USA - Contrary to earlier reports, President Donald Trump will meet with Pope Francis when he travels to Italy next month for meetings with the G7 leaders, US and Vatican officials said Wednesday. When asked about a possible meeting, White House press spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters that officials would be contacting the Vatican to arrange a meeting between Trump and the Pope during the latter’s visit to Italy at the end of May. “Obviously, we’d be honored to have an audience with His Holiness,” he said. For his part, Archbishop Angelo Becciu, the Vatican equivalent of a deputy prime minister, confirmed to the Italian news agency ANSA that “Pope Francis is always ready to receive heads of state who request an audience.”
EUROPE - More than 97% of European food products contain pesticide residues, according to analyses carried out by the EU’s national authorities. The European Food Safety Authority’s (EFSA) annual compilation of results from studies across the EU on the presence of pesticides in food products held no surprises. Of the 84,341 samples of produce from conventional agriculture analysed, 97.2% contained traces of one or more of 774 pesticides. Meanwhile, 99.3% of organic food was free from residues or within legal limits. To meet EU standards, the residues of any pesticide present in a product must not exceed two times the legal limit. But these values are highly contested, particularly for endocrine disruptors, which can be active at very low concentrations.
USA - One Sunday morning you may be sitting there peacefully with your family during what seems like a perfectly normal church service when a team of men dressed in camo comes storming in and starts shooting at people indiscriminately with automatic weapons. Once upon a time, such a thing would have been absolutely unimaginable in America, but now things have completely changed.
ISRAEL - The High Court of Justice on Wednesday ruled in favor of Tel Aviv’s battle to expand facilities open to the secular public on Shabbat, saying that the municipality can permit mini-markets to operate on the Jewish day of rest.
UK - Schools in Britain were advised to give transgender students a cake to mark their “transition”, adding that teachers should learn how to deal with an “explosion” of students who are becoming transgender.
USA - A New York Times op-ed hit the transgender ideology for being anti-girl and anti-woman, and also prompted many liberal commentators to complain about the harmful impact of pro-transgender advocacy on normal girls and boys.
RUSSIA - Russia has claimed it can disable the entire US Navy in one fell swoop using powerful electronic signal jamming. A news report from the country – where the media is essentially controlled by the state – said the technology could render planes, ships and missiles useless.
GERMANY - In the debate over defense spending by NATO members, Germany has been singled out by US President Donald Trump for alleged freeriding. Just days after Chancellor Angela Merkel visited the White House last month, Trump took to Twitter to accuse Germany of owing “vast sums of money to NATO & the United States.”
GERMANY - Muslims who migrate to Europe should understand that there are better places for them to live if they do not want to accept the European way of life, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said on Wednesday. Such migrants who do not accept Europe's way of living should be told "you have made the wrong decision", Schaeuble said during a round table discussion in Berlin. "There are better places in the world to live under Islamic law than Europe," he added.
ISRAEL - There is probably not a more disputed parcel of real estate than the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. A portion of the land there is occupied by an Islamic mosque, yet there are developing plans to rebuild the prophesied third Jewish Temple. That leaves the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a political situation that offers no easy way out. One American pastor now is telling Christians they need to pay careful attention to what happens next.
UK - North Korea has received more than £4 million in foreign aid from the UK in just six years despite the country’s status as an international pariah, according to reports. Tensions with the communist regime ruled by dictator Kim Jong-un have escalated after it said it would conduct weekly missile tests and warned that “all-out war” would result from US military action. Meanwhile, Mike Pence, the US vice-president, told Pyongyang not to test Donald Trump’s resolve as fears of a military conflict continue to grow over North Korea’s pursuit of nuclear weapons.
FRANCE - France suddenly faces the real possibility of a presidential run-off between the Eurosceptic hard-Left and the Eurosceptic hard-Right. The meteoric rise of Jean-Luc Mélenchon on a Proudhonist - if not Bolshevik - platform has changed the equation. He is just as nationalist and radical as the Front National's Marine Le Pen, and certainly more dangerous for the owners of capital. Both candidates are anti-German, anti-American, anti-globalist, anti-NATO, and pro-Putin. Both want to rip up the EU Treaties. Both want some sort of parallel currency or sovereign monetary control.
UK - Nurseries should teach toddlers about same-sex relationships and transgender lifestyles to reduce hate crime, say teachers. The National Union of Teachers voted yesterday for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) matters to be taught to children aged two to four. They want nursery teachers to deliver ‘age-appropriate content’ on the subject and to challenge homophobia and transphobia. However, critics say the subject would simply confuse toddlers.
UK - Britain could suffer serious water shortages if sunny weather continues after the driest winter in more than 20 years, according to hydrology experts. After the driest winter in 20 years, rivers and reservoirs in southern and western regions are running low. At the weekend it was reported that several areas of Britain - including the South-east, the Midlands and parts of Yorkshire - experienced no rainfall at all for 15 days. Environment Agency officials have admitted the dry weather could lead to “drought management measures”. It follows “parched” weather in the six-month period between October and March – the driest since 1995 and 1996, according to the Met Office. According to long-term forecasts, the next three months will also be dry, making water restrictions likely.
UK - Theresa May has called a snap general election for June 8, claiming that divisions at Westminster risked hampering the Brexit negotiations. The Prime Minister will require the support of two-thirds of MPs to go to the country, with a vote scheduled in the Commons on Wednesday after the surprise announcement on Tuesday morning. The move stunned Westminster, as Mrs May and Number 10 have repeatedly insisted she would not seek a general election before the scheduled 2020 poll. But Mrs May, who has a fragile working majority of just 17 in the Commons, said she wanted "unity" at Westminster as talks on Brexit begin in earnest with the European Union.