Nexus - 0503 - New Times Magazine-pages

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... GLOBAL NEWS ... NEWS glasses, fans, filing cabinets, filters, forks, generators, hairpins, hammers, handker- chiefs, hats, hoes, hoses, jackets, kettles, light bulbs, magazines, matches, mirrors, mops, mugs, music CDs, musical instru- ments, napkins, oil lamps, pens, pots, razor andals, scales, screws, shirts, shoes, soap, sponges, stoves, sun hats, tables, telephones, timber, tin, tyre pumps, toys, TV sets, trash cans, tractors, trucks, venetian blinds, wallpaper, watches, water pumps, wheels, wood, wool and wrenches. The sanctions, combined with radiation poisoning, bombed hospitals, fouled water supplies, etc., have reportedly resulted in the deaths of up to 1.7 million Iraqis, most- ly children and the elderly, over the past seven years. (Source: Green Left Weekly, 25 February & 4 March 1998) the international Chemical Weapons Convention, said: "We are in violation of the treaty, and it is so ironic that we are about to engage in hostilities against Iraq over the matter of weapons inspections because Saddam Hussein has registered the same exceptions as we have done." (Sources: The Guardian, London; Sydney Morning Herald (SMH), /3 February 1998) base or even a colony one day. Initial estimates indicate that the Moon holds, in widely separated deposits, enough water to fill a lake 5.2 square kilometres by 10.5 metres deep. "We think we are seeing between 10 mil- lion and 100 million tonnes of water," sug- gested Alan Binder, the NASA project's principal scientist. (Source: SMH, 7 March 1998) sey POPE HAS DOUBTS ABOUT "NEW AGE’ THINKING HOW TO PLUG LEAKS lhe Pope is preparing an attack on "New overnments have always been plagued Age" beliefs, an onslaught expected to by leaks. Now Sun Microsystems of be set out in an encyclical—a papal letter California has come up with a patent (EP sent to all Roman Catholic bishops, and the 798 619) to identify the culprits. most authoritative way in which he can The technique can identify the source of make his ideas known. the document if it has been photocopied, or His main objection is understood to be — scanned with optical character recognition. the concept of "systematic doubt", on the It even works if the document has been grounds that it precludes a belief in God _ retyped! that is rooted in certainty. Each authorised recipient of the docu- The Pope see systematic doubt as the key — ment is assigned a number in binary code. to a system of beliefs which put man, not Sun's coding system then analyses the text God, at the centre of the universe. He is and makes minor changes to each copy, thought to regard the New Age movement, such as leaving out acomma. These with its emphasis on self-realisation, as a changes incorporate the unique code in the product of such thinking. text without altering the meaning. If, as reports in Rome suggest, a rare If someone leaks a copy, Sun's decoder encyclical is issued, it will be a measure of _ compares the leaked document with its the alarm that New Age thinking provokes master, logs the differences and works out at the highest levels in the Catholic Church. which of the authorised copies has been (Source: SMH, 27 February 1998) leaked. (Source: New Scientist, 10 January 1998) MOON WATER OFFERS HAT US BANS INSPECTION OF ITS OWN CHEMICAL WEAPONRY lhe United States, while preparing to attack Iraq in order to enforce weapons inspections, has drafted legislation on the inspection of its own chemical weapons arsenal in such a way that the President can refuse admission to international inspec- tors. The legislation allows the President to pick and choose inspectors and to deny access to personnel from other countries without giving reasons, and with no legal redress against the decision. In fact, the two sections containing the code of inspection over which the US threatened war against Iraq are both specif- ically omitted! Ms Amy Smithson, who has waged a one-woman campaign for US ratification of MOON WATER OFFERS HOT PROSPECTS FOR LUNAR BASE reliminary data collected from the Lunar Prospector, a US$65 million robot craft launched in January, indicates that there is enough water frozen in the loose soil of the Moon to support a lunar MMR VACCINE LINKED TO AUTISM AND BOWEL DISORDER ritish doctors have discovered that the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vac- cination may be a trigger for autism. The study, conducted at the Royal Free Hospital, Hampstead, north London, also found a link between the vaccine and inflammatory bowel disease. It showed that out of 12 children who had previously been diagnosed nor- mal, all developed an intestinal disor- der and nine developed autism. According to GPs involved in the study, eight of the children developed changes in health and behaviour within six days of being vaccinated. In a study of another group of chil- dren, 46 out of 48 experienced bowel and behavioural problems within six days of being given the vaccine. (Sources: Herald Sun, Melbourne, 28 February 1998; Weekly Telegraph, London, 4-10 March 1998) S Sar \ i Wy x Pee LORE a TAN - wa 8 - NEXUS APRIL - MAY 1998