* CRIES FOR HELP FROM ZIMBABWE - Dr Peter Hammond from Frontline Fellowship writes, "Half the admissions end up in the mortuary." Doctors in Zimbabwe have sounded an alert that patients are dying unnecessarily because of lack of medical supplies.

"There is no liquid paracetamol, no materials for dressings, no burn cream, no antiseptics, no drips, no surgical gloves and limited antibiotics. All these are required and need to be purchased by family members that can barely afford to survive on a daily basis. No sterile burn environment for burn victims, ward curtains are torn, windows are broken, sheets are worn, the food (when available) is supplied but without nourishment (over the last four weeks patients have been fed a small portion of sudza/rice with cabbage boiled in salt water). Children that are malnourished are being sent home to die as the required protein formula is unavailable. X-rays are not done as there is no film…there has been no food provided to patients for six days. Those without families to provide food – go hungry! Daily the nurses suffer heartache as they watch helplessly as patients, particularly, children, die unnecessarily! Constant frustration of not being able to put their knowledge into practice due to the lack of medical supplies can only be disheartening…."

These are just some of the quotes of recent reports received by our mission. One person writes of: "Deaths, infections, no food, no medicines, no anesthetic, no pain relief,…incredibly traumatic, infections rife and pain unbearable…"

"In the hospital we cannot feed the starving children, at least at home they can scrounge for things. We only keep those that we see won’t make it at home. We’ve lost the battle before we have fought it…"

"Malnutrition is a silent emergency that affects the young children and they die quietly."

Doctors have reported children’s wards filled with tiny patients, their bodies swollen with oedema, lying deathly still. A common sight is the oversized head and sparse hair, characteristic of kwashiorkor, a malnutrition which usually affects very young children. One doctor reported kwashiorkor in an eight-year old boy: "that is highly unusual, it is mostly confined to two and three year olds. That’s an indication of how serious the hunger is."

A doctor in a mission hospital reported that their hospital lacked life-saving protein supplements, and were being forced to use diluted milk. The children were meant to be fed six times a day, but they only had enough for once a day, and then nothing for the next five days.

One doctor reported a mother dying in childbirth leaving her baby born HIV positive. The grandmother refused to take the infant home as she could not feed it. So the baby was left at the hospital. In despair the doctor declared: "It’s starvation all over, starving, starving, starving!"

Since Marxist dictator Robert Mugabe, and his ZANU-PF party, unleashed a wave of destruction and confiscation upon the once productive white commercial farms, starvation was inevitable. Having destroyed the productive agricultural economy of Zimbabwe, ZANU has achieved the highest unemployment (90%), the highest rate of inflation (231 million percent) and the lowest life expectancy (30 years) in the world today. Approximately half of the total population of Zimbabwe have fled across the borders.

The national suicide, initiated by the destruction of the productive white farms, has not only led to the economic meltdown and medical crisis, but also an educational catastrophe. Since January 2008 there has been a total of only 23 days of education for the 4.5 million students in Zimbabwe. Now the government has cancelled the academic year completely, declaring that their will be no examinations this year.

City schools have been handicapped by water and power cuts. One primary school has had no water for 5 years. Boarders at hundreds of rural schools have been sent home because there was no food for them.

When teachers went on strike they were attacked by ZANU-PF militia. Numerous teachers were murdered and thousands were brutally beaten. Schools were ransacked and used as torture centres. Many teachers disappeared and others were too afraid to return. Now that teachers have had their salaries doubled, to less than $10 per month, they have barely enough to cover their bus fares and food for four days. In some government schools, students have resorted to sawing up benches for wood.

Zimbabwe’s four leading universities failed to open and the Vice Chancellor of the University of Zimbabwe explained that the university had no water, no electricity and no funds.

Cases of cholera have broken out because of the very poor sewerage system and lack of adequate water supply. "Our water supply is constantly being cut off. You never know when it may come back again. We keep water in every possible container."

Some people in the capital city have reported power cuts lasting for weeks, once for up to 28 days at a time.

The rains are due to start but there is no maize seed or fertilizer available. 5 million people face starvation in Zimbabwe.

