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From: Eddie Chumney
To:  heb_roots_chr@hebroots.org
Subject: News of Interest: 12/20/99 -  1/23/00


News of Interest
December 20, 1999 to January 23, 2000


APOSTASY AND ECUMENISM

LEADERS OF NINE FAITHS STAND TOGETHER
By Victoria Combe, Religion Correspondent London Telegraph 1/4/00

Leaders from the nine religious faiths in Britain stood together in the Palace of Westminster yesterday and made a public commitment to "work together for the common good" in the Third
Millennium.  The unprecedented event, hosted by the Prime Minister, brought together Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, Sikhs, Jains, Baha'is and Zoroastrians in the
Royal Gallery of the House of Lords.  The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr George Carey, stood shoulder to shoulder with the Chief Rabbi, Dr Jonathan Sacks, the secretary general of the Muslim Council of Great Britain, Iqbal Sacranie, and leaders of the other faiths.

Wearing a colorful mixture of turbans, cassocks, skullcaps and saffron robes, the leaders recited together: "In a world scarred by the evils of war, racism, injustice and poverty, we offer a
joint Act of Commitment."  They committed themselves to "build a better society, grounded in values and ideals we share" and to work together "to help bring about a better world now and for generations to come".  The Shared Act of Reflection and Commitment, the hour-long event of music, readings and prayers, dwelt on justice, community, compassion and respect.  Tony Blair described the occasion as "progress of a very special sort" for the country which showed how religions, which had often been cause for division, "can reach out across the divide".  Dr Carey emphasized the Christian nature of the millennial celebrations, but acknowledged "the increasingly important contribution of other faiths".  He said: "This event will, I believe, be seen by
future generations as truly historic."

SATAN WORSHIPPERS OPEN TEMPLE OF LUCIFER IN DENMARK
January 16, 2000, Denmark (Reuters)

A group of Satan worshippers inaugurated what they called a Temple of Lucifer on Saturday, saying it was the first of its kind in Denmark.  "We believe in something, in some power...he
(Satan) is the symbol of nature," cult leader Petra Johansson said.  "We don't believe in the Satan mentioned in the Bible," she told Reuters in an interview, referring to the scriptures forming the basis for the Christian religion.  Instead, the cult's roughly 20 members, mostly Danes but also a few Swedes, base their faith on a work called the Satanic Bible, which says disciples are "dedicated to the acceptance of Man's true nature -- that of a carnal beast, living in a cosmos which is permeated and motivated by the Dark Force".

Lighting clusters of dark candles, Johansson, 37, spoke inside the temple -- a low rectangular room on the second floor of an annex to a neat two-storey house on the outskirts of the sleepy
town of Tved on Denmark's central island Funen.  A small sign on the high wooden fence around the property identified it as "Temple of Lucifer".  The ceiling and inner walls of the temple
were painted black and red, adorned with pictures of demons and "The Four Princes of Hell" -- Satan, representing fire, Lucifer, air, Leviathan, water, and Belial, earth.  Among artefacts placed on a low altar in front of a huge pentagram in red with a goat head at its centre -- the ancient symbol of the devil -- were a black chalice and a long sword, which Johansson said were used in rituals and ceremonies.

Less than two km (1 mile) from the Temple of Lucifer in the Protestant Christian town church of Tved, parish priest Bjoern Moe told Reuters that the appearance of Satan worshippers had
raised some eyebrows in the community but not caused much concern, yet.

DIVORCE HIGHER AMONG "CHRISTIANS"
Charisma News Service, 12/23/99

More Christians are divorced than non-Christians, concludes Barna Research Group.  A survey of nearly 4,000 adults found that 27 percent of born-again Christians have been divorced--compared to 24 percent of others.  Within the denominations surveyed, Baptists had the highest divorce rate (29 percent) and Catholics had the lowest (21 percent).  The rate for nondenominational Christians was 34 percent, while for atheists and agnostics it was 21 percent.  George Barna said that the statistics follow a pattern that has existed for some time.

PERSECUTION

39 DIE IN INDONESIA RELIGIOUS CLASH
December 27, 1999 Ambon, Indonesia (AP)

Muslims and Christians clashed in Indonesia's troubled Spice Islands today, killing at least 39 people, witnesses said.  The main church in the provincial capital was set on fire along with
a mosque.  The violence, which erupted Sunday evening after a bus driven by a Christian struck a Muslim pedestrian, continued early today but had calmed considerably by midday.  Security forces patrolled the streets, some on foot, others riding in British-made Saladin and Saracen armored cars.

