BPR Mailing List Digest: 06/01/00

Philologos
BPR Mailing List Digest
June 1, 2000

Digest Home | 2000 | June, 2000

To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - 'Archbishop sold cemetery to developers'
From: bpr-list@philologos.org("Moza")
Date: Thu, 1 Jun 2000 08:45:44 -0400

Thursday, June 1, 2000

'Archbishop sold cemetery to developers'

By Joseph Algazy
Ha'aretz Correspondent

The sale of more than half the area of a Greek Catholic cemetery in Jaffa to a
development company is stirring the community's ire. The cemetery, which
is actively used by the community in Jaffa, is situated near the border with
Bat Yam.

In recent days, the community discovered that the Greek Catholic
Archbishop, Lutfi Laham from East Jerusalem, sold 2,866 square meters of
the cemetery to Yefet Yam, a development company. The full area of the
cemetery is listed the Tel Aviv-Jaffa lands registry as 5,425 square meters.

Yefet Yam is owned by Talal Abu Mana, who intends to set up a gas station
and a commercial center on the purchased property.

This week, following the arrival of bulldozers to the site, a group of Greek
Catholics asked the Tel Aviv municipality and religious affairs authorities to
put a stop to work at the cemetery. Through their attorney, Eran Blumenthal,
the community members said that they use the cemetery and the work
planned there violates the sanctity of the site and dishonors the dead.

A spokesman for the Tel Aviv municipality said yesterday that the city has
begun the legal process to issue a warrant stopping work at the site.

The Greek Catholic community also filed a complaint at the lands registry
office, where it argued that the sale was illegal since the land is registered to
the community and not to the Archbishop of Jerusalem. The Greek Catholic
community requested that the transfer in the registry be delayed until the
committee representing the community authorizes it.

The Jaffa Greek Catholics have also sent letters on the matter to the
Vatican, to the Vatican's embassy in Jerusalem and to the head of the
Greek Catholic church, Patriarch Maximus Hakim, in Damascus. They also
wrote to Bishop Butrus Mu'alem in Haifa, and the Patriarch at the head of the
Latin church in Jerusalem. In all their correspondence, they bitterly
condemned the action of Archbishop Laham and placed the "immoral and
illegal responsibility" for the land sale on his shoulders.

No response was available from Archbishop Laham's office in Jerusalem. A
spokesperson said he had left for Germany on Monday.

http://www3.haaretz.co.il/eng/scripts/article.asp?mador=14&datee=06/01/00&
id=80136

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To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Lucent buys Chromatis in $4.5b stock deal
From: bpr-list@philologos.org("Moza")
Date: Thu, 1 Jun 2000 08:50:39 -0400

Thursday, June 1, 2000

Lucent buys Chromatis in $4.5b stock deal

By Hadar Horesh
Ha'aretz Correspondent

Lucent yesterday announced its purchase of the Israel-based company
Chromatis for about $4.5 billion, in a deal which is the biggest ever of its kind
in Israel.

The value of the deal could rise to $4.8 billion if Chromatic meets certain
performance targets.

The payment will be in the form of some 78 million shares of Lucent common
stock. The $4.5 billion valuation is based on a closing price of $58.125 for
Lucent stock on May 30. It excludes an approximately 7 percent stake in
Chromatis that Lucent already owns through its Lucent Venture Partners
venture capital subsidiary.

Certain key employees of Chromatis may also get another 2.5 million shares
(valued at approximately $145 million), contingent upon Chromatis meeting
certain performance-based goals. Each of the founders, Rafi Gidron and Orni
Petruschka, will be getting $500 million before tax.

Lucent has previously bought two Israeli companies, Lannet and
Waveaccess.

Lucent's share rose slightly after rumors of the deal first appeared earlier this
week, sending its market value up from $181.3 billion last weekend to $188.3
billion on Tuesday. Yesterday, however, the share edged down, from $57.75
to $57.3125.

Chromatis products feature a revolutionary technology called selective wave
division multiplexing (SWDM). It allows network providers to deploy only the
optical wavelengths they need, where and when they need them, creating
huge savings in WDM start-up costs.

