The following items were printed in the April, 2003 issue of The Prophetic Expositor:

Please write for further details of any items of particular interest.

Scientific American Vol. 288 No. 3 March, 2003:
Sizing Up Evangelicals by Rodger Doyle - p. 37:
Fundamentalism Persists But Shows Signs of Moderation - Fundamentalism represents more than a continuation of traditional religion, it is also a transformation of old religious attitudes that arose in reaction to modernity and, in particular, Darwinism and progressive Protestantism. Its most prominent feature - the doctrine of biblical inerrancy - was a creation not of the 16th-century Reformation but of 19th-century Princeton University theologians attempting to preserve traditional belief in divine origins. Unlike the Calvinist tradition from which it grew, American fundamentalism is unsympathetic to science. After the Scopes "monkey trial" of 1925, it entered a quiescent period, reawakening in the 1960s and 1970s as a reaction to feminism and events such as the U.S. Supreme Court's 1963 decision banning prayer in public schools and its 1973 decision overturning laws against abortion in 46 states. In the U.S., fundamentalism is one of several strains of evangelistic religion, which also includes charismatics and Pentecostals.
[Brief: The full-page article displays a graph of these various themes: Bible prayer in school, Proselytizing, Born again, Biblical inerrancy and core evangelicalism in the U.S. as a percent of all adults, from 1970 to 2005. Also include is a side-column: "Defining Evangelicals" and "Further Reading."]

Globe & Mail, March 1, 2003: Swords buried in a stone:
A mysterious sandstone tablet discovered in Jerusalem could validate the Israelis' claim to being the rightful owners of the Temple Mount. Or it could be a forgery meant to disprove it. Michael Posner and Simcha Jacobovici investigate.
Where it came from is a complete mystery. How it was found has not been disclosed. Its still-unidentified owner is hiding carefully in the shadows. And the artifact itself has been examined by only a small number of experts. Nevertheless, a three-inch-thick, charred-sandstone tablet, inscribed in an unusual mix of four ancient scripts, has shaken the normally placid world of biblical archaeology... .
[Brief: An interesting 6-column, illustrated article. Scholars are divided over the stone's authenticity; specialists in inscription and language, and scientists at the Geological Survey of Israel debate over the 11-inch-long stone, which bears the name of King Jehoash, a monarch of the ninth century BC. Forgery or genuine? The difference could sustain or cloud Israeli claims to Temple Mount.]
COMMENT: Actually, the claim might fail in any event as the site of Temple Mount was purchased by King David, whose continuing royal lineage must hold prior claim.

The Weekly Telegraph, No. 605, Feb. 26-March 4, 2003:
1. Obituary - Isser Harel - Israeli spymaster who helped found Mossad and engineered the abduction of Eichmann from Argentina. [Brief: 5-columns illustrated.]

2. Obituary - Lord Wilberforce - Former senior Lord of Appeal, d. at 95. Brought up in India. Kind, modest and humorous, he was the great-great grandson of anti-slavery campaigner William Wilberforce, and great grandson of Samuel Wilberforce, Bishop of Winchester.

3. Obituary - Baroness Eugene de Rothschild - Actress whose name was linked with James Stewart before she married a Rothschild. [Brief: 4-column illustrated.]

4. Britons may face extradition for internet 'thought crime' by Philip Johnston Home Affairs Editor -
British citizens will be extradited for what critics have called a "thought crime" under a new European arrest warrant, the Government has conceded. Campaigners fear they could face trial for broadcasting "xenophobic or racist" remarks - such as denying the Holocaust - on an internet chatroom in another country. The Government has undertaken that if such "offences" take place in Britain the perpetrators would not be extradited. But it will be for the courts to decide the location of the crime. This opens up the prospect of a judge agreeing to extradite someone whose observations, though made in Britain, were broadcast exclusively in a country where they constituted a crime.
Legislation now before Parliament will make "xenophobia and racism" one of 32 crimes for which the European arrest warrant can be issued without the existing safeguard of dual criminality.
This requires that an extraditable offence must also be a crime in Britain. Alongside the arrest warrant EU ministers are negotiating a directive to establish a common set of offences to criminalise zenophobia and racism.
Countries such as Germany and Austria have crimes such as denying the Holocaust which have no equivalent in Britain. Under existing laws if a British citizen committed this offence in Germany and returned home he could not be extradited.
Holocaust denial laws are in place in seven EU countries but they would be a big departure for Britain, where a risk of fomenting public disorder is needed before a thought becomes a crime.
A German historian who claimed that Auschwitz prisoners enjoyed cinemas, a swimming pool and brothels was sentenced to 10 months in jail.
Lord Filkin, a Home Office minister, has insisted that no one would be extradited for "conduct which has occurred here and which is legal here".
But, asked by MPs whether comments originating in Britain but carried abroad on television or through an internet chatroom would be extraditable, he said: "It will be for the courts to decide."

