Saudi Aramco World - November/December 2003 Vol. 54 No 6 issue
This issue contained a combination 2004 calendar in both Christian (Gregorian) and Muslim (Hijri) months.

Janes' Intelligence Digest: 20 February, 2004 -
The Iraq blame game: Israel - [Brief: A 1 1/2 page article begins: "As the U.S. and Britain prepare for independent inquiries into their intelligence services' performance in judging Suddam Hussein's military capabilities in the run-up to the March 2003 invasion, Israel's Knesset is preparing a similar report." One paragraph notes "Whether direct intelligence links were established between the neo-cons in the Bush administration and Sharon's government remains to be seen. However, domestic critics of Israel's intelligence establishment contend that the data it provided to the USA to enhance their pre-war assessment of Saddam's WMD programmes - pointing to a threat that now appears not to have existed - has damaged both many Israelis' trust in their intelligence establishment and its credibility in the eyes of Israel's allies and friends."]

Science Vol. 303 20 February 2004 No 5661, Sciencenow.org -
lists an intriguing title: "Did Plague Start Between the Pyramids?" - Researcher looks to Egypt for origins of Black Death. - might be worth a look, online, to see what it discusses.

Huronia (Ontario, Canada) Business Times - March, 2004
Contains a letter which lists, under the heading "Registry fails to deliver the goods" a number of serious problems with Canada's Gun Registry. [Allegations include: "Internal audits show that government bureaucrats have a 71per cent error rate in licensing gun owners and a 91 per cent error rate in registering the guns themselves." The government admits it registered 718,414 guns without serial numbers. (Substitute sticker serial numbers can be peeled off.) Some 222,911 guns were registered with the same make and serial number as other guns. Earlier licenses had photos on them, but hundreds of owners received licenses with other people's photos on them. One warning to register his gun was sent to a man who died in 1981. Some 15,381gun owners were licensed with no indication of having taken the mandatory gun safety course. Despite the billion-dollar taxpayer subsidy, gun owners must still pay $279 for the required licenses, registration, photo ID and other costs to register a single gun. That's as much as the gun costs.]

Weekly Telegraph Feb 4-10 2004 No. 654:
1. Saddam played a fatal game of bluff, says Kay - by David Rennie in Washingon - SADDAM HUSSEIN'S regime secretly destroyed biological and chemical weapons in the mid-1990s but hid the evidence of the destruction, the US's former chief weapons inspector has said. David Kay, who resigned two weeks ago, has concluded that Saddam was playing a fatal game of bluff - allowing the world to believe he still had banned arsenals in order to maintain his grip on power. "If the weapons programmes existed on the scale we anticipated, we would have found something that leads to that conclusion. Instead we found evidence that points to something else," Dr. Kay told The Washington Post. He said he believed that Saddam was pursuing a pattern of "creative ambiguity" - getting rid of weapons that might trigger invasion while letting his enemies believe he still had that deterrent... . Dr Kay described pre-war intelligence assessments as badly mistaken.

2. Germany abandons its dream of federal Europe - by Toby Helm and Kate Connolly in Berlin -
JOSCHKA FISCHER, the German foreign minister, has made a dramatic attempt to improve relations with Britain by indicating his willingness to abandon the push for a full European government. Speaking to The Daily Telegraph in his first interview with a British newspaper since the Iraq war, he appeared to accept that his federalist dreams were now unrealistic. [Brief: Accompanied by an Editorial 'the German elephant and the British whale.']

3. 'Chicken run' reality comes home to roost - by Tim Butcher in Johannesburg -
[Brief: Whites who fled South Africa are returning, disillusioned by low standards and conditions in their new havens.]

4. Cattle drug wipes out vultures -
TENS of millions of vultures have died after eating cattle carcasses contaminated with a common animal drug. The decline has pushed three species to the brink of extinction in India and Pakistan.

5. Jumbo task -
A CASH-strapped hospital in Lisbon has asked a local zoo to lend it X-ray equipment usually used on elephants so it can weigh people who are more than 300 lb.

6. Obituary: Group Captain Kenneth Hubbard,
83, was the pilot of an RAF Valiant bomber which dropped Britain's first live megaton thermo-nuclear weapon (the H-Bomb) in the South Pacific in 1957. Its test target was Malden Island, 400 miles south of Christmas Island. [Brief: 4 bombers were involved and pre-drop tests were run. Dropped from 45,000 feet, it exploded at 8,000 feet. Anti-flash screens were erected in the cockpit. During the next three weeks, two more bombs were dropped by other crews.

