Chen Guangcheng, the blind Chinese activist campaigning against China's coercive one-child policy, is to be prosecuted by the government. Chen, who attempted to bring a lawsuit against government officials in the district of Linyi for forcing women to undergo abortions and for other abuses in the population control policy, has been imprisoned without charge since September. He is to be prosecuted for destruction of property and assembling a crowd to disrupt traffic. His wife, Yuan Weijing, speaking from her home where she is currently being detained, said, "There isn't much hope. Everything that has happened runs counter to [Chinese President] Hu Jintao's talk of democracy and governing by law. We live in a nation without law, a nation without morality." [Life Site, 10 July]

President Bush will use his veto against a bill to expand federal funding of embryonic stem cell research if the Senate approves it, according to a White House aide. Karl Rove told an American newspaper that the legislation, which has already been passed by the House, is expected to pass the Senate and that if this is the case, "the president would, as he has previously said emphatically, veto the...bill." Rove said, "We were all an embryo at one point, and we ought to as a society be very careful about being callous about the wanton destruction of embryos, of life." [The Guardian, 11 July]

Older fathers are more likely to have sicklier babies, according to a study by Danish scientists. Researchers from the University of Aarhus in Denmark analysed data from more than 70,000 couples and found that fathers between 45 and 49 years of age and those aged 50 or older were more likely to have a baby with a low Apgar score than fathers in their 20s. The Apgar score, invented in 1953, is used to assess the general health of the newborn baby on a variety of factors. [Reuters Health, 10 July]

The weaker of two 10-month old conjoined twins has died in China. The twin girls, Hu Jingxuan and Chen Jingni, who shared a spleen, gall bladder, liver and digestive tract, were separated in a 13 hour operation at Fudan University Children's Hospital in Shanghai after both girls stopped gaining weight last week and were at serious risk of death. The surviving baby, Chen Jingni, suffers from congenital heart disease but is in a stable condition. [Medical News Today, 10 July]

The pro-life president of Poland, Lech Kaczynski, has appointed his twin brother as Prime Minister. The president, who won parliamentary elections last September after promising to be guided by Catholic principles in governing, was a prominent political activist alongside his brother, Jaroslaw, when the communist regime was in power. Jaroslaw Kaczynski is understood to hold the same pro-life views and policies as his brother. [Life Site, 10 July]