The Weekly News In
Review newsletter is a service
provided by Understand The Times that is a
compilation of the news articles
posted on our site during the previous
week.
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March 7 - Blair to teach in the US on faith
Article: .Roman Catholic Church And The Last Days
Tony Blair is
to teach students at Yale University in
the US when he leads a seminar on faith and
globalisation. The
former prime minister has been appointed as a
fellow at Yale and will begin
teaching next year.
The prestigious
Connecticut university said the work was related
to
Mr Blair's Faith Foundation
which will be launched later this year.
Mr Blair's other
appointments have included as a Middle East envoy
and an adviser to investment
bank JP Morgan.
Mr Blair has also left the
Anglican Church to
become a Roman Catholic
since leaving office.
He said: "As the world continues to
become
increasingly inter-dependent, it
is essential that we explore how
religious values can be
channelled toward reconciliation rather than
polarisation.
"Mr Blair has demonstrated
outstanding
leadership in these areas and
is especially qualified to bring his
perspective to bear."
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March 9 - Pope to Youth: Look to Eucharist for True Immortality
Article: Roman Catholic Church And The Last Days
VATICAN CITY, MARCH
9, 2008 (Zenit.org).-
Those looking for
the fountain of life should look to
the Eucharist, the only true source of
immortality, says Benedict
XVI.
The Pope said this today upon celebrating
a Mass marking the 25th
anniversary of the San Lorenzo
International Center, attended by an
international group of 200 young people.
"Although he is part of the this
great biocosmos,
man transcends it because,
certainly, man is always man with all his
dignity, even if he is in a
comatose state, even if he is an embryo; but
if he only lives biologically not
all of the possibilities of his being
will be realized, which open
new dimensions," he said. The
first dimension is that of
knowledge, the Holy Father continued, a
knowledge that in man, as
distinct from animals,
is identified with a "thirst
for the infinite."
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March 10 - Electronic Structure Of DNA Revealed For First Time
Article: Creation / Evolution - Misc.
ScienceDaily (Mar. 10,
2008) - Utilizing a
technique that combines low temperature
measurements and
theoretical calculations, Hebrew University of
Jerusalem scientists and others have revealed
for
the first time the electronic
structure of single DNA molecules.
The
knowledge of the electronic properties of DNA is
an important issue in many
scientific areas from biochemistry to
nanotechnology -- for example in the study of DNA
damage by ultraviolet radiation
that may cause the generation of free
radicals and genetic
mutations. In those cases, DNA repair occurs
spontaneously via an
electronic charge transfer along the DNA helix that
restores the damaged
molecular bonds.
In nano-
bioelectronics, which is the advanced research
field devoted to the study of
biological molecules (to produce
electrical nanocircuits, for
example), it has been suggested that DNA,
or its derivatives, may become used as possible
conducting molecular wires in
the realization of molecular computing
networks which are smaller
and more efficient than those produced today
with silicon
technology.
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March 7 - 'Conspirators' Bring Together New Styles of Christianity
Article: Emerging Church
More
than 300 people participated in "The
New Conspirators Conference" last
week that brought
together hip-hoppers, community workers,
and mainline pastors who all were
looking for new ways to connect the new
generation with Jesus Christ.
Afterwards, Efrem
Smith, co-author of The Hip Hop
Church, spoke about the need to tear down
traditional structures that are associated
with the "white" church,
according to Brink. He also spoke about
what it meant to be loved first by
God so we can love others.
Earlier in the
conference,
representatives of the four Christian
"streams of renewal" gathered Friday,
Feb. 29, for a brief introduction of their
stream and Q & A session. The
emerging, missional, mosaic, and
monastic streams were present for the
special intro session.
The emerging stream
tries to reach the young postmodern
generation who are interested in
spirituality but not
in what is offered by traditional churches.
To address the problem, emerging
leaders started creating cafes and art
centers that engaged specific
populations of the un-churched and de-
churched. Emerging churches tend to be
more relational and
experiential.
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March 10 - Recycle or go to Hell, warns Vatican
Article: Social Gospel
Failing
to recycle plastic
bags could find you spending eternity in Hell,
the Vatican said
after drawing up a list of seven deadly sins for
our times.
The seven, which include
polluting the
environment, were announced by Monsignor
Gianfranco Girotti,
a close ally of the Pope and the head of the
Apostolic
Penitentiary, one of the Roman Curia's main court.
The "sins of yesteryear" -
sloth, envy, gluttony,
greed, lust, wrath
and pride - have a "rather
individualistic
dimension", he told the Osservatore
Romano,
the official Vatican
newspaper. The new seven
deadly, or mortal,
sins are designed to make worshippers realise
that their vices
have an effect on others as well.
"The sins of today
have a social
resonance as well as an individual one,"
said Mgr
Girotti. "In effect, it is more important than ever
to pay attention to
your sins."
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March 11 - Russian Foreign Minister To Visit Middle East To "control Worsening Conditions In Region"
Article: Israel And The Last Days
(RTTNews) -
Russia, which was until recently a
silent spectator in the Middle East peace
processes,
has decided to intervene actively to
"help control the worsening conditions
in the region."
Russian
foreign minister Sergei Lavrov will
visit Syria, Israel, and the Palestinian
territories during March 19-21,
foreign ministry spokesman Mikhail
Kamynin said in a statement on Tuesday.
