Pastoral Bible Institute News
This newly reprinted PBI booklet has been placed in selected copies of this issue of The Herald. Samples of our other newly reprinted booklet, Why Does God Permit Evil?, were placed in most of the September-October issues. Please contact us if you would like to use these or our other publications in witness opportunities in your area.
Subscribers who reside in the U.S. and Canada will find a catalog of various Bible Student publications, an order sheet, and a PBI-addressed envelope in the plastic sleeve protecting this issue of The Herald. We will be happy to accept orders for anything listed in this catalog, including those items we do not normally stock. World News Religious Attending religious services helps low-income kids do better in school, suggests a study by sociologists Mark Regnerus of Calvin College and Glen Elder Jr. of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In a nationwide survey, the professors found that students from poor neighborhoods who attended services found role models in the congregation who inspired them to do well. Religious communities did not have as much influence over more affluent kids. —Time, 8/27/2001 Afghanistan’s hard-line Taliban ruler has banned international aid organizations from using the Internet in a country that has no proper postal service and few working telephones. Mullah Mohammed Omar’s edict said the only Internet connection in Afghanistan would be in the southern city of Kandahar, where most of the senior Taliban leaders are based. Aid groups working in Afghanistan depend heavily on the Internet to communicate with each other and with their headquarters. The country has been devastated by decades of war and natural disasters. The Taliban rule about 95 percent of Afghanistan and impose a harsh brand of Islam. The Internet ban was the latest blow to aid groups working in the South Asian nation. Three weeks ago, the Taliban arrested foreign employees of a Christian aid organization, including two Americans, accusing them of preaching Christianity. —Associated Press, 8/26/2001 Nepal’s constitution, drafted in 1990 following the establishment of democracy there, bars discrimination based on sex, religion and race. However, discrimination based on caste was not included. Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba declared the practice illegal in an Aug. 16 speech to parliament. Hinduism’s caste hierarchy continues to be a powerful force in Nepal, as in neighboring India, where discrimination persists despite India’s 1950 constitutional ban on caste-based discrimination. More than 80 per cent of Nepal’s 23 million people practice Hinduism, the official religion of this Himalayan country where the king is believed to be the reincarnation of the god Vishnu. While there is no official data, Dalits [considered to be lowest in the Hindu caste system] are believed to make up between 15 and 20 per cent of the population. They have been banned from temples for centuries. In May last year, a Dalit woman was severely beaten by villagers in Pyuthan, 240 kilometers west of Katmandu, after attempting to fetch water from a well used by her higher-caste neighbors. —Associated Press, 8/26/2001 Social Africa’s largest hospital says AIDS patients are overwhelming it as the disease ravages the country’s population. Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital lacks enough beds (3,300) and staff to deal with the flood of patients. An estimated 4.7 million south Africans are infected with the virus that causes AIDS, according to the South African Department of Health. That’s more than 10% of the total population. Admissions to the hospital have risen by nearly 40% over the past five years. Most alarmingly, death rates go up with admissions. —Wall Street Journal, 8/16/2001 A German hospital said it had successfully treated a heart patient using adult stem cells, a first for the medical world. Ten weeks after the ground-breaking treatment the strength of the 46-year old man’s heart had significantly increased, the Heinrich-Heine university in the western city of Duesseldorf said. The ethics of modern biotech research using stem cells from human embryos has triggered a heated debate around the world. At the heart of the issue is whether it is ethical for scientists to harvest stem cells—master cells that can develop into a variety of cells in the human body—from early stage human embryos for research, or whether life begins at conception and the cells should not be touched. Harvesting the cells destroys the embryo. Advocates of their use pin their hopes on studies that show stem cells may be useful in the development of new treatments for such ailments as heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. Those who argue against it say destroying human embryos is ending one human life to benefit another. —Reuters, 8/24/2001 Scientists at Harvard University and two Boston-area hospitals said that they have made preliminary progress toward finding a gene responsible for unusual longevity in certain siblings. In the report, the scientists outline strong evidence that an important longevity gene may be located in a small stretch of chromosome four, one of the 46 that decide heredity. If the finding—the result of years of painstaking analysis of the genetic material of 137 centenarians or near-centenarians and their siblings—is correct, the gene is one of fewer than 500 located on the chromosome segment. Conventional wisdom that diet, exercise, avoidance of smoking and other good habits prolong life is certainly true for most of us, says Dr. Tom Perls, Harvard scientist. But he says his findings suggest that there may be a “genetic booster rocket” that propels a very small percentage of humanity from the 80-year-old stage to centenarian status. —Wall Street Journal, 8/27/2001 Among the world’s 6,800 languages, half to 90 percent could become extinct by the end of the century, linguists predict. One reason is because half of all languages are spoken by fewer than 2,500 people each, according to the Worldwatch Institute, a private organization that monitors global trends. Languages need at least 100,000 