INDONESIAN RELIGIOUS VIOLENCE GROWS
January 19, 2000 By Geoff Spencer, Associated Press Writer Mataram, Indonesia (AP)

Muslim mobs blocked access to a ferry terminal on the tourist island of Lombok and ransacked Christian-owned buildings today, amid reports that religious violence had spread to the central
province of Sulawesi.  Despite the presence of hundreds of riot police in Lombok's capital, Mataram, and the nearby resort of Senggigi, roaming gangs of youths torched houses and shops in the town.  In Mataram, one of the largest churches, the Immune Protestant Church, was left looted and charred, obscene graffiti daubed on its walls.  "Be afraid pastor, the Muslims will drink
your blood," was scrawled across the entrance.  The words "public toilet" were written where an altar once stood.

Police said three people were fatally shot in the unrest that erupted Monday, following a Muslim protest against the government for failing to curb violence between Muslims and Christians in
the Malukus archipelago in eastern Indonesia.  Clashes there have claimed 2,000 lives in the past year.

MASSACRE AT KOSHEH, EGYPT
Christian Copts of California January 4th , 2000 Press Release

25 Christians killed, 10 missing, and 50 wounded 78 Christian businesses, homes and cars destroyed The turn of the year, the century, and the millennium, brought more troubles for the
already misfortunate Christians in al-Kosheh, upper Egypt. According to reliable sources, from al-Kosheh, on Monday, Jan. 3ed.  : at least 25 Christian villagers have been killed, and 10
Christians were missing and presumed dead, and more than 50 were injured.  The Muslim rioters set on fire some of the murdered bodies.  At least 60 businesses and 18 homes and many cars got torched, or destroyed and looted.  The violence that started on Friday Dec.31st is continuing, the sound of bullets can still be heard three days later.  "We expect more incidents, that only God knows how dreadful they will be," the source said.


THE POPE AND THE PAPACY

ISRAELI OFFICIALS WON'T ESCORT JOHN PAUL II DURING VISIT
Copyright   1999 Nando Media   1999 APonline By Samar Assad
Jerusalem December 21, 1999

In an effort to play down the political significance of the pope's visit, a Roman Catholic leader said Tuesday that Pope John Paul II will not be escorted by Israeli officials when he visits
Jerusalem.  During the March visit, one of the pope's scheduled stops is disputed east Jerusalem.  The Palestinians hope to establish a future capital there - in the sector captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war - and an acceptance by the pope of Israeli government escorts would likely have been interpreted by the Palestinians as recognition of Israeli sovereignty.

Latin Patriarch Michel Sabbah, the highest Roman Catholic official in the Holy Land, said Tuesday that Israeli troops would provide security for the pope in Jerusalem, including in the
eastern sector, but that "there is no political meaning to the presence of security."  "During the visit of the Holy Father inside the holy city, he will not be escorted by any political authority," Sabbah said.  "He will be just escorted by religious people who will pray with him."

VATICAN'S QUEST INTENSIFIES FOR THE NEXT POPE
By Julian Coman London Telegraph 1/2/00

The race to find a new Pope has begun in earnest amid fears that the health of John Paul II has deteriorated to the point where he may not be able to continue in office.  Speculation that a new
Pope may soon have to be found has increased with recent reports that the longest serving pontiff of the 20th century now has to be pushed around on a trolley by two attendants, to ease the
strain on his legs.

Inside the Vatican, officials are admitting that intense negotiations are now underway on the future of the papacy.  The Pope himself has held a series of "sounding out" lunches with
potential papal candidates.  These private meals, in the presence of one witness, have taken place with the French cardinal Roger Etchegarry; the Colombian cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos; and the Italian cardinal Camillo Ruini.

Observers see the lunches as an attempt by John Paul II to maintain control of the succession and its timing.  Three days before Christmas, in a private meeting with senior Vatican
advisers, he issued a stern warning to ambitious cardinals, saying that he had no intention of standing down.  According to a leak from the meeting, the 79-year-old pontiff said that he had a "divine mission" to "continue to guide the Church despite personal weakness".

The characteristically defiant message has failed to stop the gossip.  And the upwardly mobile in his flock are beginning to plot.  The Pope is clearly seriously ill.  A November trip to
Georgia was overshadowed by a series of worrying convulsions that television cameras were hastily barred from filming.  Ill health has also led to a curtailment of his participation in the
Church's jubilee celebrations.

