether the soldiers were exposed to the nerve agents,
the Pentagon said, but it was now notifying those troops of the possibility.

The Pentagon released its report after an investigation on whether the strike
on the weapons site at Muhammadiyat, Iraq, exposed large numbers of U.S.
troops to nerve gas and other chemical warfare agents.

Bombs filled with mustard agents and the nerve agents sarin and cyclosarin
were found at the bombing site after the 1991 war.

But the Pentagon report said that "with the possible exception of a few
forward-deployed special operations forces in Iraq -- U.S. forces were
definitely not exposed to chemical warfare agents as a result of the
bombing."

"For the few special operations personnel in Iraq, exposure is characterized
as indeterminate from the facts available," it added. A Pentagon spokesman
could not say how many troops might have been affected.

The Pentagon also did not address how many Iraqi citizens might have been
exposed to chemical warfare agents as a result of the bombing. The
weapons site was about 95 miles (153 km) west of Baghdad.

Military planners targeted Muhammadiyat because it was an ammunition
storage site and suspected Scud missile depot, the Pentagon said. It was
unclear whether they knew chemical weapons were also stored there.

BOMBS WITH MUSTARD, NERVE GAS FOUND AT SITE

After the war ended, U.N. weapons inspectors found damaged and destroyed
mustard-filled bombs as well as damaged bombs containing sarin or
cyclosarin at the site.

Using U.N. reports, declarations by Iraq and other sources, Pentagon
investigators determined it was likely that the bombing released 180 kg (397
pounds) of a mixture of sarin and cyclosarin, the Pentagon said in its report.

Additionally, computer modeling showed that an estimated 2,969 kg (6,545
pounds) of mustard blister agent was released.

The Pentagon said its investigators had concluded that any of 17 airstrikes
could have released the nerve and mustard gas agent between Jan. 19 and
Feb. 24, 1991.

At those times, the closest U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia were 35 miles (57
km) from the nerve agent hazard area. The closest U.S. forces in Saudi
Arabia were 125 miles (201 km) from the possible mustard hazard area.

"Therefore, we believe that U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia definitely were not
exposed to chemical warfare agents released from the bombing of
Muhammadiyat," the Pentagon said.

"Nevertheless, it is possible a few U.S. Special Operations Forces personnel
were exposed to a low level of nerve agent because of operations in Iraq on
Feb. 17, 19, or 24, 1991," it added. It was uncertain if those soldiers had
been exposed because Pentagon investigators did not know their precise
location at the time of the bombing raids.

The Pentagon said no U.S. special operations forces personnel were present
on the possible days of mustard agent release.

NO RISK TO TROOPS FROM AL MUTHANNA BOMBING

In a separate report, the Pentagon said U.S. troops "definitely were not
exposed" to chemical warfare agents during a Feb. 8 bombing of another
weapons site, at Al Muthanna, Iraq.

Intelligence sources later estimated that most of a possible 9 tons of sarin at
the site was destroyed by the fire that ensued. An estimated 10 kg (23
pounds) escaped into the atmosphere.

The Pentagon said computer modeling of the hazard area created by the
escaped sarin indicated a maximum downwind hazard extending no farther
than 32 miles (50 km) southeast of Al Muthanna.

U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia were no closer than 256 miles (412 km) from Al
Muthanna and no U.S. special forces were in the area.

00:21 03-28-01

http://www.reuters.com/news.jhtml

via: Third_Watch @yahoogroups.com

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From research-bpr@philologos.org Wed Mar 28 08:47:31 2001
Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2001 08:47:31 -0500
Reply-To: bprlist@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [bprlist] The Omega Man

From New Scientist magazine, 10 March 2001.

The Omega Man

He shattered mathematics with a single number. And that was just for
starters, says Marcus Chown

TWO plus two equals four: nobody would argue with that. Mathematicians
can rigorously prove sums like this, and many other things besides. The
language of maths allows them to provide neatly ordered ways to describe
everything that happens in the world around us.

Or so they once thought. Gregory Chaitin, a mathematics researcher at
IBM's T. J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York, has
shown that mathematicians can't actually prove very much at all. Doing
maths, he says, is just a process of discovery like every other branch
of science: it's an experimental field where mathematicians stumble upon
facts in the same way that zoologists might come across a new species of
primate.

Mathematics has always been considered free of uncertainty and able to
provide a pure foundation for other, messier fields of science. But
maths is just as messy, Chaitin says: mathematicians are simply acting
on intuition and experimenting with ideas, just like everyone else.
Zoologists think there might be something new swinging from branch to
branch in the unexplored forests of Madagascar, and mathematicians have
hunches about which part of the mathematical landscape to explore. The
subject is no more profound than that.

The reason for Chaitin's provocative statements is that he has found
that the core of mathematics is riddled with holes. Chaitin has shown
that there are an infinite number of mathematical facts but, for the
most part, they are unrelated to each other and impossible to tie
together with unifying theorems. If mathematicians find any connections
between these facts, they do so by luck. "Most of mathematics is true
for no particular reason," Chaitin says. "Maths is true by accident."

This is particularly bad news for physicists on a quest for a complete
and concise description of the Universe. Maths is the language of
physics, so Chaitin's discovery implies there can never be a reliable
"theory of everything", neatly summarising all the basic features of
reality in one set of equations. It's a bitter pill to swallow, but even
Steven Weinberg, a Nobel prizewinning physicist and author of Dreams of
a Final Theory, has swallowed it. "We will never be sure that our final
theory is mathematically consistent," he admits.

Chaitin's mathematical curse is not an abstract theorem or an
impenetrable equation: it is simply a number. This number, which Chaitin
calls Omega, is real, just as pi is real. But Omega is infinitely long
and utterly incalculable. Chaitin has found that Omega infects the whole
of mathematics, placing fundamental limits on what we can know. And
Omega is just the beginning. There are even more disturbing
numbers--Chaitin calls them Super-Omegas--that would defy calculation
even if we ever managed to work Omega out. The Omega strain of
incalculable numbers reveals that mathematics is not simply moth-eaten,
it is mostly made of gaping holes. Anarchy, not order, is at the heart
of the Universe.

Chaitin discovered Omega and its astonishing properties while wrestling
with two of the most influential mathematical discoveries of the 20th
century. In 1931, the Austrian mathematician Kurt G=F6del blew a gaping
hole in mathematics: his Incompleteness Theorem showed there are some
mathematical theorems that you just can't prove. Then, five years later,
British mathematician Alan Turing built on G=F6del's work.

Using a hypothetical computer that could mimic the operation of any
machine, Turing showed that there is something that can never be
computed. There are no instructions you can give a computer that will
enable it to decide in advance whether a given program will ever finish
its task and halt. To find out whether a program will eventually
halt--after a day, a week or a trillion years--you just have to run it
and wait. He called this the halting problem.

Decades later, in the 1960s, Chaitin took up where Turing left off.
Fascinated by Turing's work, he began to investigate the halting
problem. He considered all the possible programs that Turing's
hypothetical computer could run, and then looked for the probability
that a program, chosen at random from among all the possible programs,
will halt. The work took him nearly 20 years, but he eventually showed
that this "halting probability" turns Turing's question of whether a
program halts into a real number, somewhere between 0 and 1.

Chaitin named this number Omega. And he showed that, just as there are
no computable instructions for determining in advance whether a computer
will halt, there are also no instructions for determining the digits of
Omega. Omega is uncomputable.

Some numbers, like pi, can be generated by a relatively short program
which calculates its infinite number of digits one by one--how far you
go is just a matter of time and resources. Another example of a
computable number might be one that comprises 200 repeats of the
sequence 0101. The number is long, but a program for generating it only
need say: "repeat '01' 400 times".

There is no such program for Omega: in binary, it consists of an
unending, random string of 0s and 1s. "My Omega number has no pattern or
structure to it whatsoever," says Chaitin. "It's a string of 0s and 1s
in which each digit is as unrelated to its predecessor as one coin toss
is from the next."

The same process that led Turing to conclude that the halting problem is
undecidable also led Chaitin to the discovery of an unknowable number.
"It's the outstanding example of something which is unknowable in
mathematics," Chaitin says.

An unknowable number wouldn't be a problem if it never reared its head.
But once Chaitin had discovered Omega, he began to wonder whether it
might have implications in the real world. So he decided to search
mathematics for places where Omega might crop up. So far, he has only
looked properly in one place: number theory.

Number theory is the foundation of pure mathematics. It describes how to
deal with concepts such as counting, adding, and multiplying. Chaitin's
search for Omega in number theory started with "Diophantine
equations"--which involve only the simple concepts of addition,
multiplication and exponentiation (raising one number to the power of
another) of whole numbers.

Chaitin formulated a Diophantine equation that was 200 pages long and
had 17,000 variables. Given an equation like this, mathematicians would
normally search for its solutions. There could be any number of answers:
perhaps 10, 20, or even an infinite number of them. But Chaitin didn't
look for specific solutions, he simply looked to see whether there was a
finite or an infinite number of them.

He did this because he knew it was the key to unearthing Omega.
Mathematicians James Jones of the University of Calgary and Yuri
Matijasevic of the Steklov Institute of Mathematics in St Petersburg had
shown how to translate the operation of Turing's computer into a
Diophantine equation. They found that there is a relationship between
the solutions to the equation and the halting problem for the machine's
program. Specifically, if a particular program doesn't ever halt, a
particular Diophantine equation will have no solution. In effect, the
equations provide a bridge linking Turing's halting problem--and thus
Chaitin's halting probability--with simple mathematical operations, such
as the addition and multiplication of whole numbers.

Chaitin had arranged his equation so that there was one particular
variable, a parameter which he called N, that provided the key to
finding Omega. When he substituted numbers for N, analysis of the
equation would provide the digits of Omega in binary. When he put 1 in
place of N, he would ask whether there was a finite or infinite number
of whole number solutions to the resulting equation. The answer gives
the first digit of Omega: a finite number of solutions would make this
digit 0, an infinite number of solutions would make it 1. Substituting 2
for N and asking the same question about the equation's solutions would
give the second digit of Omega. Chaitin could, in theory, continue
forever. "My equation is constructed so that asking
whether it has finitely or infinitely many solutions as you vary the
parameter is the same as determining the bits of Omega," he says.

But Chaitin already knew that each digit of Omega is random and
independent. This could only mean one thing. Because finding out whether
a Diophantine equation has a finite or infinite number of solutions
generates these digits, each answer to the equation must therefore be
unknowable and independent of every other answer. In other words, the
randomness of the digits of Omega imposes limits on what can be known
from number theory--the most elementary of mathematical fields. "If
randomness is even in something as basic as number theory, where else is
it?" asks Chaitin. He thinks he knows the answer. "My hunch is it's
everywhere," he says. "Randomness is the true foundation of
mathematics."

The fact that randomness is everywhere has deep consequences, says John
Casti, a mathematician at the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico and the
Vienna University of Technology. It means that a few bits of maths may
follow from each other, but for most mathematical situations those
connections won't exist. And if you can't make connections, you can't
solve or prove things. All a mathematician can do is aim to find the
little bits of maths that do tie together. "Chaitin's work shows that
solvable problems are like a small island in a vast sea of undecidable
propositions," Casti says.

Take the problem of perfect odd numbers. A perfect number has divisors
whose sum makes the number. For example, 6 is perfect because its
divisors are 1, 2 and 3, and their sum is 6. There are plenty of even
perfect numbers, but no one has ever found an odd number that is
perfect. And yet, no one has been able to prove that an odd number can't
be perfect. Unproved hypotheses like this and the Riemann hypothesis,
which has become the unsure foundation of many other theorems (New
Scientist, 11 November 2000, p 32) are examples
of things that should be accepted as unprovable but nonetheless true,
Chaitin suggests. In other words, there are some things that scientists
will always have to take on trust.

