World News

Religious

Scattered clashes between Muslims and Christians have compelled many of Egypt’s estimated 6 million to 8 million Copts to isolate themselves in a nation with more than 70 million Muslims. Theological disputes split the Coptic faith from the West in the fifth century. Muslims brought their faith to Egypt in the seventh century, and the 14 centuries of conversions to Islam that followed have made Copts a minority here. War has devastated Christian communities in countries such as Iraq, where the number of Christians has shrunk from 1 million in 2000 to an estimated 400,000, according to a widely-used estimate by Christian organizations.

—Washington Post, 7/7/2008

In a reversal of trends, a majority of Americans now believe that religion should be kept out of politics and that churches should not express their views on matters of social and political concerns. A new national survey conducted by nonpartisan “fact tank”—the Pew Research Centre—has suggested that for the first time in over a decade, at least 52 per cent of the general public believe that churches and houses of worship should keep out of politics, with an increasing number of voters saying they were uncomfortable listening to politicians express religious views.

A worldwide survey by Germany’s Bertelsmann Foundation has found religion is as strong as ever among most of the globe’s young people, with Europe the main enclave where religion is on the decline. The respected social-science foundation said the notion that young people were less religious than their parents was not a global reality. “In Morocco, about 99 per cent believe in God and life after death. Among Brazilians, Turks and Nigerians, 90 per cent are believers and even in Israel, Indonesia and Italy, the rate is 80 per cent,” the study’s authors said. Globally, 85 per cent of young people aged 18 to 29 are religious believers, with 44 per cent defined as deeply religious in the sense that they often pray, discuss religious issues and are guided in day to day behavior by religion.

Catholic dioceses nationwide have shuttered Catholic parishes and schools, sold hospitals and closed nursing homes as the Catholic Church tries to manage with limited resources and waning dominance amid greater competition in American religious life. Salaries of teachers in Catholic schools can lag behind those of public schools by $20,000 to $40,000 a year. The church has recently withdrawn recognition of many local parochial-teachers’ unions.

Kenneth Copeland is one of at least six American “televangelists” facing the scrutiny of a senate investigation for alleged financial wrongdoing. Kenneth Copeland Ministries preaches a doctrine of financial prosperity, with the promise that God can make a follower both healthy and wealthy. The faithful are encouraged to dig deep and give to the Church, where donated dollars will provide a one hundredfold return in happiness and wealth. The ministry built Mr. Copeland a mansion and enabled him to acquire a $20 million Cessna Citation to help him to spread the word of God across the US.

The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life’s U.S. Religious Landscape Survey of 35,000 Americans finds U.S. adults believe overwhelmingly (92%) in God, and 58% say they pray at least once a day. But the study’s authors say there’s a “stunning” lack of alignment between people’s beliefs or practices and their professed faiths.

Two converts to Christianity were convicted of illegally promoting their faith in Muslim Algeria and handed suspended sentences and fines, their lawyer said. Both are evangelical Protestant Christians and first were prosecuted when extracts from the Bible and other Christian books were found in one of their cars in 2007 during a routine check. They were charged with proselytizing, or trying to spread their faith among Muslims, as well as praying in a building that had not been granted a religious permit by authorities. Only a tiny fraction of Algeria’s 34 million people are not Muslim, with Christians and Jews comprising up to 1 percent of the population, according to a U.S. government estimate.

Forum 18 News Service has found a worsening of [Uzbekistan’s] record on freedom of thought, conscience and belief. All non-state registered religious activity in Uzbekistan is a criminal offence, as is the sharing of beliefs and meetings for religious purposes in private homes. President Islam Karimov has held absolute power since independence in 1991. Uzbekistan has the largest population of any Central Asian state, estimated at over 28 million, most of whom would identify themselves as Muslim by tradition.

Social

Suicides accounted for 55% of the nation’s nearly 31,000 firearm deaths in 2005, the most recent year for which statistics are available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Homicides accounted for 40% of gun deaths. Public-health researchers have concluded that in homes where guns are present, the likelihood that someone in the home will die from suicide or homicide is much greater.

Researchers have converted normal pancreas cells into insulin-producing cells—a genetic transformation that could pave the way for treating intractable diseases and injuries using a patient’s own supply of healthy tissue. The Harvard University scientists activated a trio of dormant genes that commanded the cells to transform themselves. Within 10 days, the pancreas cells ceased their normal function and instead produced insulin to regulate blood sugar, according to a study published online Wednesday in the journal Nature.