7. £2m to protect and repair cathedral glories - by Graham Tibbetts -
Many of England's finest cathedrals are to share a £2 million grant for essential repairs and improvements.
Most of the funds, provided by English Heritage, will be used for roof and masonry refurbishment, with the rest going towards fire detection and prevention projects.
Twenty cathedrals will benefit from the programme, ranging from the ancient of Salisbury and Durham to the modern of Liverpool and Coventry.
Lincoln Cathedral will receive one of the largest grants, of £200,000 for its continuing restoration of the Dean's Eye window. The window dates from the 13th century and has been the subject of years of conservation work. The final phase is now under way and is expected to be completed by 2006.
The tracery will be removed and a replacement carved and installed.
Salisbury Cathedral has also been offered £200,000, for repairs to the south nave roof, north nave masonry and leaded light windows. The cathedral, the subject of paintings by Constable and Turner, was founded in 1220 with King Henry III present at its consecration.
Norwich Cathedral receives a grant of £161,000 for the final phase of work re-leading the cloister roof, while Leicester is given £200,000 for external masonry repairs to the spire and Truro £200,000 for its western spires. There is also a grant of up to £118,000 for the rebuilding of one of three turrets of the central tower of Hereford Cathedral and two grants totalling £82,000 will fund the repair of masonry and installation of a fire detection system at Durham Cathedral.
"Cathedrals form the architectural centrepiece of the historic cities which have grown up around them," said Richard Halsey, the head of the cathedrals team at English Heritage.
"They are important not only for their spiritual, architectural and historic interest but for their works of art and the fine craftsmanship they contain.
This year's grants represent English Heritage's continued commitment to England's great cathedrals, some of the most magnificent buildings in the country."
The other cathedrals to benefit this year are Gloucester, Exeter, Worcester, Birmingham, Portsmouth, Ripon, Newcastle, Sheffield, Bristol, Chelmsford and St. George's Chapel, Windsor. Since 1991 English Heritage has provided £39.8 million for cathedral repairs. [Brief: Several coloured photographs accompany the 4-column-width article.]

Weekly Telegraph Feb. 11-17, 2004 No 655:
1. EU rejects request to grow GM oilseed rape - by Robert Uhlig farming Correspondent -
THE European Union has rejected the first application to grow a genetically modified crop in Europe since it imposed a moratorium on new approvals six years ago, dealing a blow to the biotechnology industry. [Brief: It decided that there was too high a risk of the GM rape seed cross-pollinating with conventional crops, creating problems for farmers wishing to avoid GM organisms.]

Traces found in soya foods - NEARLY half of soya foods tested in a survey of supermarkets and health-food shops contained traces of genetically modified ingredients, despite most of them carrying labels claiming they were organic or GM-free. A study by the biotechnology unit at the University of Glamorgan found 10 out of 25 foods selected randomly from shops in South Wales and Yorkshire last summer tested positively for GM ingredients. Soya products examined in the study, to be published in the British Food Journal in April, included meat substitutes and desserts, tofu, soymilk, flour, beans and sauces, often sold as gluten-free or dairy-free alternatives.

2. Saxon burial chamber yields its secrets by David Derbyshire -
A BURIAL chamber, believed to be that of an early Christian king who ruled Anglo-Saxon Essex nearly 1,400 years ago, has been uncovered by archaeologists. The discovery is one of the most important finds in decades, researchers say. Although the bones have long vanished from their resting place historians believe the chamber may have belonged to King Saeberht, nephew of King Ethelbert and the first Christian king of Essex. [Brief: It was discovered during survey for road widening scheme in Southend-on-Sea. (4-columns, colour-illustrated.)]

3. Anglicans ready for split over gay priests - by Adrian Blomfield in Nairobi
ST FRANCIS'S Church in the Nairobi suburb of Karen would not look out of place in a village in Kent. The Book of Common Prayer still sits on the pews. The congregation still sings from "Ancient and Modern" hymnbooks. What is more, the parishioners are deeply conservative. Most believe that homosexuality is abhorrent. "The church is very strongly against a person who has openly declared he is homosexual being ordained, said the Rev. Habil Omungu, the vicar. "Such a person would introduce unacceptable and unbiblical teachings." The parishioners of St. Francis's have had their arguments in the past, but on homosexual ordination and same-sex marriages, they sing from the same hymn sheet. "I think it's absolutely horrific," said Mary McNaughtan, who has worshipped here for 30 years. "It's totally un-Christian. If it were to happen I would probably leave the Church." Many Kenyan Anglicans feel their moral ideals are now totally divergent from those of the decadent West. As Anglican bishops from across the world prepare to meet to seek a deal on homosexuality to save the disintegrating 160-nation Anglican Communion, Anglicans in Africa are far from a spirit of compromise. "This is the result of freedom being pushed beyond acceptable limits," said Mr. Omungu.