Unsurprisingly, mathematicians had a difficult time coming to terms with
Omega. But there is worse to come. "We can go beyond Omega," Chaitin
says. In his new book, Exploring Randomness (New Scientist, 10 January,
p 46), Chaitin has now unleashed the "Super-Omegas".

Like Omega, the Super-Omegas also owe their genesis to Turing. He
imagined a God-like computer, much more powerful than any real computer,
which could know the unknowable: whether a real computer would halt when
running a particular program, or carry on forever. He called this
fantastical machine an "oracle". And as soon as Chaitin discovered
Omega--the probability that a random computer program would eventually
halt--he realised he could also imagine an oracle that would know Omega.
This machine would have its own unknowable halting probability, Omega'.

But if one oracle knows Omega, it's easy to imagine a second-order
oracle that knows Omega'. This machine, in turn, has its own halting
probability, Omega'', which is known only by a third-order oracle, and
so on. According to Chaitin, there exists an infinite sequence of
increasingly random Omegas. "There is even an all-seeing infinitely
high-order oracle which knows all other Omegas," he says.

He kept these numbers to himself for decades, thinking they were too
bizarre to be relevant to the real world. Just as Turing looked upon his
God-like computer as a flight of fancy, Chaitin thought these
Super-Omegas were fantasy numbers emerging from fantasy machines. But
Veronica Becher of the University of Buenos Aires has shown that Chaitin
was wrong: the Super-Omegas are both real and important. Chaitin is
genuinely surprised by this discovery. "Incredibly, they actually have a
real meaning for real computers," he says.

Becher has been collaborating with Chaitin for just over a year, and is
helping to drag Super-Omegas into the real world. As a computer
scientist, she wondered whether there were links between Omega, the
higher-order Omegas and real computers.

Real computers don't just perform finite computations, doing one or a
few things, and then halt. They can also carry out infinite
computations, producing an infinite series of results. "Many computer
applications are designed to produce an infinite amount of output,"
Becher says. Examples include Web browsers such as Netscape and
operating systems such as Windows 2000.

This example gave Becher her first avenue to explore: the probability
that, over the course of an infinite computation, a machine would
produce only a finite amount of output. To do this, Becher and her
student Sergio Daicz used a technique developed by Chaitin. They took a
real computer and turned it into an approximation of an oracle. The
"fake oracle" decides that a program halts if--and only if--it halts
within time T. A real computer can handle this weakened version of the
halting problem. "Then you let T go to infinity," Chaitin says. This
allows the shortcomings of the fake to diminish as it runs for longer
and longer.

Using variations on this technique, Becher and Daicz found that the
probability that an infinite computation produces only a finite amount
of output is the same as Omega', the halting probability of the oracle.
Going further, they showed that Omega'' is equivalent to the probability
that, during an infinite computation, a computer will fail to produce an
output--for example, get no result from a computation and move on to the
next one--and that it will do this only a finite number of times.

These might seem like odd things to bother with, but Chaitin believes
this is an important step. "Becher's work makes the whole hierarchy of
Omega numbers seem much more believable," he says. Things that
Turing--and Chaitin--imagined were pure fantasy are actually very real.

Now that the Super-Omegas are being unearthed in the real world, Chaitin
is sure they will crop up all over mathematics, just like Omega. The
Super-Omegas are even more random than Omega: if mathematicians were
to
get over Omega's obstacles, they would face an ever-elevated barrier as
they confronted Becher's results.

And that has knock-on effects elsewhere. Becher and Chaitin admit that
the full implications of their new discoveries have yet to become clear,
but mathematics is central to many aspects of science. Certainly any
theory of everything, as it attempts to tie together all the facts about
the Universe, would need to jump an infinite number of hurdles to prove
its worth.

The discovery of Omega has exposed gaping holes in mathematics, making
research in the field look like playing a lottery, and it has demolished
hopes of a theory of everything. Who knows what the Super-Omegas are
capable of? "This," Chaitin warns, "is just the beginning."

Further reading:

Exploring Randomness by G. J. Chaitin, Springer-Verlag (2001)
"A Century of Controversy Over the Foundations of Mathematics" by G. J.
Chaitin, Complexity, vol 5, p 12 (2000)
The Unknowable by G. J. Chaitin, Springer-Verlag (1999)
"Randomness everywhere" by C. S. Calude and G. J. Chaitin, Nature, vol
400, p 319 (1999)
http://www.cs.umaine.edu/~chaitin/

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From owner-bpr@philologos.org Wed Mar 28 08:48:25 2001
Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2001 13:48:25 -0000
Reply-To: bprlist@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [bprlist] Exhumed body of Pope John XXIII 'uncorrupted' 38 years after death

Exhumed body of Pope John XXIII 'uncorrupted' 38 years after death
Philip Pullella In Vatican City

http://thescotsman.co.uk/world.cfm?id=59308

A leading cardinal present when the coffin of Pope John XXIII was
opened after 38 years said yesterday the pontiff looked as if he
had "died yesterday".

"None of the body had decomposed," said Cardinal Virgilio Noe, the
high priest of St Peter's Basilica, who oversaw the opening of the
coffin ready for moving the tomb to a space more accessible to
pilgrims.

Italian media reports at the weekend said only Pope John's face was
intact but Cardinal Noe, who attended the exhumation with other
Vatican officials on 16 January, said the entire body was uncorrupted
by time.

"It was as if he died yesterday," he told reporters on the sidelines
of a news conference to present a book on the papal tombs in St
Peter's. "He looked tranquil. His mouth was slightly open but he was
tranquil. The serenity he had in life, he took with him to his death
and he still had it 38 years later."

John XXIII, who reigned from 1958 to 1963, was known as the "Good
Pope" because of his benevolent and jovial nature. He made
ecclesiastical history by convening the Second Vatican Council which
brought the Catholic Church up to date.

When he died, his body was not embalmed but Italian media reports
said it was treated with formalin before it lay in state. The body
was placed in a wooden casket inside a bronze coffin and both were
sealed before being buried in a grave in the ancient grottoes beneath
St Peter's, where many other popes are laid. Now it is to be
relocated near the basilica's main altar to make access easier for
the millions of pilgrims who come to pray at his tomb.

The man born Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli remains one of history's most
loved popes with a particularly devout following in Italy. He has
been credited with curing an Italian nun of a stomach tumour. She
prayed to him and quickly recovered with no medical explanation.

Pope John Paul II beatified him last year, the penultimate step
before sainthood.

Vatican officials have been careful not to attribute the preservation
of his body directly to a miracle. Cardinal Noe declined to be drawn
into questions about miracles.

Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Vatican's secretary of state, said in a
television interview on Monday that it could be the result of a
miracle but it would be up to experts to decide.

Cardinal Noe said the body was being treated by experts and might be
shown to the public before being placed in the new tomb in a few
months' time. - Reuters

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From research-bpr@philologos.org Wed Mar 28 08:50:01 2001
Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2001 08:50:01 -0500
Reply-To: bprlist@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [bprlist] Wave of terror strikes Israel

                  Weekly News Update and Prayer Focus from Israel

                                Week Ending: March 28, 2001

Notice: The Bridges for Peace newly designed website is located at
www.bridgesforpeace.com. Tell your friends to check it out. We are your
Israel Connection.

WAVE OF TERROR STRIKES ISRAEL

         In a land where peace (shalom) is the most common greeting for
"hello" and "goodbye," the concept seems to have been lost.
         While Yasser Arafat struts before the Arab League meeting in
nearby Amman,
Jordan, and claims to "categorically reject all forms of terrorism, both
individual and state terrorism," his operatives have been working overtime
in Israel during the past
48-hours.
         This morning (March 28th), three bombs were planted in Israel
proper, one in
Natanya, one in Petah Tikva, and one in Neveh Yemin near Kfar Saba. The
first two were discovered before exploding, and defused. However, the last
was detonated at 7:30 am by a Palestinian suicide bomber, who apparently
walked up to a group of teenagers on their way to school and triggered the
bomb, killing himself, two of the highschool students and injuring four
others, two of them critically. All of the dead and injured are between the
ages of 14-17.
        Yesterday in Jerusalem, city buses were the apparent targets of two
bomb blasts that rocked the city less than six hours apart, with one person
killed and 35 wounded. The first explosion was at 7:30 am in the Talpiot
Commercial Zone near to a shopping mall. A car bomb went off as a city bus
passed. The second explosion was at 1:30 p.m. near the northern bedroom
community of French Hill, set off by a suicide bomber, who was the only
person to die. Officials said one of the wounded in the second blast
suffered critical injuries and a second was seriously wounded. The rest
suffered light injuries.
        The militant Islamic Jihad group claimed responsibility for the
first bomb, just as the morning rush hour was starting. Israeli officials
condemned the bombs, and warned that such acts would do little to bring
peace to the troubled Middle East. "It looks like there was an organized
attempt of terror and violence, and I think it is tragic. It leads
nowhere," said Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres. "The only way to
make peace is by negotiation without the threat of violence, without
bombing and shooting," he said. "I think this is a great error which really
affects the peace process negatively."
        The blasts underscored a tumultuous, uncertain time in the Middle
East, a day after bullets from a Palestinian neighborhood in the West Bank
town of Hebron struck and killed Shelheveth Pass, a 10-month-old Jewish
girl. Shelheveth's parents were standing near the entrance of their
Avraham Avenu neighborhood when the sniper opened fire, shooting
Shelhevet
in the head, while being held in her mother's arms. Her father, Yitzhak,
was also shot in the leg by the sniper. The Israeli army responded with
intense tank and machine gun fire shortly after the killing and evacuated
the Palestinian neighborhood, Abu Sneinah, from where the sniper had fired.
The Israeli commander in the area said the baby, who was the youngest
victim in six months of fighting between Israelis and Palestinians, was
intentionally targeted by a Palestinian sniper.
        This is not the first time the Pass family has been the target of
terrorism. In November 1993, two axe-wielding Palestinians attacked
Yitzhak's father-in-law, Avraham Zarbiv, as he was on his way to morning
prayers, causing serious skull, face and hand wounds. After undergoing
intensive surgery, he recovered. In January 1996, one of Zarbiv's
daughters, Orital, then 14, was stabbed in the back by a Palestinian near
the Hebron market. On March 10th, Yitzhak Pass's brother, Eldad, 19, who
was spending Shabbat with him in Hebron, was shot in the leg. This is the
first time, however, that the terror took the life of a family member.
        The people of Israel are calling out for a response. However,
Israeli officials do not want to play into the hands of Yasser Arafat, who
is trying to provoke a response from Israel while at the Arab League
meeting so that he can use this as a pretext to get consensus for a "jihad"
(Holy War) against Israel by the attending Islamic nations.
        Security forces are out all over Israel to prevent further attacks.
(- reported by Clarence Wagner, Jr., Bridges for Peace, Jerusalem, March
28, 2001.)

http://www.bridgesforpeace.com

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From research-bpr@philologos.org Wed Mar 28 08:53:43 2001
Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2001 08:53:43 -0500
Reply-To: bprlist@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [bprlist] (Fwd) The Historical Society of Jews From Egypt appeals

------- Forwarded message follows -------
Date sent: Wed, 28 Mar 2001 01:09:04 -0500
From: imra@netvision.net.il
To: imra@imra.org.il
Subject: The Historical Society of Jews
From Egypt appeals in letter to President
Bush concerning Jewish articles left in Egypt

The Historical Society of Jews From Egypt appeals in letter to President
Bush concerning Jewish articles left in Egypt

March 20, 2001

President George W. Bush
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, D.C. 20500

FAX 202-456-2461

Dear Mr. President;

The Historical Society of Jews From Egypt (HSJE) would greatly appreciate it
if
you would convey to President Mubarak of Egypt our serious concern about the
Jewish religious articles and documents still in Egypt. These were left
behind
by the large Jewish community when the Egyptian authorities forced it to
uproot
and exile itself in the aftermath of the creation of the state of Israel. We
respectfully request that this, our patrimony, be transferred to an academic
institution in the United States.

