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Today's Lesson from The Story of Decipherment
by Maurice Pope
The importance of Egypt lay of course in her contribution to learning.
According to Warburton, Egypt's learning must have consisted largely of
a traditional body of detached tenets, moral and scientific, without
regard to system (for instance Pythagoras, despite his twenty-two years
in Egypt, had to evolve his theory on the square of the hypotenuse after
his return to Samos--a point made by Stillingfleete, see page 36), or
the cult of controversy; it was not eristic according to Clement (viii
ad init.), but could be advanced (for instance the doctrine that the
earth went round the sun, thought by Newton to be Egyptian). But the
chief thing it consisted in was 'legislation and civil polity'. In
particular what was invented in Egypt was the 'double doctrine'.
The existence of this 'double doctrine' is a major theme of Warburton's
book. What he means by it is that all ancient philosophers and
philosophical sects that concerned themselves with morals, politics,
legislation, and such matters (therefore not the Ionians or the
Epicureans) promulgated publicly the belief in future rewards and
punishments since they thought such a belief was politically useful or
even necessary, but that they themselves rejected it as being untrue.
=====
Year 2000
Y2K Panic in Paraguay
Electricity or no electricity. That is the question.
First the computers will crash, bringing down the electrical grid, the
water system and the telephone network. Then, nearly 200,000 government
workers will discover that the state-run bank that prints their
paychecks has been crippled by technological glitches. Finally, a day or
two later, crowds will riot and loot, forcing the government to declare
martial law.
To Walter Schafer Paoli, the Paraguayan government's Year 2000
generalissimo, this is no science-fiction plot. Such bedlam, he says, is
quite possible during the first days of January in this poor, landlocked
South American country sandwiched between Argentina and Brazil.
His manifest fear stems from a simple, alarming fact: The government has
been woefully late in tackling the Y2K computer glitch. Most government
agencies here only recently began to fix their systems.
To make matters worse, members of a presidential commission set up in
the spring to coordinate the repair efforts quit en masse last month,
complaining that they were never given offices, a budget or payment for
their services.
Paraguay is just one of many developing countries that have been tardy
in dealing with the Y2K bug. From sub-Saharan Africa to Central America,
Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia, many nations have only just started
to vigorously address the glitch, raising the possibility of disruptions
in basic services.
Although the impact probably will be cushioned by the fact that such
nations still have legions of people in rural areas whose lives remain
untouched by electronics, failing to squash the bug in time could affect
millions of others who live in cities where computer systems control
power distribution, telephones and other crucial government operations.
''Developing countries have a lot left to do to immunize themselves from
the Y2K bug,'' said Bruce McConnell, director of the International Y2K
Cooperation Center, a UN-sponsored organization that is working with 170
nations on the problem.
Among the laggards, though, Paraguay is particularly far behind,
according to some analysts. With the new year less than three months
away, business and government leaders here worry that even with a
newfound commitment to eradicating the millennium bug, there is not
enough time left to make the necessary patches.
''It will not be possible for us to fix everything before January,''
said Mr. Schafer, a former computer magazine publisher who was chosen
three weeks ago to replace the disbanded commission.
Given that assessment, most foreign corporations and governments are not
counting on anything come January.
Inside one of Citibank's buildings in Asuncion, workers are installing a
room-sized cistern that can hold enough water to keep sinks running and
toilets flushing for two weeks. The firm's branch offices are being
equipped with cellular and satellite phones as well as electrical
generators, which will be refueled by a fleet of oil trucks hired by the
bank.
The local office of DHL Worldwide Express has ordered fold-out cots in
case the courier service's employees are unable to travel to and from
work by public transportation. A local bank has set up an elaborate plan
to deal with a total failure of electricity, telephones and water. Even
the U.S. Embassy is girding for the worst, increasing its stockpile of
MREs, those tear-open, ready-to-eat meals originally made for soldiers.
''We're not planning to take anything for granted,'' said Rafael
Schvartzman, who runs DHL's operations in Asuncion.
Some diplomats worry that glitch-related chaos could spill across
Paraguay's borders, destabilizing the nation's fragile relations with
Brazil and Argentina.
In its final act before disbanding, the Y2K commission sent a
confidential report to the United Nations saying that the government was
only 20 percent along with its repairs and that, given the current pace,
it would not be finished until March. Mr. Schafer recently revised that
progress report downward, pegging the government at 15 percent readiness
and at a ''high risk'' of failure.