Weekly Telegraph Feb 18-24, 2004:
1. University drops its graduation prayers -
ONE of Britain's oldest universities is to ban Christian prayers at graduation ceremonies to avoid offending followers of other religions and atheists. The tradition will be replaced at Edinburgh University by a secular "period of reflection" following complaints from staff and students that the prayers did not reflect the multi-faith character of the university. A report by Michael Anderson, the senior vice-principal, suggested that continuing the tradition of prayers might leave the university open to legal action under race or religious discrimination laws. The move has been condemned by the Church of Scotland, the Roman Catholic Church and some of the university's honorary chaplains.

2. Children should learn about atheism, suggests think tank - by Melissa Kite -
TEACHING religious education in schools should be renamed spiritual education, with children taught more about atheism and less about the life of Jesus and the 10 Commandments, according to the Government's favourite think tank. Lessons should be widened to include "non-religious belief systems", says the Institute for Public Policy Research. It calls for equal weight to be given to agnosticism and humanism as is given to Christianity. The report, What Is Religious Education For? , is being considered by education ministers as they draw up the first national curriculum guidelines on religious instruction. Some of the report's conclusions will provoke controversy. Instead of accepting the 10 Commandments, children should be taught to question the plausibility of events and teachings in the Bible, it says. Rather than referring to God, they should be taught that there is a "divine being whose moral judgments are significantly more reliable than ours." The report says: "From the age of five, children should learn that there are people who do not believe in God. The afterlife or the power of prayer or that the Universe was created." Heavy emphasis would also be given to educating children about Islam to guard against what the think tank regards as a growing phobia in schools towards Muslims.

Weekly Telegraph Feb 25-Mar 2, 2004:
Church factions rebuked over gays -
Anglican leaders rebuked the Church's warring factions for using "strident language" to stoke hostilities over homosexuality. The Lambeth commission said that, despite appeals for calm, tensions were continuing to rise and could tear the 70-million strong worldwide Church apart. The commission of 18 members was set up by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, in an attempt to avert schism after the consecration of Anglicanism's first openly homosexual bishop.

Globe & Mail, February 3 2004:
1. Bush, Blair bow to anger over WMD - U.S. President arranging probe; British PM to announce inquiry today - by Paul Koring - WASHINGTON -
U.S. President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, comrades in arms and the twin driving forces behind war against Iraq, also shared a humbling task yesterday, forced to set up independent inquiries into colossal national intelligence failures about Saddam Hussein's weapons program. At stake was not only the leaders' credibility, but their justification for waging war without explicit United Nations Security Council authority, especially if their claims that Baghdad was hiding banned weapons turn out to be baseless. A year ago, the two men were preparing to lead a large "coalition of the willing" into war on the premise that Mr. Hussein with arsenals of poison gas and germ-warfare capability, posed a real and imminent danger. Yesterday, in the face of mounting outrage over their rationale for the conflict, the two leaders were in the process of arranging for separate inquiries that could delay or deflect the political fallout. [Brief: 5 columns, illustrated, fill out the picture.]
COMMENT: Knowing that in practice no truly independent and honest inquiry can be put together, we are reminded of Alice Through the Looking Glass: brothers "Tweedle"!

2. Will remove most settlers from Gaza, Sharon says - by Paul Adams, Tel Aviv:
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, often seen as one of the fathers of the movement to embed Jewish settlements in the Palestinian territories, says he plans to remove Israeli settlers from the Gaza Strip. [Brief: no timetable was mentioned!]

3. I spy blocked vision -
If Bush and Blair want to know why they got faulty intelligence on Iraq, they should look at the politicization of their spy ops, says U.K. security analyst Philip Davies. (Comment article)

Globe & Mail, February 4 2004:
Obituary: Ernest Gibson, 102 - Last member of Royal Northwest Mounted Police - Victoria.
Ernest Henry James Gibson, believed to be the last surviving member of the Royal North-west Mounted Police, has died. He was 102. Mr. Gibson joined the force at age 18 in 1919, a year before it merged with the Dominion Police to form the RCMP. CP

Globe & Mail, February 5 2004:
Arts Notebook: Gibson axing controversial scene from Passion - Los Angeles.
Mel Gibson, responding to focus groups as much as to protests by Jewish critics, has decided to delete a controversial scene about Jews from his film, The Passion of the Christ, a close associate said Tuesday. A scene in the film, in which the Jewish high priest Caiaphas calls down a kind of curse on the Jewish people by declaring of the Crucifixion, "His blood be on us and on our children," will not be in the movie's final version, said the anonymous Gibson associate. Jewish leaders had warned that the passage from Matthew was the historic source for many of the charges of deicide and Jews' collective guilt in the death of Jesus. Gibson's decision could indicate that he was being responsive to concerns of Jewish groups that the film will fuel anti-Semitism. It opens Feb. 25. NYT

Globe & Mail, February 6 2004:
Rejection of free vote on gun registry under fire - by Kim Lunman, OTTAWA -
[Brief: Liberal MPs will not have a free vote on the gun registry. Opponents say "scrap it."]

