From: Eddie Chumney
To: heb_roots_chr@hebroots.org
Subject: News of Interest: November 7 - 24, 1999
News
of Interest
November
7 to November 24, 1999
DRUMBEATS OF WAR
RUSSIA AIRFORCE BOSS TELLS WEST: DON'T MESS WITH US
November 17, 1999 By Andrei Shukshin MOSCOW (Reuters)
The chief of Russia's air force, angered by Western criticism of
the Chechnya offensive, sternly reminded the West Wednesday that
his nuclear-armed nation was no Iraq or Yugoslavia and should not
be messed with. "Just to remind them -- Russia is not Iraq, nor
is it Yugoslavia. There you have it. We will deal decisively
with any interference. Let them not think we are totally
impotent," Colonel-General Anatoly Kornukov told a news
conference.
The West has been increasingly critical of Moscow's military
drive against Islamic fighters in Chechnya, saying it has caused
suffering and death among innocent civilians. Western countries
are urging Moscow to seek a negotiated solution to the crisis,
but have never threatened to use force to halt the fighting.
RUSSIAN ATOMIC SUBMARINE LAUNCHES TWO BALLISTIC MISSILES
November 17, 1999 By Judith Ingram, Associated Press MOSCOW (AP)
Russia fired its third set of test missiles in a month on
Wednesday, sending a message of combat-readiness as the country
wrangles with the United States over a proposed missile defense
system. Two missiles were launched from a submarine in the
Barents Sea north of Scandinavia and struck their targets about
3,100 miles away on the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia's Far East,
the Navy's press service said. Like two previous launches, the
move appeared to carry a strong political message.
PREPARATION FOR WAR
CHINESE DEPLOY 'THREATENING' NEW MISSILE
Beijing 'fooled Clinton & Gore,' says expert
By Charles Smith 1999 WorldNetDaily.com 11/8/99
In an apparent disinformation campaign, China fooled the Clinton
administration into believing one of its nuclear missiles was a
"failure," when actually, in the words of one congressional
defense analyst, "it is the most threatening missile deployed
since the Cold War."
In 1992, Hua Di, a former Chinese missile scientist who defected
to the U.S, told the U.S. government the new "DONG FENG" (East
Wind) DF-25 -- a mobile two-stage missile capable of hurling a
conventional 4,000-pound warhead over 1,000 miles -- was too
expensive to be deployed. Yet in August 1999, Clinton officials
were shocked by Chinese Communist press announcements declaring
the DF-25 to be fully operational and tipped with multiple
nuclear warheads, states William Triplett, co-author of "Red
Dragon Rising." Triplett's newly published book is rocking
Capitol Hill and has put the White House on the defensive, trying
to explain its acceptance of the Chinese defector and his
disinformation.
CHINA PLOTS WINNING ROLE IN CYBERSPACE
By Bill Gertz the Washington Times 11/17/99
China is preparing to carry out high-technology warfare over the
Internet and could develop a fourth branch of the armed services
devoted to information warfare, according to a Chinese military
newspaper. An article in Thursday's Liberation Army Daily, the
official daily newspaper of the People's Liberation Army General
Political Department, said Internet warfare should be equated
with combat operations for air, land and sea forces. Finance,
commerce, communi-cations, telecommunications and military
affairs all rely heavily on the use of cyberspace and are key
targets, it stated. The article, "Bringing Internet Warfare Into
the Military System Is of Equal Significance with Land, Sea, and
Air Power," was published by the daily in Beijing and was
translated by U.S. intelligence agencies.
"It is essential to have an all-conquering offensive technology
and to develop software and technology for Net offensives so as
be able to launch attacks and countermeasures on the Net,
including information-paralyzing software, information-blocking
software, and information- deception software," the newspaper
stated. "Some of these are like bombs, they are electronic bombs
which saturate the enemy's cyberspace," the article stated.
"Some are like paintings, they are electronic scrawls which
appear and disappear on the enemy's pages in chaotic fashion.
