Published: Friday, June 20, 2003 Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- Scientists have found a previously unknown population of red siskins, a bird feared to be nearing extinction in the wild.

"It was totally a surprise to us, a great shock," said Michael Braun, a research scientist at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History.

Once widespread in the coastal mountains of Venezuela and Colombia, the bird was nearly wiped out by trapping after it became popular both in that region and in Europe in the 1800s.

The bird was particularly valued for its bright red feathers, and in Latin America it is known as el cardinalito, or little cardinal.

Breeders discovered that the red siskin could mate with the canary, Braun said Thursday, providing a bright color to the formerly drab songbird. Any canary today that has some red feathers has some siskin genes, Braun said.

Braun said the research team was conducting a survey of birds in little-studied Guyana, which neighbors Venezuela, when they came across a population of several thousand red siskins.

That, he said, is several times the known population of the birds elsewhere in the wild.

The discovery was made in April 2000, but was kept under wraps until a conservation plan could be developed providing legal protection for the birds in Guyana.

It was just a matter of time before they were discovered, he said, because the region where they were found is increasingly being developed.

Red siskins have been protected in Venezuela since the 1940s.

The goal is not to prevent people from raising the birds in cages, he said, but to avoid damage to the wild population.

The American Federation of Aviculture is engaged in a red siskin recovery project, attempting to breed a large enough captive population of the birds for the commercial market.

The discovery by Braun and Mark Robbins of the University of Kansas is being published in the June issue of The Auk, the journal of the American Ornithologists Union.

Posted on Fri, Jun. 20, 2003 CHRISTOPHER TOOTHAKER Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO DE YARE, Venezuela - As a priest finished saying Mass and parishioners received their customary blessing, churchgoers turned to leave this house of worship only to come face to face with more than 1,000 devils.

Outside on the plaza facing the 18th-century church, hundreds of masked "devils" crouched as a deafening African-influenced drum beat erupted and maracas rattled.

It was the start of an annual ritual in which the descendants of African slaves commemorate Corpus Christi, a Roman Catholic holiday celebrating the transformation of the body and blood of Christ into bread and wine. The ritual, which took place Thursday, is followed by two days of drunken revelry.

"We dress as devils to make fun of the devil," said 50-year-old Ana Hernandez, who organizes the ritual.

Clothed in bright red robes and wearing rosaries, men and boys of all ages take part in the shuffling and shaking frenzy known as "The Devil Dance" - a celebration residents of this quaint town, 28 miles south of Caracas, have prepared for all year.

The male dancers stomped and whirled, raising papier-mache masks painted in a rainbow of bright colors toward the heavens.

A procession of "Diablos Danzantes," or "Devil Dancers," formed around priests carrying sacramental bread through San Francisco de Yare's streets. Women and girls in red dresses adorned with holy crosses made of palm leaves walked alongside the procession with burning candles.

The Carnival-like dance, in which the devils pay penance and ask for relief from physical ailments, symbolizes the ongoing struggle between good and evil. It originated in southern Spain in the fifth century, when the Catholic church used the dance to convert pagans to Christianity.

"This symbolizes the triumph of Jesus Christ over the temptations of Lucifer, sin and death," Bishop Ovidio Perez told his congregation.

In Venezuela, the tradition dates to 1742, when liberal priests used it to include African slaves who were not permitted to worship in the same church as their white masters.

Venezuela abolished slavery in 1854, but descendants of slaves in San Francisco de Yare, now joined by others of mixed race, have preserved the religious tradition in this South American nation of 24 million.

The ritual mixes indigenous, African and Spanish traditions. The circling and stamping are derived from indigenous movements, while the cross step comes from Andalusian dances in Spain.

Dancer Alexis Gonzalez, a 50-year-old carpenter who started participating in the ritual when he was just 3, said he believes because of his involvement in Yare's Corpus Christi ritual his mother's ulcer was miraculously cured.

The oldest and most experienced dancer, called "El Primer Capataz," or "The Foreman," wears a mask with four horns.

The Foreman reaches that position if he demonstrates good behavior in the community throughout his lifetime and remains the maximum authority until his death.

In a hierarchical order, the Foreman is followed in line by two overseers, who wear three-horned masks. Other dancers have two horns.

"You can't get any more Venezuelan than this," said Julie Buell, a 35-year-old American who came from the capital with her family to see the ritual. "It's great to see traditions like these continue while the world is constantly changing."

