Jerusalem

In a fiery speech asserting Palestinian rights to Jerusalem, Yassir Arafat branded as "dangerous" Israel's permitting of the Temple Mount Faithful onto the Temple Mount. In a separate communiqué, his cabinet called it "a barefaced challenge to Moslem feelings and an Israeli attempt to intensify the atmosphere in Jerusalem."

Floods

Summer floods and landslides in China have killed at least 121 people, and 200,000 others had to be rescued. Nearly 450,000 people were forced from their homes. Damage is estimated at $1.2 billion. With accumulations as high as 22 inches, four provinces have set rainfall records in 1996.

Family

Except for Japan, out-of-wedlock births account for 25-67% of babies born in industrial countries. Increased technology is also partly to blame for the growth in abortions, single-parent families, fathers abandoning their families and divorces.

European Union (EU)

German ambassador D. R. Oesterholt revealed his country's goal for the EU: a superstate that will be a political match for the U.S., Russia and China. To achieve this, Germany plans:

» an independent security and defense capacity.
» a common foreign and security policy.
» an end to the veto power of member states.
» a pan-European penal and civil legal code/system.
» a strengthened European Court of Justice.
» a single, high-profile figure to head the EU.

Britain

Anglo-French financier Sir James Goldsmith leads a campaign against taking Britain into a European superstate. Britain, he believes, would have to sacrifice its independence and sovereignty to join Europe's economic and monetary union. The EU, he and other European politicians claim, "could only have been created in the absence of democracy."

Roman Catholic Church

Vatican expert Malachi Martin warns of "an unspoken alliance today between powers inside the Vatican and leaders of major international humanist organizations who would change the Roman Catholic Church from a sacred institution to one whose primary function is to act as a stabilizing social force in the world. They see the church as the only global structure able to do this." The non-church part of the alliance consists of "academia, foundations, non-governmental organizations and even some governmental ones with vast resources devoted to population control, education and economic and social stabilization. . . . It is not a conspiracy, but it is deliberate."

Rights

A New York appellate court found that the state's ban on euthanasia violates the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment, which guarantees that "No State shall . . . deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." The state of Washington also had a similar law struck down for the same reason. Experts say that the Supreme Court will inevitably be asked to decide whether Americans have a constitutional right to "physician-assisted suicide."