|
Pastoral Bible Institute News PBI Directors Elected The members of the Pastoral Bible Institute have elected these seven individuals to serve as directors for the next twelve months:
Adam to Zion This popular book describing in pictures and simple English the truths of the Divine Plan has just been reprinted as a paperback for use in witnessing work. The Institute is providing it for only two dollars, postpaid anywhere in the world. Use the back of the insert found in this issue to place your order.
Religious Christian mobs killed scores of Muslims, burned their corpses, and defaced mosques as religious violence escalated in Nigeria. The riots started in the mostly Muslim north when Muslims demonstrating against Danish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed attacked and killed about a dozen Christians. More than 30 churches were torched. Angry Christians in the south took revenge on the Muslim minority there, killing dozens of Muslims in the city of Onitsha alone. —The Week, 3/10/2006
—Pew Research Center, July 2005 Pakistan’s tiny Christian community has faced attack as a means of seeking revenge for … Western governments perceived as being ‘anti-Muslim’. Churches have been set ablaze, congregations shot at and Christians killed. Non-Muslims make up around three percent of Pakistan’s population of 149 million. Of these, two percent are Hindus, concentrated in Sindh, and around one percent Christians, the largest number based in the Punjab province. All suffer discrimination in various forms. —AlertNet.org, 2/20/2006 The oldest known copy of Old Testament Scripture was discovered in 1979. Two tiny silver scroll amulets were found in a Jerusalem tomb. They were etched with ancient Hebrew script. The script contained a quotation from the blessing recorded in Numbers 6:24-26. The inscription dates to the seventh century B.C., around the time of Solomon’s Temple and the prophet Jeremiah. So these verses are older than the Dead Sea Scrolls by approximately 400 years. —Israel My Glory, January/February 2006 Religious pressure on textbooks is growing well beyond Christian fundamentalists’ attack on evolution. History books are the biggest battleground, as groups vie for changes in texts for elementary and secondary schools that cast their faiths in a better light. Hindu groups, in particular, have swamped California authorities with proposed revisions, which would delete or soften references to polytheism, the caste system, and the inferior status of women in ancient India. For textbook publishers, to ignore religious groups is to risk exclusion from markets. —Wall Street Journal, 1/25/2006 Social The Al-Salaam Boccaccio 98 sank in the Red Sea on its way from Saudi Arabia to the Egyptian port of Safaga. The governor of Red Sea province, Bakr al-Rashidi, said that only 388 of the more than 1,400 people on board were known to have survived. Most of the passengers were low-income Egyptians returning from working in Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf countries. Fire broke out in the ship’s parking bay as it was about 20 miles from the Saudi shore. The crew decided to push across the Red Sea to try to reach Egypt’s shores 110 miles away. As it burned, many passengers moved to one side of the ship. An explosion was heard, and high winds helped topple the unbalanced vessel. —Associated Press, 2/6/2006 Worldwide measles deaths dropped 48% in six years as immunization efforts reached more children in sub-Saharan Africa. The World Health Organization and the U.N. Children’s Fund said the fall in deaths to 454,000 in 2004 from 871,000 in 1999 was “an outstanding public-health success story.” A safe, cheap and effective measles vaccine has been available since the 1960s, but the highly infectious disease is still a major killer of children in developing countries. —Los Angeles Times, 3/11/2006 Windmills are sprouting on hillsides across the Midwest. Mason City became the first Iowa town to set rules that allow windmills in commercial, industrial and residential zones. The increasing popularity of wind energy is part of a surge in the development of alternative energy source. Last year, a record 9,149 megawatts of electricity was produced by wind in the USA. That’s just 0.5% of all electricity generated in the country. —USA Today, 2/24/2006 A supernova has astronomers around the globe racing to their telescopes. The advent of the exploding star was heralded by a burst of gamma-ray radiation, detected February 18 by NASA’s Swift satellite. Three days later, scientists matched the burst to the birth of a supernova. The gamma ray burst was the second closest to Earth ever detected. —USA Today, 2/24/2006 Russian authorities killed more than 270,000 chickens in the country’s southwestern-most corner to contain a new wave of lethal bird flu, a day after Turkey reported suspected outbreaks in almost a third of its provinces. Avian influenza has broken out across western Asia, possibly leading to outbreaks in Eastern Europe and the European Union. In Turkey, more than 1.87 million poultry have been culled in the past two months. —Bloomberg News, 2/17/2006 Scientists exploring an isolated jungle in one of Indonesia’s most remote provinces discovered dozens of new species of frogs, butterflies and plants, as well as mammals hunted to near extinction elsewhere, members of the expedition said. The December expedition to Papua on the western side of New Guinea island was organized by the U.S.