|
Pastoral Bible Institute News An audio recording of each issue of The Herald is now available on Compact Disk (CD) or MP3 disk as well as audio cassette tape. The price for any format is $4/issue. Use the insert inside this magazine to place your order. World News Religious Pope Benedict XVI has reasserted the universal primacy of the Roman Catholic Church, approving a document released Tuesday that says Orthodox churches were defective and that other Christian denominations were not true churches. Benedict approved a document from his old offices at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith that restates church teaching on relations with other Christians. It was the second time in a week the pope has corrected what he says are erroneous interpretations of the Second Vatican Council, the 1962-65 meetings that modernized the church. —MSNBC News Services, 7/10/2007 A modest clay tablet has been hailed by experts from the British Museum as a breakthrough in biblical archaeology. The following inscription appears on the tablet: housed in the British Museum: “[Regarding] 1.5 minas (0.75 kg) of gold, the property of Nabu-sharrussu-ukin, the chief eunuch, which he sent via Arad-Banitu the eunuch to [the temple] Esangila: Arad-Banitu has delivered [it] to Esangila. In the presence of Bel-usat, son of Alpaya, the royal bodyguard, [and of] Nadin, son of Marduk-zer-ibni. Month XI, day 18, year 10 [of] Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon.” According to Jeremiah 39:3, “Then all the officials of the king of Babylon came in and sat down at the Middle Gate: Nergal-share-zer, Sam-gar-nebu, Sar-sekim, the Rab-saris, Nergal-sar-ezer, the Rab-mag, and all the rest of the officials of the king of Babylon.” —BFP Radio, 7/16/2007 Berlin’s new $8.2 million Jewish community center will feature a replica of Jerusalem’s Western Wall —accurate down to the plants sprouting from its cracks, the center’s leaders said. The 1,000 sq. foot replica will be part of Szloma Albam House. Germany’s Jewish community is the world’s fastest growing, fed by immigrants from the former Soviet Union, according to the World Jewish Congress. The Central Council of Jews in Germany says [it] has some 110,000 registered members. —Associated Press, 7/26/2007 Social The United States has 90 guns for every 100 citizens, making it the most heavily armed society in the world, a report released on Tuesday said. U.S. citizens own 270 million of the world’s 875 million known firearms, according to the Small Arms Survey 2007 by the Geneva-based Graduate Institute of International Studies. … Many poorer countries often associated with violence ranked much lower. Nigeria, for instance, had just one gun per 100 people. —Reuters, 8/28/2007 The U.S. Census Bureau reported that 36.5 million Americans—12.3 percent—were living in poverty last year. That’s down from 12.6 percent in 2005. Nationally, the median household income was $48,200, a slight increase from the previous year. The number of people without health insurance also increased, to 47 million. The last significant decline in the poverty rate came in 2000. The poverty level is the official measure used to decide eligibility for federal health, housing, nutrition and childcare benefits. For a family of four with two children, the poverty level is $20,444. —Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 8/28/2007 New infectious diseases are appearing more rapidly than ever and threaten to undercut global economic growth and security, the World Health Organization said. One or more new infectious illnesses have been detected each year since 1970, and many ailments are becoming treatment-resistant, the WHO said. With 2.1 billion people a year traveling by air, diseases can spread rapidly. —Bloomberg News, 8/23/2007 Obesity rates continued their climb in 31 states last year. No state showed a decline. Mississippi became the first state to crack the 30 percent barrier for adult residents considered to be obese, according to the Trust for America’s Health, a research group that focuses on disease prevention. Colorado continued its reign as the leanest state in the nation with an obesity rate projected at 17.6 percent. —MSNBC, 8/27/2007 In findings that highlight the importance of mood and stress to maintaining a healthy brain, researchers and psychiatrists say that a bout of depression may raise the risks of developing dementia later in life. People who have experienced a major depression even once in the previous 10 years in late middle age are twice as likely as those who haven’t to develop problems in concentration, memory or problem-solving ability after the age of 65, according