Officially, talk about life after John Paul is forbidden within the Church.  But the corridors of Roman Catholic power are alive with intrigue.  "Of course people are talking about it and
everyone has their own theories," one Vatican official said. "It's a strange situation because this time there is no clear favourite to become the next Pope.  It could be any one of 10 candidates."

POPE WILL GO TO HOLY LAND IN MARCH
January 12, 2000 By Frances D'emilio, Associated Press Writer
Vatican City (AP)

Pope John Paul II will depart for the Holy Land on March 20, the Vatican said today, formally announcing a seven-day trip that will take him to the middle of the region's religious and political tensions.  The Vatican said the pope will fly first to Jordan, where he will visit the Monastery of Mount Nebo and celebrate Mass in Amman Stadium.  He then will continue on to the Palestinian Autonomous Authority and Israel.  The pontiff will celebrate a Mass in Manger Square in Bethlehem.  Other stops on his itinerary include the Mount of Beatitudes in Galilee, the
Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth and several sites in Jerusalem.

John Paul will visit the holiest site in Judaism, the Western Wall, as well as Islam's third holiest site, the Al Aqsa mosque. Palestinian officials said he also will stop at a Palestinian refugee camp.

Virtually every stop on the trip is a potential political thicket, but officials on all sides tried to play down possible tensions.  In Israel, the Foreign Ministry promised that his trip would have "the highest degree of grandeur, distinction and security, as befitting a dignitary of this stature."  In Bethlehem, PLO official Emile Jarjoui said the visit is "a blessing of the Palestinian people."

The pope's stop in Jerusalem will be especially delicate.  Israel captured predominantly Palestinian east Jerusalem from Jordan and annexed it in 1967, but the Vatican and most countries do not recognize the annexation.  The Vatican's secretary of state last year called Israeli rule in east Jerusalem an illegal military occupation.

In Nazareth, the city where Jesus lived as a child, John Paul will walk into the thick of a feud between Christians and Muslims.  Muslims recently won permission from Israel to build a mosque near the Basilica of the Annunciation.  The Vatican made an unusually strong protest, warning at one point it could lead the pope to drop the town from his itinerary and saying Israel was responsible for the tensions.

Keenly aware of the political symbolism many will try to assign to his itinerary, the pope has taken pains to insist his Holy Year pilgrimage to Biblical sites is solely religious.  "I would
be saddened if anyone were to attach any other meanings to this plan of mine," he said in a letter last June.

RUMOURS SWEEP ROME THAT POPE WILL QUIT NEXT YEAR
By Bruce Johnston in Rome London Telegraph 1/13/00

The Pope will step down on grounds of health and old age next year, after Jubilee Year celebrations for the Millennium are completed, it was reported yesterday.  Rome's informed La
Repubblica newspaper said there were "insistent rumours" within the Vatican of such a plan, and Milan's Il Giornale quoted an Italian author who knows the Pope to the same effect.

The suggestions come days after the head of Germany's Roman Catholics, Bishop Karl Lehmann, became the first senior churchman to raise the subject of the Pope's possible resignation, leaving it to haunt the Vatican, as one report put it, "like Banquo's ghost".  The bishop also speculated that Parkinson's disease might be affecting the Pope's ability to run the Church.

A unnamed but close adviser of the 79-year-old Pontiff told La Repubblica that the Pope's discovery that his body was "no longer a docile instrument, but a cage" had come as a "terrible blow" to him.  A few years ago as a result, the pontiff had asked Vatican experts for a feasibility study concerning his possible resignation.  Their response was that the Church would be "unable to cope with two Popes" - one reigning, the other in retirement.

POPE VISITING EGYPT IN FEBRUARY
January 20, 2000 Vatican City (AP)

Pope John Paul II will make a three-day trip to Egypt next month, the first of his planned pilgrimages to religious sites in the Middle East, the Vatican said today.  He will stop in Cairo and
then visit Mount Sinai on the Feb. 24-26 trip, the Vatican said. The trip will come before a major pilgrimage to the Holy Land in late March that will include stops in Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian territories.  It will be a test of the stamina of the frail, 79-year-old pope, coming at the start of celebrations in the Vatican's Holy Year.

