=== Waco / Branch Davidians
1. Agent says gas didn't start fire
2. Government approaches end of defense against the Branch Davidians
3. Agent backs FBI use of tank in siege
4. FBI agent says he wasn't trying to demolish gym when he drove tank
through it
5. Witness: Branch Davidian fire appears 'coordinated'
6. Davidians poured fuel, a Waco survivor tells court

=== Aum Shinrikyo
7. Ex-AUM member Hayashi appeals death sentence

=== Scientology
8. Clearwater waterfront plan soundly rejected

=== Buddhism
9. Exile stirs up unrest

=== Hinduism
10. Dodging the Yogic Fliers

=== Islam
11. Cult members will be asked to leave govt jobs: Najib (11-16: Al Ma'unah)
12. Cult's killings "go against Islam'
13. Malaysia urges army personnel involved in Islamic cult to repent
14. Cult was out to topple Government: Mahathir
15. Sauk, Al-Ma'unah, the enemy within
16. Opinion: Twixt truth and falsehood
17. National: 20 groups labelled deviationists by Jais
18. Report: China Executes 3 Muslims

=== Jehovah's Witnesses
19. Jehovah's Witnesses give boost

=== International Churches of Christ
20. Schools in cult alert

=== Satanism
21. Satan Worshiper Pleads Guilty to 26 Church Fires

=== Other News
22. Cult leader pleads innocent to murder (Gatekeepers)
23. New search fails to turn up O'Hairs' bodies
24. Manager Admits Having Trevi Child
25. Bigamy Case Reopens Utah's Secrets (Thomas Green)
26. NANS Seeks End To Cultism
27. AG Ige's Death for Campus Cultists
28. Posters out for British woman missing in Japan
29. Sister of missing British hostess flies in for search
30. Father joins Tokyo 'cult' search
31. Deprogramming the faithful (Cult Information Centre)
32. Child genius ran away to be rebel in a scarf
33. Officer Suspended Over Dreadlocks

=== Lifestyles / Sexuality
34. Episcopalians Officially Recognize Gay Couples
35. Church leaders fight gay ruling
36. Out of the Fold?

=== Noted
37. Luck Be a Stone Lion (Feng Shui)

=== Books
38. 'Potter' author is a quite a wizard herself


=== Waco / Branch Davidians

1. Agent says gas didn't start fire
Dallas Morning News, July 13, 2000
http://dallasnews.com/texas_southwest/
110826_waco_13tex.ART.html
[Story no longer online? Read this]
WACO - An FBI agent acknowledged Wednesday that he fired three pyrotechnic tear-gas rounds on the final day of the Branch Davidian siege but said they didn't go into the sect's building and were fired hours before it burned.

Agent David Corderman denied sending any of the gas devices into the sect's kitchen, insisting that the three rounds he shot into that area of the building just after noon were all nonburning, plastic ''ferret'' gas grenades.
(...)

A government fire expert also testified Wednesday that such devices were ''very unlikely'' to have started any of the three fires that leveled the Davidian compound with more than 80 sect members inside on April 19.
(...)

The plaintiffs' expert tried to suggest that tanks bashing holes and driving deep into the building could have started the fire by knocking over Coleman lanterns and kerosene lamps being used to light the building. He said tanks also could have crushed propane tanks, causing gas leaks that could have been ignited by burning tear-gas rounds or other government actions.

On Wednesday, Dr. Quintiere dismissed those scenarios. He said Coleman lanterns hold only a pint of fuel and burn gas through fragile wicks that break and extinguish easily when knocked over. He also noted that a fire fueled by a propane leak would have been immediately obvious because it would have been characterized by a dramatic and instantaneous gas ignition.

He said a fire caused by a crushed or tipped lantern would also have shown up immediately on the forward-looking infrared or FLIR video taken from an FBI airplane on April 19. The infrared camera used by the FBI records a video image by sensing minute differences in temperatures of objects.
(...)

Earlier Wednesday, the agent who drove that tank on April 19 told jurors that he did not believe his penetrations into the building closed escape routes.
(...)

A Fort Worth pathologist who autopsied the Branch Davidian dead after the fire testified in a 1994 criminal trial that the tank blocked the trap door with debris. The pathologist testified that six women's bodies were found in the hallway near the trap door, and he said they appeared to have been trying to get through it when they were overcome by the fire.
(...)

Both sides are expected to complete final arguments by Friday. The case will then go to a five-member advisory jury called by Judge Smith to help him decide whether the government should be deemed negligent.

Judge Smith has indicated that he will probably wait to resolve the remaining issue in the case, the allegations that government agents fired at the compound on April 19, before he issues a final ruling.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


2. Government approaches end of defense against the Branch Davidians
St. Louis Post-Dispatch, July 12, 2000
http://www.postnet.com/postnet/stories.nsf/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
WACO, TEXAS - FBI agents testified Wednesday that they were certain they had not shot fire-causing tear gas at the Branch Davidians' building during the final day of the 1993 siege and that they had not blocked exits or damaged a concrete bunker where women and children died.

The testimony came as the government approached the end of its defense against the Branch Davidians' wrongful death suit. The trial is in its fourth week and could go to a jury by week's end.
(...)

David Corderman testified that the only time he used military tear gas was around 8 a.m. on the final morning of the siege, April 19, 1993. Military tear gas can cause a fire.

Corderman testified he obtained permission to fire three military rounds at a tornado shelter. The idea was to keep the Davidians from escaping the building by entering an underground bus that was buried to one side of the complex. All three military rounds bounced off the wood entrance to the shelter and burned out in a nearby field.

U.S. District Judge Walter S. Smith Jr. asked questions of Corderman that stressed, possibly for the benefit of the jury, that the military tear gas was fired four hours before the fatal fire.

Corderman also testified that he fired three standard tear gas rounds into the dining room door just before noticing smoke come out of that area. He said he was certain that he had not used any of the 20 military style rounds that were in his Bradley Fighting Vehicle.

But under cross-examination, Corderman acknowledged that the smoke he saw coming from the dining room was white, not black. The Davidians have stressed that point to counter government claims that Davidians had started the fire in the dining room with Coleman fuel, which would have caused black smoke.

Corderman added, however, that he saw black smoke nearby within 15 seconds.

R. J. Craig, an FBI agent who drove one of two converted tanks, backed up the earlier testimony of the other tank driver that the FBI was not trying to demolish the building. Craig said he was trying push far enough into the building to deliver tear gas to a room at the base of the tower where Davidians had escaped from the tear gas.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


3. Agent backs FBI use of tank in siege
Dallas Morning News, July 12, 2000
http://dallasnews.com/texas_southwest/
110120_waco_12tex.ART.html
[Story no longer online? Read this]
WACO - The tank that ripped down the rear of the Branch Davidian compound wasn't trying to demolish the building but was trying to clear a path to get tear gas into the sect's hiding place, an FBI agent testified Tuesday.

''We didn't want to just recklessly move through the place,'' said agent Gary Harris, who drove the 60-ton vehicle on the last day of the 1993 Davidian siege near Waco. ''It wasn't a haphazard, just run up and smash and crash things. That's not the reason I was back there in my mind, and that's not the orders I was given.''

The agent also disputed as ''totally inaccurate'' an internal FBI document that called his action a ''mission of slowly and methodically beginning the dismantling'' of the embattled building.

Plaintiffs' lawyers have tried to convince jurors that the document proves that the bureau's two top Waco commanders, Jeffrey Jamar and Richard Rogers, violated the Washington-approved plan to tear gas the compound at least 48 hours before starting its demolition.
(...)

The government called an Arlington chemist Tuesday afternoon to detail his discovery of residue from five different types of flammable substances in the compound's scorched remains, surrounding dirt and on the clothing of some fire survivors. Dr. Andrew T. Armstrong, who ran chemical tests for the government's 1993 fire investigation, said the chemicals were ''consistent with'' Coleman camp stove fuel, two types of charcoal lighter fluid, gasoline, diesel and kerosene.
(...)