In the light of the colossal humanitarian catastrophe occurring just north of our border in Zimbabwe, our mission is planning additional field trips to deliver life-saving supplies and medicines to doctors and nurses, pensioners and pastors, widows and orphans - who are praying for the desperately needed materials which we can deliver. Of course, we cannot help everyone, but we can help some. It is our earnest prayer that the Lord would use and multiply the inadequate supplies that we can provide as He used the loaves and fishes to feed the thousands.

If you have skills and resources which can enable us to serve the suffering in Zimbabwe, please do contact us: info@frontline.org.za
(Frontline Fellowship, Feb 2009) (to index)

* POLICE NAB HUMAN TRAFFICKING SUSPECTS - Police have raided several flats in North West province, arresting a number of suspects from west and east Africa allegedly involved in human trafficking.

The gang is believed to be responsible for recruiting women to work throughout South Africa in prostitution.

During the crime intelligence-driven operation, which took place in several parts earlier this week, police, acting on tip-offs from the Rustenburg municipality, rescued 17 women, some as young as 16.
The women, the majority of whom are from Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and the Free State, are believed to have been used by the gang as prostitutes.

Police spokesperson Superintendent Tummi Golding said the raids took place after the municipality informed them about several blocks of flats which they believed were being used by crime syndicates to commit various crimes.
She said the tip-offs came after members of the community became suspicious when they saw a number of different women coming in and out of several flats.
"After observing the flats, agents from the crime intelligence covert collection directorate gathered information on those coming into and out of the flats before raiding them.
"When police raided the flats they found 17 young women who were being held and allegedly used in prostitution," she said, adding that six Nigerians and a Tanzanian national were arrested in the raid.

She said that as well as arresting the seven suspects, police also seized three luxury vehicles as well as numerous flats in which the women were kept.
Golding said depending on the outcome of the investigation the suspects, who had been charged with drug trafficking and prostitution, could also be charged in connection with human trafficking.
(IOL, 30 Jan 2009) (to index)

* ANTI-ISLAM FILM’S MAKER BLASTS UK OVER BAN - Controversial Dutch filmmaker Geert Wilders condemned as "crazy and cowardly" Britain's refusal to let him enter the country Thursday.

Wilders, a Dutch lawmaker who produced a much-criticized film about Islam last year, flew to London for a screening of the movie despite being told a day earlier he would not be admitted.

"I still believed and hoped that they would change their tune," he told CNN by telephone, saying he was speaking from a detention room at London's Heathrow Airport.
He said he was met by customs officers as soon as he left the plane.
"They took me to a detention center," Wilders said, and there he was interviewed "for 45 seconds" before they took his passport and left.

Wilders had been invited to screen his film, "Fitna," at the House of Lords on Thursday evening. The 15-minute film features disturbing images of terrorist acts superimposed over verses from Islam's holy book, the Quran, to paint Islam as a threat to Western society.

The British ambassador to the Netherlands told him Wednesday that he would be refused entry into Britain because the beliefs expressed in the film would threaten public security. Do you agree with the UK's decision to bar Wilders? Have your say.
Britain's Home Office said barring Wilders is allowed under European Union law, which permits states to refuse entry on the grounds of public policy, public security or public health.

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"The government opposes extremism in all its forms," said a Home Office spokesman, who would not be identified, in line with policy. "It will stop those who want to spread extremism, hatred and violent messages in our communities from coming to our country."

Wilders is a member of the Dutch parliament for the right-wing Party for Freedom. He released "Fitna" online in March 2008 to immediate controversy.
The 15-minute film features disturbing images of terrorist acts superimposed over verses from Islam's holy book, the Quran, to paint Islam as a threat to Western society.

Caroline Cox, a member of Britain's House of Lords who is not affiliated with a political party, invited Wilders to screen his film at a private session in parliament. She told CNN that she wanted lawmakers to see the film to provoke discussion.
"We're showing it on the basis of freedom of speech," said Cox, who has been a free speech advocate throughout her career. "It's a serious showing, with serious concerns and serious consideration."
Cox said she disagreed with the government's decision to bar Wilders, who was also scheduled to discuss the film.

