Ontario Press Council 31st Annual Report, 2003 -
Cover Statement: "Although the Ontario Press Council acts independently of its founders, it vigorously defends the independence of the press and full freedom of public expression. Its decisions represent a consensus of a broad cross-section of Ontario society and active journalists."
"The Angel Ariel" - Poem attacked Israeli PM - A poem that attacked Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon contains words and imagery used in age-old stereotyping but falls under the umbrella of journalism of opinion and a manifestation of freedom of the press, the Press Council said in dismissing a complaint against The Globe and Mail. [Brief: complaint was brought against a poem by John Allemang, published Feb. 1, 2003. Anita Bromburg, human rights co-ordinator for B'nai Brith Canada said a clarification published a week later did not answer concerns "regarding the vilification and potentially libellous portrayal of Sharon." The poem, printed four days after Sharon was re-elected, branded him a war criminal for not having prevented Christian Falangists from massacring Palestinians in the Shatila and Sabra refugee camps in Lebanon in 1982. He was minister of defence at the time but later gave up that portfolio... The Globe & Mail defended the poem as fair comment in the context of conditions at the time. It said a degree of poetic licence should be extended to the author just as would be given to a provocative cartoon... It rejected the idea that an attack on Sharon is an attack on Jews... . (pp. 13-16 amplified upon the above themes.)]

Scientific American - Special Issue, Vol. 291 No 3 p. 30: Geometry -
Piecing the Past - An algorithm quickly fits together potsherds - by Lisa DeKeukelaere [Brief: Opening sentences: A 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle of the Rocky Mountains not challenging enough? Imagine assembling it without knowing how it looked or if all the pieces were there. And what if the pieces actually made up several separate puzzles? Now pretend the pieces are three-dimensional and 4,000 years old. That's what archaeologists face when they find the scattered remnants of cups, bowls and other containers... . Recently computer engineers Andrew R. Willis and David B. Cooper of Brown University developed a program that can assemble and model a 13-sherd pot in less than 2 hours using only 10 of its pieces... .]

The Professional Geographer - Association of American Geographers, August 2004 Vol 56 No 3:
Book Review - Noah's Flood: The New Scientific Discoveries About the Event that Changed History - Reviewed by Matthew Taylor, Department of Anthropology and Geography, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA. - Pros. and cons. are dissected.

Jane's Intelligence Digest 30 July 2004: Two significant articles:
1. Nuclear stand-off with Iran - [Lead sentence: Iran is pressing ahead with its nuclear programmes, despite risk that Israel may launch a pre-emptive strike before Tehran's nuclear rector becomes operational. Ironically, the US-led invasion of Iraq, which was justified largely by proliferation concerns, has provided a window of opportunity for Iran's nuclear ambitions.]
2. Afghanistan at the crossroads: [Brief: The Bush administration needs a "democratic success" there to offset the Iraq turmoil before the US election.] www.jid.janes.com

Jane's Intelligence Digest 6 August 2004:
1. Chechnya and the 'dirty bomb' reveals risks found in proliferation of radiological materials from the Soviet Union.
2. Musharraf's tightrope act comments on the military dictator's domestic challenges.
Jane's Intelligence Digest 13 August 2004:
1. Facing up to Jihad in Iraq;
2. Dual-use: perils of proliferation;
3. Iran's strategic gamble

Time (Canadian Edn.) Vol. 164 No 5, August 2, 2004, p. 6:
An Interfaith Friendship Frayed - by David Van Biema - For nearly half a century, few interfaith relationships have been sturdier in the U.S. than that between Jews and the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)... in 1987,... a Presbyterian "study document" acknowledged the Jews' ongoing and legitimate covenant with God. Yet a sense of betrayal is building among Jewish groups over two votes at the Presbyterians' recent general assembly. The first tally sustained funding for "Messianic Jewish" congregations like Avodat Yisrael, a Philadelphia-area Presbyterian gathering that meets Saturdays and gives every appearance of being a synagogue but features New Testament readings. Most Jews consider such entities, often funded by conservative Christian groups, to be a devious way of luring new converts to Christianity. The second vote initiated the church's "phased selective divestment" from some corporations operating in Israel... The divestment was backed by the liberal Presbyterian majority, which traditionally tempers its affirmation of Israel's right to exist with concern for Palestinian welfare. The margin for continuing Messianic funding was provided by an increasingly powerful evangelical minority... .