-based environmental organization Conservation International and the Indonesian Institute of Sciences. The scientists said they discovered 20 frog species, including a tiny microhylid frog less than a half inch long, four new butterfly species and at least five new types of palms. —Associated Press, 2/7/2006 For Africans born with a genetic condition known as albinism, which deprives skin, hair and sometimes eyes of pigmentation, life is complicated by prejudice and illness. Albinism in parts of Africa is estimated to affect as many as one in a thousand people. In many African cultures, they are seen as bearers of bad luck. Many are abandoned at birth or even slaughtered in ritual sacrifice. Albinos in many parts of Africa are in special danger because of animist customs that ascribe magical powers to potions made from sacrificed albinos. Around Africa, parents hide their albino children ahead of elections and important sports competitions, fearing that they will be abducted and killed. —Wall Street Journal, 1/6/2006 A landslide in a central Philippine province buried all but three or four of the 300 houses in a village of Saint Bernard municipality, as well as a school building. As many as 3,000 people may have been killed. The La Nina weather phenomenon is causing three to four times more rain than normal in the Philippines. —Bloomberg News, 2/17/2006 India, despite its reputation as a bottomless well of back-office talent ready to scoop up jobs, is having an increasingly difficult time finding qualified workers to fuel its booming services sector. Consulting firm McKinsey & Co. says India’s information-technology industry could face a deficit of 500,000 workers as soon as 2010. At the heart of India’s dilemma lies the antiquated higher-education system that produces around three million graduates a year, but of such uneven quality that many aren’t employable. —Wall Street Journal, 1/4/2006 Political China plans the biggest increase in its defense budget in four years, a move likely to raise concern around the world. China announced at its annual National People’s Congress, that it would boost military spending to $35.1 billion, an increase of 14.7 percent. The increase comes as China has stepped up rhetoric against Taiwan. A U.S. government report issued in July said China is building up its military to be able to project power beyond Taiwan. Analysts say China’s official budget masks the true size of spending, which could be as much as four times greater. —Wall Street Journal, 3/6/2006 The Kenyan government squandered millions of dollars on luxury vehicles—mainly for the personal use of senior officials—during its first year in office, despite pledges that it was committed to tackling poverty and creating a more efficient administration. A report compiled by Transparency International and the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights, said the spending was an example of “wasteful expenditure and conspicuous consumption.” The report said that between January 2003 and September 2004, the government purchased numerous vehicles worth $12 million. —Financial Times, 1/31/2006 Once best known for opium, the active ingredient in heroin, Afghanistan has been working its way up the production ladder. Now it’s the world’s largest producer and exporter of heroin. Clandestine labs churn out so much product that the average heroin price in Western Europe tumbled to $75 a gram from $251 in 1990, adjusted for inflation, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. The business is also spreading disease and addiction in Central Asia and Russia, where traffickers have ramped up a smuggling route to the heart of Europe. —Wall Street Journal, 1/18/2006 The United Nations is calling on military forces from the developed world to help transform an international protection force in Sudan’s Darfur region, amid reports of continuing atrocities and warnings that its peace process is failing. The African Union, whose 7,000 strong force in Darfur has proved unable to halt widespread violence, is running out of funds. The challenges for any mission would be massive; Darfur is a vast, underdeveloped region about the size of Iraq, bereft of infrastructure. The conflict involves fractious rebel groups, government-backed militia and government forces. —Financial Times, 1/18/2006 Financial China raised its estimate for the total size of its economy in 2004 to 15.988 trillion yuan ($1.981 trillion). The National Bureau of Statistics’ revision put China ahead of Italy as the world’s sixth-largest economy based on 2004 Gross Domestic Product figures. —Dow Jones, 1/4/2006 Royal Caribbean International ordered the world’s largest and most expensive cruise ship yet, a $1.24 billion vessel that will be almost as long as four football fields and hold up to 6,400 passengers. The ship, dubbed Project Genesis, will be 220,000 gross registered tons when it is delivered to the world’s second-largest cruise operator in fall 2009 by Oslo shipbuilder Aker Yards. The ship will weigh about [as much as] a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier. Aker said its contract price of about $1 billion would be “the most valuable ship ever ordered in the history of commercial shipbuilding.” —Washington Times, 2/7/2006 Making a billion just isn’t what it used to be. In the [Forbes] inaugural ranking of the world’s richest people 20 years ago, there were some 140 billionaires. Just three years ago there were 476. In 2006, the list is a record 793. They’re worth a combined $2.6 trillion, up 18% since last March. Their average net worth: $3.3 billion. —Forbes, 3/9/2006 Americans’ personal savings rate dipped into negative territory in 2005, something that hasn’t happened since the Great Depression. Consumers depleted their savings to finance the purchases of cars and other big-ticket items. The Commerce Department reported Monday that the savings rate fell into negative territory at minus 0.5 percent, meaning that Americans not only spent all of their after-tax income last year but had to dip into previous savings or increase borrowing. —BusinessWeek.com, 1/30/2006 