A Texas Ranger testified last week that one of the survivors, Clive Doyle, told him days after the blaze that Coleman fuel had been spread throughout the building April 19 and that Davidians had touched off the fire. Mr. Doyle denied making any statement to the Ranger, and told jurors that he might have gotten gas on his coat while refilling the compound's lanterns. He was badly burned in the fire.

Mr. Doyle was acquitted of all charges in a 1994 criminal case arising from the siege, and neither he nor any other fire survivors ever has been charged with setting the blaze.
(...)

Under cross-examination, Dr. Armstrong conceded that the same chemical mixture found in camp stove fuel often is used as a solvent for glue in shoe soles. He also acknowledged that more than 40 samples sent to his lab turned up no evidence of any accelerants, including more than a dozen articles of clothing.

One of the samples that tested negative for accelerants was a blackened, broken broomstick topped with a wad of cloth - an item that Texas Rangers described as ''a torch.'' Earlier Tuesday, Plaintiff's lawyer Michael Caddell tried to shake the testimony of Mr. Harris, the FBI agent who drove into the rear of the compound just before it burned.

Mr. Harris conceded that he and other members of the FBI's hostage rescue team expected sect members to surrender within an hour after they started ramming their compound with tanks and spraying tear gas.
(...)

Under cross-examination, he conceded that he was not threatened by gunfire from the compound in his armored vehicle. He also said he never heard gunshots that morning, even when another tank he drove early in the operation was sent to bash upper stories of the building and spray tear gas.

Mr. Harris testified that he knew nothing about the document describing his actions just before the fire as ''a dismantling mission.''

The document, nominating Mr. Harris and his tank partner for a special FBI award, bears initials of the two on-site commanders and was sent to Washington from Mr. Jamar's San Antonio office. Later versions excluded all mention of a dismantling mission. The two commanders have said that they do not know who prepared the original.
(...)

After Tuesday's proceedings, lawyers for the government said they would not call Mr. Rogers and Mr. Jamar as witnesses.

They said they expect to conclude their case by late Wednesday or early Thursday.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


4. FBI agent says he wasn't trying to demolish gym when he drove tank through it
Waco Tribune-Herald, July 11, 2000
http://www.accesswaco.com/auto/feed/
news/local/2000/07/11/963363401.14966.0647.0276.html
[Story no longer online? Read this]
An FBI agent denied Tuesday that he was trying to demolish the gymnasium at Mount Carmel seven years ago when he repeatedly drove a tank through it.

Gary Harris told U.S. District Judge Walter S. Smith Jr. and the advisory jury hearing the Branch Davidians' $675 million wrongful-death lawsuit against the government that he was trying to create a ''driveway'' so a second tank equipped to deliver tear gas could reach the so-called bunker area.

''It wasn't a haphazard, just run up and smash and crash things,'' Harris told government co-counsel Michael Bradford.
(...)

Eventually half the gymnasium collapsed as well as a walkway just under the roof line called the dog run.

A portion of the FLIR later showed Harris' tank ramming the section of the gymnasium that had not collapsed. Harris said it was an accident.

''I've looked at this many times,'' Harris said. ''I actually believe I was trying to turn around and ran into the building.''

Caddell noted that the FBI's operation plan on April 19 called for ripping through the outer walls of Mount Carmel if inserting tear gas for 48 hours failed to dislodge the Davidians. Then he asked Harris if there would have been any of the gymnasium left to demolish if the Davidians had stayed inside for two more days.

''I don't think you can make that determination,'' Harris said.
(...)

The government won an opening courtroom battle Tuesday when Smith allowed it to read the portions of Derek Lovelock's deposition where he invoked the Fifth Amendment rather than repeat phrases like ''Pour the fuel'' and ''Light the fire.'' They were among the phrases picked up on audio surveillance bugs inside Mount Carmel on the day of the fire.

Lovelock was one of nine Branch Davidians to survive the fire that led to the deaths of David Koresh and 75 followers.

Smith told members of the advisory jury that they could draw a ''negative inference'' from Lovelock's refusal to say the phrases into a tape recorder. However, Smith also reminded the jury that Lovelock had not been charged with a crime in connection with the fire at Mount Carmel.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


5. Witness: Branch Davidian fire appears 'coordinated'
CNN, July 12, 2000
http://www.cnn.com/2000/LAW/07/12/
waco.trial/index.html
[Story no longer online? Read this]
WACO, Texas (CNN) -- The fire that destroyed the Branch Davidian complex in 1993 and killed about 80 sect members began as at least three separate fires, a University of Maryland engineering professor testified Wednesday.

James Quintere told the jury that the fires began within two minutes of each other, and within 11 minutes had merged into one large fire.
(...)

In his testimony, Quientere called the fires ''highly unusual for anything accidental'' and ''suggestive of some sort of coordinated action.''

He added that the speed with which the fires spread suggested that liquid fuels were used.
(...)

Another agent, R.J. Craig, told jurors he ran his converted M-60 tank through the walls of the compound to spray tear gas into the interior of the building and to open exit routes for the people inside.

Craig said he was not trying to destroy the compound. But under cross-examination, he admitted testifying in a 1994 criminal trial that the FBI's other converted tank was trying to do just that.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


6. Davidians poured fuel, a Waco survivor tells court
AOL/Reuters, July 11, 2000
http://my.aol.com/news/story.tmpl?
table=n&cat=01&id=0007110809666094
[Story no longer online? Read this]
WACO, Texas (Reuters) - A Branch Davidian survivor called ''no friend of the government'' testified Tuesday that fellow sect members poured fuel and ordered it lighted moments before the fire that consumed their Texas compound in 1993.

The federal government played a taped deposition by Graeme Craddock as part of its defense against a $675 million lawsuit by other Branch Davidian survivors and families of the 80 cult members who died in the burning of the compound they called Mount Carmel.
(...)

U.S. Attorney Michael Bradford told jurors that Craddock ''is no friend of the government.'' The Australian citizen is serving a prison term for possessing illegal weapons during the siege of Mount Carmel.

In his deposition, taped in October 1999, Craddock testified that he saw one of the Davidians pour fuel April 19 and overheard an unidentified person say, ''Light the fire.''

In the days before the final confrontation, Craddock said, he also saw one of the Davidians prepare a broom or mop head to be used as the fuse of a gasoline bomb if government vehicles approached the compound.

Craddock has cooperated as a government witness since being sentenced in 1994 to 20 years in prison on weapons charges. He was sentenced with four other Davidians by the same federal judge hearing the Davidian lawsuit, U.S. District Judge Walter Smith.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== Aum Shinrikyo

7. Ex-AUM member Hayashi appeals death sentence
Kyodo News Service/Associated Press
http://beta.yellowbrix.com/pages/newsreal/
Story.nsp?story_id=11975879&ID=newsreal
&scategory=AP+Top+Headlines
[Story no longer online? Read this]
TOKYO, July 13 (Kyodo) -- Yasuo Hayashi, a former member of the AUM Shinrikyo cult, has appealed to the Tokyo High Court a death sentence that a district court handed him for his participation in two fatal sarin gas attacks, sources close to the defendant said Thursday.

The Tokyo District Court on June 29 sentenced Hayashi, 42, to death for his role in the 1994 sarin gas attack in Matsumoto, Nagano Prefecture, and the Tokyo subway gassing in 1995, which claimed a total of 19 lives.

Lawyers for Hayashi, dubbed AUM's ''killer machine,'' had said the death sentence is too severe, and added that they were considering an appeal.

In his defense, Hayashi's attorneys said he was not adequately informed of the danger of sarin and was only following AUM guru Shoko Asahara's orders, which carried the threat of death for disobedient AUM members.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== Scientology

8. Clearwater waterfront plan soundly rejected
St. Petersburg Times, July 12, 2000
http://www.sptimes.com/News/071200/
TampaBay/Clearwater_waterfront.shtml
[Story no longer online? Read this]
CLEARWATER -- Voters soundly rejected an ambitious $300-million plan to remake the face of downtown Clearwater Tuesday, dealing a stinging setback to city officials hoping to rejuvenate the city's core.