Time (Canadian Edn.) Vol. 164 No 6, August 9, 2004:
1. p. 13: The death of Francis Crick deprives the world of a remarkable scientist and conversationalist... [Brief: co-discoverer of double helix of DNA. When he learned that Cambridge University's science-dominated new college was planning to build a Christian chapel, he resigned from the ranks of its fellows. Also in The Weekly Telegraph No 680 Aug. 4-10 2004: a full-page Obituary: Francis Crick, OM - Abrasive biologist who discovered the structure of DNA, unravelled genetic code and investigated consciousness. Also in the same issue, Man who found the secret of life is dead aged 88 - by Robert Highfield Science Editor - ... Half a century ago Prof. Crick announced ... in Cambridge that he and his collaborator, James Watson, had found the secret of life: the double helix structure of DNA.

2. p. 27: Terrorism's Harvest - How al-Qaeda is tapping into the opium trade to finance violence and destabilize Afghanistan - by Tim McGirk, Kabul.
[Brief: The Taliban had done much to suppress the supply of opium from Afghanistan by eliminating the opium poppy supplies. Then the Bush administration invaded, destroying their beneficial efforts. The consequence is that the opium traffic is flourishing, funding anti-U.S. opposition. Opium could undo everything done to help the Afghans. It seems that blunder follows blunder as the U.S. seeks to destroy everything which might oppose the Israeli State!]

Time (Canadian Edn.) Vol. 164 No 7, August 16, 2004, p. 29: Roll Over, Martin Luther -
Long the dominant faith affiliation in the U.S., Protestantism may no longer boast a majority - by David Van Biedma [Brief: The situation now seems to form a benchmark in U.S. history, where the dominance may be slipping out of Protestant hands. The article raises questions concerning causes and projects future trends.]

Time (Canadian Edn.) Vol. 164 No 8, August 23, 2004, p. 11:
Obituary: Paul (Red) Adair, 89, legendary oil-field fire fighter who put out an estimated 2,000 blazes around the world with his usual concoction of water and dynamite... . Also in The Weekly Telegraph No 681 August 11-17 2004: Death of firefighter Red Adair and Weekly Telegraph No 682, August 18-24, 2004: Red Adair - Texan who extinguished more than 2,000 oil well fires and was called to the Piper Alpha disaster in 1988 and the first Gulf War.

Time (Canadian Edn.) Vol. 164 No 9, August 30, 2004:
1. Obituary: Sir Godfrey Hounsfield, 84 British electrical engineer who invented the C.T. scan, a diagnostic tool that revolutionized medical care; in London. In the 1960s he built the computerized axial tomography scanner, which uses X-rays to give doctors three-dimensional, cross-sectional view of the body's interior. The innovation brought him the 1979 Nobel Prize, which he shared with south African scientist Allan Cormack, who had worked independently on the idea. Also in The Weekly Telegraph No 683 August 25-31 2004 - Sir Godfrey Hounsfield - scientist who was largely self-taught and conceived the idea for a CAT scanner on a weekend country ramble.

2. Obituary: Carl Mydans (photographer -photo journalist) [Brief: one famous photo: Gen. Douglas MacArthur sloshing onto a beach in Luzon in the Philippines.] Also in Globe & Mail 19 August 2004: Carl Mydans 1907-2004 - Photography as life's work.

Globe & Mail 4 August, 2004:
1. The Question: to burn or not to burn - Modern Incinerators like the one in Brampton (Ontario) are infinitely cleaner than their predecessors Marcus Gee writes - [Brief: A full page, illustrated and with an explanatory diagram shows, in a schematic view, how it operates through a sequence five cleaning stages. Refuse burns at high temperature to heat a boiler from which steam forces a generator to create a surplus of electricity while residue falls through a grate and, after ferrous material is recovered, that remainder forms ash for landfill. The fumes pass through a wet-spray humidifier and Ammonia injection resulting in gaseous emissions which are then treated by injection of activated carbon to cut down on mercury, followed by dry lime in a "dry scrubber" to cut acidity. Then an electrostatic precipitator of airborne particles in a "bag house" adds to the accumulated ash, and a selective catalytic reduction reactor acts to reduce dioxins and furans, while remaining gas is vented up a stack to the outside. It all sounds really simple! Seems to work where used!]