Britain debates selling off bishops' palaces [Brief: Heritage & pride may go if it happens. 3 columns. colour-illus.]

Globe & Mail, February 10 2004:
Mel Gibson says, 'I'm not anti-Semetic' - Los Angeles.
Mel Gibson said his need to re-evaluate his life inspired him to make the biblical epic The Passion of the Christ. "I've been offered every kind of excess that money and fame brings and it's not good enough," Gibson said on the weekend before 3,800 invited guests at evangelical Azusa Pacific University. The event, which was broadcast to churches around the United States, was billed as a "training rally" for pastors and church youth groups leaders. ... "I'm not anti-Semitic," said Gibson, who directed, co-wrote and financed the $25 million (U.S.) film... .

Globe & Mail, February11 2004:
1. Obituary: Historic flight ensured Arrow test pilot's fame - Heartbroken in 1958 by project's demise, jet-fighter pioneer dies in Ontario at 89 - by Luma Muhatdie:
Jan Zurakowski was asked to take Canada's first supersonic fighter jet into the sky for its maiden flight one blustery March morning nearly 46 years ago. And though he vowed never to fly again after development of the Avro Arrow was cancelled 11 months later, his reputation as an accomplished pilot and a kind gentleman continued to soar. [Brief: ... Born Sept. 12, 1914, in Ryzawka, Russia, the third child of a Polish doctor and a housewife. When he was 6, the family fled Soviet Russia and settled in Garwolin, a town south of Warsaw. He learned gliding, later joined the Polish Air Force, fought in the Battle of Britain. In 1952, the Zurakowskis moved to Canada, where he worked as a test pilot for A. V. Roe. Later, broken hearted over cancellation of the Arrow, moving to Barry's Bay he took to gardening and designing boats. 6-columns, illustrated.]

2. Who's directing whom? -
The profit-makers in Hollywood and missionaries looking for converts have an equal interest in Mel Gibson's film The Passion, says Christian journalist Lorna Dueck. [Brief: 5-columns, illustrated.]

3. [Editorial] France's dress code -
Chalk up another one for the tyranny of the majority. By a 494-36 vote, France's National assembly yesterday supported a bill that will ban the wearing of head scarves, yarmulkes and other religious gear in public schools as of next September. Now that's a majority. The declaration of the Rights of Man, passed by the French National Assembly in 1789, asserted in Article 5 that a law can prohibit only actions that are hurtful to society. How is a Muslim girl injuring anyone by wearing a head scarf? Depending on whom one listens to, she is endangering (a) her own equality rights, (b) society at large, because religious headgear is a sign of militancy and militancy can lead to terrorism, or (c) the secular identity of France itself. A head scarf is no longer just a head scarf. Anyone who thinks so is, well, in the minority. The majority, cloaking its xenophobia in righteous high-mindedness, has spoken. Let's hope the courts speak back.

Globe & Mail, February 13 2004:
Obituary: Saloum Cohen, 82 Samaritan priest led tiny Palestine community -
Mount Berizim, West Bank. Saloum Cohen, high priest of the tiny Samaritan community and a Palestinian lawmaker, died Monday at age 82.

Obituary: Paul Ilyinsky, 77 - Cousin of czar became mayor of Palm Beach.

Globe & Mail, February 14 2004:
- Israel's line in the sand - [double-page spread "West bank" (map, colour, etc.)]

Globe & Mail, February 17 2004:
1. Tempest brewing over Stonehenge tunnel plan - Pagans oppose government's scheme to move highway under ancient monument - by Alan Freeman, LONDON -
[Brief: The British government wants to bore a $450-million highway tunnel under Stonehenge, and the pagans are not pleased. - 6-columns, illustrated by photo, maps.]

