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Pastoral
Bible Institute News
PBI Annual Report for 2009-2010 “When these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh.”—Luke 21:28 Much continues to happen all around us. The financial meltdown that engulfed the world more than a year ago did not result in Armageddon as some thought it might. As we look back on that experience it appears to have been only another “birth pain” prior to the setting up of the new heavens and the new earth (Matthew 24:8, Net Bible). What those events did make clear is how fragile our economic system is and how easily it can disintegrate when the Lord says, “Be still and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10). The production of our journal, The Herald of Christ's Kingdom, continues to be our primary activity. It continues at about the same circulation levels. In January our friends in India began to print about five hundred copies of each issue and mail them to subscribers in India. The Polish language translation of each issue also continues and is sent to those who prefer that language. We purchased twenty DVD players and gave them to ecclesias in Nigeria, Ghana, and Uganda. Each contained five Bible Student videos, the “Chart of the Ages” in African languages, Bible maps and diagrams, 98 Frank & Ernest radio programs, 196 music and vesper programs, Pastor Russell’s sermons, Studies in the Scriptures, and 328 discourses of Voices from the Past. (Some who received a player for his ecclesia are shown in this photo.) Some financial aid was given to our brethren in India during the past fiscal year to help print literature in the Tamil language. Our collective work joins with the individual efforts of God’s consecrated saints throughout the world, who can claim this precious promise: “God is not unjust so as to forget your work and the love you have demonstrated for his name, in having served and continuing to serve the saints” (Hebrews 6:10, Net Bible). Directors and Editors of the Pastoral Bible Institute Temporary Office
Closure in August World News Religious Germany’s sex abuse scandal has reached Pope Benedict XVI: his former archdiocese disclosed that while he was archbishop a suspected pedophile priest was transferred to a job where he later abused children. The pontiff is also under increasing fire for a Vatican document he later penned instructing bishops to keep such cases secret. —Associated Press, 3/13/2010 A new study by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life explores religious persecution around the world. According to Pew: “64 nations—about one-third of the countries in the world—have high or very high restrictions on religion. But because some of the most restrictive countries are very populous, nearly 70 percent of the world’s 6.8 billion people live in countries with high restrictions on religion, the brunt of which often falls on religious minorities.” —Assyrian International News Agency, 4/20/2010 The number of people describing themselves as Roman Catholics is declining in Spain, traditionally regarded as one of the most staunchly Catholic countries in the world. A poll showed that 75 per cent of Spaniards regard themselves as Catholics, down from nearly 85 per cent in 2000. The poll was conducted by the Centre of Sociological Investigations. Only about 15 per cent of those interviewed said they regularly attended mass or another religious service. —Earth Times, 3/31/2010 A video posted on a militant Web site calls for Muslims in Nigeria to use the sword and the spear to rise up against Christians in Africa’s most populous nation. The video comes in the wake of a series of religious massacres and riots in central Nigeria. —Associated Press, 3/17/2010 Social Since 2006, authorities in Mexico have seized more than 400 drug planes—a fleet bigger than the Mexican air force itself. The planes were being used to ship tons of cocaine to West Africa and to skim across the U.S. border while evading satellite-tracking devices. Pilots were paid $200,000 to $300,000 per trip, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration said in an affidavit, citing informants and undercover agents. —Arizona Republic, 3/17/2010 Thousands of glum and despairing passengers were marooned across Europe by an unforeseen act of God. Airports normally seething with activity were ghost towns. … It was Mother Nature offering a reminder of who’s still really in charge, swatting away human pretension of defying gravity and ruling the air. “That’s always the hubris,” said writer Jamie Berger, “followed by nemesis,” which in this case is a volcano that goes by the name Eyjafjallajokull. —Los Angeles Times, 4/16/2010 A new survey found that one out of every three American teenagers sends more than 100 texts a day. Some other findings from the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project: Three-quarters of teenagers own cell