because it treats the basic defect caused by the gene mutation in affected patients; specifically targeting the ‘Celtic gene’ common in Ireland. By improving protein function, the drug has been shown to improve lung function, quality of life, and also lead to a reduction in disease flare-ups in those receiving treatment. These effects have been shown even among people who have been living with CF for decades. The new drug will be submitted for licensing in the autumn of 2011 and is expected to be available to patients as early as 2012. As a result of the recent work, researchers from Queen’s University, University of Ulster and clinicians from Belfast Health and Social Care Trust have been selected to join the European Cystic Fibrosis Society Clinical Trials Network, and are hence involved in the advancement of CF treatment on a global level.


bbc.co.uk, 20 June 2011 ‘the end of the world’


through successive countries to mark the end of the world as Jesus returns. These were the biblical interpretations of the 89-year-old retired engineer and leader of California’s Family Radio network, Harold Camping. He predicted a similar event in 1994, later putting its non-occurrence down to mathematical error. Along with his followers, Camping poured over $100 million into a worldwide campaign of street-preaching and giving out tracts; adverts on billboards and posters – largely financed by the sale and swap of radio stations. Advertising


O SUMMER 2011


n Saturday 21 May 2011 at 6 am, the rapture was supposed to occur – mighty earthquakes and fiery rain sweeping


popped up across the globe from Iraq to Lebanon to Israel to Jordan, the Philippines to Vietnam, where thousands of the Hmong ethnic hill tribe gathered together on the Thai border in anticipation of the event. Friends in CMF Zimbabwe saw the billboards there and in other parts of Southern Africa. Also backing the campaign was Camping’s radio show (heard worldwide) and a website that featured a countdown clock. On the appointed day, the clock was at


zero underneath the banner headline: ‘Judgment Day: the Bible guarantees it’. Besides Mr Camping (who was nowhere to be found) and events like the eruption of the volcano Grimsvotn in south-east Iceland (hardly unusual!), life carried on as usual. Those who expected rapture were disappointed and some were offered counselling as their hope crumbled. Mockers filled the internet and news headlines with jokes whilst the American Atheists and Humanist Association held ‘rapture parties’ to celebrate Earth’s survival across America, and even just a few miles from Family Radio itself. Less press coverage was given to the fact that the majority of Christians around the world were not moved by the prediction, or its eventual flop.


guardian.co.uk, 20 and 22 May 2011, dailymail.co.uk, 23 May 2011


late abortion statistics about late abortions available to the general T 7


he ProLife Alliance (PLA), a charity campaigning on abortion, was recently victorious in a bid to make statistics


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