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Pastoral
Bible Institute News World News Religious A US congressional body has put India on a list of countries which have failed to protect its religious minorities adequately. The US Commission on International Religious Freedom says India was added to the list because of a “disturbing increase” in religious violence. Other countries on the list include Afghanistan, Somalia and Cuba. —BBC, 8/12/2009 Hundreds of rioting Muslims attacked Christians in eastern Pakistan, burning and looting their homes in a rampage that killed six Christians in the latest violence against minorities. The unrest started when members of a banned extremist Muslim organization began torching Christian homes. —Associated Press, 8/2/2009 Human rights groups in South Korea say North Korea has stepped up executions of Christians, some of them in public. The communist country, the world’s most closed society, views religion as a major threat. Only the founder of the country, Kim Il-sung, and his son, Kim Jong-il, may be worshipped, in mass public displays of fervor. Despite the persecutions, it is thought up to 30,000 North Koreans may practice Christianity secretly in their homes. The US government says just owning a Bible in North Korea may be a cause for torture and disappearance. —BBC, 7/24/2009 Buddhism is making a huge comeback in China. Interest in Buddhism has grown dramatically since the 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution, a period when religion was largely banned, the clergy persecuted and many temples and monasteries destroyed. For decades, the communist-run State Administration for Religious Affairs has said there were only about 100 million religious believers in China, but state press reports have recently said that number has grown to 300 million. —AFP, 7/7/2009 The Church of England’s ruling body, the General Synod, is to debate whether to reduce the number of bishops in a bid to save money. The plan’s supporters say the Church could use teams of more junior parish clergy to do the work of bishops. Bradford vicar John Hartley told the BBC that a “revolution” was needed in the way the Church worked. But bishops say their workload is larger than ever and cutting their numbers would be problematic. There are currently 114 bishops in the Church of England, including the 44 most senior who head the country’s dioceses. —BBC, 7/12/2009 Fewer Poles have confidence in the Pope as trust has fallen over the past decade in the Roman Catholic church, the daily Rzeczpospolita reported. Some 80 per cent of Poles trust the current Pope Benedict compared to 91 per cent who trusted John Paul II—himself a Pole—a decade ago, reported the daily, based on a survey of some 1,000 adults. Some 81 per cent of Poles said they had deep faith or believed in God, compared to 86 per cent a decade ago. However, more Poles now regard abortion, divorce and infidelity as unacceptable, compared to a poll in 1998. —Earth Times, 7/9/2009 One of the hot genres for Christian publishers is Amish fiction. It seems the sect’s simplicity, conviction, and stress on forgiveness are powerful draws for readers. The genre was born in 1997 with “The Shunning” by Beverly Lewis, who wrote a story based on her grandmother, who left Old Order Mennonite upbringing to marry a Bible college student. The book has sold more than 1 million copies. Wanda Brunstetter, another popular author of Amish fiction, said readers are especially attracted to stories about the Amish during tough economic times. “People are learning from the Amish novels how they can simplify and set their priorities straight,” said Brunstetter. —Christian Science Monitor, 7/17/2009 Prisoners in Uzbekistan continue to be denied their right to freedom of religion or belief—for example to pray visibly, to have religious literature, or to receive visits from religious clergy. These denials of religious freedom affect not only prisoners of conscience of all faiths, jailed or imprisoned in a labour camp for their religious activity, but also prisoners jailed for other reasons. Officials insist that prisoners’ religious freedom is respected. —Forum 18, 7/17/2009 Nearly a quarter of Londoners and one in seven people nationwide believe in creationism—the theory that life on earth was created by God and has always existed in its present form. Almost 150 years after Charles Darwin published his groundbreaking work, On the Origin of Species, just 48 per cent of Londoners agreed there was enough scientific evidence to support his theory of evolution. One in five Londoners had never even heard of Darwin and a similar number of adults in the north of England had no understanding of or had never heard of the term, “evolution.” —Times Online, 6/30/2009 Russia’s president has announced a pilot project in which schoolchildren will have to take classes in religion or secular ethics. The proposal is part of a Kremlin effort to teach young Russians morals in the wake of a turbulent period of uncertainty following the collapse of the officially atheist Soviet Union. They will be offered the choice of studying the dominant Russian Orthodox religion, Islam, Buddhism or Judaism; or an overview covering various faiths; or secular ethics. The offer of a choice appeared aimed to ease concerns that Russian Orthodoxy will be forced on schoolchildren as the church gains influence and tightens ties with the state. —Associated Press, 7/21/2009 Social Patients with colorectal cancer who regularly used aspirin before and after a diagnosis were almost one-third less likely to die of the disease than non-users. Patients who initiated aspirin use only after a diagnosis did even better and had half the risk of dying from the cancer. “This is a remarkable breakthrough—for a pill that costs a penny,” said Dr. Alfred I. Neugut, a colon