2. U.S. Army private abused Iraqi prisoners 'for fun,' investigators tell military court.

Globe & Mail 5 August, 2004: Gibraltar defiantly British 300 years after its capture - by Raul Diaz, Gibraltar -
Thousands in Gibraltar linked hands yesterday to create a human chain around the tiny British colony at the tip of the Iberian peninsula, celebrating the 300th anniversary of the territory's capture by Britain. The human chain was a political statement to the colony's neighbours in Spain, which lost the deep-sea harbour and strategic naval base on Aug. 4, 1704, and has yearned to recover it ever since. Also in Weekly Telegraph No 681, Aug. 11-17 2004.

Globe & Mail 6 August 2004:
1. Obituary: Charles Shipley 1918-2004 - Electronics pioneer was 'almost clairvoyant' -
The Yale University dropout struggled with chemistry but ended up with more than 20 U.S. patents issued in his name - by Gloria Negre - The man who was a "clairvoyant" pioneer in the development of chemicals used to make computer chips and printed circuit boards for electronic equipment has died. Charles Shipley was 86.

2. Aquatic pit bull threatens U.S. waterways - Predatory snakehead native to Russia, China may alter ecological balance - by Alan Freeman, Washington -
It is the pit bull of the aquatic world, an air-breathing, predatory fish from Asia that likes to eat its prey whole and threatens to become a permanent pest in North American waters like the ubiquitous zebra mussel. Since the first northern snakehead fish turned up in a pond in Maryland two years ago, fisheries officials across the United States have been attempting to stop the spread of a fish that is a favourite in some Asian restaurants and popular among some tropical fish owners... [Brief and Comment: Further described in six columns accompanied by a large photograph, captioned "The snakehead, which can stay alive out of water for several days if it's kept moist and out of the sun, prefers dining on fish and frogs over chomping on humans." Great - What we really need! Another neat challenge to our environment!]

Globe & Mail 7 August 2004: The unknown Newton - The genius who gave us three laws of motion wrote even more about the Apocalypse and the Whore of Babylon. Eventually, all of his work about 10 million words - will be on the World Wide Web, Dan Falk reports -
When we think of Isaac Newton, we usually think of his insight into gravity (remember the falling apple?), or perhaps his work on optics, or his invention of calculus. Yet if we go by sheer word count, physics was only one of Newton's intellectual priorities. He devoted more time to what we would now regard as non-scientific topics such as theology and alchemy, writing treatise after treatise on early church history and biblical prophecy. Scholars have long known that Newton dabbled in the occult, but the sheer magnitude of his devotion to such matters has only recently come to light, bolstered by a British-led project trying to put all of his writings - about 10 million words in all - on the World Wide Web. "We think of Newton, obviously, primarily as a scientist," says Stephen Snobelen, a historian of science at King's college in Halifax, "So this awareness that there is this four-million word corpus of theological texts, and another one million words on alchemy, is quite a revelation for many people." Prof. Snobelen is the leading Canadian contributor to the Newton Project, which is based at Imperial College, London, and also involves researchers at Cambridge and at universities in France and the United States. [Brief: five columns, illustrated, continue the investigative theme. The Newton project (www.newtonproject.ic.ac.uk) began in 1998... and may take 20 years or more to complete. Orange Street Church, in central London, was attended by Newton. Today, it projects a message which conveys a British-Israel viewpoint.]

Globe & Mail 10 August 2004:
Obituary - King Kong's heartbreak kid - Fay Wray, the favourite daughter of an Alberta town formed by Mormons, she became one of the more beguiling sexpots ever to unsheath her thighs on celluloid. Also Weekly Telegraph No 682 Aug. 18-24 2004 Obituary: Fay Wray - Actress who was carried up the Empire State building screaming by King Kong.