Some are like phantoms and electronic flying saucers which come
and go on the Net and disrupt the enemy's systems, and it is also
possible to develop masquerade technology to steal the Internet
command power."
INTERNET WARFARE CONCERNS ADMIRAL
By Bill Gertz the Washington Times 11/18/99
The Pentagon's top intelligence official said yesterday that
China's announced plans to conduct "Internet warfare" poses a
future threat to U.S. military dominance on the battlefield.
"We are clearly interested and concerned about this whole idea of
information attack," Vice Adm. Thomas Wilson, the new director
of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), said in an interview.
The three-star admiral was commenting on a report in China's
official military newspaper, first disclosed in yesterday's
editions of The Washington Times, that the People's Liberation
Army (PLA) is gearing up for wartime computer attacks on networks
and the Internet that facilitate everything from finance to
military activities.
"It's a big part of this asymmetric threat, and it's probably
bigger than all of outdoors in terms of trying to get your arms
around it," the admiral said in his first interview with
reporters since taking over DIA last summer. The United States
and the Pentagon are very "information dependent," he said. "We
recognize that information dominance is going to be important to
the future and that has to do with acquiring better information
about your adversary, and protecting your own," Adm. Wilson
said. "So when the Chinese discuss [information warfare] in the
PLA daily . . . we ought to take note and we have."
CHINA POINTS MORE MISSILES AT TAIWAN
Weekend News Today By Kelly Pagatpatan Source: The Washington
Times Nov 23, 1999
China is expanding a missile base across from Taiwan where nearly
100 of Beijing's newest short-range missile systems will be
deployed, increasing the threat to the island. Construction at
the People's Liberation Army (PLA) missile base at Yangang, some
275 miles from Taiwan, was photographed by U.S. spy satellites
in mid-October, according to Clinton administration officials
familiar with intelligence reports on the activity. The
officials said the construction is being carried out for the
planned deployment of a brigade of advanced CSS-7 missiles --
also known as advanced M-11s, officials told The Washington
Times. A Chinese missile brigade is estimated to have 16
launchers and up to 96 missiles.
U.S. intelligence agencies expect the missiles deployed at the
base to be the new CSS-7 Mod 2, which can carry several different
types of warheads up to about 300 miles. The missiles can be
armed with small nuclear warheads. China has obtained
small-warhead technology from the United States through
espionage. According to Pentagon officials, the longer-range
version of the CSS-7 is solid-fueled and deployed on road-mobile
truck launchers, making them rapid-fire systems that are very
hard to detect and track. Pentagon officials said the new CSS-7s
will be armed with conventional high-explosive warheads and have
other high-tech payloads available.
APOSTASY AND ECUMENISM
PRESBYTERIAN COURT UPHOLDS GAY MAN'S CANDIDACY, SAME-SEX 'HOLY
UNIONS'
November 22, 1999 By Jeffrey Gold, Associated Press NEWARK, N.J.
(AP)
A Presbyterian church court that oversees the Northeast ruled
that a sexually active homosexual can be a candidate for the
ministry, and that a church can continue to perform same-sex
"holy unions.'' The rulings announced Monday by a governing Synod
of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) are a blow to conservatives
in the 2.6-million member denomination, who had brought the
challenges to the religious court. Both rulings stem from trials
held in Newark early this month. Challengers said they would
likely appeal. The only higher court is part of the General
Assembly. The court voted 8-1 to allow Graham Van Keuren, a gay
man who is seeking to become a minister, to continue as a
candidate the last step before ordination. Presbyterians
accept gays as ministers if they vow to not enter into same-sex
relationships.
POPE SEEKS TO STRENGTHEN TIES WITH ORTHODOX CHURCH
November 8, 1999 By Victor L. Simpson, Associated Press TBILISI,
Georgia (AP)
Pope John Paul II began a two-day visit today to Georgia as part
of his drive to "build new bridges'' with the Orthodox church, a
chief Vatican goal for the new millennium. Awaiting him were
Patriarch Ilia II, the head of the Georgian Orthodox Church, and
President Eduard Shevardnadze, the former Soviet foreign minister
praised by John Paul for the events that led to the fall of the
Berlin Wall 10 years ago.