phones on which they receive or make about five calls every day; more than 40 percent of teens ages 12 to 17 text from class. On average, teenage girls send and receive in the neighborhood of 80 text messages each day, and boys send and receive one-fourth that number. —CNN, 4/20/2010 Months of savage violence across the border in Ciudad Juárez and elsewhere in Mexico are spurring a new exodus to El Paso, as well as other southern U.S. cities. The homicide rate is 190 per 100,000 people, making it one of the most violent cities in the world. More than 10,000 businesses have closed, leaving tens of thousands unemployed. Since 2005, more than 116,000 homes have been abandoned. —The Dallas Morning News, 3/15/2010 The U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention said that TB prevalence in the U.S. dropped 11.8% in 2009, the largest yearly decline since the government began monitoring the disease in 1953. On the same day, the World Health Organization reported that an estimated 440,000 people world-wide had multi-drug resistant tuberculosis in 2008, and a third of them died. —Los Angeles Times, 3/21/2010 Australian officials are planning strict new measures to protect the Great Barrier Reef following a three-ton oil spill by the Chinese bulk carrier Shen Neng I. The Chinese carrier hit a sandbank in restricted waters at full speed earlier this month. Ships sailing through southern parts of the Great Barrier Reef will be tracked by satellite and required to regularly report their movements under the new regulations. —BBC, 4/19/2010 A lack of water has caused more than 800,000 people in eastern Syria to lose “almost all of their livelihoods and face extreme hardship,” according to an Aug. 11 report by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. About 80 percent of the hardest hit “live on a diet consisting of bread and sugared tea,” the report said. —Business Week, 3/1/2010 Two months after the January 12 earthquake, the Haitian government has yet to relocate a single displaced person. Trash and sewage are piling up at the squalid tent camps that hundreds of thousands have called home. With torrential rains expected any day, authorities are not even close to providing the shelters they promised. —Associated Press, 3/13/2010 California, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina reached their highest unemployment rates since the government began keeping track in 1976, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. California’s was 12.5% in January, up from 12.3% in December. —Los Angeles Times, 3/11/2010 Political The U.S. Transportation Department said that its projections show total traffic deaths declined nearly 9 percent in 2009—to 33,963. That’s the lowest toll since 1954. Highway safety officials also reported a record low fatality rate, the number of deaths per 100 million vehicle miles traveled. Safety experts attribute the reductions to increased seat belt use, progress in targeting drunken driving, and more enforcement of traffic laws. Seat belt use climbed to 84 percent in 2009. —Associated Press, 3/11/2010 The West Virginia mine where at least 25 workers died Monday in an explosion was written up more than 50 times last month for safety violations. Twelve of the citations involved problems with ventilating the mine and preventing a buildup of deadly methane. —Washington Post, 4/7/2010 President Barack Obama’s approval rating may be dropping at home in the United States, but he won 77 percent backing in a poll of the most popular leaders conducted by Harris Interactive for France24 and Radio France-Internationale. The Tibetan spiritual leader was at second place at 75 percent, followed by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at 62 percent. Pope Benedict XVI was the seventh most popular leader with 36 percent support. —AFP, 4/21/2010 Amnesty International reported that there were 52 state-sanctioned executions in the U.S. in 2009. The anti-death-penalty group also reported that for the first time since it started keeping track some 30 years ago, there were no executions in Europe. —TIME, 4/12/2010 Foreign leaders and heads of international and regional organizations have sent their condolences to Chinese leaders over a powerful earthquake that hit northwest China’s Qinghai Province on Wednesday. The 7.1-magnitude quake struck the Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Yushu on Wednesday, leaving at least 1,944 people dead and 12,135 others injured. —Xinhuanet.com, 4/19/2010 78%—the percentage of Americans that do not trust the United States government according to a new public opinion survey from the Pew Research Center. — Reuters, 4/19/2010 Financial The cost of Internet fraud doubled in 2009 to about $560 million, the FBI said. The most common type of frauds reported were scams from people falsely claiming to be from the FBI. The amounts taken by individual frauds ranged from