=== Waco / Branch Davidians
1. Witness details Koresh's militancy
2. Government agents say they were outgunned at Mount Carmel
3. In Waco suit, government focuses on killing of ATF agents

=== Aum Shinrikyo
4. Former Aum Group Allowed to Continue PC Business
5. AUM to continue compensation payments to victims

=== Life Space
6. Life Space cult leader pleads not guilty to murder
7. Life Space guru denies murder charge

=== Falun Gong
8. Hong Kong immigration to deport pregnant Falun Gong member

=== Scientology
9. Unconstitutional ban on advertising
10. Ex-Scientologist bringing Scientology to Court

=== Islam
11. Malaysian weapons gang part of Muslim spiritual cult - police chief
12. Islamic cult behind arms heist, Malaysian police say
13. Christian Association Withdraws Sharia Suit
14. Yusuf Islam finds harmony with Cat Stevens

=== Mormonism
15. Coming of age

=== Hate Groups / Hate Crimes
16. Racist sect digs in at rock festivals (Twelve Tribes)
17. Winrod and his two children arraigned in Gainesville
18. Germany powerless to halt surge of neo-Nazi menace in cyberspace
19. Second German mosque attacked in a week

=== Other News
20. Newspaper criticizes Polish conceptualizations of "sects" problem
21. Devotee 'tricked woman into sex'
22. Religious leader convicted of robbery ("Queen Shahmia")
23. Osoba Okays Secret Cult, Female Circumcision Bills
24. Church denies Korean link

=== Religious Freedom / Religious Intolerance
25. 'Minute of silence' begins in schools
26. Law requires posting Ten Commandments

=== Death Penalty / Human Rights Violations
27. 'An obscenity': Tutu urges
28. The air has ears: Echelon feeds US intelligence on Europe
29. French Start Industrial Spy Probe of U.S. Network

=== Noted
30. Interfaith alliance meant to build world peace
31. Steaklets, juice boxes and not a coffee to be had
32. Olympic Symbols Not All That They Seem


=== Waco / Branch Davidians

1. Witness details Koresh's militancy
Dallas Morning News, July 6, 2000
http://dallasnews.com/texas_southwest/
107148_waco_06tex.ART.html
[Story no longer online? Read this]
WACO - David Koresh grew ''militant'' just before his sect's bloody standoff with the government, ordering followers to make grenades, silencers and machine guns and predicting a shootout with authorities, a former Branch Davidian testified Wednesday.

In the months before the 1993 siege, Donald Bunds said in deposition testimony read to jurors, the self-proclaimed messiah also taught followers to expect a violent end and his death at the hands of outside enemies.

''He was almost constantly going through a scenario where the enemy or the cops or the ATF . . . were going to come down the driveway with rifles, and we were going to have to shoot back,'' Mr. Bunds said. ''It was going to happen to him and his group, and they were going to join him in his battle.''

Mr. Bunds - an engineer who by chance left the compound only minutes before a gunfight broke out there with Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents - also recalled bringing milling machinery and a lathe to the compound for Mr. Koresh in 1992. He said he used the equipment on Mr. Koresh's orders to make silencers and to machine parts to convert AR-15 assault rifles to automatic weapons.

But he also said he never saw any working machine guns assembled from the 100 parts he machined. He added that many of the other projects commissioned by Mr. Koresh in the days leading up to the standoff - including plans to rig model airplanes with anti-tank explosives, build anti-tank rockets and reinforce the sect's compound - never worked.
(...)

Opening the trial's third week, government lawyers played a videotaped deposition in which a former Branch Davidian described loading magazines with bullets during the initial gunfight with ATF. Jacob Mabb, who was 9 at the time of the incident, said he went with his mother and three siblings to a room filled with guns and boxes of and ammunition and loaded magazines. He said the magazines then were taken away by armed sect members during the Feb. 28, 1993, gunbattle.

Like Mr. Bunds, Mr. Mabb testified that Mr. Koresh taught followers that he was Jesus Christ. Mr. Mabb said he left the compound after the gunfight only because he was given permission to leave by Mr. Koresh.

The government also called four more ATF agents Monday to describe the horrific gunfight that broke out as they tried to search the compound and arrest Mr. Koresh on weapons charges. Four ATF agents and six sect members died that day.
(...)

But like their colleagues who appeared last week, Mr. Petrilli and the other agents who testified Monday could not say who started the shooting. Most conceded that they initially thought the first pops of gunfire came from agents assigned to control the Branch Davidians' dogs.

Plaintiffs' lawyer Michael Caddell repeatedly accused Mr. Petrilli of altering his earlier accounts of the gunfight and what wounded him.
(...)

The Houston lawyer also got Mr. Petrilli and another agent who helped lead the ATF ''special response teams'' that spearheaded the raid to acknowledge that ATF's final preparations for their Feb. 28 operation included battlefield medical training from U.S. Army Special Forces medics.
(...)

Under government questioning, Mr. Lattimer and Mr. Petrilli each said they expected no resistance worse than fist fights, and Mr. Lattimer said he believed the medical classes were ''for practice.'' But Mr. Petrilli said under cross-examination that ATF originally asked for the U.S. Army to send Bradley Fighting Vehicles to use in the raid.

Defense Department records indicate that the request for eight Bradleys was quickly denied because of federal limitations on military involvement in domestic police actions. The records indicate that Defense Department officials also rejected a simultaneous ATF request to send specialized military medical teams to the Waco raid for ''on-site trauma medical support.''
(...)

Mr. Lattimer also conceded on cross-examination that he had never trained with special forces personnel for any other ATF operation and had never before seen agents preparing for a raid instructed on giving IVs.
(...)

U.S. Attorney Michael Bradford of Beaumont, one of the government's lead lawyers, had promised jurors in his opening statement that Mr. Jamar and Mr. Rogers would testify.

But he told reporters Wednesday that the two men probably will not be called to the trial. None of the ATF's raid commanders have been called as witnesses, just as neither they nor the FBI's leadership was called by the government to testify in the 1994 Branch Davidian criminal trial.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


2. Government agents say they were outgunned at Mount Carmel
Waco Tribune-Herald, July 5, 2000
http://www.accesswaco.com/auto/feed/news/local/
2000/07/05/962846228.24108.7817.0007.html
[Story no longer online? Read this]
An agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms testified Wednesday that he heard automatic gunfire as soon as he stepped out of a cattle trailer at Mount Carmel on Feb. 28, 1993.

''The first gunfire I heard was fully automatic,'' agent Sam Cohen testified. ''I thought we were in a real bad situation because we didn't have any with us.''
(...)

Government co-counsel Michael Bradford showed a videotape to display the firepower of an AK-47 automatic rifle. It reduced a cinder block to rubble.

