=== Falun Gong
1. China says Taiwan leader colluding with falungong
2. Falun Gong members speak out

=== Falun Gong - China's Government-Controlled Media
3. Reports from China's government-controlled media

=== Scientology
4. Scientology guilty of libel and enjoined in Germany
5. Protecting sources
6. Razzies Scorch the ''Earth''

=== Unification Church
7. News And Notes

=== Raelians
8. House Sets the Stage for Debate on the Cloning of Humans

=== Buddhism
9. Sect 'planned mass suicide'
10. Sri Lanka to 'build' Bamiyan Buddhas

=== Catholicism
11. Faith or folly?
12. Former believer turns his efforts toward exposure
13. More Catholics turning to Mary
14. Pope Makes Appeal for Catholic Zeal

=== Mormonism
15. Mormons in charm offensive

=== Paganism / Witchcraft
16. Battle brewing over Nessie hunt
17. Wizard curse? I've had spell of good luck, says Whelan

=== Hate Groups
18. Man Gets Life for Calif. Hate Crime
19. Saudi Arabia bans Pokemon

=== Rebirthing
20. Video a key piece in abuse trial

=== Other News
21. Teen-age monk confesses to killing nun, police say
22. 'This is the place for a village,' decides a rich sect (Bruderhof)
23. Procter & Gamble Suit Over Satan Rumor Resurrected
24. Southern Baptists ending talks with Catholic Church

=== Science
25. Enlisting Science to Find the Fingerprints of a Creator

=== Death Penalty & Other Human Rights Violations
26. Court will hear second mentally retarded case

=== Media
27. Why do we think Christ was white?
28. Purging Flame

=== The Investors Around The Corner
29. Four-year-old beats City expert


=== Other News

21. Teen-age monk confesses to killing nun, police say
AP, Mar. 26, 2001
http://www.cnn.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
MIAMI, Florida (AP) -- A woman was found stabbed to death at the Eastern Orthodox Church school where she lived and worked in near Miami, and an 18-year-old monk confessed to the slaying, police said Monday.

Mykhaylo Kofel, a Ukrainian national belonging to the Byzantine Monastic Order of the Eastern Orthodox Church, was being held without bond. He was charged with first-degree murder, armed burglary and the use of a weapon during a felony.
(...)

''This was not a random act of violence, and the victim and the suspect knew each other,'' Alvarez told a news conference.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


22. 'This is the place for a village,' decides a rich sect
The Age (Australia), Mar. 26, 2001
http://www.theage.com.au/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
A wealthy Christian sect based in the United States has bought the Northern Tablelands property Newstead, one of the great names in Australian agriculture.
(...)

Now the Bruderhof has bought the 3300-hectare New South Wales property for more than $3 million, adding it to two other properties bought in 1999.

While the group calls the Mennonites and Amish its ''spiritual cousins'', it is not averse to wealth-creation or embracing the products of the 21st century.

In the US, apart from its rural base, the Bruderhof owns a jet charter and freight transport business, publishes books and manufactures toys and play equipment with a focus on disabled children.

In Australia, said its corporate affairs director, Randy Gauger, it is looking at light manufacturing, making hand-carved signs designed with computer software.
(...)

When representatives arrived to look for land, they were welcomed and chaperoned by officials of the NSW Department of State and Regional Development, anxious to secure their investment for the state.

But the closest neighbors of the new arrivals are not so pleased to see them.

Alex and Pam McLeay want the Bruderhof to leave and question why foreign citizens have received such enthusiastic support from state and local governments.

Two years of research has convinced the couple, who oppose the Bruderhof community on environmental and planning grounds, that the group is a cult.

''It's a cult,'' Mrs McLeay said. ''It has a dynastic leadership. Everyone has to do what the leader says. The only way the leadership can change is if he dies or if every member, unanimously, votes them out.

''Council has tried to squash any debate about the development and anyone who's opposed it has been called religious bigots.''

But Inverell Shire Council remains an enthusiastic supporter. The Bruderhof hopes eventually to build a village to house 400 members, 20 kilometres from town.
(...)

Members are called brothers and sisters, the sisters wearing home-made long dresses and scarves.

The community began in the 1920s in Germany, was thrown out by the Nazis and sought refuge in England between 1937 and 1941 before the Germans among them were threatened with internment.

Paraguay was the only country that would take them and the Bruderhof stayed there until the 1950s when they moved to the US.

The world leader is Christoph Arnold, grandson of the founder, Eberhard Arnold. People wanting to join must spend time with the group, live as a novitiate for up to a year, be baptised and then make final vows of commitment.

All property and possessions are handed over to the community.

No new Australian members have been found.

''We've had people visit and we have people who are, you know, interested. I think it will come eventually,'' Mr Gauger said.

