Religious

A national poll by the Oxnard-based Barna Research group, an independent marketing research firm that has tracked trends related to beliefs, values, and behaviors since 1984 … found that 76% of Americans believe in heaven. … 14% said heaven is just “symbolic,” 5% said there was no afterlife and 5% said they weren’t sure. 64% [of Americans] believe they’re heaven-bound. On the other hand, only one-half of 1% said they were hell-bound. 39% believe hell is “a state of eternal separation from God’s presence,” while 32% believe it is “an actual place of torment and suffering where people’s souls go after death.”

—Los Angeles Times, 10/24/2003

Cardinals from around the world have descended upon Rome to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Pope John Paul’s papacy. But with rising concerns over the 83-year-old pontiff’s health, many church watchers see the gathering as a dry run of the future conclave that will choose a successor from among its ranks. Many promising contenders are from developing countries, reflecting the seismic shift in church membership away from Europe in recent decades. More than half the world’s Catholics now live in the Southern Hemisphere, with Latin America alone home to 46%. With that shift, the church may adjust some of its priorities to reflect the pressing concerns of this demographic shift, such as economic fairness and government corruption.

—Wall Street Journal, 10/17/2003

The Church of England faces a 21st century crisis after losing money on property speculation in the 1980s and on stocks in the past two years. The 43 dioceses run by England’s bishops are battling pension costs and shrinking congregations. The London Diocese says it risks bankruptcy in a decade. Membership of the Church of England has fallen by two-thirds since 1930 to 1.35 million. Practicing Roman Catholics now outnumber Anglicans in England. Half of the Church of England's dioceses are running deficits, according to a survey published by the Church Times.

--Bloomberg News, 10/31/2003

Social

Scientists at the University of California at San Francisco reported that they extended the lifespan of the worm to six times its normal length, or 120 days. It’s the longest life extension ever achieved in any animal, says Dr. Cynthia Kenyon, leader of the team of scientist who are altering an important gene to make mutant worms that far outlive their normal cousins. “In human terms, these animals would correspond to healthy, active 500-year-olds,” Dr. Kenyon and her co-authors write. The work could have important implications on the genes that govern lifespan in all animals, and holds hope for understanding many diseases related to aging.

—Science, 10/24/2003

The U.S. Famine Early Warning Network said more than 17 million Ethiopians might need emergency food aid by 2007. The network said the worsening situation is due primarily to declining rainfall and an upward spiraling population. Aid agencies blame entrenched poverty rather than a lack of rainfall for the emergency. The United ­Nations Integrated Regional Information Networks said Ethiopia is suffering an unprecedented humanitarian crisis that left 13.2 million—one in five of the population—facing starvation during the year.

—UPI, 10/14/2003

At least 35,000 people died as a result of the record heat wave that scorched Europe in August. The Washington D.C. based Earth Policy Institute (EPI) … calculated the huge death toll from the eight western European countries with data available. “Since reports are not yet available for all European countries, the total heat death toll for the continent is likely to be substantially larger,” the EPI statement said. More than 2,000 died in Britain, with the country recording its first ever temperature over 100 degrees Fahrenheit on August 10.

—UPI, 10/10/2003

A Californian biotechnology company has put the entire sequence of the human genome on a single chip, allowing researchers for the first time to conduct tests on the complex relationships between the 30,000 genes that make up a human being in a single experiment. The Human-Plus Array—so called because the individual letters of the genetic code are “printed” on to it using similar technology to that used in computer chip fabrication—marks a milestone in biological miniaturization and industrialization of genetic research. Elisabeth Fisher, a professor of molecular genetics at the Institute of Neurology in London, said gene chips were ­revolutionizing the study of complex biological processes. “Human diseases invariably involve complex biochemical pathways in the cell. The immense power of these chips lies in our newfound ability to work out what all these pathways are in a single experiment instead of one step at a time,” she said.

—Financial Times, 10/3/2003

Russia faces a near-crisis of demographics. With death rates rising and low birthrates continuing, some experts predict that in 50 years the country’s population, now 145 million, could shrink by a third. Currently, there are almost twice as many abortions as births.

—Los Angeles Times, 9/19/2003

A new University of California-Los Angeles study indicates being snubbed socially can produce the same brain response as being physically hurt. Experts say the study, appearing in the journal Science, provides a hint into the importance the brain places on social ties. Dr. Jaak Panksepp, from the Center for Neuroscience, Mind and Behavior at Bowling Green State University, said that feelings of social exclusion are powerful instincts in animals and humans. Psychological pain in humans, especially grief and intense loneliness, may share some of the same neural pathways that elaborate physical pain.

—UPI, 10/10/2003

Civil

A prominent human rights group estimated Thursday that 11,000 children are fighting in [Columbia’s] civil war, serving as messengers, foot soldiers and even executioners for leftist rebel bands as well as right-wing paramilitary armies. The figure, released in a study by New York-based Human Rights Watch, is one of the highest for child combatants in any current conflict and marks a dramatic increase since the late 1990s. … [Columbia is] locked in a decades-old conflict that claims nearly 4,000 lives a year.