speakers to survive the ages, says UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. War and genocide, fatal natural disasters, the adoption of more dominant languages such as Chinese and Russian, and government bans on language contribute to their demise. Eight countries account for more than half of all languages: Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, Nigeria, India, Mexico, Cameroon, Australia, and Brazil. Linguists believe 3,400 to 6,120 languages could become extinct by 2100. Some languages come back from the dead, so to speak. Hebrew evolved in the last century from a written language into Israel’s national tongue, spoken by 5 million people. —Associated Press, 6/19/2001 Financial An old scam that promises to pay Americans millions to help Nigerian “officials” smuggle cash and valuables out of the African nation is multiplying again, thanks to the Internet. The scam usually works like this: The victim gets a “confidential” letter or e-mail from someone outside the United States. The writer claims to be someone—a government official or deposed leader, or the wife or child of a former military leader, for instance—who is trying to get millions of dollars in cash, gold and/or valuables out of the country. The real scam is to get the victim to willingly send thousands of dollars supposedly to pay taxes, legal fees and money transfer charges needed to get the money out of Nigeria. Victims are simply led on, believing that if they send one more check to pay one last fee, the money will be released. Officials say the crime is rarely reported because the scheme hooks the victim into a potentially illegal transaction. Anyone who receives an offer to participate in [such a] scheme should forward the correspondence to the Secret Service at e-mail address 419.fcd@usss.treas.gov or fax to 202.406.5031. —Los Angles Times, 8/26/2001 International arms sales rose 8 percent to $36.9 billion in 2000 according to an U.S. Congressional Research Service report. The U.S. is the world’s biggest arms dealer, and U.S. manufacturers sold about half of the total. Russia was the second largest seller of weapons, with $7.7 billion in sales in 2000. France sold $4.1 billion, and Germany sold $1.1 billion. Developing countries are the largest market for weapons. The U.S. sold 68 percent of its weapons to developing countries. —New York Times, 8/20/2001 A growing number of religion-based investment schemes in the US are tricking people into putting in money. The North American Securities Administrators’ Association said that faith-based scams were becoming larger and more sophisticated. The process involves using someone’s religion to gain their trust and their money. During the past three years, such scams have taken at least 90,000 investors for nearly $2 billion. The founder of the Greater Ministries International Church was recently sentenced to 27 years in prison for fraud and conspiracy for swindling investors out of $580 million over six years. The organization had promised thousands of investors that divine intervention would double their cash inputs. —Financial Times, 8/8/2001 Civil Critics view genetically modified foods as potential health hazards, arguing that not enough research has been done to determine whether they are really safe. But such food could be the answer to feeding the world’s hungry, according to the UN’s 11th annual Human Development Report. Crops altered to produce higher yields could revolutionize farming in Africa, Latin America and across the underdeveloped world, and the prolonged debate in the U.S. and Europe over safety “ignores the concerns of the developing world,” the report says. The report ranks 162 countries based on income, education, life expectancy and health care. Norway ranks first and the U.S. is in sixth place as the world’s best country in which to live. But if you are poor, you live longer in Sweden and Japan, according to the report. —Wall Street Journal, 7/10/2001 Vandals raided a Jewish cemetery in the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk, painting swastikas and epithets on the tombstones of 31 graves, police said. The vandalism is being investigated said Irina Uzhetskaya, a police spokeswoman in Krasnoyarsk, 2,100 miles east of Moscow. Several shots were fired at tombstones of the same cemetery about two years ago, according to the Russian news agency ITAR-Tass. Concerns about anti-Semitism in Russia have risen in recent years, with repeated cases of bombings and vandalism at synagogues and Jewish cemeteries, as well as attacks on Jews. —Associated Press, 8/22/2001 The number of state prisoners in the US fell during the second half of 2000, the first decline since 1972, the Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics said in a report. At the end of 2000, there were 6,243 fewer people in state prisons than after the first six months of the year. The total number of people in state and federal prison rose 1.3 percent last year, the smallest annual increase since 1972. At the end of 2000, one in every 143 US residents was incarcerated, either in state or federal prison or in a local jail, the report said. —Bloomberg News, 8/12/2001 “The reality in the German Democratic Republic is that people of a different skin color, of a different faith, or of a different nationality cannot feel safe anywhere in this country,” said Paul Spiegel, chairman of the Central Council of German Jews. He said that it is “open season” on minorities and foreigners in Germany’s streets. Spiegel blames all German political bodies for their minimizing the seriousness of the threat posed by rising xenophobic violence, a threat, he says, which is greater than any posed by Nazism since the end of World War II. Xenophobic violence in Germany has increased during the past year after a drop through the 1990s. There were 16,000 hate crimes committed in 2000, as opposed to 10,000 in 1999. —Arutz 7, 8/22/2001 Israel The Islamic Jihad terrorist organization is running camps in PA-controlled Gaza for 8- to 12-year-old children. Channel 2 TV reports that the “Paradise Camps” train the children in military tactics and weapons operations, instilling the concepts