UK - Britain's Royal Navy is substantially weaker than it was during the Falklands War but could still "cripple" Spain, military experts have said. Rear-Admiral Chris Parry, a former director of operational capability at the Ministry of Defence, has called on the Government to "appropriately" invest in Britain's military capacity if it wants to "talk big" over Gibraltar.
UK - Reporting on the change in religious observation in London, the Gatestone Institute writes: “London is more Islamic than many Muslim countries put together”, according to Maulana Syed Raza Rizvi, one of the Islamic preachers who now lead “Londonistan”, as the journalist Melanie Phillips has called the English capital. No, Rizvi is not a right-wing extremist. Wole Soyinka, a Nobel Laureate for Literature, was less generous; he called the UK “a cesspit for Islamists”.
SWEDEN - The syringe slides in between the thumb and index finger. Then, with a click, a microchip is injected in the employee’s hand. Another “cyborg” is created. What could pass for a dystopian vision of the workplace is almost routine at the Swedish startup hub Epicenter. The company offers to implant its workers and startup members with microchips the size of grains of rice that function as swipe cards: to open doors, operate printers, or buy smoothies with a wave of the hand.
ISRAEL - The High Court of Justice upholds a police decision to bar a group of Temple Mount activists from carrying out a ritual slaughter of a sacrificial animal adjacent to the Jerusalem holy site during the upcoming Passover holiday. Each year during the Jewish holiday, a group called the Temple Mount Institute hold a ritual slaughter of a sheep or goat at various places in Jerusalem with permission from police. The group this year requested to hold the religious ceremony at Davidson Park, an archaeological site adjacent to the West Wall and Temple Mount complex. The Temple Mount Faithful appealed the decision to the High Court, but justices today tell the group Halevi’s decision is binding, and call the precaution “appropriate.”
ISRAEL - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at the unveiling ceremony for the David's Sling system that defending the home front is of the "utmost importance." He went on to warn "whoever tries to strike us will be hit, those that threaten our existence put themselves in existential danger." David's Sling marks the completion of Israel's multi-tier system that includes the Arrow, designed to intercept long-range ballistic missiles in the stratosphere with an eye on Iran, and Iron Dome, which defends against short-range rockets from the Gaza Strip. David's Sling was developed by Israeli defense firm Rafael with American defense giant Raytheon. The system became operational Sunday amid heightened tensions along Israel's northern borders with Lebanon and Syria.
USA - The FDA will now allow women a longer window to chemically starve unborn babies, with less medical oversight. RU-486 is a common choice for medical abortions: “According to the manufacturer, since its approval, more than 2.75 million women in the United States have taken mifepristone to end a pregnancy early in its gestation, choosing it over ‘surgical’ abortion that involves dilation and curettage.” RU-486 is a combination medication that ends a pregnancy by blocking the body’s supply of progesterone, a hormone needed to sustain pregnancy: “RU486 is a synthetic steroid which works by blocking the effects of progesterone, the natural hormone which is required to maintain the lining of the uterus during pregnancy. RU486 starves the womb of progesterone, the lining of the womb breaks down, and it is lost along with the developing embryo or foetus.”
USA - A New Jersey teen pleaded guilty Monday to a plot allegedly inspired by the Islamic State group to kill Pope Francis during his 2015 visit to the United States. The US Justice Department said Santos Colon, 15 years old at the time, sought to recruit a sniper to shoot the pope as he celebrated mass in Philadelphia on September 27, 2015. Colon also allegedly planned to set off explosives. But the teen unwittingly recruited an undercover FBI agent for the job, and was arrested quietly 12 days before the event. Colon faces a maximum of 15 years in prison but sentencing would likely be held off until 2021 while he undergoes psychiatric treatment in a secure facility. In a plea statement, Colon acknowledged having been a patient in a mental institution in the past.
NORTH KOREA - A senior North Korean defector has told NBC News that the country's "desperate" dictator is prepared to use nuclear weapons to strike the United States and its allies. Thae Yong Ho is the most high profile North Korean defector in two decades, meaning he is able to give a rare insight into the secretive, authoritarian regime. According to Thae, North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un is "desperate in maintaining his rule by relying on his [development of] nuclear weapons and ICBM." He was using an acronym for intercontinental ballistic missiles — a long range rocket that in theory would be capable of hitting the US.
GERMANY - In the face of US president Donald Trump’s apparent aversion to many of the policies of Angela Merkel, the German leader, and to the EU more broadly, the 2017 Bundestag elections have taken on new and momentous significance. Whilst the German plebiscite may not appear so immediately headline worthy as the elections in France, the outcome could be equally binary for the fate of Europe.
EUROPE - The EU will not back down in its support for Spain’s demands over control of the Rock of Gibraltar in Brexit negotiations, senior European diplomats have said. The European council, whose members comprise the EU member states, shocked Downing Street by saying the British overseas territory could only be included in a trade deal between London and Brussels with Spain’s agreement.
RUSSIA - Eleven people have been killed and 45 injured in an explosion between two underground stations in St Petersburg. The head of Russia's National Anti-Terrorist Committee said the blast hit a train between Sennaya Ploshchad and Tekhnologichesky Institut stations. The committee said an explosive device was later found and made safe at another station nearby. Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said in a Facebook post that the explosion was a "terrorist attack". An anti-terror investigation has been opened, but other possible causes are being investigated.
ISRAEL - The Israeli police, in direct contravention of the law are preventing the Sanhedrin from holding a reenactment of the Passover Temple Service. At stake are basic human rights, with the Israeli police giving in to the threat of Islamic violence.
GERMANY - Germany Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel isn’t mincing his words. The pugnacious politician has called a Nato defence spending target being pushed by the US “completely unrealistic” for Germany. “I consider it completely unrealistic to think that Germany will achieve a defence budget of over €70 million per year,” said Gabriel on Friday. “I don’t know of a single German politician who believes that is either achievable or desirable,” he added. At a Nato summit in Wales in 2014 Nato members committed to working towards a goal of 2 percent of each state’s GDP being spent on their military by 2024. Currently only five member states fulfill this target.
EUROPE - The man behind Brexit, Nigel Farage, has called European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker a “complete and total idiot” after Juncker said he would support the independence of US states in response to President Donald Trump’s support for Brexit. In an interview with FOX Business Network’s Stuart Varney, Farage said the remarks had cost Juncker and the European Union "whatever credibility it had in the USA.” “[Juncker] is comparing the United States of America, which has a common culture and a common desire to be a nation, with the United States of Europe that he wants to build and impose upon the peoples of Europe,” Farage said. “Brexit has happened, Trump was a supporter of that project, and now frankly, this idiot, because I can’t think of a better word, says that he’ll campaign for Ohio to break away from the USA."
USA - The US ambassador to the United Nations on Thursday said China can and must do more to force North Korea to halt its nuclear and missile programs. Ambassador Nikki Haley said President Donald Trump would raise the issue next week at his first summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
Disclaimer:
The views expressed in this section are not our own, unless specifically stated, but are provided to highlight what may prove to be prophetically relevant material appearing in the media.
“Just what is an APOSTLE?”
Today we find the Church of God in a “wilderness of religious confusion!”
The confusion is not merely around the Church – within the religions of the world outside – but WITHIN the very heart of The True Church itself!
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