He will address the
problems with Palestinian-Israeli
relations, ways out of the humanitarian
crisis in Gaza, the suspension of violence,
the resumption of negotiations
aimed at the Palestinian-Israeli situation
and other negotiating tracks,
including the Syrian one, the AP
quoted Kamynin as saying.
Moscow
has offered to
host a follow-up meeting to the Annapolis
peace conference held last year as
an "extension of support to an
obvious impulse that the peace process
received from Annapolis," the
statement said.
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March 12 - Dozens sun-blinded in India after Marian apparition rumor
Article: Signs And Wonders
At least 50 in India have
been blinded after staring at the sun in the
hope of seeing an apparition of
the Virgin Mary, the
Telegraph reports.
Devotees have flocked to a
hotel manager's house in Erumeli,
near where the apparition is rumored to
have occurred. The hotelier claimed
that statues of the Virgin Mary in his
house had been crying honey and
bleeding oils and perfume. The hotelier
has since moved, but the house has been
the object of attention for months.
Health authorities in the
Kottayam district have
tried to dispel rumors of a miraculous
image in the sun. They warn of the
dangers of looking into direct
sunlight. Forty-eight cases of sight loss,
possibly caused by photochemical burns
on the retina, have been recorded at
St. Joseph's ENT and Eye Hospital since
Friday.
"All our patients
have similar history and symptoms...
They have developed photochemical, not
thermal, burns after continuously
gazing at the sun," Dr. Annamma
James Isaac, the hospital's ophthalmologist
said, according to the
Telegraph
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March 13 - Obama pastor: Not God bless, but God d--- America!
Article: Misc.
First he praised Nation of Islam leader Louis
Farrakhan, giving him a
humanitarian award and traveling with him to
Libya to meet Moammar
Gadhafi.
Then he turned his Trinity
United Church of Christ into
an
institution that had all the earmarkings of a
black separatist
congregation.
And now he, it turns out,
he has damned America
in God's name and blamed
the U.S. for provoking the Sept. 11, 2001,
terrorist attacks by dropping
nuclear weapons on Japan in World War II
and supporting Israel since
1947.
ABC News reviewed
dozens of Wright's sermons, finding repeated
denunciations of the U.S. based on
what he
described as his reading of
the Gospels and the treatment of black
Americans.
"The government
gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a
three-strike law and then
wants us to sing 'God Bless America.'
No, no,
no, God d--- America, that's in the Bible
for killing innocent
people," he said in a 2003 sermon.
"God d--- America for treating
our citizens as
less than human. God d---
America for as long as she acts like she is
God and she is
supreme."
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March 11 - Jordan Deports Evangelical Christians
Article: Misc.
AMMAN, JORDAN --
Evangelical Christians are
being criticized in Jordan
where
dozens of seminary students and missionaries
have been deported, a
report said.
Some
Jordanians reportedly feel American evangelicals
are
trying to bring down their beliefs and customs
by pushing American values.
"They
come as individuals, and
they exploit the citizens of this
nation, recruiting them for their
interests," UPI
reported World Council of Churches representative
Awda Qawwas said.
The proselytizing of Muslims to
Christianity is against the law
in Jordan.
Further
questioned by Compass about Jordanian law,
Nour specified that all Jordanian citizens were
guaranteed freedom of
religion as long as it did not "interfere with
other religions."
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March 13 - Inside the hush-hush North American Union confab
Article: One World Government
WASHINGTON -- A largely
unreported meeting held at the
State Department discussed integration of
the U.S.,
Mexico and
Canada in concert with a move
toward a transatlantic union, linking a
North American community
with the European Union.
The meeting agenda
included topics reviewing
the
Security
and Prosperity Partnership
of North
America, or SPP,
and the U.S.-EU
Transatlantic Economic
Council, or TEC.
The SPP, declared by the
U.S.,
Canada and Mexico at a summit
meeting in 2005, has 20 trilateral bureaucratic
working groups that seek to
"integrate and harmonize" administrative
rules and regulations on a
continental basis.
Others noted the premise
of the TEC is to create
a
convergence of administrative rules and
regulations between Europe
and North America, anticipating the creation
of a "Transatlantic
Economic Union" between the European Union
and North
America.
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March 15 - Blair wants 'climate revolution'
Article: One World Government
Former
Prime Minister Tony Blair has called for
a "global environment
revolution" to tackle climate change.
In a speech to a meeting
of G8 ministers building on the 2005
Gleneagles summit, he stressed the need for a
"global deal".
He suggested it should be
led by the UN and that failure
to act on climate change "would be deeply
and unforgivably
irresponsible".
"The UN machinery is valiantly
striving to put
this deal together. The UN and
the UN alone is the right forum to reach
the global agreement.
"What I found, whilst
still in office as prime minister, was that
countries had their own
environmental policy. They talked to other
nations of course, but there was no centre where
it was brought together."
He also said that he could "see no way
of tackling climate change
without a renaissance of nuclear power".
He also works as an
advisor to investment bank JP Morgan and insurer
Zurich.
Last week it was
announced he would run a
seminar on faith and
globalisation at Yale University in the US.
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We hope the Weekly News In Review has been a
blessing to you.
In Jesus,
Roger Oakland
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