ACL compiles a daily media monitoring service of stories of interest to the Christian constituency relating to children, family, drugs and alcohol, marriage, human rights, religious freedom etc. Visit the ACL’s website each day to see what’s of interest in the news. Please note that selection of the articles does not represent ACL endorsement of the content.
Children & Family
Police detain teens in Sydney CBD crackdown
The Daily Telegraph
Police detained 21 ‘at-risk’ teenagers in Sydney’s CBD overnight, cracking down on underage drinking and anti-social behaviour. According to a police statement, officers “have called in ‘parental force’ as part of an operation targeting children-at-risk, underage drinking and anti-social behaviour in Sydney’s CBD”. Between 9pm and 4am, police detained seven boys and 14 girls. Some were as young as 13, and three were listed as missing persons.
Drugs & Alcohol
Get off the grass, kids using weed is serious
Miranda Devine – Herald Sun
The expulsion of three year 8 boys from one of Australia’s most prestigious schools for allegedly selling marijuana to classmates should ring warning bells. Year 8 students, after all, are only 13 or 14 years old, and cannabis use is on the increase for the first time in 10 years. Instead, we have counsellors and other people in authority shrugging their shoulders, saying boys will be boys and it’s normal to experiment.
Army of prescription drug addicts seeking help
Alex White – Herald Sun
Addiction to prescription drugs is forcing hundreds of Victorians into government-funded methadone programs. More than 12,710 Victorians were treated in the State Government’s opioid replacement program between April 2010 and April 2011. Patient numbers had risen by 620 people in 12 months, according to statistics released by the Victorian Department of Health.
Environment
Former Labor leader Mark Latham slams clean energy plan ‘waste’
Lauren Wilson – The Australian
Outspoken former Labor leader Mark Latham has warned that the Gillard government’s $10 billion Clean Energy Finance Corporation will become “the greatest waste of money in the history of the commonwealth”. Speaking on Sky News’ Australian Agenda this morning, Mr Latham said the carbon tax the Gillard government negotiated with the Greens and the country independents was more about income redistribution than legislating a significant environmental measure.
Human Rights
Women ‘bullied, degraded’ at air-traffic centre
Richard Baker and Nick McKenzie – SMH
Senior managers responsible for Australia’s air-traffic controllers allegedly ignored pervasive bullying, the distribution of pornography and degrading behaviour towards women, including an email threat by a manager to ”kick their [female workers'] arse till their nose bleeds”.
Indigenous
Warren Mundine to fight new race power in Constitution
Patricia Karvelas – The Australian
Former ALP president and indigenous leader Warren Mundine has declared he will campaign against proposed constitutional changes that promote the advancement of Aborigines, saying they go “a hundred steps too far”, are stupid and will lead to legal challenges.
Marriage
Judge hears ‘Sister Wives’ challenge of US law
Jennifer Dobner – Associated Press
Attorneys for a polygamous family made famous on a reality television show on Friday asked a federal judge in the state of Utah not to block their challenge of the state’s bigamy law. Kody Brown and wives Meri, Janelle, Christine and Robyn filed a lawsuit in Salt Lake City’s U.S. District Court in July. The stars of the TLC show “Sister Wives” contend the law is unconstitutional because it violates their right to privacy — prohibiting them from living together and criminalizing their private sexual relationships.
Overseas Aid
Lift aid, postpone surplus – Gates
SMH
The billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates has suggested the Gillard government could delay next year’s prized return to surplus and increase its overseas aid budget instead. Mr Gates, who is on holiday in Sydney with his wife Melinda and their three children, took time to speak to the Herald about his future plans and his passion – global philanthropy. He also ruled out speculation that he might return to the helm of Microsoft.
Politics
Anna Bligh’s clawback may entice her to delay Queensland state poll
Jamie Walker – The Australian
Anna Bligh has clawed back part of the commanding lead opened up by the conservatives in Queensland under the leadership of former Brisbane lord mayor Campbell Newman, in a Newspoll that may entice her to delay a state election tipped for February.
Political mag ‘from horse’s mouth’
Nic Christensen – The Australian
Australia’s politicos have a new magazine to help them get their policy and campaigns fix with the recent launch of Political Trends. The monthly magazine, launched last week, is aimed at politicians, staffers and lobbyists operating in and around the nation’s state and federal parliaments.