Asked to approve leasing city-owned waterfront land to developers for 99 years for as little as $1 per year, voters said no by a 58 percent to 42 percent tally.

The decision, which shocked city officials and civic boosters who had openly predicted victory in the afternoon, capped a divisive campaign in which both sides traded accusations of distortion and outright lying.
(...)

A group of former city commissioners dubbed Save the Bayfront led the fight against the concept. They played on fear that the Church of Scientology, whose spiritual headquarters is downtown, might benefit from the plan.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]

* On Scientology's involvement in Clearwater, see:

Occupied Clearwater
http://www.xenu-city.net/

=== Buddhism

9. Exile stirs up unrest
China Daily (China), July 13, 2000
http://beta.yellowbrix.com/pages/newsreal/
Story.nsp?story_id=11972469&ID=newsreal
&scategory=AP+Top+Headlines
[Story no longer online? Read this]
The exiled Dalai Lama is using his position as a religious leader to cause political unrest in his home country, according to Tibet Daily. Excerpts follow:

He is using monks and nuns based at temples in the country to try to achieve his aim of an independent Tibet.

China says that while it tolerates religious freedom, it will oppose anyone who tries to break up China.

The Dalai Lama uses Tibetan Buddhism as a tool and this constitutes the biggest obstacle to order.

President Jiang Zemin has written in support of Tibetan Buddhism, saying he expects believers to love their country and religion, but also unite and make progress.
(...)

Worse still, the Dalai Lama has gone as far as violating religious tenets by interfering with the selection of the 10th Panchen Lama's reincarnation. He turned what should have been an auspicious occasion in Buddhism into a political farce.

Since 1987, the Dalai Lama has met Shoko Asahara, the founder of the Japanese Aum Shinrikyo cult, five times. The two have got together for political reasons.

The Communist Party of China does not believe in religion, but respects believers' freedom. However, it opposes anyone who tries to destroy the motherland's reunification, national unity and social stability.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== Hinduism

10. Dodging the Yogic Fliers
Newsweek, July 9, 2000
http://www.msnbc.com/news/430657.asp?cp1=1
[Story no longer online? Read this]
July 9 - Pat Buchanan is outraged that he'll be barred from the debate between Al Gore and George W. Bush if he wins the Reform Party nomination. ''If we are excluded,'' he said recently, ''then the American democracy is, in some sense, a fraud.''

There is, however, one man who's more than willing to debate Pitchfork Pat: John Hagelin, a quiet quantum physicist who champions the power of Transcendental Meditation. Hagelin has emerged as the Reform Party's anti-Pat candidate, and suddenly he seems to have a real chance at snatching the nomination. The party's executive committee demanded last week that Buchanan agree to debate Hagelin. But Buchanan refuses to share a stage with the opponent he dismisses as ''this character.'' Democracy, it seems, has its limits.

Buchanan still laughs loudly and easily, but there must be days when he wonders where it all went. Four years ago he was savoring his victory over Bob Dole in New Hampshire. Now he's locked in a struggle for his political life with a man who once took 4,000 ''yogic fliers'' to Washington to see if they could reduce violent crimes through meditation. (The murder rate soared.)
(...)

A Harvard-trained physicist, Hagelin worked at Europe's most prestigious physics lab and at Stanford, where he coauthored an important theory on ''Flipped SU(5) Supersymmetric Grand Unification.'' (You don't want to know.) But then he strayed into a more spiritual realm, landing at the Maharishi University of Management in Iowa. Last year he was on the ''Roseanne'' show, offering to quell hostilities in Kosovo by sending in his flying yogic meditators. ''This is a brilliant guy,'' says Dr. Robert Park, author of the book ''Voodoo Science.'' ''But I don't think I'd feel comfortable with him running the country.''

Aggressively upbeat, Hagelin maintains that everything he has done is based on empirical research and has yielded credible results. He claimed in a published paper that his 1993 meditation experiment in Washington actually reduced violence overall. ''I have yet to meet a scientist who carefully read the study who hasn't been impressed,'' Hagelin says. A presidential candidate twice before with the Natural Law Party, whose beliefs mirror his own, he triumphed over arcane ballot laws using a network of students and meditation devotees.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== Islam

11. Cult members will be asked to leave govt jobs: Najib
Yahoo/Channel NewsAsia, July 11, 2000
http://asia.dailynews.yahoo.com/headlines/
asia/cna/article.html?s=asia/headlines/000711/asia/cna/
Cult_members_will_be_asked_to_leave_govt_jobs__Najib.html
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Malaysia's defence minister says those in the armed forces, police and government with links to the Al-Ma'unah cult will be asked to leave if they fail a security check and are found to be closely linked to the group, which raided two army camps and killed two hostages.

Najib Tun Razak also warned that the government's success in quelling this militant spiritual cult does not mean an end to militant deviationist activities in the country.

Since the 27-strong group from Al-Ma'unah left their jungle hideout and surrendered to the authorities last Thursday, there have been intensive government efforts to weed out other members of the cult.

According to Mr Najib, all members and sympathisers of Al-Ma'unah found in the army, police and government departments will be screened to ensure they will not be a threat to the country's security.
(...)

On Monday, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad described the cult as a group of terrorists whose real motive was to topple the government.
(...)

A day after, Mr Najib warned that other militant groups may emerge in future which will use religion to attract followers.

He described the tough action taken against Al-Ma'unah members as necessary.

''From history, we have to be alert all the time because once you quell this group, if you're not on guard, there'll be other cult leaders will emerge,'' he said.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


12. Cult's killings ''go against Islam'
Straits Times (Singapore), July 13, 2000
http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/
primenews/pri8_0712_prt.html
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has accused the Al-Ma'unah cult group of deliberately targetting and killing their non-Muslim hostages last week, saying that such an act was against the true teachings of Islam.

The victims, Special Forces Commando Topah Mathew, a Christian, and Special Branch officer R. Sagadevan, a Hindu, were tortured before they were killed during a five-day standoff between members of the group and security forces in the jungles of Sauk, Perak.

The group left two other hostages unharmed -- although they were also allegedly tortured -- because they were Muslims, he said yesterday.

''''It was intended that way by this group of people,'' Dr Mahathir said in reply to questions from reporters. ''''This is not what we are taught. This is not our religion. This is a deviation from the teachings of Islam.''

The Al-Ma'unah cult had been described by the Malaysian authorities as terrorists who planned to topple the government to pave the way for an Islamic state.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


13. Malaysia urges army personnel involved in Islamic cult to repent
Yahoo/AFP, July 10, 2000
http://asia.dailynews.yahoo.com/headlines/
asia/afp/article.html?s=asia/headlines/000710/asia/afp/
Malaysia_urges_army_personnel_involved_in_Islamic_cult_to_repent.html
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Malaysian servicemen involved in an Islamic cult which raided an armoury, seized weapons and murdered hostages were urged Monday to repent as a hunt for the sect's followers continued.

Defence Minister Najib Razak said the government was prepared to rehabilitate followers of the Al-Ma'unah martial arts group, which says ''inner power'' will make them invincible to weapons.

''We will meet with every member of the group and ask them to leave it,'' he was quoted as saying by the official news agency Bernama.
(...)

Abdul Kader Talib, chief religious teacher at the mosque in the Putrajaya government administrative capital, urged the government to ban Al-Ma'unah, Utusan Malaysia newspaper said.

''Its name Al-Ma'unah means to obtain help from Allah but the group's actions to steal army weapons and threaten national security is an act cursed by Allah,'' he said.

The cult targeted children as young as 10 and 18 in isolated villages in Perak as part of a recruitment drive, Berita Harian newspaper said.
(...)

In an editorial, Utusan Malaysia said the cult was disguising deviationist teachings as those of a martial arts organisation.
(...)

Lim Kit Siang, chairman of the opposition Democratic Action Party, blamed a ''shocking breakdown in military discipline and weapon security system'' for the arms heist.