PAPAL DEVELOPMENTS
POPE'S FRAILTIES EVIDENT ON LATEST FOREIGN TRIP
November 11, 1999 By Victor L. Simpson, Associated Press VATICAN
CITY (AP)
Pope John Paul II's hands and head shook and his face grimaced in
pain. His private secretary, clearly alarmed, raced over to
steady and comfort him. That image of John Paul, flashed around
the world by television from a visit to an Orthodox cathedral in
Georgia this week, raised questions of how long this
most-traveled pontiff can keep up the pace. The 79-year-old
pontiff has become a picture of suffering. He shuffles his feet
and depends more and more on a cane. His hands tremble and his
speech is slurred, symptoms of Parkinson's, a progressive
neurological disorder. The Vatican no longer denies the pope
suffers from it, but has never given a full diagnosis, suggesting
that such details are a breach of privacy.
HOLY YEAR EVENTS APPARENTLY TAILORED TO ABILITY OF AILING POPE
November 17, 1999 VATICAN CITY (AP)
The Vatican released a new calendar Wednesday apparently adapted
to the infirmities of Pope John Paul II, allowing him to save his
strength during the opening year of Christianity's third
millennium. The 79-year-old pope will inaugurate the Holy Year
Christmas Eve by giving a symbolic knock with a hammer on a
sealed door at the back of St. Peter's Basilica. He will also
preside over the opening of three other holy doors in Rome
basilicas as well. When the Holy Year closes in January 2001,
however, the pope will attend only one of the four ceremonies
closing the Holy Doors that at St. Peter's, according to the
Vatican schedule. In between, John Paul may not be making the
daily appearances the Vatican had first billed for the Holy Year,
Vatican officials made clear Wednesday. They declined comments
on reports that the pope would use a key rather the traditional
hammer for the symbolic openings of the Holy Door, another
possible accommodation to his failing strength.
CARDINAL CHALLENGES PRIMACY OF THE POPE
London Times 11/15/99
A challenge to the way the papacy has been run under John Paul II
was thrown down yesterday by the Archbishop of Milan, Cardinal
Carlo Maria Martini. He declared that the absolute authority
wielded by the pontiff should be "re-thought" in the interests of
ecumenism and Christian unity.
The Cardinal's call for the revision of "papal primacy" comes
after his trip to the Middle East last week, which anticipated
the Pope's own plans for a millennium tour of the Holy Land.
Last month, Cardinal Martini, the liberal contender to succeed
the Pope, startled the European Synod of Bishops in Rome by
outlining his "dream" of Church democracy and calling for an
urgent debate on issues such as divorce and celibacy. La
Repubblica noted that the "lines are being drawn between liberals
and conservatives in the search for a pope for the third
millennium".
POPE REBUKES GRASS-ROOTS CATHOLIC MOVEMENTS DEMANDING CHANGE
November 20, 1999 By Ellen Knickmeyer, Associated Press VATICAN
CITY (AP)
Pope John Paul II issued a stern rebuke Saturday to grass-roots
Catholic reform movements, rejecting their demands for women
priests and a greater role for laity. John Paul spoke before an
audience of bishops from Germany, home to a reform movement as
active as the one in the United States. The pontiff has never
left any doubt he opposed the aims of reform movements. On
Saturday, he made it clear he disapproves of the movements
themselves and their methods.
"These groups are trying to provoke within the church, through
concerted action and insistent pressure, changes that run counter
to the will of Christ,'' John Paul said. He said he sympathized
with the German bishops for their "fatigue and great expenditures
of energy'' in countering the demands of the groups.