Exxon Mobil Corp., the world’s biggest publicly traded oil company, announced fourth quarter (October-December) net income of $10.71 billion. It was one of the biggest quarterly profits of any company in history. The biggest driver of Exxon’s surging profit was high energy prices amid the world’s increasing thirst for oil and natural gas. —Wall Street Journal, 1/31/2006 There is little doubt that house prices have become one of the dominant issues in the global economic outlook. US house prices have increased by more than 60 percent during the past five years and were still increasing at a 13-14 percent annual rate in the final quarter of 2005. The market value of residential real estate in the US is now equal to nearly 200 percent of personal disposal income, compared with 160 percent during the early 1990s. Mortgage-related assets are now equal to 61 percent of bank credit compared with less than 50 percent 10 years ago and 25 per cent in the 1970s. The US housing market now has forms of mortgage lending that have not existed since the 1920s. —Financial Times, 1/26/2006 The “Jobs Bank” is a two-decade old program at General Motors under which nearly 15,000 auto workers continue to get paid after their companies stop needing them. To earn wages and benefits that often top $100,000 a year, the workers must perform some company-approved activity. Many do volunteer jobs or go back to school. The Jobs Bank at GM and other U.S. auto companies costs around $1.4 billion to $2 billion per year. —Wall Street Journal, 3/2/2006 The European Union [EU] agreed to provide US $143 million in urgent aid for Palestinians before a government takes office led by Hamas, a group the bloc considers a terrorist organization. The funds were required to avoid “economic chaos” from paralyzing the Palestinian Authority [PA], French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said. Officials said the aid package comprises US$48 million to pay for the PA’s energy and other utility bills, US$76 million for health and education projects, and US$21 million to help the PA pay its employees. The money is designed to keep the PA afloat after Israel’s decision to withhold US$50 million a month in tax funds. —Jerusalem Post, 2/28/2006 Israel With the expected exit from politics of Ariel Sharon, just over a year after the death of Yassir Arafat, a generational shift in power across the middle East is almost complete. In the broader Middle East, Mr. Sharon is among the last of the towering and controversial figures whose careers were defined largely by the Arab-Israeli struggles. Over the past six years, the region has lost Hafez al-Assad, Saddam Hussein, and King Fahd in Abdelaziz of Saudi Arabia. With King Hussein of Jordan long gone, Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian president is the only leader from the old guard to still be in power. The redrawing of Israel’s political map is only now beginning. —Financial Times, 1/10/2006 Israeli inventor Alon Bodner has developed a breathing apparatus that allows divers to breathe underwater without cumbersome, compressed air tanks. The new invention uses relatively small amounts of air that already exist in water to supply oxygen to both scuba divers and submarines. Bodner got the idea for his invention from fish that do not perform chemical separation of oxygen from water. Instead, they use the dissolved air that exists in the water in order to breathe. Using a physics principle known as Henry’s law, Bodner was able to extract enough oxygen from seawater for a human being to breathe. A model has already been built and tested. It runs on rechargeable batteries and can be worn in the form of a vest. —Dispatch from Jerusalem, November-December 2005 Nearly six million people have visited Yad Vashem’s (Israel’s Holocaust Memorial) new\ on-line Holocaust computer database since the web site was launched in 2004, according to the Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority. The database, accessible free of charge at www.yadvashem.org, lists the names of approximately three million of the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust. Names not listed can be submitted along with stories of those lives. —Dispatch from Jerusalem, November/December 2005 Israel’s life-science industry has grown by more than 16 percent annually (to $1 billion); Israelis now hold the most medical-device patents per capita in the world. [This statement appeared in an article about PillCam, a tiny Israeli-developed wireless camera which a patient swallows. PillCam transmits two photos per second to a wearable hard drive as it travels through the body. It produces images of the small intestine not otherwise obtainable.] —Newsweek, 2/20/2006 Israel has become a large-scale international lender in the past three years, with global sources owing Israel US$23 billion at the end of 2005. According to a Globes report, global debt to Israel rose 92% over the past year. Most of the debt (US$22.7 billion) is to the private sector, and Israel banks are owed US$3.1 billion. The public sector, though, led by the Israeli government, continues to borrow in order to recycle debts and cover budget deficits. Israel’s gross external debt was US$75.5 billion in 2005, a drop of US$250 million. —Arutz 7, 2/28/2006 El Al, Israel’s largest airline, completed the installation of an anti-missile system on each of its 29 passenger aircraft. The new security equipment was developed by Israel Military Industries and its subsidiary Elta, both of which are state-owned. Carrying a US$1 million price tag per unit, the … installation of the system is the final touch on a security overhaul that began in 2002 after an al-Qaida terrorist in Kenya fired shoulder-held missiles at an Israeli charter flight. —Arutz 7, 2/17/2006 |