2. Social Studies:
(a) - Favourite British smells, -
A supermarket poll has revealed Britain's top 10 favourite smells, reports The Times of London. They are: Fresh bread, frying bacon, coffee, ironing, cut grass, babies, the sea, Christmas trees, perfume, fish & chips.
(b) - Lazy carrier pigeons? -
When Oxford scientists put tracking devices on homing pigeons, they discovered the birds were often navigating by following main highways and straight roads, even though this mentally less-taxing approach added kilometres to their journey, reports The Australian. "It really has knocked our research team sideways to find pigeons appear to ignore their inbuilt directional instinct and follow the road system

Globe & Mail, February 18 2004:
Headings -
1. Dutch join Europe's anti-refugee tide: (p. inside:) Issue of asylum-seekers a hot button across Europe. & Editorial: Denied Dutch asylum (to expel approx. 26,000).

2. Obituary: Lubor Zink 1920-2003 [Brief: Anti-communist writer died Nov. 3, at 83.]

Globe & Mail, February 19 2004:
Gibson's father says Holocaust exaggerated - New York.
One week before the release of Mel Gibson's controversial movie, The Passion of the Christ, the filmmaker's father has publicly reiterated claims that the holocaust was exaggerated. In his interview on WSNR radio's Speak Your Piece, to be broadcast Monday, Hutton Gibson argued that many European Jews counted as death-camp victims of the Nazi regime had in fact fled to countries such as Australia and the United States. "It's all - maybe not all fiction - but most of it is," he said, adding that the gas chambers and crematoria at camps such as Auschwitz would not have been capable of exterminating so many people. AFP

Globe & Mail, February 21 2004:
- Jesus challenging Marx for soul of China - millions turning to Christianity even as Beijing cracks down on secret worship - by Geoffrey York, BEIJING -
He Huaizhu was such a staunch Communist that even the love letters she exchanged with her husband were filled with references to the party and Chairman Mao. But at the end of her life, as China became increasingly capitalistic, she felt herself losing faith in her ideology. She questioned the materialism and the obsession with money that she saw around her in the new China. As she lay dying of cancer, she met a Christian woman in hospital who volunteered to take care of her family. The woman, a barely literate labourer, visited her home, gave He Huaizhu massages and made meals for the family. A month before her death, He Huaizhu abandoned her Communist faith and became a Christian believer, like an estimated one million Chinese people every year. Her conversion is part of an extraordinary surge of religious belief that Beijing is struggling to keep under tight rein. Her 34-year-old son, Hu Wei, told his mother's story to explain why he is a regular worshipper at a Protestant church in Beijing. He converted to Christianity the same day as his mother in 2001. "When she was dying, her only wish was that I should become a Christian," he said. "She was not a follower of communism any more because it lacked love." His religious beliefs, he says, have helped him survive the hardships of daily life in China, including a recent bout of unemployment. "I'm experiencing a hard period and sometimes I feel so helpless. But I always stay happy because God is with me."
According to official statistics, there are about 15 million Protestants and five million Roman Catholics in China. But the true number is much greater - as many as 80 million by some estimates, including millions of Christians who worship in secret underground "house churches," despite strict controls on and persecution of the unofficial churches. By comparison, less than four million Christians existed in all of China in 1949 when the Communists came to power. Even official spokesmen for the state-controlled churches have acknowledged that the number of Christians is increasing by about one million annually, although the real rate is probably higher. The most explosive growth is centred in evangelical Protestant churches, many of which are funded by American and Taiwanese Christians. In some wealthy eastern provinces, as much as 15 per cent of the population is Christian. In Beijing, building has begun on two massive new churches, each with space for 1,500 worshippers, at a cost of about $6-million. They are the first new Protestant churches to be built in the capital in more than 50 years... .
[Brief: The rest of the article (we only have space here for less than half of it) is likewise thrilling news to Christians in the West. We are indebted to the author for bringing such news to us. At current rate, Christians could represent as much as one third of China's population within the next three decades. 6-columns, illustrated.]

Globe & Mail, February 23 2004:
- Judge's illness a setback to Milosevic trial.

Globe & Mail, February 24 2004:
1. Jewish groups differ on Gibson Christ film
2. 'Museum without walls' displays Egypt's glories -
Website designed by Toronto team gives close-ups of ancient and modern wonders by Stephen Strauss
[Brief: Looks interesting. 3-columns, illustrated (www.eternalegypt.org)]
3. Hague tribunal up against the Israeli 'wall' - Security-barrier case seen as international court's most sensitive hearing to date
[Brief: 6-columns, illustrated.]

Globe & Mail, February 25 2004:
"'Not even a miracle can save it' - Rick Groen reviews Mel Gibson's failed epic, the Passion of the Christ" -
(Globe & Mail coloured banner top headline on front page)

Globe & Mail, February 28 2004:
Scientists strive to create the book of life - by Stephen Strauss
[Brief: Enormous enumeration effort underway, of all known species, adding millions not yet catalogued.]