Call to aid mothers with breastfeeding

19/12 Julia Medew and Dan Harrison, Fairfax Digital | The breastfeeding rate is a national disgrace, an obstetricians' group says.

Dr Ted Weaver, president of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, said too many new mothers were being "booted out" of hospital after one or two days, without enough help to breastfeed their babies at home.

The latest national statistics show only 18 per cent of mothers were still breastfeeding infants at six months in 2002, against 53 per cent in Sweden, 21 per cent in Britain and 20 per cent in the US. In 2004 a Federal Government study of 5000 mothers showed only 14 per cent were breastfeeding their babies at six months. "We lament that our breastfeeding rates are so terrible but there is very little support for mothers in the community," Dr Weaver said. "The community services are overstretched, and most of these services are looking after older children at risk, rather than young mothers and their babies...

Cosgrove calls for war study involvement

28/12 Smh.com.au | Former Defence chief Peter Cosgrove has called for Vietnam-era service families to get involved in a study on the long-term effects of war service on families and children.

General Cosgrove - who has been invited to participate - has written to fellow Vietnam vets encouraging them and their families to sign up to the Vietnam Veterans' Family Study.... "Invitations to participate in the study were sent to randomly selected Vietnam-era army personnel - 10,000 each of those who served in Vietnam and those who didn't," the minister said.

"General Cosgrove was one of those Vietnam veterans who was randomly selected to participate in the study, and I was pleased to hear that he, his wife and his family have signed up.

"The nation is grateful for the contribution of Australian servicemen and women during the Vietnam war. But we are asking for help once again, especially from those Army personnel who served at the time, but not in Vietnam, as they provide a very important comparison to those who did serve in Vietnam," Mr Griffin said.

Uproar in Australia over plan to block Web sites

25/12 Smh.com.au | A proposed Internet filter dubbed the "Great Aussie Firewall" is promising to make Australia one of the strictest Internet regulators among democratic countries.

Consumers, civil-rights activists, engineers, Internet providers and politicians from opposition parties are among the critics of a mandatory Internet filter that would block at least 1,300 Web sites prohibited by the government _ mostly child pornography, excessive violence, instructions in crime or drug use and advocacy of terrorism.

Hundreds protested in state capitals earlier this month.

School in clear over teaching creation

17/12 Anna Patty Education Editor, SMH.com.au | A CHRISTIAN school that teaches a biblical view of creation in science classes has been cleared of breaching state curriculum requirements for the teaching of evolution.

The NSW Board of Studies has found that Pacific Hills Christian School at Dural has met its requirements for teaching the science syllabus, including evolution, to years 7 to 10.

The board said it had not substantiated a complaint about how science was taught at the school. Its investigation involved an assessment by the school's overseeing body, Christian Schools Australia, and its own inspection of curriculum and teaching materials.

The board's curriculum director was given access to the school's intranet to review the school's curriculum documents. The director also observed several science classes and class work on evolution.

... The NSW Greens MP John Kaye said the board's ruling set a dangerous precedent that had "opened the floodgates to a religious invasion of the curriculum". The board had failed in its duty to protect the integrity of the science curriculum, he said.

"Every fundamentalist private school in NSW will be emboldened by this decision."

Dad's the word on discrimination

14/12 Stephanie Peating, SMH.com.au | Men have been prevented from taking on greater responsibilities at home by the Sex Discrimination Act, the legislation designed to break down gender inequality. A review of the legislation has found it should be overhauled to reflect the changing workplace and people's needs for greater flexibility to allow them to meet caring responsibilities for children and aged or sick relatives.

The Federal Government is considering a three-stage overhaul of the Sex Discrimination Act as recommended by the Senate's legal and constitutional affairs committee. Its chairwoman, the Labor senator Trish Crossin, said that although there was widespread support for the act, now nearly 25 years old, the suggested changes would ensure it remained "modern and relevant"

... The Federal Government promised to introduce "right to request" laws that would allow parents to have one year of unpaid leave after the birth of a child. Parents would also then be able to request flexible work arrangements with the onus on the employer to demonstrate why such conditions would then not be possible.