Mike Caddell, lead attorney for the plaintiffs, questioned the extent of the automatic gunfire at Mount Carmel, however. He showed Petrilli a photograph taken during the raid of the fence that he hid behind. It appeared to have a brick base.

''I think we can agree that it has holes in it, but it's not demolished, is it?'' Caddell asked.

''No, sir, not at all,'' Petrilli said.

Agent Ken Latimer, now retired, testified that he saw clear evidence of the Davidian firepower. He described the shot that killed agent Robert Williams as powerful enough to plow through his helmet and leave ''residue'' coming out of the back.
(...)

ATF agents described the gunfire that greeted them at Mount Carmel as ''massive'' and ''amazing.''
(...)

Caddell, however, all but accused some ATF agents of changing their stories over the years.

He gave Orchowski a transcript of his 1993 interview with the Texas Rangers. Orchowski said then he thought the first shots came from agents shooting the dogs at Mount Carmel, and he didn't realize that he was under fire until almost reaching his designated position at an underground bunker.

''That's quite a different story, isn't it?'' Caddell asked.
(...)

A man staying at Mount Carmel in 1993 testified that David Koresh began readying the Davidians for a showdown with the government months before the ATF raid.

Don Bunds, a California engineer, said Koresh had him do part of the work necessary to convert AR-15 rifles from semi-automatic to automatic. Bunds, in a written deposition read to the court, said he worked on about 90 rifles.

Plaintiffs attorney Cynthia Chapman, however, countered by having testimony read where Bunds said that he only saw enough parts to make one automatic AR-15.

Bunds testified that Koresh became militant in the months before the ATF raid, equating the federal government with Babylon or ''the enemy,'' and talked about a showdown between the Davidians and the government.
(...)

Chapman pointed out several contradictions in Bunds' testimony. For example, Bunds, in one part of his deposition, said Koresh considered ''the Beast'' to be the Roman Catholic Church and not the government. He also said that Koresh never talked about the world ending.
(...)

Yarosh asked Petrilli about the Mighty Men, the Branch Davidians chosen to guard the secret of Koresh's many wives.

''They were the male leaders so to speak of the Branch Davidians,'' Petrilli said. ''We thought they would probably resist us physically with fisticuffs when we came in.''
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


3. In Waco suit, government focuses on killing of ATF agents
St. Louis Post-Dispatch, July 5, 2000
http://www.postnet.com/postnet/stories.nsf/ByDocID/
985EDA6EBEE1D9D78625691400036198?OpenDocument
[Story no longer online? Read this]
WACO, Texas - Like a general attacking the weakest part of the enemy line, government lawyers are attacking the weakest link in the Branch Davidians' wrongful death lawsuit.

Justice Department attorneys are focusing on the beginning of the 51-day standoff, when four agents died, rather than the end - when about 80 Davidians perished.

As the trial entered its third week, the government continued to call a parade of agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms who described the furious fusillade of automatic weapons fire they encountered on Feb. 28, 1993. More ATF agents will testify today.

Meanwhile, Justice Department lawyers say it is now doubtful they will call Jeff Jamar and Dick Rogers, the two FBI commanders who were in charge of the final onslaught on the compound weeks later that ended in the fatal fire. The idea, one Justice Department official said, is to stress the part of the case where the government is strongest.

Wednesday's testimony was designed to show that at least some of the women and children in the complex had a hand in the violence and that ATF agents did not shoot indiscriminately during the initial raid.

Jacob S. Mabe, who was nine at the time, testified on videotape that his mother had taught him how to load bullets into rifle magazines. On Feb. 28, as the gunfire raged outside, Mabe, his mother and siblings were loading magazines that were being passed on to the Davidians who were firing on pinned-down government agents.

He also testified that David Koresh, the leader of the sect, had conducted Bible study sessions that went into the night during which he referred to himself as Jesus Christ and at which he displayed a gun.
(...)

The five ATF agents who testified on Wednesday said that they heard automatic gunfire as they took their first steps toward the complex to serve the search warrant for illegal weapons.
(...)

Mike Caddell, the lead lawyer for the Branch Davidians, stressed that Petrilli and the other ATF agents who testified were not among the first agents off the trailers that transported them to the complex. Caddell suggested that the first agents on the scene could have initiated the gunfire.
[... more...]


=== Aum Shinrikyo

4. Former Aum Group Allowed to Continue PC Business
Jiji Press English News Service, July 4, 2000
http://beta.yellowbrix.com/pages/
newsreal/Story.nsp?story_id=11762448&ID=
newsreal&scategory=AP+Top+Headlines
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Tokyo, July 4 (Jiji Press)--Aleph, the former Aum Shinrikyo doomsday cult, was effectively given the nod to continue its personal computer business by Aum's bankruptcy administrator Tuesday.

Aleph reached a final agreement with the administrator, lawyer Saburo Abe, to take over all of Aum's 4-billion-yen debt and continue paying compensation to victims of its murderous crimes.
(...)

Abe gave his tacit approval to the cult's PC business, saying that he would not object to its economic activities as long as its management remained transparent.

Aleph's PC business, which will generate funds for damages payments by the group, had become a bone of contention after victims complained that allowing Aleph to carry on with the business would help the cult to survive.
(...)

As decisions by Japanese taxation authorities may alter the state of Aleph's solvency, the two parties agreed to conduct further talks on payment methods, if necessary.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


5. AUM to continue compensation payments to victims
Kyodo News Service/Associated Press, July 4, 2000
http://beta.yellowbrix.com/pages/
newsreal/Story.nsp?story_id=11752445&ID=
newsreal&scategory=AP+Top+Headlines
[Story no longer online? Read this]
TOKYO, July 4 (Kyodo) -- The AUM Shinrikyo cult will pay some 4.1 billion yen in compensation to victims of its crimes, AUM's bankruptcy administrator said Tuesday.

Lawyer Saburo Abe told reporters in Tokyo the cult has agreed to provide the full remaining amount of compensation and that he and group representatives will sign a document of agreement on Thursday.

Although Abe once approved the idea of AUM selling personal computers so that it could earn money to pay compensation to victims of its crimes, the item was left off the final agreement in consideration of the victims' feelings, Abe said.

He added, however, that he will issue a written request to the cult to make transparent the details of all of its business activities, including personal computer sales.
(...)

In May, Abe reached a basic agreement with AUM members over compensation to victims, but those representing the victims opposed the inclusion of approval of AUM to conduct the business of selling PCs as a means to make money.

On the exclusion of the item in the final agreement, Abe said, ''The group's followers have the freedom to choose what business to engage in, and so the matter is beyond my capacity as bankruptcy administrator.''