Science, American Assoc. for the Advancement of Science, Vol. 299 No. 5611, 28 February 2003 - ScienceScope: -
Court ruling leaves Kennewick Man in Limbo - Scientists seeking to study the 9300-year-old bones of Kennewick Man suffered another setback last week when a federal appeals court ruled that they must wait for a hearing by a three-judge panel. The scientists, who have been battling for access to the remains since they were discovered in the U.S. Northwest in 1996, got the go-ahead last August from a federal district court in Portland Oregon. ... But Indian tribes, claiming a right to re-bury the bones, promptly sued again to put the study on hold... . - Constance Holden

Globe & Mail, March 8, 2003
1. - Travel: Ethiopia's hidden masterpieces -
Eastern Tigray, the country's northernmost province, contains more than 100 rock-hewn churches. To step into their dim light and riot of frescoes makes it worth the hard journey to get there. By Pól ó Conghaile, Mekele, Ethiopia:
[Brief: 6-columns, illustrated. Until 1966, only 9 of more than 100 church masterpieces were known to the West. Ethiopia's Christian traditions go back to the 4th century.
(Sample quote: "The rock-hewn churches of Tigray are less famous than their cousins in Lalibela, but the journey, the process of discovery added intrigue. We were, after all, drinking litres of water a day simply to exist in this heat. After doing battle with the sun, the eyes must suddenly adjust to a subtler, dimmer light. A soft riot of frescoes materialized around us, conjuring up a history of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. The workmanship was precise, the stone cool and stoic, the air smacking of sanctity. In the near distance, a priest mumbled in Amharic. We were inside a rock, a chamber, six metres high. At another church, that of Abraha and Atsbeha, named after the twin kings during whose reign Christianity became the state religion, the pillars are said to have dripped with honey and milk. We were told the kings' bodies have rested there since the fourth century and that the last priest who tried to access the mummies burned his hands. Around Ethiopia's Christian tradition is a geyser of myths, legends and treasure, gold and silver crosses, ancient Sabean manuscripts.")]

2. Bush imposes sanctions against Mugabe, 76 aides - Washington.
U.S. President George W. bush has frozen the assets of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and 76 other government officials, charging they have undermined the African nation's democracy, the White House said yesterday. The executive order freezes their U.S. assets, if any, and bars residents of the United States from engaging in any transaction with the individuals named. "Mugabe's policies constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to ... the United States, and I hereby declare a national emergency to deal with that threat," Mr. Bush said. AFP

Globe & Mail, March 11, 2003: Obituary: Ninian Brodie, 90 - Scottish clan chief divided the Brodies. Elgin, Scotland.
Ninian Brodie, the laird who caused a split in his clan when he sold their castle, died March 3. He was 90. Mr. Brodie was chief of clan Brodie and 25th laird, a Scottish dignitary title, descended from a Scottish nobleman who was granted Highland land by King Malcolm IV in the 12th century. Born in Brodie Castle near Inverness, Mr. Brodie inherited the title after his two older brothers died. The Brodie family - whose family motto was "Unite" - lived at Brodie for almost eight centuries until the 25th laird sold the castle and more than 170 acres in 1978 to the National trust for Scotland. The deal allowed Mr. Brodie to retain an apartment on the estate. After an extensive restoration, the castle reopened in 1980. Mr. Brodie's son Alastair becomes the 26th clan chief. AP
[Also in The Weekly Telegraph No. 608, March 19-25, 2003]

Globe & Mail, March 12, 2003: Canada to probe old anthrax experiments -
Allies researched biological weapons in southern Alberta during '40s, '50s, recent reports say - by Graeme Smith
After decades of denying that anthrax was used on Canadian soil, the Defence Department has asked a university professor to re-examine its history of experimenting with the deadly spores. The project will not be a purely academic exercise, according to contract documents published on a Web site yesterday: The government needs to know what happened during secret experiments of the 1940s and 1950s by Canadian, U.S. and British researchers because any remaining bioweapons material could be dangerous. "In light of the persistent nature of the anthrax spore, it is highly desirable that a concerted effort be made to determine the extent of Canadian participation in this project," the document states. The Defence Department said that its records do not show that anthrax was used in weapons tests, but reports to the contrary have spurred it to action.
[Brief: The 6-column, illustrated article mentions worries about what might have been done in secret by the British at Canadian Forces Base Suffield, in southern Alberta, under the urging of Britain's Prime Minister, Winston Churchill. Documents indicate that British scientists, during the Second World War tested experimental anthrax munitions at Suffield without the knowledge of their Canadian hosts. The anthrax spores might last for 100 or 200 years or more.]