Students to be taught there's no God

The Humanist Society of Victoria has developed a curriculum for primary pupils that the state government accreditation body says it intends to approve, The Sunday Age newspaper reported.

Accredited volunteers will be able to teach their philosophy in the class time allotted for religious instruction, the newspaper said.

As with lessons delivered by faith groups, parents will be able to request that their children do not participate.

Tragic death underscores the harm of euthanasia workshops

10/12 Australian Christian Lobby Media Release | The Australian Christian Lobby (ACL) is urging authorities to keep a close eye on euthanasia workshops to be held in Perth this week, pointing out that euthanasia is illegal under Australian law.

ACL’s West Australian Director Michelle Pearse said that concerns raised by the family of Erin Berg -a Perth mother-of-four who committed suicide in Mexico allegedly using Nembutal – have again thrown the spotlight on ethical and legal questions concerning the promotion of suicide methods and the advocating of euthanasia.

AOG in Australia/Australian Christian Churches 

I often try to picture what the very first Christmas would have looked like.  And can I tell you; the night that Jesus arrived in Bethlehem was no peaceful, silent night!  In fact, the town of Bethlehem was facing a crisis of their own.  In a city overrun with people, crowded streets, new rulers, and uncertain futures…a baby was born.  And He looked nothing like a King.  It was majesty in the midst of the everyday.

Christmas is a fantastic time of year, and yet this season can become overwhelming at times.  The good news is that 2000 years ago, our God showed us His love by bringing peace in the midst of chaos. 

Friends, as tensions and financial pressures begin to rise around the globe, let us not forget that the birth of Christ came in the midst of chaos, but left us with a promise of hope for the future.

In a profound moment before He departed from this world Christ said, “Peace I leave with you; My peace I now give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.” (John 14:27) 

The peace of Christmas is not merely about the absence of conflict and pressures.  Jesus was not born into a peaceful situation, and yet He IS peace.  No matter what circumstances you face today, may you find hope and rest in the midst of uncertainty, and hold fast to the knowledge that Jesus himself left His peace with you.

May you and your family be blessed this Christmas Season.

Merry Christmas

DRUGS A GROWING CONCERN FOR YOUNG AUSTRALIANS

09/12 Australian Prayer Network Newsletter | The 2008 National Survey of Young Australians has found that body image, drugs and family conflict are the biggest worries for 11-24 year olds with one-in-four regarding each as major concerns. The national survey, conducted by the charity Mission Australia, tested the views of more than 45,000 young people between the ages of 11-24 (97.7 per cent between 11-19). Body image was ranked most frequently in the top three concerns by 26.3 per cent of respondents, closely followed by drugs at 26 per cent and family conflict at 25.9 per cent.

However, concern about drugs increased from 22.9 per cent to 31.2 per cent, most notably among the 11-14 age group who were twice as likely as 20-24 year olds to identify it as a major issue. Only 16.6 per cent of 20-24 year olds view drugs as a key problem. According to Mission Australia's spokesperson, Anne Hampshire, the results suggest that early adolescence is the key time when young people are most likely to be open to drug education campaigns.

System 'puts vulnerable kids at risk'

10/12 Gold Coast.com.au | VULNERABLE children are being put at even greater risk of harm because of a lack of early intervention and protection services. Despite a surge in the number of reported child abuse and neglect cases, an Australian Institute of Family Studies review of the nation's child protection systems found many are not being followed up. More than 150 cases of child abuse and neglect are reported to authorities each day, but less than one in five are substantiated, the research showed.

...Research author Dr Daryl Higgins says there is a serious lack of resources available for prevention and treatment services. "This means families with high-level needs, but unsubstantiated abuse, wind up receiving little or no service to help them," Dr Higgins said. Dr Higgins said the lack of follow-up services was having an adverse impact on children who came in contact with the system.