The community's 2500 members, who must live wherever they are directed, are split between the east coast of the US, Britain and Australia.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


23. Procter & Gamble Suit Over Satan Rumor Resurrected
New York Times, Mar. 27 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/27/business/27SATA.html?pagewanted=all
[Story no longer online? Read this]
For decades, Procter & Gamble has been dealing with a public relations nightmare: a false and harmful rumor that the company says was fueled in the 1980's and 90's by some Amway distributors who sell paper goods, soaps and other household staples in competition with P.& G.

Now, a federal appeals court panel in New Orleans, in a decision issued last month and revised on March 12, has resurrected a suit P.& G. had filed against Amway. The decision that could offer companies very powerful ammunition against mudslinging competitors.

The suit deeply troubles First Amendment advocates, and the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit also agreed to consider their arguments.

To P.& G., the case, which had been dismissed earlier by a lower- level federal judge in Houston, is about bringing to justice people who have unfairly competed by rumor mongering.

To Amway, the case is about freedom of speech and an effort by P.& G. to make the company and its distributors scapegoats for a rumor that has persisted both within and outside the Amway network.

The gist of the rumor is that P.& G. has ties to Satanism and that a lot of the company's profits go to the Church of Satan.
(...)

In the early 1980's, amid a flood of angry calls to the company and boycotts of its products, P.& G. tried to squelch the rumor with a public relations blitz, an effort in which Amway assisted. P.& G. also sued a dozen people, half of them Amway distributors. The suits have been settled, with admissions of fault and retractions.

But in 1995, an Amway distributor who lived in Utah forwarded the rumor to other distributors over a telephone messaging system. Some distributors then printed fliers that circulated it to consumers with the message ''We offer you an alternative'' and contact information for Amway distributors.

So P.& G. decided to go after the company as well as some of its distributors, including the Amway distributor who widely disseminated the rumor.

He testified that he had believed it to be true, and retracted it shortly after sending it out.

Amway asserts that it has done nothing but try to stop the rumor and that it is not responsible for its distributors, many of whom sell Amway products out of their homes. But P.& G. says Amway should have reined them in. P.& G. says it has sustained major losses, including hundreds of millions of dollars in sales and other damages.

In a move that is significant for the lawyers and executives watching the case, the Fifth Circuit opinion kept alive P.& G.'s claim under one of the most potent weapons in commercial law, the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, known as RICO.

The law, passed in 1970 to combat organized crime, metes out harsh penalties for violators and big incentives for plaintiffs and their lawyers in the form of triple damages plus lawyer fees. Although the law has been applied many times in civil as well as criminal cases, experts say last month's decision in the P.& G.- Amway case is the first in which a federal appellate court has permitted this type of claim.
(...)

What worries free-speech advocates is the possibility that First Amendment protections might not apply under federal trademark law to words found to be motivated by economic concerns.

''Anything that would attempt to impose a RICO penalty on anything involving speech is frightening.'' said Lucy A. Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

Michael A. Mohr, vice president and general counsel of Alticor Inc., Amway's parent, said: ''This speech was innocent, and it was about religion. When you've got speech between individuals about a public figure,'' like P.& G., ''on a matter of public concern, I think the First Amendment applies.''

P.& G. contends the purpose of the speech was not to express religious views but to take business away from a competitor.

Why this long and tough battle, which has broken out on other fronts as well, including a claim by Amway that it is the victim of smear campaign waged by P.& G.?

''When a rumor or stories float around about a company, you have to take it seriously,'' Mr. Suarez said. The federal trademark and RICO statutes, he added, are very powerful tools that will ''get the attention of people who are saying bad things about your trademark.''
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


24. Southern Baptists ending talks with Catholic Church
AP, Mar. 24, 2001
http://www.dallasnews.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
NEW YORK - The Southern Baptist Convention is halting 30 years of official doctrinal talks with the U.S. Roman Catholic Church.

The two denominations - America's biggest, with 78 million members between them - share many beliefs in central Christian doctrines, but ecumenical contacts have been a sore point for some Southern Baptists.

''We're not ecumenists. We're evangelicals committed to sharing the Gospel,'' said the Rev. R. Philip Roberts, president of Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Mo., who formerly handled interfaith relations with the North American Mission Board.

Though the denomination's 1994 meeting endorsed talks with the Catholic Church, Mr. Roberts said, ''Many Southern Baptists became suspicious of these discussions.''

When the talks began in 1971, both sides saw them as an opportunity to understand agreements and differences, though there was never any prospect of organizational union.

The Rev. Timothy George, like Mr. Roberts a participant in the talks on the Baptist side, noted that a small faction of Baptists had ''a strong and somewhat strident reaction against this.''

Mr. George, dean of Beeson Divinity School in Birmingham, Ala., said, ''Ecumenism is not a high priority for most Southern Baptists.''

Baptist officials notified Bishop J. Kendrick Williams of Lexington, Ky., Catholic co-chairman of the talks, of the decision in a Feb. 7 letter, but no public announcement was made.

Brother Jeffrey Gros, the bishops' liaison to the talks, said the Catholic side would have no comment.
(...)

In their letter terminating discussions with the Catholics, the Southern Baptists said they would ''not rule out the possibility of future meetings.''
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


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