In response to our request, sent directly to President Mubarak, Egyptian
Ambassador Mr. Nabil Fahmy stated that these articles have been placed under
the jurisdiction of the Department of Antiquities and cannot be transferred
abroad. (See attached letters.)

We cannot accept this response. How can religious objects and records that
were in use less than a generation ago be classified as "antiquities", on
par with the Pyramids or the Sphinx? How can a country that persecuted its
Jewish community solely because they were Jews help safeguard their
heritage?

To give you some background, after the creation of Israel the Egyptian
authorities began persecuting the Jews living in Egypt. They harassed us,
made
us live in fear, denied us equal opportunity, denied us citizenship even
though
we were born in Egypt, confiscated our property, threw many of us in jail
even
though we committed no crimes, and finally forced us to leave the country,
frequently by simply expelling us. Before leaving, we were forced to pledge
that we would never return and that we were voluntarily forfeiting all our
assets. They stole from the Jewish community as a whole and from
individuals
of the Jewish faith in particular, assets amounting to billions of dollars,
for
no reason whatsoever. Our only crime was being Jewish. Not a penny has
ever
been returned to us. We all had to rebuild our lives from scratch in foreign
lands.

And now, close to fifty years later,

~ 1. Egypt still has not made any restitution to its Jews for confiscated
assets, as the free world has done with other Jewish communities;
~ 2. Egypt still has not apologized for its past evil treatment of its
Jews, as the free world has done with other Jewish communities;
~ 3. Egypt still has not officially recognized the great contribution Jews
have made to their country of birth, as the free world has done with other
Jewish communities; and, incredibly,
~ 4. Egypt is currently trying to pilfer what little is left of the Jewish
heritage in Egypt.

The articles and records we are requesting are of religious significance,
and were donated to the Egyptian Jewish community by its members for a
specific religious function.

The United States has good relations with Egypt and provides it with three
billion dollars in aid every year. We would prefer that this matter be
settled without asking our representatives to introduce legislation to
withhold aid from Egypt pending its compliance with our request.

We kindly ask that you take a few minutes to discuss this subject with
President
Mubarak when he visits the United States in the near future, and we thank
you in advance for your efforts on our behalf.

Respectfully,

The HSJE committee and its Regional Officers

________________ ___________________
Joseph E. Mosseri Desire L. Sakkal
Secretary President

Attached: 1) Petition to President Mubarak March 22, 2000
2) Egypt's ambassador's Nabil Fahmy's reply June 26, 2000
3) Letter to Egypt?s ambassador Mr. Nabil Fahmy February 21, 2001

for more informantion please log on http://www.hsje.org

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From research-bpr@philologos.org Wed Mar 28 08:54:50 2001
Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2001 08:54:50 -0500
Reply-To: bprlist@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [bprlist] (Fwd) Ha'aretz: Knesset delegation will fly to Cuba tomorrow

------- Forwarded message follows -------
Date sent: Wed, 28 Mar 2001 02:09:40 -0500
From: imra@netvision.net.il
To: imra@imra.org.il
Subject: Ha'aretz: Knesset delegation
will fly to Cuba tomorrow

Ha'aretz: Knesset delegation will fly to Cuba tomorrow

Ha'aretz 28 March 2001

Marking a first, a Knesset delegation will fly to Cuba tomorrow to meet with
parliament members from around the world. Justice Minister Meir Sheetrit
will head the delegation. MKs going include Ophir Pines-Paz and Sofa Landver
(both One Israel) and Avsha lom Vilan (Meretz). The Israelis will meet with
Cuban President Fidel Castro and members of Havanas Jewish community. Israel
does not have diplomatic relations with Cuba.

--------------------------------------------
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From research-bpr@philologos.org Wed Mar 28 08:58:08 2001
Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2001 08:58:08 -0500
Reply-To: bprlist@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [bprlist] (Fwd) The Jerusalem Post Editorial: Annan fails the reality test

------- Forwarded message follows -------
Date sent: Wed, 28 Mar 2001 02:23:17 -0500
From: imra@netvision.net.il
To: imra@imra.org.il
Subject: The Jerusalem Post Editorial:
Annan fails the reality test

The Jerusalem Post Editorial: Annan fails the reality test

March 28 2001

In between yesterday morning's car bombing in Jerusalem's busy Talpiot
industrial and shopping area and the afternoon's suicide-bomber attack in
the capital's French Hill neighborhood, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan
calmly said the world has every right to criticize Israel for occupying Arab
land and for its "excessively harsh response" to the Palestinian uprising.

Speaking at the opening meeting of the Arab League summit in Amman, Annan
said: "Blockades and closures have paralyzed the Palestinian economy,
isolated the West Bank and Gaza, and prevented the delivery of medicine,
food, and fuel. Collective punishment has cast a pall of anger and despair
over the already tense occupied territories." The UN leader also insisted
that there "is no solution to be found in violence, and no sense in
postponing the day when the parties return to the [negotiating] table."

Interestingly, Annan thought it of no importance to tell the esteemed Arab
gathering that the deliberate murder of a 10-month-old baby by sniper fire
or the steering of a speeding bus into a crowd of soldiers and pedestrians
waiting for a ride to work also did little to promote the cause of peace.
Nor did the world statesman see fit to point out that the Palestinian
decision to resort to violence, after the failure of last summer's Camp
David talks, was hardly the way to win over Israeli confidence in the
trustworthiness of the Palestinian Authority as a partner for peace.

In failing to raise these unpleasant truths at the first regular meeting of
the Arab world following the Gulf War of a decade ago, Annan missed an
opportunity to inject some realism into the summit's discussions. (To give
an example of the flights of fancy receiving a respectful hearing at the
summit, consider these remarks by the supposedly modern Syrian ruler, Bashar
Assad, who told the assembled leaders that by voting Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon into power, Israel had proved itself to be "a racist society, a
society more racist than the Nazis.") By simply going along with the
prevalent tone of Arab rhetoric, the UN leader has not only achieved
nothing, he has actively hindered his stated desire: to bring the two sides
back to the negotiating table.

Annan must surely know, even if just from reading newspaper reports of
Sharon's visit to the United States last week, that Israel has made it
perfectly clear it will not hold negotiations with the Palestinians as long
as the PA continues to encourage terrorism. Moreover, the Sharon government
has taken a series of steps in recent days to ease the economic conditions
in the territories, only to be met with bullets and bombs. The minute last
week's closure on Bethlehem was lifted, for example, Baruch Cohen was
murdered in a drive-by shooting as he made his way to work in Jerusalem from
his home in Efrat.

Yesterday's two terror attacks, and the cold-blooded murder of infant
Shalhevet Pass in Hebron on Monday, were clearly linked to Palestinian
desires to provide an escalation of violence on the eve of the Arab summit,
in the hope of provoking an Israeli response which would then result in
further sympathy for the Palestinians. Much to their surprise, and the
dismay of some of his supporters, Sharon has so far not taken the bait. The
prime minister, sensibly, is insisting that Israel will react in the time
and place of its choosing and not be drawn into a tit-for-tat exchange with
the Palestinians, an exchange that carries with it the danger of escalating
out of control.

At the same time, Sharon was elected on a promise to restore a sense of
security to Israel's citizens and he will not be able to avoid taking any
action for much longer. There is no simple remedy for the fight against
terror - if there were, Israel would have already used it - but simply
standing still in the face of exploding bombs is no solution either. In the
past, Sharon has pledged to single out those responsible for attacks against
Israel while allowing the mass of innocent Palestinians to go about their
daily lives free of Israeli restraint. Now is the moment to implement this
policy.

--------------------------------------------
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From Baptist Wed Mar 28 09:01:42 2001
Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2001 21:01:42 +0700
Reply-To: bprlist@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [bprlist] Israel in the News & Prophecy

Hi everyone,

"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." -- Deut. 32:9-10

Check out my new announcement list, "Israel in the News & Prophecy."
The archives will be open briefly for your review. The archive URL is:
http://www.topica.com/lists/Israel-In-Prophecy/read

Subscribe by sending a blank message to
<Israel-In-Prophecy-subscribe@topica.com> or on line at:
http://www.topica.com/lists/Israel-In-Prophecy/subscribe/

Blessings,
John Henry
Missionary in Thailand

Free home to anyone who asks!!!
http://www.av1611.org/freehome.html

On Line Library, Study Hall, And Book Store
http://www.geocities.com/johnthebaptisthenry/

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From research-bpr@philologos.org Wed Mar 28 09:02:32 2001
Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2001 09:02:32 -0500
Reply-To: bprlist@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [bprlist] (Fwd) WAFA: Arafat includes right of return

------- Forwarded message follows -------
Date sent: Wed, 28 Mar 2001 07:18:55 -0500
From: imra@netvision.net.il
To: imra@imra.org.il
Subject: WAFA: Arafat includes right of return
of Palestinian refugees to within
Israel among demands

WAFA: Arafat includes right of return of Palestinian refugees to within
Israel among demands
(The official Palestinian news agency) 27 March 2001
http://www.wafa.pna.net/EngText/27-03-2001/page007.htm
President Arafat at the opening of the Arab Summit:

The Israeli aggression threatens the security and stability in the region

Amman, Mar.27th. Wafa - President Yasser Arafat addressed the opening
session of the Arab Leaders Summit in Amman, Jordan, today.

H.E. said that the Israeli aggression and military escalation, threatens the
security and stability in the region, and in the whole world.

The President declared that no one can force the Palestinians to accept any
solution, which does not include the U.N. and the International community
resolutions, that assure the rights of the Palestinian people of self
determination, and the implementation of the U.N. resolutions 194,242 and
338, and the establishing of the independent Palestinian state in the June
4th. 1967 borders, with occupied Arab East Jerusalem as its Capitol.

H.E. added that the struggle in the region is against a colonial occupation
by Israel, which uses all means of violence and terror in order to achieve
its wicked goals.

President Arafat concluded as saying that the Palestinian people like other
peoples in the world, is entitled and has the right of international
protection against the Israeli aggression.

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From research-bpr@philologos.org Wed Mar 28 09:03:19 2001
Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2001 09:03:19 -0500
Reply-To: bprlist@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [bprlist] (Fwd) ISRAEL REACTS TO THE UN SECURITY COUNCIL VOTE

------- Forwarded message follows -------
Date sent: Wed, 28 Mar 2001 07:45:33 -0500
From: imra@netvision.net.il
To: imra@imra.org.il
Subject: ISRAEL REACTS TO THE UN
SECURITY COUNCIL VOTE

ISRAEL REACTS TO THE UN SECURITY COUNCIL VOTE
(Communicated by the Foreign Ministry Spokesperson)
Jerusalem, 28 March 2001

Last night (March 27), the adoption of a one-sided resolution by
the UN Security Council, which would have ignored Palestinian
responsibility for the violence, was prevented. Israel welcomes
this decision.

Israel wishes to express its appreciation for the American
decision, under the circumstances created in the course of the
Council debate, to exercise its veto and thus to prevent the
adoption of a resolution which would only have had the effect of
aggravating the crisis in our region. Israel also appreciates the
Ukrainian decision not to take part in the vote.

Israel is disappointed at the surprising change in Russia's
position and at the support given by several states to the
initiative proposed in several draft resolutions, which is
completely inconsistent with the principles of the peace process,
and tries to circumvent agreements and understandings already
reached through direct contact between the parties.

It is ironic that the members of the Security Council put forward
an unbalanced proposal regarding the protection of Palestinian
civilians precisely at this time, when Israeli citizens, victims
of Palestinian terrorism, are being killed and injured.

