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Christian
News * DUTCH GOVERNMENT DONATES TOWARDS
TEACHING EVOLUTION IN CAPE TOWN * DUTCH GOVERNMENT DONATES TOWARDS TEACHING EVOLUTION IN CAPE TOWN
- The Dutch government has donated R16m for a programme to improve teaching of evolution
at schools in the Western Cape. The announcement was made recently by the Africa Genome
Education Institute (Agei), which said the money, spread over four years, would be
directed at life sciences teachers at secondary school level. "The goal is to empower
teachers to offer learners the most modern view of how living organisms have evolved on
the planet," it said in a statement. The programme also aimed at getting teachers to
comprehend the workings of genetic inheritance, descent with modification, Darwinian
natural selection and speciation. Agei executive chairperson Wilmot James said the
programme was an innovative and welcome response to the "clear need" for life
sciences teachers to be on top of recent expertise in evolutionary biology. The first
in-service workshops would start in April, with three a year for the next four years. * LINK BETWEEN SEX WORK AND CRIME - A court interdict preventing
police from arresting sex workers was granted because the NPA consistently fails to
prosecute them, the City of Cape Town said on 21 April. "The inaction of the NPA
[National Prosecuting Authority] has undermined the City's programme to reduce
crime," safety and security chairperson, Councillor JP Smith, said in a statement.
"We have been working to clean up the streets of Cape Town by acting against all
forms of unlawful behaviour, including so-called minor offences." He said the city
would resort to crime prevention, the so-called "broken window" approach, to
discourage "an industry that is linked to abuse of women, HIV and Aids transmission,
human trafficking and other criminal activity." "The city has found a link
between sex work and an increase in other criminal activities in an area." Smith said
the city would convene a meeting on Wednesday to consider further legal steps to ensure
enforcement of bylaws. "If necessary and viable, we will seek to have charges against
sex workers handled by municipal courts instead," he said. The order, handed down on
Monday by Cape High Court judge Burton Fourie, followed claims by sex workers that police
were arresting them merely to harass and intimidate them. Fourie interdicted the SA police
and the city's metro police from arresting sex workers for any purpose other than to bring
them to court to face prosecution. * SELF-TAKEN NUDE PHOTOS CIRCULATED VIA MXIT IN EXCHANGE FOR MONEY IN
THE BANK - That’s the shock discovery a Richards Bay mother made this week
when she investigated calls made on her 13-year-old daughter’s cellphone. According to the distraught girl’s mother, who describes herself as ‘very
strict’, she became suspicious when her daughter tried to quickly delete some MXit
messages. The latest sexcapades follow reports that teens have been misled on MXit into accepting
offers of loans and "free" airtime. Also trading on adults’ unfamiliarity with the latest cellphone technology and
capabilities, the dealers – posing as teens themselves – easily break through
the defences of unsuspecting children. The police officer said they have been warned that organised gangs of sex traders,
paedophiles, drug dealers and other criminals were getting ready to take advantage of the
2010 situation when teens could be "lost in the crowd" as tourists descend in
their thousands. * HARSH REALITIES OF PROSTITUTION NOT REPORTED ON - Doctors for Life International has noted the continual reports in some of the media that the decriminalization of prostitution may, should or is going to happen. Do they realize that they may be leading innocent young people into a life of slavery and drug addiction by publishing these suggestions? It is irresponsible for these media to keep on suggesting that the decriminalization of prostitution is an option. It will most probably cause young girls from the rural areas to flock to the cities thinking that they are going to make easy money. Inevitably most of these young girls will end up under the often brutal control of a pimp and become drug addicted victims of human trafficking that will be subjected to all kinds of abuse. A poll undertaken by African Response in three major cities ahead of the 2010 Soccer World Cup, shows that 79% of South Africans oppose the decriminalization of prostitution. Furthermore, the international trend is to clamp down on prostitution because of the many problems linked to it such as the sexual abuse of minors, human trafficking and organized crime. Examples include the UK, Norway, Netherlands (Amsterdam) and Sweden. Doctors for Life, urges the media to consider the extremely negative
consequences of prostitution to the prostitute and to society as a whole. People usually
make the choice to engage in prostitution out of desperation and within a very limited
range of options and alternatives. Experience and research has shown that if given a
proper opportunity, that at least 80% of prostitutes would quit the lifestyle. * HARSH REALITIES OF PROSTITUTION NOT
REPORTED ON * DE-BAPTISM GAINS A FOLLOWING IN BRITAIN - More than 100,000 former Christians have downloaded "certificates of de-baptism" in a bid to publicly renounce the faith, according to the London-based National Secular Society (NSS). Terry Sanderson, the society's president, says the group started the online de-baptism initiative five years ago to mock the practice of baptizing infants too young to consent to religious rites. Their web site invites visitors to "Liberate yourself from the Original Mumbo-Jumbo that liberated you from the Original Sin you never had" and allows them to print out a paper certificate that uses quasi-formal language to "reject baptism's creeds and other such superstitions." But in recent months, as tens of thousands began to download the certificate, organizers realized that they had struck a chord with atheists and once-devout church members who are leaving churches they see as increasingly out-of-tune with modern life. "Churches have become so reactionary, so