In a statement, Lim called for ''public court martials down the whole chain of military command'' for those responsible for the scandal.

He also criticised the use of the Internal Security Act, saying arrests should be made under other laws that allow an open trial.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


14. Cult was out to topple Government: Mahathir
Yahoo/New Straits Times, July 12, 2000
http://asia.dailynews.yahoo.com/headlines/
newspapers/scmp/article.html?s=asia/headlines/000712/newspapers/scmp/
ASIA__Cult_was_out_to_topple_Government__Mahathir.html
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Plans were announced yesterday for tougher controls on societies and associations after Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said members of the religious cult involved in a tense armed confrontation with security forces last week were terrorists out to topple the Government.

Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi ordered the Registry of Societies to monitor more closely organisations registered with it. All bodies in Malaysia must have the approval of the registrar.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


15. Sauk, Al-Ma'unah, the enemy within
Business Times, July 13, 2000 (Editorial)
http://beta.yellowbrix.com/pages/newsreal/
Story.nsp?story_id=11972713&ID=newsreal
&scategory=AP+Top+Headlines
[Story no longer online? Read this]
From Belfast to Tokyo, religious extremism and fanaticism have manipulated the divine to perform the devil's work. Deviationist groups, cults, and sects have broken up family ties, destroyed communities, and started wars in their obsession to attain their goals. They have turned obscure places into shrines or simply infamous, as in the case of Waco in the US and Sauk in Malaysia, often by leaving traces of their violent acts, senseless murders, mass suicides. The Tokyo sub-way gas attack by the Aum Shinri Kyo and the murder of Sharon Tate by the Mason cult were grim reminders of what religious obsession was capable of. Unchecked, they could lead to the sort of religious clashes the people in some countries are quite familiar with.

The Sauk incident in Malaysia is not and should not be viewed as insignificant or trivial compared to these other events. That was precisely the mistake the Japanese authorities made until a blind man named Shoko Asahara who led the Aum Shinri Kyo that killed 12 people and injured thousands in the Tokyo subways, opened the nation's eyes to the enormity of the disease. Between the Al Ma'unah and the Masonic cultist movement of the dadah-induced 1960s, the driving force is not Islam or Christianity or any one religion. It is, usually, about one man's or one group's dream of glory and their ability to manipulate thousands of others to achieve that dream. The prophets never asked the faithfuls to raid army camps and make off with dangerous weapons, instil fear in people, kill fellow men who of a different faith, or burn cars and blow up aeroplanes. Religion demands mutual respect and universal love, not the manifestation of anger and certainly not the prowess to kill nor the willingness to be killed as proof of loyalty.

Sauk is not the first case for Malaysia. Over the years, the country has seen the emergence of religious sects, from al-Arqam to Luk Hai Luk. After having gathered strength in numbers and in spiritual capabilities, these groups would usually resort to actions that the average, sane and peace- loving Malaysian would not think of in a lifetime.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


16. Opinion: Twixt truth and falsehood
Yahoo/New Straits Times, July 12, 2000
http://asia.dailynews.yahoo.com/headlines/
newspapers/nst/article.html?s=asia/headlines/000712/newspapers/
nst/Twixt_truth_and_falsehood.html
[Story no longer online? Read this]
There is no justification, religious or otherwise, for the cause and actions of the Al-Ma'unah movement. Nor is there any doubt that it is a deviationist which has no qualms in exploiting Islam for its own, obscure ends.
(...)

The core of Al-Ma'unah's philosophy is mysticism. It purportedly provides a spiritual path that enables one to attain mystical powers such as invincibility and the ability to see beyond the corporal world or receive ilm' ladunni (the direct knowledge of wali Allah or saints of God). Some people are attracted to mysticism - those elements that cannot be reached by ordinary means, profane senses and intellectual efforts - because they assume those who possess such powers have attained a high level of Islamic piety and spirituality. This, too, explains why followers of deviationist groups said the reasons for joining are the desires to deepen their faith or spiritual station and attain proximity to God.

Such spiritual desires or himma, as they are called in Islam, are not wrong. What is wrong is simple - the means or path taken to attain them violate the legal prescriptions of Islam. What needs to be done by the authorities is to inform the people of the distinctions between Malay mysticism (some of its elements could derive from sources extraneous of Islam) and Islamic mysticism (or sufism as understood by some scholars); between the metaphysical dimension of Malay martial arts and the metaphysical dimension of Islam. When these are done, perhaps some Malays will be persuaded to stop believing in magical and supernatural practices, which will lead them astray from the religion.

The Sauk drama serves as a lesson to all, especially those who are engaged in the struggle to deepen their faith. They must be wary of groups masquerading as the champions of Islam. Since the early days of Islam, ulamas have long cautioned the need to differentiate between the mutasawif, one who is at a higher spiritual level as seen from the fact that he surpasses all in good moral qualities, and the mustawif, one who pretends to be a mystic but is dangerous. As stated by Rumi, the Muslim poet of the ninth century, ''faith is discrimination, distinguishing between truth and falsehood, true coin and imitation''.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


17. National: 20 groups labelled deviationists by Jais
Yahoo/New Straits Times, July 12, 2000
http://asia.dailynews.yahoo.com/headlines
/newspapers/nst/article.html?s=asia/headlines/000712/newspapers/nst/
20_groups_labelled_deviationists_by_Jais.html
[Story no longer online? Read this]
SHAH ALAM, Tues. - Twenty of the 80 Islamic-based groups in Selangor under scrutiny by the State Islamic Religious Department (Jais) have been declared deviationists.

Deputy Menteri Besar Datuk Dr Zainal Abidin Ahmad said while three groups were in the process of being declared religious deviationists, investigations on 30 others had been completed.

Investigations are being carried out on 27 groups.

He said the groups, with some 2,000 hardcore members comprising mostly those between 30 and 50, also included students of institutions of higher learning. They had been under scrutiny by Jais since 1998.

''Since then, Jais has charged 100 teachers and members of deviationist groups when they refused to abide by the Administration of Islamic Law Enactment 1989 and silat guidelines.''

Zainal Abidin said this at a Press conference, giving detailed account of the deviationist groups including their names, teachers and locations.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


18. Report: China Executes 3 Muslims
New York Times/AP, July 12, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-China-Unrest.html
[Story no longer online? Read this]
BEIJING (AP) -- A court in China's restive Muslim northwest has executed three separatists for murder, bomb plots and setting up a ''Party of God'' to create an independent Islamic government, an official newspaper reported.
(...)

The regional government newspaper, the Xinjiang Daily, reported the executions in its Friday edition, which reached Beijing on Wednesday. The report made rare mention of the ''Party of God,'' a little-known separatist organization.

Separatists have waged a campaign of bombings and assassinations since the mid-1990s, and the movement now is China's most violent internal threat. Chinese leaders are increasingly worried about the separatists' ties to Islamic militants, especially the Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== Jehovah's Witnesses

19. Jehovah's Witnesses give boost
The Tucson Citizen, July 11, 2000
http://beta.yellowbrix.com/pages/newsreal/
Story.nsp?story_id=11972870&ID=newsreal
&scategory=AP+Top+Headlines
[Story no longer online? Read this]
As a respite to the tourism doldrums of summer, Tucson is hosting 36,000 Jehovah's Witnesses this month.
(...)

Convention goers come from New Mexico, West Texas and Arizona, bringing their families and friends for meetings that will last until July 30.
(...)

Barry Mishkind, news service coordinator for the conventions, said the Jehovah's Witnesses have held their gatherings in Tucson since about 1974.
(...)

Mishkind said Tucson is home to about 6,500 Jehovah's Witnesses in 34 congregations.

''With 36,000 members expected at the conventions, that tells you that the majority are coming from out of town,'' he said.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== International Churches of Christ

20. Schools in cult alert
Evening Mail (England), July 11, 2000
http://beta.yellowbrix.com/pages/newsreal/
Story.nsp?story_id=11960289&ID=newsreal
&scategory=AP+Top+Headlines
[Story no longer online? Read this]
All schools in Birmingham have been warned about a controversial religious group which child protection officials believe may be targeting children as young as three.