Israel wishes to stress again, irrespective of the debate and the
decision taken by the Security Council, the need to put an
immediate stop to the acts of violence and terrorism being
conducted against Israel and its citizens, among them youngsters
and children.

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From research-bpr@philologos.org Wed Mar 28 09:12:09 2001
Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2001 09:12:09 -0500
Reply-To: bprlist@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [bprlist] Texas: $10 million penalty if caught cloning humans

Tuesday | March 27, 2001

Committee considers bills to prohibit human cloning

03/27/2001

Associated Press

AUSTIN - Human cloning might be scientifically possible, but two senators
are pushing legislation to make it financially impossible for many folks lured
by the prospect.

Sens. Jane Nelson and Royce West are working on combining their bills into
one piece of legislation that prohibits the cloning of humans in Texas.
Anyone caught cloning or attempting to clone a human would face a civil
penalty of up to $10 million per violation.

The Senate Jurisprudence Committee left the legislation pending Monday.

"I believe that our lives are gifts from God,'' Nelson, R-Flower Mound, told the
committee. "But aside from the ethical problems with cloning, the real issue
is that the health risks involved in this technology are devastating.''

Nelson said it takes about 100 cloning attempts to create a single live calf.
Even then, she added, many have "developmental delays, heart defects,
malfunctioning immune systems, enormous weight gains.''

"It would be unthinkable to subject human children to these probabilities,''
Nelson said.

It is illegal to use federal funds to clone humans, and a voluntary moratorium
on human cloning is being observed by researchers, but Texas has no
statutes outlawing it.

Under the newest version of Nelson's bill, cloning means creating a human
being by transferring the nucleus of a human cell from any source into a
human egg cell from which the nucleus has been removed for the purpose of
initiating pregnancy that could result in the birth of a human being.

Besides the civil penalty, West, D-Dallas, recommends making violations of
the law a second- or even first-degree felony.

Nelson's bill doesn't outlaw other types of cloning such as that used in
research to cure diseases.

"Biomedical research on human genes, tissues and cells must be protected
fro m overly broad definitions and imprecise legislative language to ensure
the development of tomorrow's treatments and cures,'' said Jill Aslakson,
policy director for Texas Healthcare & Bioscience Institute.

Aslakson and a researcher from Texas A&M University both testified that
they haven't heard of any interest in Texas to clone humans.

After several highly publicized animal clonings, Italian researcher Dr.
Severino Antinori and former University of Kentucky reproduction researcher
Panos Zavos gained widespread attention earlier this year when they
announced their plan to clone a human in an unspecified Mediterranean
country.

No one at the hearing opposed the ban on human cloning, but a right to life
advocate argued that the bill should explicitly outlaw embryonic cloning for
collection of stem cells, which are used in medical research.

http://www.dallasnews.com/texas_southwest/322670_cloning27e.html

via: isml@yahoogroups.com

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From research-bpr@philologos.org Wed Mar 28 09:22:20 2001
Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2001 09:22:20 -0500
Reply-To: bprlist@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [bprlist] Daily World Affairs Report items (3/27/01)

VATICAN CAUTION ON CATHOLIC-LUTHERAN ACCORD

The Vatican has issued a new caution regarding last year's joint Catholic-
Lutheran statement on justification, pointing out that the statement can only
be understood properly in light of the accompanying statements put forward
by the Holy See. In a new statement, jointly drafted by the Congregation
for the Doctrine of the Faith and the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity,
the Vatican observes that while "the Lutheran conception is no longer
condemned by the Catholic Church," still there remain some important
doctrinal differences.

The new Vatican statement appeared in the March 25 issue of
L'Osservatore Romano. The Vatican cautions against "some interpretations
that are not pertinent" to the joint Catholic-Lutheran statement. By guarding
against such misinterpretation, the statement points out, both groups can
protect the future development of common theological positions.

The new Vatican statement is apparently a response to the suggestions
offered by some Catholics -- especially in Germany, where the joint
Catholic-Lutheran statement was formally signed -- that members of the 2
faiths should now be able to celebrate the Eucharist together. Serious
doctrinal disagreements remain between the faiths, the Holy See points out,
and "only when they are resolved can we celebrate the Eucharist in truth,
as an expression of our unity with Christ and with each other."

Today, the statement continues, "when there is no unity on essential
doctrinal matters, the common celebration of the Eucharist would not be
truthful, and could suggest that the division among Christians is
insurmountable." It would, therefore, be counterproductive for the long-term
goal of achieving full Christian unity.

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and the Pontifical Council
for Christian Unity also recall that when the joint Catholic-Lutheran
statement was issued, the Holy See also issued an accompanying statement
indicating that the teachings of the Council of Trent and Vatican I were not
being changed. Thus the Catholic Church is not altering her position
regarding justification by faith.

Furthermore, the Vatican points out that when the Catholic-Lutheran
statement was signed, Cardinal Edward Cassidy -- who was, at the time,
the president of the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity, and the Vatican
representative at the signing ceremony -- observed that while the joint
statement was an important step toward theological accord, "it is not the
end of the road." The cardinal observed at that time: "A lot more work is
still to be done." (Catholic World News)

B.B.C. RECONSTRUCTS FACE OF JESUS IN "CLOSEST IMAGE
YET"

The BBC says it has reconstructed the face of Jesus Christ, using new
historical research and computer technology, for a £1.5mn
documentary series that will challenge key assumptions about his life and
death. The image unveiled yesterday - of a swarthy, coarse featured man
with short beard and hair - contradicts the traditional representation of
Christ as blue-eyed and aquiline with long hair. The makers of "Son of God"
said this was the closest image yet produced of how he might have looked.
The face was reconstructed from a 1st century Jewish skullby Richard
Neave, a forensic scientist at Manchester University, with the aid of
computer graphics. Programme makers took evidence from 2nd century
synagogue frescoes from Syria showing that Jews of the period had short,
wiry hair and close-cropped beards, as did people throughout the Roman
Empire. (The London Telegraph)

EUROLAND OUT OF CHANGE

An article on the front page of Paris's Le Figaro looks at the problem of
mysteriously disappearing coins in the countries that are preparing to switch
over to the euro in January 2002. "Despite the 50.1bn newly-minted euros
which are about to be brought out there is a risk that there will be a
shortage of exchanges," of euros for old coins, the paper says.

It adds that in France "there must be a thief who gets up during the night
and steals from the kitty jar or evaporation is greater at our latitude than is
thought. Otherwise, how the devil can the disappearance of 13bn French
coins which have failed to turn up be explained?" It says that 40% of coins
due to be exchanged in Germany are also missing, while 4,000 tons of coins
in Belgium have disappeared. "Somewhere, people opposed to the euro
must have created a parallel market. They are building up their nest eggs
out of these future museum pieces." (BBC)

E.U. PICKS TOP MILITARY ADVISER

The EU took another tentative step toward creation of a planned rapid
reaction force Monday with the nomination of a Finnish 4-star general as its
senior military adviser. Top generals from the 15 EU countries chose
Gustav Hagglund to head the new military committee, one of several bodies
set up to help coordinate the force and bolster the EU role in defense and
crisis management. His nomination is expected to be confirmed by EU
foreign ministers at their next meeting in Brussels on April 9.

"I was very surprised. I thought that it would be somebody from NATO,"
said General Hagglund, 62. Finland is neutral and not a NATO member.
The general, who has served in UN peacekeeping operations in Lebanon
and Africa, will hold the post for 3 years. The new committee will advise
the EU foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, and make recommendations on
how the bloc should respond to crisis situations where military intervention
might be necessary. (Int'l Herald Tribune)

TO EUROPEANS WORRIED BY U.S. POLICIES, HE'S "BULLY
BUSH"

An editorial over the weekend in the Sueddeutsche Zeitung, a leading
German paper, had a brisk headline in English: "Bully Bush." It reflected a
growing allied concern over the direction of the Bush administration's
foreign policy that the Europeans seem determined to resist. The editorial
characterized the U.S. expulsions of about 50 Russian diplomats as
"extreme measures," criticized President Bush's handling of the Middle
East, and fretted over his policy toward China and Taiwan. "The strongest
in the class should refrain from beating up his weaker classmates,"the
newspaper commented.

It was precisely concern over what they saw as the Bush administration's
"beating up" on the South Korean president, Kim Dae Jung, when he visited
Washington this month that prompted EU leaders to decide this weekend to
send mediators to support the peace effort between North Korea and South
Korea. This step amounted to an important signal on several fronts. The
decision demonstrated that the 15-member EU is determined to develop its
nascent common foreign and strategic policy, even when that policy differs
from that of the US.

With the Bush administration appearing to pull back from, or at least
reconsider, Bill Clinton's heavy engagement in Ireland, in the Middle East
and on the Korean Peninsula, the EU is signaling a new boldness. "Europe's
turn," declared the Frankfurter Allgemeine recently. Of course, Europe has
expressed such pretensions before, notably in declaring that the "hour of
Europe has dawned" on the eve of the Balkan wars of the '90s, only to fall
flat on its face as its diplomacy proved hapless. But the EU has evolved
considerably over the last decade, and its differences with the new
administration seem distinct, particularly on issues like missile defense,
Russia and the environment.

Germany has particularly strong feelings about the importance of the
conciliatory approach of Mr. Kim, who is sometimes compared here with
Willy Brandt, the SPD chancellor of 30 years ago. Mr. Brandt's
"Ostpolitik," the process of engagement with the Communist East German
state, was often criticized in Washington, but its dividends proved real, and
East Germany is no more. "It's becoming clear that the new U.S.
administration wants to take a more hard-line approach toward North
Korea," Anna Lindh, the Swedish foreign minister, said this weekend. "This
means that Europe must step in."

Throughout Europe, there has been growing concern in recent weeks that
the Bush administration's approach may be engendering a more
confrontational era in world politics, one sometimes characterized as having
a Cold War chill. Uncertainty over the direction of American policy is also
causing unease. "I learned about the expulsion of the Russian diplomats
from the newspapers," said a senior aide to Chancellor Schroeder. "And if
anyone in Washington thinks this is not going to affect Russian-American
relations, I fear they are wrong. As for other areas like the Middle East,
what worries us is the lack of clarity."

The EU is committed to a policy of rapprochement with Russia and
opposes any policy that would draw new barriers across the European
Continent. This view will certainly be expressed to Mr. Bush by Mr.
Schroeder when he visits Washington this week. It will be the first meeting
between the 2 men, and there is no question that some of the difficulties
between Europe and Washington stem from the fact that leaders are still
getting acquainted. Mr. Bush is not due to visit Europe until the NATO
summit meeting in June.

In some areas, including the Balkans, initial trans-Atlantic difficulties appear
to have been overcome, and the response to the Albanian attacks in
western Macedonia has been one of united condemnation. Indeed,
cooperation has been enhanced by the fact that the Bush administration
appears content to leave Macedonian diplomacy to the Europeans rather
than dispatch its own envoy. This appears to be an example of an area
where the reticence of the Bush administration with respect to extensive
overseas involvement opens the way for an effective balancing of tasks
with the Europeans. (Int'l Herald Tribune - Analysis)

MICHAEL TURNER
(mykelturner@airmail.net)

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From simmonds@freeuk.com Wed Mar 28 11:35:19 2001
Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2001 17:35:19 +0100
Reply-To: bprlist@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [bprlist] Cry of pain

Rabbi Packouz sends this cry from his heart. I join with him.

Stafford
=

I send you this article; I am outraged and heartbroken. Sending
you this article is my cry of pain.

Rabbi Packouz
____________________

Our Murdered Baby
By: Marshall Roth

http://aish.com/issues/jewishpeople/Our_Murdered_Baby.asp

A 10-month-old baby girl, on the playground, her head placed in the
sniper's scope, shot dead in her mother's arms.