to several large, epidemiological studies. —American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, July, 2007 Scientists have discovered what they believe are the world’s oldest diamonds beneath the Australian outback in a surprise find that could force a rethink about how the Earth formed. The diamonds are believed to date back more than four billion years, making them almost as old as the 4.5 billion year old planet, according to a report from Australian and German researchers in the scientific journal Nature. The diamonds were found trapped inside zircon crystals and are tiny, with the largest measuring only 70 microns, or about the width of a human hair and most invisible to the naked eye. Diamonds need immense pressure from the planet’s tectonic plates to form, and scientists had believed the plates were too thin so early in Earth’s history. —Khaleej Times, 8/23/2007 Scientists have drilled through two kilometers of ice in southern Greenland and retrieved DNA from the pine forest that once existed there, buzzing with prehistoric insect life. Dated to between 450,000 and 800,000 years old, the DNA is among the oldest ever found. Greenland is known to have once been green—plant fossils dating to 2.4 million years ago have been found in the far northeast of the country. But, surprisingly, the DNA evidence for plant life stops at 450,000 years ago. Researchers say the lack of younger DNA suggests that this portion of the land has been covered by ice ever since, which goes against the prevailing view of Greenland’s climactic history. —Nature, 7/5/2007 Varvasaina, Greece was at the middle of a vast series of fires burning out of control in the country's southern Peloponnese peninsula. Nearly all the 64 people who died in the blazes perished in this region. To the east is Olympia, site of the ancient Olympic Games where firefighters battled a blaze that nearly destroyed the World Heritage site. Before the fires, Olympia was a place of solemn lushness surrounded by pine and cypress groves. Greeks were stunned by the swiftness of the conflagration. “All the beauty that Olympia had, it's gone,” a fire official from Olympia said. —Associated Press, 8/29/2007 Political The Pentagon is funding the development of soft bullets that would disperse laughing gas when striking a target. The soft-tipped bullets, called smart nonlethal bullets, would disarm opponents by taking away their desire to fight. The government is also developing a stink-bomb version of the soft bullets. —New Scientist, 7/1/2007 8 million—Number of Iraqis, nearly a third of the population, who are without water, sanitation, food and shelter. Non-government organizations in Iraq say a humanitarian crisis there has gotten worse since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. —TIME, 8/13/2007 Malaysia found an underground water cavern “the size of Singapore” that could help alleviate an anticipated shortage in its most developed state. The cavern was discovered in Perak state, a major industrial hub, and could be tapped in two years, Energy, Water and Communications Ministry officials said. The discovery comes amid concerns that taps could run dry due to high population growth, polluted river basins and rapid industrialization. —Associated Press, 8/28/2007 France will press for a bolder European Union security strategy when it assumes the rotating presidency in 2008, intending to turn the continent into a global power with a decisive role in promoting a more just and effective world order. French President Nicholas Sarkozy boasted a full range of instruments to address international crises, including military force, humanitarian assistance and financial aid. —Financial Times, 8/28/2007 Opium production in Afghanistan has increased by 34 percent over the past year, and the country is now the source of 93 percent of the heroin, morphine and other opiates on the world market, according to a report by the United Nations’ anti-drug agency. “Afghanistan’s opium production has thus reached a frighteningly new level, twice the amount produced just two years ago,” says the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime’s annual opium survey, released Monday in Kabul. “Leaving aside 19th-century China ... no country in the world has ever produced narcotics on such a deadly scale,” the report notes. —Washington Post, 8/27/2007 China is in the midst of an English language learning boom. In a recent poll by China Youth Daily and Sina.com, about half of Chinese rated English a must-have skill in modern China. Public education can’t keep up. Since 2002, almost 120,000 Chinese students annually have been studying abroad. —Investor’s Business Daily, 8/21/2007 Financial Some Silicon Valley firms are bringing jobs home to the U.S. Several years on, the forces of globalization are starting to even things out between the U.S. and India, in sophisticated technology work. The result is increasing competition for the most skilled Indian computer engineers and a narrowing U.S.