Yuji Nakamura, a lawyer representing victims of the Tokyo subway gassing, said the agreement is ''regrettable'' because it goes against calls by the victims for disbanding the cult as it is based on the premise that the cult will continue to exist.

''On the other hand, there are victims who are suffering economically as a result of the aftereffects (of damages incurred in the AUM crimes). It is natural to have the perpetrator reimburse the money,'' Nakamura said.

Cult spokesman Hiroshi Araki said the agreement ''will force the group's followers to shoulder considerable financial burdens, but it is absolutely necessary in continuing to show our sincere intention to apologize to and compensate the victims and their bereaved families.''

Araki explained that AUM, which changed its name to ''Aleph'' earlier this year, is currently not engaged in a full-fledged business, so it will have to combine the funds it raises from its religious activities with any profits made in other undertakings.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== Life Space

6. Life Space cult leader pleads not guilty to murder
Kyodo News Service/Associated Press, July 4, 2000
http://beta.yellowbrix.com/pages/newsreal/Story.nsp?
story_id=11749005&ID=newsreal&scategory=AP+Top+Headlines
[Story no longer online? Read this]
CHIBA, Japan, July 4 (Kyodo) -- The leader of the Life Space religious group pleaded not guilty Tuesday to murdering a 66-year-old man whose mummified body was found last November in a hotel in Narita, Chiba Prefecture.
(...)

Takahashi is accused of conspiring with Kenji Kobayashi, 31, the eldest son of the dead man, to forcibly take Kobayashi to the hotel July 2 last year from a hospital where he was undergoing treatment for a stroke, knowing Kobayashi could die if removed from the hospital.

Kenji Kobayashi has been indicted for failing to protect his father.

Takahashi and his followers administered what they called the ''Shakty Pat'' therapy to Kobayashi, which consisted of pounding his head, according to the indictment. They later abandoned him without seeking medical treatment by a doctor, the indictment says.

The following day, Kobayashi died of suffocation, with his trachea blocked by sputum.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


7. Life Space guru denies murder charge
Mainichi Daily News (Japan), July 5, 2000
http://www.mainichi.co.jp/english/news/news09.html
[Story no longer online? Read this]
(...) At the Chiba District Court, Takahashi denied any intention to kill Kobayashi. His lawyers argued that the death was a result of natural causes.

On July 2, 1999, Takahashi allegedly made the victim's son, who is also a follower of the cult, to transfer Kobayashi from a Hyogo hospital where he was treated, to a Narita hotel room.

Kobayashi died at the room about 24 hours later. His mummified body was found by police officers in November that year.

Takahashi and his followers stunned the public by insisting that Kobayashi's mummy was still alive.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== Falun Gong

8. Hong Kong immigration to deport pregnant Falun Gong member
BBC Monitoring/Hong Kong iMail, July 6, 2000
http://beta.yellowbrix.com/pages/
newsreal/Story.nsp?story_id=11802703&ID=
newsreal&scategory=AP+Top+Headlines
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Pregnant Falun Gong sect member Fang Minqing yesterday raised the stakes in her hunger strike by refusing water.

Ms Fang has been without water for at least 40 hours and without food for more than 70 hours. Her husband, who arrived in Hong Kong yesterday, has been unable to persuade Ms. Fang to call off the protest.

An Immigration Department spokesman last night told the Hong Kong iMail that Ms Fang's deportation would be deferred until her health improved. She remained in the custodial ward of Queen Elizabeth Hospital last night.

''We'll make arrangements for her deportation as soon as her health conditions improve,'' the spokesman said. He said immigration officers and doctors had tried to talk her into eating and drinking.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== Scientology

9. Unconstitutional ban on advertising
Neue Zuercher Zeitung (Switzerland), July 1, 2000
Translation:CISAR
http://cisar.org/000701a.htm
[Story no longer online? Read this]
The prohibition established in 1972 by the Zurich city council against distribution of advertising material on public land has rightly been declared unconstitutional by the Cantonal Constitutional Court. That is one of the conclusions of a new decision by the Federal Court, which unanimously rejected appeal from the city and denied any transgression of city autonomy.
(...)

Based on that decision, the city administrative police, on November 30, 1994, had prohibited Scientology Church Zurich from distributing the ''Oxford Capacity Analysis'' personality test and the ''Why Happiness is no accident'' leaflet on city streets. The prohibition was supported by the police board, the city council, the governor's office and the executive offices. The Administrative Court, however, partially acceded to Scientology's complaint, saying that a complete ban on distributing advertising material on city land was not permissible, in light of freedom of trade and commerce. In the other hand, such commercial activity led to increased use of public streets, on which account it would need to be subject to approval. The Federal Court fundamentally agreed with the Administrative Court's consideration.
(...)

It is noted that all of the legal hearings involved in the case refused to review the problem in the light of freedom of religion, because the distribution of the above-mentioned documents is not rated as religious, but as commercial activity.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


10. Ex-Scientologist bringing Scientology to Court
Tages-Anzeiger (Switzerland), June 30, 2000
Translation: CISAR
http://cisar.org/000630e.htm
[Story no longer online? Read this]
A former Scientologist is demanding his money back from the organization for courses he never took. Some of these pre-payments are booked under ''donations.''
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== Islam

11. Malaysian weapons gang part of Muslim spiritual cult - police chief
Yahoo/AFP, July 5, 2000
http://english.hk.dailynews.yahoo.com/
headlines/asia/article.html?s=hke/headlines/000705/asia/afp/
Malaysian_weapons_gang_part_of_Muslim_spiritual_cult_-_police_chief.html
[Story no longer online? Read this]
The gang which stole more than 100 weapons from a Malaysian army camp is part of a Muslim spiritual group and has ''certain political motives,'' the country's police chief said Wednesday.

Norian Mai confirmed that the beseiged group includes former army officers, and is holding two policemen and a villager hostage in secondary jungle in the northern state of Perak.
(...)

''Further investigations that we have conducted show that those involved in this robbery are from those practising spiritual knowledge and they have a certain political motive,'' Norian told a press conference.

''We have not ascertained the motive but based on documents and our investigations it is based on (the Muslim) religion. It is a spiritual group, in a way it is a cult.''

He said he knew the name of the group but declined to disclose it.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


12. Islamic cult behind arms heist, Malaysian police say
Kyodo News Service/Associated Press, July 5, 2000
http://beta.yellowbrix.com/pages/
newsreal/Story.nsp?story_id=11773590&ID=
newsreal&scategory=AP+Top+Headlines
[Story no longer online? Read this]
A member of an Islamic occult group, said to be behind the theft of high-powered weapons from two military camps, was wounded in a shoot-out with Malaysian authorities Wednesday, but other members remain in a jungle hideout with three hostages.
(...)

Norian said the gunmen have been identified as former servicemen belonging to an Islamic cult.