In 1998, when Google opened for business, it had 26 million URLs. By 2000, it had reached 1 billion. In 2005, Google claimed it had more than 8 billion Web pages in its index. Google’s measure of the Web is [now] 1 trillion Web pages. [However,] Google software engineers admit that they don’t really know how many unique Web pages there are.

Local law in New York City requires restaurants with 15 or more outlets to post the calorie counts of the foods they sell on the signs where prices are and in the same-size type.

More and more school districts are banking on improving student performance using cash incentives—a $1,000 payout for high test scores, for example. But whether they work is hard to say. Schools in Texas and six other states reward high scores on AP tests with up to $500. New York City schools award up to $1,000. Students in Baltimore, New York City and Coshocton, Ohio, get cash for scoring well on standardized exams.

Amid soaring prices for rice the world over, basmati rice has seen some of the biggest increases. Its price has risen about 200% in India since 2006, while other kinds of rice cost 70% more. The reason is a surging demand from the Middle east and Iran and from India’s aspiring middle class. Indians prize basmati for its longer grains and an earthy aroma. It was long considered a luxury of the rich, but in recent years middle class Indians have begun to buy it as well.

Cases of chickenpox—a childhood infection that was once nearly universal—have fallen 57% to 90% in communities across the USA since a vaccine was introduced in 1995, a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows. Before the vaccine, 4 million Americans a year came down with chickenpox, nearly 11,000 were hospitalized and more than 140 died. Deaths in children ages 1 to 9 have declined about 90%, the study shows.

The U.S. has fewer than 5% of the world’s 6.7 billion people but uses nearly 25% of the daily oil supply.

Iran this summer resumed buying U.S. wheat after a 27-year hiatus, a sign of the limited options for importers seeking large quantities of high-quality grain. Since June 1, Iran has bought more than one million tons of hard red winter wheat directly from the U.S., which is “a very large amount,” said Bill Nelson, analyst for Wachovia Securities. The U.S. hasn’t done business with Iran in more than a generation. Government sanctions don’t prohibit U.S. agricultural exporters from doing business with Iran. Drought is expected to slash Iran’s domestic production by one-third this year.

The U.S. signed a pledge to protect Poland as part of a missile-shield deal, cementing the former East bloc country’s ties with Washington but thrusting it into the middle of a widening dispute with Russia. Russian military officials have in the past said Poland—which shares a border with Russia and was occupied or dominated by Russia for most of the last century—risked being attacked if the missiles were stationed on its territory.

With oil near record highs, the Persian Gulf is awash in cash, stimulating a return to very conspicuous consumption. Ferrari says sales in the Middle East leapt 32% in 2007. BMW Group’s Rolls-Royce Motor Cars says the United Arab Emirates, a country with just 4.6 million, is now one of its top five global markets.

Chinese security forces are putting pressure on angry parents to abandon demands for a full investigation into why so many schools collapsed in the May earthquake in Sichuan province, and rounded up human rights workers in the earthquake-ravaged region. Beijing ordered a nationwide crackdown on dissent because of the Olympics. The Sichuan quake left more than 87,000 dead or missing and nearly 2 million people without the means to make a living.

Russia said it is sending warships to patrol Arctic waters for the first time since the breakup of the Soviet Union—the latest move to increase the country’s global military presence. Russia has been moving to stake its claim to resources that are increasingly accessible as Arctic ice melts. Russia also said it will increase access to the area for Russian fishermen.

Russia’s invasion into Georgia is giving rise to concerns that territorial integrity of the former USSR regions may no longer be inviolate. The big question is whether instability spreads from Georgia or whether a new balance of forces emerges with Russia playing a bigger role. Potential flashpoints include Ukraine, Moldova, the Baltic states, and the energy-rich Caspian region.

Financial

In the biggest reshaping of the financial industry since the Great Depression, two of Wall Street’s most storied firms, Merrill Lynch & Co. and Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., headed toward extinction. Lehman, founded 158 years ago, filed for bankruptcy protection and Merrill Lynch, 94 years old, agreed to sell itself to Bank of America Corp. “The tectonic plates beneath the world financial system are shifting, and there is going to be a new financial world order that will be born of this,” said Peter Kenny, managing director at Knight Capital Group. The industry convulsions that started in 2007 have also eliminated Bear Stearns Co. and placed mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into conservatorship.