politically active that people actually want to make a protest against them now," Sanderson says. "They're not just indifferent anymore. They're actively hostile ". The campaign has become so popular — with nearly 1,000 certificates downloaded each week — that the NSS has started taking orders for certificates printed on parchment, at $4.50 each; they've sold nearly 2,000 in just three weeks."Every time the Pope says something outrageous we get another rush on the certificate," Sanderson says, noting that traffic to the site skyrocketed last month following Pope Benedict XVI ’s comment that condoms could worsen the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Africa. Public gaffes like that one may explain the anti-Catholic backlash driving similar movements elsewhere in the world. In October last year, Italy's Union of Rationalist Atheist and Agnostics sponsored the country's first-ever "De-baptism Day," when the no-longer faithful attended protests and passed out de-baptism forms to areligious people who didn't have internet connections to download them. More recently, on March 2, atheists and feminists in Argentina teamed up to launch the "Not in my Name" Internet campaign which encourages Roman Catholics to notify their local bishops of their desire to officially leave the church.So far more than 1,800 have joined their Facebook group or signed the petition on their website http://www.apostasiacolectiva.org. (14 April 2009, Time) (to index) * GENDER GAP OF 32 MILLION EXTRA BOYS DUE TO SEX-SELECTION ABORTIONS
- Because of The higher incidence of sex-selection abortions and female infanticides,
a new study published in the British Journal of Medicine says that in 2005, there were 32
million more males than females under the age of 20. "Sex-selective abortion accounts
for almost all the excess males," say the authors, pointing to the cultural
preference for boys and the use of ultrasounds to determine the sex of the baby for an
abortion when a girl is found. Although choosing to have an abortion on the basis of
gender is illegal in China, enforcement is difficult. The study included nearly five
million people under the age of 20 and covered every county in China. It found that
overall ratios of boys were high everywhere, but were most striking among the younger age
group of 1-4 years, and in rural areas, where it peaked at 126 boys for every 100 girls.
In most other countries boys slightly outnumber girls at birth, with ratios of between 103
and 107 boys per 100 girls. * ‘GAY MARRIAGE’ ROW HITS MISS USA SHOW - A beauty
queen contestant reportedly lost her chance to be crowned Miss USA because she believes
that marriage should be between a man and a woman. During the televised show Carrie
Prejean, who represented California, was asked by an openly homosexual judge whether US
states should allow same sex marriage. Her answer was met with applause from members of the audience. But the judge who asked the question told ABC News: "She lost it because of that question. She was definitely the front-runner before that."He also said Miss Prejean has ‘half a brain’ and he would have stormed onto the stage and ripped off her tiara if she had won. In last year ’s US presidential election, millions of voters in the State of California voted in favour of protecting traditional marriage. They voted to amend the state constitution making it clear that only a marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognised in California.The Christian Institute’s Mike Judge said: "I don’t approve of beauty contests but I am saddened that this young woman has been ridiculed for no other reason than expressing her beliefs on marriage. " She was expressing her view – which is the right view, and also happens to be the majority view of the state she represents."(21 April 2009, The Christian Institute) (to index) * SRI LANKA: BUDDHIST MOBS ATTACK CHURCHES - Pastor threatened with death, historic Methodist sanctuary ransacked, during Holy Week. Buddhist mobs attacked several churches in Sri Lanka last week, threatening to kill a pastor in the southern province of Hambanthota and ransacking a 150-year-old Methodist church building in the capital. On April 8, four Buddhist extremists approached the home of pastor Pradeep Kumara in Weeraketiya, Hambanthota district, calling for him to come out and threatening to kill him. The pastor said his wife, at home alone with their two children, phoned him immediately but by the time he returned the men had left. Half an hour later, Kumar said, the leader of the group phoned him and again threatened to kill him if he did not leave the village by the following morning. Later that night the group leader returned to the house and ordered the pastor to come out, shouting that if he had brought his gun he would have shot him. " My children were frightened," Kumara said. "I tried to reason with him to go away, but he continued to bang on the door and threaten us." Earlier, on Palm Sunday (April 5), another group of men broke into the 150-year-old Pepiliyana Methodist Church in Colombo after congregants concluded an Easter procession. Witnesses said they saw them load goods into a white van parked outside the church early the next morning. "They removed everything, including valuable musical instruments, a computer, Bibles, hymn books and all the church records," said the Rev. Surangika Fernando.(26 April 2009, Intercessors Network) (to index) * KILLER DRUGS BANNED FOR SWISS SUICIDE CLINIC -
Switzerland’s highest court has banned the suicide clinic Dignitas from stockpiling
lethal drugs. Dignitas founder Ludwig Minelli insisted he needed the lethal barbiturate in
case of an "emergency", such as patients spilling or vomiting their dose as they
committed suicide. They excluded Dignitas because it is a private organization and uses
the drug in order to take life. The Court’s ruling was welcomed by the National
Hospice Foundation in Germany. Eugen Brych said: "The fact that the court does not
trust it to procure these drugs and store them must set back his plans to kill healthy
people. This shameless money-making business preys on human suffering."
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