Politics
Goal: $45,000. Donations received: $32,262.
Friday January 3, 2003
E-mail
Print- ADULT STEM CELLS REJUVENATE DAMAGED HEART TISSUE
- BUSH POLICY FAVOURING ADULT STEM CELL RESEARCH ANGERS EMBRYO RESEARCHERS
- CLONAID HOAX BECOMING OBVIOUS
- ESTONIAN PRESIDENT CALLS FOR PEOPLE TO HAVE MORE BABIES
- RUSSIA POPULATION DECLINE MEANS WORKER SHORTAGE
- REUTERS IN BLATANT IDEOLOGICAL BIAS AGAINST POPULATION
- TWO MORE PRO-ABORTION DEMOCRATS WILL VIE FOR PRESIDENCY IN 2004
- FOX NEWS THREATENS EX-HOMOSEXUAL MINISTER WITH LAWSUIT
- WOMEN'S SUBSTANCE ABUSE LINKED TO PRIOR ABORTION
- CHINESE ARTIST DEFENDS PHOTOS OF HIMSELF EATING STILLBORN BABY
- LIFESITE NEWSBYTES
ADULT STEM CELLS REJUVENATE DAMAGED HEART TISSUE
TODAY'S HEADLINES
LONDON, January 3, 2003 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Two new studies are showing the promise of adult bone marrow stem cells, this time in treating heart attack patients by rejuvenating cell growth in damaged heart tissue.
Two teams of doctors from Germany and Hong Kong reported promising results after transplanting stem cells extracted from bone marrow into heart muscle. Prof. Gustav Steinhoff, leading a research group at the University of Rostock, injected the cells into six patients' hearts, and five showed exceptional improvement in blood flow. A second group under Dr. Hung-Fat Tse at the University of Hong Kong treated eight heart patients and also found improved in blood flow.
The two articles are entitled "Autologous bone-marrow stem-cell transplantation for myocardial regeneration" and "Angiogenesis in ischaemic myocardium by intramyocardial autologous bone marrow mononuclear cell implantation."
Both studies can be read in full on The Lancet website by scrolling down to "Research letters" at http://www.thelancet.com/journal. Registration is required but free.
Back to TopBUSH POLICY FAVOURING ADULT STEM CELL RESEARCH ANGERS EMBRYO RESEARCHERS
WASHINGTON, January 3, 2003 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Bush Administration's awarding of $1 million in funding for five adult stem cell studies is being met with predictable complaints from scientists who, without evidence, claim that experimentation on human embryos will prove more fruitful.
"If they spent the same amount of money on embryonic stem cells, we'd be on the verge of clinical trials right now," claimed Dr. Robert Lanza without a shred of evidence. Lanza is employed by the Advanced Cell Technology company in Worcester, which performs experiments on human embryos.
The American Society for Cell Biology, in Bethesda, Md., which has more than 10,000 members, also blames the Bush Administration for difficulties in gaining access to more than two of the 78 pre-existing stem cell lines with which the President has authorized research.
To read coverage from United Press International see:
http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20030102-045715-9422r
CLONAID HOAX BECOMING OBVIOUS
PARIS, January 3, 2003 (LifeSiteNews.com) - International media continue to be captivated by the Raelian UFO cult's increasingly ludicrous claims to have implanted several cult followers with cloned embryos. One of them, baby "Eve," was allegedly born last week and flown back into the United States, according to Clonaid, the cult's amateur research subsidiary.
Having yesterday promised imminent DNA proof that the newborn -- whom no one outside the cult has actually seen -- is a cloned replica of her mother, Clonaid chief executive Brigitte Boisselier told France 2 TV and BBC's Newsnight that the tests have now been "delayed" and may never take place(!) because the parents are nervous about publicity.
In the latest reports, Clonaid has announced that a "second cloned baby" will be born by the end of the week, somewhere in Europe. "Perhaps the second child will be more accessible because it is in Europe and the country in which he or she will be born may be less sensitive," Boisselier said.
For BBC News coverage see:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/2624661.stm
For related coverage see:
CLONAID PROMISES DNA PROOF OF CLONED BABY WITHIN A WEEK
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2003/jan/03010201.html
ESTONIAN PRESIDENT CALLS FOR PEOPLE TO HAVE MORE BABIES
TALLINN, January 3, 2003 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Citing Estonia's declining population, President Arnold Ruutel is urging the country's 1.4 million citizens to have more babies.