Of particular concern to him is the computer system used by the National
Police to process crime reports, track national identity cards and
communicate with Interpol. The police only recently discovered that the
system needs new hardware and software to operate properly in the new
year. But the manufacturer, International Business Machines Corp., said
it would take three months just to get the necessary equipment to
Paraguay, Mr. Schafer said.
Mr. Schafer said it makes sense to plan for martial law. ''If we do not
have electric power, it will be impossible to give water to the
citizens,'' he said. ''Now imagine if the telephone is down too. This
scenario is possible. And if that happens, what is your alternative?
Martial law. There is no other choice.''
Then, he paused and leaned across the table. ''This,'' he whispered,
''is a catastrophe.''
How did Paraguay get into this mess?
The answer, say people in Asuncion, is a confluence of woes that have
long plagued this and other Third World countries: political turmoil,
economic collapse, corruption and a general lack of technological
awareness.
The country's former president, Raul Cubas, last year budgeted only
$500,000 for the government to address the glitch.
By early this year, what little energy was being devoted to the issue
quickly took a back seat to a more immediate crisis. In March, Mr. Cubas
was forced to resign and flee to Brazil after his political mentor, a
former general, allegedly ordered the assassination of his vice
president and the shooting of dozens of student protesters.
Two months later, the new president, Luis Gonzalez Macchi, formed the
Y2K commission and ordered it to resume the repair effort. The group
surveyed the situation and, a few months later, announced that it would
need $17 million to pay for the fixes.
Getting that much money proved impossible in Paraguay, a largely
agricultural country of 5.4 million people that has been racked by a
severe recession for the past two years. The government, with an overall
annual budget of only $1.2 billion, did not have the means to write a
lump-sum check. Bureaucrats in various agencies did not want to cede
authority for their computers to a commission. And critics questioned
whether some of the group's members, who have computer consulting
businesses, were trying to steer the funds to their firms.
''They wanted too much power,'' said Cesar Ferreira, president of
Performance Global Systems, a computer firm that works directly with
several government agencies.
Commission members said that they were not power-hungry or eager to
micromanage, just convinced that central coordination was needed to
speed up the repair work. But after five months without a budget or
office space, frustrated members sent off their report to the United
Nations and quit in September.
Mr. Schafer was left to pick up the pieces. He now finds himself working
16-hour days, seven days a week.
People skeptical of Mr. Schafer's assessments contend that the
millennium bug will not sting Paraguay all that severely because many
tasks that are computerized in other parts of the world are still done
by hand here.
Indeed, at the National Electric Administration, Francisco Santacruz,
the chief information officer, bristled at suggestions that there would
be power outages in the new year, saying preparations were nearly
complete.
''If people say there will be no electricity, they don't know what they
are talking about,'' Mr. Santacruz said. ''We have very little
automation.''
International Herald Tribune, October 11, 1999
Chinese Intelligence
China Recruits Scientists As Spies
In Sept. 1995 in Pittsburgh, Chuck Hayes told Jim Norman and myself:
"Outside the CIA, China has the best spy agency in the world."
China is recruiting scientists around the world in its efforts to
acquire weapons technology from other countries, according to a new U.S.
counterintelligence report.
The Chinese are pushing to gain foreign technology, according to the
quarterly report of the National Counterintelligence Center (NCIC), even
as China's Communist government claims its nuclear weapons and other
arms technologies were developed domestically.
"Despite these efforts to portray Chinese [science and technology]
programs as 'self-reliant,' other PRC press articles suggest China is
planning to continue its long-standing policy of relying on overseas
scientists for state-of-the-art technology," the NCIC report said. The
PRC is the People's Republic of China.
The NCIC report is based on accounts from the Chinese
government-controlled press and is intended as a warning to U.S.
government agencies and private companies about the spying danger from
China.
The report cites the president of the Chinese Academy of Science, Lu
Yongxiang, as stating in one article published last summer that the
academy has set up a fund to hire scientists in Germany to work at a
Chinese high-technology center.
The program is part of a larger Chinese science program to gain the
support of "overseas scientists" to work for China, according to the
report from the NCIC, an interagency counterspy office based at CIA
headquarters in Virginia.