PERSECUTION
CHINA PLANS BREAKUP OF CHURCH
November 9, 1999 By Ellen Knickmeyer, Associated Press VATICAN
CITY (AP)
The Vatican's missionary news service said Tuesday it had
obtained a policy paper in which China's communist leadership
looks ahead to establishing relations with the Vatican an act
to be followed by a full-scale crackdown on China's underground
Roman Catholic Church. The Fides missionary news agency quoted
from what it said was a 16-page private paper of the Communist
Party's policy-setting Central Committee, dated Aug. 16.
The Vatican and China have major differences on which of the two
should command the highest allegiance in the lives of China's
estimated 10 million Catholics. China has frequently imprisoned
priests and worshippers who remain loyal to the Vatican and
refuse to participate in the state-approved church, set up in the
1950s. China's leaders accuse the Vatican of seeking to
interfere in China's internal affairs on the pretext of religion.
The alleged policy paper cited by Fides upholds the primacy of
the state-approved church after any establishment of relations
and foresees the forcible breakup of the underground church.
PREPARATIONS FOR THE MILLENNIUM
BBC EYES VIRGIN RITUAL FOR 2000 BASH
By Erich Boehm LONDON (Variety)
How's this for a riveting climax to a marathon of millennium TV?
Live coverage from Easter Island of seven virgins entering a cave
with a single naked man and later emerging ``married.'' The
interim logistics evidently still are being worked out. This is
but one of many initiatives unveiled by representatives from 60
international broadcasters assembled in London to organize the
BBC's year-end, 28-hour TV extravaganza, ``2000 Today.'' Easter
Island, one of the remotest places on Earth, is administered by
Chile. The epic broadcast will kick off at 9:30 a.m. GMT Dec.
31 on the South Pacific island of Kiribati. The BBC's world
affairs editor, John Simpson, will be on hand to report.
Over the course of the program, there will be addresses from the
Pope, U.N. secretary general Kofi Annan, former South African
president Nelson Mandela and probably the Dalai Lama, but much of
what will be offered is simply fun. The Swedes have come up with
three cool ideas: a wedding in a church made of ice, a concert on
musical instruments made of ice and a gigantic bottle of
champagne that will emerge from the sea. Both Israel and Egypt
are offering music: a classical concert from the Dead Sea and
Jean Michel Jarre performing at the pyramids. Argentina's
offering is also melodious: children's choirs singing on top of a
glacier and in the depths of the rain forest.
Meanwhile, Russia's celebrations, centered in Moscow's Red
Square, will include the Bolshoi ballet. From Panama, expect a
ceremonial U.S. handover of the canal. And Samoa, which will be
one of the last places to greet 2000, is planning a religious
service on a beach, Christ's blood symbolized by coconut milk
instead of wine. U.K. activities will be dominated by events at
London's Millennium Dome. There, 10,000 people -- 5,000 of them
drawn from the elite of British society -- will see in the new
year.
Y2K PROBLEM
GOVERNMENT OPENS $50 MILLION Y2K CRISIS CENTER
November 15, 1999 By Ted Bridis, Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP)
The government offered the first public glimpse Monday of its new
$50 million Y2K nerve center, a highly computerized crisis room
near the White House designed to track failures worldwide caused
by the Year 2000 technology problem. President Clinton's top Y2K
adviser, John Koskinen, said the administration continues to
believe there will be no major national problems, but said its
Information Coordination Center will watch for "some glitches''
anticipated during the New Year's date rollover. "We hope that
night will be really boring,'' said Koskinen, standing before a
glass-empaneled room filled with high-end computers and digital
maps showing global time zones. He called it "the one place in
the world with the most complete information.''
The government Monday also began cautioning against panic as
people discover problems during the New Year's weekend, since
some non-Y2K computer failures might simply coincide with the
date rollover. "We'll have failures from time to time whether
you have a century date change or not,'' said Skip Patterson, who
runs the Year 2000 program for Bell Atlantic Corp. Experts have
previously warned of widespread phone outages if everyone tried
to make a call around midnight what Koskinen described as
"Mother's Day by multiples.'' Nationwide almost every day, for
example, some Internet sites crash, electricity temporarily fails
or airline flights are delayed. In the earliest hours of Jan.
