* JUST A THOUGHT - Our world doesn't need yes-men and yes-women, but men and women who can say, "Yes" when it's yes and, "No" when it's no.
(By Fano Sibisi, 25 June 2010, www.cft.org.za) (to index)

* TWENTY THAI WOMEN BELIEVED TO BE HUMAN TRAFFICKING VICTIMS - Authorities are questioning more than 20 Thai women on the East Rand who are believed to be victims of human trafficking.
The Hawks raided a property in Pomona near Kempton Park at the weekend and arrested a woman for running a brothel but it was established in court on Monday that the woman was not the owner of the property.
The Hawks Paul Ramaloko said, "At this stage, the office of international migration, with the police and immigration, are busy processing all the Thai ladies to check the state of their condition. We will be guided by the outcomes of the interview."
(EyeWitnessNews, 31 May 2010) (to index)

* BABIES BAFFLE EVOLUTION - Genesis 11:1
Now the whole earth had one language and one speech.
The Bible teaches that until several centuries after the Flood all people on Earth spoke the same language. The fact that many supposedly unrelated languages have similar sounding words with the same or similar meanings supports this teaching. Some language researchers say that this is simply due to chance. Now some language researchers say that they have developed another line of research that supports the belief that all humans once spoke the same language.

Language researchers have spent years listening to babies in many different language groups babble. Babies younger than four months make a variety of sounds as they learn to use their voice. Speaking is a highly complex activity, requiring the coordination of 70 different muscles as well as several different body parts. By seven to ten months of age babies typically begin making sounds that alternate vowels and consonants. Researchers found that there are three distinct patterns of alternating sounds that are universal among babies in English-speaking households. Then they found that these three patterns are also common among infants from a wide range of language groups around the world. Researchers comparing infants from varying language groups then identified a fourth pattern among all groups. These findings have been interpreted as independent evidence that all people once spoke one language.

We accept what the Bible says by faith, not because it has been proven. But when Scripture's truths are supported by science the Bible's integrity is upheld before skeptics.
(CreationMoments.com, June 2010) (to index)

* BIDEN IN KENYA: 'MONEY WILL FLOW' IF PRO-ABORT CONSTITUTION PASSES - U.S. Vice President Joe Biden travelled to Kenya to personally urge the country to pass a new constitution that would legalize abortion - and to assure Kenyans that such a change would "allow money to flow" from foreign aid treasuries, reports Kathleen Gilbert, LifeSiteNews.com.

At the same time, a federal probe is attempting to determine whether the Obama Administration is violating federal law by using taxpayer money to lobby for the constitution, deeply controversial in Kenya in large part because of its abortion provisions.

"We are hopeful, Barack Obama is hopeful, I am hopeful that you will carry out these reforms to allow money to flow," Biden told a crowd of Kenyans, among whom President Obama is extremely popular and touted as a native son of their country.

A clause in the proposed constitution has received heavy criticism from religious leaders in Kenya for allowing abortion when a mother's "health" is endangered - a term that, as abortion advocates admitted at the Women Deliver conference in Washington, D.C. last week, "can be broadly interpreted when need be."

Asked about the abortion issue, Biden told Rev. Timothy Njoya not to "confuse that with the position of the US President, US Vice President and US Government," according to Kenya's Daily Nation.

Yet some are not so sure that such a line can be drawn. Last month, 3 U.S. congressmen with legal oversight jurisdiction over federal international funds launched a probe into whether the Obama administration is violating federal law by promoting the controversial constitution.

"The Obama Administration’s advocacy in support of Kenya’s proposed constitution may constitute a serious violation of the Siljander Amendment and, as such, may be subject to civil and criminal penalties under the Antideficiency Act," wrote Reps. Chris Smith (R-NJ), Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) in a May 6 letter to Inspectors General of the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Agency for International Development.

The Siljander Amendment of the State, Foreign Operations Appropriations Act, reads: "None of the funds made available under this Act may be used to lobby for or against abortion."

The lawmakers pointed out that the abortion issue is prominent in the public debate over the proposed document, and that the chairman of Kenya’s Committee of Experts on Constitutional Review identified abortion as "one of the four most contentious issues in the proposed constitution."

Rep. Smith said that as much as $10 million in taxpayer funds may have been spent in support of the pro-abortion constitution as of May.
(Christian Telegraph, June 2010) (to index)

* ABORTION BUDGET CUTS UPSET NJ DEMS - Because of a tight budget, New Jersey Republican Governor Chris Christie has taken action on state spending for abortion facilities by eliminating their funding.
While that has prompted objections from the pro-abortion community, Len Deo, president of the New Jersey Family Policy Council (NJFPC), points out that pro-life pregnancy centers have not received a dime.