The Weekly Telegraph No. 606, March 5-11, 2003:
1. - Obituary: Liliane de Rothschild.
LILIANE DE ROTHSCHILD, the baroness Elie de Rothschild, who has died aged 86, was once said by her husband to be plus Rothschild que les Rothschilds; and it was true that she knew far more about his kinsmen than did he or most other members of the family, and that she was extremely knowledgeable about their extensive possessions, especially the works of art. Clever, sensible, resilient and humorous, Liliane de Rothschild had a good eye for pictures and a flair for design. When, in 1967, the old premises of the family bank in Paris, de Rothschild Frères, at 19 rue Laffitte, were demolished to make way for a modern, concrete structure, it was she, in collaboration with Michel Boyer, who supervised the interior decoration. She was also a guiding light in the decoration of the hotels and restaurants established by the French Rothschilds' enterprise PLM. She married the Baron in 1942. He and two daughters survive her.

2. Medieval shop found -
BUILDERS renovating an old pharmacy have stumbled across the oldest shop in England. Hidden behind the Victorian façade in Berkhamsted high street, Herts, were wattle and daub walls and ancient timbers dating from the late 13th century. Simon Thurley, chief executive of English Heritage, which has given the owners a £250,000 repair grant, said: "This is an amazing discovery. It gives us an extraordinary insight into how the high street would have looked in medieval times."

3. ExpatLiving - Keeping up Stephanie's good work -
After their daughter died in Thailand, Steve and Beryl Lee learnt how much she had been loved by the refugees she worked among - and decided they must keep her projects alive. Alex Spillius reports.
[Brief: 6 column illustrated article describes the impact that the life of one girl has had among the Karenni people. "The Lees' lives were turned upside down when their 21-year-old daughter, Stephanie, was killed in a motorcycle crash in northern Thailand in November 2001. The accident happened near a camp where Stephanie taught English to Karenni refugees who had been driven out of their homeland by Burma's military regime. ... When she died, 4,000 people attended Stephanie's funeral in Thailand. She was buried on a sacred mountainside reserved for prominent members of the Karenni community and virtually canonised." The Lee family, her parents and brother have taken up the continuance of her work. (The Karenni Student Development Progamme can be contacted at Laceby Manor, Lacey, NE Lincs, DN37 7EA. Tel Int. 44 1472 872 217, e-mail ksdp.uk@lineone.net)]

The Weekly Telegraph No. 607, March 12-18, 2003: - Bishops urge Queen to honour Catholics by Tom Peterkin -
AN INQUIRY into why members of the Catholic Church appear to have been excluded from the Order of the Thistle - the ancient order signifying the highest honour the Queen can bestow on her subjects in Scotland - was demanded by Catholic bishops last week. The Church believes the omission makes the royal Household vulnerable to accusations of bigotry and is hampering initiatives to wipe out sectarianism north of the border. The Bishops' Conference, the body representing the eight Scottish dioceses, has said it will write to the Queen to ask why a Catholic has yet to be appointed during her reign. The demands followed remarks by the pope that Scotland could no longer be regarded as a Christian society. During a visit by Scottish bishops to the Vatican last week, the Pope said the media and entertainment industries were responsible for "moral relativism and religious indifferentism" in Scotland.

Globe & Mail, March 14, 2003: U.S. Senate votes to ban 'partial-birth' abortion by Carl Hulse, WASHINGTON
After an emotional and caustic debate over abortion rights, the U.S. Senate voted overwhelmingly yesterday to ban a highly disputed procedure that its critics call partial-birth abortion. [Brief: 2-columns. The procedure involved "is one in which a doctor partially delivers a living fetus until much of its body 'is outside the body of the mother' and then 'performs the overt act, other than completion of delivery, that kills the partially delivered fetus'."] New York Times Service

