Date of Annual PBI Meeting

The annual meeting of PBI Members and Directors will be held on Friday, July 16, at Chapman University, Orange, California. The General Convention of Bible Students will begin on Saturday, July 17, at the same location and end the evening of July 22. Those who are interested in the Pastoral Bible Institute, whether members or not, are encouraged to attend this meeting. Contact the Institute’s secretary for details concerning accommodations.

Letter

It was a pleasure to read the fine articles about the Great Pyramid in the January/February Herald. [The] comments about the concealed air passageways in the Queen’s Chamber are very current. It could be of interest to others to learn that Rudolf Gantenbrink’s work exploring one of the passageways is available [at www.cheops.org. It is] entitled The Upuat Project. It is lengthy but well illustrated and detailed.

Bill Siekman, Jr., Wisconsin

World News

Religious

In a Harris poll taken in 2003, 82 percent of Americans said they believed in heaven, and of these, 63 percent said they were likely to go there. Only one percent said they were going to hell. Since the mid-1970s, the percentage of Americans who believe in the afterlife has increased slightly, even though other measures of religious belief have declined ­according to surveys by the National Opinion ­Research Center at the University of Chicago. Ann Graham Lotz, a daughter of the evangelist Billy Graham and president of the Angel Ministries, rued the lack of hellfire in sermons today. She said that clergy members are not laying out the whole story. “I don’t know when was the last time I heard a mention of hell in a sermon, yet Jesus mentioned hell more than he did heaven. We need to be reminded because a lot of people are going there.”

—New York Times, 12/21/2003

The European Union prepared a report on anti-Semitism but buried it because it showed that Muslim and pro-Palestinian elements are involved in most of the incidents. The European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC), which serves as the EU’s racism watchdog organization, commissioned a report on anti-Semitism in early 2002, following a sharp increase in anti-Jewish ­violence. However, when it received the report towards the end of the year, the EUMC objected to the focus on Muslim and pro-Palestinian perpetrators, judging this inflammatory. The EUMC decided to shelve the 112-page study.

—Arutz 7, 11/23/2003

European countries plan to expel thousands of Muslim refugees beginning in February 2004. The Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Siyasah quotes a British diplomat to the effect that rising terrorism has led the EU to decide to formulate a joint counter-terrorism plan-including the expulsion of Middle Eastern, Asian and African Muslims. “This will be a quick and immediate procedure to prevent the terrorism war from arriving in other European capitals,” the British diplomat said. In addition to Great Britain, other countries that have agreed to this step are France, Spain and Italy. Some 28 million Muslims currently live in the European Union, of whom 25% are citizens and another 40% are illegal aliens.

—Arutz 7, 11/27/2003

Islamic militants burned down thirteen churches and several houses and shops in the remote northern ­Nigerian town of Kazaure after a Christian student was accused of insulting the prophet Muhammad, police said. Hundreds have died in religious clashes in Kano, capital of the neighboring Jigawa province, in the last three years.

—Los Angeles Times, 11/21/2003

Turkey became the latest flashpoint in a widening campaign of apparent Islamist terror. The blasts killed at least 23 people and wounded more than 300. The incident marks the latest in a string of attacks on Jewish targets across the Muslim world. It is Turkey’s bond with Israel, cemented in 1996 with a far-reaching military pact, that has been particularly galling to Arab hard-liners. Turkey was the first Muslim country to recognize Israel after the latter’s creation in 1948.

—Wall Street Journal, 11/17/2003

Social

After declining for years, the number of people in the world who are going hungry is on the rise, the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) stated in its annual hunger report. The number of hungry people in developing countries declined by 37 million during the first half of the 1990s but increased by 18 million in the second half. The FAO estimates in its fifth annual report on “The State of Food Insecurity in the World” that 842 million people were undernourished in 1999-2001. This is not the famine-type hunger associated with drought. It’s a diet that routinely supplies 1,400 to 1,700 calories a day. Several U.N. agencies say 2,300 calories is the minimum needed for a healthy life. In 26 countries, the number of undernourished people went up. Hunger very seldom happens because of lack of food, according to the report. “There is enough food available in world markets and even often in countries, but people who are affected by hunger don’t have access to it,” said Hartwig de Haen, FAO assistant director.

—USA Today, 11/25/2003

Deaths and new cases of HIV/AIDS reached unprecedented highs in 2003 and are set to rise still further as the epidemic keeps a stranglehold on sub-Saharan Africa and advances across Eastern Europe and Central Asia. New global estimates based on improved data released in November show about 40 million people worldwide are living with HIV/ AIDS, including an estimated 2.5 million children under 15 years old. “In two short decades HIV/AIDS has tragically become the premier disease of mass destruction,” Dr. Jack Chow, of the World Health Organization told a news conference. “The death odometer from HIV/AIDS is now at 8,000 a day and accelerating.”