"Let us remember that in just a couple of decades the number of Estonians seeing the New Year will be one-fifth less than today," the President said in a live national TV broadcast this week.
Estonia recorded 16 births per 1,000 population in the late 1980s in the last years of Soviet occupation. In 2001, after a decade of independence and relying on the West, there were 8.7 births per 1,000 population.
"Women are postponing having children to look after their education and their careers," said Pirat Laur of the World Health Organization. During the1980s, Estonian women had their first child at around 20. In 2001, the average age was 28.
For newswire coverage see:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030102/ap_wo_en_po/eu_odd_es...
RUSSIA POPULATION DECLINE MEANS WORKER SHORTAGE
ST. PETERSBURG, January 3, 2003 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Russia's spiraling population decline means the once-populous country may face a worker shortage within three to four years.
Vladimir Sokolin, head of the State Committee for Statistics, the government's statistics agency, says Russia faces a "crisis of manpower resources," and that the country's population was down 760,000 for the first 11 months of 2002 to a total of 145 million.
For newswire coverage see:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20021225/ap_wo_en_po/eu_gen_ru...
For related coverage see:
AGING AND POPULATION DECLINE TO HURT INDUSTRIAL COUNTRIES IN 2010
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2001/jan/01012603.html
SIX OUT OF 10 PREGNANCIES END IN ABORTION IN RUSSIA
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2002/oct/02102206.html
REUTERS IN BLATANT IDEOLOGICAL BIAS AGAINST POPULATION
Reporter links poverty to Roman Catholicism
MANILA, January 3, 2003 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Reuters reporter Michael Barker reveals a crude ideological bias against population growth, blaming the influence of the Catholic Church for poverty and what he calls the "teeming" population of the Philippines.
"Emily Cani lives in a shack beside a railway track in the teeming Philippine capital Manila and says it is God's will that she has eight children," Barker writes, apparently unaware of his blatant offensiveness. "But the devout Roman Catholic," he adds, told him, "'If I had the chance, I would have used contraceptives'."
The culprit, predictably, is the Catholic Church, whose "presence" is allegedly "evident in nearly every aspect of life," Barker writes, citing the pervasiveness of crucifixes on car dashboards and in people's houses.
However, Jo Imbong, a lawyer for the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, responds: "It's just too simplistic to attribute poverty only to population growth. ... What is the culprit here is mismanaged allocation of funds, it's disoriented politics, distortions in trading policies, greed and corruption." Birth rates have soared in many Asian nations, she notes, but better economic policies and/or more equitable wealth distribution have seen their living standards and incomes rise.
To read the Reuters story see:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20021225/lf_nm/philippines_pop...
For related coverage see:
UN REPORT DISCREDITS POPULATION EXPLOSION THEORIES
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2001/sept/01090703.html
TWO MORE PRO-ABORTION DEMOCRATS WILL VIE FOR PRESIDENCY IN 2004
WASHINGTON, January 3, 2003 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Two more notorious pro-abortion Democrats, veteran Representative Dick Gephardt and neophyte Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, have announced their intention to seek the U.S. Presidency in 2004.
"I run for president to be champion, to be a champion for the same people I fought for all my life: regular folks," said Sen. Edwards, who is in fact a multimillionaire trial lawyer. According to Issues 2002 http://www.issues2002.org/Senate/John_Edwards.htm#Abortion
Edwards voted against maintaining the ban on military base abortions (June 2000), against banning partial birth abortions (Oct. 1999), and against disallowing overseas military abortions (May 1999).
Meanwhile Rep. Dick Gephardt of Missouri will take a second run at the White House after his failed 1988 attempt. The two will join Democrat Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts who has been compared to failed 1992 candidate Michael Dukakis, and Howard Dean, the arch-liberal governor of Vermont. Sources say that South Dakota Sen. Tom Daschle is also "leaning" toward running.
For coverage of Sen. Edwards see:
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2003/1/2/73955.shtml
For coverage of Rep. Gephardt see:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030103/ap_on_go_co/gephardt_...
