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

[As this is the December issue, our excerpts will necessarily be more constricted.]
Please write for further details of any items of particular interest.
Science, Journal of The American Association for the Advancement of Science, Vol. 302, No. 5646, 31 October, 2003, p.862-
Origin and Migration of the Alpine Iceman

Science, Journal of The American Association for the Advancement of Science, Vol. 302, No. 5647, 7 November, 2003, pp. 970-979 News Focus: Iran Reopens Its Past.

Time, December 1, 2003, Vol. 162, No. 22 (Canadian Edn.) pp. 12-19 -
The Polarizing President - Why do Americans either adore Bush or loathe him - and what does it mean for 2004?

The Canadian Geographer Vol. 47 No 3, Autumn 2003:
Special Thematic Research Papers focus on "Canadian-Asian Transnationalism"
COMMENT: we might give the general thrust of this issue of the Journal (approximately 366 pages) as "Study of Asian moves to Canada"!

Jane's Intelligence Digest, 31 October, 2003: -
"Iraq: a war without intelligence" heads a lead article, of which we quote the opening sentence: "As the security situation in Iraq deteriorates daily, serious questions need to be asked about the shortcomings in the standard of intelligence gathering both in the USA and the UK."

Médecins Sans Frontières:
In its appeal letter for November, 2003, Médecins Sans Frontières includes some small question and answer cards. They indicate that in the present world there are "13 million refugees and 25 million internally displaced Persons (IDPs), the majority living in temporary shelters around the world. Also mentioned is the fact that "almost one million children worldwide die of measles each year. Treatable diseases like measles, respiratory infections, diarrhea and malaria cause up to 90% of the refugee deaths."

Globe & Mail, October 9, 2003:
1. Tug of war continues over Elgin Marbles by Fiachra Gibbons, Maev Kennedy and David Hencke, LONDON. The British Museum on Tuesday issued its most stinging rejection yet of Greek pleas for the return of the Parthenon marbles... .
2. Whale deaths linked to the bends, by Anne McIlroy, Science Reporter: Vital organs full of gas bubbles (Brief: Military sonar drives whales to surface too fast, thus causing decompression sickness, and frequent deaths.)

Globe & Mail, October 11, 2003, WASHINGTON:
Red Cross denounces Guantanamo detentions. (Brief: Denounced are indefinite detentions. Mental health is damaged.)

Globe & Mail, October 14, 2003,
1. Historic photo archive available on the Web - Images date from the Boer War to D-Day. Access at www.britishpathe.com .
2. Canada, U.S. cultivate plant that may detect land mines, by Steve Lambert (Brief: Canada and U.S. militaries are developing a new weapon in the war against land mines - genetically modified plants. Explosive soil chemicals would change plant colour.)

Globe & Mail, October 17, 2003:
1. Amish want U.S. labour laws for teenagers relaxed.
(Brief: Amish youth must learn to work around powerful woodworking machines as part of their culture.)
2. Jews rule world Malaysian PM says by Timothy Appleby: Mahathir under fire after telling Muslim leaders to unite, peacefully, against Jewish domination.

Globe & Mail, October 25, 2003:
We found two Book Reviews for these books interesting: "Canada: A Portrait in Letters 1800-2000", and "The Book of War Letters: 100 Years of Private Canadian Correspondence"

The Weekly Telegraph, No. 637, October 8-14, 2003:
1. 'Largest mosque' opens in Surrey by Jonathan Petre, Religion Correspondent:
MEMBERS of the Ahmadi community have inaugurated what they describe as the largest mosque complex in western Europe, able to accommodate 10,000 worshippers. Cost £15 million.
2. Calvi's son 'pleased' at murder inquiry by James Moore:
(Brief: Calvi was the banker with close ties to the Vatican, who was found hanged under Blackfriars Bridge 21 years ago.)

The Weekly Telegraph, No. 638, October 15-21, 2003:
Israeli submarine fleet 'can now launch nuclear weapons' by David Blair in Jerusalem. Israel has acquired the capacity of launching a nuclear strike from submarines according to reports. (Brief: land, sea and air can now all be used.)

The Weekly Telegraph, No. 639, October 22-28, 2003:
1. Mystery of book lost for 400 years by Nick Britten: (Brief: An unrecorded Elizabethan book detailing the basics of the Christian faith has been found discarded behind oak panelling at a country estate where it is likely to have lain undiscovered for 400 years.
2. No EU poll despite fears by the Queen (pp. 1 & 2). Blair refused furious MPs'.demands.
3. NZ withdraws from Privy Council, cuts one of final constitutional ties with Britain.