-India gap in their compensation. That means that for a large swath of Silicon Valley companies, India is no longer the premier outsourcing destination. —Wall Street Journal, 7/3/2007 Pizza Patrón stores began accepting Mexican pesos in its 59 Southwestern stores in 2007. Once it started selling pizza for pesos, the company’s same-store-sales rose by almost a third from the previous year. Stores in U.S. cities ranging from Dallas to Waikiki have found that accepting international currencies can entice immigrant and tourist shoppers, happy to save a trip to the bank. —Reuters, 8/28/2007 Of the U.S. entire corn crop for 2007, 27% is earmarked for corn and other biofuels destined for cars and trucks, up from 20% in 2006. A Virginia Tech study predicts that farmers in the Chesapeake Bay watershed will plant 500,000 new acres of corn in the next five years, primarily to be used for ethanol. Even if all corn in the U.S. was used for fuel, it would offset only about 15% of the country’s gasoline use according to Scott Cullen of the Network for new Energy Choices. —Investor’s Business Daily, 7/31/2007 For several years now, all the world’s currencies have been depreciating relative to stable benchmarks such as gold. Since the end of 2001, these declines have ranged from 38 percent for the Euro to nearly 60 percent for the dollar. Why is there a global inflation problem? First is the lack of any government since 1971 attempting to fix the gold value of its currency; second is the massive increase in the public-sector share of the economy since WW-II. Public finance is now saddled with long-range government spending commitments such as unfunded liabilities associated with national pensions and health insurance. In a nutshell, inflation is a manifestation of looming government insolvency. —H.C. Wainright & Co. Economics (consultants) Wall Street Journal, 7/5/2007 For the first time, China, whose economy is expected to expand 11.2% this year and another 10.5% next year, has become the largest contributor to global growth, no matter whether its output is measured in terms of purchasing power or at market exchange rates. —Wall Street Journal, 7/26/2007 US consumers are defaulting on credit card payments at a significantly higher rate than last year. Credit card companies were forced to write off almost 5 percent of payments as uncollectible in the first half of 2007, almost 30 percent higher than in the previous year. —Financial Times, 8/28/2007 Fast growth and high emigration to richer Western European countries are threatening to undermine a crucial asset of the former Soviet bloc nations that joined the European Union: plentiful skilled labor at the right price. A dwindling pool of workers is driving up wages in key industries and forcing companies to go to greater lengths to recruit and retain people. It’s also eroding one of the EU’s responses to competition from Asia—its low-cost hinterland. As Eastern Europe’s population ages, some economists contend, labor-supply problems may grow. Five of the eight ex-communist countries that joined the EU in 2004 suffered net population drops in 2006. —Wall Street Journal, 7/10/2007 The world is facing an oil supply crunch within five years that will force up prices to record levels and increase the west’s dependence on oil cartel OPEC, the International Energy Agency has warned. The IEA said that supply was falling faster than expected in mature areas, such as the North Sea or Mexico, while projects in new provinces such as the Russian Far East, faced long delays. Meanwhile consumption is accelerating on strong economic growth in emerging countries. —Financial Times, 7/10/2007 Israel The Israel Antiquities Authority’s excavations in Tiberias has exposed a Byzantine church paved with polychrome mosaics decorated with geometric patterns and dedicatory inscriptions. The discovery, in the heart of the ancient Jewish city, refutes the theory that the Jews of Tiberias prevented Christians from establishing a church in the middle of their neighborhood. The church’s remains were discovered adjacent to ancient public buildings, among them a basilica, bathhouse, streets, and shops that were exposed at the site in the past. —Israel Antiquities Authority, 8/7/2007 The Israeli company Seambiotic has found a way to produce biofuel by channeling smokestack carbon