Religious Freedom & Persecution
Muslims drive out Christians from Palestinian Authority territories
Justus Reid Weiner – Israelnationalnews
The disputed territories of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip have been administered by the Palestinian Authority and in more recent years, in part, by Hamas. Under these regimes, the resident Christian Arabs have been victims of frequent human rights abuses including intimidation, beatings, land theft, firebombing of churches and other Christian institutions, denial of employment, economic boycott, torture, kidnapping, forced marriage, sexual harassment, and extortion.
Unease grows over Muslim head for top convent school
Debra Chong – The Malaysian Insider
For Catholic Malaysians, Putrajaya’s latest pick of a Malay-Muslim principal to head the prestigious SMK Convent Bukit Nanas (CBN) underscores a worrying trend to disregard the Church’s contribution and rights in the country. Archbishop of Kuala Lumpur Tan Sri Murphy Pakiam waded this week into a growing row between the 112-year-old school’s Catholic owners and the Ministry of Education (MOE) after its new principal Datin Seri Zavirah Mohd Shaari’s surprise arrival at its doorstep.
Refugees
Migrant ship carrying more than 200 people sinks off Java
AFP
More than 200 people are feared dead after a heavily overloaded boat packed mostly with Afghan and Iranian asylum-seekers sank off Indonesia en route to Australia, rescuers say. The Federal Government called the sinking “a terrible tragedy”, but came under pressure from campaign groups which said its tough approach to refugees was partly responsible for such disasters. The fibreglass boat had a capacity of 100 but was overloaded with about 250 people when it sank yesterday 40 nautical miles off eastern Java, in heavy rain and high waves, Indonesian officials said.
Moral dimension of tragic loss must be confronted
Editorial – The Australian
Not that the concept would mean anything to them, but the people-smugglers who pocketed $10,000 for every man, woman and child who drowned off the Javanese coast early yesterday are morally culpable for the deaths. Without a skerrick of concern for the safety of the passengers or crew, a fishing boat never intended as a passenger vessel was loaded with about 250 people, mainly from Afghanistan and the Middle East, bound for Australia.
Sexualisation of Society
Energy drink’s name ‘Pussy’ puts cat among pigeons
Jackie Sinnerton – The Sunday Mail (Qld)
The claws are out over a new energy drink just arrived in Queensland called Pussy. As distributors plan to saturate the state’s shops with the product, a furore is already stirring about the double meaning in the name and its placement alongside other soft drinks in family stores. The drink, backed by Richard Branson’s children Sam and Holly, is the centre of some overtly provocative advertising, with photos of naked women with fully clothed men in suggestive sex poses.
Models talk the walk at 13
Rachel Browne – SMH
The controversy about the youth of models was the furthest thing from the minds of the teenagers strutting the catwalks at Manly Wharf. Most of the young people competing in the GEAR Model Management talent search yesterday were there to have fun. The newly formed modelling agency came under fire last month for targeting girls as young as 13.
Other
Speak up for Christianity, Cameron tells Archbishop: PM calls on the Church to defend ‘values and moral code’ of the Bible
Tim Shipman – Daily Mail
David Cameron last night called on the Archbishop of Canterbury to lead a return to the ‘moral code’ of the Bible. In a highly personal speech about faith, the Prime Minister accused Dr Rowan Williams of failing to speak ‘to the whole nation’ when he criticised Government austerity policies and expressed sympathy with the summer rioters. Mr Cameron declared Britain ‘a Christian country’ and said politicians and churchmen should not be afraid to say so.
You’ve got to have faith
Amanda Dunn – The Age
In a largely secular society, what brings these people so faithfully to worship, week after week? While the rest of us are brunching or driving children around to their sports, what do they get out of going to church?
Government unlikely to aid Assange
Stephanie Peatling – SMH
The federal government has indicated it is unlikely to interfere in the case of the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, should a request be made to extradite him to the US from Sweden. Mr Assange’s appeal against extradition to Sweden to answer rape and sexual assault charges was scheduled to be heard tomorrow and his lawyers feared he may have been moved immediately.
Money Christmas: Hillsong ensures show in tune with spirit of season
Leesha McKenny – SMH
Ebenezer scrooge, the season’s most famous miser, proved no match for the glossy production values of Hillsong’s Christmas Spectacular at Baulkham Hills yesterday. The free tickets for six sessions across two days were snapped up weeks ago, before close to 20,000 people headed to the Pentecostal mega-church to watch a reimagining of Charles Dickens’s tale of redemption, A Christmas Carol.
