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Missile Defense

Technology has always found its greatest consumer in a nation's war and defense efforts. Since the last attempts at a "Star Wars" defense system, has technology changed considerably enough to make the latest Missile Defense initiatives more successful? Can such an application of science be successful? Is a militarized space inevitable, necessary or impossible?

Read Debates, a new Web-only feature culled from Readers' Opinions, published every Thursday.

lchic - 05:33am Aug 2, 2002 EST (#3416 of 3445)

Bush said he was just as angry as Israel .. he was "furious"

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=320655

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"cloudburst"

Sharon, the report went on, exploded with anger

http://www.israelinsider.com/channels/diplomacy/articles/dip_0102.htm

Jonathan Miles, an American Christian, has an unusual mission - he has helped arrange heart surgery in Israeli hospitals for Palestinian infants. Miles's work with Israeli doctors has saved the lives of hundreds of children, but in April, the Interior Ministry ordered Miles and his family to leave http://web.israelinsider.com/bin/en.jsp?enPage=HomePage&enDisplay=view&enDispWhat=Zone&;

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An op-ed of hers critical of the United Nations and human rights groups for their distorted focus on Israel and their "diversion" from confronting actual rights abusers was accepted for publication on May 8. But so radically altered was the final column ("Ending Bias in the Human Rights System" May 22, 2002) that Bayefsky went public with the obfuscations demanded by the newspaper. http://web.israelinsider.com/bin/en.jsp?enPage=ArticlePage&enDisplay=view&enDispWhat=object&enDispWho=Article%5El1290&enZone=Diplomacy&enVersion=0&; it took "six new drafts" and "four additional drafts with smaller changes and corrections, seven drafts from the editors and six hours of editing by telephone," before the neutered column was finalized for publication

lchic - 05:50am Aug 2, 2002 EST (#3417 of 3445)

"" Chicago, February 27, 2002: Today, the Board of Directors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moves the minute hand of the “Doomsday Clock,” the symbol of nuclear danger, from nine to seven minutes to midnight, the same setting at which the clock debuted 55 years ago. Since the end of the Cold War in 1991, this is the third time the hand has moved forward.

We move the hands taking into account both negative and positive developments. The negative developments include too little progress on global nuclear disarmament; growing concerns about the security of nuclear weapons materials worldwide; the continuing U.S. preference for unilateral action rather than cooperative international diplomacy; U.S. abandonment of the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty and U.S. efforts to thwart the enactment of international agreements designed to constrain proliferation of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons; the crisis between India and Pakistan; terrorist efforts to acquire and use nuclear and biological weapons; and the growing inequality between rich and poor around the world that increases the potential for violence and war. If it were not for the positive changes highlighted later in this statement, the hands of the clock might have moved closer still.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, founded by a group of World War II-era Manhattan Project scientists, has warned the world of nuclear dangers since 1945. The September 11 attacks, and the subsequent and probably unrelated use of the mail to deliver deadly anthrax spores, breached previous boundaries for terrorist acts and should have been a global wake-up call. Moving the clock’s hands at this time reflects our growing concern that the international community has hit the “snooze” button rather than respond to the alarm.

http://www.thebulletin.org/media/current.html

lchic - 05:52am Aug 2, 2002 EST (#3418 of 3445)

The Four Emotions of Terrorism / James A. Joseph

http://www.globalethics.org/interviews/joseph_10-01-2001.html

lchic - 06:01am Aug 2, 2002 EST (#3419 of 3445)

The Art of Negotiation in Diplomacy / Lewis Pulsipher

http://www.diplomacy-archive.com/resources/strategy/articles/art_of_negotiation.htm

.... more often than not they would refer to wargames in the past tense: “Oh, I used to play those until I discovered Diplomacy.”

lchic - 06:35am Aug 2, 2002 EST (#3420 of 3445)

2001 " People who have the means are thinking of leaving the country, and many others say that lack of money is the only thing keeping them here.

To give just a few indications as to the severity of the recession, tourism has declined by 60-70%, construction by 50% and around 155,000 jobs have been lost since the year began .. "

http://www.worldsocialist-cwi.org/eng/2001/Ispalroots.html

Asia is swarming with young Isreali kids who've moved out!

lchic - 06:51am Aug 2, 2002 EST (#3421 of 3445)

Boys who are physically or sexually abused are far more likely to grow into violent men if they inherit a particular version of a gene controlling chemical messages in the brain.

The findings of a research project, reported in the journal Science today, identify an unusual interaction between the genetic make-up of violent men and the maltreatment they suffered as children.

The investigation of 442 men, whose education and progress was followed for 26 years, indicates that genes and upbring-ing play a critical part in predicting whether a young man is likely to become violent.

Any child who was abused was twice as likely to be violent in later life. But the study also found that carrying one version of a gene that controlled chemical messages in the brain increased this risk by nine times.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_medical/story.jsp?story=320647

So just who is in charge of what - and how responsible are they ?

lchic - 06:58am Aug 2, 2002 EST (#3422 of 3445)

"" New data suggest that America’s recession last year was worse, and its recovery this year is weaker, than previously thought

http://www.economist.com/agenda/displayStory.cfm?story_id=1264167

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