cancer expert at Columbia University. —New York Times, 8/11/2009 Studies say that drivers using phones are four times as likely to cause a crash as other drivers, and the likelihood that they will crash is equal to that of someone with a .08 percent blood alcohol level, the point at which drivers are generally considered intoxicated. Research also shows that hands-free devices do not eliminate the risks, and may worsen them by suggesting that the behavior is safe. A 2003 Harvard study estimated that cellphone distractions caused 2,600 traffic deaths every year, and 330,000 accidents that result in moderate or severe injuries. —New York Times, 7/18/2009 European utilities are snapping up small combustible wood pellets to burn alongside coal in existing power plants. Wood pellets are cylinders of dried shredded wood that resemble large vitamins. They are the least expensive way to meet European renewable-energy mandates. The pellets are made from fast-growing trees or sawdust. —Wall Street Journal, 7/7/2009 A typhoon-spawned mudslide engulfed a mountain village in southern Taiwan, burying up to 600 people, a police official and a rescued villager said. Typhoon Morakot dumped up to 80 inches of rain on some communities before moving on to China, where it forced the evacuation of nearly 1 million people along the east coast. —Associated Press, 8/10/2009 Each year approximately 1.3 million deaths occur on the world’s roads, a toll comparable to malaria and tuberculosis in fatalities alone. Severe disabling injuries affect an additional 20 to 50 million people each year. Tragically … road traffic fatalities are the number one killer of children aged 10-24. —IndiaMotorSports.com, 7/14/2009 Tanning beds have been ranked alongside cigarettes, arsenic and asbestos as posing the greatest threat of cancer to humans by an international cancer research group. The International Agency for Research on Cancer has moved ultra-violet emitting tanning beds to its highest cancer risk category and labeled them as “carcinogenic to humans.” The research found using tanning beds could increase the risk of developing cancer by 75 percent, particularly if used by children and young adults. —Reuters, 7/29/2009 Income inequality in the United States is at an all-time high, surpassing even levels seen during the Great Depression, according to a recently updated paper by University of California, Berkeley Professor Emmanuel Saez. Though income inequality has been growing for some time, Saez calculates that in 2007 the top .01 percent of American earners took home 6 percent of total U.S. wages, a figure that has nearly doubled since 2000. —Chicago Tribune, 8/15/2009 Consumer sentiment rose more than expected in August and expectations hit the highest level since the recession began, indications that Americans’ pessimism about the economy may be lifting. The housing sector also showed signs of life as a national measure of home prices posted its first quarterly increase in three years. —Associated Press, 8/26/2009 Political Facing staggering financial losses, the Postal Service is looking at closing nearly 1,000 offices across the country. The post office has been struggling with a sharp decline in mail volume as people and businesses switch to e-mail both for personal contact and bill paying. The agency is facing a nearly $7 billion potential loss this fiscal year despite a 2-cent increase in the price of stamps in May, cuts in staff and removal of collection boxes. There are 32,741 post offices across the county. Of those, the service launched a review of 3,200 for potential candidates for closing. —Associated Press, 8/3/2009 Wealthy taxpayers have inundated the Internal Revenue Service with requests to come clean for past tax evasion, amid a government crackdown on undeclared income from overseas accounts. The volume was so great that the IRS issued a streamlined, three-page form for taxpayers seeking entry into its temporary voluntary-disclosure program. —Wall Street Journal, 7/30/2009 Iran has mastered the technology necessary to build a nuclear weapon and could do so within one year of the decision to go forward. The report, based off of Western intelligence sources, said Iran may still need to enrich uranium to weapons grade in order to get the bomb. Low enriched uranium is needed for civilian nuclear power use, but it must be brought to a higher grade to be used for weapons. —The Times, 8/3/2009 China’s police say they have installed 2.75 million surveillance cameras since 2003 and are expanding the system into the largely neglected countryside, according to a news release posted on the Public Security Ministry’s Web site. Such systems have proved controversial in other countries, especially in Britain, which reportedly has 4.2 million surveillance cameras installed—or about one per 14 people. British police say the system has in fact done little to bring down crime. —Associated Press, 8/10/2009 A U.S. military “kill or capture” list of 367 wanted insurgents in Afghanistan includes 50 major drug traffickers who give money to Taliban militants, U.S. military commanders told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. U.S. and NATO troops are attacking drug warehouses and militant-linked narco dealers in Afghanistan for the first time this year, a new strategy to counter the country’s booming opium poppy and heroin trade. —Associated Press, 8/10/2009 Financial A mortgage trade group reported Thursday that more than 13% of the nation’s mortgage holders were delinquent on their mortgages or in the process of having their homes repossessed during the second quarter of this year. That’s the highest figure since tracking began in 1972. A spate of foreclosures is now hitting unemployed homeowners with good credit scores, clean financial histories and conventional home loans. The U.S. has shed 6.7 million jobs since the recession began, employment losses that have left even high-quality borrowers struggling. —Los Angeles Times. 