ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, December 9, 1995 TAG: 9512110063
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-5 EDITION: METRO
China puts boy, 6, on Tibet throne
BEIJING - Amid clouds of incense, a Communist official marched a seemingly bewildered 6-year-old boy to a bed-like throne Friday and declared him Tibet's second-ranking Buddhist leader.
The ritual was not only religious, but political. It was aimed squarely at the authority of the exiled Dalai Lama, Tibetan Buddhism's top figure, who opposes China's control of Tibet and approved another 6-year-old boy for the same post.
At the ceremony, the Dalai Lama's selection was nowhere to be seen. China refused to give his whereabouts.
The Dalai Lama's office, based in the northern Indian town of Dharmsala, denounced the enthronement as ``invalid and illegal.''
- Associated Press
Doomsday Clock closer to midnight
CHICAGO - Saying the threat of nuclear apocalypse did not disappear with the end of the Cold War, the keepers of the Doomsday Clock moved the hands Friday three minutes closer to midnight.
``The world is still a very dangerous place and the trends are in the wrong direction,'' said Leonard Rieser, chairman of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
He reset the clock at 14 minutes before the hour that symbolizes nuclear apocalypse.
The closest the clock has been to nuclear midnight was 1953, when it was moved to within two minutes in response to the first hydrogen bomb set off by the United States. It was last changed in 1991, when the hands were moved back to 17 minutes until midnight in a wave of post Cold-War optimism.
- Associated Press
Upper house passes controls on religion
TOKYO - After a heated debate that pitted religious leaders against political kingmakers, the upper house of the Japanese Parliament passed a government-proposed bill to tighten control over religious groups on Friday. Japan's ruling coalition initiated the legislation to revise the 1951 Religious Corporations Law, following a deadly nerve-gas attack on the Tokyo subway system last spring, allegedly by the Aum Supreme Truth religious cult.
The revised law shifts jurisdiction of religious groups operating in more than one prefecture, or state, from local governments to the Education Ministry, requires religious groups to submit detailed financial documents, and allows authorities to demand information from religious groups if they suspect the groups to be involved in ``questionable'' activities.
- Los Angeles Times
LENGTH: Medium: 55 linesby CNB