CHILD ABUSE COSTS COMMUNITY $11 BILLION PER ANNUM

09/12 Australian Prayer Network Newsletter |The physical, sexual and psychological abuse of more than 170,000 Australian children is costing the community almost $11billion a year. The first comprehensive study of the financial impact of child abuse undertaken in Australia attributes the bulk of that figure, nearly $7 billion, to the children's fear, anxiety and depression as it cuts their quality of life. The report, published by Access Economics, counts the cost of child abuse on the health, education and welfare systems.

The report says there is no current reliable national data on the number of Australian children suffering child abuse. Rather than relying on reported instances of abuse, Access Economics extrapolated from Australian Bureau of Statistics data on personal safety to arrive at a "conservative" figure of 177,000 children. But its top-end estimate is more than 500,000 children. "Based on these numbers, the best estimate of the actual cost of child abuse in 2007 was $10.7 billion.

VICTORIA: Radical gay parenting laws a blight on the State

05/12 Australian Christian Lobby Media Release | Last night’s passing of Victorian legislation which, among other things, will enable two men to “order” a baby they are not even genetically connected to, is a blight on the State which will have ramifications for every future generation of Victorians, the Australian Christian Lobby (ACL) said today.

“This legislation has been rushed through with no chance for proper public scrutiny as part of a year of radical social engineering by the Brumby Government, including giving Victoria the most obscene abortion laws of any state in Australia,” Mr Ward said. “The passing of the bill last night, by the narrowest of margins, says that children do not deserve both a mother and a father, it says they can just be commissioned by adults who want them, regardless of gender or marital status.

“It will also mean that genuinely infertile women will now have to compete for access to infertility treatment with women who are ‘socially infertile’, and genetic material can be removed from a dead person and used to create a child.”

QLD: Christian centre outraged at Islamic school plan

05/12 Goldcoast.com.au | A GOLD Coast Christian centre is outraged at the prospect of an Islamic college being built next door to it at Carrara. The Australian International Islamic College application for eligibility for Government funding has been finalised through the Non State Schools Accreditation Board. The school will only go ahead with city council approval.

Dream Centre minister Tony Doherty said he did not see the logic in putting two opposing organisations side by side... "It does not make any sense to have an Islamic college here on the Gold Coast," he said. "We have other colleges here that are more than adequate as they administer to all cultures in our multicultural society." A letter has been issued by the Christian centre to the community, stating that a mosque would normally follow after an Islamic school was built.

VICTORIA: New laws help lesbians, singles have babies

05/12 Catherine Best, AAP | LESBIANS and single women have won access to fertility treatment in Victoria under landmark laws passed in state parliament late today.

The Upper House passed the Assisted Reproductive Treatment (ART) bill by 20 votes to 18 to effect a modernisation of parenting laws in the state. The bill was passed about 8.30pm (AEDT) on the last sitting day of the year, with seven amendments, and was immediately returned to the lower house to be signed off before it became law.

Australian International Islamic College teacher Pravin Chand says it banned national anthem

05/12 The Courier Mail | A BRISBANE school has banned the national anthem at assemblies and sacked the teacher who asked for it to be played. Australian International Islamic College teacher Pravin Chand was sacked in November, four months after his proposal for students to sing Advance Australia Fair was ruled to be against the "Islamic view and ethos".

... The revelations follow an outcry on the Gold Coast this week at a plan by the same college to open another campus at Carrara. A vocal crowd draped in Australian flags accused the college of promoting segregation, anti-Australian values and even terrorism. Muslim leaders slammed the protests as "un-Australian" and claimed religion should not be used as a reason to protest

NT: Territory women honoured for their 'tireless' efforts

04/12 Daniel Bourchier, Northern Territory News | Ms Dohnt, 50, of Katherine, won the Disability Support Person of the Year award. She has cared for 36 children in the last four years.

"It is recognition that we are doing good things for people who are less fortunate," she said. "As a child we had foster children - I have always felt that I have enough of me to give to someone else."

Creationism v science: school on report

04/12 SMH.com.au | THE state school registration and curriculum authority has investigated the teaching of creation theory in science classes at a Christian school. The Board of Studies responded to a complaint about Pacific Hills Christian School in Dural and will hand down its findings early next month.

