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15 February 2000 * ABORTED BABIES "BURIED" - A call was made by Rev Kenneth Meshoe, ACDP leader, to all South Africans to pray for the thousands of unborn babies who die daily, also for their mothers who take the decision and all those suffering the emotional and physical consequences of abortions. On 1 February South Africans across the country came together for prayer, remembering the third anniversary of abortion's legalisation in South Africa. In Durban little white crosses (with a name on every cross) were placed on the steps of the city hall, in honourable remembrance of every baby who had been aborted and disposed of without a dignified burial. (Volksblad, 27 January) * SELEBI LEADS AFRICA'S LARGEST DRUG BUST - SA and Mozambican police have netted R900 million worth of mandrax in Africa's biggest drug bust. The raid was led by SA's national police commissioner Jackie Selebi. Inside the factory, called Plasmex, which fronted as a plastic pipe manufacturing company, methaqualone powder was found in hundreds of bags - enough to press 30 million mandrax tablets. The drugs were destined for the streets of SA - the biggest consumer of the drug in the world. Selebi said three people in SA are already being questioned. One is German, the other British and one South African. The Mozambican police commissioner, Nataniel Makamu, said three Mozambicans were arrested during the raid. Mandrax has a street value of R30 a tablet. (Sunday Times, 13 February) * MISSIONARY ACCUSED OF PROMOTING VIOLENCE - United Christian Action (UCA) with Director Peter Hammond has come under attack in the Cape Times, with allegations that the umbrella body of Christian groups is being run by South African Military Intelligence. Hammond (also leader of the missionary organisation Frontline Fellowship) has denied these allegations and pointed out that for the past 19 years they have been assisting suffering Christians in Mozambique, Angola and Sudan by delivering Bibles and Christian books, tonnes of medical supplies and food, and by providing leadership training courses for teachers, nurses and pastors. They have also been accused of supporting and assisting Renamo and Unita, in response to which Hammond challenges the writer, Tony Weaver, to produce his so-called "evidence", since it doesn't exist. Hammond has also been blamed as being a promoter of violence due to his stand for the citizens' right to self defence, in spite of his consistently having written and spoken out against the irresponsible and gratuitous violence so prevalent in films. Weaver said "Unless he's too busy smuggling Bibles into the Sudan, he is sure to be one of those lurking in the corridors of power lobbying for our divine right to bear arms and kill each other in the name of Christ. (Cape Times, 4 & 10 February) * "USE THE ROD" SAY MOST BRITISH PARENTS - More than half of British parents are in favour of corporal punishment being brought back into schools. In a poll done by FDS International for The Times 51% of parents said the rod can be brought back into schools. Two-thirds of parents questioned were of the opinion that discipline in school had deteriorated during the last ten years. Corporal punishment was forbidden in British government schools 14 years ago and this was extended to private schools last year. Teachers are however of the opinion that parents are to blame for misbehaving children. (Volksblad, 10 January) * LESBIAN COUPLE SUFFER GAY-BASHING - (Pietermaritzburg) A gay couple were beaten up by a man in the city over the weekend in what they claim was a gay-bashing assault. Shelly Wienand and Nicky Gouws said the incident happened when they transported friends to the man's house in Berg Street to look for car keys. An argument broke out between the man's family and the other group. "As we tried to ask them not to swear at one another, [the man and his family] realised that Nicky and I were partners. The man started calling us lesbians and shouting anti-gay slogans," said Wienand. "Although we have heard people making negative comments about our relationship in social gatherings, this is the first violent incident of gay bashing we have encountered in Pietermaritzburg," she said. (Natal Witness, 1 February) * HALLELUJAH CHORUS HELPS HOSPICE - SA will join other nations later this year in an international mass choir event to raise funds for Hospice, an organisation which receives new demands to care for ever-increasing numbers of terminally ill people every day. The SA event will take place in Klerksdorp on 14 October, when choirs from around the world will be performing the Hallelujah Chorus as the clock strikes 7.30pm in their respective time zones. (The Citizen, 12 February) * SCHLESINGER THREATENED OVER ANTI-GAY RADIO