The company's flagship product, the Metropolis system, was the first in the
industry to integrate data (packet), voice (circuit) and video services together
on metropolitan networks and combine this traffic onto a wave division
multiplexing (WDM) system. The WDM system relieves network congestion
by providing vast amounts of bandwidth in the form of multiple optical
wavelengths that blast traffic through the network at the speed of light.

Other communication companies develop similar systems, including Lucent
itself. But the flexibility and scalability of the Chromatis product make it
unique. Its main competitor, Cerent, was bought out a few months ago by
Cisco for $7 billion.

Once the transaction is completed, Chromatis will be integrated into Lucent's
optical networks division.

"The acquisition of Chromatis will enable us to bring the bandwidth-
expanding power of optical technology directly to our business customers,
and gives Lucent a leadership position in the fastest-growing segment of the
optical networking market," said Richard McGinn, Lucent Technologies
chairman and chief executive officer.

"With Chromatis, Lucent is one step closer to bringing the speed and power
of fiber optics all the way to a customer's desktop. This will allow us to
enhance what is already recognized by the industry as the broadest portfolio
of optical networking products."

Under the deal, Lucent will be transferring about three percent of its stock in
total. The allocation to Chromatis will dilute Lucent's shares, reducing the
profit per share by two cents this year and five in the next.

Lucent sees Israel not only as a source of new technologies but as an
important market. At least three companies, Cellcom, Barak and Eurocom,
have announced their intention to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in
infrastructure and even a giant like Lucent cannot ignore such potential.

Lucent is also setting up a new firm with 30,000 employees and $8 billion in
sales to handle its LAN and end-user services. The spinoff will take place in
September. Lucent itself will then command a payroll of 110,000 and sales of
$30 billion in the core technology of communications networking.

In Israel, the former Lannet will become part of the new spinoff. Lucent
Technologies Israel will now be handling the activity of the former
Waveaccess and Chromatis.

Since Chromatis is registered in the U.S. with only a subsidiary in Israel, the
government will not receive any direct tax from this deal. However, since the
company's principal owners are its Israeli founders and Israeli venture capital
funds, the government will collect taxes on their profits.

The three Israeli venture capital funds with stakes in Chromatis are
Eucalyptus, Tamir-Fishman and Jerusalem Venture Partners.

http://www3.haaretz.co.il/eng/scripts/article.asp?mador=2&datee=06/01/00&i
d=80093

See http://philologos.org/bpr for additional info.

========
To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - America fears tsunami
From: bpr-list@philologos.org("Shophar_Sho_Good")
Date: Thu, 1 Jun 2000 11:44:11 -0500

America fears tsunami
http://www.the-times.co.uk/

FROM DAMIAN WHITWORTH IN WASHINGTON

UNDERWATER gas explosions threaten to send huge tidal waves crashing into
the East Coast of America as far inland as Washington.

Scientists investigating rifts in the ocean floor found the continental
shelf disturbed by an unidentified gas and the conditions ripe for tsunami.
The "blowouts" have torn holes up to three miles wide and 165ft deep. A
landslide could launch 20ft tidal waves that would wreak havoc along the
mid-Atlantic coast with hurricanes and floods.

Researchers thought faults had created cracks but later discovered that gas
had created huge depressions. "The gas is trapped under layers of sediment
on the shelf edge," said Neil Driscoll of the Woods Hole Oceanographic
Institution, who led the team.

The scientists were surprised at the quantity of gas and intensity of the
blowouts.

Tsunami are common in Japan and the Pacific but have never been a problem in
the north Atlantic. No danger has been detected anywhere apart from off
Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina.

See http://philologos.org/bpr for additional info.

========
To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Israel finally admitted to a U.N. regional group
From: bpr-list@philologos.org("Shophar_Sho_Good")
Date: Thu, 1 Jun 2000 11:59:58 -0500

Israel finally admitted to a U.N. regional group
Thursday, June 1, 2000
By EDITH M. LEDERER

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS http://www.seattlep-i.com/national/isra012.shtml
UNITED NATIONS -- More than 50 years after Israel became a member of the
United Nations, it will finally get the chance to be represented on key U.N.
bodies in New York.