1, no one may know whether problems were caused by the Y2K bug or
something else. "The presumption is to blame all failures on
Y2K that weekend,'' Koskinen said.
911 CENTERS, HOSPITALS, SCHOOLS UNPREPARED FOR Y2K
November 9, 1999 By Ted Bridis, Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP)
Local governments, schools, hospitals and small businesses
continue to lag on repairs to avoid possible Y2K computer
problems, the White House warned in its final report on the
nation's preparations. Only half America's 911 call centers
confirmed last month they were ready, and more than one-third of
the country's elementary and secondary schools told the Education
Department they aren't yet prepared, said the report, which was
to be released Wednesday. With just over 50 days left, the
President's Council on the Year 2000 Conversion cited surveys
showing more than one-fourth small businesses don't intend to do
anything to get ready for the New Year's rollover. The worst
among them are adopting a "wait and see'' stance toward expected
failures, said the report.
ONE-WORLD
EU MINISTERS APPROVE EARLY INTRODUCTION OF EURO-CASH
November 8, 1999 By Paul Ames, Associated Press BRUSSELS, Belgium
(AP)
European Union finance ministers today agreed to eliminate the
currencies of 11 nations four months ahead of schedule, leaving
banks, businesses and consumers just two months to change over to
Europe's common currency, the euro. The agreement means German
marks, French francs and other old currencies will meet their
demise on March 1, 2002 only two months after the introduction
of euro cash on Jan. 1, 2002. The changeover had been set for
July 1, 2002. The move aims to minimize confusion during the
transition.
Eleven of the 15 European Union nations have adopted the euro:
Austria, Belgium, Germany, Finland, France, Ireland, Italy,
Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal and Spain. Sweden, Denmark and
Britain opted to stay out for now. Greece did not meet the
economic criteria for entry, but hopes to join in 2001. So far,
the currency is used mainly by corporate and government
bookkeepers. Euro bills and coins won't start circulating until
2002.
NEW EU ENTRY TALKS SEEN STARTING AT END OF MARCH
BRUSSELS, Nov 23 (Reuters)
The European Union's commissioner for enlargement said on Tuesday
he expected the bloc to formally open membership talks with six
new countries before the end of March 2000. "I think we will
soon have agreement that we will have the opening conference
before the end of March," Guenter Verheugen told reporters after
he and Commission President Romano Prodi met Slovakian Prime
Minister Mikulas Dzurinda.
The 15-nation bloc's leaders are expected to decide at a summit
in Helsinki next month to invite six new countries to join
membership talks. Slovakia, Lithuania, Latvia, Bulgaria, Romania
and Malta would join Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary,
Slovenia, Estonia and Cyprus, which opened formal talks in March
1998. Eatern European diplomats had previously said they
expected the new talks to start at the end of March, and one said
March 21 had been mentioned as a possible date.
54 COUNTRIES ADOPT NEW EUROPEAN SECURITY CHARTER
November 19, 1999 ISTANBUL (Reuters)
Leaders of 54 countries, including the United States and Russia,
on Friday adopted a Charter for European Security which
establishes the principle that conflicts in one state are the
legitimate concern of all. At the end of a two-day summit of the
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in
Istanbul, member states reaffirmed their commitment to peace,
human rights, democracy and the prevention of conflict.
A key passage in the charter, intended to prevent countries from
declaring that internal conflicts such as Russia's war in
Chechnya are no business of their neighbors, declares that:
"Participating states are accountable to their citizens and
responsible to each other for their implementation of their OSCE
commitments. We regard these commitments as our common
achievement and therefore consider them to be matters of
immediate and legitimate concern to all participating states.''
U.S. officials have described the Charter as the equivalent in
security terms of what the 1975 Helsinki Final Act did for human
rights, which, at the height of the Cold War, were declared to be
a matter of legitimate international interest.
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