National Post 7 August 2004: 1. Tapes are hate literature, Customs ban decides - U.S. supremacist attacks CanWest for alleged conspiracy - by Glen McGregor - Ottawa -
The Federal Government has banned the import of audio recordings of a speech by the late U.S. white supremacist William Pierce because the tapes were ruled to be hate literature. The recordings claim CanWest Global Communications is part of a Jewish conspiracy to control the news industry. The Canada Border Services Agency in April blocked the shipment of a cassette recordings from a 2002 radio address by Mr. Pierce. He alleged late CanWest founder Israel Asper and his family exerted "monopoly Jewish control of the Canadian mass media" and used their dominance to push a pro-Israel agenda in CanWest publications, which include such major daily newspapers as the National Post, Ottawa Citizen, Vancouver Sun and Montreal Gazette. The February, 2002, speech "Journalists and Canadians" was one of the last broadcast by Mr. Pierce, whose 1978 novel, The Turner Diaries, was cited as an inspiration for Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh. Mr. Pierce died later that year. The cassettes were shipped to Canada by National Vanguard books, the West Virginia-based publishing arm of his white power and neo-Nazi organization, the National Alliance. Customs officers intercepted the recordings at the border and determined them to be hate literature. "He had made allegations that an identifiable group had manipulated the media, trade, finance, politics and government to the detriment of society," said Michel Proulx, a CBSA spokesman. The flip side of the cassette contains another recording of Mr. Pierce, an attack on the Anti-Defamation League in the United States, that Mr. Proulx said also qualified it as hate propaganda because it espoused genocide and made allegations that Jews weakened or threaten society... ." [Brief: Geoffrey Elliot, CanWest's vice-president of corporate affairs, Bernie Farber, executive director of the Ontario branch of the Canadian Jewish Congress and Alan Borovoy of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association are quoted for their several responses; two columns, illus.]

2. How the Muslims won the election - Islamic Congress takes credit for helping Liberals fend off Tories - Gillian Cosgrove - National Diary -
[Brief: MPs are "rated", and bloc voting by Canada's 700,000 member Muslim community, which is rapidly growing, achieved defeat of Conservatives and NDPs in a number of ridings. They hold swing-votes in at least 100 ridings.]

The Weekly Telegraph No 680 August 4-10, 2004:
1. The day a Maori married into the Royal Family - pp. 1 & 27.
Lady Davina marries her Maori surfer at Palace.

2. Endangered species in DNA plan - by Helen Johnstone -
SCIENTISTS are developing the world's first DNA and tissue bank to preserve thousands of animals facing extinction, in an international project called the Frozen Ark... .

3. Army buys uniforms from China - by Zoe Griffin -
BRITISH Army combat uniforms will be made in China in a new attempt by the Ministry of Defence to cut costs. Contracts with 60 British-based suppliers have been ended and a £50 million deal signed with a firm that sub-contracts much of its work to China. The move prompted fears that firms that have made Army uniforms for years would be forced to close. The MoD said the new contract could save British taxpayers £23 million. A spokesman said: "High-street shops have been using manufacturers in China for many years and our chosen contractor has experience in these areas." Under the five-year agreement, the Northern Ireland-based firm Cooneen Watts and Stone will supply more than two million items a year to the army. The company will make items ranging from fireproof underwear to ties but most combat clothing will be manufactured in China. Camouflage battledress was made at Pin Croft Dyeing and Printing in Chorley, Lancs and its 250 workers are facing an uncertain future. The Chorley MP, Lindsay Hoyle, said: "The whole issue is appalling. MoD claims it is saving money, but it is not looking at the costs that will be incurred if factories close."

4. Rules strictly for birds - by Charles Clover, Environment Editor -
HEDGE cutting between March and July will be banned in England to protect nesting birds as one condition of EU subsidies for farmers. The ban is buried in the small print of new conditions, known as "cross-compliance, which Margaret Beckett, the Environment Secretary, has declared will be attached to the subsidies. This measure has polarised opinion between farming and conservation organisations, with the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, English Nature and the National Trust strongly in favour.

