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Neo-Nazi terrorism in Germany
Stockpiles of arms and bomb-making equipment are stirring fears that neo-Nazi groups
will mount a large-scale terrorist campaign. Neo-Nazis and others of the far right
are responsible for 130 race-related murders in Germany since the reunification of
East and West Germany about a decade ago. Since March 1998 German police have discovered
weapons centers, and terrorists have sparked incidents, in Berlin, Frankfurt, Düsseldorf
and elsewhere.
Says Hajo Funke, professor of politics at a Berlin university and an expert on far-right
extremism: "The findings of weapons by police have been getting more and more
frequent ... We can expect victims in the near future to be companies, democratic
organizations and left-wing groups."
Grame Atkinson, European editor of Searchlight, recently said: "What
we are seeing is a very worrying trend in the organization of far-right groups with
a view to committing terrorism. They are talking about creating terrorist cells ...
with foreigners (being) driven out from rural areas and smaller towns."
Europe has vivid memories of antigovernment groups trying to destabilize German democracy
in the 1920s and early '30s, which ultimately devastated the entire continent. (Source:
The Observer (London).)
Back to the Cold War?
While Americans focused their attention on two men's struggle for the presidency,
an old problem resurfaced. The same day Gov. George W. Bush of Texas became U.S.
president-elect, Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in Havana, capital of communist
Cuba. For more than 30 years Cuba and the former Soviet Union nurtured a close relationship
that almost led to a nuclear holocaust in the '60s. President John Kennedy faced
down Soviet Communist Party chairman Nikita Khrushchev while the world held its breath.
Moscow blinked and withdrew its nuclear weapons from Cuban soil.
After the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, it seemed the old alliance was over. But
Russia's new president is busy rebuilding traditional ties with Havana. Elsewhere,
too, Russia is rekindling old Soviet alliances. Less than a year after succeeding
Russian president Boris Yeltsin in March, Mr. Putin has quietly challenged America's
claim to be the world's only remaining superpower.
Said a British newspaper: "(Putin) has intervened directly in the US-led Middle
East peace process, given succor to Iraq, and resumed arms sales to Iran and Libya.
He visited North Korea, that most roguish of US-designated 'rogue states,' and cheekily
claimed to have curbed its menacing missiles. He went to India, bidding to revive
Soviet-era ties in direct competition with Bill Clinton's efforts to woo Delhi last
spring; and has increased military and political cooperation with China-identified
by Mr Bush as a potential 21st century antagonist. Mr Putin regularly stresses Russia's
national interests in the Balkans, its opposition to NATO expansion and its deep
dislike of Mr Bush's plans for a treaty-busting national missile defense system.
Now here he is in Havana, getting chummy with America's chief bogeyman, Fidel Castro."
Not only in foreign policy is Russia returning to the bad old days. At President
Putin's suggestion the Duma voted overwhelmingly to restore the Soviet national anthem,
though the words are to be rewritten to reflect Russia's new democratic age. The
government postponed a decision on finally burying Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin's
embalmed body after opposition from the Communist Party. Anti-Western sentiment remains.
Months after the sinking of the Russian submarine Kursk, officials still blame
the incident on a collision with a NATO vessel rather than admit to a failure of
Russian technology.
Perhaps the explanation for these developments lies in Russia's complex internal
problems. As a Russian newspaper observed: "Apparently some of Putin's close
advisers believe that a certain degree of tension with the West is a good thing since
it helps the Kremlin maintain a broad base of support in the country and within the
elite." Putin "publicly praised the virtues of the growing political consensus
in Russia when the 'left' forces increasingly support 'market reform,' while 'rightist'
forces support a strong state."
One year after taking office President Putin has succeeded in strengthening central
control and apparently has a clear vision of where he wants Russia to go. (Sources:
The Guardian (London), The Moscow Times.)
BSE hits Western Europe
A disease that peaked as a minor British epidemic in 1992 and 1993 recently spread
to France, then to Germany. Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad-cow disease,
is nearly always fatal and has no known medical cure. The human form, Creutzfeldt-Jakob
disease (CJD), affects young people in particular. It is a neurodegenerative malady
of the brain that incapacitates the central nervous system. It apparently originated
when beef suppliers fed cattle the ground-up remains of animal carcasses.
The Times (London) explains: "Over the past month (October) it has belatedly
dawned on France that people have long been eating meat from cattle infected with
BSE." By December BSE was confirmed in five German cows with one possible case
of CJD, the first human victim in Germany.