The general manager of the board, John Bennett, told a budget estimates committee last week that the school was under investigation for "teaching creationism in science classes". A spokeswoman for the board said it had acted on a complaint that the school had not properly followed its requirements for teaching the science syllabus.

Open Letter to My Friends re Men's Health Ambassador Appointment 

02/12 Warwick Marsh | It is a wonderful thing when people vilify you and tell lies about you. Certain journalists have claimed that I am homophobic. You be the judge.
 
Is being homophobic bringing a young man into your home with your young family who has the death sentence of aids?  That same young man needed shelter from the storm. A placed filled with unconditional love. He came from a broken home. He had a father wound. He had been sexually abused by other older men. That same young man ended up working the wall in Sydney. This is not a good place for any young man to have to work. He needed someone to tell him that he was loved and appreciated not for the sex he could give to his paying customers who abused him but because of who he was on the inside a wonderful young man, with a future and a destiny.

Is being homophobic giving an award at a public function in Parliament House, Canberra in August 2005 to a wonderful Lesbian women from Melbourne who had the guts to set up an organization to help trafficked women caught in the exploitative web of male driven prostitution? Unfortunately some men still are bastards? Certainly not all but some. White Ribbon Day tells the stories.

Is being homophobic inviting a Mayor of a local council in Sydney to give awards to the men who have completed a fatherhood course? That mayor was a homosexual man but as a Lord Mayor he deserves our respect and honour. After all we are all someone's daughter or someone's son and as such we all deserve that same honour and respect.

For a Word version of this letter

Pope wants humanity 'saved' from homosexuality

23/08 ABC News | Pope Benedict XVI says saving humanity from homosexual or transsexual behaviour is just as important as saving the rainforest from destruction."(The Church) should also protect man from the destruction of himself. A sort of ecology of man is needed," the pontiff said in a holiday address to the Curia, the Vatican's central administration.

"The tropical forests do deserve our protection. But man, as a creature, does not deserve any less."

A Politically Incorrect Christmas in Baghdad

25/12 Assist News | Walking the streets of Washington DC leading up to Christmas, I have come across a most interesting phenomenon.. Nowhere, and I mean absolutely nowhere, is Jesus to be found! It is truly amazing!

I started to talking to people and asking them the simple question, “Isn't Christmas celebrating the birthday of Jesus?”
The answers I got were quite amazing. Literally everybody I talked to, paused and said, “You know; you’re right! It is supposed to be His birthday. What happened to Jesus?"

...
Well in Iraq thanks to our failed policies the poor Iraqis have not learned yet that you are supposed to ignore Jesus on Christmas.
Sponsored by the Iraqi Government -- no separation of Church and State here -- there was a special Christmas Celebration in downtown Baghdad. Guess what was the main attraction? A huge Christmas tree topped by a Star? A massive Santa Claus? Fake snow?
Nope! They had a huge picture of… you got it, Jesus!

Rick Warren Defends Inauguration Decision

23/12 The Christian Post | Under fire for opposing gay marriage, influential evangelical pastor Rick Warren said Saturday that he loves Muslims, people of other religions, Republicans and Democrats, and he also loves "gays and straights."

The 54-year-old pastor and founder of Saddleback Church in Southern California told the crowd of 500 that it's unrealistic to expect everyone to agree on everything all the time.

"You don't have to see eye to eye to walk hand in hand," said Warren.

Warren also defended President-elect Barack Obama's invitation that he give the invocation at the Jan. 20 inauguration in the keynote speech he delivered at the Muslim Public Affairs Council's annual convention in Long Beach.

Obama's choice of Warren earlier this week sparked outcry from gay rights and other liberal groups, who said choosing such an outspoken opponent of gay marriage was tantamount to endorsing bigotry.

"Three years ago I took enormous heat for inviting Barack Obama to my church because some of his views don't agree (with mine)," he said. "Now he's invited me."

Warren said he prays for the same things for Obama that he prays for himself: integrity, humility and generosity.