less than $30 to more than $100,000, officials said. —Associated Press, 3/13/2010 Total U.S. household debt, including mortgages and credit-card balances, fell 1.7% in 2009 to $13.5 trillion, the Federal Reserve reported Thursday—the first annual drop since records began in 1945. The debt amounts to $43,874 per U.S. resident. Over the same period, borrowing to finance deficit spending caused U.S. federal government debt to grow 22.7% to $7.8 trillion, or $25,299 per U.S. resident. —Wall Street Journal, 3/12/2010 In 2009 the banking system notched the largest decline in loans in the history of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. The savings rate, near zero in 2007, rose to 3.3 percent in January. —Newsweek, 4/5/2010 Average U.S. Annual Salary in 1901,
$11,900; First class postage in 1901, 53˘;
U.S. President’s salary in 1901,
$1.3 million; (1901 values are inflation adjusted) —Newsweek, 3/29/2010 Many homeowners continue to walk away from their underwater mortgages in what has become known as a “strategic default.” In a recent national study, 25 percent of all foreclosure was driven by “strategy” not necessity. Some housing analysts are worried that if more people walk away from their mortgages, even more foreclosure properties will continue to depress the market and delay any recovery. —Associated Press, 3/17/2010 This year, the [Social Security] system will pay out more in benefits than it receives in payroll taxes, an important threshold it was not expected to cross until at least 2016, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The problem is that payments have risen more than expected during the downturn, because jobs disappeared and people applied for benefits sooner than they had planned. At the same time, the program’s revenue has fallen sharply, because there are fewer paychecks to tax. —New York Times, 3/24/2010 Postmaster General John Potter announced that major cuts, including an end to weekend service, would be needed to prevent a projected $238 billion loss over the next decade that is largely a result of fewer letters and packages being sent. E-mail is faster, easier and free. Four out of five households with Internet access now pay bills online. In 2009 alone, [U.S.] post offices saw a 13% drop in mail volume. —TIME, 3/15/2010 A study by Outsell reveals that for the first time U.S. advertisers are spending more this year on digital media than on print. Of the $368 billion marketers plan to spend this year, 32.5% will go toward digital and 30.3% to print. Digital spending includes e-mail, video advertising, display ads and search marketing. —Forbes.com, 3/8/2010 Israel Israel has presented a plan to jointly build a nuclear power plant in the Negev in cooperation with neighboring Arab states. The reactor would be the first nuclear power station in Israel for civilian use and be built in the northern part of the Negev desert. Israel is not a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and has said it would not sign up for a Middle East nuclear-free zone that is being promoted by the United States and others. —World Jewish Congress, 3/9/2010 The renowned Hurva synagogue inside the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City has been rebuilt and is again an operational house of prayer. [When] the Jordanian army took Jerusalem’s Old City in May of 1948, it loaded the [old] building with explosives and set off a blast whose smoke cloud could be seen miles away. —Jerusalem Post, 3/15/2010 A Gallup poll in the United States found that Israel is among Americans’ most favored countries in the world. After Canada, Britain, Germany and Japan, Israel came in fifth with an approval rating of 67% of respondents, who were asked to provide their opinions about 20 countries. —World Jewish Congress, 3/3/2010 Two days before Independence Day [April 20], the population of the State of Israel stood at 7,587,000 people, data from the Central Bureau of Statistics [CBS] revealed. This time last year, Israel had a population of 7,411,000 residents. According to the CBS, the Jewish population in Israel numbers some 5,726,000 residents (75.7% of the entire population). The Arab population numbers some 1,548,000 residents (20.4% of the population). —Ynetnews, 4/18/2010 Israel and Egypt may collaborate on a mega solar project. Israel’s Industry, Trade and Labor Minister, Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, revealed that during his recent visit to Egypt with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he launched discussions with Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak about the possibility of establishing a huge joint solar project in Egypt’s Sinai Desert—a prime location for such a project with its clear skies, flat topography and high annual solar concentration. According to Ben-Eliezer, the project would provide enough energy for both Israel and Egypt. —Israeli 21c, 3/8/2010 |