The academy's vice president, Bai Chunli, is quoted in the report as
saying that all the recruited foreign scientists "must be of Chinese
nationality, be willing to abandon their foreign citizenship when they
come to China or become permanent residents."
"Whoever vies successfully for a large number of talented scientific and
technical personnel will win the right to take the initiative in the
21st century and own a larger part of the world's chessboard," Mr. Bai
said.
In July, China's official Xinhua news agency stated that China is
engaged in "the most extensive government-funded personnel introduction
program in history." The Chinese are seeking foreign expertise in
computer science, energy, new materials and space science, the NCIC
report said.
The report also warned that China is using cooperative research efforts
with foreign companies "as an important technology transfer mechanism."
The report, citing a Chinese press account, said "Science and Technology
Minister Zhu Lilan stated that 'The Ministry will expand cooperation
with other countries but will shift the focus from technology and
equipment introduction to joint research and development. Such efforts
will coincide with economic and trade exchanges.' "
A journal produced by China's State Science and Technology Commission,
which is closely involved in developing weapons and military goods,
criticized non-Chinese companies for "monopolizing key technologies" and
concluded that "using market access in exchange for technology is the
only path China can go on at present to develop new high-tech
industries."
According to the counterspy report, China uses "other indirect
strategies to obtain key technologies from foreign countries, including
technology that firms refuse to transfer for commercial reasons and
technologies whose export is proscribed by law."
A recent Chinese government newspaper stated that acquiring protected
intellectual property is China's main reason for engaging in
international buyouts and said the efforts are needed to "offset the
technology blockade of China by Western nations in certain areas."
"Such scarce [technological] resources are quite likely to be ones that
Chinese enterprises cannot acquire on the domestic market, being
industrial property rights such as patents, technical secrets," the
report said.
"[M]erger acquisition investments in the United States directly exploit
the intellectual property rights of the buyout targets, and more
importantly, bring their advanced technology and management expertise to
China."
The Chinese report also said that "with the Western nations headed by
the United States now restricting high-tech exports to China, investing
in the United States in the form of buyouts is of real significance,
enabling us to evade certain U.S. restrictions."
Another method used by the Chinese to obtain technology is for overseas
Chinese companies to use "a localization strategy when needed."
"That is, hire overseas Chinese students in that country, Chinese
specialists with foreign citizenship, and high-level persons of talent
to participate directly in the work of the overseas company," the report
said.
Kenneth deGraffenreid, a former White House National Security Council
intelligence director in the Reagan administration, said the NCIC report
highlights the continuing problem of Chinese spying.
"This report gives the lie to the domestic disinformation campaign,
which has sought not only to deflect political embarrassment from the
Clinton administration, but worse, to hide the reality of continuing PRC
espionage," said Mr. deGraffenreid, editor of a privately published
edition of the Cox Committee report.
The Cox Committee report, released in May by the House Select Committee
on U.S. National Security and Military Commercial Concerns with the
People's Republic of China, elaborated on China's weapons technology
acquisition efforts, noting that some 3,000 Chinese companies in the
United States are involved in both legal and illegal activities. The
panel was headed by Rep. Christopher Cox, California Republican.
"The PRC has benefited from advanced U.S. and Western military
technology in several areas, including ground force weapons,
communications, remote sensing, and tactical and strategic systems," the
Cox Committee report said.
"Other PRC military products such as air-to-air and surface-to-air
missiles, submarines, and short-range ballistic missiles, also appear to
have benefited from foreign technical help."
The Washington Times, October 11, 1999
The Religion Business
"Concerned Christians" Deported from Haifa
I will die and be resurrected in 3 days. Now give me your money.
HAIFA (October 11) - Port authorities in Haifa yesterday barred 26
suspected members of the Concerned Christians cult from entering Israel,
and deported them back to Cyprus.
Police at the port said they had prevented the group from debarking its
ship and ordered it to sail back to Cyprus. Most of the group, which
comprised men, women, and children, are from Ireland, but others come
from Romania and there was also a man from Colombia. Some of them were
said to be mentally or physically disabled. They brought with them four
caravans, apparently intending to live in them.
It was not clear how the authorities established that the group belonged
to the Concerned Christians cult.
Fourteen members of the doomsday cult made international headlines when
Israel deported them back to the US in January for allegedly planning
suicide attacks.