This cowardly, beastly act tore a hole in every Jewish heart. The
pain was compounded by the drama of Shalhevet's mother,
crouched for hours on the floor of the playground, not allowing the
burial society to touch her dead baby.

All of Israel is shaken. Why? Because this is not about targeting
settlers. It is about targeting Jews. All Jews. I am reminded of the
words of PLO secretary general Marwan Barguti, who calmly told
MBC Saudi television why the PLO would justify a 1995 attack that
killed 21 people at a bus stop at Netanya: "This is an area that we
have yet to liberate."

So this week, as we were still quivering from the murder of 10-
month-old Shalhevet, the news struck of a terrorist bomb in
Jerusalem's busy Talpiot industrial and shopping area.

A few hours later, another suicide bomb, this time in the capital's
French Hill neighborhood.

One day later, more dead in Kfar Saba. And more bombs in
Netanya and Petach Tikvah.

The attacks were barely touched by the foreign press. When
Palestinians fired shots this week at my neighbors house in
suburban Modi'in, the incident was not reported by any media,
anywhere.

Does anyone care?

That Shalhevet's murder was not the top international headline, I
could understand -- had the media not a few months ago made the
unfortunate death of a Palestinian boy, caught in crossfire, top news
for many weeks. That incident left a load of questions unanswered,
the most important being what was he and his father doing in the
heart of crossfire shooting, and how the media came to be perfectly
placed to photograph it.

After this week's suicide bombings, the Associated Press headline
read: "Palestinian Militants Strike Twice" (March 27, 2001). Is it
appropriate to call suicide bombers as "militants?" The U.S. State
Department lists Hamas as a "terrorist organization." Why doesn't
the Associated Press?

Whitewashing "terrorists" promotes their violent methods.

The day of Shalhevet's murder, speaking at the opening meeting of
the Arab League summit in Jordan, UN Secretary-General Kofi
Annan said the world has every right to criticize Israel for occupying
Arab land and for its "excessively harsh response" to the
Palestinian uprising.

Annan uttered not one word critical of the Palestinian terrorism and
street violence.

Meanwhile in Hebron, in the aftermath of Shalhevet's murder, the
IDF general in charge of the area, Amnon Cohen, was not
available, because he was still mourning the murder of his father,
Baruch Cohen from Efrat, gunned down by Palestinians on the road
last week.

Scores of Jews have been killed by Palestinians in recent months,
and about 500 Jews are victims since Oslo began. But the murder
of Shalhevet was the hardest to bear. What kinds of beasts target a
baby girl with sniper fire? Is there any cause that could justify such
cruelty? And in Hebron of all places -- city of Abraham, Isaac,
Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca, Leah. Like Shalhevet, didn't our greatest
ancestors take their first steps and speak their first words there?

For us, Shalhevet's murder reveals a stark reality. Our hopes for
peace, for the next generation, have been drowned in the brutal
hatred fomented by the Palestinian leaders and their media.

As Nobel laureate Elie Wisel recently said of Arafat: "I accuse him
of murdering the hopes of an entire generation. His and ours."

Shalhevet's murder is bewildering. The great Rabbi Yizrael Zev
Gustman once said of himself that "it is impossible to depress me
or humiliate me." Why? Because Rabbi Gustman was holding his
only son in his arms when the Nazis shot his son dead. Nothing,
Rabbi Gustman said, could ever match that horrible feeling.

So although Arabs make no distinction between killing of a
grandmother in Netanya, a new immigrant at the bus stop in Holon,
or a teenager on the Internet, the body of this 10-month-old baby is
still the heaviest one to carry to the grave.

With thanks to Harvey Tannenbaum

><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><>
Stafford's Mail <staffordsimmonds@ntlworld.com>

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From research-bpr@philologos.org Wed Mar 28 12:26:58 2001
Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2001 12:26:58 -0500
Reply-To: bprlist@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [bprlist] The 'Dragonslayer' sword

PURDUE CALUMET PROFESSOR HELPING FORGE THE
'DRAGONSLAYER'

Source: Harvey Abramowitz, 219/989-2473

HAMMOND, Ind. - Slaying dragons by sword may be the stuff of Dark Ages
folklore. But in 21st century America, a Purdue University Calumet
engineering professor is doing his part to take the art of ''dragon
slaying'' to a new level.

Sometime this spring, Harvey Abramowitz of Chicago, a metallurgist and
associate professor of mechanical engineering, intends to draw from the
world of outer space to contribute to the creation of the strongest,
toughest broadsword ever made: ''The Dragonslayer.''

Working with colleagues from Northwestern University, Abramowitz' role is to
refine iron from a meteorite in a Purdue Calumet metallurgy laboratory for
''The Dragonslayer'' blade.

''It will be made out of a new metal alloy that will be stronger than any
other sword blade,'' Abramowitz, a New York City native, said about the
one-of-a-kind sword. ''The idea is to create ''The Dragonslayer'' in such a
way that it is stronger than either a Samurai sword or a Damascus sword -
and give it dragon-slaying mythical properties.''

Extracting iron from a meteorite to create the blade is intended to enhance
the mystical dimension of the sword - thereby increasing the sword's appeal
among collectors, said Abramowitz. The plan is to create just one
Dragonslayer and auction it off.

''Sword collectors would pay handsomely for such an artifact,'' said
Abramowitz, a 14-year faculty member, who came to Purdue Calumet after
having served as a research engineer at Inland Steel.

Beyond the sword's mythical nature, the project has scholarly significance.

''The team that I worked with was able to demonstrate, using a tensile
testing machine, that the new alloy could cut through a hunting knife
equivalent to a Samurai sword,'' Abramowitz said. ''Finite element analysis
computer modeling of the new alloy blade, done as a senior design project,
had predicted this. So (our) team validated the model.''

Abramowitz became involved in the project when he spent a sabbatical leave
last spring working with Northwestern colleague Greg Olson, who also is
chief science officer of QuesTek Innovations, a company actively involved in
the computer design and marketing of new alloys.

Abramowitz, whose specialty research fields include materials engineering
and extractive/chemical metallurgy, said he became interested in working
with Olson. ''I read an article in a metallurgical journal about him and
thought I would like to work with Greg on some of his projects,'' he said.

As part of a Steel Research Group headed by Olson, Abramowitz did just
that.
Among other projects in which he participated were:

- production of a self-healing alloy composite in which thin memory shape
alloy wires are imbedded in tin alloys. If the system is placed in tension,
eventually the tin alloy will crack. By heating the material, the shape
memory alloy filaments, which also had been stretched, return to their
original positions, effectively closing the crack. To fully heal the
material, it is heated enough so that liquid beads of tin form around the
crack. Upon cooling, the tin structure is void of all previously formed
cracks;

- completion of a prototype for the redesign of a rolling catalog case; and

- design of collapsible roller blades.

Abramowitz teaches courses in materials engineering, engineering design
and
environmental engineering. He also is an industrial consultant.

Purdue University Calumet is a 9,000-student, comprehensive regional
institution within the Purdue University system. Offering undergraduate and
graduate degree programs in approximately 100 fields of study, Purdue
Calumet is located in northwest Indiana, 20 miles southeast of Chicago.

Writer: Wes Lukoshus, (219) 989-2217, lukoshus@calumet.purdue.edu

"Purdue News" <purduenews@uns.purdue.edu>

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From shophar Wed Mar 28 12:49:48 2001
Date: 28 Mar 2001 12:49:48 EST
Reply-To: bprlist@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [bprlist] Judge: Northville treated student Bible club unfairly

Judge: Northville treated student Bible club unfairly

http://www.detnews.com/2001/schools/0103/28/c01-204960.htm

By Sheri Hall / The Detroit News

NORTHVILLE -- Northville Public Schools discriminated against a
student-run bible study group last spring and now must treat the group
fairly, a federal judge ruled this week.
High school administrators unfairly stopped the club -- called Connect
for Christ, or C4C -- from meeting during a study period, even though other
student groups met during that time, said Judge Arthur J. Tarnow in a consent
judgment. The school district admitted to the mistake and apologized to
Nicolette Pearce, a high school senior who founded the group and filed the
lawsuit. The district must offer Connect for Christ access to the same
resources as other clubs, educate its teachers and administrators on Equal
Access Laws and pay $40,000 in legal fees to Pearce. The group resumed meeting
at Northville High School last week and
attracted about 20 members. Nicolette's mother, Janis Pearce, said she's happy
with the outcome and proud of her daughter.
"Freedom is never free -- it always costs you something," she said. "It
cost Nicole some things earlier this year, but I know she would do it
again." School board president Joan Wadsworth said she's glad the Pearces
will agree to the district's new policy prohibiting all noncurricular groups
-- such as Connect for Christ, Students Against Drunk Driving and Diversity
Club -- from meeting during seminar period.
"That was really important to us, because we want students focusing on
academics during that time," Wadsworth said. "We're all happier to resolve
this. We saved the district money by avoiding litigation, and Nicolette can
concentrate on building a strong and active club, which is what she wants to
do."
Richard Thompson, a lawyer at the Thomas More Center for Law and Justice
who represented Pearce, praised the school board for admitting that they
discriminated against the group.

____________________________________________________________________
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From shophar Wed Mar 28 12:52:38 2001
Date: 28 Mar 2001 12:52:38 EST
Reply-To: bprlist@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [bprlist] Your Own Personal Jesus

Tuesday March 27 07:00 PM EST

Your Own Personal Jesus

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/abc/20010327/wl/virtualjesus010327_1.html

By Jennifer Askin ABCNEWS.com

While many artists have traditionally depicted Jesus in images that are far
removed from his Middle Eastern, Jewish origins, researchers have used
science to devise a new face which they say is the closest possible
likeness.

There are no photographs of the most recognized religious figure in the
world, but most visual depictions of Jesus Christ are often strikingly
similar.

Most people even have a pretty good idea of what he looks like.

Visual stereotypes widely accepted since the Renaissance usually depict him
with pale, angular features, blue eyes, a beard, and shoulder-length hair.

But a new documentary will show Jesus Christ as dark, round-faced,
brown-eyed, with a close-shaven beard and cropped hair. To some, he may even
look swarthy and stocky.

By using some of the most advanced technology currently available, the
program - to be called Son of God in Britain and Jesus: The Complete Story
in the U.S. - supplies a new face to the name.

"This is different than what most people have grown up with," Gaynelle
Evans, executive producer of the documentary for the Discovery Channel told
ABCNEWS.com. "The result is not quite what you think."

The BBC put it simply, and in very British terms - this Jesus has a "bloke
down the pub" feel.

"He wasn't the blond, blue-eyed character seen so often on Easter cards,"
Jeremy Bowen, presenter of the British version, told the London press. "The
image we've constructed is far more realistic."

Caravaggio, Rembrandt, and Raphael are some of the well-known artists that
have helped to perpetuate this "myth."

"They [weren't] trying to present a literal likeness," said a historian at
the University College of London. "The painters were aiming at the devotion of
the viewers."

New Image Based on Forensic Science

But now artistic renditions have the force of science to reckon with.

Producers of the documentary, co-produced by the BBC and the Discovery
Channel, insist that this may be the most accurate depiction yet of Christ
because it came from a marriage of classic forensic science and modern
computer technology.

A historically accurate, First Century Jewish skull was the model for his
physical features. Ancient Syrian frescoes gave an insight into the
grooming, coloring, and look of men of the era.

The King James version of the Bible provided biblical accounts of Jesus'
genealogy. And historical knowledge of the people native to the desert area in
which Jesus lived provided a probable lifestyle of him - for as a
carpenter, Jesus would have worked almost exclusively outside, and often in
the harsh conditions of the times.

Using this body of evidence, image, and fact, Richard Neave of the
University of Manchester, a leading expert in facial reconstruction, created a
physical model of Jesus' face. Once the model was filmed, a computer enhanced
the image with accurate coloring, relying on the knowledge of Mark Goodacre, a
historian at the U.K.'s University of Birmingham

"It is an opportunity to use everything we now know to create a picture of
Jesus Christ as a person in history as well as a religious icon," said
Evans.