Death on TV: assisted suicide to be screened

14/12 the Guardian.co.uk | A documentary that appears to show the moment when a man dies after going through with an assisted suicide was strongly criticised yesterday by anti-euthanasia campaigners and a television watchdog. The film, which is being screened on the Sky Real Lives channel tonight, seems to show the moment when 59-year-old Craig Ewert, who had motor neurone disease, died. It is believed this would be the first time the instant of the a person's death in an assisted suicide has been shown on British television.

Both the documentary maker, Oscar winner John Zaritsky, and Sky insisted that the film, Right to Die? - which is being shown at 9pm - is an important contribution to a vital debate.

Ewert, a retired university professor from Harrogate, Yorkshire, travelled to Dignitas, the organisation in Zurich that helps people to die, because he did not want to spend the rest of his days in a "living tomb".

The documentary shows Ewert and his wife, Mary, exchanging a last kiss. He says: "I love you sweetheart - so much." She replies: "Have a safe journey. I will see you some time." Ewert is then given a liquid and told he will die if he drinks it. He drinks through a pink straw, then asks for some apple juice and music. Shortly before his eyes close, he says: "Thank you."

Dr Peter Saunders, a director of the Care Not Killing alliance, branded the film "macabre death voyeurism". He said: "This is taking us a little further down the slippery slope. It seems there is a macabre fascination in this death tourism.

Will United Nations cave to homosexual pressure?

14/12 OneNewsNow.com | France has introduced a resolution before the United Nations General Assembly to decriminalize homosexuality.  The decision represents just one step in the overall plan of homosexual strategists, according to Matt Barber of Liberty Counsel. "It's a brave new world out there, and homosexual activists have infiltrated the ranks of the United Nations. So I will not be surprised if this resolution does in fact pass," he contends

With the Obama administration taking over in January, Barber believes America's ambassador to the U.N. will support homosexuality, and with a particular purpose. "The whole idea here, of course, being to silence opposition of homosexual behavior, particularly religious opposition rooted in sincerely held religious beliefs," he adds

Pro-lifers urge United Nations to honor life

14/12 OneNewsNow.com | Several organizations have attended a United Nations meeting with a serious task as the 60th anniversary of the Declaration on Human Rights is being celebrated.

Numerous pro-life organizations collected signatures for a petition, calling on the United Nations to honor life. Concerned Women for America's Wendy Wright was there. "Petitions were signed by over 400,000 people in over 168 countries that were presented to the U.N.," she explains.
 
Wright was asked what prompted the drive, besides the U.N.'s recent leaning toward pro-abortion ideas. "This petition drive was started after it was discovered that Marie Stokes, a British abortion group, was collecting their own petition that they planned on presenting...claiming that the right to abortion should be interpreted as being in the Declaration of Human Rights," she points out.
 
That group collected about 600 signatures. The declaration actually says, "Everyone has the right to life, liberty, and the security of person."

USA: Protecting pocketbooks from embryo research

14/12 OneNewsNow.com | Missourians are fighting back against passage of a November ballot issue providing state tax dollars for research on human embryos.

 Ed Martin of Missouri Roundtable for Life says the measure, which would result in killing tiny human beings, won passage with only a fraction-of-one-percent majority. "It was passed after almost $35 million were spent by pro-cloning proponents to pass it -- and the opposition obviously was much less than that," he shares.
 
Martin's organization has launched a petition drive to put the issue back on the ballot in 2010 in an effort to reverse the 2006 vote. "It became clear that one of the impacts -- and a major one, at that -- was the creation of law and policy that made it possible for tax dollars to be used for human cloning as well as for abortion services actually,"

UK: Woman told to remove Christmas lights to avoid offending non-Christian neighbours

14/12 Telegraph.co.uk | Dorothy Glenn decorates her home in South Shields, Tyne and Wear, with hundreds of festive lights every year, including a giant tree and a 4ft Santa Claus.But this year she was astonished when an employee of South Tyneside Homes called at her house and informed her that the decorations she was displaying might be offending her neighbours.