John Smail, child protection officer at the city council's education department, has contacted all 512 heads saying he is 'seriously concerned' about the activities of the International Church of Christ, also known as the Birmingham Church of Christ.

It is claimed the group is trying to gain entry to schools by offering to run music or drama sessions. The organisation was founded in Boston in 1979 and now has branches across the UK.
[...entire item...]


=== Satanism

21. Satan Worshiper Pleads Guilty to 26 Church Fires
AOL/Reuters, July 11, 2000
http://my.aol.com/news/story.tmpl?
table=n&cat=01&id=0007110601662877
[Story no longer online? Read this]
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An avowed Satan worshiper who hated Christianity pleaded guilty on Tuesday to setting a spate of church fires across the United States, the U.S. Justice Department said.

Jay Scott Ballinger, who called himself a missionary of Lucifer and who frequently expressed his hostility toward organized Christianity, admitted he set 26 churches ablaze in eight states over a five-year period that ended in 1999, the department said.
(...)

According to court documents, Ballinger grew up in Yorktown, Indiana, and traveled extensively, practicing his religious beliefs as a Luciferian. He signed individuals he met to contracts with the devil, the Justice Department said.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== Other News

22. Cult leader pleads innocent to murder
Sacramento Bee/AP, July 12, 2000
http://www.sacbee.com/news/calreport/calrep_story.cgi?N35.HTML
[Story no longer online? Read this]
EVERETT, Wash. (AP) -- The leader of a small religious group, facing a life prison term in California for trying to kill a police officer in a San Diego-area crime spree, has pleaded innocent to murder.

Christopher Turgeon, 36, who has testified that he considers himself the prophet Elijah, snapped a military-style salute before entering the plea Tuesday in Snohomish County Superior Court.

Investigators have described Turgeon as the leader of Gatekeepers, a group that predicts an apocalyptic end to the United States. The group, initially called Ahabah Asah Prophetic Ministries, was based in Edmonds, Lynnwood, Everett and Lake Stevens before Turgeon moved it to Pala, Calif., about 40 miles north of San Diego, in 1997.

The murder case stems from the death of Dan Jess, 40, of Mountlake Terrace, a former Gatekeepers member who was gunned down at his home in March 1998.
(...)

Applin was sentenced to a minimum of 101 years in prison. Turgeon sang the national anthem in court before being sentenced to 89 years to life.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


23. New search fails to turn up O'Hairs' bodies
Dallas Morning News, July 12, 2000
http://dallasnews.com/texas_southwest/110409_ohair.html
[Story no longer online? Read this]
SAN ANTONIO - Federal agents and dogs have returned to a Central Texas campground to search for the remains of missing atheist Madalyn Murray O'Hair and two of her children, but again they found no trace.
(...)

The lack of bodies has hampered further prosecution in the disappearance of the famous atheist, her son, Jon Garth Murray, and granddaughter Robin Murray O'Hair, whom she adopted. Gary Paul Karr, the only man charged in the case, was convicted this summer on four counts in connection with the disappearance.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


24. Manager Admits Having Trevi Child
AOL/AP, July 12, 2000
http://my.aol.com/news/story.tmpl?
table=n&cat=01&id=0007120639717609
[Story no longer online? Read this]
MEXICO CITY (AP) - The jailed manager of Mexican pop star Gloria Trevi denied accusations that he ran a sexually abusive harem of young would-be singers, but conceded he had a child with Trevi, and probably another with a teen-age backup singer.
(...)

Andrade and Trevi have been jailed since their Jan. 13 arrest in Brazil, and are awaiting extradition to Mexico to face charges of abduction and statutory rape lodged after teen-age proteges said Andrade sexually abused them.
(...)

Yapor's abandonment of her baby in a Spanish orphanage prompted criminal investigations into the case, and she has said Trevi led a band of female supporters bound by ''blind submission'' to the paunchy, middle-aged manager and guru.
(...)

Trevi rose to fame in the late 1980s with an image of sexual independence and social criticism. She spoke of someday running for president and released a series of nude calendars that poked fun at Mexican politics.

But instead of independence, Trevi allegedly was involved in a strange, submissive relationship. Yapor has quoted Andrade as saying ''if one of us led the police to him, or they found us, he would commit suicide along with any of the girls who wanted to do it with him.''
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


25. Bigamy Case Reopens Utah's Secrets
New York Times/AP, July 11, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline
/a/AP-Prosecuting-Polygamy.html
[Story no longer online? Read this]
NEPHI, Utah (AP) -- A man who has repeatedly gone on television with his five spiritual wives should stand trial for bigamy, a judge ruled Tuesday, a rare prosecution that brings attention to an old Mormon practice long since abandoned by the church.

For years, prosecutors have said that pursuing the long-standing but illegal practice of plural marriage is nearly impossible because practitioners often marry in secret ceremonies without getting licenses.

But they say Tom Green made his case impossible to ignore by taking his wives and 25 children in front of the cameras on such programs as ''48 Hours,'' ''Dateline'' and even ''Jerry Springer.''

Green admitted on those programs to marrying each wife and then divorcing her before taking another as a means to stay ahead of the law.

In a written ruling Tuesday, 4th District Judge Donald Eyre called this maneuvering a ''systematic scheme'' and said Green likely committed bigamy.

Bigamy is defined in Utah as living with one spouse while cohabiting with at least one other person.
(...)

Green says he follows the original dictates of the old Mormon church, which declared polygamy a principal route to exaltation in the afterlife. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints abandoned plural marriage and Utah made it illegal as a condition for statehood more than a century ago.

But the tradition has continued, practiced by an estimated 20,000 people around the West. It is rarely prosecuted because of legal difficulties and in part because the last major case, which resulted in the breakup of several families in 1953, drew a public outcry.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


26. NANS Seeks End To Cultism
PM News/Africa News Service (Nigeria), July 11, 2000
http://beta.yellowbrix.com/pages/newsreal/
Story.nsp?story_id=11947255&ID=newsreal
&scategory=AP+Top+Headlines
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Lagos - The National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) has suggested the establishment of independent students unionism as one way of checking violent activities of various forms in the nation's tertiary institutions.
(...)

The statement which was issued in remembrance of the dastardly killing of George Yemi Iwilade (Africa) and four others killed along with him by cultists on July 10 last year at Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) also suggested that every organisation, including secret cults should be registered by the institutions' Students Affairs Department to remove the tag of violence associated with secret cultism in the universities.
(...)

It calls for rehabilitation of known cultists as well as the organisation of enlightenment programmes such as talk shows, rallies and symposia on the evil of violence, in order to discourage students from joining and promoting violence on campuses.
(...)

About a year ago, the entire nation was thrown into a mourning mood over the killing of some students of Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife in cold blood by some suspected cultists. The nation rose in unison to condemn the dastardly killing, calling for capital punishment for cultists.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


27. AG Ige's Death for Campus Cultists
Post Express/Africa News Online (Nigeria), July 12, 2000 (Editorial)
http://www.africanews.org/west/nigeria/stories/20000712/20000712_feat20.html
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Lagos - Recently, the new Attorney General of the Federation, Chief Bola Ige, was quoted in the press as saying that during his tenure in the Ministry of Justice, campus cultists who kill fellow students would face the death penalty. He was further reported, in exasperation no doubt, to have expressed the opinion that female students raped by any cultist have the right to cut off the offending instrument of assault employed primarily to commit the crime.

At first glance, Chief Ige's threat may be viewed as draconian. It might be argued, for instance, that the death penalty is fast becoming unpopular in civilised nations around the world and that it would behove Nigeria to seek to eliminate the death penalty rather than expanding its scope. This view, however, can only be sustained by those unfamiliar with the credentials of Chief Bola Ige and the magnitude of terror that the so-called Nigerian campus cultists have unleased on the nation in recent times, particularly before President Obasanjo waded into the matter very early in his administration.
(...)