''They believed in shamanism, or the occult, and may have a political motive,'' he said.

Norian refused to disclose the name of the cult.

Local villagers have mentioned seeing the gunmen wearing Muslim skull caps and occasionally calling out ''Allahu Akbar'' while firing shots into the air.
(...)

As for domestic Muslim extremist activities, the last time Malaysian government faced a militant Muslim group was in the early 1980s. Then, cult members who believed they were invincible fought with security personnel with sticks and knives when the latter tried to break up their settlement.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


13. Christian Association Withdraws Sharia Suit
Panafrican News Agency, July 2, 2000
http://www.africanews.org/PANA/news/20000702/feat9.html
[Story no longer online? Read this]
LAGOS, Nigeria (PANA) - The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), the umbrella body for Nigerian christians, has withdrawn a lawsuit challenging the introduction of Sharia, the Islamic legal code, by the northern state of Zamfara, even as the controversy over the law rages on.

The semi-official 'Sunday Times' newspaper quoted a member of CAN, Mike Okonkwo, as saying in Lagos that the organisation decided to withdraw the suit in the national interest.

Okonkwo said if CAN pursued the case to the end, the nation would lose whichever way the court decided the case.

''Moslems will protest if the court decides that Sharia is illegal and so will Christians protest should the court decide otherwise,'' said Okonkwo, General Overseer of The Redeemed Evangelical Mission (TREM), one of the numerous pentecostal churches in Nigeria.

He said, however, that Christian leaders had not abandoned their rejection of the Sharia but had merely changed their strategy. He did not elaborate.

CAN, arguing that the Nigerian constitution prescribes secularism, instituted the court case last year after Zamfara became the first state to introduce the Koran-based law, even though it only became effective in the state this year.

The controversy generated by the Sharia, which prescribes death by stoning for apostacy and hand amputation for stealing, resurfaced last month after Kano became the fourth state in the north to proclaim the islamic law.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


14. Yusuf Islam finds harmony with Cat Stevens
Atlanta Journal-Constitution/Newhouse News Service, July 1, 2000
http://www.accessatlanta.com/partners/ajc/epaper/
editions/saturday/faith_values_93d5684b615201b31070.html
[Story no longer online? Read this]
He has lived two extraordinarily opposite lives. But after more than 20 years, Yusuf Islam is finally coming to terms with Cat Stevens.
(...)

In 1978, Stevens, who was then one of the biggest pop stars on the planet, converted to the Muslim faith and changed his name to Yusuf Islam. He stopped recording, stopped touring and at one point even asked his record label to stop selling his Cat Stevens albums.

The label rejected the notion, but the singer's departure remains one of the most unexpected turn of events in rock history.

Today, the 52-year-old Islam is still a devout Muslim and lives in London with his wife and five children. In recent years, he's resumed singing --- but only Muslim songs. He's recently released ''A Is for Allah,'' a children's album about the Islamic faith, on his own Mountain of Light label.

What may be most surprising is that he has personally supervised the upcoming reissue of his entire Cat Stevens catalog, the first batch of which hits the streets Tuesday. And in a recent telephone interview, he spoke with warmth, pride and gentle humor about his work then and now.
(...)

He acknowledges that the lyrics to many of his most memorable songs, like ''On the Road to Find Out,'' ''Miles From Nowhere'' and ''Peace Train,'' foreshadowed the dramatic changes in his life.
(...)

He recalls that his transformation was triggered by two key events. In the mid-1970s, while vacationing at a friend's house in Malibu, Calif., he went out swimming by himself. He ventured out too far and a strong current started to carry him out to sea. On the brink of drowning, he cried out to God for help, promising that he would do God's work if he was saved. As he recalls, at that very moment the tide turned and helped him swim back to shore.

''The episode in Malibu was really a turning point, though I didn't know how much of a turning point it was,'' Islam said. ''After that, I had forgotten what I'd said, but I was reminded when my brother unexpectedly gave me a birthday present --- the Koran (the sacred book of Muslims). It was the answer to my prayer out there in the sea.''
(...)

While staying relatively far from the public limelight, Islam was thrust into it in 1989, when he refused to decry an Islamic ruling out of Iran that author Salman Rushdie should be put to death for his supposed blasphemy in the book ''Satanic Verses.''

Islam still feels he was manipulated by the press at the time and was merely answering a question based on a strict, literal interpretation of the Koran.

''I was giving a lecture at a university and I thought I was being asked to comment on a legal issue,'' Islam recalled. ''But it was taken completely out of that context. But what could I say? I was a new convert to Islam. If you had a new convert to Catholicism, you wouldn't ask him to deny one of the Ten Commandments. It's ridiculous.''

That controversy aside, Islam has lived a relatively quiet life. Though he didn't release any new music between 1978 and 1995, his three Muslim albums in the years since have sold quite well, with 1995's ''The Life of the Last Prophet'' garnering sales of more than 350,000 copies worldwide.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== Mormonism

15. Coming of age
Atlanta Journal-Constitution, July 1, 2000
http://www.accessatlanta.com/partners/ajc/epaper/
editions/saturday/faith_values_93d568fb6152117e10b0.html
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Gordon Hinckley is a pixie of a prophet determinedly leading his people into the mainstream.
(...)

Since becoming president in 1995, he's addressed the National Press Club and the Religion Newswriters Association, chatted twice on CNN's ''Larry King Live'' and been grilled by the legendary Mike Wallace of ''60 Minutes.'' Wallace was so impressed that he wrote an introduction to Hinckley's new book, ''Standing for Something'' (Times Books, $24). It hit the best-seller list of Publishers Weekly, the trade magazine of the book industry, on his birthday.

''My '60 Minutes' colleagues and I learned, from the time we spent with Gordon Hinckley and his wife, from his staff, and from other Mormons who talked to us, that this warm and thoughtful and decent and optimistic leader of the Mormon Church fully deserves the almost universal admiration that he gets,'' Wallace wrote.

Richard Ostling, formerly of Time magazine and now a religion writer for The Associated Press, compares Hinckley to Pope John Paul II. ''Both men have strengthened their office by taking it worldwide and raising the profile of the office,'' said Ostling, who with his wife, Joan, wrote ''Mormon America,'' published last year by HarperSanFrancisco ($26).
(...)

Jan Shipps, a United Methodist scholar who has studied the Latter-day Saints for 40 years, sees larger implications in the decentralization of the church. By placing temples in more communities, she said, Hinckley is reminding Mormons of their distinctiveness from traditional Christians while also emphasizing their commonalities.

Shipps points to the church's logo, changed by Hinckley a few months after he took office, to make the words Jesus Christ in the church's name much larger than ''The Church of'' or ''of Latter-day Saints.''