"I think it's appalling," she told CNN. "(For) the British government to prevent a European parliamentarian coming to speak to parliamentarians over here is very disturbing. I think it will be read by many people as a sign of appeasement to threat and intimidation."

After its release, the movie drew complaints from the European Union and the Organization of the Islamic Conference, as well as concern from the United States, which warned it could spark riots.
Dutch authorities filed charges against Wilders last month, accusing him of inciting racial hatred in speeches and in the film.
"Fitna" opens with a controversial caricature of the Prophet Mohammed wearing a turban shaped like a bomb, followed by translated portions of the Quran. The passages are interspersed with graphic images of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the United States, juxtaposed with audio from 911 calls made by the victims trapped inside the World Trade Center in New York.
The video includes images of other terror attacks; bloodied victims; beheadings of hostages; executions of women in hijab, the traditional full-body covering; and footage, with subtitles, of Islamic leaders preaching inflammatory sermons against Jews and Christians.

In his interview with the BBC, Wilders said he does not hate Muslims but opposes the "Islamization" of the European continent.
The title "Fitna," is Arabic for "strife" or "conflict" of the type that occurs within families or any other homogenous group.

Five years ago, Dutch director Theo van Gogh was stabbed to death by a member of a radical Islamic group after his short film "Submission" used verses from the Quran written on women's bodies to criticize the treatment of women in Islamic cultures.
His co-producer on the project, Somali-born former Dutch lawmaker Ayaan Hirsi Ali, lived under government protection for several years after van Gogh's killing. She now lives in the United States.
(CNN International, 12 Feb 2009) (to index)

* SAUDI ARABIA: AUTHORITIES ARREST CHRISTIAN CONVERT - Five months after the daughter of a member of Saudi Arabia’s religious police was killed for writing online about her faith in Christ, Saudi authorities have reportedly arrested a 28-year-old Christian man for describing his conversion and criticizing the kingdom’s judiciary on his Web site.

Saudi police arrested Hamoud Bin Saleh on Jan. 13 "because of his opinions and his testimony that he had converted from Islam to Christianity," according to the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information. Bin Saleh, who had been detained for nine months in 2004 and again for a month last November, was reportedly being held in Riyadh’s Eleisha prison.

On his web site, which Saudi authorities have blocked, Bin Saleh wrote that his journey to Christ began after witnessing the public beheading of three Pakistanis convicted of drug charges. After reading how Jesus forgave – rather than stoned – a woman condemned for adultery, Bin Saleh eventually received Christ as savior.

"Just look and ask for the light of God," he wrote in Arabic in his Dec. 22 posting. "There might be no available books to help you make a comparative study between the teachings of Muhammad (which in my opinion are a series of political, social, economical and human disasters) and the teaching of Jesus in Saudi Arabia, but there are many resources on the Web by which you might get to the bosom/arms of the Father of salvation."
(Intercessors Network, 1 Feb 2009) (to index)

* ERITREA: TWO MORE TORTURED CHRISTIANS DIE - Two more Christians have died in Eritrea’s military-styled confinement. According to Glenn Penner with Voice of the Martyrs that makes a total of three believers who have died in custody since October.

"Eritrea has denied that there were any Christians in prison at all. They refuse to acknowledge that they are persecuting evangelical Christians. The reason they are able to deny this is because none of these men and women have even been brought to trial."

Some 2,000 Eritrean Christians are believed to be jailed for the sole reason of their religious beliefs, without a legal charge. The impact on the church? It’s driven believers deeper underground. How can we help?
"Pray for those who are in prison," Penner asks. "There are believers that are being tortured in some of the most inhumane ways. Pray for them that they’ll continue to hold firm in their faith and that God will make Himself real to them. Pray for the families as well. Many of them have no idea where their loved ones are or even if they’re still alive."
(Intercessors Network, 1 Feb 2009) (to index)

* FREEDOM FROM HOMOSEXUALITY – THROUGH CHRIST - A former homosexual is professing that homosexuality can be overcome through Christ.