The magnitude of terrorism on the campuses of Nigeria's tertiary institutions masterminded by campus cult members is so terrifying that Ige's determination to apply the full measure of the law to anybody found guilty of any heinous crime, should be commended. Over one thousand youngsters who are expected to be the flowers of the nation have had their lives cut short by campus cultists, some, deservedly, in inter-cult wars and some, unfortunately, as victims of cultists. That is not all. Thousands of young girls who went up to universities in a welcome development that promises to reverse the under representation of women have been physically and psychologically traumatised by cultist rapists.
(...)

But Chief Ige's threat is not only a warning to cultists and prospective cultists but an admission of a fundamental flaw in the state's hitherto approach to the stamping out of campus cultism. Before Chief Ige's time, the judiciary, generally speaking, had appeared to be, at best, a guilty by-stander in the crimes committed by campus cultists. Even when murder had been committed, sometimes with professors as victims, the law enforcement agents, through criminal negligence, let off the culprits. Lack of thorough investigations and absence of diligent prosecution of cases are two of the conniving loopholes employed. Even in few cases that went to the courts, there had been fewer convictions which suggests judicial connivance.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


28. Posters out for British woman missing in Japan
Straits Times/AFP/Reuters (Singapore), July 13, 2000
http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/
asia/ea5_0713_prt.html
[Story no longer online? Read this]
TOKYO -- Japanese police yesterday launched a massive poster appeal, seeking information about a British woman they fear was kidnapped by a cult, after getting the go-ahead from her father in a bid to speed up the search.
(...)

Former British Airways flight attendant Lucie Blackman, 21, was reported missing on July 4 by a friend with whom she was travelling and staying in Japan, after she failed to return from an errand on July 1.
(...)

Police said they were not ruling out a possible cult connection after Ms Blackman's friend Louise Phillips, 21, received a call from a man on July 3 to say she was undergoing religious ''''training'' in Chiba.

A police spokesman said: ''''It was from a man, who called himself Akira Takagi and who spoke in English.

''''He said that Lucie was undergoing training at a cottage in Chiba which belongs to a religious group named Newly Risen Religion.

''''The man said she was safe and might return after about a week, once her ''training' was finished.

''''We have not confirmed the existence of the group but we are investigating.''
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


29. Sister of missing British hostess flies in for search
Japan Times (Japan), July 12, 2000
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/
getarticle.pl5?nn20000712a9.htm
[Story no longer online? Read this]
The sister of a 21-year-old woman who went missing in Tokyo nearly two weeks ago is working with the British Embassy and the Japanese police in an attempt to locate her sibling.
(...)

Toshihiko Mii, deputy superintendent at Azabu police station, which is handling the investigation, said they are keeping an open mind and treating the case as both a missing person inquiry and a potential kidnapping. As of Tuesday, however, the staff at the Casablanca club had not been interviewed by the police concerning Blackman's disappearance.

Police are looking into the claim that the man also said Blackman was in Chiba Prefecture and that she was going to join his ''newly risen religion.''

Sue Kinoshita, press officer at the British Embassy, said reports of Blackman being kidnapped by members of a cult or forced into prostitution are ''pure speculation.''
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


30. Father joins Tokyo 'cult' search
BBC, July 11, 2000
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/
uk/newsid_828000/828643.stm
[Story no longer online? Read this]
The father of a British girl thought to have been abducted by a Japanese religious cult is flying to Tokyo to join the search for his daughter.
(...)

His daughter had been working with her best friend in a bar called Casablanca, one of Japan's many foreign hostess bars.
(...)

After Lucie failed to return, friends reported that they had received a phone call from an unknown man saying Lucie was going to join a ''newly-risen religion'', which are known as cults in Japan.

The anonymous caller told Miss Phillips that Lucie was ''going on to a better life'' and that the cult would pay her credit card debt.
(...)

Police are said to be concentrating their search around Tokyo's entertainment district, where hostess bars are present in great numbers.

Japanese 'salarymen' pay large sums to drink with young women in the city's many hostess bars, although at the majority of venues they mingle easily with foreigners.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


31. Deprogramming the faithful
BBC, July 11, 2000
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/
uk/newsid_828000/828506.stm
[Story no longer online? Read this]
It is one of the worst nightmares a family can face - a loved one who disappears into a cult. This is the scenario facing the family of Lucie Blackman, a 21-year-old Briton working as a hostess in Tokyo, who went missing on 1 July.

Japanese police are investigating whether she was abducted by one of the customers at the late-night members' club where she was paid to chat to drinkers.

After Ms Blackman failed to return, a friend received a phone call from an unknown man, who claimed the former air hostess was joining a ''newly-risen religion'' - the Japanese term for cult.

Ian Haworth, general secretary of the Cult Information Centre (CIC), says it is a myth that cults target young, unhappy people.

''The most likely candidates fit the following criteria: They come from an economically advantaged background; they are of average to above-average intelligence; well educated; and described as idealistic.

''That's just the opposite of what society would imagine.''

Should a loved one - a son or daughter, a parent, a partner - be lured into a cult, friends and family should take it seriously, Mr Haworth says.

''A cult isn't playing games; it's playing for keeps. The aim of the average cult is to recruit for life, or until that person is no longer useful to them.''

Mind control techniques work very quickly on unsuspecting individuals, he says, warning that it can take just three or four days for a new recruit to be broken down.

In 1978, Mr Haworth was himself rescued from a Canadian cult he had joined two and a half weeks earlier: ''It took me 11 months to get over it.''

Typical techniques employed by cults include hypnosis, peer group pressure, deprivation of food and drink, and ''love bombing'' - creating a sense of belonging through constant hugging and flattery.

Leaders may also bombard the new recruit with complex lectures on incomprehensible doctrine, which can break down rational thought, and implant subliminal messages by repeating slogans.
(...)

Should friends and family suspect a loved one has got involved with a sect, they must avoid going public with their fears.

''If the cult gets wind of any publicity, it can make the member disappear. I don't mean kill them, but it may well have other branches around the country or in other parts of the world.''

The CIC recommends refraining from ridiculing the member's beliefs - he or she will have been programmed to regard outsiders with suspicion.

After re-establishing contact, friends and family can try and deprogram the member themselves, or employ a reputable exit counsellor.

''It has to be in a voluntary session - the member has to agree to counselling, even if they don't think they need it.''

Those who choose to do it themselves must exhaustively research the cult, the terms it uses, and its methods so they can talk to the member on the same wavelength.
(...)

Emphasise the difference between conversion and coercion. If a member begins to realise the powerful experience they went through was man-made, not divine, they may again start to question what they are doing.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


32. Child genius ran away to be rebel in a scarf
Sufiah Yusof's father insists she was brainwashed
The Guardian (England), July 9, 2000
http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/Archive/
Article/0,4273,4038514,00.html
[Story no longer online? Read this]
It was in March that Sufiah Yusof's parents noticed a dramatic change in her. It began with her decision to start wearing Islamic dress, including the hijab - the traditional headscarf worn as a mark of an Islamic woman's modesty. Looking back, Farooq and Halimahton Yusof now realise this was the first sign of a new life she was planning for herself - away from her family and the intense pressure of being Britain's best-known child prodigy.

When she disappeared from St Hilda's College Oxford after her third year exams on 22 June, everyone feared the worst, including her father. Now that she has reappeared, to be taken into care by Bournemouth social services, what has emerged is a picture of a politically committed student struggling to be taken seriously as a young woman, rather than the clever little girl who had previously sprung to the media's attentions.

A family photograph taken just weeks before her disappearance shows Sufiah confident with her new look - scarf, long-sleeved blouse and shawl, in contrast to the sportswear she wore until then.

'It was part of a new identity,' her father told The Observer, in the first full interview given by the family since Sufiah's disappearance. 'She began taking an active interest in politics and the Muslim world: good causes that we would probably have encouraged her to support. Unfortunately, whoever was acting as her mentor could not have known that.'

