Pastoral Bible Institute News
Audio MP3

World News

Religious

At least four multimillion-dollar churches that can seat thousands of people are nearing completion around Jakarta, Indonesia, as wealthy Christian leaders in the Muslim nation are taking a more provocative profile in a nation that has generally banned the construction of Christian edifices. Christians make up about 8% of Indonesia’s population of 230 million and leaders are starting to push back to protect freedom of religion.

—Wall Street Journal, 9/4/2008

Stephen Hawking, the cosmologist and author of the best selling A Brief History of Time, took part in a conference at the Vatican on Darwin, evolution and intelligent design. Pope Benedict XVI opened the conference, organized by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. He said that like modern Popes before him, he saw no contradiction between the Christian concept of Creation and science. Last month, the Vatican said the theory of evolution was compatible with the Bible. The Catholic Church accepts evolution, but sees it as part of the divine plan.

—Times Online, 10/30/2008

As big Western financial institutions have teetered one after the other in the crisis of recent weeks, another financial sector is gaining new confidence: Islamic banking. Though the trillion-dollar Islamic banking industry faces challenges with the slump in real estate and stock prices, advocates say the system has built-in protection from the kind of runaway collapse that has afflicted so many institutions. For one thing, the use of financial instruments such as derivatives, blamed for the downfall of banking, insurance and investment giants, is banned. So is excessive risk-taking.

—Washington Post, 10/31/2008

A Roman Catholic diocese outside Pittsburgh will close 14 of its 100 parishes, and 28 others will merge or share clergy in an effort to deal with a priest shortage. Twenty percent of the diocese’s priests were being used to serve just 2.5 percent of its population.

—Associated Press, 10/9/2008

India is more than 80 percent Hindu but its 1.1 billion people include all of the world’s major religions, a caste system of near-impossible complexity, colossal divides of wealth and poverty, and, by some estimates, more than 2,000 ethnic groups.

—Associated Press, 10/25/2008

At least 147 people died in a stampede at a Hindu temple in Jodhpur in India’s western state of Rajasthan. The incident took place when worshipers had gathered at the temple at the start of a major Hindu festival. In August, about 145 worshippers died in a stampede in the northern Indian state of Himachal Pradesh.

—Bloomberg, 9/30/2008

A Jewish cleric has addressed a worldwide gathering of Roman Catholic bishops for the first time. Shear-Yashuv Cohen, chief rabbi of the Israeli city of Haifa, explained to the Pope and his bishops the importance of the Bible to Jewish believers. Before the gathering of 253 bishops, Rabbi Cohen spoke of the “long, hard and painful history” of relations between Catholics and Jews, describing it as “a history of blood and tears.” And he appealed for all religious leaders to defend and protect Israel from outside threats.

—BBC, 10/6/2008

Social

Suicides among U.S. children are climbing after a 15-year decline, and fewer teens are being prescribed antidepressants, a new study found. Suicides among 10-to-19 year olds spiked 18% since 1996. The study said warnings of drugs might have scared many from using antidepressants.

—Associated Press, 9/4/2008

A 6.4 magnitude earthquake struck Pakistan in October, killing 170 people. Pakistan is prone to seismic upheavals since it sits atop an area of collision between the Eurasian and Indian tectonic plates.

—Associated Press, 10/30/2008

40—the age at which the brain starts to slow and the body starts to decline according to new research by a team of neurologists led by Dr. George Bartzokis of the University of California, Los Angeles.

—Associated Press, 11/3/2008

Worldwide adoption of the cell phone as the preferred device for accessing the Internet is growing. A new study by IBM found that 50% of consumers are willing to substitute Web surfing with a cell phone versus a PC when it comes to e-mail, navigation, or news.

—Investor’s Business Daily, 10/28/2008

New safety software automatically intercepts phone calls and text messages while owners of cell phones are driving. DriveAssist tells callers the receivers are driving and says to leave a message. The device can also tell callers where the person is, using GPS technology. Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. said it plans to offer a discount of 3 percent to 10 percent on family policies for people who use DriveAssist.

—Associated Press, 10/13/2008

Placing infants on their backs when being put to sleep has helped to cut in half the number of sudden infant death syndrome deaths since 1992.

—TIME, 10/20/2008

The Joint Australian Tsunami Warning Center that opened in the southern city of Melbourne, Australia joins India as a “tsunami watch provider” for 29 countries on the Indian Ocean rim that are prone to the killer waves, said Ray Canterford, head of the Australian Bureau of Meteorology’s disaster mitigation office. It will provide essential sea level and seismic data to the Pacific warning network [used by] Southwest Pacific island nations.

—Associated Press, 10/31/2008

Arctic sea ice in 2007 was higher than the previous year, but still at its second-lowest level on record, scientists said. The ice covered 1.74 million square miles on September 12, marking a low point, according to NASA and the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado. In the previous summer, the sea ice covered 1.59 million square miles, the lowest since record-keeping began in 1979.