But Is it More Accurate?

The striking result may not inspire miracles but is sure to incite a
response.

"Nobody knows what he looks like," said a historian at the University
College of London. "This is an archaeological fiction of a harmless sort."
The work of the documentary, he added was no different than a skull circa
2001 being found in London and then being used as an example of how the
British look now.

However, the BBC stands by its work.

"Its not the face of Jesus, but how he is likely to have looked given the
scientific information we've got," Lorraine Heggessey, controller of BBC1,
told London's Guardian newspaper. "That's what people from that area of the
world looked like at that time."

Besides presenting this image of Jesus, the production uses computer
graphics to show how Bethlehem, Nazareth, and Jerusalem would have looked
during Jesus' time.

This high-tech Jesus, complemented by this computer-generated Holy Land, is
certainly a far cry from the simple yet traditional symbols of fish, sheep,
and crosses that are widely used to represent him.

However, both skeptics and believers alike may raise one question that can
never be scientifically answered - does the image of Jesus really need to be
known?

____________________________________________________________________
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From shophar Wed Mar 28 12:53:27 2001
Date: 28 Mar 2001 12:53:27 EST
Reply-To: bprlist@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [bprlist] Churches use new media for Old Testament

Churches use new media for Old Testament

By MATT SLAGLE-- The Associated Press

http://www.canoe.ca/CNEWSTechNews0103/27_churches-ap.html

GRAPEVINE, Texas (AP) -- Bandwidth. Streaming media. Web portals.

Terms once exclusive to money-hungry Internet startups are now entering a
nonprofit region of cyberspace: dot-com churches.

Many are offering more than just an e-mail address, including Fellowship
Church in Grapevine.

The 12,000-member church recently overhauled its Web site to take a
Net-centric approach to spreading the Gospel, Senior Pastor Ed Young says.

"This is a great tool to bring them to our message in a nonthreatening
environment," Young says. "If Jesus were in the flesh today I think he would
say, 'Go online.'"

Church leaders envision fellowshipchurch.com as a Web portal -- a one-stop
shop for stock quotes, news and sports updates, and Scripture.

The site includes a virtual bookstore where patrons can purchase Bibles,
videotapes and DVDs, and music in CD and MP3 formats. There's a library of
digitized sermons delivered by Young that can be viewed for free from a home
computer, as well as a scheduling system where congregants can register for
Bible classes and intramural sports.

To market fellowshipchurch.com, two building-sized, backlit metal signs were
erected on the side of the church and adjacent administration office. The
signs are in view of a nearby highway traveled by thousands of motorists
daily.

Preston Mitchell, pastor of spiritual development and church spokesman,
calls such high-profile advertising "Marketing 101."

"We think of dot-com as dot-community. Really, what the Internet does for us
is it gives people the opportunity to check out the church in a safe
environment. They don't have to show up," he says.

Marina del Rey, Calif.-based Internet religion expert Mark Kellner says
churches are taking a cue from businesses and aggressively defining their
Net presence.

"Many churches are making the Internet part of their public image, including
their Web site addresses as part of church signs, billboards and print ads,
as well as television and radio programs. I do not know of any church that
has gone as far as these folks. Then again, someone has to be first," he
said via e-mail.

"I do think the labelling of the building with a 'dot-com' sign is rather
sharp right now. How it will appear five or 10 years down the road is
another matter. But I certainly -- and enthusiastically -- applaud their
initiative," Kellner says. "They are doing just about everything right in
terms of branding."

Rabbi Robert Lennick, president and chief executive officer of Religion in
American Life, says the development of Internet-savvy houses of worship was
inevitable.

"It's a recognition that people are really searching for ways to be
connected without having to be in proximity of each other," he says.

Lennick's Stamford, Conn.-based group was founded by President Truman in
1949 to promote diversity in American religion.

Other churches have pushed even deeper into the virtual world.

Mark Mann, pastor and founder of Edmond, Okla.-based CyberChurch.com, has
delivered the Gospel entirely via the Web since 1995.

"You just have more of an open-ended environment where decisions can be made
and progress can be made without the need to be physically there," Mann
says.

About 75 people subscribe to his church, and another 30 take classes on his
Web site, he says.

Glenda Van Slyke of Rockwood, Tenn., says she enjoys the candor she finds
among fellow CyberChurch members.

"I find people on the Net are more open because they are not afraid to
express their beliefs, and you can have a discussion and not worry about
repercussions," Van Slyke says. "So many are searching for something more
and I think the Net is helping to fill the void that the church is not."

Lennick says religion on the Web complements other forms of worship nicely,
but does not replace the real thing.

"We're taking the notion of a sacred space and turning it into cyberspace,"
he says. "What makes a place sacred is not the four walls or the other
trappings, it's the kind of relationships that go on inside those spaces."

____________________________________________________________________
Get free email and a permanent address at http://www.amexmail.com/?A=1

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From research-bpr@philologos.org Wed Mar 28 13:00:07 2001
Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2001 13:00:07 -0500
Reply-To: bprlist@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [bprlist] Arutz-7 News items (3/28/01)

PRESIDENT KATZAV CALLS OUT TO WEST
President Moshe Katzav and his wife visited several of the wounded in the
recent terrorist attacks in the past two days, and met with French Jewish
leaders. The President called upon the Western world to put an end to the
backing and support it gives the Palestinian leaders, "in order that Arafat
be forced to take determined steps to end the terrorist attacks... How can
we wage peace talks when a Palestinian murders an infant in cold blood with
a telescopic gun? How can we explain the participation of Palestinian
police in the lynching of a reserve soldier in Ramallah? How can we
explain the schoolbus bombing that left orphans and maimed children? And
after all this, we are supposed to prove that it is innocent and that our
motives are pure... What are we supposed to think when we get up one
morning, after the murder of an innocent baby, and we hear the Foreign
Minister of Denmark call for economic pressures against Israel because of
our policy in the territories. There is no greater absurdity than this!"

After visiting with Yitzchak and Oriyah Pass, whose ten-month-old daughter
Shalhevet was murdered by a Palestinian sniper on Monday, Katzav said
that
it is hard to stand up to the demands and protestations sounded against the
government by the victims and their families. "The government cannot be
indifferent to what the parents of a murdered infant say," said the
President. "The blackest forecasts are coming true, and there are no more
words left... The government must seek a new strategy, different than that
which we have employed for the last few months. We can no longer rely on
the Palestinians when it comes to the security of our citizens... We have
reached the limit of our restraint."

KINNERET: CREEPING UP TO THE MINIMUM
The level of the Kinneret: 213.07 meters below sea level. The level has
risen a steady but very slow 20 centimeters a month all winter, and water
officials hope that it will be able to climb at least another 7 centimeters
to reach the "red line" before the rainy season ends in the coming days and
weeks. The "red line" is that below which the government determined that
the Kinneret must not be allowed to fall. Strict water-usage limitations
are planned for this summer.

ARAB LEAGUE SUMMIT ENDS
The Arab League summit ended today, after roundly condemning Israel and
calling for the lifting of UN sanctions against Iraq. The summit's final
session was delayed by an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to reach a
compromise on Iraq's dispute with Kuwait. Yasser Arafat and Syrian
President Assad met for about a half-hour, and Arafat agreed to coordinate
his strategy vis-a-vis Israel with Syria. Syria, a long-time opponent of
the Oslo Agreements, has also called for the reinstatement of the Arab
boycott against Israel.

Arutz Sheva News Service
<http://www.IsraelNationalNews.com>
Wednesday, Mar. 28, 2001 / Nissan 4, 5761

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From simmonds@freeuk.com Wed Mar 28 14:40:42 2001
Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2001 20:40:42 +0100
Reply-To: bprlist@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [bprlist] What do you say to a child who buried his classmates today?

Ps 83:1-2 Do not keep silent, O God!
Do not hold Your peace,
And do not be still, O God!
2For behold, Your enemies make a tumult;
And those who hate You have lifted up their NKJV

I forward the following report which speaks for itself. As I read it I
wept silently. Still we remember that God is in control. Stafford
====================================================

NEWS FROM THE LAND UPDATE
March 28, 2001

Editor: Sondra Oster Baras, Director of CFIC's Israel Office

Dear Friends,

Last year, we made a special appeal for funds for the Bnei Chayil
Shomron Yeshiva, a very special religious high school for boys with
ADD and ADHD. This unique school is located in Kedumim, in Samaria,
and has remarkable success in enabling boys who would otherwise fail in
traditional schools, to succeed at their studies and, perhaps even
more importantly, to become decent human beings and committed
religious Jews. You responded so generously to our appeal and we were
able to provide vital audio-visual equipment to the school.

A few months ago, I visited Bnei Chayil in Kedumim with our U.S.
Executive Director, Kim Williams. The young boys were so excited to
see us and took advantage of the presence of "visitors from America"
to babble in English and pose for photographs. And, indeed, we took
lots of pictures, pictures of smiling teen-agers and mischievous boys.

Two of those boys are dead, killed today by an Arab terrorist who was
seeking the quick way to Islamic heaven. Four other boys are injured,
one in critical condition after spending hours on the operating table.
Another boy lost an eye.

I must admit, my friends, that today I lost it. Estelle, my assistant
here in the office, phoned me this morning at home as soon as she had
learned that the victims were Bnei Chayil students. This was at least
an hour before the news hit the radio and TV. Estelle's son studies in
that school. So do the sons of two close friends of mine. What do you
say to a child who buried his classmates today? All we could do was
sob.

Just two days ago, a 10-month old baby, Shalhevet Pas, was murdered by
Palestinian sniper fire. Picture it! That sniper took aim at a
10-month old baby!

Today's terrorist attack was also aimed at children. The terrorist,
himself just a teen-ager, was sent purposely to attack kids his own
age. He mingled easily with the teen-agers waiting at their bus-stop
and then blew himself up.

Terror seems like too sanitized a word to describe the behavior that
we are witnessing, now on a daily basis. These are not people. Frankly,
I am not sure that animal is the right word either. Animals kill for
food or in defense. They do not seek out innocent defenseless victims
for no reason.

In October, the international media circulated the picture of a
Palestinian boy that was shot at the Netzarim junction, blaming the
Israeli Army for his death. Later, after a thorough investigation was
launched, it became clear that the Israeli Army did not kill the boy.
They could not even see him. And yet, that picture was used to drag
Israel's name through the mud for weeks.

Today we have pictures of our own. A 10-month old baby shot purposely
by Palestinian snipers. Two teen-age boys killed purposely by a
Palestinian terrorist. Will the world finally understand which picture
is the true picture?

Please try to feel the pain of the mothers and fathers who lost their
children today. They sent them off to school this morning for what was
supposed to be a fun day. It is the last day of school before the
Passover vacation and the boys in Bnei Chayil were going to get their
report cards. One of the murdered boys was going to get a special
award of achievement. It was supposed to be a surprise. The day could
have ended with that boy coming home to his parents and family with
his wonderful report card and the award that was earned with such
effort and diligence. Instead he returned in a coffin.

May G-d help us all!

Shalom,

Sondra Oster Baras
Director
CFIC - Israel

><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><>
Stafford's Mail <staffordsimmonds@ntlworld.com>

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From research-bpr@philologos.org Wed Mar 28 18:11:12 2001
Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2001 18:11:12 -0500
Reply-To: bprlist@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [bprlist] (Fwd) Israeli Government Statement: TARGETS IN PA AREAS

------- Forwarded message follows -------
Date sent: Wed, 28 Mar 2001 14:40:31 -0500
From: imra@netvision.net.il
To: imra@imra.org.il
Subject: Israeli Government Statement:
TARGETS IN PA AREAS ATTACKED

Israeli Government Statement: TARGETS IN PA AREAS ATTACKED

(Communicated by the Prime Minister's Media Adviser)
Jerusalem Wednesday, March 28, 2001

1. The Government of Israel announces this evening (Wednesday),
28.3.2001, that targets in the Palestinian Authority (PA) areas have
been attacked. These are localized targets associated with terrorist
elements (Force 17). They were chosen with strict care in order to
prevent harming civilians.