Yusof has led a chequered career. In 1992 he was jailed for three years for a £1.5 million mortgage fraud, for which his wife Halimahton received a suspended sentence. Since then he has devoted his life to developing a top-secret programme of 'accelerated learning', believing that bright children are let down by conventional education.

He has now set up his own firm to market his educational products, but everything is on hold until his best advertisement returns home.

So far, his methods have seen three of his children winning places at university to read maths at an age when most of their peers are adding the values of Pokémon cards. But clearly, his plan made no allowance for his student's growing political awareness. The discovery of her Muslim roots was part of a political awakening that saw her embrace green issues, the anti-capitalist movement, the campaign against the detention of asylum seekers and international Muslim solidarity.
(...)

Her parents are convinced that Sufiah was abducted and that her emails, sent from an internet cafe in the seaside town, were sent under duress.
(...)

Thames Valley Police have refused to confirm whether anyone is under suspicion of abducting Sufiah Yusof or whether they are looking into claims contained in an email, apparently from Sufiah, that she suffered physical abuse at home.
(...)

Anna Chen, spokeswoman for the Socialist Worker's Party, who herself ran away from home at 15, has talked to Farooq Yusof about the case. She has also made inquiries about the involvement of members of her organisation and discovered none. 'I identify with her very much. I think she sounds wonderful. I'd like to recruit her to the party myself, but we are not a cult, which brainwashes people. It sounds to me like a classic case of someone getting politicised at university.'
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


33. Officer Suspended Over Dreadlocks
AOL./AP, July 11, 2000
http://my.aol.com/news/story.tmpl?
table=n&cat=01&id=0007110837666721
[Story no longer online? Read this]
BALTIMORE (AP) - A Rastafarian police officer stripped of his badge for refusing to cut his dreadlocks is fighting the decision, claiming that cutting his hair would violate his religious beliefs.

Antoine Chambers, on the force six years, says the department's hair policy is unconstitutional, and the American Civil Liberties Union has threatened to file suit.

Police spokeswoman Ragina C. Averella said the policy applies to all uniformed officers and is intended to establish a standard, professional look.

Rastafarians wear their hair to resemble that of Haile Selassie, or Ras Tafari, the central figure of their religion. Selassie, who died in 1974, was the emperor of Ethiopia.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== Lifestyles / Sexuality

34. Episcopalians Officially Recognize Gay Couples
Los Angeles Times, July 12, 2000
http://www.latimes.com/news/asection/
20000712/t000065524.html
[Story no longer online? Read this]
DENVER--The Episcopal Church on Tuesday narrowly rejected a drive by gay rights advocates to formally bless same-sex unions, but for the first time officially acknowledged homosexual couples in the church and declared that they will be held to the same standard of love and fidelity expected of married couples.

In a church long divided over the issue of homosexuality, both traditionalists and gay rights advocates walked away from the vote at the church's triennial General Convention here able to claim at least half a victory.

At the same time, those on both sides of the controversy--which has dogged the church for decades--said the church had once again stepped back from a definitive stand that might have led to schism, or at least some parishes leaving the denomination.

The vote marked the third time in recent months that a mainline Christian denomination said no to blessing same-sex unions. Earlier this year, both the United Methodist Church and the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) took similar stands.

But the vote by Episcopalians was far closer, and priests who have been blessing such unions are expected to continue doing so.
(...)

The resolution makes clear the church expects couples--whether gay or straight--to be faithful to each other. ''We expect such relationships will be characterized by fidelity, monogamy, mutual affection and respect,'' the resolution states, adding that ''we denounce promiscuity, exploitation and abusiveness in the relationships of any of our members.''

Because of the resolution, ''the church is on official record saying that it recognizes same-sex couples are in the church. It has never said that before,'' said the Rev. J. Edwin Bacon Jr., rector of All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, where priests have long officiated at gay and lesbian unions. The resolution will lead to an escalation of same-sex blessings ''as never before,'' he predicted.

''It's not the whole enchilada, but there's enough guacamole here that I can go for it,'' added the Rev. Susan Russell, associate rector at St. Peter's Episcopal Church in San Pedro and a member of Integrity, an Episcopalian gay rights group. ''This is a huge step forward.''
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


35. Church leaders fight gay ruling
The Times (England), June 30, 2000
http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/tim/2000/06/30/timnwsnws01030.html
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Church leaders have been urged to fight a government-backed European directive that will force Christian charities and schools to employ non-believers and practising homosexuals.

Religious groups say that the directive, aimed at promoting equality, will expose faith-based organisations to infiltration by hostile campaigners. It will also mean that churches could face legal action for employing Christian staff.

Colin Hart, director of the Christian Institute, said: ''The Labour Party employs only Labour Party members. But this new government-backed Euro-directive will make it illegal for churches to employ only Christians, or for Jewish organisations to hire only Jews.''

Under the proposals, all schools run by religious organisations, whether Christian, Muslim or any other faith, will have to be willing to employ atheists and homosexuals on their teaching staffs.
(...)

The directive states that all employees or prospective employees should be given equal treatment ''irrespective of racial or ethnic origin, religion or belief, or disability, or age, or sexual orientation''.

The institute is writing to 13,000 church leaders in the UK urging them to write to the Government expressing their concerns about the directive.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]

* Proposal for a Council Directive establishing a general framework for equal
treatment in employment and occupation
http://europa.eu.int/eur-lex/en/dat/2000/ce177/ce17720000627en00420046.pdf
[Note: .pdf file]

Article 4.2:

2. Member States may provide that, in the case of public or
private organisations which pursue directly and essentially the
aim of ideological guidance in the field of religion or belief
with respect to education, information and the expression of
opinions, and for the particular occupational activities within
those organisations which are directly and essentially related to
that aim, a difference of treatment based on a relevant char-
acteristic related to religion or belief shall not constitute
discrimination where, by reason of the nature of these
activities, the characteristic constitutes a genuine occupational
qualification.

36. Out of the Fold?
TIME, July 3, 2000
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/
articles/0,3266,48094,00.html
[Story no longer online? Read this]
The debate over gay ordination and same-sex unions poses a critical choice for mainline Protestants: Embrace or schism?

It should have been a celebration of unity, but it turned into a shocking tableau of discord. Louisiana bishop Dan Solomon was presiding over the General Conference of the United Methodist Convention, a contentious but usually joyous quadrennial meeting to plot the future of America's second-largest Protestant denomination. Solomon had proved an amiable and unflappable moderator, but now his voice cracked. ''I speak to you with anguish about what is about to unfold,'' he said. ''I bury my head in prayer. I cannot witness what is about to occur.'' As 5,000 delegates looked on, Solomon's head did drop to the lectern. Minutes later, a squad of uniformed police entered from the wings of the Convention Center stage in Cleveland, Ohio, and arrested 27 gay-rights protesters, including two bishops, charging them with disrupting a lawful meeting. As the protesters filed out, many delegates, even those who had just voted three times against gay-rights proposals, watched in tears. Everyone knew the police had been at the ready and that the activists might force their hand by taking over the stage. But had it actually happened? After all, the Conference's logo is a picture of Jesus' embracing arms and the words of the Apostle Paul: WE WHO ARE MANY ARE ONE BODY.

There is hardly a religious group in America that is not beset by the issue that rent the Methodist meeting in May: the place of gay people in its pews.
(...)

But the most wrenching expression of the dilemma is playing out in the mainline, a process that will intensify this week as the Presbyterian Church (USA) convenes in Long Beach, Calif. Few expect the Southern Baptists to ordain gays or the Reform Jews to legislate against them, but the traditional liberal denominations are almost violently torn. The three proposals whose passage prompted the civil disobedience and arrests in Cleveland--bans on gay ministers and holy unions, as well as a clause stating that homosexuality is ''incompatible with Christian teaching''--prevailed by votes of roughly 2 to 1. That kind of majority is satisfying in electoral politics, but alarming in groups that regard themselves as constituting the body of Christ. Mainline Evangelicals and some gay-rights advocates have threatened to abandon their denominations, and the specter of full-blown schism looms in the future. Even in the bosom of the relatively unruffled Episcopal Church, whose representatives will meet in Denver on July 14, the issue can wreak havoc. When a Seattle-area rector told his 300-person Episcopal congregation some time ago that he was a celibate gay, 100 of them walked out.