Melting Arctic ice is opening up a large new business opportunity for oil and gas companies and oil service companies, as great areas of ocean, with prolific hydrocarbon potential, become accessible for the first time, according to a Sanford Bernstein report. According to the US Geological Survey released in July, Russia will be the biggest benefactor of Arctic exploration and production.

The U.S. budget deficit will widen to a record of about $490 billion next year, an administration official said, leaving a deep budget hole for the next president. The projected deficit for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1 is far higher than the $407 billion forecast by President George W. Bush in February. The bigger shortfall for fiscal 2009 may reflect dwindling tax receipts because of the U.S. economic slowdown, the cost of payments distributed under the $168 billion economic stimulus package and the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Retail shops in Japan that recycle jewelry are profiting from a 50% surge in platinum prices and a 21% increase in gold. Japan became the No. 1 buyer of platinum during the economic boom years in the late 1980s. Analysts estimate that several million ounces of platinum may have been amassed during the boom years. The recycling boom has been a windfall for retailers at a time of increasing uncertainty in the Japanese economy.

An unprecedented cutback in driving is slashing the funds available to rebuild U.S. aging highways and expand mass-transit options. A report by the Transportation Department shows that over the past seven months, Americans have slashed their driving by more than 40 billion miles. Coupled with a rapid shift away from gas-guzzling vehicles, it means consumers are paying less in federal fuel taxes, which go mostly to help finance highway and mass-transit systems.

Banks and lenders have now foreclosed on $100 billion worth of California homes over the last two years and are foreclosing at the rate of 1,300 houses every business day ... more than triple from the year-ago rate of 415 per day. Overall, the level of foreclosures in the state increased 22.5% from June to July.

More than 80% of the population of Zimbabwe is unemployed; 45% is malnourished. The inflation rate topped 11.2 million percent in June—by far the highest in the world.

The first rabbis ordained in Poland since World War Two is the latest sign of a revival of Jewish culture and spirituality in one of its historic heartlands. Before the war Poland was home to some 3.5 million Jews, one of the largest Jewish communities in the world, but most of them were murdered by the Nazis in ghettos and death camps such as Auschwitz built on Polish soil. Today Polish Jews are believed to number just 20,000.

A recent archaeological find supports the historian Josephus’ report of a secret passage under Jerusalem used by Jews escaping the Roman army. A research team from the University of Haifa discovered a major tunnel located directly under first-century Jerusalem’s main thoroughfare. Pottery shards, vessel fragments and coins from the period helped date the tunnel, built of ashlar stones and covered with heavy slabs. The tunnel reaches heights of up to 10 feet.

The International Tracing Service (ITS) in Bad Arolsen, Germany, has announced the completion of the digitalization process of millions of documents it holds on the Nazi era. Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, and the Institute of National Remembrance in Warsaw are to receive copies of the data. “The documents attest to the monstrous dimension of slave labor during the National Socialist reign,” said Udo Jost, head of the international archive.

A reported Israeli proposal to pull out of 93% of the West Bank [Judea and Samaria] and compensate the Palestinians with land in the Negev is “unacceptable,” a key adviser to Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas said. Under the deal, Israel would maintain large blocs of Jewish communities in post-1967 territories. According to the report, the proposal also includes an agreement on Palestinian refugees and security arrangements between Israel and a future Palestinian state. The land withdrawal would only take place after the PA regains control of the Gaza Strip, which is currently controlled by Hamas.

Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi, on his first official visit to Washington, warned that Israel would not rule out any course of action regarding Iran’s nuclear ambitions. “We are all united in the view that Iran needs to be prevented from obtaining a nuclear weapon,” he declared adding that all options remain on the table. Iran has warned that it would target Israel and 32 US bases in the region should the country come under attack and has declared it will ignore all pressures to halt its uranium enrichment program.

The Central Bureau of Statistics announced that unemployment rates in Israel have reached an unprecedented 21-year low, reaching 6.1%—or 178,800 unemployed individuals. Unemployment rates in Israel hit their most recent high in January of 2004, when 11% of able Israelis—300,000 people or so—found themselves unable to take part in the workforce. “We are witnessing a decline in unemployment rates despite the growing numbers of people joining the workforce. The thriving Israeli market has been able to accommodate both the new members in the workforce and those seeking employment from within it,” said a senior source in the Finance Ministry.

Scientists using American space technology have started a huge project to digitally photograph the Dead Sea Scrolls, the oldest known version of the Hebrew Bible, and post it on the Internet. The goal of the five-year project is to make the scrolls accessible to scientists and the general public, the Israeli Antiquities Authority said.