—Reuters, 11/25/2003

Rescue workers Saturday pulled a barely injured 97-year-old woman from under a collapsed building where she had been trapped nine days after a powerful earthquake razed this city [Bam, Iran]. Despite the good news, the official death toll rose to about 35,000. The death toll has varied according to differing estimates of how many bodies are still under the rubble and of thousands of unregistered burials. Bill Garvelink, head of the U.S. relief team in the southern Iranian city, has said the destruction was worse than in any quake zone he had ever seen. “It’s incredible,” he said. “Bam is literally a rubble pile.”

—Los Angeles Times, 1/4/2004

2003 was the world‘s third warmest on record. Canada, the US, China and parts of Russia experienced near-record temperatures in the northern summer, although northern China and Japan were abnormally cold. Meanwhile, some parts of Africa experienced the wettest conditions in 70 years. Many diplomats and scientists have expressed their conviction that we are seeing a significant warming trend and a greater frequency of weather-related natural disasters. But skeptics say that climate alarmists are ignoring the natural variability of the climate, quoting scientific warnings from the 1970s on the risk of global cooling after decades of falling temperatures. The 20th century was neither the warmest nor the most extreme century for weather in recent history, according to researchers at the Center for Astrophysics.

—Financial Times, 12/31/2003

Only 25 commercial airliners crashed in fatal accidents in 2003, by far the lowest number in modern aviation history. The United States had two: an Air Midwest flight that crashed on Jan. 8 in Charlotte, N.C., killing 21 people, and an Aug., 26 crash on Cape Cod, Mass., that killed two crew members. Overall, the world's fatal airliner accidents last year killed 677 people, the third fewest since World War II. Because far more people are flying far more miles, however, fatalities per mile are the lowest in history. Until a Christmas Day crash killed 138 in the West African country of Benin, the world was on track for the fewest deaths.

—Seattle Times, 1/3/2004

The incidence of diabetes has been rising in recent years, in children as well as in adults, primarily due to the increase in obesity among Americans. The prevalence rose 40 percent in the 1990s. By 2050, unless current trends are reversed, experts predict a further increase of 165 percent. An analysis published in October in the Journal of the American Medical Association by scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention predicts [that] for those born in 2000, 32.8 percent of boys and 36.5 percent of girls will develop diabetes in their life­time.

—New York Times, 12/23/2003

Civil

[A military campaign in Iraq’s north] that echoes the Nazi killing machine in its efficiency and brutality left at least 100,000 [Kurdish] people dead. ... For six months in 1988 Iraqi troops and Kurdish militias arrested the inhabitants of suspected rebel strongholds and destroyed thousands of villages. Males of fighting age were the main target, but many of the victims were also women and children. In some villages entire populations were slaughtered. The extermination received relatively little attention abroad during Hussein’s dictatorship. With Hussein gone from power, 263 suspected mass graves have been discovered, stretching from Mosul in the north to the remote deserts of the south.

—Los Angeles Times, 12/5/2003

The failure of the European Union constitution talks has created serious doubts about the future of Union itself. One possible result may be that the French are increasingly disillusioned by the soon-to-be enlarged EU of 25 countries and are drawn instead to the idea of a “core Europe,” in which a small group of countries, led naturally by France and Germany, press ahead with deeper integration. The French were particularly shocked by the temerity of new members such as Poland lining up with America in the run-up to the Iraq war. The collapse of the constitutional talks may allow the French to insist that an enlarged EU will be unworkable so that a core Europe is needed. A prolonged period of political wrangling now seems inevitable. And that might worsen the EU’s most worrisome problem: its increasing unpopularity. This month the European Commission’s own opinion polls showed that less than half of EU citizens (48%) agreed that their country’s membership was a good thing, the lowest level ever recorded.

—Economist, 12/18/2003

Financial

Italian police arrested seven suspects including two former Parmalat finance directors, and two ex­ecutives from auditor Grant Thornton in what is emerging as one of Europe’s largest financial frauds. Chairman Calisto Tanzi Sr. admitted that he had appropriated about €500m of company funds during the past eight years, largely to finance Parma­tour, a family-controlled leisure and travel business. People close to the company said that Mr. Bondi and his assistants were still quantifying the amount of missing funds—conservatively put at €7bn–€10bn—and assessing whether they would be able to retrieve any of the money.

—Financial Times, 12/30/2003

—LAX Airport Poster, 12/31/2003

Europe will bridge its final post-World War II divisions when ten mostly Eastern European countries join the European Union on May 1. That doesn’t mean the battles are over. The entry of Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Cyprus (the Greek half), Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Slovakia, Slovenia and Malta, which will swell the EU to 25 countries with 450 million people, will worsen disputes over subsidies, the euro currency and the EU‘s military ambitions, according to Philippe de Buck, secretary general of the European employers federation.

—Bloomberg News, 12/30/2003

One of the promises of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was that it would close the great gaps in wages and living standards between the United States and Mexico and keep Mexicans working on their side of the border. But by every measurable standard, the gap between rich and poor in Mexico widened. Unemployment went up and real wages, eroded by a collapse of the peso in 1995, are flat or down for many millions of workers.