For Israeli U.N. Ambassador Yehuda Lancry, acceptance into one of the U.N.
regional groups that decides on committee memberships marks a turning point
in the Jewish state's stormy relationship with the United Nations and an end
to decades of isolation.

For U.S. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, it marks the end to a grave injustice
and a victory for the Clinton administration, which decided to publicize a
decades-old, behind-the-scenes campaign to find a region that would accept
Israel.

Under U.N. rules, regional groups decide who fills the 10 rotating seats on
the Security Council and other key U.N. committee assignments. Israel was
the only U.N. member that was not part of a regional group, because Arab
nations have repeatedly blocked its admission to the Asian Group -- where it
belongs geographically.

Last Friday the U.N. regional group of European, North American and other
countries invited Israel to become a temporary member, with some conditions.
On Tuesday, Lancry sent a formal letter of acceptance to the Netherlands'
U.N. Ambassador Peter van Walsum, who currently heads the West European and
Others Group, or WEOG, as it is called.

Why, after years of opposition from several European countries, was Israel
finally admitted?

Lancry said Israel started campaigning for membership in WEOG after the 1993
Oslo accords, which laid the groundwork for the current Middle East peace
process, but without success.

Soon after Kofi Annan became U.N. secretary-general in January 1997, he
raised the issue of Israel's exclusion. On a visit to the Middle East in
March 1998, he said, "this anomaly should be corrected" and insisted that
the equality of all states be upheld.

Lancry credited Annan's "exceptional courage" and Holbrooke's formidable
diplomatic skills in expressing the Clinton administration's determination
"to put an end to this longstanding inequity."

See http://philologos.org/bpr for additional info.

========
To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Dr Death plans mercy-killing ship
From: bpr-list@philologos.org("Shophar_Sho_Good")
Date: Thu, 1 Jun 2000 12:04:53 -0500

Dr Death plans mercy-killing ship
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE in Sydney

http://www.scmp.com/News/Asia/Article/FullText_asp_ArticleID-200006010413098
61.asp

Australia's "Dr Death" said yesterday he planned to bypass national laws by
conducting euthanasia on board a ship anchored in international waters.
Philip Nitschke, who has assisted in the deaths of four people, told
reporters in London he wanted to use a hospice-equipped ship to deliver
"peaceful deaths". He said he had sought legal advice on operating the
vessel outside Australian waters and was in discussions with interested
parties.

"I want to see if I can operate a vessel outside the 200 [nautical] mile
international shipping limit and take advantage of international law to
allow patients access to a peaceful death," he said.

"I believe one is bound by the conventions of the nation under which the
ship is registered, so it will not be simple, but I am seriously looking at
the possibilities." If a legal loophole and financial backing are found, it
will be the first such ship-based euthanasia service in the world.

Dr Nitschke said demand would be great as about 200 people had contacted him
seeking suicide assistance in the past 18 months.

He was in London to display his "Death Machine" at the Science Museum.
Consisting of a computer, case, syringe and tubes, the machine was
originally used in Darwin in 1996 by Bob Dent, the first man in the world to
die under legally sanctioned eu thanasia after the introduction of
legislation in the Northern Territory.

Under the law, two doctors had to confirm a patient was terminally ill and
suffering from unbearable pain. A psychiatrist then had to confirm the
patient was not suffering from treatable clinical depression. Three other
patients took advantage of the law before it was over-ridden in the
Australian Senate after condemnation by opponents.

Dr Nitschke said he had reluctantly accepted the term "Death Machine"
because he had "nothing better" to call it. The device had been sitting in
his shed outside Darwin for two years.

He cancelled negotiations to sell it to Sydney's Powerhouse Museum, claiming
political pressure prompted the curators to tell him it would not be
displayed. "That would have been the same as burying it," he said.

The Science Museum in London said it had no views for or against euthanasia
but recognised it was a significant issue in contemporary medicine. "Our aim
in acquiring the euthanasia machine is to stimulate thoughtful and
responsible public debate about the issue," the museum said.

Dr Nitschke's machine will be displayed in a new wing of the museum, touted
as the world's leading centre for displaying medical science and technology
to the public

See http://philologos.org/bpr for additional info.