of the significance of being a suicide bomber and dying as a martyr. Israel has called for the end of Arab and Moslem incitement against Israelis since the Oslo accords were first signed, almost eight years ago. —Arutz 7, 7/22/2001 While diplomats and Middle East experts wonder how peace negotiations can ever resume after the colossal failure of the Oslo process, security experts everywhere are fascinated by the extraordinary Israeli success in minimizing their casualties. The constant, dramatic coverage of shootings and bombings is contradicted by statistics: In the 10 months since the outbreak of violence, a total of 136 Israeli civilians and soldiers have been killed—many fewer than the number who died in road accidents over the same period, and an amazingly small number considering the sheer magnitude of the violence. Physical damage to Israeli public infrastructures and private property has been insignificant and, more importantly, not one of the Jewish settlements in the West Bank or Gaza have been evacuated. Israel’s ability to keep damage to a minimum explains why world attention is ... [focused] on Israel’s security system, which immediately went into action once Yasser Arafat’s men started shooting. —Los Angeles Times editorial, 8/6/2001 Dr. George Carey, the archbishop of Canterbury, issued an impassioned plea to the dwindling number of Christians in the Holy Land not to leave the country. “We want to urge you to stay put,” Carey said in a message to the Christians of the area. Speaking in a press conference at the American Colony Hotel in Jerusalem, Carey, who is the spiritual head of some 75 million members of the Anglican communion around the world, said he and his fellow churchmen had been “shocked and disturbed” at the situation facing the churches in the West Bank, Jerusalem, and Gaza, but he made what appeared to be a deliberate effort to remain balanced and avoid appearing overly critical of Israel. On a previous visit, he had singled out Israel, criticizing its building projects in the territories. —Jerusalem Post, 7/31/2001 The number of tourists coming to Israel in June of this year was 97,400, a 55% drop compared to June of last year. People in transit totaled 3,500, an 89% increase. From October 2000 until June 2001, the number of air tourists fell 46% compared to the year before, from 186,000 to 101,000. In the first 6 months of 2001, 690,000 tourists came (including 12,500 in transit), 53% less than in the first half of 2000. —Arutz 7, 7/26/2001 Arab allies of the United States are pressing Syria and the Palestinians against launching war against Israel, a new report says. The research division of Israel’s Foreign Ministry said the Arab effort to prevent a Middle East war is being led by Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. The report said these countries have pressured the Palestinian Authority and Syria to halt preparations for any war against Israel. The three U.S. allies are said to fear that the current escalation in Middle East tension could result in a regional war that would damage their interests. The report said Egypt, Jordan and the Saudis have warned of war against Israel while pressing Syrian President Bashar Assad and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to lower the tension. The result, the report said, is that even Syria and the Palestinians have concluded that war is not in their interest. Instead, Syria and the Palestinians are expected to continue low-intensity conflict against Israel. The Foreign Ministry report agrees with military assessments that dismiss the prospect of an imminent regional war. The assessments, however, have warned that the current Arab-Israeli fighting could spin out of control as the current Arab political front against Israel turns into a military coalition. —MENL, 8/3/2001 Book Review A reader suggested that we consider videos in our reviews since not all are inclined to take the time to read the books reviewed in this column. Our hesitation has always been that the superficial treatment given most subjects in a 60- to 90-minute video cannot compare to what can be documented in a 400-page book. However, knowing the time constraints of many who are active in the Lord’s service, we believe the suggestion is a good one and from time to time we will identify and review worthwhile productions or producers. Vision Video, a Christian film distributor, made its debut in 1980 when the firm released a film on the Czech pre-Reformation figure Jan Hus. This film still ranks today as one of the finest Christian films and provides an excellent background on this important reformer who planted seeds 100 years before Martin Luther. Condemned for his uncompromising belief in the final authority of the Bible over the church, Hus was burned at the stake in 1415. Today this firm distributes over 150 selections with a heavy emphasis on both producing and distributing factual treatises of the lives of historical figures important in Christian history. The selections do not represent any single time period, tradition or denominational emphasis. Some are full-length theatrical feature films while others are educational productions. In some cases more than one video on a single subject is offered (e.g., Martin Luther). Of special interest to Bible Students are “Wycliffe: The Morningstar,” a profile of the first translation of the Bible into English by one who underwent great risk to provide the common people with the Scriptures, and “The Midnight Cry,” a profile of William Miller whose work laid a foundation for the early truth movement. Also worthwhile are some modern profiles such as the one on Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German clergyman of great distinction who actively opposed Hitler and the Nazis at great personal risk. His convictions eventually cost him his life at the hands of the Gestapo. Those interested can obtain a catalog from Gateway Films by writing to PO Box 540, Worcester PA 19490, by visiting www.visionvideo.com, or calling toll-free 1-800-523-0226. Special discounts are given to orders entered through the web site. —Len Griehs [with special thanks to Norm Pedlar] |