The Weekly Telegraph, No. 640, Oct. 29-Nov. 4, 2003:
1. Unearthed: a luxury Roman villa with chapel and granny flat by David Derbyshire Science Correspondent Graphics: Alan Gilliland:
(Brief: A full page, beautifully colour-illustrated, and accompanied by explanatory text, reveals the earliest private chapel from Dark Age Britain. Unearthed in the foundations of a Roman stately home, near Bradford on Avon.)
2. EU marmalade rebellion -
An Austrian farmer has found himself the unlikely star of a "marmalade rebellion" against Brussels bureaucracy. Johann Tiery was fined and threatened with jail after inspectors found him selling apricot "marmalade" using his grandmother's recipe. According to an EU ruling marmalade can contain only citrus fruits. Now a protest campaign has begun.

The Weekly Telegraph, No. 641, Nov. 5-11, 2003:
1. September 11 toll falls by 42 -
The names of 42 people listed as dead after the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Centre are to be removed because their deaths, or even their existence, cannot be confirmed. The death toll is now 2,750. - AP
2. The mixed-race presenter too posh for BBC:
After three years working as a newsreader for the BBC World Service, Zenab Ahmed says she has been sacked for sounding too posh.
3. Obituary: Madame Chiang Kai-Shek
(Brief: Dead at 106, she was one of the world's most influential women during the Second World War... She was the last of the principal participants - the others being Chiang Kai-Shek, Churchill and Roosevelt - in the 1943 Cairo Conference, which represented the zenith of pre-communist China's significance in international affairs. She was also the last of an exceptional brood. Her eldest sister, Qing-ling, was the widow of Dr Sun Yat-sen, the father of modern China.)
4. US's second biggest bank -
Bank of America is purchasing FleetBoston Financial for $47bn, making this combination second only to Citygroup.

The Weekly Telegraph, No. 642, Nov. 12-18, 2003:
1. Lords to hear frozen pension appeal by expat:
THE LORDS have agreed to hear a further appeal in the frozen pensions case by Annette Carson, a British expatriate living in South Africa. Mrs. Carson is one of about 400,000 British expatriates in mainly Commonwealth countries whose pensions are frozen while about 330,000 in the United States, Europe and elsewhere have indexed pensions... .
2. New Zealand 'settled by Chinese before Maoris' by Paul Chapman in Wellington -
A BRITISH amateur historian backed by the controversial author Gavin Menzies had claimed that mysterious shoreline objects in New Zealand indicate that the Chinese settled the islands long before the Maoris. Cedric Bell, a retired marine engineer and former project manager for Castrol Oil, says a Chinese walled city of 4,000 people flourished where Christchurch is now, one of at least 40 such settlements in South Is.
3. General fired over anti-Semitism - by Hannah Cleaver in Berlin:
THE COMMANDING officer of Germany's special forces has been sacked for writing a letter thanking an MP who made anti-Semitic remarks. Brig Gen Reinhard Gunzel was removed as head of the KSK, Germany's equivalent of the SAS, after a letter he wrote to Martin Hohmann was made public. [Also in Globe & Mail, Nov 5, 2003]
4. Threat to UK oil missed by Foreign Office:
THE Foreign Office missed the significance of a clause handing over the strategic prize of Britain's oil and gas reserves to Brussels, a senior Labour source has said, writes Ambrose Evans Pritchard...
5. Day the Church was split. Leaders of 50m Anglicans reject gay bishop by Jonathan Petre:
WORLDWIDE Anglicanism split in two last week after conservative leaders representing up to 50 million worshippers angrily rejected the Church's first openly homosexual bishop. "The Devil has clearly entered the Church. God will not be mocked," said Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi of Kenya. Archbishop Peter Akinola, the primate of Nigeria, said that he an other leaders were "appalled" by Canon Robinson's installation as Bishop of New Hampshire. Speaking for about 20 primates from Africa, Asia and South America, Archbishop Akinola said most of the world-wide Church was in "impaired communion" with the US's Episcopal Church. (Brief: 3 columns Illus.)

The Weekly Telegraph, No. 643, Nov. 19-25, 2003:
1. EU constitution facing defeat in national referendums, by Ambrose Evans Pritchard in Brussels and Toby Helm -
THE DRAFT European constitution has failed to inspire Europe's citizens and is likely to be defeated in referendums next year unless rewritten, says a survey. Support for the 230-page document was negligible among key states certain to hold a vote, falling as low as five per cent in the Netherlands and three per cent in Denmark. ... Britons were the most hostile, with 35 per cent calling for outright rejection.
2. Iraqis don't want us in their country - as history has shown, by John Simpson -
[Brief: One point mentioned: In suppressing Iraqi rebellion against British-imposed rule in 1920, "Churchill advised the RAF to bomb recalcitrant Kurdish villages with poison gas, which it duly did; thereby establishing a dubious historical precedent." (See The Prophetic Expositor Vol 39 No 10, Oct./Nov 2002, p. 24.)]