dioxide emissions through pools of algae that clean it. The growing algae thrives on the added nutrients, and become a useful biofuel. For the last two years, the company has tested their idea with an electric utility company—a coal-burning power plant in the southern city of Ashkelon operated by the Israel Electric Company. “Algae grow fast and continuously,” says Seambiotic CEO Amnon Bechar. “An algal pond can produce oil 365 days a year and much more oil per hectare of land than traditional plant crops.” Studies have shown that algae may be one of the world’s most promising biofuels. It is capable of producing 30 times more oil per acre than the current crops used for the production of biofuels; algae biofuel is non-toxic, contains no sulfur, and is highly biodegradable. —Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 8/27/2007 The Aliyah Department of the Jewish Agency for Israel is anticipating that immigration to Israel from North America will increase between 5 and 10% this year, marking the highest [number making] aliyah [immigration to Israel] from North America in 25 years. In 2006, 3,200 residents of the United States and Canada formally became Israeli citizens, the highest figure since 1983. Seventy percent of immigrants from North America are under age 35 (nearly 40% are under 18). Since the founding of the State of Israel, the Jewish Agency has assisted in the aliyah of the approximately 125,000 North Americans who have moved to Israel since 1948. —Ynetnews.com, 7/2/2007 650 new immigrants from France arrived in Israel, the largest French aliyah on a single day in recent history. Most of the immigrants arriving from France are families that will be staying at Jewish Agency absorption centers in Jerusalem. This year, 3,500 French immigrants are expected to make aliyah, the largest number in thirty-five years. —www.gov.il, 7/27/2007 With fewer than seven million inhabitants, Israel has more companies listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange than any country except the U.S. Its startup companies attracted nearly $2 billion in venture capital over the past two years, equal to the amount raised during that time in the much larger United Kingdom. —Wall Street Journal, 7/6/2007 Poland’s president and Jewish leaders broke ground for a landmark museum in Warsaw that will celebrate the history of Jewish life in Poland that flourished for 1,000 years before it was destroyed in the Holocaust. The US$65 million museum is to rise in a central Warsaw square, next to a monument to Jews who resisted the Nazis during the 1943 ghetto uprising. The Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv, Meir Lau, whose parents hail from Poland, stressed the museum’s importance in conveying the rich contribution of Poland’s Jews for those too young to remember. —World Jewish Congress, 6/27/2007 A nuclear power plant for the production of electricity may soon be built in Israel. The country has toyed with the idea for decades, but recent discussions in the Prime Minister’s Office and the Infrastructure Ministry point to a more serious consideration of nuclear power as an environmentally friendly way of generating electricity. If the idea were to become a reality, Israel would be forced to allow international supervision of the power plant. Officials discussed the probability of harsh international opposition, should Israel decide to go ahead with building the plant. —Ynetnews.com, 8/1/2007 Russia and Iran continue to strengthen their military ties, while Vladimir Putin and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad continue to draw closer as strategic allies. In December 2005, Russia sold Iran US$1-billion worth of missiles, after years of selling submarines and other advanced weapons systems to the radical Islamic regime. The latest reports indicate that “Russia plans to sell 250 advanced long-range Sukhoi-30 fighter jets to Iran in an unprecedented billion-dollar deal.” Teheran also plans to purchase a number of aerial fuel tankers that are compatible with the Sukhoi and capable of extending its range by thousands of kilometers. —-www.joelrosenberg.com, 7/31/2007 French President Nicolas Sarkozy said a diplomatic push by the world powers to rein in Iran’s nuclear program was the only alternative to an “Iranian bomb or the bombing of Iran.” While France has a history of close ties with the Arab world, Sarkozy also said: “I have the reputation of being a friend of Israel, and it’s true. I will never compromise on Israel’s security.” Despite that, he said, the many Arab leaders who have visited him since his election know they can count on his friendship. —Reuters, AP, 8/28/2007 |