—Los Angeles Times, 9/19/2003

Crime has risen sharply in Japan in the last few years, altering everyday lives, especially of city dwellers, and for the first time becoming a hot political issue. In one of the world’s safest countries, where people had not even been conscious of crime until a few years ago, almost everyone now knows someone who has been robbed or whose house has been broken into. While overall numbers are still low—the annual murder total has remained around 1,300 for the last decade—nationwide statistics from the National Police Agency show a rapid rise particularly in crimes affecting ordinary people. “There was a safety myth here—that Japan was a safe place without doing anything,” said the lieutenant governor, Yutaka Takehana. “But now that myth has collapsed.”

—New York Times, 9/7/2003

Germany’s craze for Ostalgie—nostalgia for the for­mer East Germany is increasing as Germans celebrate the 13th anniversary of the reunification of Germany in October. “Ostalgie is very dangerous, as it presents the German Democratic Republic as a great place to have lived. It sees a dictatorship through rose-tinted spectacles,” says Angelika Barbe, an adult education worker who refused to join local communist youth activities and was marked down as a troublemaker. There has been a growing demand for seminars and discussions by the federal agency administering the Stasi archives. The agency received about 94,000 applications to see the files last year.

—Financial Times, 10/03/2003

Zimbabwe was once one of Africa’s most prosperous states. But it is prostrate today, its vital signs flickering, asphyxiated by ever-tighter governmental curbs on the economy and basic freedoms. Driven by desperation, greed or simply a sense that the end is nearing, its rulers and citizens are methodically stripping the country of its assets. Desperate citizens have become dark-of-night scavengers of coffins, copper electrical cable and even aluminum street signs, now in such shortage that finding an address is a trial. At night, streetlights are turned off for lack of foreign currency to pay South African and Zambian power suppliers. “This country is truly in a crisis,” said Collen Gwiyo, the 38-year-old first secretary general of the Zimbabwe Coalition of Trade Unions. “It’s a political crisis, leading to an economic crisis, feeding a humanitarian disaster.” In a nation that exported beef and wheat only three years ago, four million people—one in three—now subsist on foreign food donations. Four in 10 children are stunted or wasting away from malnutrition, according to the United Nations.

—New York Times, 10/19/2003

Financial

The administration of Mexican President Vicente Fox is coming under fire for abandoning attempts to prosecute those responsible for a $100 million campaign scandal involving the state oil monopoly. Company funds were diverted through its union to the 2000 presidential campaign of the long-ruling Institutional Revolutionary party. Independent critics are complaining that the administration is sacrificing commitments to uncover the corruption of his predecessors in exchange for their potential help in passing his plans.

—Financial Times, 9/18/03

A UK government study found some genetically modified crops might alter the balance of insects and wildlife in farm fields, although farmers may be able to limit the effects by rotating crops. Fewer bugs and weed seeds were found among genetically modified sugar and fodder beets and spring-sown canola compared with normal plants, while more bees and butterflies were found among genetically modified corn than the regular plantings, according to results from the three-year study on the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs’ Web site. The UK government is studying products made by several companies after complaints about the possible effect on the environment.

—Bloomberg News, 10/16/2003

Almost all of Italy’s 57 million citizens were left without electricity when supply lines from France and Switzerland were knocked out, adding to a string of blackouts across Europe and North America during the summer. The power failure raised new questions about the fragility of electricity grids in even the most developed economies, and highlighted Italy’s growing dependence upon cross-border supplies of electricity.

—Financial Times, 9/29/2003

Many state and local governments face ballooning pension promises to police officers, firefighters, teachers and other public employees. As they issue more bonds to finance those obligations, it leaves taxpayers on the hook for even more debt. States and municipalities are drawn to bond sales because they bring instant cash, easing budget pressures without further tax increases or reductions in retirement benefits. But recent investment losses have ­already left some cities and states on the hook for a mounting debt, covering not just the retirement money for their workers but also the interest on the bonds. Government pension plans can dig themselves into deeper holes because, unlike corporate pension plans, they are not bound by federal requirements to maintain a certain level of funding. Some have no reserves at all: they just pay as they go, out of revenues. In California, home of the nation’s weakest public pension plan, the state teacher’s plan has only $1 for every $5 it owes.

—New York Times, 10/12/2003

Ten active fires burned from Los ­Angeles County to the Mexican border, blackening nearly 500,000 acres, killing 14 people, injuring dozens of others and destroying more than 1,000 homes. Gov. Gray Davis said the wildfires would cost California billions of dollars amid the dire financial woes that prompted voters to ­recall him from office, and officials said the cost to the state would be ­unprecedented. “This will be the most expensive fire in California history, both in the loss of property and in cost of fighting it,” Dallas Jones, director of the state’s Office of Emergency Services, said. More than 10,000 fire­fighters were battling the fires, aided by crews from Nevada and Arizona.