Globe & Mail, March 17, 2003: Discovery sheds light on prehistoric burials -
Bones unearthed off Scotland suggest ancient Europeans mummified their dead - by David Keys, LONDON -
sensational archeological discoveries are revealing that prehistoric Europeans developed the art of mummification independently from the ancient Egyptians.
The skeletal remains of two mummies, buried under the earthen floor of a 3,000-year-old house have been unearthed by archeologists excavating on an island off the west coast of Scotland.
Led by Dr. Mike Parker Pearson of England's Sheffield University, archeologists realized there was something very unusual about the skeletons after tests revealed that the two individuals had died as much as 500 years before burial.
Although only the skeletons survive, detailed forensic tests have revealed that the individuals were mummified using peat as a preservation agent. It appears that the bodies were placed in a peat bog for six to 18 months - tanning the skin and sinews without completely demineralizing the bones.
The discovery, made on the island of South Uist in Scotland's Outer Hebrides, marks the first evidence that some prehistoric Europeans mummified their dead.
The Egyptians developed their mummification process about 1,500 years earlier, but they relied heavily on local materials, including salts, and there is no evidence the process was used in the regions between the two places.
"The discovery is likely to redefine key aspects of life and death in prehistoric society. It suggests that ancestors were even more central to ancient belief systems than we had previously thought. We had never expected to find evidence for mummification in prehistoric Europe. This find is therefore a complete revelation," Dr. Parker Pearson said.
The revelations may help solve the mystery as to what happened to the corpses of Bronze Age Britons. Funerary evidence of only a few has been found.
The older of the two mummies, a man, died in 1,500 BC, while the second, a woman, died about two centuries later. The evidence suggests that they were kept above ground, possibly in some sort of mummy house, until being buried about 1,000 BC.
Three pieces of scientific evidence lead archeologists to conclude that the two individuals were originally mummified:
- Because they had been buried in a 100-per-cent anatomically correct condition hundreds of years after they had died indicated that something, presumably skin and sinews, had kept the skeletons from falling apart.
- Results of tests on the bones strongly suggest that the bodies had been placed in a peat bog for a number of months. The tests reveal that the outer few millimetres of bone had been demineralized - an effect likely caused by temporary immersion in a peat bog.
- Further tests suggest that bacterial attack within the body was halted shortly after death. Normally, stomach bacteria literally devour the corpse and attack the bones, but in the case of these bodies, bacterial attack was abruptly terminated before it could do major damage.
The bodies were mummified in an ultraflexed condition - exactly like some Inca mummies - and were almost certainly tightly bound or wrapped at some stage after death. The procedure may have enabled the mummified corpses to be carried more easily. In some ancient cultures, such as the Incas, highly flexed, wrapped mummies were put on parade.
The two South Uist mummies were buried beneath a bronze Age house that formed part of a mysterious settlement that apparently also was used for ritual activities. Special to the Globe and Mail

The Weekly Telegraph No. 608, March 19-25, 2003:
1. - Devil of a row for new president -
THE Lithuanian Roman Catholic Church has accused the country's new president of making a pact with the Devil after he brought an astrologer into his inner circle to advise him on how to run the tiny Baltic republic. Rolandas Paksas, a former stunt pilot, was sworn in last month. Since then, Lena Lolishvili, a Georgian who claims to be able to see the future and cure illnesses with her psychic powers, has caused outrage as her influence over government has spread.
2. Lawyers split over the right to use force by Joshua Rozenberg Legal Editor in The Hague -
LEGAL opinion is divided on whether the United States and its allies can rely on the principle of anticipatory self-defence to justify military action against Iraq in the absence of a fresh United Nations resolution. [Brief: 4 columns review the question having regard to U.N. resolutions and established principles of justice.]

Science, American Assoc. for the Advancement of Science, Vol. 299 No. 5613, 14 March 2003: -
Archaeology - Impending War, Dam Hinder Iraqi Preservation Efforts -
The looming conflict in Iraq is hurting attempts to rescue more than 60 important archaeological sites, including the spiritual center of the ancient Assyrians. [Brief: the two-page article draws detailed and serious scientific concerns to the attention of authorities involved regarding the impending catastrophe that hovers over the land of Iraq.]
COMMENT: In light of most recent news out of that land, this and other similar warnings were obviously either ignored by design or by incompetence by those well-equipped in high-tech. arms but whose dispositions seem horrifyingly inadequate in hindsight.

Science, American Assoc. for the Advancement of Science, Vol. 299 No. 5615, 28 March 2003:
1. Bracing for Gulf War Syndrome II - by Martin Enserink - pp. 1966-1967 -
COMMENT: The two-page article scans the horizon in every direction sifting possible causal agents for the problem - except one. We wonder why, after spending almost a quarter of a billion dollars on hundreds of research projects, they have apparently ignored the effects of desert heat on a popular soft-drink sweetener!

2. U.N. Inspections Find Wisps of Smoke But No Smoking Gun - by Richard Stone - pp. 1967-1969
[Brief: An account of the U.N. inspection teams and process of search in the 1990's and again just prior to War.]
COMMENT: The course of events overtakes our words, but at the time of writing, the generally prevailing admission is that no weapons of mass destruction (the primary casus belli put forward by the attackers) had been discovered!

Postscript to the Web Page, not included in The Prophetic Expositor:
Regarding breaking news reports of discovery by Americans of brown mobile units with laboratory equipment recently publicised, we ought to raise a question:
Do not all modern armies, conscious of the possible threat of chemical or biological weapons attack by opposing armed forces maintain such mobile field equipment? It seems entirely possible that an Iraqi army, knowing (a) that they faced British armed forces, and knowing (b) that the British, in 1920, used poison gas to suppress Kurdish and Marsh-Arab insurrections against the newly-imposed British regime of that day, would be extremely negligent if it did not attempt to secure or create such field laboratory vehicles to alert their troops against being assailed by some similar form of attack. Just asking!