========
To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Robots to oust farm workers
From: bpr-list@philologos.org("Shophar_Sho_Good")
Date: Thu, 1 Jun 2000 12:06:16 -0500

Robots to oust farm workers
MICHAEL LEIDIG in Vienna

http://www.scmp.com/News/World/Article/FullText_asp_ArticleID-20000601033706
694.asp

Robots could be put to work in Germany's fields to replace farm workers who
are leaving agriculture in record numbers because of poor pay and long
hours.

Scientists are creating fully automated farms where robots plough fields,
plant crops and tend plants, making sure they are sprayed and watered and
eventually harvesting them.

One of the scientists, Markus Demmel, of Munich's University of Technology,
said: "Much of the technology exists but it needs to be adapted to the needs
of agriculture. In the fields, we would have robot ploughmen moving from
field to field using the Global Positioning System (GPS) and specially
adapted electronic sensors to ensure they missed each other and obstacles
like trees or telephone poles.

"Similar machines would carefully plant the seed and then monitor the state
of the crop, reporting back to the farmer with any problems. They can even
advise on the best crops to plant after linking with other farms and looking
at soil and existing stocks and prices. And fertilising and the use of
pesticides could be measured out to exactly the right proportions using
computers that analysed the state of the crop, weather and time of the
year."

Dr Demmel said the first prototype farm robot had already been built and
within 10 years, fully automated farms could be a reality. "Unmanned
machines are already in use in Japan with great success and are being used
to plant entire fields of rice. If Europe wants to remain competitive, it
will have to follow this example," Dr Demmel said.

He said once people realised how much more efficient robots were, they would
never return to human labour. "There are fewer and fewer agricultural
workers, not just in Germany but in Europe as a whole.

"The system using robots is the best alternative for helping to replace
these missing workers. They will be able to work harder and are totally
dedicated to one thing - farming."

See http://philologos.org/bpr for additional info.

========
To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Unnatural Disasters
From: bpr-list@philologos.org("Shophar_Sho_Good")
Date: Thu, 1 Jun 2000 12:18:55 -0500

Unnatural Disasters

http://www.oneworld.net/anydoc2.cgi?url=http://www.tve.org/earthreport/thisw
eek/index.html

The three fold increase in the number of disasters over the past ten years
has set alarm bells ringing.

They used to be called "Acts of God", now more and more people are beginning
to wonder whether the Almighty is really the culprit.

Whether human economic activity is to blame is still a matter of
uncertainty. What is in no doubt is that bad decisions have amplified human
suffering and the economic cost of so-called 'natural' disasters.

In this week's Earth Report we see how poor communities are the first to
suffer from decisions made by the rich and powerful.

Brewing up a storm: stripping away nature's defenses

When Hurricane Mitch hit the Caribbean in October 1998 no one could have
believed the damage that would be left in the wake of one tropical storm.
For the Central American state of Honduras, Mitch was nothing short of a
human catastrophe.

One year later a 'super' cyclone hit the Indian state of Orissa, leaving
10,000 dead, whole villages washed away and local agriculture destroyed.
Were these poor communities just victims of 'natural' events? Alternatively,
was the human suffering from these climate-related disasters exacerbated by
man's meddling with already fragile environments?

When Orissa's mangroves were cleared to make way for shrimp farms, the coast
lost its natural shield leaving an unfettered path inland for the cyclones
that regularly batter this shoreline. In Honduras, years of extensive
logging had left mountain soil unprotected and eroded - which the ensuing
deluge swept down hillsides, burying whole villages in rivers of mud.

Smoke screen: big business and the environment

In 1997, two million hectares of rainforest burned out of control in
Indonesian Borneo. The resulting severe air pollution that blanketed much of
South East Asia led to serious respiratory ailments. But the smoke and
pollution did not obscure the real cause of this disaster: big plantation
companies demonstrating short termism on a scale rarely seen before.
Incredibly, the same companies continued their widespread slash and burn for
the next two years...

Disappearing seas: the legacy of a macro-economy

Next, Earth Report travels to the Aral Sea, what's left of it.

Once the world's fourth-largest inland water body, the Aral Sea has shrunk
to half its size - leaving once bustling fishing ports stranded more than 80
kilometres from today's coastline.