The Denver-based cult is led by Monte Kim Miller, who was reported
earlier this year to be hiding in Britain. Miller, 44, a former business
executive, had hinted at a millennium massacre on the streets of
Jerusalem. He also reportedly told cult members that he plans to die in
Jerusalem at the end of December 1999 and will be resurrected three days
later. He is said to have extracted substantial sums of money from cult
members.
The Jerusalem Post, October 11, 1999
Central Banks
Interest Rates Will Go Up
Central banks getting their ducks in a row.
The markets had a lucky escape last week when all three big western
central banks kept interest rates on hold. But the relief may prove
temporary.
The US Federal Reserve, which has tightened monetary policy twice since
the end of June, is likely to do so once again on November 16. The Bank
of England may even beat the Americans to the punch. And the European
Central Bank is soon expected to raise rates for the first time. With
the notable exception of Japan, rates are rising across the
industrialised world.
It is easy to see why central bankers are suddenly on guard. Recovery
from last autumn's crisis has been remarkably swift and comprehensive.
The US shows few signs of slowing down. Third-quarter gross domestic
product is likely to expand by 4-5 per cent despite a considerable drag
from the current account deficit.
Last week's 5.1 per cent surge in German manufacturing orders shows
recovery taking hold in the euro-zone. Even Japan is rising from the
dead judging by the more optimistic tone in the latest Tankan business
confidence survey.
Put that together, and global growth is likely to surprise on the
upside, according to Salomon Smith Barney. The investment bank is
forecasting growth of 2.5 per cent among the industrial economies this
year, rising to 2.75 per cent in 2000. But Kim Schoenhoeltz, its chief
economist, thinks those estimates will end up looking conservative.
Improving growth has rekindled inflationary fears. In the US, rising oil
prices are pushing up the consumer and producer price indices, though
their core measures remain subdued. Of more concern to Fed chairman Alan
Greenspan is the tightness of the labour market, even though last
Friday's September employment report - showing a small drop in the
payroll numbers - provided a bit of relief.
The Bank of England's monetary policy committee has also cited the
labour market as well as rising house prices and growing consumer
confidence to explain its rate increase last month. Even Europe is
beginning to experience a gradual fall in employment, though it remains
uncomfortably high.
What should investors make of this mix of rising rates, higher growth
and potentially rising inflation? One fairly straightforward conclusion
is that it points to dollar weakness. As growth differentials narrow
between the US and the rest of the world, foreign investors will tend to
repatriate their money. As they sell American assets, the US will have
increasing difficulty financing its current account deficit, potentially
forcing it to raise interest rates higher and thus further dampening
growth - a vicious circle in the making.
This process has already begun; the dollar has weakened dramatically
against the yen since July. But at $1.07 to the euro, it has hardly
budged against the new European currency. That probably reflects the
fact that international investors were chronically short of yen at the
start of the year, while they have been fully weighted in Europe.
Nevertheless, it suggests upside for the euro in the months to come.
Higher growth and inflation is typically bad for bonds, though current
yields already reflect much of that. The short end of the yield curve
and futures markets are pricing in up to 150 basis points of tightening
in Europe and one or two more US rate rises.
The fact that the central banks appear willing to take strong,
pre-emptive action should also increase investors' confidence that any
uptick in inflation will be contained. This is further underpinned by
the fact that real yields are already relatively high, balancing
expected above-average growth. In the US, for example, they are close to
4 per cent, given expectations of 2-2.5 per cent inflation and a long
bond yield of nearly 6.2 per cent.
Consequently, if central banks end up not having to raise rates by as
much as the markets currently expect, bonds should stage a decent rally,
especially as fears of a Y2K liquidity crunch are likely to push money
into safe Treasuries, gilts and bunds.
Stocks, meanwhile, ought to benefit from higher growth and the stronger
earnings this produces, even though rising rates will dampen this
somewhat. The snag here is valuations, especially in the US where they
remain very rich. As the year end approaches, bonds may turn out to be a
better bet than equities.
The Financial Times, October 11, 1999
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Aloha, He'Ping,
Om, Shalom, Salaam.
Em Hotep, Peace Be,
Omnia Bona Bonis,
All My Relations.
Adieu, Adios, Aloha.
Amen.
Roads End
Kris
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