2. Obituary: Theodore Shackley 1927-2002 ‘Blond ghost’ led Cold War army of spies, assassins by John Lantigua West Palm Beach, Fla.

Globe & Mail, Dec. 19, 2002: U.S. role in deaths alleged - American soldiers watched massacre of Taliban captives without interfering, documetary says by Erik Kirschbaun, Berlin - Scottish filmmaker Jamie Doran said yesterday that he hopes a documentary about an alleged massacre of Taliban prisoners of war last year will lead U.S. authorities to investigate the possible involvement of American soldiers. (4-columns, illustrated)

Jane’s Intelligence Digest 13 Dec. 2002 Intelligence Pointers:
Afghanistan’s return to prominence as a major producer of opium for the illegal narcotic industry is continuing apace, despite the massive international presence in the country since the ousting of the Taliban regime. The latest estimates from the UN Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention indicate that the total harvest for 2002 will be 3,400 tonnes – compared to just 185 tonnes in 2001 when the Taliban had issued an edict banning cultivation of the poppy crop. According to the UN more than 75,000 hectares of opium poppies have been planted this year, primarily in those regions where the authority of the Kabul government is challenged by local warlords. The UN estimates the current price of one kilogram of opium at US$350, meaning that the total value of the 2002 crop is likely to reach $1.2bn. As the US Department of Defense has stated, US-led coalition troops have no remit to destroy the crop or prevent opium production.

COMMENT: This reveals much about the whole operation right from the first plans!

Globe & Mail, Dec. 21, 2002: Two Headings -
1. Christmas carols disappear from school concerts
Multicultural classrooms spur many teachers, Jan Wong finds, to opt for a silent night.

2. Schools can’t ban gay books, court rules.

COMMENT: These two headings tell it all! Rebellion against God’s Law is "in."

The Weekly Telegraph No. 595, Dec. 18-24, 2002:
1. Christian message not taught
- THEY CAN just about remember that Christmas celebrates the birth of Jesus, but almost half of Britain’s 12-year-olds are so ignorant of basic Christian teaching that they are unaware that Easter celebrates the Resurrection, according to a new study. Some of those polled believed that Jesus was the son of Joseph, not God, or that he could fly like Super-man. Six per cent did not believe he had ever existed.

2. Tunnel under Stonehenge
- THE Government announced a 1.3 mile bored tunnel will be built to contain the A303 past Stonehenge, leaving the archaeology undisturbed. It will cost £183 million, £23 million more that the cut-and-cover tunnel favoured by the Government, but not the National trust, since 1998.

3. EU throws open door to big expansion But some applicants feel resentment at Europe’s bold new venture, report Ambrose Evans-Prichard and Toby Helm in Copenhagen
[Summary: Lead heading covers four subsidiary articles which cover a full page, accompanied by a map.]

4. BC and AD dates are consigned to history by David Sapsted
A BRIGHTON secondary school has banned pupils from using BC and AD when writing dates because they are deemed unsuitable in a multi-faith society. Parents of pupils at the Dorothy stringer School were baffled when they found their children writing BCE for dates about Stonehenge. The state school which has only a few children from ethnic minorities admitted it had replaced Before Christ and Anno Domini, which have been in use since the 16th century, with BCE Before Common Era - and CE.
Philip and Anne Long, whose 11-year-old son Alex is in his first year at the 1,600-pupil school, said they were "astonished" by the change. Mr. Long said: "Why change a term that is universally used and accepted to describe a particular period? What does ‘Common Era’ mean?" John Thorne, the school’s deputy headmaster, defended the new terms. He said they had been around for years. "They are approved international terms for dates and are in the official GCSE glossary of terms for religious education. "It is not the job of the school to lead a pupil towards a particular faith: we teach about religion, not just one religion. I am sure we are not the only school to use these terms."

The Weekly Telegraph No. 596, Dec. 25-31, 2002:
1. Minorities are proud to be British by Sarah Womack
MOST people living in Britain (50%) no longer regard themselves as "British", a study says. People said they were English, Scottish, Irish or Welsh rather than British, according to the Living in Britain General Household Survey of 15,000 adults. The opposite is true however, of ethnic minorities. Nearly two thirds of black and Asian people used the term "British" to describe their nationality.

[Brief: Scots least likely to use the term "British" (27%), followed by the Welsh (35%), England (48%). - Ethnic minorities (57%). (Plus Editorial.)]