This disease is a political football in Western Europe. Until recently the European
Union virtually banned British beef on the Continent. Some in Britain are calling
for the United Kingdom to ban French beef. (Sources: The Daily Mail (London),
The Times (London).)
Pornography gaining respectability
Sales of illicit sex in the form of pornography are a $10 billion industry in the
United States, according to Forrester Research of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Among
porn profiteers are major corporations that are household names in America. Writes
Timothy Egan of the New York Times News Service: "The financial rewards are
so great that some of the biggest distributors of explicit sex on film and online
include the country's most recognizable names."
The story says General Motors and AT&T sell far more pornography than Playboy
Enterprises and Larry Flynt's Hustler empire combined. One primary outlet
is a special television box in many of the nation's hotels, 40 percent of which are
equipped to show pornographic movies.
Mr. Egan's account includes the assertion that 21 million Americans visit at least
one of the 60,000 pornographic Internet Web sites once a month or more. (Source:
The Corpus Christi Caller-Times.)
Euthanasia to become law in
Netherlands
The Netherlands' parliament approved a bill legalizing mercy killing and doctor-assisted
suicide in some circumstances. The vote in the lower house of the Dutch parliament
was 104-40, overriding the objections of small Christian political parties and the
Roman Catholic Church. The Dutch senate must approve the bill, but under the system
in the Netherlands approval is a mere formality.
A poll in 1998 showed a large proportion of the country's population approves of
euthanasia, which has been a long-standing practice in the Netherlands. A newspaper
report said doctors "now are virtually never prosecuted for performing thousands
of assisted suicides for terminally ill patients each year."
Whether a medical practitioner snuffs out a life before birth (abortion) or near
the end of its normal span (euthanasia), the taking of life is still a violation
of the Sixth Commandment. Nothing in God's Word sanctions such practices. For further
understanding of the principles undergirding respect for one's neighbors and their
right to life, please request a free copy of The Ten Commandments. (Source:
International Herald Tribune.)
Britain becoming a society
of atheists?
The archbishop of Canterbury, leader of the Anglican Church, describes British religious
leanings as "tacit atheism." "Death is assumed to be the end of life,"
lamented Dr. George Carey, the archbishop. British people look to medicine for eternal
life rather than religion, he said, and have abandoned the Christian teaching of
eternal life. People are living as if "doctors can cure all ills and even postpone
death forever."
The archbishop connects the trend with a general loss of morality in an increasingly
secularized society. He called for clerics and laypeople to restore "authentic"
Christianity to Britain.
What lies at the heart of the problem? According to the Scriptures, the clergy is
responsible for the loss of true religion. In the words of the Creator: "Her
priests have violated my law and profaned my holy things; they have not distinguished
between the holy and unholy, nor have they made known the difference between the
clean and the unclean; and they have hidden their eyes from My Sabbaths, so that
I am profaned among them" (Ezekiel 22:26; see also Ezekiel 44:23-24).
This stunning indictment applies to the whole of the Western world, not just the
British Isles. (Source: The Daily Telegraph (London).)
Missile threat greater than
during Cold War
"The risk of a missile attack against the United States involving chemical,
biological or nuclear warheads is greater today than during most of the Cold War
and will continue to grow in the next 15 years, says a new global threat assessment
by the National Intelligence Council," writes Vernon Loeb in a Washington
Post article.
The council, composed of experts from U.S. security agencies, academia and business
interests, predicts that, while the outlook for the United States is generally optimistic,
terrorist attacks directed against the United States "will become increasingly
sophisticated and designed to achieve mass casualties."
Looking to possible threats to the United States in the next few years, the report
warns of disturbing possibilities:
"A 'de facto geo-strategic alliance' among China, Russia and India to counterbalance
U.S. influence.
"A collapse in the U.S.-European alliance due to trade disputes, political differences
and conflict over global security.
"Formation of an international terrorist coalition with 'diverse anti-Western
objectives' and access to chemical,
biological and even nuclear weapons.
"Serious Mideast upheaval, caused by eroding living standards in major Arab
nations and a failure by Israel and the Palestinians to reach a peace accord."
With the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s, the United States and its Western
allies have enjoyed a decade of peace and prosperity minus serious threats. It seems
that other dangers are looming. As Franklin Roosevelt put it when talking of a previous
threat: "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." (Source: The
Washington Post.)
-John Ross Schroeder and Melvin Rhodes
(Contents Page)
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United Church of God, an International Association
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