5. Five Headlines from Africa:
Lay assessors block verdict on Tsvangirai - by Peter Thornycroft in Harari -
MORGAN TSVANGIRAI, Zimbabwe's opposition leader, might have been convicted of high treason last week but for the intervention of two lay assessors helping to hear the trial.;
Mugabe forces private school into liquidation: ONE of Zimbabwe's oldest schools will have to turn away 1,000 pupils after President Robert Mugabe's draconian limits on fees forced it into liquidation, writes Peta Thornycroft ;
Old Etonian admits gun plot and faces 10 years' jail - A FORMER SAS officer faces 10 years in a Zimbabwean jail after pleading guilty to trying to buy "weapons of war", writes Peta Thronycroft ;
Mau Mau beg Queen to help solve crisis by Adrian Blomfield - THE MAU MAU, whose dread-locked guerrillas waged a bloody rebellion against the Crown in the 1950s, have written to the Queen begging her to intervene in a political crisis it said could drag Kenya into civil strive.;
Zambia lays claim to statue of Livingstone by Jane Flanagan in Johannesburg - A LIFE-SIZED bronze of Dr David Livingstone has stood overlooking Victoria Falls for more than half a century. But, after years of neglect by the Zimbabwean government, Zambia is calling from across the Zambezi for the statue to be handed over to it. The figure of the Victorian explorer, leaning on his walking stick, has stood on the Zimbabwean side of the falls and been seen by hundreds of thousands of visitors each year to one of the seven natural wonders of the world. Recently, however, as political turmoil in Zimbabwe has deepened, tourists have switched in increasing numbers to the Zambian side. And two years ago the statue, seen as a symbol of British colonialism, was defaced by thugs of Robert Mugabe's regime. Now the authorities in Zamabia want to make the figure of Africa's most celebrated explorer the centrepiece of the town of Livingstone, where the tourist trade is booming

Globe & Mail 13 August 2004: Paper issues mea culpa for prewar coverage - by Simon Houpt, New York -
[Brief: The Washington Post has joined other news outlets in admitting that it used flawed reporting in the run-up to the war in Iraq.]

Globe & Mail 14 August 2004: Downtown meets Muskoka - by Marjorie Harris -
Dig This - City cottagers are a spreading phenomenon, if the number of wild gardens downtown is any barometer. ... there's a strong local movement to reclaim the urban forest; to bring back the native plants and even the toads that once frequented the area. "It's kind of infectious..." [Brief: Examples: a bit of woodland (beech and birch trees), open meadow (milkweed, echinacea and brown-eyed Susans, ferns and wild ginger) with lots of ground cover to attract birds and butterflies; glacial boulders to set the scene.

Globe & Mail 16 August 2004: Forbidden verse
In a Letter to the Editor: A. Easton Wren, Calgary, states "Michael Kesterton is correct in his description of bloody anthems (Social Studies - Aug. 13) when he mentions that the British were first off the block in 1745. The British national anthem has a most intriguing and bloody sixth verse, which is rarely, if ever, sung today. The verse reads: Lord grant that Marshall Wade, May by thy mighty aid, Victory bring. May he sedition hush, And like a torrent rush, Rebellious Scots to crush, God save the King. The Marshall Wade referred to is the general who had just dealt with the Jacobite rebellion of 1745 led by Bonnie Prince Charlie. Imagine the angry Scottish roar that would erupt at some event if all six verses were delivered.]

Globe & Mail 17 August 2004:
1. Fischer to marry Japanese chess official (in attempt to thwart deportation).
2. Flightless bird species found in Philippines - Johannesburg -
Scientists have discovered a new species of flightless bird on the remote island of Calayan in the Philippines, conservation group BirdLife International said today. The rare find is dramatic as flightless birds on small islands are especially vulnerable to extinction from human activities. BirdLife said the proposed name for the bird is the Calayan rail - scientific name Gallirallus calayanensis. Reuters

Toronto Star 14 August 2004: Field of Schemes -
Talks put $30 bllion in farm income at stake; Fair trade for farmers - Producers are sharply divided over global trade liberalization depending on the goods they sell - The Doha Round committed Canada to substantial cuts in export subsidies, by Dana Flavelle; Emotions run high in farm trade talks
Toronto Star 15 August 2004: Going for all the Marbles - [Brief: Front page story of The Elgin Marbles & dispute between The British Museum and Greece.]