SHOW - (Hollywood) Dr. Laura Schlesinger, whose radio show reaches an estimated 20 million people through 500 stations in the United States and Canada, says she has received death threats for speaking out against gay marriage and describing homosexuality as a deviant sexual orientation. Homosexual activist groups are mounting a campaign to get Schlesinger to change her tune. (Daywatch, 15 February) * CARTOON-PREACHER CHARLES SCHULZ DIES - "A cartoonist must be given the chance to do his own preaching," Peanuts creator Charles Schulz once said. But the country's best-known cartoonist, who died in his sleep Feb. 12 at age 77, subtly communicated biblical truths in the daily strip for nearly 50 years. ...Schulz grew up in a Lutheran home, joined the Church of God (Anderson, Ind.) as an adult, and taught a Sunday school class. He regularly injected biblical ideas into his strip, such as one in which Linus demonstrates the parable of the foolish man who built his house on the sand only to see the wind and waves wash it away, the Beliefnet web site said. "I know there's a lesson in this somewhere," Linus says over the ruins of his sandcastle. (Religion Today, 16 February) * CONDOMS INCREASE STD RISK - A recent report from a British medical journal finds that widespread distribution of condoms and other contraceptive devices may actually increase exposure to sexually-transmitted diseases such as AIDS by encouraging risky sexual behavior. The findings from three researchers from University College London were reported last week in the medical journal, The Lancet. (Daywatch, 15 February) * SUDAN GOVERNMENT BOMBS CHRISTIAN SCHOOL - Warplanes dropped four bombs near a Christian school in Sudan, killing 14 children and a teacher and wounding 17, Reuters reported. One bomb landed near a group of first-graders studying English underneath a tree. A student's amateur video of the aftermath shows children with mangled limbs and mortal wounds being treated by teachers, the BBC said. ..."The bombs landed where they were supposed to land" Feb. 8, Dirdiery Ahmed, a government official at the Sudanese Embassy in Nairobi, told Reuters. He said the school, 500 miles south of Khartoum, the capital, is part of a military camp. ...There are no military targets near the school, Tim Tiscornia, a Catholic missionary teaching at the school, told BBC."To purposefully drop bombs on an area where there's known to be children and a school, that is just evil," he said. ..."Truly this is a 'slaughter of the innocents,' " Catholic Bishop Macram Gassis said. ...Khartoum's National Islamic Front is waging a genocidal war against Christians and other non-Muslims in the south: "This terrible heart-breaking incident is yet another piece of evidence, if more were still needed, that the war in Sudan is a religious and ethnic war" that is "aimed at the destruction of my people." ...Upper Kaouda and the Nuba Mountains, in central Sudan, are fiercely contested by government and rebel forces, news reports say. Holy Cross, a collection of four thatch-covered brick buildings that serves 300 students, is the only established school in the area. ...Gassis called on the international community to condemn the bombing. "Refuse to stand idly by while the African and Christian peoples of Sudan are exterminated. Stand with us. Do not let the deaths of these little ones be in vain," Gassis said. (Religion Today, 15 February) * UNREACHED PEOPLES: NOT SO UNREACHED! - Of the world's 24,000 people groups, some 10,000, with a total population of around 2.1 billion, are unreached. An 'unreached people group' is a numerically significant population which shares a language, religion, race, locality, trade, class, caste or other identifying element in which there is no indigenous group of Christians which are able to reach the people group with the gospel (the AD2000 and Beyond movement's definition: less than 2% of the group are evangelical, or less than 5% are active Christians). "Of the world's 6 billion inhabitants, around one third are Christians, another third lives in people groups which have been reached with the gospel, and the remaining third lives in unreached groups. That is a great step forward from the situation in 1974, when around half of the non-Christians lived in unreached people groups; today, it is only one third. For the first time in history, there are fewer non-Christians in unreached people groups than in evangelised groups," the report continues. Winter and Koch conclude: "We are clearly in the final era of world mission. For the first time in history, we can see that the task of establishing a church-planting movement in the language and social structure of every people group can be completed." (Fridayfax, 10 February) |
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