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Weekly News In Review

September 11 - 17, 2005
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The following articles were posted at www.understandthetimes.org this past week:

Scientists win right to create human embryo with three genetic parents
Pastor faces hearing over 'anti-gay' letter
Terrorist moms 'yearn for martyrdom' - New Hamas women's units help aim of wiping out Israel
UN environmental agency launches 11th hour bid to save great apes
Sun's String of Fury Continues as 7th Major Flare Erupts
Christians, Muslims Worship Together
Dutch Doctors End Kids' Lives, Studies Find
The Eucharist at the centre of life and faith in Pakistan
Bill Clinton: Savior of the World?
Pope Blesses Statue of St. Josemaria Escriva
Catholics take to the airwaves in growing numbers
Alpha Courses gaining support among Catholics
Global warming linked to increase of hurricanes
Global warming 'past the point of no return'

Article: Cloning and Genetic Engineering

September 9, 2005 - Scientists win right to create human embryo with three genetic parents
British scientists have been given permission to create human embryos that will have three genetic parents.
The fertility watchdog cleared a team at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne yesterday to conduct an experiment to prevent genetic disease by merging single-cell embryos with donated eggs.
The decision to approve the procedure on appeal, after two previous applications were rejected, is controversial because it could eventually lead to the birth of children who carry genes from two mothers and a father.

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Article: Signs of the Last Times

September 10 - Pastor faces hearing over 'anti-gay' letter

A Canadian pastor who works with at-risk youth is preparing to face his province's Human Rights Tribunal because of a letter to the editor he wrote calling homosexuality immoral and dangerous.
The letter by the Rev. Stephen Boissoin of Alberta also called into question the province's new homosexual-rights curriculum, reported LifeSiteNews.com.
The complaint was filed by Darren Lund, an assistant professor at the University of Calgary, after Boissoin's letter was published in the Red Deer Advocate.
If Boissoin loses, he could be forced to pay $7,000 in fines " $5,000 to Lund personally and another $2,000 to the homosexual-rights group EGALE Canada.
In his letter, Boissoin wrote, "Children as young as 5 and 6 years of age are being subjected to psychologically and physiologically damaging pro-homosexual literature and guidance in the public school system; all under the fraudulent guise of equal rights." Boissoin said he's concerned behavior that is dangerous, and sometimes fatal, is being presented as normative and even healthy to the most impressionable.
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Article: Islam

September 10, 2005 - Terrorist moms 'yearn for martyrdom' - New Hamas women's units help aim of wiping out Israel
Q: Wouldn't it be better for you to deal with educating and developing the [next] generation?

A: It's all one path. We raise our children and perform our domestic duties, the duty of encouraging devotion to religion, as well as the other everyday duties, and the epitome of them is jihad for the sake of Allah. Jihad is a duty that every Muslim is required to fulfill if he can. Our joining the military organization is one of the essential everyday tasks.

Q: What do women like you tell your children?

A: Our message is to educate them to jihad, which is a sacred duty which cannot be neglected...

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Article: Creation/Evolution (Misc.)

September 1, 2005 - UN environmental agency launches 11th hour bid to save great apes

In a bid to mobilize global support for an 11th-hour effort to save humankind's closest living relatives from extinction, the United Nations environmental agency today launched the most comprehensive compendium of information about great apes ever compiled.
"We have a duty to rescue our closest living relatives as part of our wider responsibilities to conserve the ecosystems they inhabit," UNEP Executive Director Klaus Toepfer said. "You only have to look at the tropical forests, home to the great apes. Economists now calculate that they are worth $60 billion a year as a result of their ability to remove and store global warming gases from the atmosphere alone."
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Article: Signs of the Last Times

September 17, 2005 - Sun's String of Fury Continues as 7th Major Flare Erupts
An ongoing series of seven major solar flares, including two on Saturday, could disrupt communications on Earth and generate colorful sky shows for people at high northern latitudes for the next several days.
Already satellites have been affected. Even more serious effects are possible this week.

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Article: Ecumenism - Christianity Uniting with other Religions

September 12, 2005 - Christians, Muslims Worship Together

Pinellas Park Beneath a skylight in a Christian church, surrounded by stained-glass images of Jesus Christ, Omar Kassem led the Muslim call to prayer in Arabic.
"God is great," the University of South Florida student said to the congregation at Good Samaritan Church, which ended the hourlong Sunday service by announcing "salaam," the Muslim greeting for peace.
Church leaders say the acts served as bookends for a service meant to promote peace and a better understanding between Christians and Muslims four years after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Good Samaritan Church in Pinellas Park is a union of Presbyterian and United Church of Christ denominations. What better church to reach across faiths to destroy stereotypes, said the Rev. Susan Sherwood.
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Article: Signs of the Last Times

September 6, 2005 - Dutch Doctors End Kids' Lives, Studies Find
Rotterdam, the Netherlands, Sept. 6-Doctors in Holland, where euthanasia for adults is permitted, have hastened the deaths of children as well, researchers have found.
In a four-month period in 2001, 36% of all deaths of children in Holland between the ages of one and 17 were preceded by what is called an "end-of-life decision," according to Astrid Vrakking, M.Sc., of Erasmus Medical Center here.
Such decisions range from withholding life-sustaining treatment, to administering drugs to relieve pain or other symptoms, even with a possible life-shortening effect, or -- in the most extreme cases -- to using drugs with the aim of ending life, Vrakking and colleagues wrote in the September issue of the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.