FOX NEWS THREATENS EX-HOMOSEXUAL MINISTER WITH LAWSUIT
Anti-Christian, pro-gay comments of national radio host Bill O'Reilly spark controversy
NEW YORK, January 3, 2003 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Fox News is threatening to sue an ex-homosexual evangelical minister who criticized homosexual fanaticism on the "The O'Reilly Factor" program last September. The Minister was in turn labelled a "religious fanatic" and compared to the Sept. 11 terrorists by the program's host, Bill O'Reilly.
Stephen Bennett, who rejected the homosexual lifestyle 11 years ago, has distributed a 60-minute audio tape called the "The O'Reilly Shocker," in which he takes issue with O'Reilly's slander of Christians as "religious fanatics."
Bennett's inclusion of three minutes of clips from the four minute interview of him by O'Reilly is supposedly the basis of the lawsuit. Fox is suing for copyright infringement because the clips are used in the tape without permission.
"He's a libertarian who relishes the fact that he doesn't care what you talk about," Mr. Bennett says of O'Reilly, "yet when it comes to me now, speaking out, never saying anything nasty about anybody but just addressing the issues, he does everything possible to silence me."
WorldNetDaily describes O'Reilly as a "Roman Catholic" when in fact he is a liberal, lapsed Catholic. Rev. John F. Harvey, a Catholic priest and expert on the homosexual issue, says that O'Reilly is not speaking for the Catholic Church, which in fact expects its adherents to believe that homosexual acts are "intrinsically evil."
The American Family Association, which is defending Bennett, is adamant that the use of the clips is legal because the excerpts from the interview are for the purpose of commentary.
For WorldNetDaily coverage see:
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=30300
To visit The O'Reilly Factor homepage see:
http://www.foxnews.com/oreilly/index.html
To email the show use:
WOMEN'S SUBSTANCE ABUSE LINKED TO PRIOR ABORTION
WASHINGTON, January 3, 2003 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Women with a prior history of abortion are twice as likely to use alcohol, five times more likely to use illicit drugs, and ten times more likely to use marijuana during the first pregnancy they carry to term compared to other women delivering their first pregnancies, according to a study published in the newest issue of the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.
Based on the National Pregnancy and Health Survey, using a nationally representative sample of 2,613 women who had recently given birth, the study led by Dr. David Reardon is reportedly the seventeenth study linking abortion to higher rates of substance abuse. Reardon directs the Elliot Institute and is co-author of the new book, "Forbidden Grief: The Unspoken Pain of Abortion."
The study is entitled "History of induced abortion in relation to substance use during pregnancies carried to term," and appears in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, December 2002, 187(5):1673-8.
http://www2.us.elsevierhealth.com/scripts/om.dll/serve?action=searchDB&searchDBf...
More details are available from the Elliot Institute at
http://www.afterabortion.org/news
CHINESE ARTIST DEFENDS PHOTOS OF HIMSELF EATING STILLBORN BABY
BEIJING, January 3, 2003 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Chinese artist Zhu Yu has created an exhibit showing himself eating the body parts of a dead baby. "An artist does not give answers, but possibilities," Zhu told reporters, referring to photographs of himself washing a dead stillborn baby in a sink and putting its dismembered parts in his mouth. "When facing an issue, we must try to allow people's debate of an issue to produce a deeper discussion," Zhu said Thursday. "Only if people did not curse it, did not detest it, would there be something wrong. They are right to scold."
Zhu, who describes himself as a devout Protestant, said nowhere does the Bible explicitly forbid the consumption of human flesh. Yet in fact, numerous passages including Leviticus 26:16 ff. make clear that cannibalism is an evil consequence of disobedience toward God.
For newswire coverage see:
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=573&ncid=757&e=1&u=/nm/20030103/od_nm...
LIFESITE NEWSBYTES
OUTFLANKED DEMOCRATS WONDER HOW TO CATCH UP IN MEDIA WARS
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/01/politics/01DEMS.html?ex=1042002000&en=e57c178b...
MORE NEWS: 
LifeSiteNews.com Home Page Last 10 Days Archives Special Reports
Copyright © LifeSiteNews.com. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivatives License. You may republish this article or portions of it without request provided the content is not altered and it is clearly attributed to "LifeSiteNews.com". Any website publishing of complete or large portions of original LifeSiteNews articles MUST additionally include a live link to www.LifeSiteNews.com. The link is not required for excerpts. Republishing of articles on LifeSiteNews.com from other sources as noted is subject to the conditions of those sources.