The Weekly Telegraph, No. 644, Nov. 26-Dec. 2, 2003:
1. 48 money traders charged after raid by Simon English in New York and James Moore in London -
(Brief: The first sentence yields the summary. "AGENTS from the FBI have pounced on Wall Street dealing rooms after finding fraud and corruption 'at every level' of the foreign exchange markets, investigators said." [Also in Globe & Mail Nov. 19, 2003 "FBI arrests dozens in sting targeting Wall Street firms."]
2. Germans rush for conspiracy book -
A former German cabinet minister is drawing huge crowds and stoking the fires of anti-Americanism with a book claiming the US govt. mounted the September 11 attacks to win global domination. Andreas von Bulow has gone further than Michael Meacher, Tony Blair's former environment minister, who was widely criticised for claiming the US knowingly failed to prevent the attacks.
3. Famous Army regiments to face the axe by Sean Rayment -
Up to 10 of the Army's most famous regiments - including the Royal Scots and the Black Watch - are to be disbanded in the most radical post-war reorganisations of Britain's fighting forces. More than 9,000 soldiers face redundancy following the withdrawal of troops from Northern Ireland, a process that must be completed by April 2005... . (Brief: Also included: King's Own Scottish Borderers, the Prince of Wales's Own Regiment of Yorkshire, one battalion of the Royal Irish Regiment and one of the Gurkhas regiments.)
4. Israel bounces victim's cheque -
A CHEQUE sent by Israel's ambassador to compensate the family of a student shot in the head by the country's defence force has bounced, his relatives said. The £8,370 payment was promised to the family of Tom Hurndall, 22, to cover the cost of his repatriation to Britain. But a day after depositing the cheque his parents received a letter from their bank saying it had been rejected because of insufficient funds.
5. Textbooks take a short cut through history by Jack Fairweather -
UNITED States administrators have purged the history textbooks of Saddam Hussein's Iraq. But instead of rewriting the country's past they chose to leave it out. Large swathes of the 20th century have been cut out of the books , with the US-led coalition Provisional Authority anxious to avoid imposing a victor's version of events... .

Globe & Mail, Oct 22, 2003: Commons establishes Holocaust Memorial Day. Ottawa -
Canada will observe an annual Holocaust Memorial Day Called Yam Ha'Shoah under the terms of a private bill sponsored by five MPs from all parties.

Globe & Mail, Oct 29, 2003: For undistinguished reporting by Lubomyr Luciuk: Reporter Walter Duranty turned a blind eye to one of the greatest atrocities of the 20th century. For that his 1932 Pulitzer Prize should be revoked. (Brief: Soviet engineered famine in the Ukraine)
In G & M of Nov 22, 2003: Journalist retains Pulitzer.

Globe & Mail, Oct. 30, 2003: Opium production puts Afghanistan at risk.
[Brief: Afghanistan, world's leading opium producer - 3/4 of world's illicit opium, raw material for heroin and 2/3 of all opiate abusers drugs. $2.3 bn (US)/yr.] AP
COMMENT: Q. - [Is this why the Armed Forces were sent to rid the country of the Taliban?]

Globe & Mail, Nov. 3, 2003: Official casts doubt on Yukos freeze
(Brief: one quote: "Meanwhile it was reported in the Sunday Times of London that control of Mr. Khodorkovsky's shares in Yukos has passed to renowned banker Lord Jacob Rothschild under a deal they hammered out prior to the Russian oil baron's arrest.")

Globe & Mail, Nov. 4, 2003:
1. 'The finest film ever made' by Duncan Campbell, Los Angeles.
(Brief: The last surviving cast member recalls the glory of "All Quiet on the Western Front")
2. "Anglican split deepens over gay bishop's consecration" by Alan Freeman, London and Stephanie Nolen, Johannesburg and "Conservative bishops form new alliance" by Mark Hume Vancouver (World: Angl. rank 1 - 4: Britain, Nigeria, Uganda, Australia,)

Globe & Mail, Nov. 11, 2003:
Guantanamo cases get hearing in U.S. top court - Rights of hundreds of detainees at stake as judges agree to consider testimony, by Paul Koring, WASHINGTON -
The U.S. Supreme Court will consider the rights of hundreds of foreigners - including at least two Canadians - held incommunicado as "unlawful combatants" on a remote U.S. naval base in Cuba, the court announced yesterday. An attached article by Colin Freeze, is headed
"Guantanamo Canadian said partially blinded."
COMMENT: It is long past time that the rights of this category of U.S. prisoner should be mandated - for them, but also because it stamps as immoral all those claiming Christian standards! After WW II, it was reportedly imposed through winter on over a million captive German troops held on starvation rations. The British and Canadians refused to participate.