—Reuters, 10/28/2003

Israel

By 2005, the Jewish community in Germany will grow by 30 percent, to 130,000, a German Jewish leader said. The rapid growth of German Jewry ­began in 1990 following the fall of Communism, which prompted the influx of Jews from the Soviet Union. “Today we have 83 Jewish communities with 100,000 members, and synagogues are being built all around the country,” said Paul Spiegel, President of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, according to the London Telegraph. “We could not have dreamed of this when we returned after the Second World War.”

—JTA, London Telegraph, 10/23/2003

European Union foreign ministers said that the union would officially declare all wings of the militant Palestinian group Hamas a terrorist organization and freeze its assets. That decision, reached at a meeting of the ministers in the northern Italian town of Riva del Garda, further isolated Hamas at a volatile juncture in the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. It followed a similar decision by the United States and was prompted by a suicide bombing in Jerusalem on Aug. 19 that killed 22 people. The union had previously pronounced the military wing of Hamas a terrorist organization, but it had not done so in regard to the political wing and fund-raising charities … affiliated with Hamas.

—New York Times, 9/7/2003

Ben Gurion University researchers have invented a method of using sunlight to replace laser-based surgical tools. It’s cheaper and less risky. As the medical world develops, patient treatments improve, but so too does the cost, widening the gap between those who can afford advanced medical treatments and those who can’t. While it’s becoming increasingly rare to see a scalpel in operating theaters in the Western World as lasers replace them, virtually all surgery in the Third World is done with knives. Even in Israel, most hospitals have only a few laser devices. A group of physicians at the Department of Solar Energy and Environmental Physics, Jacob Blaustein Institute for Desert Research at Ben Gurion University of the Negev have developed a device that could emulate the actions of laser surgical tools using only sunlight. The device’s great advantage is its low cost. The prototype machine costs $7,500 to build, while the cost of an equivalent laser device is estimated at $100,000.

—www.globes.co.il, 8/12/2003

The American refusal to criticize a sudden Israeli air raid on Syria has helped bring relations with the United States to a new low, the Syrian Foreign Ministry said. “Syrian-American relations have deteriorated markedly to a point that they have not reached in recent years,” Ms. Kanafani said at a news conference. [She noted] that at a time of growing violence in Iraq it was in the interests of the United States to attain all the help it could get from surrounding countries. The United States and Syria had been developing closer relations since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks against New York and Washington, especially after Damascus shared intelligence about Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations it had been tracking.

—New York Times, 10/11/2003

A unique park was recently opened in the Hula Valley in a combined effort of farmers, the Jewish National Fund and nature conservationists. The Hula Valley’s newly reclaimed swamplands are now home to over 13,000 cranes from Siberia. During their migration from Siberia, the crane family units stay together. The plan was put into action when it became obvious that Israel is the preferred wintering location of the Grey Crane. The participants have turned the would-be pest into a welcome winter guest. Since the crane’s favorite meal is found in the corn crops of the local farmers, these agriculturalists bring in three tons of corn daily to a designated area in the Hula Valley. The intelligent cranes eagerly flock there in the early morning and early evening when the feed is spread out. The area now has ponds and streams, with ducks and geese among the new inhabitants.

—Jewish Universe.net, 1/21/2003

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Motion Picture Review

Luther. Produced by Thrivent Financial for Lutherans and Neue Filmproduktion of Berlin, Germany, in English. With Joseph Fiennes, Alfred Mo­lina, and Peter Ustinov. Opened 26 Sept. 2003.

This impressive cinematic production, filmed on over one hundred sets in twenty locations throughout Germany, Italy, and the Czech Republic at a ­reported cost of $25 million does an incredible job at making a man of history come to life. Because of the pathos and death, the PG-13 rating is appropriate. Those in the Reformation histories are presented with close attention to historical detail.

In his days as a pious Augustinian monk Luther would be in confession for up to six hours and Johann von Staupitz, Luther's confessor and mentor, is sensitively portrayed. Luther wrote: “If it had not been for Dr. Staupitz, I should have sunk in hell.” Luther's deep-seated spiritual angst and psychological pathology might be disconcerting, but it is accurately portrayed. At the beginning of the film when Luther is trapped in a desperate storm while traveling, he dedicates his life to God. The film traces his transformation from a pious Roman Catholic fearful of God's judgment to the bold reformer. His hot temper is downplayed.

Elector Frederick “the wise” is wonderfully played and provides a touch of relief in the drama of the era. Watch for details such as Pope Julius, the “Fighting Pope,” galloping through the streets of Rome in his golden armor. We are not shown that inquiries like the Diet of Worms—a general meeting of the nobility of the Holy Roman Empire —went on for an entire day making it a grueling ordeal. Nor do we see the Spanish Cardinals hissing at Luther after his famous “Here I stand” speech. We are shown the societal impacts of Luther's ministry, and the wide spectrum of reaction to it; it is not a cinematic Bible study.

It is rare indeed to be able to recommend a ­motion picture, but this is one of the best.

—Richard Doctor