8/21/2009 Some airlines are considering replacing some seats on their planes with bar-stool-like stands in a bid to cram in more passengers. Passengers essentially would stand on short flights; they would be strapped into the stools during takeoffs and landings. —Associated Press, 7/6/2009 US banks stand to collect a record $38.5bn in fees for customer overdrafts this year, with the bulk of the revenue coming from the most financially stretched consumers amid the deepest recession since the 1930s, according to research [by Moebs Services]. The fees are nearly double those reported in 2000. “Banks are returning to a fee-driven model and overdraft fees are the mother lode,” said Mike Moebs, the company’s founder. Overdraft fees accounted for more than three-quarters of service fees charged on customer deposits, he said. —Financial Times, 8/9/2009 China is on track to overtake the U.S. as the world’s biggest auto market. China’s auto sales in the first half rose 17.7% from a year earlier to 6.10 million units and is likely to reach more than 11 million autos this year. In contrast, car and light truck annualized sales for the U.S. are 9.69 million. —Wall Street Journal, 7/9/2009 China’s foreign-exchange reserves, the world’s biggest, topped $2 trillion for the first time as the nation’s economic recovery prompted overseas investors to pump money into stocks and property. The Shanghai Composite Index, the world’s second-best performer, surged 75 percent this year as Premier Wen Jiabao’s stimulus package triggered unprecedented lending and surging investment. China’s reserves are double those of Japan, the country with the second-biggest foreign currency holdings. —Bloomberg.com, 7/15/2009 $2 billion—annual airline change fees and cancellation penalties paid by passengers according to new Department of Transportation filings. At some airlines, the fees are heavier than baggage fees even though they get far less attention. —Wall Street Journal, 7/30/2009 Israel In Prague, 46 nations have signed a declaration which calls for the restitution of Jewish assets stolen by the Nazis during World War II and for the provision of social aid for impoverished Holocaust survivors. The legally non-binding text, notes that “only a part” of the estimated US $17 billion worth of assets taken from Jews has so far been returned or compensated for. —World Jewish Congress, 6/30/2009 A natural gas discovery off the coast of Haifa in northern Israel worth tens of billions of dollars is even better than expected. The site, known as Tamar, could hold as much as 180 billion cubic meters of natural gas, roughly 25 to 30% more than was originally believed. According to Ha’aretz, the find could lead to gas independence for Israel. Ha’aretz reported that from 2014–2018, Israel’s natural gas needs will be nine billion cubit meters to 10 billion cubic meters a year. The Tamar site is expected to be operational in 2012. Assuming the latest estimates are correct, and Israel’s needs do not rise too sharply, Israel could be looking at enough natural gas to satisfy all of their needs for a decade or more. —Jerusalem Post, 7/16/2009 A team of researchers from the University of Haifa have stumbled upon a rare desert plant living in Israel’s mountainous Negev Desert, which can irrigate itself. The plant, the desert rhubarb, Rheum palaestinum, was first classified by a local Israeli botanist about 70 years ago. It is the only known plant of its kind in the world and could teach science—and people—new ways for maximizing water distribution in agriculture, especially in extremely arid regions. Locals say it is found only in Israel and nearby Jordan. According to the recent study, the desert rhubarb can harvest 4.2 liters of water each year, with the largest of its kind collecting an astounding 43.8 liters. Compared to an average rainfall of 75 mm a year, the rhubarb has found a way to make the most of its limited environment. —www.israel21c.org, 7/15/2009 The world’s largest model of the Holy Temple was inaugurated Wednesday only a few hundred meters away from the Temple Mount, the site where the Temple existed up until 70 CE. The model, built at a scale of 1:60, is displayed on the roof of its new museum, which at seven stories above the Western Wall plaza has a breathtaking view of the Temple Mount. The model, which was built after extensive consultation with experts, is also the first to include a hydraulic system that raises the sanctuary building at the heart of the Temple to offer a view of the contents of the Holy of Holies within, including the Menorah, the Table, the Inner Altar, and the Ark of the Covenant. —Israel National News, 8/5/2009 Two Israeli companies—Medigus, experts in the miniaturization of diagnostic and surgical tools, and Tower Semiconductor, a leading specialty semiconductor manufacturer and image sensor provider—have announced their collaboration on the world’s smallest medical video camera. The disposable mini-camera will measure a mere 700 by 700 microns, or about seven times the width of a human hair. The sophisticated tiny camera will be used for disposable endoscopes and various medical and surgical purposes. Medigus and Tower expect the innovation will lower the cost of diagnostic procedures as well as improve curative treatments. —Israel21c.org, 8/5/2009 Tel Aviv is once again the most expensive city in the Middle East and is the 17th most expensive city in the world in terms of cost of living, according to a new survey. The global Cost of Living Survey from Mercer, a consulting, outsourcing and investment services provider, measures the comparative cost of over 200 items, from housing to food and entertainment, in 143 countries. —BFP radio, 7/8/2009 |