The association has now apologised to Mrs Glenn and started an investigation but a spokesman insisted that removing Christmas lights was not part of their policy.

...She said: "I told him that I am far from a racist and that I wouldn't be taking the lights down. I'm shocked, annoyed and upset. At the end of the day, it's the festive season and they're staying." Independent councillor Ahmed Khan, who represents Mrs Glenn's ward, condemned the employee's actions.He said: "Every year this woman puts her Christmas lights up and I know how popular they are. It's great when people make an effort to decorate their houses. "It's this kind of nonsense that sets race relations back 20 years. That woman did nothing more than decorate her house to celebrate Christmas."

9/11 suspects ask to make 'confessions'

Select relatives of victims attend proceedings at Guantanamo Bay

10/12 MSNBC News | The alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks and four co-defendants told a military judge Monday they want to immediately confess at their war-crimes tribunal, setting up likely guilty pleas and their possible executions.

The five said they decided on Nov. 4, the day President-elect Barack Obama was elected to the White House, to abandon all defenses against the capital charges — in effect daring the Pentagon to grant their wish for martyrdom. The judge ordered lawyers to advise him by Jan. 4 whether the Pentagon can apply the death penalty — which military prosecutors are seeking — without a jury trial. ...The judge, Army Col. Stephen Henley, asked all five if they were prepared to enter a plea, and all five said yes. But Henley said competency hearings for two of the detainees precluded them from immediately filing pleas.

The letter implies the defendants want to plead guilty, but does not specify whether they will admit to any specific charges. It also says they wish to drop all previous defense motions. However, that didn't mean they had repented. "I reaffirm my allegiance to Osama bin Laden," defendant Ramzi Binalshibh blurted out in Arabic at the end of the hearing. "I hope the jihad continues and I hope it hits the heart of America with weapons of mass destruction."

Their letter was so unexpected that Henley was unsure how to proceed. He noted that the law specifies that only defendants unanimously convicted by a jury can be sentenced to death in the tribunals. No jury has been seated.

Obama a conservative Democrat? Not!

09/12 OneNewsNow.com | A respected political scientist and pollster says it's a misnomer to think Barack Obama will govern from the center while in the White House.

The New York Times recently suggested Barack Obama's selections for two of the major positions in his cabinet -- Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton as secretary of state and Timothy Geithner as secretary of the treasury -- indicate that Obama is "planning to govern from the center-right of his party." Some political analysts have suggested that his Cabinet picks are an early sign he will govern from the center.

But Dave Woodard, a political science professor at Clemson University, believes Obama will largely govern from the left. Woodard says Obama has no reason to govern from the center because he has a mandate and a majority in both houses of Congress.

"What I think about when a new president comes in is [sic] not the top appointees in the Cabinet. The president will appoint up to five- or six-thousand people throughout the bureaucracy, throughout all levels of the bureaucracy. Those are the people who really end up governing, and those are the people to watch," he contends.

 "And that's where the new names and the new faces will be, and that's where the general liberal drift will be -- in isolated policies in Health and Human Services about abortion, and various other agencies that will do things that are liberal that may not be mandated from the White House but will sort of be innovations in the bureaucracy itself."

Woodard adds that many of Obama's Cabinet appointees have been wise decisions in the sense that they are "known commodities" that will not surprise people.

Muslims stone the 'devil' as hajj nears end

Nearly 3 million make pilgrimage; some not hopeful of Obama

09/12 MSNBC News | Saudi Arabia - Muslim pilgrims began a second round of stoning walls symbolizing the devil on Tuesday, as hajj pilgrimage rituals neared their end without major incident.

Faith is naturally at the center of the hajj, a once-in-a-lifetime journey for the faithful who hope to purify their souls of sin with the rites at Islam's holiest sites around the city of Mecca. But the hajj is also the biggest gathering of Muslims — nearly 3 million this year, from across the world — so it also becomes a moment of unity and a chance to assess the problems of the Islamic world and pray for change.