—Associated Press, 9/17/2008

India launched its first mission to the moon, rocketing a satellite up into the pale dawn sky in a two-year mission to redraw maps of the lunar surface. Chief among the mission’s goals is mapping not only the surface of the moon, but what lies beneath. If successful, India will join what’s shaping up as a 21st century space race with Chinese and Japanese crafts already in orbit around the moon. As India’s economy has boomed in recent years, it has sought to convert its newfound wealth—built on the nation’s high-tech sector—into political and military clout.

—Associated Press, 10/28/2008

Eurostat, the Luxembourg statistical agency projects an 18 percent decline, to 83.5 million from 102 million, during the next 50 years in the total population of Hungary, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Romania and the Czech Republic. The key reason is a continuing decline in the number of marriages and a precipitous drop in the fertility rate in the former communistic countries.

—Bloomberg News, 9/9/2008

The high cost of treating cancer is forcing many cancer patients to forgo treatment. About 12% of people with late-stage cancer have passed up recommended treatment because it was too expensive.

—Thomson Reuters study, October 2008

Nearly one in five U.S. mortgage borrowers owe more to lenders than their homes are worth, and the rate may soon approach one in four as housing prices fall and the economy weakens, according to a report by First American CoreLogic. The data includes borrowers nationwide, even those who took out mortgages before housing prices began to soar early this decade.

—Reuters, 10/31/2008

The world’s largest particle collider, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) was completed at a cost of $3.8 billion and will be used to recreate conditions a split second after the “big bang,” which scientists theorize was the massive explosion that created the universe. Scientists hope to send two beams of protons through two tubes about the width of fire hoses, speeding through a vacuum that is colder and emptier than outer space. The paths will cross and a few protons will collide. Scientists have been waiting for 20 years to use the LHC.

—Associated Press, 9/11/2008

33.9—the percentage of children born outside of marriage in the European Union, according to the Institute for Family Policies in Madrid.

—Bloomberg News, 9/9/2008

Political

Barack Obama, the son of a father from Kenya and a white mother from Kansas, was elected the nation’s 44th president Tuesday. When Obama was born, people with his skin color could not even vote in parts of America, and many were killed for trying. About one in ten of those casting ballots Tuesday were doing so for the first time.

—Los Angeles Times, 11/5/2008

The financial crisis could further undermine the U.S.’s role as the world’s only superpower. Restructuring of institutions such as the U.N., World Bank, and International Monetary Fund is likely. U.N. diplomats are discussing expanding the Security Council, whose five permanent members were set after WWII, to incorporate emerging powers. There is also talk of creating regional institutions to supplant the IMF.

—Wall Street Journal, 10/17/2008

500,000—the number of illegal immigrants entering the U.S. in 2007, down from an average of 800,000 in previous years.

—Washington Post, 10/11/2008

Russia is facing a public health crisis that verges on the catastrophic. Rates of AIDS, tuberculosis, heart disease, and alcoholism are far worse than in any other developed nation. Life expectancy for men in Russia is 59 years—166th in the world, and the birth rate is declining.

—Washington Post, 10/12/2008

As Mideast investors make plans to pump cash into farm projects in the developing world, the head of the United Nations’ food agency said he is discouraging them from making direct purchases of farmland to avoid local backlash or other controversy. The deals are meant to ease food-security concerns in the Gulf, which imports more than 50% of its basic food needs.

—Wall Street Journal, 9/10/2008

Lithuanian voters, weary of scandals surrounding the ruling Social Democratic Party and fearing rising energy dependence on Russia, have demonstrated their desire for change by voting for the return of a center-right government. After years of stellar growth, the country is facing double-digit inflation and plummeting consumer confidence.

—Wall Street Journal, 10/27/2008

In a small but growing number of cases, customs officials and police officers have been carrying out warrantless searches of the contents of laptops, mobile phones and other wireless devices. And in a handful of instances, courts have supported local police interpretation of legal searches to include browsing through phone call lists and text messages on cell phones when they arrest subjects.

—Wall Street Journal, 10/30/2008

Financial

The writedowns in U.S. household wealth from the reversals in housing and equities will probably reach $15 trillion, according to an estimate by the Financial Times.

—Financial Times, 10/28/2008

Public pension funds in US states are facing their worst year of losses in history, exacerbating existing funding shortfalls and putting pressure on state governments. About 40 percent of all state and local pension funds are underfunded, meaning that they would not be able to pay the future pensions that employees have been promised if they all retired as planned.

—Financial Times, 10/27/2008

In 1990, the national debt stood at $3 trillion. By 2000, it had almost doubled, to $5.75 trillion. It is currently $10.2 trillion. The number moved into 11 digits in September, which meant that the National Debt Clock in New York City ran out of space to display the figures. Its owners plan to get a new clock in 2009.