The Weekly Telegraph No 681 August 11-17 2004:
1. Hard-up churches closed by rules on disabled - by Elizabeth Day - SMALL churches are closing because they cannot afford expensive building work needed for wheelchair ramps and lavatories for disabled people. Hundreds of rural churches, often with dwindling and elderly congregations, are struggling to pay for the work to comply with disability access requirements. They have been told that they must introduce the costly measures before changes to the Disability Discrimination Act come into force on October 1. The extra burden, often running to several thousand pounds, has led many congregations to opt for voluntary closure rather than face financial ruin. The Church of Scotland, which has a large number of rural churches, has estimated that the total cost of changes for its 1,500 places of worship is £8.8million. A spokesman for the Church of England said that there was anecdotal evidence of several rural Anglican churches struggling to raise the necessary access funds - which can be as much as £10,000 - on top of their normal repair and renovation costs. Waddington Methodist church in Lincolnshire, which has a regular congregation of five, will close next year after staying open long enough to celebrate its centenary. Bryan Denman, the church's senior steward, described the Act as "the last straw". Burnham Methodist Church in West Sussex closed last year after struggling to meet repair costs and the prospective cost of providing disabled access.

2. Tears as the last survivors recall start of Great War by Neil Tweedie -
TIME heals most wounds, but not all. Last week Henry Allingham shed tears for friends lost in a war so long gone that it will soon become the province only of history. Mr. Allingham is 108 now and one of 23 living Britons known to have fought in the First World War. Together with three other centenarians he attended a ceremony at the Cenotaph in London marking the 90th anniversary of its outbreak on Aug 4, 1914.
COMMENT: We remember Christ's words: Matthew 24:34 "Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled."

3. England's green and pleasant land is starting to turn purple by Charles Clover Environment Editor -
THE COLOUR of the countryside in summer is evolving. Where once there were the yellow and green of ripe corn and mown grass, a Kent estate is blooming with the orange and purple of marigolds and vipers bugloss. Calendula and echium, as they are known commercially, are being grown for chemicals used in food additives and natural medicines by the New York-born Countess Sondes. Lady Sondes, who took over the running of the 4,500-acre Lees Court estate near Faversham when her husband, the fifth Earl, died in 1996, has become one of Britain's foremost advocates of non-food crops. The crops are grown to produce paint, food additives, pharmaceuticals, biofuels and fibre such as hemp. Lady Sondes believes that non-food crops could take over up to a third of the cropped area of the country within a decade. This year she is growing 40 acres, out of 1,000 acres farmed in hand, the rest being tenanted. The echium, which contains Omega 3 fatty acids also found in fish, is going to a new venture, a range of body and beauty products to be launched next year. Lady Sondes said: "There are great opportunities in the countryside. We are looking at a wonderful change in agriculture. The technology is there. [Brief: 3 col. colour illus.]

4. NZ anthem 'is a Maori war cry' -
NEW ZEALANDERS have been shocked by claims that their national anthem was written by a 19th -century Irish immigrant as a call to arms for Maoris fighting British settlers. God Defend New Zealand became the national hymn in 1940 and was elevated to anthem status by a proclamation of the Queen in 1977. The song has become a popular expression of national identity among New Zealanders of European descent.

5. Apartheid party fades into history by merging with ANC - by Christopher Munnion in Johannesburg:
[Brief: The National Party has vanished from political map.]

6. Tracing your family tree the easy way (6 Internet pages give genealogy information)
[Brief: four col. For those interested, the six useful Internet resources listed are: www.1837online.com, www.familyrecords.gov.uk, www.ancestry.com, www.census.pro.gov.uk, www.genesconnected.co.uk, www.friendsreunited.co.uk. ]

Globe & Mail 19 August 2004:
1. Canada's biggest cities see influx of new immigrants - 90 per cent of recent immigrants live in Canada's 10 largest cities
2. Social Studies by Michael Kesterton - Snake wisdom (eyes differ for poisonous ones; pupils vertically slit), non-poisonous (round pupils)
3. Popular crypto flawed (weakness in widely used encryption tool)
4. Scanning the heavens -
A University of Kentucky professor is pushing to set up a telescope in Australia that U.S. students could use through the Internet for hands-on learning and for small research projects. Australia is an ideal site because when it's night there and the best time for star gazing, it's daytime in Kentucky and students are in class, the university says.

Globe & Mail 20 August, 2004:
1. Life without numbers in a unique Amazon tribe -
Piraha apparently can't learn to count and have no distinct words for colours.
2. Social Studies by Michael Kesterton -
New Species of the cichlid fish - in less than 20 years.