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Article: Roman Catholic Church and Last Days

September 12, 2005 - The Eucharist at the centre of life and faith in Pakistan

Hundreds of thousands of faithful celebrate Mary, "Lady of the Eucharist", during Mariamabad's National Eucharistic Congress.
Mariamabad (AsiaNews) - The National Eucharistic Congress held in the village of Mariamabad (Mary's city), 80 km from Punjab's provincial capital of Lahore, came to a close yesterday. It had started on September 9 with the 56th Marian pilgrimage whose theme this year was "Mary and Eucharist". Hundreds of thousands of men and women of all ages came on pilgrimage reaching Mariamabad early morning on Friday.
... "The Eucharist is the centre of our Catholic life and faith," said Fr Younas Shahzad, and "in it, we are united with Jesus. At the same time, it is a symbol of the faithful's unity as they ear from the same bread and drink from the same cup."
"This is the highest form of prayer and a resource for meeting Christ," he added. "The Eucharist shows God's endless love and celebrates goodness as the only path to reach God and faith."
"Mary is a historical reality which gives a material shape to Jesus. She prepared the path to salvation for us. That is why Mary and Eucharist are always one. Our Lady is a 'Lady of the Eucharist'," Father Shahzad explained.
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Article: One World Government

September 12, 2005 - Bill Clinton: Savior of the World?
He's left the White House, but Bill Clinton still wants to end poverty, bring about global peace and save the planet. He tells Euripedes Alcāntara how he plans to do it
Bill Clinton is fully engaged in the contest to be the best ex-president of the United States. This week, in New York, he will host the first global meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), a super-NGO with grand goals such as the promotion of economic growth without environmental impact and the conciliation of religious differences as a way to end terrorism.

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Article: Roman Catholic Church and Last Days

September 14, 2005 - Pope Blesses Statue of St. Josemaria Escriva

Vatican Ctiy, SEP 14, 2005 (VIS) - Following today's general audience, Benedict XVI blessed a statue of St. Josemaria Escriva, founder of Opus Dei, which has recently been placed in a niche on the outside of St. Peter's Basilica.
The marble statue, some five meters high, is located in a niche on the external wall of the left transept of the basilica, also known as the arm of St. Joseph, very near the entrance to the sacristy. The niches in this area of the basilica were allocated by John Paul II for sculptures of saints and of founders of religious orders.
The statue of St. Josemaria, work of the Italian sculptor Romano Cosci, has been placed alongside other statues of similar dimensions, among them those of St. Gregory the Illuminator, apostle of Armenia, of the Carmelite St. Teresa of Jesus of the Andes, and of St. Marcellin Champagnat, founder of the Marist Brothers.
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Article: Roman Catholic Church and Last Days

September 14 - Catholics take to the airwaves in growing numbers
Fewer than a dozen Catholic radio stations were on the air in the United States in 2000. Today there are about 100. That's a small number compared with the 1,950 Christian stations and the 13,383 stations overall monitored by Arbitron, a radio-rating and media-research service.
"I give our Protestant brothers and sisters much credit because they stuck with radio and have become quite good at the medium," Pepe said. "Catholics at the time decided they'd rather use their money to feed the poor."
He said the Catholic Church also didn't realize how effective radio could be in reaching a diverse, mass audience. "That attitude changed in the mid-1990s when Pope John Paul II talked about new evangelization and using all forms of media to spread the Gospel," Pepe said. Unfortunately for Catholic broadcasters, radio frequencies are now more expensive and difficult to obtain.

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Article: Ecumenism - Protestants Uniting With Roman Catholics

August 5, 2005 - Alpha Courses gaining support among Catholics

The Alpha Course on the essential teachings of Christianity is growing in favor among Catholics as bishops and priests see its potential as an evangelization tool. Likewise, the leaders of the Alpha movement see the Catholic Church as an essential partner in its mission to re-evangelize Canada.
The creator and presenter of Alpha's video series, Nicky Gumbel, is urging churches of all denominations to work together, saying that the disunity among Christians is a big barrier to reaching the unchurched. Gumbel pointed out that the doctrines that divided Christians are irrelevant to young people today, that the battle facing Christians is more like that of the first century when people were asking who Jesus was-was He the Son of God?
"What unites us is infinitely greater than what divides us," he said. "The Holy Spirit is lowering the denominational barriers."
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Article: Signs of the Last Times

September 16, 2005 - Global warming linked to increase of hurricanes
Hurricans of the intensity of Katrina have become almost twice as common over the past 35 years, according to research suggesting that global warming could be worsening severe storms.
... Since 1990 an average of 18 Category 4 and 5 storms, of similar strength to Hurricane Katrina, have occurred every year, compared with an average of 10 in the 1970s, US scientists have found.
Ocean surface temperatures - one of the key drivers of hurricane intensity - have increased by an average of 0.5C (0.9F) over the same period, indicating a potential connection to global warming.

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Article: Signs of the Last Times

September 16, 2005 - Global warming 'past the point of no return'

A record loss of sea ice in the Arctic this summer has convinced scientists that the northern hemisphere may have crossed a critical threshold beyond which the climate may never recover. Scientists fear that the Arctic has now entered an irreversible phase of warming which will accelerate the loss of the polar sea ice that has helped to keep the climate stable for thousands of years.
They believe global warming is melting Arctic ice so rapidly that the region is beginning to absorb more heat from the sun, causing the ice to melt still further and so reinforcing a vicious cycle of melting and heating. The greatest fear is that the Arctic has reached a "tipping point" beyond which nothing can reverse the continual loss of sea ice and with it the massive land glaciers of Greenland, which will raise sea levels dramatically.
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