"Planned Parenthood, if they believe that their programs are so valuable, should go out and raise their own funding, just like most non-profits have to do," Deo contends. "And for them to be government-subsidized, we think, frankly is disingenuous."

Democrats are introducing legislation to reinstate those eliminated funds, but the NJFPC president does not believe that will settle well with many voters.
"I think that's obviously something that's going to be a battle, and this legislature is heavily controlled by the Democrats," he notes. "But I also think that whatever they do, they do so at their peril, because they're all up for re-election in 2011."

Deo further thinks it unlikely that there will be sufficient votes to override a veto, should the legislature pass such a bill.
(OneNewsNow, 28 June 2010) (to index)

* HORROR IN CHINA: ABORTED BUT STILL LIVING BABY SENT FOR CREMATION - An aborted baby boy, who had been declared dead by doctors in Foshan City, China, suddenly cried out as he was about to be cremated, but died later after doctors refused to treat him.

A mortuary worker at the Nanhai Funeral Home reportedly was startled by a cry from a box, labeled "medical waste," that he was about to put into the incinerator. He opened the carton and found the baby moving, but choking on some cotton wool in his mouth, the locally based Information Times reported.
After the worker cleared his mouth, the baby yawned and breathed normally. He was rushed back to Guanyao Hospital, which had attempted to abort him earlier that day; but doctors in the hospital reportedly ignored him and left him in the lobby to die.
He was confirmed dead later in the day and returned to the funeral home for cremation. However, workers put the body in a refrigerator pending further investigation.

Liu Sanhong, an official with the hospital, told the Shanghai Daily that staff checked the baby for an hour to make sure that he was dead. Liu declined to comment on whether doctors tried to save the baby or not.

A funeral home official told Information Times that he took a video of the baby, who was about seven months gestation, to prove that he was alive when discovered at the crematory.
Following this, the report said that all workers at the funeral home had been ordered not to talk about the incident.

Earlier this year, outrage was sparked by the mishandling of the bodies of aborted children by the Affiliated Hospital of Jining Medical University.
On March 31, 21 babies' bodies were found dumped in the Guangfu river in east China's Jining City.
The bodies, some in diapers, some in plastic bags marked "medical waste," were found under a bridge by a man who had been fishing.

Reports suggested most of the dead babies were females who had been allowed to die or were aborted and dumped because parents wanted to keep the option open for a male child within China's coercive one-child system.

While human rights groups and international population experts have denounced wide scale sex-selective abortion and female infanticide in China, the state-run Xinhua news agency blamed the incident on "local custom and a lack of regulation."
(LifeSiteNews, 25 May 2010) (to index)

* BATTLE ESCALATES OVER HOMESCHOOLED CHILD SEIZED BY SWEDISH GOVT - Attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) and the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) filed an application with the European Court of Human Rights Friday asking it to hear the case of a 7-year-old boy seized by Swedish authorities because his parents homeschool.

"Parents have the right and authority to make decisions regarding their children’s education without government interference," said ADF Legal Counsel Roger Kiska, who is based in Europe. "A government trying to create a cookie-cutter child in its own image should not be allowed to violate this basic and fundamental human right."

"The refusal of Swedish authorities to respect that right has left us no choice but to take this case to the European Court of Human Rights."

Swedish authorities forcibly removed Dominic Johansson from his parents, Christer and Annie Johansson, in June 2009 after the family had boarded a plane to move to Annie’s home country of India. The officials did not have a warrant nor have they charged the Johanssons with any crime. The officials, say ADF lawyers, seized the child because they believe homeschooling is inappropriate and insist the government should raise Dominic instead.

Social services authorities have placed Dominic in foster care and a government school. Christer and Annie are only allowed to visit their son for one hour every five weeks.

"We are gravely concerned about this case as it represents what can happen to other home-schooling families," explained HSLDA lawyer Mike Donnelly, one of nearly 1700 attorneys in the ADF alliance. "In response to our inquiries, Swedish authorities have cited the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child to explain and defend their actions. If the U.S. were to ever ratify this treaty, as the White House and some members of Congress have expressed a desire to do, then this sort of thing could occur here."

ADF and HSLDA attorneys decided to file Johansson v. Sweden with the ECHR when the Supreme Administrative Court of Sweden refused to review a lower court’s December 2009 ruling in Johansson v. Gotland Social Services that found that the government was within its rights to seize the child.

The lower court cited the fact that Dominic had not been vaccinated as a reason to remove him permanently from his parents and also repeated the charges that homeschoolers do not perform well academically and are not well socialized. HSLDA and ADF said that these latter charges are "provably false."
(LifeSiteNews, 28 Jun 2010) (to index)