<a href=nanodot.org>NaNoDot, posted by JimLewis on Thursday June 19, @04:47PM

Anonymous Coward writes "Taking a major step forward, the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology (CRN) has established a Board of Advisors, including several well-known names. The first six members of CRN's Board of Advisors are José Cordeiro, Eric Drexler, Jerry Glenn, Lisa Hopper, Doug Mulhall, and Rosa Wang."

From the CRN Press release:

More advisors will be added in the near future, as CRN identifies and engages leaders in government, business, and civil society who share a vision of nanotechnology being widely used for productive and beneficial purposes, with malicious uses limited by effective administration of the technology.

"We are proud to welcome such accomplished and respected figures to our Board," says Mike Treder, Executive Director of CRN. "It's a great beginning. We aim to continue building a well-rounded Board, with additional experts in fields beyond nanotechnology, such as economics, philosophy, sociology, ecology, and politics. We're committed to a globally representative mix, with members from all major world regions."

José Luis Cordeiro is President of the Sociedad Mundial del Futuro Venezuela, and author of The Great Taboo. An engineer and economist with expertise in global affairs, he is Director of the Club of Rome (Venezuela), and an international advisor to several companies and organizations. As Director of the Association of Venezuelan Exporters (AVEX), he has participated in the negotiations of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA).

K. Eric Drexler, Founder and Chairman of the Foresight Institute, is a researcher concerned with emerging technologies and their consequences for the future. In the mid 1980s, he introduced the term 'nanotechnology' to describe atomically precise molecular manufacturing systems and their products. His research ranges from computational modeling of molecular machines to engineering analysis of molecular manufacturing systems and their potential products. Author of Engines of Creation and Nanosystems, and co-author of Unbounding the Future, he lectures widely on molecular nanotechnology, its development, and its implications for the human future.

Jerome C. Glenn is the Executive Director for the American Council for the United Nations University, where he co-founded and directs the Millennium Project on global futures research. He has 30 years experience in futures research with governments, corporations, and international organizations working for the Committee for the Future, Hudson Institute, Future Options Room, Millennium Project, and as an independent consultant. He has written over 90 articles and authored, edited, or co-authored eight books on the future.

Lisa Hopper is President and Founder of World Care, a non-profit organization dedicated to raising consciousness in the education, health, environmental, and community service arenas. World Care converts surplus into valuable resources for relief efforts throughout the world, creating opportunities for those who are less fortunate by providing the necessary supplies.

Douglas Mulhall, author of Our Molecular Future, is a leading figure in global environmentalism. He has participated in designing, building, and operating water recycling and flood control facilities in China and Brazil, in cooperation with the European Commission and multinational companies. A former Managing Director of the Hamburg Environmental Institute, he is cofounder and director of O Instituto Ambiental, the first South American institute to specialize in wastewater recycling.

Rosa Wang is founder and principal of GeographicEngine.com, which offers financial and strategic advisory to non-profits. In addition, she serves as consultant for Ashoka Innovators for the Public, a non-profit organization dedicated to the profession of social entrepreneurship. Rosa has extensive experience in finance and economic policy based in North America and Asia, and her past employers include Dresdner RCM Global Investors, Lehman Brothers, and the Federal Reserve Bank of NY.

Since its formation in late 2002, CRN has attracted significant notice for taking a strong stance on the risks of unregulated molecular nanotechnology, and the need for a coordinated international program of development. CRN's founders, Executive Director Mike Treder and Director of Research Chris Phoenix, believe that the humanitarian potential of nanotechnology is enormous, but so also is the potential for misuse. Their mission is to raise awareness of the issues presented by nanotechnology: the benefits and dangers, and the possibilities for responsible use.

The Center for Responsible Nanotechnology is headquartered in New York. CRN is an affiliate of World Care, an international, non-profit, 501(c)(3) organization. For more information on CRN, see www.CRNano.org.

Duncan Campbell in Los Angeles Friday June 20, 2003 The Guardian

Anti-globalisation and environmental protesters are planning to converge on the Californian state capital, Sacramento, at the weekend to demonstrate against a conference run and funded by the US government on genetically modified food.

Protesters claim that the conference is a desperate attempt to save the embattled GM food industry.

The conference theme is the broadening of "knowledge and understanding of agricultural science and technology ... to raise agricultural productivity, alleviate hunger and famine and improve nutrition".

