Paul Steven Ghiringhelli

Israel’s prime minister initiated a unilateral ceasefire over the weekend while also addressing the devastation faced by Palestinians in Gaza.

[01.19.09] Israel agreed to a ceasefire Saturday after its three-week operation in Gaza significantly disrupted anti-Israel military operations ran by Hamas, an Islamic militant group and U.S.-classified terrorist organization that violently seized control of Gaza in 2007.

“Conditions have been created [in Gaza] so that our targets, as defined when we launched the operation, have been fully achieved, and more so,” said Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. “Hamas was badly stricken, both in terms of its military capabilities and in the infrastructure of its regime.

“Its leaders are in hiding,” he said. “Many of its members have been killed. The factories in which its missiles were manufactured have been destroyed. The smuggling routes, through dozens of tunnels, have been bombed. The Hamas’s capabilities for conveying weapons within the Gaza Strip have been damaged.”

Jan. 23, 2009 — The day after the 36^th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, President Barack Obama signed an executive order repealing the so-called Mexico City Policy, a regulation from the Reagan-era that prohibited U.S. funds from going to organizations that promote or perform abortions abroad.

Known by critics as the “global gag rule,” the Mexico City Policy bans U.S.-funded organizations from promoting abortion overseas. Depending on his view on abortion, nearly every president has either upheld or repealed the policy since Ronald Reagan established it in 1984.

Thirty-six years after the 1973 landmark case made abortion-on-demand legal, many Christians worry President Barack Obama will turn back the clock on years of progress made by the pro-life movement.

Jan. 22, 2009 — As tens of thousands of Americans descended on the National Mall for today’s March for Life, the 35^th annual protest of the 1973 Roe v. Wade abortion decision, pro-life groups expressed concern that President Barack Obama will use his power to strengthen the abortion industry worldwide.

“Today is the 36^th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, and abortions here in the U.S. are at their lowest number in years,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the pro-life group Susan B. Anthony List (SBA List). “So it’s unfortunate that President Obama is poised to make subsidizing abortion abroad one of his first priorities. I strongly urge President Obama to reconsider his decision to bypass the will of American taxpayers and promote the radical agenda of the abortion lobby.”