Globe & Mail 21 August 2004:
An ancient long ship is reborn at home - A museum near Copenhagen is preparing to launch the longest replica of a Viking vessel that once trolled the North Sea.

Toronto Star 21 August 2004:
Golden mask 'sensational' - Artifact unearthed in Bulgaria Find may depict ancient king.

The Weekly Telegraph No 682 August 18-24 2004:
1. Archaeologists find lost town [Brief: medieval Welsh town in 13th century.]

2. Indian railmen to the rescue -
NETWORK RAIL has been forced to fly a dozen Indian engineers into Britain because none left available in this country had sufficient expertise to restore a set of Victorian signal boxes. India's railways still rely heavily on Victorian signal boxes installed during the days of the British Raj.

3. Five-in-one vaccine safe, insist experts - by Celia Hall, Medical Editor -
HEALTH specialists sought last week to reassure parents that a new 'five-in-one" vaccine, to be introduced next month, was safe and better for babies. The vaccine will not contain mercury, which some researchers believe is linked to autism. Launching the vaccine, Dr. David Salisbury, head of immunisation at the Department of Health, urged parents not to wait for the new vaccine to become available; the current vaccines were still safer than the diseases, he said. Dr. Salisbury insisted that the decision to remove the mercury from the new vaccine was coincidental. Its presence in the combined vaccine would make the polio element less effective, he said.

A parallel article is headed Scientists applaud move away from use of mercury by Roger Highfield -
SCIENTISTS seeking a link between mercury and damage to the developing brain welcomed the decision to remove the mercury-based preservative from childhood vaccines. Dr. David Salisbury, the head of immunisations at the Department of Health, said the decision had nothing to do with concerns over a link between the preservative thiomersal and autism. But the reality is that the effects of the preservative are not fully understood according to a British professor who has discovered that thiomersal accumulates and changes in the brain. Prof Graham George, of the University of Saskatchewan, Canada, is studying the fate of mercury in the body, since the toxicity of organic compounds of this metal critically depends on their molecular form and factors such as the presence of selenium. Advances in X-ray technology have enabled his team to collect information that has eluded scientists in the past and it is now studying the transformation of thiomersal (called thimerosal in America) in the body. Prof George stressed that his findings were preliminary but "indicate that mercury administered to rabbits as thimerosal does accumulate in the brain in a relatively short time". Thiomersal is taken up in "about an hour" and is chemically modified. He said: "It shocked me when I found out it is in vaccines. If you wanted to choose something to put into a vaccine, and you were doing it fresh, thiomersal would be the last thing. "it is known to be neurotoxic. I made sure my kids did not get mercury in their vaccines and, when my wife was pregnant, she did not have flu shots. Pregnant women who receive the flu vaccine get a whacking big dose of thiomersal and it is pretty well established where that will end up - in the brain of the foetus or the kidney." He would "not be surprised if there was a link with autism.

4. Geologists sound the alarm over threat of volcanic wave - by David Derbyshire -
GOVERNMENTS have been urged to wake up to the threat posed by a collapsing volcano that could unleash a monstrous wave of water over New York, Miami and the Caribbean. Geologists are concerned that an unstable flank of the Cumbre Vieja volcano on the island of La Palma in the Canaries is in danger of sliding into the sea. If shaken loose by a volcanic eruption the slab of rock - which is the size of the Isle of Man - would send a tsunami more than 500ft high racing across the Atlantic at the speed of a jumbo jet. Within three hours the wave would swamp the west coast of Africa; within five hours it would reach southern England; and within 12 it would hit the US east coast. New York, Washington, Boston and Miami would be hit by successive waves about 60ft high. Tens of millions of people could be killed. Although the volcano could erupt any day - it has been dormant since 1971 but tends to erupt every 20 to 200 years - funding to British scientists investigating the threat has been stopped... . Before the British team's funding dried up it calculated that the volcano was sliding towards the sea at a rate of one centimetre per year and that a big eruption could send the entire flank crashing down. The wave from the landslide would spread out in a crescent, striking the west African coast with a wall of water more than 300ft high in two to three hours.