More than 120 ministers, some senior, from 75 countries including Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, the Czech Republic, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Israel, Mexico, Pakistan, Peru, the Philippines, Uganda and Venezuela are to attend. It is backed by the US state department, the department of agriculture and the agency for international development (USAid).

Some 130 groups are mobilising, mainly to protest against what they see as the conference's hidden agenda.

"The largely US-based bio-technology industry is in crisis," said Peter Rosset, co-director of Food First, the Institute for Food and Development Policy, a thinktank based in Oakland, California. "This conference is a desperate attempt, at the taxpayers' expense, to prop up a failing industry. The whole conference is pitched at developing countries."

Mr Rosset said that, with suspicion growing about GM food around the world, the US government had decided to bail out the industry. He said every country, with the exception of those deemed to be in the "axis of evil", had been invited. Fares for two senior ministers from each country were being paid by the US, he said. Significantly, western European countries were not attending.

Accusing the US of "trying to hijack a UN-sponsored multilateral process", Mr Rosset suggested that American taxpayers were effectively sponsoring "some of the richest companies on earth in a trade fair".

Apart from the £1.8m cost of the conference, £600,000 is being allocated for security to combat wide-ranging plans for non-violent protest.

One group planning to demonstrate is The Killer Tomatoes. Member Mary Bull said yesterday: "The United States is trying to coerce poor African nations into taking [GM foods]. It is a really significant conference from that point of view and we have to show that food can be distributed in a just and equitable way and not in the form of corporate-controlled and pesticide-driven agriculture."

She added: "Knowing the Sacramento police, I'm sure there's going to be lots and lots of arrests."

The US department of agriculture did not respond to questions about the claims by Food First and other groups, but it has argued in the past that GM foods can help alleviate hunger at a time when some 600 million people worldwide are malnourished.

David Hegwood, counsel to the agriculture secretary, has criticised western European countries for their current moratorium on GM foods: "The fear of Europe is keeping food out of the mouths of hungry people in Africa."

Proposed GM innovations likely to be discussed at the conference include fruit and vegetables aimed at stimulating the immune system and rice that would contain extra iron and vitamins. Such foods are an estimated five years away from being available commercially.

Special reports GM food debate Special report: what's wrong with our food? Explained 03.06.2003: GM crops May 2003 investigation Food: the way we eat now Useful links GM public debate - the official site Monsanto Agriculture & environment biotechnology commission (government advisory body) Agricultural Biotechnology Council Official reports Royal Society report on GM plants (pdf) Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology report on GM food labelling (pdf)

Posted: June 20, 2003 1:00 a.m. Eastern By Caryl Matrisciana © 2003 <a href=worldnetdaily.com>WorldNetDaily.com

Shattering news from my homeland England came over the BBC News Online service recently, reporting the theft of 8,000 Harry Potter books despite the "unprecedented security around the launch" of book No. 5 in the seven-part Harry Potter series.

The new books, "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" were stolen on Sunday and "anyone caught trying to sell – or even buy" these books "could face criminal charges" reports Stephen Dowling of the BBC World Edition News.

Earlier this month another theft took place when a forklift driver stole pages of the new book and offered them to national newspapers.

The astonishing news does nothing but further hype the worldwide release on the Summer Solstice, June 21, of author J.K. Rowling's latest smash hit. Never before in publishing history has a book had these strict embargoes that prohibit any type of pre-glimpse before it goes on sale at 0001 British Standard Time on Saturday, June 21.

Britain's Amazon.com, the Internet booksellers, have 300,000 copies securely tucked away in a dedicated warehouse in the English countryside ready to send to U.K. buyers on its Saturday due date. U.K. book chain Waterstones children's book buyer said, the "books are arriving in sealed boxes. We need to keep them locked off from the shop floor until 12 o'clock. We have to make sure the customers can't get to them, and staff can't get to them, apart from the one person who has the key."

Even review copies are under strict supervision curtailing media attempts to pass judgment before Sunday, though BBC News Online boasts they aim to publish one of the U.K.'s first reviews on Saturday. Good luck to those having to speed-read the almost 900 pages to meet publishers' deadlines. Translators were hoping to get pre-release copies to translate it into 55 languages for global distribution into over 200 countries, but they too must wait along with the rest of us.

The wait for a new book has been 3 years for Potter fans since the July 2000 release of book No. 4. Fans did however get their Harry-fix through the Warner Brothers blockbuster movies based on the first two books. Warner Bros. proudly flaunted that film No. 1 based on book No. 1 was "an accurate portrayal of witchcraft."