2. Regrettably, PA elements are intensively involved in terrorism,
violence and incitement. Israel views the PA as responsible for the
wave of attacks and calls on the international community to use its
influence on the PA so that it will cease terrorist activities and
violence, and will work to foil them as it has committed itself to doing
in the agreements it has signed. In the absence of preventative actions
by the PA, Israel has utilized - and will utilize - its right to
self-defense.

3. The government's guiding principle is constant and persistent action
against the terrorists, as well as against those who both dispatch and
assist them. The policy will be directed at terrorist elements.
Restrictions on the civilian population have been eased, and will
continue to be eased, according to security considerations. Israel is
not interested in a confrontation with the Palestinian people, rather it
wants peace and co-existence; however, these can only be obtained
through dialogue and by peaceful means, not through shooting and attacks
against civilians.

4. The government calls on the public to show patience and forbearance
in the face of the violent attacks that have been forced on us.

5. The government calls on the public to support the security services,
be alert and uphold the law even under these difficult circumstances.

--------------------------------------------
IMRA - Independent Media Review and Analysis
Website: www.imra.org.il

For free regular subscription:
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From research-bpr@philologos.org Wed Mar 28 18:16:12 2001
Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2001 18:16:12 -0500
Reply-To: bprlist@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [bprlist] ‘Force 17´ Headquarters Being Targeted in Retaliatory Strikes

20:29 Mar-28-01, 4 Nisan 5761

                    =91Force 17=92 Headquarters Being Targeted in
                    Retaliatory Strikes
                    (IsraelNationalNews.com) The IDF has
                    confirmed that a retaliatory offensive is taking
                    place involving the PA autonomous areas of
                    Ramallah and Gaza.

                    IDF Spokesman Brigadier-General Ron Kitrey
                    has confirmed that one target in Ramallah was
                    included in the retaliatory assault as were several
                    targets in Gaza. Despite PA reports to the
                    contrary, there was no assault against targets in
                    Hevron.

                    The Ramallah target was an unspecified =91Force
                    17=92 facility. Gaza targets included a storage
                    facility, a training base, and an armored vehicle
                    belonging to the PA. Kitrey explained that the
                    common denominator between the targets chosen
                    is they are affiliated with PA Chairman Yasser
                    Arafat=92s =91Force 17=92.

                    =93We believe that the time has come for the Force
                    17 which has an official standing in the PA accept
                    responsibility for acts of terror perpetrated by its
                    forces or attacks planned and endorsed by its
                    commanders, against Israeli military and civilian
                    targets,=94 explained Brig.-Gen. Kitrey.

                    =93=85This is a signal to anyone with eyes in his head
                    and the ability to understand that we are unwilling
                    to endure this wave of violence=85 We endured
                    eight attacks in the period of a week that resulted
                    in three fatalities and forty-seven casualties. We
                    believe this is enough! This is a signal. We hope it
                    is enough for the PA and the Force 17. Enough!=94
                    he concluded.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/news.php3?id=1622

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From research-bpr@philologos.org Wed Mar 28 18:19:18 2001
Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2001 18:19:18 -0500
Reply-To: bprlist@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [bprlist] Israel launches deadly strikes on Palestinian cities after wave of bombings

Israel launches deadly strikes on Palestinian cities after wave of bombings

GAZA CITY, March 28 (AFP) - Israel launched swift and deadly retaliatory
strikes on Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's personal security force on
Wednesday night in retaliation for a renewed wave of bloody anti-Israeli
attacks.

At least one member of Force 17 and a Palestinian woman were killed when
Israeli attack helicopters unleashed their weapons on the main West Bank
city of Ramallah, while dozens more were wounded in strikes on at least six
sites in the Gaza Strip.

The attacks -- which lasted just 20 minutes -- were the first against
Palestinian targets by the three-week old government of hardline Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon, and drew a furious reaction from the Palestinians who
accused Israel of escalating the situation.

Sharon's government had vowed to strike back after Israel was rocked by
three bomb attacks in less than 24 hours that killed two Israelis and the
killing of a baby girl in an apparent Palestinian sniper attack in the West
Bank.

"The purpose here was to hit the terrorists and only those who sent them
and those who direct them and to avoid as much as possible hitting the
civilian population and I think that mission was accomplished," said Raanan
Gissin, a spokesman for Sharon.

"We hope what we have done will serve as a warning," he added in an
interview with CNN television.

"We still hope the Palestinian Authority will come to its senses and we will
be willing to negotiate peacefully because that is the only way that we can
come to a real resolution of this conflict."

But Palestinian presidential secretary Tayeb Abdel Rahim said the action,
which came hours after the end of the Arab summit in Amman that declared
support for the six-month-old Palestinan uprising, was an" escalation of
Israeli aggression."

Abdel Rahim said a veto by the United States of a UN Security Council
resolution calling for international observers to be sent to the Palestinian
territories had given the green light to the Israeli attacks.

Sharon's office said in a statement that the helicopter raids, the first by Israel
since November, had singled out specific targets of Force 17 leaders it
charged were linked to terrorism.

"Officials of the Palestinian Authority are deeply involved in terrorism,
violence and incitement to violence," it said, laying the wave of recent
bombings, including a suicide attack which killed two Israeli teenagers
Wednesday morning, firmly at the door of the self-rule authority.

The government said its future policy would be aimed at "terrorist leaders,
not the civilian population."

The Israeli army said it hit the Force 17 headquarters in Ramallah as well as
several targets in the Gaza Strip, including a weapons depot, a training camp
and an armoured vehicle.

Residents saw the sky set ablaze as power was cut off throughout Gaza
City, Arafat's main base.

The apparent suicide bomb, claimed by the armed wing of the radical Hamas
movement killed two Israeli boys on their way to religious school, the day
after two bombings in Jerusalem killed another suicide bomber and injured
some 30 Israelis.

Enraged Israelis have also been demanding tough action after the killing of a
10-month-old Jewish baby girl in the West Bank City of Hebron, a frequent
source of conflict between the Palestinian population and 400 radical Jewish
settlers.

The US administration of President George W. Bush issued a harsh
statement about the bombings but did not immediately mention the Israeli
raids.

"The United States strongly condemns the violence that has taken place.
There is no excuse, no justification, for the bombings that recently took
place in Israel," Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer told reporters.

Fleischer also said Bush again urged the parties to end the latest cycle of
violence to allow for direct dialogue.

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From research-bpr@philologos.org Wed Mar 28 18:25:33 2001
Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2001 18:25:33 -0500
Reply-To: bprlist@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [bprlist] Weekend News Today items (3/28/01)

Defiant US unapologetic for veto of UN observers for Palestinians

                         Weekend News Today
                         Lead: Kelly
                         Source: AFP

Wed Mar 28,2001 -- The United States on Wednesday defiantly rejected
criticism of its veto of a UN resolution to send an observer force to the
Palestinian territories, offering unapologetic support for its close ties with
Israel. "We have no apology for our relationship with Israel, we have no
regrets about our relationship with Israel," State Department spokesman
Richard Boucher said when asked about Washington's veto late Tuesday in
the UN Security Council.

Deadly storm with giant hail kills 6 & causes much devastation in China

                         Weekend News Today
                         Lead: faith
                         Source: AFP/Yahoo News

Wed Mar 28,2001 -- A devastating storm unleashing giant hail and tornadoes
on southern China killed 6 and left at least one city without power or
telephone service, the government's Xinhua News Agency said Monday.
Worst hit was the area around Meizhou, a city in southern Guangdong
province, where thousands of houses collapsed and basic services were lost.
More than 206 people were injured when the storm swept through Sunday,
others still missing.

The storm affected more than 150,000 people in Guangdong, China's most
prosperous province, and caused $24 million in damage, the report said.
Why such extensive damage? U.S. news reports say it is due to the
enormous size of the hail the size of bricks and up to 22cm. Now that's
huge!

Putin makes sweeping Cabinet changes

                         Weekend News Today
                         Lead: Kelly
                         Source: AP

Wed Mar 28,2001 -- Vladimir Putin on Wednesday made his most sweeping
Cabinet changes since becoming Russia's president a year ago, naming a
KGB veteran as the country's first civilian defense minister and strengthening
his control over the military. The changes came amid a growing climate of
distrust with the United States as well as signs that Russia's modest
economic upswing is slowing down. They were likely to further consolidate
Putin's power after a year in which he has brought freewheeling regional
leaders to heel and seen the end of major parliamentary opposition to the
Kremlin.

Changes in Putin's Cabinet, which is made up largely of holdovers from
former President Boris Yeltsin's administration, had been expected.
However, Putin did not remove Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov, whose
position has long been reported in doubt. Putin put close allies in charge of
two key security positions: the Defense Ministry and the Interior Ministry,
which is in charge of police and a special force of ministry troops. In the
most crucial move, Putin replaced Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev with
Security Council chief Sergei Ivanov, a longtime KGB veteran and a former
general in the KGB's successor, the Federal Security Service. Putin, also a
former KGB agent, removed Ivanov from his post as general in November to
make him a civilian.

As plans begin to monitor congested waterway traffic with 13 radar towers,
Turkey tightens strategic control of Bosphorus and Dardanelles Straits

                         Weekend News Today
                         Lead: Kelly
                         Source: AFP

Wed Mar 28,2001 -- Turkey warned Wednesday that a major pipeline to
carry Caspian crude to global markets via Russia would further slow traffic
through the already congested Bosphorus and Dardanelles Straits. "The
Turkish Straits are saturated. Any additional load will block the waterways,"
Turkish State Minister Ramazan Mirzaoglu, whose brief covers maritime
affairs, was quoted as saying by the Anatolia news agency.

The new pipeline streching from the Tengiz oilfield in Kazakhstan to the
Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiisk "will increase by 25 percent the
amount of oil passing through the Bosphorus each year," the minister said.
"This will lock traffic in the Straits. Trade vessels will have to wait out at sea
for at least a week before they can enter," he warned. The 1,580-kilometer
(950-mile) Kazakh pipeline was inaugurated Monday and cost 2.3 billion
dollars.

The tankers will have to pass through the Boshporus, the Sea of Marmara
and then the Dardanelles to reach open seas. Mirzaoglu implied Wednesday
that Ankara might impose restrictions on vessel traffic to ensure "safety and
security," especially in Istanbul, Turkey's biggest city with a population of
some 12 million, through which the Bosphorus runs. "We are not of the
decision to impose arbitrary restrictions, but there has to be safe passage,"
he stressed.

In January, Turkey began work on a major system to monitor vessel traffic
through the straits through 13 radar towers to be erected on the shores of the
waterways. The towers are to feed data to two control centers which will help
ships safely navigate the straits and provide help promptly in case of
accidents. Construction is expected to be finished by June and the
monitoring system will become operational before the end of the year.

Mubarak warns new Arafat alliance with Iraq and Syria could lead to war

                         Weekend News Today
                         Lead: Kelly
                         Source: Middle East Newsline

Wed Mar 28,2001 -- Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has warned the
Palestinians not to form an alliance with Iraq and Syria. Arab diplomatic
sources said Mubarak has sent a series of messages to Palestinian
Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat that warn of the consequences of his
emerging alliance with Iraq and Syria. The sources said these messages
warn Arafat that such an alliance would cost the Palestinians both political
and financial support and lead the region into war. On Tuesday, the Arab
League summit heard an appeal from Iraqi President Saddam Hussein for an
Arab war against Israel.