''The implications are extraordinary,'' she said. ''Not only is it bringing Mormons into the Christian fold, it represents a shift in what is in church publications.''

Latter-day Saints magazines and newsletters used to emphasize the Mormon pioneers and church leaders, who fled harassment and persecution, going from New York to Ohio, then Missouri, Illinois and finally, after Joseph Smith was executed by a mob, to Utah. Now, said Shipps, ''instead of stories about early Mormons, they have stories about (Jesus') disciples. That's important.''

Through aggressive proselytizing, Mormons have swelled their rolls with converts from traditional Christian groups who are comfortable with the church's direction, she said.

But at the same time, Hinckley wanted to make sure that the core of Mormon theology was not diluted.

Mormons reject ''original sin,'' the idea that mankind inherited sin from Adam and Eve, the first human beings. They teach that the Book of Mormon is sacred scripture. They recognize a Mother God as well as a Heavenly Father, but they do not pray to her.

Their doctrine says that all humans existed as spirits before their earthly conceptions, that they came to Earth to fulfill a divine plan, and that they can eventually become gods and goddesses if they know the right signs, rituals and passwords, which are taught in special temple rites.

Visitors are welcome at regular Sunday church services held in neighborhood ''wards'' or churches, but the temple is open only to Mormons in good standing whose leaders have issued a ''recommend'' affirming that they tithe and live by the social regulations of the church. To enter, they dress in white --- including their ''garments,'' special underwear worn next to the skin as a reminder of their faith. Once issued the garments at the temple, they wear them for the rest of their lives.

If Mormons did not have temples to remind them of these things, ''I think there would have been a drift to have Mormons move into a sort of pan-Protestantism,'' said Shipps.

In fact, with their strong emphasis on the traditional family, prohibition of abortion and disapproval of homosexual relationships, they have a great deal in common with the evangelical Protestants who are their loudest critics theologically. Some groups that call them a cult are lobbying beside them for the same causes.
(...)

Mormons are not helped in the traditional Christian world by their church's history --- which included the practice of polygamy in the church's earliest days, now prohibited, and its refusal for years to allow black men into a priesthood open to all white men but no women. While bringing new attention to some of the church's historic sites in New York, Illinois and Ohio, Hinckley has been quick to distance the church from the more controversial aspects of its past.

He is aided in his efforts by his understanding of public relations and of the presidency.
(...)

While adding a new openness to some aspects of the church, he has toed the line on its conservative social positions and, under his leadership, some dissident scholars and miscreants have found themselves excommunicated.

''Our doctrine is clear-cut,'' said Hinckley. ''It's clean. It's straightforward. We know what's good and what's bad, what's right and what's wrong. If people run seriously afoul of that doctrine, we discipline them --- but always in a spirit of love.''
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]

"* Mormons are not Christians, but rather members of a cult of Christianity.
Just like attaching a Roll Royce logo to a Volkswagen does not make the
latter a Rolls Royce, using the name of Jesus Christ does not make Mormonism
''Christian.'' Suggesting the Mormon Jesus is ''Christian'' is, in fact, as
dishonest as selling a counterfeit watch as a ''Rolex.'' After all, the
''Jesus'' created by the Mormon Church is far different from - and
incompatible with - the biblical Jesus Christ. Details"

=== Hate Groups / Hate Crimes

16. Racist sect digs in at rock festivals
Guardian (England), July 3, 2000
http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/Archive/
Article/0,4273,4036272,00.html
[Story no longer online? Read this]
A Christian fundamentalist religious movement which describes Jews as ''murderers'' is using rock festivals, including Glastonbury and Reading, to recruit young people.

Twelve Tribes, whose 24-hour cafe, The Common Ground, was a popular meeting point at this year's Glastonbury festival, handed out literature blaming Jewish people for the death of Jesus.

One article says: ''Murder is the very crime which the Jews are still cursed for.'' It goes on to speak of the Jews' ''responsibility for the Messiah's crucifixion''.

The movement's magazine, Alien Ant, also argues in favour of racial segregation, claiming that ''multiculturalism increases murder, crime and prejudice,'' and ''politicians who rally different races to be one are forerunners of the antichrist''.

Jewish community leaders yesterday expressed concern and urged organisers of the imminent Reading festival to consider banning the group.

The group's use of the accusation that Jews ''murdered'' Christ, a longstanding basis for Christian anti-semitism, has prompted concerns of links with white supremacists in the United States.

Mike Whine, a spokesman for the British Board of Deputies, said the name Twelve Tribes hinted at a shared philosophy with American white supremacist groups.

''There is a belief that the white Anglo-Saxon protestant is the true descendant of the 12 tribes of Israel and that the Jews are impostors,'' he said.
(...)

Twelve Tribes was founded in Tennessee in the early 1970s but now has at least six ''communities'' in rural locations in Europe, including one set up six years ago at Stentwood Farm in Dunkeswell, Devon.
(...)

Asked about the anti-semitic material in their magazine, an American member who called herself Mikal Yophi, said yesterday: ''We believe in the Bible and what it states. Nowadays the Jews have really fallen away from what is right.''

Speaking from the group's community in Devon, she added: ''It's hard to explain. You're welcome to come and stay for a weekend.''
(...)

Twelve Tribes' magazine also attacks the Pope both for his opposition to capital punishment, and for the ''request for forgiveness'' he has made to the Jews for their historic treatment by the Church.
(...)

Inform, a group based at the LSE which studies new religious movements, describe Twelve Tribes as ''attempting to restore and continue the primitive Jewish/Christian church described in the Biblical books of Luke and Acts''.

According to Inform, Twelve Tribes ''regard calendar years as only approximations, so the year 2000 does not play a major role in their thought. While the group suspects that the end times may be close at hand, they also believe that the Messiah will not return until He has a people to whom to return.''

These ''chosen people'' are the Twelve Tribes communities, which try to be self-sufficient through cottage industries.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


17. Winrod and his two children arraigned in Gainesville
St. Louis Post-Dispatch, July 5, 2000
http://www.postnet.com/postnet/stories.nsf/ByDocID/
86256794004608DB8625691300689F0D?OpenDocument
[Story no longer online? Read this]
GAINESVILLE, Mo. (AP) -- The Rev. Gordon Winrod and two of his children pleaded innocent Wednesday to charges of kidnapping six of Winrod's grandchildren and hiding them at his farmhouse in southern Missouri.

Meanwhile, Circuit Court Judge John Moody recused himself from the case because he had ruled over an earlier custody hearing in Ozark County involving Winrod children.

Winrod, 73, his son Stephen Winrod, 33, and his daughter Carol Winrod, 27, were bound over for trial, the date of which will be determined when a new judge is appointed, a court clerk said.