The young Wiccan, Harry Potter, then only 11 years old, has taken the world by storm. According to the Pagan Federation of England, the interest of thousands of teens to learn more about witchcraft has been stimulated through Harry Potter and television programs like "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Sabrina The Teenage Witch."

Pacific News Service reports that the Spanish speaking world, where Harry's sales top the best-seller lists in Mexico, Argentina, Chile and Venezuela, have Latin American critics complaining "that the world of magic through which Harry Potter travels is a metaphor for the New Age philosophy that is hostile to the Christian faith, and thus Harry Potter is an assault on Latin American values."

In the Siberian City of Novosibirsk, after the release of book No. 4, Harry Potter fans were believed to have been poisoned after drinking a "magic potion" inspired by the Potter books. Local police suspected older children had stolen copper sulfate from a school lab and fed it to 23 young children, who were taken to hospital, after a Potter initiation ceremony.

While critics accuse me of failing to realize that Rowling's use of witchcraft in the Potter series is only a literary device, these examples show only too well that children believe the so-called "fantasy" magic of Harry's world to be real and, in a craving to control their lives, long for Harry's power to be real to them.

Harry's author, J.K. Rowling, now richer than the queen and the wealthiest woman in show business, told Malcolm Jones in a Newsweek interview, "I get letters from children addressed to Professor Dumbledore (headmaster at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the book setting), and it's not a joke, begging to be let into Hogwarts, and some of them are really sad. Because they want it to be true so badly they've convinced themselves it's true."

J.K. Rowling promised "the books are getting darker ... Harry's going to have quite a bit to deal with as he gets older. Sorry if they get too scary!" In a Newsnight interview on BBC2 TV last week, she told how she "cried after killing off a 'significant' character" in her new fifth book.

The first three books were heavily promoted through the American school system by the American publisher Scholastic Inc., which has also provided school-curriculum materials for over 80 years. It seems interesting that while the teaching of traditional values based on Christian ethos has been removed from schools through reading the Bible in class, saying prayers or posting the Ten Commandments, Harry Potter, based on the religious teachings of occult professors and Wiccan students at a school of witchcraft and wizardry can be read aloud in American classrooms.

J.K. Rowling admits her books teach "morality," but many argue it is an anti-Christian morality that encourages children to lie, cheat and steal in Harry fashion. In the books, when Harry gets caught, he gets rewarded for his dishonest behavior. This worldview of shifting morality supports much of the content of Outcome Based Education and Goals 2000 taught in public schools today. Perhaps that's why the Potter books based on relativism, reincarnation type life after death, and other pagan values are endorsed by educators and mainstream society. It appears paganism is mainstream and mainstream has gone pagan.

Some 8.5 million copies of "The Order of the Phoenix" have been printed for the U.S. market, and millions will see the cover of the colorful phoenix rising above the flames of a red hot fire on Saturday, but what is its significance? In Barbara Walker's "Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets," she says, "The phoenix is part of Egyptian mythology and identified with the bennu bird, a spirit associated with the phallic obelisk. He rose to heaven in the form of the Morning Star, like Lucifer, after his fire-immolation of death and rebirth. He embodied the sacred king cremated to be reborn".

Is it a coincidence that Adolph Hitler also used the phoenix as his symbol of reincarnation and "born again" power to resurrect the Second Reicht to his Third Reicht in an attempt to bring about the New World Order? His Nazi uniform boldly emblazoned both the phoenix and another powerful occult symbol, the lightning bolt. Interestingly enough, the so-called descending phallus of heaven, the lightning bolt believed to impregnate Mother Earth, or the sea-womb with life, is the curse mark Harry's arch enemy, the Evil Lord Voldemort scarred Harry's forehead with when he murdered Harry's parents on Halloween night.

Today, millions of children take Harry's curse mark on their own foreheads to show their loyalty to Harry. The Bible teaches that at the ruling of the One World leader in the end times, the whole world will take "the mark of the beast" on their foreheads to show their allegiance to the world dictator. Are our children, and the global child, being conditioned for something much bigger than even we understand?

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Caryl Matrisciana, writer and producer of the award-winning video, “Harry Potter: Witchcraft Repackaged. Making Evil Look Innocent,” has branched out on her own after 21 years as Jeremiah Films Creative Director and co-owner.