During the 1960s Moscow diverted vast quantities of water from the rivers
that fed the Aral into huge cotton fields. Now the Aral Sea is little more
than a dustbowl littered with the skeletons of ships.

On shaky ground: cut-price construction - the great leveller

At two minutes past three on the seventeenth of August 1999, the North
Anatolian Fault slipped three metres towards Greece in the west, bringing
most of Turkey with it. In the minutes that followed building after building
crumbled into piles of rubble, leaving 17,000 dead.

In the wake of the disaster, Turkey's Prime Minister was forced to
acknowledge that cut-price construction - and the government's failure to
enforce safe building standards - was responsible for the death toll.
Now, alarm bells are ringing for urban planners around the world. Forty of
the world's fifty fastest growing cities are in earthquake zones - and many
have substantial poor populations living in shanty towns or low-cost
housing.

War: the cost of conflict

The devastating 1998 famine in Southern Sudan was blamed on the civil war.
Abusive tactics by government and rebel forces were held responsible for
driving people off their land - land which could have sustained them.
At the height of the famine, while Aid agencies were air-lifting US $1
million a day to hungry Sudanese, their government was spending the same
amount making war. Here corruption and conflict were at the root of this
man-made famine.

Rising waters: civil engineering's hall of shame

Although ninety-six per cent of disaster deaths occur in developing
countries, unnatural disasters are not the sole preserve of the poor.
In 1997 the River Oder in Germany burst its banks as flood water from Poland
surged through the river system swamping fertile farmland and 20,000 homes.
The cause? Upstream, wetlands and marshes - nature's safety-valve when
rivers flood - had long since disappeared under concrete.

Just five years earlier, America's mid-west lay submerged under the flood
waters of the Mississippi - America's most heavily engineered natural
feature. With nearly 80% of the riverine wetlands drained and channel leveed
the flood waters of 1993 had no natural escape. Flood walls were breached
and whole towns swamped.

However, unnatural disasters aren't just the result of localised bad
planning. The upward trend in weather-related disasters - from deluge to
drought - has occurred in tandem with global warming caused by greenhouse
gases.

Climate change: victims of our own development

With greenhouse gas emissions rising, scientists are beginning to agree that
extreme weather phenomena are not the 'natural' events of the past, and that
the effects of extreme events may well stretch farther than the immediate
geographical area they hit.

In London, some of the world's largest insurance companies are swallowing
ever-harder as they consider the mounting losses which they attribute
specifically to man-made climate change.

Another year of disasters like 1998 could bankrupt the entire global
insurance industry, dragging down national economies and maybe even the
global economy with it.

Sustainable development?

Over the next 20 years Christian Aid estimates that three-quarters of the
world's population - most in poor countries - will suffer floods or
droughts.

The world's poor are not holding their breath waiting for guilt money from
the big polluters to flood in. They are taking matters into their own hands
- insuring themselves against the elements with home-grown survival
techniques and simple bio engineering.

However, localised efforts will not solve the global problems facing the
world. And if the trends are not reversed now, we may not have another
thousand years to correct our mistakes.

See http://philologos.org/bpr for additional info.

========
To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - German TV plans Nazi comedy
From: bpr-list@philologos.org
Date: Thu, 01 Jun 2000 12:29:55 -0500

*** German TV plans Nazi comedy

STUTTGART, Germany (AP) - A German television station is filming a
movie of a kind never before attempted here: A comedy about the
Holocaust. In the film still under production, a Jew named Harry
Geduldig manages to infiltrate the Nazi party and take the place of
Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels in order to free the woman he
loves.
At the climax of the movie, under the working title "Goebbels and
Geduldig," the character ends up in Adolf Hitler's southern mountain
retreat with Goebbels' wife, Magda. "I think such a subject also has
to
be possible today," said lead actor Ulrich Muehe. "It's already been
done abroad." To prepare for his role as Goebbels, Muehe said he
listened to original speeches, playing them on the set just before
filming scenes. The film is to be shown sometime in the fall of 2001
on
Germany's Suedwestrundfunk public station.

From: http://www.infobeat.com

See http://philologos.org/bpr for additional info.

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