The anti-Semitic pastor, who labels law enforcement officers and judges ''Jewdicials,'' has opted to represent himself and his two children who were charged May 17 with six counts each of child abduction.

Prosecutors allege the six grandchildren were taken from their Dickey, N.D., homes several years ago and hidden at the Ozark County farm that is also the site of a small church where Winrod preached hatred of Jews and government.

Winrod, leader of Our Savior's Church, expressed those views in an occasional publication -- the ''Winrod Letter'' -- which he mass-mailed to other county residents.

Following the Winrods' arrests, the grandchildren, ages 9 to 16, barricaded themselves on the farm for four days until their grandfather persuaded them to surrender to authorities.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


18. Germany powerless to halt surge of neo-Nazi menace in cyberspace
The Scotsman, June 28, 2000
http://beta.yellowbrix.com/pages/newsreal/
Story.nsp?story_id=11609721&ID=
newsreal&scategory=AP+Top+Headlines
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Germany has admitted it is powerless to police the internet even as the country is bombarded with neo-Nazi web sites.

Banned in the real world, the sites thrive in a virtual universe safe from laws - and they are growing at an alarming rate.

The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution in Cologne has registered over 130 home-grown right-wing sites but thousands more from abroad, mostly from the United States, Holland and Belgium.

The sites pump out a terrifying revisionist view of the Holocaust together with imagery and language that, if seen or uttered on a public street, would land people with a year in jail.

The rise of the internet hatred comes as neo-Nazi attacks continue to worry authorities. A black man was beaten to death in Cottbus recently by skinheads, as attacks in general in the jobless, depressed sections of the former east Germany continue to rise.

The web sites often have ties to radical armed militias in the US. One group calling itself Anti-antifa Saar-Pfalz mailed a death list to Jewish groups in Berlin late last year. Included on the 20-page list were restaurants, members of parliament, Holocaust memorial institutions, banks, businesses and many other named individuals.

Hate-mailings are nothing new from the extreme Right, but police are concerned about this group because of its close ties with the White Aryan Resistance in the US, a heavily armed supremacist cult responsible for shipping into Germany some 80 per cent of illegal pro- Nazi propaganda. The number of neo-Nazi individuals monitored by police in Berlin has grown 125 per cent from 1990 to this year. Nationwide, the upward trend is 68 per cent.
(...)

The Southern Poverty Law Centre in Montgomery, Alabama, estimates 150,000 Americans are affiliated with extreme right-wing groups, and of this number 20,000 are directly involved in spreading hate propaganda and supplying funds and weaponry in Europe. ''It's an easy philosophy to twist to your own particular way of hating,'' said Sam Stockard, a human rights activist based in Atlanta, Georgia, who liaises with European agencies targeting neo-Nazi groups.
(...)

But Germany remains as committed to the internet as it is to freedom of expression. Until there is a Europe-wide commitment to police the web there seems little chance for the revisionist menace to subside.

In Holland alone police have registered 350 German-language sites pumping out everything from Holocaust denial to fanatical words of hatred directed against Jews and blacks.

One solution the German government is exploring is issuing licences to people who wish to have an internet site. But while this might ease domestic pressures it does nothing to curb the corruption of cyberspace worldwide.

Johannes Rau, the German president, has also called for new rules to combat racist web sites. Speaking in Berlin, he said: ''We need a framework that sets boundaries for the use of modern information technology.

''We cannot just stand by and watch while opponents of human rights and those contemptuous of democracy exploit these new technological possibilities.''

Antonio Vitorino, the European justice and home affairs commissioner, agreed that more international co-operation was needed. He said: ''The internet is an international phenomenon in every sense of the word and any effective response will hinge on higher levels of international co-operation.''
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]

* For details about legal combat of racism and other forms of discrimination in Holland, see:
Complaints Bureau for Discrimination on the Internet

19. Second German mosque attacked in a week
Ananova, July 5, 2000
http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_9421.html
[Story no longer online? Read this]
A German mosque has been attacked when unknown assailants tossed two Molotov cocktails at a window.

The attack caused 5,000 marks (£1600) of damage to the outside of the mosque in Eppingen, about 40 miles west of Stuttgart in southern Germany, but did not break the window.

Police said they had no leads as to who was responsible for the attack, which was the second on a mosque in the country in a week.

Four known neo-Nazis were arrested June 28 in the eastern city of Gera, south of Berlin, for smashing a large window on a mosque after drinking heavily.

The attacks follow a failed arson attack on the synagogue in the state capital of Erfurt on April 20, the 111th anniversary of Hitler's birthday.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== Other News

20. Newspaper criticizes Polish conceptualizations of ''sects'' problem
BBC Monitoring European/PAP (Poland), July 5, 2000
http://beta.yellowbrix.com/pages/newsreal/
Story.nsp?story_id=11780758&ID=n
ewsreal&scategory=AP+Top+Headlines
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Warsaw, 5th July: The subject of sects crops up again in the summer. For several years, the Nationwide Anti-Sects Defence Committee [OKOpS] has been organizing a ''Summer without Sects'' action campaign. Also witness to the subject being treated with exceptional seriousness is the fact that a Sects Department has been created within the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Administration, the 'Trybuna' daily writes.

In recruitment, sects use the entirety of psychological knowledge and manipulation. The ever more frequent disappearances of children and young people during holiday periods might be the results of the actions of such organizations. The number of drastic incidents caused by the breaking of family ties demanded by the Unification Church is frightening.

The problem with the counteraction of sects in Poland above all rests on the fact that it is the historic churches and denominational unions which often fall victim to this, Piotr Kalinowski feels.

Unfortunately, in Poland the word ''sect'' continues to be used both in relation to criminal organizations and towards the traditional non- [Roman] Catholic faiths. This means that on the one hand vigilance with respect to the authentic threat is reduced, and on the other that the minority churches and faiths are portrayed in a very bad light.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


21. Devotee 'tricked woman into sex'
The Times (England), July 5, 2000
http://www.the-times.co.uk/news/pages/Times/timnwsnws01012.html
[Story no longer online? Read this]
A follower of an Indian guru tricked a woman into having sex with him by promising that it would cure her ''bad vibrations'', a court was told yesterday.

Priyakant Shah, 47, a shopkeeper from Plymouth, allegedly persuaded the mother of three that he was a messenger from the Hindu mystic Sai Baba and he had been ordered in a dream to have sex with her. His alleged victim, who is also of Asian origin, told Plymouth Crown Court that the relationship began after Mr Shah had ''engineered'' her divorce from her husband, whom she subsequently remarried.

The woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said she met Mr Shah in the mid-1980s when he ran a temple in South London devoted to the worship of the 73-year-old guru who claims 30 million followers worldwide.
(...)