The issue is impossible to ignore and yet maddening to be stuck on. Says a Presbyterian lesbian who has done hundreds of hours of advocacy on the issue: ''This is the church I grew up in and was nurtured in and found my faith in. I can't believe we are doing this to each other. Presbyterians don't talk a lot about [the end of the world], but when the Last Judgment comes ... surely this is not what God wants us to waste our time on.'' But she cannot let it go.

This controversy is two-sided, and its conservative participants engage it with a passion and a devotion to the Gospel that equals that on the left. Says Claire Dargill, 38, a Presbyterian from Bridgeport, Conn.: ''A sin is a sin, and you can't just change that because it's popular or politically correct. I just don't see how we can welcome gays into the church in the face of that.''
(...)

THE CHURCHES
Where They Stand Now
UNITED METHODIST CHURCH
--GAY ORDINATION: Banned, but will be defied by some congregations

--GAY-HOLY-UNION CEREMONIES: Banned, but will be defied by some congregations

--LIKELIHOOD OF SCHISM: The New England Conference is the most rebellious. Yet, save among radicals, there is little serious talk of schism

PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH (USA)
--GAY ORDINATION: Effectively banned in 1997, but a church court has allowed a gay seminarian to continue his studies

--GAY-HOLY-UNION CEREMONIES: Banned, but a church court allows commitment ceremonies as long as they are not called marriages

--LIKELIHOOD OF SCHISM: Conservatives have a ''take-a-hike'' resolution, encouraging congregations that want to ordain and marry gays to leave, allowing them to take funds and church property

EPISCOPAL CHURCH
--GAY ORDINATION: Openly gay priests and cathedral deans

--GAY-HOLY-UNION CEREMONIES: Has refrained from coming up with a specific liturgy, but many ministers perform unions

--LIKELIHOOD OF SCHISM: The American church is at odds with its parent Anglican Church. Bishops from around the world voted against gay marriage and ordination and declared that active homosexuality is ''incompatible with Scripture.'' However, the statement was advisory
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=== Noted

37. Luck Be a Stone Lion
TIME, July 3, 2000
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/
articles/0,3266,48087,00.html
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Feng shui, once considered a New Age fad, is now being embraced by Big Business and bureaucrats

Whenever Mitch Lansdell, manager of the Los Angeles suburb of Gardena, has an important phone call, he swivels his chair to face the northeastern corner of his office. He has permanently sealed one of his office doors and put all his books in the southeastern corner. It's not tidiness. It's the instructions of ''intercultural consultant'' Angi Ma Wong, a practitioner of feng shui, the Chinese tradition that says success is largely a matter of orienting your surroundings.

Think it's bizarre that a person responsible for the civic welfare of 59,000 residents should so slavishly follow an ancient foreign tradition? Lansdell, 51, says he dares not do otherwise. The city faced a $4.7 million budget deficit back in 1998 when Lansdell, then acting manager, agreed in desperation to try a feng shui (pronounced fung shway) practitioner. It could be coincidence, but within three weeks of her visit, Lansdell was promoted to full-time manager of Gardena, whose economy then got a boost when Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt bought a bankrupt casino there. This month Lansdell expects Gardena's deficit to decrease to $2.9 million.

Feng shui has not only arrived; it has burrowed deep into American society. A decade ago, its followers were mostly Asian Americans, New Age junkies and flaky Hollywood or fashion types. Now bureaucrats and bottom-line-driven businessmen are embracing it. Ma Wong's clients include 65 real estate developers as well as Universal Studios and Coty Beauty, the fragrance concern. Real estate tycoon Donald Trump uses feng shui, as does the brokerage house Merrill Lynch.

In New York City, the most popular items at the gift shop of the Whitney Museum of American Art during this year's biennial exhibit were stone lions, at $500 to $1,000 a pop, made by New York-based Chinese artist Cai Guo-Qiang. Prospective purchasers had to submit applications explaining their feng shui problems. After considering each request, Cai decided who needed a lion most and then personally installed it. Many buyers were art collectors, but others included Deutsche Bank and the managing director of a venture-capital firm, whose lion is meant to compensate for his office's proximity to a church.

Feng shui, for those who have somehow missed its myriad references in pop culture, means wind and water in Chinese. The 3,500-year-old system, once used only by China's Emperor, is based on the idea that landscapes, buildings and even whole cities have hidden zones of energy (qi), which can be manipulated by the shape, size and color of a structure as well as its entrances. A building that allows qi to flow freely is said to have good feng shui, which brings prosperity and success.

Hollywood, of course, is feng shui ground zero.
(...)

Orville Schell, the noted sinologist based in Berkeley, Calif., attributes the current fascination with feng shui to ''a nostalgia for the spiritual, even occult side of things.'' Westerners, he says, have long had the ''urge to give part of ourselves to a way of living in which belief rather than rationalism reigns.'' And any belief system that gets people to tidy their offices can't be all bad.
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=== Books

38. 'Potter' author is a quite a wizard herself
The San Diego Union-Tribune, July 10, 2000
http://beta.yellowbrix.com/pages/newsreal/
Story.nsp?story_id=11970999&ID=newsreal
&scategory=AP+Top+Headlines
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(...) Rowling's transformation from struggling single mother to best- selling author is well-known, and the 34-year-old's star is still ascending.
(...)

Each book is longer than the previous one. And three volumes of the saga are yet to be written.
(...)

Much of the Potter appeal lies with the cast of characters, from the lovable giant Hagrid and his baby dragon Norbert to the faceless guards of Azkaban Prison, who suck the souls out of their victims with the ''Dementors' Kiss'' and chill the very air in which they move.

These magic characters -- and the ordinary Muggles who dwell in the parallel universe of life as we know it -- were not thought up in any methodical way, Rowling explains.

''They normally come fully formed. Harry came very fully formed. I knew he was a wizard and he didn't know he was a wizard. And then it was a process of working backwards to find out how that could be, and forwards to find out what happened next.''

The writing is still fun, but the latest adventure was ''an absolute killer,'' she says, especially toward the end of the year it took to write.

''I had to be sure that that book was right because it's the central book of the seven and it's very important in plot terms . . . But it was an awful lot of work,'' she says. ''Now that I've finished, it's my favorite. It won't be to some.''

Her works are not without controversy. Some parents have objected to frightening passages in previous books and to the subject of witchcraft.

Rowling says she had no wish at all to upset children but she does want to write the story her way. ''I have good reason for doing it. There are certain things I want to explore and if it's the last thing I do, I will not be knocked off course.''

It's a safe bet most readers like the course she's on. Initial U.S. and British print runs of the new book total 5.3 million copies.
(...)

Rowling's respect and affection for children is almost tangible, and there is no mystery to her connection with them. But the adult readership might be harder to explain.

''I've always felt that a good book is a good book . . . I never felt there was a big gulf between children's and adults' literature,'' she says.

Nor did she write with any plan to teach moral lessons.

''I write for myself. I did not write for imaginary children: 'What would they need to learn now?'''
(...)

Rowling also feels strongly about the witchcraft controversy that led to some schools banning her books from class.

''I truly am bemused that anyone who has read the books could think that I am a proponent of the occult in any serious way,'' she says. ''I don't believe in witchcraft, in the sense that they're talking about, at all.

''I'm certainly not a witch myself,'' she says with a laugh, ''and you would be surprised how many otherwise intelligent people have asked me that question.''

She disagrees that witchcraft is off-limits in children's books.

''I think it's a source of great fun, drama. Magic is going to be a theme of children's literature as long as the human race exists,'' she says.

What bothered her most was not that parents disapproved of their own children reading the books, ''but that they tried to censor them . . . and I am vehemently opposed to that.''
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