—New York Times, 12/27/2003

Philipp Missfelder, a German college student who runs the youth organization of Germany’s largest conservative party, the Christian Democrats, set off the waves that continue to ripple through one of his country’s most freighted debates. In an interview with a Berlin newspaper, Mr. Missfelder said that elderly people are soaking up Germany’s financial resources, with lavish pensions and gold-plated health care plans. Such largess, he said, comes at the expense of young Germans who will be strangled by the burden of supporting an ever larger population of retirees. In the German paper Der Tagesspiegel, he complained about 85-year-olds getting costly hip replacements rather than just making do with crutches as in old times.

—New York Times, 12/27/2003

The government of oil-rich Terengganu state in Ma­laysia enacted Islamic laws, complete with Quran-decreed punishments including amputation, stoning and flogging for convicted Muslim offenders in the state. The growing appeal of fundamentalist Islam in Malaysia raises the question: Can economic development alone satisfy a Muslim society? If Malaysia is any guide, the answer appears to be “not necessarily.” New Prime Minister Ab­dullah Ahmad Badawi is pinning hopes on economic progress as an antidote to Islamic extremism everywhere from Iraq and Afghanistan to Indo­nesia. Dozens of ­Malaysian militants have been linked to Southeast Asian terrorist groups with ties to al Qaeda.

—Wall Street Journal, 11/7/2003

Israel

Unemployment in Israel is getting worse. The number of jobless who have not worked in the past 12 months surged to a new record of 154,400, according to a report by the Bank of Israel research division, based on Central Bureau of Statistics figures. The Bank of Israel report stated that the unemployment rate was 10.7% in the third quarter, amounting to 278,700 persons and equivalent to a seasonally adjusted 11.6%.

—Globes, 11/27/2003

By next year, a 24-foot-high concrete wall running down the middle of Ram, a busy northern suburb of Jerusalem, will divide Palestinian-administered Ram from Israeli-governed Jerusalem. Designed to stop Palestinian suicide bombers from entering Israel, the separation barrier is backed by the majority of Israelis. But the barrier, which cuts into the West Bank to take in Jewish settlements, has angered Palestinians, been criticized by the United Nations and even called a problem by President Bush, normally a staunch defender of Israeli policies. With Israel now weighing unilateral steps toward separating the two peoples, the barrier would draw a tangible line through a city. This remains one of the most heated issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “We built the fence because we don’t have any other means of protecting the lives of ­Israelis,” says Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom. “We have had 19,000 terrorist attacks over the last three years. I don’t think any other country would have acted differently.”

—Wall Street Journal, 12/19/2003

For a Palestinian accused of cooperating with Israel’s security forces, confession can amount to a death sentence. For Israel, the business of recruiting informers is a vital phase of the fight against terrorism. Israel’s security forces rely heavily on informers to stop suicide bombers and arrest and kill militants. The army carries out raids almost nightly in densely packed neighborhoods, which are poorly lighted and unmarked. Palestinians say Israel looks for those in vulnerable positions, then exerts great pressure on them, using blackmail and other threats to keep them cooperative. Most often, Israel simply pays a small sum, perhaps $100 a month, for a typical collaborator, said Palestinian security officials who have investigated such cases. With the Palestinian economy in ruins, money is a powerful lure, the officials said. The Palestinian Authority, established in 1994, now puts suspected collaborators on trial. But vigilante killings are also still common, and Palestinians have slain more than 70 in the past three years. Suspects are often convicted in trials lasting only a few hours. In January 2001, two convicted collaborators were executed by a firing squad in Gaza. The European Union protested, and in response the Palestinian leader, Yasir Arafat, said he would halt all executions.

—New York Times, 11/29/2003

The American National Intelligence Council (NIC) has reached the conclusion that no peace between Israel and the Palestinians is possible before the year 2020. The NIC, which is headed by CIA Director George Tenet, believes that the death of Yassir Arafat would be a positive catalyst toward peace. The group cautions, however, that war between Israel and Syria remains possible, and if it happens, all positive projections would be nullified. It warns that biological or even nuclear weapons might be used if such a conflict arises. Also on the list of concerns is instability in Saudi Arabia and Egypt, with emphasis on the negative effect an ensuing radical Islamic regime would have on peace with Israel.

—The Media Line, 12/17/2003

The Bush administration, in a rare rebuke to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, has decided to rescind $289.5 million in American-backed loan guarantees for Israel as a punishment for illegal construction activities in the West Bank. Although it was the United States that took the action on the loan guarantees, the announcement was pointedly made by Israel. After the Israeli statement, a White House spokesman said the Bush administration welcomed what Israel had done and expressed gratitude for its acknowledgment that its activities in the West Bank were inconsistent with American policy.

—New York Times, 11/26/2003

Tourism to Israel continues to show a steady increase with as many tourists coming to Israel in the first ten months of 2003 as came in all of 2002. Figures released by the Central Bureau of Statistics and the Tourism Ministry show that a total of 852,400 tourists visited Israel from January to October this year, up 20% from 707,500 during the same months in 2002. In October alone 112,600 tourists entered Israel, 46% more than the number of tourist entries in October 2002, and 60% more than the number for October 2001.

—Forward (a Jewish weekly magazine), 12/5/2003