The stop at Mount Sinai is one of a series of pilgrimages the pope has planned to make in the new millennium, trips he says are purely for religious reasons.  He had hoped to begin his trips
with a stop at what is believed to be the birthplace of Abraham in Iraq, but the Vatican dropped the plan after Baghdad said it could not organize the visit.  The trip, the first by a pope to Egypt, will include meetings with President Hosni Mubarak and Coptic Christian and Muslim leaders.

POPE'S DOCTORS WARN OF DECLINE
John Follain Rome London Times 1/23/00

Pope John Paul II, whose passions for skiing and swimming earned him the sobriquet "God's Athlete" when he was elected in 1978, will be in a wheelchair within two years, his physicians have warned.  The prediction will intensify speculation that he may abdicate after the Holy Year ends at Easter 2001.

Neurologists treating the Pope for Parkinson's disease have noticed that the symptom that affects him most is difficulty in walking.  "Although he may still be able to get around his room
for some time, by holding on to things, he will need a wheelchair in two years' time, at the most," said one eminent neurologist.

The onset of the disease has been worsened, doctors say, by the Pope's reluctance to take larger doses of the drug Levodopa out of concern that possible side-effects, including confusion, may interfere with his work.  "It's a courageous trade-off.  When the Pope was on higher doses, he suffered from disorientation.  He wants to keep as clear a mind as possible," one physician said.


ONE-WORLD

SPEAKER HASTERT CALLS FOR GLOBAL WORLD
By Mike Saelens Chicago, Jan. 10 (UPI)

Saying that the Republican Party has been unfairly called isolationist, House Speaker Dennis Hastert said Monday the key to a "global world" is free trade and a strong military presence.
Speaking before the Mid-America Committee Leadership Luncheon, Hastert criticized Democrats as "the true isolationist party in America today," saying the GOP has taken a leadership role on such issues as the North American Free Trade Agreement and allowing China to join the World Trade Organization.

"Free trade has transformed state-run economies and empowered the individual in countries where the individual has no other source of power," Hastert said.  "Free trade is the road to democratic change (and) as such is one of the most powerful tools for weakening and changing authoritarian regimes."  Hastert added that free trade "helps fund our defense, counter-drug,
counter-terrorism and foreign policy objectives, and called on President Clinton to match what he called "rhetoric" with action on trade legislation.  "Continued organized Democratic resistance
to free trade legislation threatens to chill economic growth in the United States and undermine U.S. economic relations overseas," he added.


MARK OF THE BEAST

TINY HUMAN-BORNE MONITORING DEVICE SPARKS PRIVACY FEARS
December 20, 1999 By Richard Stenger CNN Interactive Writer
Washington (CNN)

A Palm Beach, Florida-based telecommunications company has developed a miniature digital monitoring device that can be implanted in people, intended to assist in locating missing
children or for monitoring the heart rate of at-risk patients. But electronic freedom activists are concerned about exploitation of the technology, which would use global positioning system (GPS) technology to track implantees.  "It sounds dreadful. That's about as bad as it gets," Marc Rotenberg, director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, said Monday.

Applied Digital Solutions announced last week it had acquired patent rights to develop the unique transceiver, which would be powered by muscle movements of implantees.  The company plans to complete a working prototype by the end of 2000.  Planted inconspicuously just under the skin, the implantable transceiver sends and receives data and can be continuously tracked by GPS technology.  The company expects applications in the fields of law enforcement, security and medicine.

According to ADS, a company with an Internet and e-commerce focus, the devise could track lost hikers, abducted children and "military, diplomatic and other essential government personnel." It can also identify individuals for e-business security and check certain biological functions and alert a monitoring facility if it detects a medical emergency.  "We believe its potential for improving individual and e-business security and enhancing the quality of life for millions of people is virtually limitless," said ADS Chairman and CEO Richard Sullivan in a statement.

Fearing that "virtually limitless" potential, critics contend that monitoring systems wind up being used for other than the original purposes.  "Over the years we moved from fingerprinting
convicts to routinely footprinting infants in hospitals," Rotenberg said.  He worries that this new surveillance technology could eventually restrict freedoms of the general public.  "I think the use of implants for tracking is crossing into a new territory," Rotenberg said.  "It gets us closer to an Orwellian '1984.'"

Patent documents refer to the device as a "personal tracking and recovery system."  But ADS said the device, named the Digital Angel, could also have non-human applications.  For example, it could be secretly hidden on or in valuable personal belongings and works of art.  ADS said the technology could "tap into a vast global market" that is expected to eventually exceed $100
billion.

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