Mr Shah denies two charges of procuring a woman to have sex by false pretences and one of indecently assaulting one of her daughters, who was 12 or 13 at the time.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


22. Religious leader convicted of robbery
News-Journal, July 4, 2000
http://www.news-journalonline.com/2000/Jul/4/FLA12.htm
[Story no longer online? Read this]
FORT MYERS - A woman who called herself the ''Daughter of God'' was convicted Monday of seven felonies for ordering her followers to rob stores to support their lavish lifestyle.

Richelle Denise Bradshaw, who called herself Queen Shahmia, did not react as the jury delivered its verdict after 80 minutes of deliberations. She was charged with conspiracy to commit robbery, five counts of robbery and grand theft.

Sentencing was set for August 9. Bradshaw, 34, faces up to 85 years in prison. Two of her followers also face trial for the string of New Year's robberies, but their competency is being questioned and a judge has ordered evaluations.

Bradshaw's nomadic ministry group included her husband, Phillip Bradshaw, four followers and eight children. They traveled around Florida living on donations and staying in luxury hotels, authorities said.

They never skipped out on a bill and police allege they supported themselves by stealing.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


23. Osoba Okays Secret Cult, Female Circumcision Bills
Africa News Service (Nigeria), July 4, 2000
http://beta.yellowbrix.com/pages/newsreal/
Story.nsp?story_id=11779296&ID=
newsreal&scategory=AP+Top+Headlines
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Lagos - Governor Olusegun Osoba of Ogun State has signed into law two bills on secret cults and female circumcision.

The two bills signed into laws at the Executive Council chambers governor's office, Oke-Mosan, Abeokuta are the secret cults prohibition and special provisions and the prohibition of female circumcision.

Speaking while signing the bills into law, Osoba explained that cultism had become so alarming that government could not afford to fold its arms while future leaders of the country were being wasted.

He remarked that the community in the academia were living in perpetual fear as a result of the activities of the cult members.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


24. Church denies Korean link
New Vision (Uganda), July 5, 2000
http://www.newvision.co.ug/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
The Deliverance Church of Uganda has disassociated itself from Dr Jae Rock Lee, the Korean evangelist who is in the country to hold a Christian leaders' conference and gospel crusade.

Pastor Nick Wafula, the Church chairman, told The New Vision yesterday that they were not consulted about the visit.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== Religious Freedom / Religious Intolerance

25. 'Minute of silence' begins in schools
The Daily Press, July 4, 2000
http://dailypress.com/news/stories/76380sy0.htm
[Story no longer online? Read this]
[Religious Freedom / Religious Intolerance]
As Virginia's new minute of silence law faces a legal challenge, some local school officials are keeping a watchful eye on the courts while they institute the measure in their classrooms.

The law requires public schools to have a daily ''minute of silence'' when students may ''meditate, pray or engage in other silent activity.''

The American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia filed a lawsuit two weeks ago challenging the constitutionality of the new law and asking a federal court to place an injunction prohibiting school officials from enforcing it.

Although the law officially went into effect July 1, most students won't see the new silent periods until the regular school year begins in September. Most local schools with year-round schedules are on summer break until late July or early August.

That leaves summer schools as the only programs dealing with the new minute of silence right now.
(...)

The state superintendent of education, the attorney general's office and various church-state groups disagree about how administrators should introduce the minute of silence at the beginning of the school day.

At issue is whether it's appropriate, under the Constitution's prohibition against state-established religion, for school officials to tell students they can pray during the minute of silence.

To keep things safe, Gaston and Leary say they'll introduce the silent period with a simple statement over the schools intercom -- something like, ''We now pause for a minute of silence.''
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


26. Law requires posting Ten Commandments
Spokane.net/wire services compilation, July 2, 2000
http://www.spokane.net/news-story.asp?
date=070200&ID=s821565&cat=section.religion
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Paoli, Ind. _ Shrugging off the threat of lawsuits, Orange County officials became the first in the state to take advantage of a new Indiana law that allows government entities to post the Ten Commandments.

The new state law requires that the commandments be posted with other historical documents, and the county did just that, displaying the Ten Commandments in a glass case between a copy of the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== Death Penalty / Human Rights Violations

27. 'An obscenity': Tutu urges
Atlanta Journal Constitution/Religion News Service, July 1, 2000
http://www.accessatlanta.com/partners/ajc/epaper/
editions/saturday/faith_values_93d568dc615201251061.html
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Two days after the controversial execution of a Texas prisoner, retired Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu has called on the United States to end capital punishment.

At a news conference last week before receiving an honorary doctorate from the University of Nevada at Reno, Tutu said not all of those who have been executed were guilty of the crimes for which they died.

''I don't want a moratorium on the death penalty,'' said Tutu, whose work to end apartheid in South Africa earned him a Nobel Peace Prize in 1984. ''I want the abolition of it. I can't understand why a country that's so committed to human rights doesn't find the death penalty an obscenity.''
(...)

''When you see the evidence of so many mistakes, you realize more mistakes can be made,'' said Tutu. ''Once an execution is done, you can't correct it.''
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


28. The air has ears: Echelon feeds US intelligence on Europe
Yahoo/AFP, July 5, 2000
http://english.hk.dailynews.yahoo.com/
headlines/world/article.html?s=hke/headlines/000705/world/afp/
The_air_has_ears__Echelon_feeds_US_intelligence_on_Europe.html
[Story no longer online? Read this]
The American electronic surveillance system Echelon, currently under investigation by French prosecutors, is widely suspected of being deployed around the world, and particularly in Europe, as an instrument of economic espionage.

The European parliament voted Wednesday to set up an ad hoc committee to examine the issues raised by Echelon, but moves to set up a full committee of inquiry foundered on mainly British opposition.

Based at Fort Meade, Maryland, the network gathers information from listening posts stationed in the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, with additional input from around 120 US satellites in geostationary orbit.

France has been angered at the loss of huge foreign contracts due to what it believes is eavesdropping by the US National Security Agency (NSA) which it says operates the Echelon system to spy on Europe's industrial secrets through 24-hour electronic surveillance.

Paris has accused Britain of disloyalty to its European partners for allowing the Cheltenham-based GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters) surveillance network to cooperate with Echelon, particularly at its Menwith Hill outpost where two-thirds of the 1,200 personnel are American and where, according to the Federation of American Scientists, US officials have been in control since 1966.

Echelon evolved out of the Cold War espionage system set up by the UKUSA Alliance, formed in 1948 by the United States and Britain and later joined by London's Commonwealth partners.

According to a report by the European Parliament published last February, it is capable of listening in on ''billions of messages per hour'', including telephone calls, fax transmissions and private e-mails, and of intercepting sensitive Europe-wide commercial communications.
(...)