Chris Delaney, founder of Joseph's Coat Ministries in Chattanooga, Tennessee, lived as a homosexual for 12 years until he became a Christian. According to the Chattanooga Times Free Press, Delaney proudly calls himself an "ex-gay" and admits that after an unstable childhood, he needed male affirmation in his life more than homosexual behavior. However, he turned to the latter instead of Christ.

After years living as a homosexual, he says God changed his life and healed him through Bible and counseling, undergoing a lengthy transformation to become "sexually reoriented" by God. "The homosexuality did not have a hold on my life after about two years of deep therapy, deep worship, deep understanding of God's Word," he points out. "And after that two-year period...I felt the call of the Lord to begin a ministry."

Delaney has taken a lot of heat from homosexual activists who believe they are born in that condition. Many members of the traditional psychotherapy profession criticize his ministerial efforts, "arguing they target vulnerable individuals and force them to deny natural tendencies in the name of religious dogma."

"There is absolutely no conclusive evidence of a gay gene. There's [sic] been lots of studies, but they've been slanted," he contends. "There's been an agenda behind it, and there is no gay gene that's been discovered as of yet."

He believes that lack of scientific evidence underlines the need for the ministry, which has been successfully leading people out of homosexuality through Christ for 15 years. Delaney stresses that it is not an easy process, but the end result is life-changing.
(OneNewsNow, 20 Jan 2009) (to index)

* TRADITIONAL DOCTORS UP IN ARMS OVER BAN BY PREMIER  - Traditional doctors have criticised the Government's decision to revoke their licences in a raft of measures announced Friday to stop albino killings in the country.

Prime Minister Mizengo Pinda last week announced measures aimed at raising awareness, offering protection to albinos and tracking down witchdoctors and their accomplices during a tour of regions worst affected by albino killings.

At a rally in Shinyanga Region on Friday, the PM announced that all traditional doctors' licences had been cancelled with immediate effect. The region has the largest number of traditional healers and is one of the areas worst hit by albino killings in the country.

He called witchdoctors "big liars" who were fanning the killing of albinos in the country, and directed those who wanted to operate again to seek the approval of the Muhimbili National Hospital's Traditional Medicine Research Unit.

Police and albino rights groups in the country say albino killers sell body parts including limbs, hair, skin and genitals to witchdoctors for use in rituals with fortune seekers.

The national death toll of albinos in ritual related cases is now reaching nearly 40 since June 2007.

More than 2,500 elderly people have also been killed countrywide since 2003 on suspicion of bewitching other people. In both cases, witch doctors are accused of playing the advisor role to the killers.

But in response to the ban, the association of traditional doctors in Arusha condemned the Government's move as too harsh.
Speaking on behalf of the association, a popular Arusha based traditional healer, Mr Haruna Kifimbo, said his members were not happy with the ban. But he said they supported other initiatives announced by the Government including a crackdown on wayward traditional doctors by the police.

However, he said revoking their licences would affect properly registered traditional doctors who had nothing to do with the killings. "We are legally registered, they should be dealing with some state organisations who have not done much to stop the wave of albino killlings," he said.

The herbalist said the Government should also first address corruption in the registration process at the Muhimbili National Hospital's Traditional Medicine Research Unit. He claimed that members of his association were offering services to more than 30 per cent of the country's population, which would be "seriously affected" by the ban.

"We have so many patients and clients who depend on us. I believe it would have been better if the PM had consulted us before announcing the ban," said Mr Kifimbo who, however, admitted that there were some rogue elements within their community.

But he said the police and local community leaders should be given chance to deal with witch doctors who advise their clients to kill other people. He urged the Government to reverse its decision saying traditional doctors were important in the country adding that even the World Health Organisation (WHO) recognised them.

About 172 suspects have been arrested in connection with albino killings in the country. But albino rights groups and some members of the public say the judiciary has not been forthcoming in convicting the suspects. And the association of albinos in the country alleges that some police officers are receiving bribes from suspects of the killings.

President Jakaya Kikwete once promised that the Government would provide special security arrangements for albinos in a bid to reduce the risks of attacks.
(The Citizen - Tanzania, 26 Jan 2009) (to index)