World News and Trends: The specter of bioterrorism
According to Foreign Affairs magazine, several nations besides the United States possess biological weapons: Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, China, North Korea, Russia, Israel, Taiwan and possibly Sudan, India, Pakistan and Kazakhstan.
Potentially more serious is that militant political groups around the world seek either to develop or buy biological weapons for possible terrorist use.
Smallpox would be particularly deadly as a weapon in the bioterrorism arsenal. It kills one in three of its victims and blinds and disfigures many others. In 1980 the disease was declared extinct by the World Heath Organization. Yet the virus lives on, legitimately, in hundreds of vials stored in heavily secured laboratories in Russia and America.
The Times reported that "the threat of a smallpox epidemic caused by bioterrorism is so serious that the U.S. is pouring money [$177 million a year] into developing an antidote" (emphasis added). A fresh outbreak would be particularly devastating because the vast majority of people have no immunity to the virus, since routine vaccinations have not been available for decades.
That such a threat could even exist in a supposedly civilized world and that some few could actually contemplate using this and even more horrendous weapons on other human beings is mute testimony that something is drastically wrong somewhere. No wonder Jesus Christ urged us to pray "Thy Kingdom come." (Sources: The Times [London], Foreign Affairs magazine.)
An Article from:
Good News Magazine: March - April 2001
Course Content
John Ross Schroeder
John died on March 8, 2014, in Oxford, England, four days after suffering cardiac arrest while returning home from a press event in London. John was 77 and still going strong.
Some of John's work for The Good News appeared under his byline, but much didn't. He wrote more than a thousand articles over the years, but also wrote the Questions and Answers section of the magazine, compiled our Letters From Our Readers, and wrote many of the items in the Current Events and Trends section. He also contributed greatly to a number of our study guides and Bible Study Course lessons. His writing has touched the lives of literally millions of people over the years.
John traveled widely over the years as an accredited journalist, especially in Europe. His knowledge of European and Middle East history added a great deal to his articles on history and Bible prophecy.
In his later years he also pastored congregations in Northern Ireland and East Sussex, and that experience added another dimension to his writing. He and his wife Jan were an effective team in our British Isles office near their home.
John was a humble servant who dedicated his life to sharing the gospel—the good news—of Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of God to all the world, and his work was known to readers in nearly every country of the world.
Melvin Rhodes
Melvin Rhodes is a member of the United Church of God congregation in Lansing, Michigan.
