| Obama Calls on Fathers to Be Responsible
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said Friday that fathers have to share the responsibility for raising children and caring for families because their role doesn't end at conception. Days before Father's Day, the first-term Illinois senator and father of two daughters delivered his life message as well as an assessment of what government needs to do in remarks at a Baptist church.
"What makes you a man is not the ability to have a child but the courage to raise a child," Obama said.
In his prepared text, Obama said: Men need to "stop acting like boys - who need to realize that responsibility does not end at conception"
He recalled his own upbringing as the son of a Kenyan father and a mother from Kansas. Obama said he grew up with a father he know only through letters and stories told by his mothers and the relatives who raised him.
Eddy Groves explains capital raising move
ALAN KOHLER, PRESENTER: With its eyes firmly on becoming the world's biggest childcare provider, ABC Learning Centres was out raising more funds again this week, but even by its capital hungry standards the billion dollar effort was ambitious. The deal includes selling a 12 per cent stake for $400 million to the Singapore Government's investment company, Temasek, to accelerate ABC's buying spree of US child care centres. I spoke to founder and Chief Executive, Eddy Groves, from his Brisbane headquarters. (To Eddy Groves) Well Eddy Groves, your profits have been doing well and in fact they're forecast to double in the next 12 months, but your share price has been under performing in the market by 28 per cent over past 12 months, isn't the problem that while other companies are doing capital management, that is giving capital back to shareholders, you keep asking for more? EDDY GROVES: I don't know if that is the problem, I mean that's been our formula for a number of years and the market is supported.
Down's syndrome novel tugs at America's heartstrings
Like many good stories, The Memory Keeper's Daughter begins on a dark and snowy night. But, unlike most first novels from barely known authors, the book has gone on to be one of the biggest hits in recent American publishing. It has sold more than 3.5 million copies in America and is due for publication in at least 15 other countries. It has done all this despite - or perhaps because - it is about one of the most emotional and difficult situations any new parents might face: a child being born with Down's syndrome. .
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