U.S. building spy satellite network for M.E. missiles

                         Weekend News Today
                         Lead: Kelly
                         Source: Middle East Newsline

Wed Mar 28,2001 -- The Pentagon is building a network of advanced spy
satellites meant to bolster the monitoring of Iranian, Iraqi and North Korean
missile programs said to threaten the United States. Officials said the
project could take 20 years and $25 billion. In all, up to 24 reconnaissance
satellites could be built and sent into orbit. With additional satellites, Iran,
Iraq and North Korea could be under constant surveillance.

Arab summit ends in failure

                         Weekend News Today
                         Lead: Kelly
                         Source: Middle East Newsline

Wed Mar 28,2001 -- Arab leaders ended their brief summit unable to agree
on the future of international sanctions on Iraq. The Arab League summit
ended on Wednesday afternoon after members couldn't agree on a resolution
regarding United Nations sanctions on Baghdad and its relations with
neighboring Kuwait. The dispute pitted Iraq and its supporters against Kuwait
and Saudi Arabia.

The summit, which began on Tuesday, broke up shortly after Iraq rejected a
draft resolution that called for an end to sanctions but also called on Iraq to
honor all UN resolutions. These included resolutions against the development
of weapons of mass destruction and aggression against Kuwait.

Egyptian FM likely to head Arab League

                         Weekend News Today
                         Lead: Kelly
                         Source: AP/Jerusalem Post

Wed Mar 28,2001 -- Amr Moussa, the plain-spoken diplomat who has earned
political respect and public praise during 10 years as Egypt's foreign
minister, is tackling a new challenge: Leading the Arab League as it tries to
reassert itself as an effective regional group. Leaders at an Arab League
summit confirmed Moussa's nomination as the next secretary-general of the
22-member group, a diplomat said yesterday on condition of anonymity. The
widely expected moved was to be made formal later Wednesday, the final
day of the two-day summit in Jordan.

Underwater city discovered off Lebanese coast

                         Weekend News Today
                         Lead: Kelly
                         Source: Jerusalem Post

Wed Mar 28,2001 -- An ancient city was discovered earlier this week under
the Mediterranean Sea off the shores of Tyre and Sidon, announced the
president of the Lebanese Association of Professional Divers. The
submerged city dates back to 2,000 BCE, reported Lebanon's The Daily
Star. Mohammed Sareji told a news conference at his office in Sidon that
while diving, he saw many old streets, roads, jetties and squares where
statues still stand between 3 and 17 meters below the surface. He showed
pictures and video footage of the city, adding that materials used to build the
city looked "strong and resistant."

Knesset Speaker Avraham Burg sends letter to heads of world parliaments

                         Weekend News Today
                         Lead: Kelly
                         Source: Jerusalem Post

Wed Mar 28,2001 -- Following is the text of a letter that Knesset Speaker
Avraham Burg sent to his counterparts around the world earlier today:

"Dear Colleague,

I am writing to appeal to you following the current wave of terrorism against
our citizens in Israel. Over the past weeks, and again this morning, Israel
has witnessed deliberate attacks of terrorism against innocent citizens,
including small children. Yesterday a Palestinian sniper, aiming through rifle
sights, shot a ten-month-old baby in the head, today a suicide bomber killed
and injured boys on their way to school. The State of Israel will not be
dragged into a cycle of revenge attacks. We call on our citizens to be alert
and to show restraint but we shall do all we can to protect them.

The acts of terror against our people sabotage the chances for peace and
create unrest and instability in the Middle East, which in turn endangers the
entire region and the whole world. Yet Israel remains determined to continue
to make every effort to achieve peace. Terrorism is a worldwide problem.
Today, terrorism struck Israel, tomorrow it might happen in any city around
the world. Every nation in the world must play an active role in the
international efforts to eliminate it. Anyone who does not take action against
terrorism in other countries, risks experiencing it closer to home.

Therefore, I call upon you to use all the parliamentary tools at your disposal
to ensure that your country makes its voice heard calling for an immediate
end to terrorism. The representatives of the western democracies must stand
at the forefront of the war against terrorism. This is our duty to the citizens of
our countries."

Israeli right-wing demonstrating around the country uses slogan: Israel will
defeat Arafat

                         Weekend News Today
                         Lead: Kelly
                         Source: Jerusalem Post

Wed Mar 28,2001 -- The Council of Jewish Communities in Judea, Samaria
and the Gaza Strip has organized demonstrations at several junctions
around the country in protest against the latest wave of Palestinian terrorist
attacks. Demonstrations are currently taking place at the entrance to
Jerusalem, Kastina junction, in Sderot, along the Geha highway, and in
Netanya. The demonstrations are being held under the slogan "Israel will
defeat Arafat."

Pro-life signs disappear at Harvard University

                         Weekend News Today
                         Lead: Leo
                         Source: Religion Today

Wed Mar 28,2001 -- In January 2001, Harvard law student Matt Evans started
placing small yellow signs on public bulletin boards. He puts the signs up,
and others tear them down; and he discovers that, on a liberal campus, free
speech does not include pro-life speech. The signs? They just say, "Smile,
your mom chose life," Evans said.

His signs were placed right alongside notes for "guitar lessons" and "free
cats" - with one difference. "Unlike theirs, mine came down," Evans said.
One day, stapler in hand, Evans said he was spied by a university employee.
A woman walked by, then she turned around and said, "Are you the one
putting up that (expletive)?" Then she told him to stop meddling in "women's
issues."

Mat Staver, with Liberty Counsel, experienced vanishing pro-life
announcements while he was a student at the University of Kentucky. "You
would think at a university, that, irrespective of the speech, people would be
tolerant," Staver said. "But what I found is that if it's pro-life or religious liberty
speech, there is an extreme amount of intolerance." His advice to Evans was
to remain persistent and constantly replace the signs as they disappear.
Evans adds, "They (members of the academic community) value the ability
of professors to be controversial and to say things that challenge the
prevailing orthodoxy, yet this is kind of a forbidden zone of inquiry. You don't
push too hard on abortion." Another recent Evans sign reads: "Everyone who
voted for slavery was free. Everyone who votes for abortion was born. That's
how oppression works."

http://216.219.160.226/cgi-
bin/readnews.cgi?day=01_03_28&item=#985820071

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From research-bpr@philologos.org Wed Mar 28 18:30:05 2001
Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2001 18:30:05 -0500

Saddam Calls For Arab Armies to Strike At Israel, Ignores Kuwait
Iraqi President Saddam Husssein called Tuesday on Arab states to mobilise
their armed forces to liberate the Palestinian territories, rejecting any deals
with Israel. In a speech read to the Arab summit in Amman by Iraq's number
two Ezzat Ibrahim, Saddam told Arab leaders to build "an army of men as
concerned to sacrifice themselves as the Zionists are concerned for their
lives."

"We do not agree to any deals on Palestine, all of Palestine from the Jordan
(river) to the Mediterranean, including Jerusalem, its crown." The speech did
not mention Kuwait, which Arab leaders are working to reconcile with Iraq, a
decade after Saddam sent his troops into the oil-rich emirate and sparked
the Gulf war.

Saddam has rallied Iraqis to the Palestinian cause, offering millions of dollars
and fighting forces since the intifada or uprising against Israeli occupation
erupted last September. AFP

UN Security Council Proposes 'Mechanism' to Defend Civilians
Palestinian efforts - two within the last four months - to gain the UN Security
Council's support and authorization to dispatch an international observer
force to the territories failed Tuesday, and the Palestinians withdrew their
demand. The outcome was the result of unofficial closed-door consulations
Tuesday among Security Council members.

The marathon consultations that have gone on intermittently for five days
focus on trying to reach a compromise between the original proposal from
the bloc of non-aligned nations calling for an international observation force to
defend the civilian population in the territories, and a European initiative
calling for a future discussion on establishing what it calls "a kind of
mechanism" to defend civilians, without elaborating on what such a
mechanism would entail.

The PLO representative to the UN, along with representatives from the non-
aligned nations, continued efforts Tuesday to strengthen the formulation of
the European proposal to include a detailed condemnation of Israeli policy in
the territories.

The European proposal, which was distributed Monday at the UN, says the
security council sees Israel as the main body responsible for the eruption of
hostilities in the territories and especially for the suffering of the civilian
population. The proposal also perceives Israel as the central and sole actor
that must takes steps to end the current situation in the territories.

The proposal expresses the Security Council's committment "to contribute to
ending the violence and defend Palestinian civilians in the conquered
territories." At the same time, the council is committed to act to renew
dialogue between the two sides. Ha'aretz

Assad Tells Palestinians "Forget The Past"
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad offered his support to the Palestinians
Tuesday, saying "forget the past" after 10 years of animosity between
Damascus and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

The Syrian leader was speaking as Arab leaders opened a long awaited Arab
summit in Jordan tackling such imperative issues as the Palestinian struggle
and the crisis of UN-sanctioned Iraq.

"We tell the Palestinians in this room and outside that we will place all the
cards in our hands at their disposal although there has been no coordination
(between us) for 10 years," Assad said.

"We offer our hands to our Palestinian brothers and tell them we stand
beside them in the service of the Palestinian cause," Assad said, adding,
"Let's forget the past."

A meeting between Arafat and Assad, who succeeded his father Hafez al-
Assad as Syrian president last year, is expected to take place during the
summit. The breaches result in particular from the Palestinian leader's
decision to conclude separate accords with Israel. arabia.com

Syria Interested in Russian Missle System
Syria has expressed interest in a Russian short-range anti-aircraft missile
system. Russian officials said the regime of President Bashar Assad has
discussed the prospect of purchasing the Russian Tor-1M1 air defense
system. The system is for short-range defense and has been bought by
Greece.

Syria's leading ally, Iran, also plans to purchase the Tor-M1, officials said.
The missile system is meant to protect the Bushehr nuclear reactor from
attack.

Officials said Syria is also interested in the S-300 anti-missile defense
system. Russia has touted the S-300 as superior to the U.S. PAC-3 system.
MENL

Russian TV Shows Video of Alleged Spy Activity of U.S. Naval Attache
Russian state television broadcast video Tuesday showing alleged spying
activities of a U.S. naval attache at the American embassy in Moscow. The
report used video purportedly shot undercover by the FSB (the former KGB).

In Washington, U.S. defense officials told CNN the video portion of the tape
appears to be authentic but claimed that the audio track has been altered by
the Russian government to make the naval attache appear to be involved in
espionage. A senior defense official who asked not to be identified said "bits
and pieces" of audio recordings of attache Robert Brannon's voice have been
patched together in an effort to make it appear that he is involved in
conversations that did not take place.

The official called the audio track a "patchwork" of individual words and
phrases and said they were intended to make the naval officer appear guilty.
The Russian television report begins with telephone contact between a
Russian citizen, Anatoly Popov, and a person speaking Russian with an
American accent. The tape also shows Popov purportedly meeting with
Americans from the embassy in a Moscow restaurant. The report claims that
Popov was recruited by American intelligence agents working "under the
protection of the embassy." In the restaurant sequence, Popov reports to
embassy personnel about carrying out "requests" to collect information on
Russian defense issues CNN

EU Force Will Not Need Nato
The head of the French armed forces has insisted that the EU rapid reaction
force must be independent of Nato and have its own planning staff.

Gen Jean-Pierre Kelche, France's Chief of Defence Staff, said the force
would be declared operational by the end of the year even if agreement was
not reached with Nato. He also said that France saw a strengthening of EU
military capability as a way of shifting the balance of power within Nato away
from America and towards Europe.

His comments will cause anger and concern in both Washington and
London. Talks between Nato and the EU on how the new force will be
controlled are deadlocked over demands by Turkey, which is not a member
of the EU, for a bigger say in operations. telegraph

http://www.harpazo.net/news.html

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