GERMANY - Tens of thousands of opponents of a proposed transatlantic trade deal poured onto German streets Saturday on the eve of a visit by US President Barack Obama. A loose coalition of trade unions, environmentalists and consumer protection groups in the northern city of Hanover said they drew a crowd of 90,000 to a march and rally outside the city's opera house. Police mobilised a large force to keep the peace and put attendance at 35,000.
MIDDLE EAST - The world’s largest body of Islamic nations has called for an emergency meeting over statements made last week by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Israel would never relinquish control over the Golan Heights. In a statement released Sunday, the 57-member OIC called the comments “provoking acts” and said they considered them “a serious escalation and flagrant violation of the Resolutions of international legitimacy and International Law.”
JAPAN - An aftershock measuring 5.8 magnitude has brought fresh misery to Japan - a week after nearly 50 were killed in another massive earthquake. The quake was centred about 60 miles southeast of Honshu on the northern coast of Japan and near where a devastating tsunami struck in March 2011 killing about 20,000 people. The tremor rattled survivors of the deadly earthquake last week and they are now bracing themselves for heavy rain and the possibility of more landslides. The latest earthquake of 5.8 magnitude struck 30 miles below the surface off Japan's northeast coast on Wednesday evening, the US Geological Survey said. Most of those who were killed had returned to their homes after the first quake.
NICARAGUA - A new eruption of San Cristobal volcano, Nicaragua started at 16:20 UTC on April 22, 2016. Over the next 2 hours, 10 explosions were observed. The last time this volcano erupted was on June 12, 2015. Yesterday's explosion expelled columns of ash, gas and rock fragments that reached 2,000 metres (6,561 feet). Similar eruptions of San Cristobal were observed in June 2015.
GUATEMALA - In a special report published 15:40 UTC on April 23, INSIVUMEH reported that Santa Maria (Santiaguito) volcano is experiencing the highest level of explosive activity observed in recent years, with violent eruptions accompanied by ash columns reaching 4.5-5 km (14,760 - 16,404 feet) above sea level and pyroclastic flows. The eruptions are creating pyroclastic flows reaching 3 km (1.9 miles) to the east and west and are accompanied by rumblings and shock waves.
VATICAN - Happiness is not an app you can download on your mobile phone, Pope Francis told thousands of teenagers on Sunday at a mass to mark a weekend dedicated to youth. "Freedom is not always about doing what you want. In fact it is the gift of being able to choose the right way," he said in a homily punctuated by regular bursts of applause from the crowd in a packed St Peter's Square. "Your happiness has no price. It cannot be bought and sold: it is not an application you download on a mobile phone. Even the latest version cannot help you to grow and become free in love." An estimated 70,000 teenagers were in Rome for a weekend of events to celebrate Francis's Jubilee year dedicated to the theme of mercy.
EUROPE - Voters all over Europe have lost faith in the EU because of its meddling in their lives, the most senior Brussels bureaucrat admitted yesterday. Jean-Claude Juncker said the dream of European integration could collapse “in ruins”.
UK - US President Barack Obama has been accused of doing Downing Street's bidding - after he said the UK would be at "the back of the queue" for American trade deals if it left the EU. Mr Obama was criticised by pro-Brexit campaigners after he warned of the consequences of the UK leaving the EU.
UK - During a joint press conference in London with President Barack Obama and UK Prime Minister David Cameron on Friday, a reporter with the BBC asked President Obama if it was any of his business to say whether or not the UK should remain in the European Union.
GERMANY - The German and Dutch armies and navies are poised to “merge”, creating the nucleus of the European Union’s longed for pan-EU military force. Pointing to German ministerial statements spelling out the creation of an EU Army as the ultimate goal, critics say Britain’s military will not be able to avoid being sucked in if the country remains within the Union.
HUNGARY - The much-derided Schengen Area is on the brink of collapse after furious Hungary launched a rebellion against open borders. The country's prime minister Viktor Orban is also angry at mandatory migrant quotas enforced by the European Union. He is now touring Europe’s capital cities, where he is rallying support for a new plan with greater protection for individual states, dubbed "Schengen 2.0." Currently, EU countries are forced to comply with orders from Brussels to accept and settle a specified number of migrants. Orban has described these quotas as “wrong-headed” and is now leading a group of other countries determined to re-take control of their borders.
INDIA - At least 330 million people are affected by drought in India, the government has told the Supreme Court. Authorities say this number is likely to rise further given that some states with water shortages have not yet submitted status reports. The drought is taking place as a heat wave extends across much of India with temperatures crossing 40C for days now. An 11-year-old girl died of heatstroke while collecting water from a village pump in the western Maharashtra state. Yogita Desai had spent close to four hours in 42C temperatures gathering water from the pump on Sunday, local journalist Manoj Sapte told the BBC. The pump was a mere 500m from her house, but a typical wait for water stretches into hours. India is heavily dependant on monsoon rains, which have been poor for two years in a row.
ETHIOPIA - Every morning Aisha Nor rises at dawn to spend several hours gathering dry twigs from the scrubland around her home. By selling them each week at the local market, she can earn just enough to buy sweet black tea to supplement her children’s daily bread ration. And that, in turn, may be just enough to keep them alive. With two of her youngsters already dangerously malnourished and the remaining three on the brink, Aisha's plight is typical of hundreds of thousands of families now facing Ethiopia's worst drought in 50 years. Two successive rainy seasons have failed, and with no crops to feed either themselves or their cattle, as many as 18 million people are in need of aid. To Western eyes, the scenes of hunger are disturbingly reminiscent of the country's infamous famine of 1984, which killed one million people and sparked the Live Aid campaign by the pop singer Bob Geldof.
MIDDLE EAST - Palestine hopes a French initiative to revive peace talks between it and Israel will be backed by major world powers, including Russia, saying recognition of statehood is not a “political risk” but a “value,” Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki told RT.
USA - The CULT of 'Scientism' explained: How scientific claims behind cancer, vaccines, psychiatric drugs and GMOs are nothing more than corporate-funded science FRAUD. Sadly, what often passes for "science" today in the world of health is little more than "Scientism" - a dangerous cult founded on irrational dogma and faith-based beliefs in faulty, fraudulent ideas being paraded as science.