... Hajj retraces the path of Prophet Mohammad 14 centuries ago after he removed pagan idols from Mecca, his birthplace, and years after he started calling people to the new faith, which is now embraced by more than 1 billion people worldwide... The stoning ritual has caused frequent deadly stampedes. More than 1,400 people were killed in 1990 in a stampede in a tunnel leading to the Jamarat. In 2006, over 360 people died in a similar incident while they were on a platform performing the stoning ritual.

Saudi Arabia, Islam's birthplace and home to its holiest shrines, has erected a massive four-level building offering several platforms for throwing the stones to ease congestion and prevent stampedes at the Jamarat stoning areas.

Amsterdam to close many brothels, sex shops

Part of major effort to drive organized crime out of the ancient city center

07/12 MSNBC News | AMSTERDAM, Netherlands - Amsterdam unveiled plans Saturday to close brothels, sex shops and marijuana cafes in its ancient city center as part of a major effort to drive organized crime out of the tourist haven.

The city is targeting businesses that "generate criminality," including gambling parlors, and the so-called "coffee shops" where marijuana is sold openly. Also targeted are peep shows, massage parlors and souvenir shops used by drug dealers for money-laundering.

"I think that the new reality will be more in line with our image as a tolerant and crazy place, rather than a free zone for criminals" said Lodewijk Asscher, a city council member and one of the main proponents of the plan. ... Prostitution was legalized in the Netherlands in 2000, formalizing a long-standing tolerance policy.

Marijuana is technically illegal in the Netherlands, but prosecutors won't press charges for possession of small amounts. Coffee shops are able to sell it openly.

Database catalogs slaves' trans-Atlantic treks

Includes searchable information on the names of 70,000 human cargo

05/12 MSNBC News | Historians hope a new Web database will help bring millions of blacks closer to their African ancestors who were forced onto slave ships, connecting them to their heritage in a way that has long been possible for white Europeans.

"Voyages: The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database" () launched Friday in conjunction with a conference at Emory University marking the bicentennial of the official end of the trans-Atlantic slave trade in 1808. Emory spearheaded the two-year interactive project, which is free to the public.... "Voyages" documents the slave trade from Africa to the New World that took place over three centuries — between the 1500s and 1800s — and includes searchable information on nearly 35,000 trips and the names of 70,000 human cargo. The voluminous work includes data on more than 95 percent of all voyages that left ports from England — the country with the second-largest slave trade — and documents two-thirds of all slave trade voyages between 1514 and 1866.

Genealogy and DNA tracing have gained popularity for blacks looking to trace their slave roots, and "Voyages" could help give a fuller picture of slavery for a culture stripped of its heritage, Eltis said.

School Cancels Traditional Christmas Play for Muslim Eid Celebrations

03/12 FOX News | British parents looking to see their children in a traditional Christmas play are fuming after a school decided to cancel the performance because it conflicts with the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha, the U.K.’s Telegraph newspaper reported.

Officials at the Greenwood Junior School in Nottingham decided to postpone the annual holiday performance because it would have been too difficult to have both the Christmas and Eid celebrations together, The Telegraph reported.

"It is the first year my son has been there and a lot of the mums like me were really looking forward to seeing the children in the nativity," one mother told the paper.

A letter sent by school officials and obtained by the paper apologized for "any misunderstanding" but said it had to respect "the cultures and religions of all the children.” “The Christmas performance has not been canceled outright but has been postponed until the New Year," the letter read. But parents told The Telegraph that they were originally told the performance was canceled because Muslim children wanted to celebrate Eid with their families, making it difficult to schedule a date for the performance

Training tomorrow's leaders

There is a great need in this nation to assist those students and recent graduates who demonstrate a high potential to become influential leaders for Christ across strategic areas of our nation including politics, law, media, science, education, arts and philosophy.
The Compass program, an eight-day course in Christian worldview, aims to address this need.

The inaugural program kicks off this Sunday with 40 students at the University of Queensland. For more information and to register interest for 2009, please go to www.compass.org.au .

Lyle Shelton
National Chief of Staff , Australian Christian Lobby