Echelon's operations were first challenged by the European Parliament in September 1998 when MEPs accused the network of ''violating the privacy of communications by non-Americans, including European governments, companies and citizens.''
(...)

France has so far held back from confronting Washington directly over the issue, perhaps partly because, according to French media reports, it has itself set up an eavesdropping operation to capture phone conversations, fax messages and e-mail communications in the United States.

British MEPs have been at loggerheads over Echelon with many of their fellow parliamentarians for whom the issue is being increasingly seen as a choice that London has to make between loyalty to the United States and a full commitment to Europe.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]

* About Echelon

29. French Start Industrial Spy Probe of U.S. Network
International Herald Tribune, July 5, 2000
http://www.iht.com/IHT/TODAY/WED/FPAGE/spy.2.html
[Story no longer online? Read this]
PARIS - A French investigating magistrate said Tuesday that he was starting a preliminary inquiry into possible damage to France's economic interests by U.S. electronic espionage.

His investigation - which will not necessarily result in legal proceedings - was the latest twist in sporadic but long-running concern in France about the workings of a U.S. network of satellites and ground stations, known as Echelon, that reportedly can intercept a million communications around the world every 30 minutes.

Disclosures about the U.S. system, which is rumored to be powerful enough to eavesdrop on most phone traffic in France and other countries in Europe, have fueled allegations in France that Washington has turned its Cold War weapons against U.S. allies for economic advantage.

The French government has avoided a confrontation with Washington about Echelon, partly because France itself operates a similar but much smaller system of electronic eavesdropping to capture phone conversations, fax messages and e-mail in the United States, according to published accounts in Paris.

French government wiretapping and other espionage against French citizens and companies is another factor explaining the reluctance in Paris to fuel a public quarrel with Washington over the issue, according to Olivier Debouzy, a Paris attorney and former government official who represents several leading multinational corporations.

Speaking last month on French television about Echelon, Mr. Debouzy said that the most effective response to governments' surveillance of private messages lay in encryption programs that are commercially available for corporate and personal communications. Early this year Prime Minister Lionel Jospin's government made the first moves to authorize encryption in private messages for the first time in France's history.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== Noted

30. Interfaith alliance meant to build world peace
Atlanta Journal-Constitution/Newsday, July 1, 2000
http://www.accessatlanta.com/partners/ajc/epaper/
editions/saturday/faith_values_93d568fc6152c0b61081.html
[Story no longer online? Read this]
(...) The United Religions Initiative is an international effort to build world peace through multifaith cooperation at the grass-roots level, an effort that its founders consider historic.

''Fifty years from now, God willing, people from all over the world will flock to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to celebrate our signing today of the charter of the United Religions Initiative,'' said Bishop William Swing of the Episcopal Diocese of California, whose vision led to the initiative.
(...)

Members of the Interim Global Council, which will serve as the international governing body until an election at next year's global summit, read each of the initiative's 21 principles, starting with:

''We are a bridge-building organization, not a religion.'' That principle is crucial, because many religious leaders have been reluctant to support the initiative --- some out of fear that it may result in the blurring of religious differences and a move toward one religion.

''When almost all leaders guaranteed that they would not endorse (the United Religious Initiative), when some prominent international interfaith leaders said it would never happen, we knew we were on the right track,'' Swing told the Pittsburgh gathering and those following the event on the Internet.

''We would begin with the people, instead of with the leaders.''
(...)

Despite resistance from high-level religious leaders, the initiative found places where religions are working together at the grass-roots, then built upward from there. So it is highly decentralized.

Its basic unit is the cooperation circle, a gathering of from 7 to 500 people, representing at least three different faiths. Each circle will work cooperatively on its own issues. The initiative begins with 75 founding cooperation circles. Together with the global council, it will work to provide a united religious voice for peace. Representatives of 13 faiths attended the meeting.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


31. Steaklets, juice boxes and not a coffee to be had
National Post (Canada), June 30, 2000
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?f=/stories/20000630/332102.html
[Story no longer online? Read this]
(...) Yesterday, 60,000 Seventh-day Adventists from 200 countries arrived in Toronto for their World Congress 2000.
(...)

The Adventists gather every five years for an international meeting, at which they plan for their future, review progress and elect a new leader.
(...)

There are two essential Adventist beliefs: the nearness of the second coming, or advent, of Jesus Christ; and the observance of the Biblical Sabbath (Saturday) as God's ordained day of worship.

Every 39 seconds another someone becomes a member, the Church claims.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


32. Olympic Symbols Not All That They Seem
AOL/Reuters, July 4, 2000
http://my.aol.com/sports/story.tmpl?
table=n&cat=04&id=0007041047403667
[Story no longer online? Read this]
LONDON (Reuters) - No fire has ever glowed with a more deceptive aura than the Olympic flame.

Kindled in ancient Olympia last May for the 2000 Olympics, the latest torch relay has attracted thousands of spectators on its progress to the Sydney Games.

But the sacred flame is a byproduct of Nazi Germany, a fake pagan rite invented to stir the supposedly pure blood of the 1936 Berlin Games' ''Aryan'' audience and so successful it has been used ever since to open the quadrennial games.

Despite the myths of athletic purity around the original Olympic Games, nothing in Sydney would startle the poets who celebrated their heroes in Olympia thousands of years ago, least of all the emphasis on winning and the rewards available to those who reap gold medals instead of laurel wreaths.
(...)

Yearnings for the illusory purity of the ancient Olympics betray a misreading of history. French aristocrat Baron Pierre de Coubertin, founder of the modern games, tried to resist the inevitable by insisting on a strict amateur ethic for the 1896 Athens Olympics and subsequent Games.

De Coubertin, inspired by a quasi-religious revelation, believed organized games and the discipline they engendered were the cornerstone of the British Empire. ''The important thing,'' he preached, ''is not winning but taking part. The important thing in life is not conquering but fighting well.''

Those noble sentiments were already outdated when de Coubertin spoke at an Olympic banquet in London 92 years ago. Winning remained the point of the games, and in the 1980s the IOC bowed to reality and allowed professionals in.

As in Greek tragedy, athletes play their roles at the mercy of forces greater than themselves.

Michael Johnson cites two fellow African Americans as his personal heroes, both icons of the Olympics of their times.

Jesse Owens, son of a sharecropper and grandson of slaves, won four gold medals in the shadow of the swastika at Berlin, single-handedly refuting the Nazi doctrine of white superiority. But he was not invited to the White House to meet the president upon his return to the United States and later ran against race horses to make enough money to pay his college tuition.

Johnson's other hero, Cassius Clay, won boxing gold at the 1960 Rome Games before turning professional. He converted to Islam, changed his name to Muhammad Ali, opposed the Vietnam war and was banned for three years for his beliefs.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]