2. One in four clerics doubts Virgin Birth (2 columns and Editorial.)

Year-Enders: Globe & Mail Dec. 26, 2002 - Queen’s message summary headed "Queen’s message illuminates her beliefs", and "Jubilee evoked sense of belonging, Queen says." CP with a report from The New York Times

G&M Dec. 27, 2002: 1. Lottery player has green Christmas - West Virginia man wins $314.9-million, plans to give 10 per cent to his church. (5-columns)

2. Newspaper paints harrowing picture of CIA’s tactics by Suzanne Goldenberg WASHINGTON
The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency has used "stress and duress" techniques on al-Qaeda suspects held at secret overseas detention centres, as well as contracting out their interrogation to foreign-intelligence agencies known to use torture routinely a report published yesterday says. The Washington Post story paints a harrowing picture of the procedures for extracting information from terrorism suspects at such centres as Diego Garcia, the Indian Ocean island leased from Britain, and Bagram, the large U.S. air base in Afghanistan. Inmates at Bagram are kept in painful positions for hours, hooded or made to wear opaque goggles, or bombarded with light, the report says. However, other detainees have faced far worse for not co-operating; being out-sourced to other intelligence services that have no compunction about torture. The Post suggested there has been a sweeping change in U.S. policy on torture since the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington on Sept. 11, 2001. (2 columns follow, mentioning deep concern by human rights groups, and refusal to comment by the CIA.)

National Council for Geographic Education, Journal of Geography Nov./Dec. 2002, Vol. 101 No. 6, pp. 261-270 - Understanding Narratives of Nationhood: Film-makers and Culloden by John R. Gold and Margaret M. Gold
[From the Abstract: "Film audiences have long been invited to view Scotland and Scottish life through a historic lens. Influenced by the pre-existing literary traditions of tartanry and kailyard, film-makers have focused nostalgically on the myths and legends of the highlands and pre-industrial Scotland, with the implications that this approach has for representations of the country and its people.
This paper describes a classroom exercise entitled "Tales of the Forty-Five" that explores expressions of this idea in cinematic representations of place. It does so by taking three films that depict the battle of Culloden Moor:
Bonnie Prince Charlie (1948), Culloden (1964) and Chasing the Deer (1994). " (Students were asked to compare the three films with regard to their variance in depicting Culloden as "landscape of regret", killing field" and "site of internecine struggle" Questions are asked about the future of such representation of place given the new political realities of post-devolution Scotland and about further pedagogic uses of film.)]
[Briefly: To compare how the different ways that these three films depict the same historic battle could perhaps influence current thinking in Scotland.]

Annals of the Association of American Geographers Vol. 92, No. 4, 2002, pp. 727-742: Missionaries and Morals: Climatic Discourse in Nineteenth-Century Central Southern Africa by Georgina H. Endfield and David J. Nash
The letters, personal papers, and journals written by British missionaries based at mission stations within and around the Kalahari region of central southern Africa in the nineteenth century provide an invaluable insight into time- and place-specific interactions with local cultures and environments.
[Summary: Main source of information is unpublished items of correspondence written to the London Missionary Society (LMS) headquarters in London by various missionaries based at central southern African mission stations. The material analyzed spans the period from 1817 to 1900 and is held in the Council for World Mission (CWM) archives, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. Over 1850 individual letters, accounts, and end-of-year station reports were consulted. Examples included are: teaching which related drought to moral degradation while local populations had their own "environmental religion," and irrigation projects used to assert ideological control as a route towards moral redemption.]

The Weekly Telegraph No. 597, Jan. 1-7, 2003:
1. Churchill’s war bunker set to open its doors, Wartime leader’s suite to benefit from £7 million restoration, reports David Millward
A SUBTERRANEAN suite of rooms used by Winston Churchill and his closest wartime advisers is to be opened to the public next year.

2. Westminster Hall plan sparks anger by Benedict Brogan WESTMINSTER HALL, one of the wonders of English medieval architecture, could be turned into a futuristic visitor centre with plasma screens and moving walkways. MP’s have expressed horror at a scheme being advocated by the Leader of the Commons, Robin Cook, that is supposed to give tourists a better understanding of how Parliament works… .

3. Scandal of Africa’s Aids drugs resold on British black market by Rajeev Syal
MEDICINES provided cheaply to treat Aids patients in Africa are being smuggled back into Britain and sold for profit on the black market, The Sunday Telegraph has revealed.

4. Red Cross suffers fall in gifts
THE BRITISH Red Cross is facing a sharp fall in donations from an angry public after it banned nativity scenes from its shop windows. The charity has been inundated with complaints over its decision to bar religious displays from its 430 high street shops over Christmas because they might undermine its traditional neutrality.

5. Alarm at GM contamination
GENES from GM crops are cross-pollinating with other crops and weeds, a Government report has found. Evidence of the contamination between engineered oilseed rape and non-GM plants follows a six-year research programme. Friends of the Earth said the results highlighted the potential threat of "superweeds" in the countryside. Existing isolation requirements for GM crops could be reviewed following the publication of the results, said a summary on the website of the Department for the Environment, food and rural affairs.