—Newsweek, 10/20/2008

The U.S. banking system is going through a decade’s worth of consolidation in a matter of weeks. At the end of 2007, the three lenders that are now the largest in U.S. banking—Bank of America, J.P. Morgan Chase, and Citigroup—collectively held 21.4% of all U.S. deposits. Now, with the government-backed sales of the banking assets of Washington Mutual and Wachovia, the Big Three instantly have a combined 31.3% of U.S. deposits.

—Wall Street Journal, 9/30/2008

Iceland’s government and banks scrambled to find cash to rescue the country’s banking system and cushion the fall of an economy that has been one of the hardest-hit victims of the global financial crisis in the developed world. The debt-driven economy has been thrown into turmoil. The credit crunch is sapping the fortunes of Icelanders, who only a year or two ago were spending freely on a carousel of debt.

—Wall Street Journal, 10/6/2008

Private economists now say the global credit freeze, a possible recession in the U.S. and commodity-price declines will take a heavy toll on resource-rich regions. “It’s a global implosion that is carrying everyone and everything in its wake,” says Damian Fraser, the head of Latin American equity research at UBS Pactual in Mexico City.

—Wall Street Journal, 10/13/2008

Israel

The remains of the wall of Jerusalem from the time of the Second Temple (second century BC to 70 AD) has been uncovered in an extensive excavation that is currently underway on Mount Zion. The lines of these fortifications delineated Jerusalem from the south in periods when the ancient city had reached its largest size. Yehiel Zelinger, excavation director, said, “This is one of the most beautiful and complete sections of construction in the Hasmonean building style to be found in Jerusalem.”

—Israel Antiquities Authority, 9/3/2008

The global financial crisis hitting world markets seems to have one favorable effect as far as Israel is concerned, as thousands of Israelis who have been living abroad for the past few years head back to their homeland. Some 2,000 Israelis have returned home between August and mid October alone—a 50% rise from the same time last year. According to Immigrant Absorption Ministry data, 64% of the returnees come from the United States, 24% from Europe, and 12% from other counties, such as the Bahamas, Japan, Hong Kong, Finland and the Caribbean’s.

—Ynetnews.com, 10/27/2008

According to the annual report of The Jewish Agency based on research performed by Prof. Sergio Della Pergola of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, 13.3 million Jews live around the world in 2008 as opposed to 13.2 million in 2007. The report’s count included all those listed or declaring themselves to be of the Jewish faith and holding no other religious denomination. According to the data, 2008 saw a rise in the number of Jews living in Israel, as 70,000 new Israelis were inducted in the state. Israel is the largest Jewish community, followed by the United States, where 5.3 million Jews currently reside.

—Ynetnews.com, 9/28/2008

It looks like 2008 is going to be a record year for tourists’ entries to Israel. According to data released by the Central Bureau of Statistics, some 2 million visits by tourists to Israel have been recorded since the beginning of the year, a 37% rise compared to the same period in 2007. The leading countries in the number of incoming tourists are the United States, Russia, and France.

—Ynetnews.com, 9/23/2008

In order to strengthen its presence in the Mediterranean, Russian authorities announced that renovation work is underway at the Syrian port Tartus in preparation for the Russian fleet that intends to deploy there permanently. The announcement is not only proof of the growing ties between Moscow and Damascus, but also shows how keen Russia is to become more involved in the Middle East region, and ensure that a permanent Russian military presence remains in the area.

—Infolive.tv, 9/13/2008

Germany’s fast-growing Jewish community has inaugurated a new synagogue in the western city of Krefeld, seven decades after the original was destroyed by the Nazis. The new synagogue can accommodate 300 people. Immigration from the former Soviet Union has led the German Jewish community to grow rapidly and it now counts about 110,000 members. Several synagogues have been restored or newly built in recent years in cities including Berlin, Munich, and Bochum.

—World Jewish Congress, 9/16/2008

The Central Bureau of Statistics published its census September 24, ahead of the High Holidays. According to the report, 2007 saw 7,243,600 residents living in Israel—a 1.8% increase from 2006. Some 75.6% are Jewish, and 20% are Arabs, other denominations make up 4.4% of the population.

—Ynetnews.com, 9/24/2008

An ancient copper works in Jordan may have been the location of King Solomon’s mines, new archaeological investigations suggest. The dig at Khirbat al-Nahas, once a thriving copper production centre in the Faynan district, about 30 miles (50km) south of the Dead Sea, has found evidence that it dates back to the 10th century BC, making it at least two centuries older than was thought. The new date means that the mine was almost certainly active during the time of the biblical Jewish kings David and Solomon. Date seeds and sticks of tamarisk and other woods used for charcoal for smelting have produced dates in the 9th and 10th centuries BC, which are consistent with the likely dates of the reigns of David and Solomon, his son.

—The Times, 10/28/2008