5. [Photo-caption:] Hikers in Australia are being warned to beware of fierce now half-dingo wild dogs stalking the mountains and forests.
Abandoned or escaped domestic dogs such as rottweilers, bull mastiffs and Rhodesian ridgebacks have interbred with the native wild dog to produce a new strain of 'super-dingoes'

6. [Letter to the Editor]: The Rock should remain British -
Sir - The Spaniards are not the indigenous inhabitants of Gibraltar (issue 681). It was held by the Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Romans and Visigoths but remained uninhabited until it was held by the Moors and Spaniards until 1704, when, during the Spanish War of Succession, it was captured by the British and Dutch and ceded to Britain in 1713. Spain won it by war and lost it by war. It has been British for 300 years and wishes to remain so. Henry Hall - Ringwood, Hants
[An attached photo of one of the apes is captioned "Tradition has it that if the apes ever leave the Rock British rule would end."]

Globe & Mail 26 August:
U.S. intelligence officers involved in prison abuse - Probe into Abu Ghraib scandal confirms more took part than was made public

Globe & Mail 27 August 2004:
Artifacts cast doubt on Nicaraguan history.

Globe & Mail 28 August 2004:
1. FBI investigates possible spy link in Pentagon
2. [Editorial]: An Islamic court? Here? Why not?

The Weekly Telegraph No 683 August 25-31 2004:
1. Carey sparks storm over gays -
LORD CAREY, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, will provoke a fresh storm over homosexuality in the Church next month by blessing hundreds of American traditionalists who are boycotting their own pro-gay bishop. This high-profile intervention by Lord Carey will highlight the growing polarisation in the worldwide Anglican community over the issue and will be criticised as "back-seat driving."

2. 'Flooded by a 10ft wall of water -
Dozens trapped as deluge devastates Corninsh villages - Torrent's trail of destruction (19 separate establishments or locales washed away or severely damaged.); Prince pledges cash to help victims.

3. Nature walker 'shot by mistake' -
A WILDLIFE enthusiast on a nature walk was seriously injured when a hunter mistook his night vision binoculars for a fox's eyes and opened fire, a court was told. Anthony Burns, 52, a mechanic, of Prestwood, Bucks, denies causing grievous bodily harm to journalist Trevor Lawson. The case continues.

4. Four-wheel drives are blamed for dust that threatens world

5. Chairman Mao's secret cure for malaria -
Wonder drug based on Chinese remedy can save lives of millions, reports Roger Highfield

6. Move to beatify EU founder -
A CAMPAIGN to sanctify the EU through the beatification of its founding father, Robert Schuman, has run into stiff resistance from the Vatican

7. Serbia sheds its red star -
SERBIA, formerly a communist Yugoslav republic, has dropped the red star from its two-headed white eagle-national coat of arms. Parliament also approved a new anthem, Boze Pravde (God of Justice). - AFP

8. Turks' zero hour -
TO THE relief of tourists baffled by the country's inflated currency, Turkey will chop six zeros from its banknotes next year. The Turkish lira is worth almost nothing at present: £1 buys nearly three million. - AFP

9. Shocking record -
DENMARK has entered the Guiness Book of Records with the largest number of animals killed by a bolt of lightning. A herd of 31 cows were struck down in Jutland last week.

10. Mummified troops found in glacier -
THE mummified bodies of three Austrian soldiers killed in the First World War have emerged from a thawing glacier which preserved them for almost 90 years. Writes Bruce Johnston in Rome. Maurizio Vincenzi, an alpine rescue volunteer, stumbled upon the soldiers still dressed in their tattered uniforms, on the Dei Forni glacier near the Swiss and Austrian borders in the Italian Alps. It is thought they died in the battle of Punta San Matteoon on Sept 3, 1918.

11. Mercenaries escape mass execution (in Zimbabwe).

12. Mugabe to ban human rights groups.

13. Singapore's dead make way for the living;
[Brief: Huge Christian cemetery graves yield space to development. If unclaimed within 3 years, cremated remains will be scattered at sea.] Related heading: Singapore 'needs more babies'.

14. A grand old spectacle (Edinburgh Military Tattoo is an annual event).

15. Obituary: James Rockefeller age 102 -
Head of the First National City Bank of New York, a great nephew of the oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller.

16. Iraq billing row
HALLIBURTON'S row with the US army intensified last week when the military said it would withhold 15pc of future invoices because of an ongoing dispute over the billing practices of the biggest contractor in Iraq.