USA - The Boy Scouts of America lifted its outright ban on openly gay adult leaders and employees on Monday, rolling back a policy that has deeply divided the membership of the 105-year-old Texas-based organization.
USA - US President Barack Obama on Monday said he was yet to hear a strong factual argument against a nuclear deal with Iran and criticized rhetoric about the agreement from some leading members of the Republican party. Obama, speaking in Ethiopia during a tour of African nations, said the majority of the world's nuclear scientists and non-proliferation experts backed the July 14 accord, indicating it was the best way to stop Iran acquiring nuclear weapons. "There is a reason why 99 percent of the world thinks it’s a good deal - it’s because it’s a good deal," Obama said during a joint press conference with Ethiopian prime minister Hailemariam Desalegn in the capital Addis Ababa. "The good news is that I’ve not yet heard a factual argument on the other side that holds up to scrutiny," he added.
GERMANY - During the first six months of this year, right-wing extremists in Germany committed attacks against places housing asylum-seekers on an almost daily basis. Many refugees living in the country fear for their lives. Germany these days is a nation split in two. On the one side is a populace that is showing greater solidarity with refugees than ever seen before. Initiatives have been created across the country to assist asylum-seekers in their everyday lives. The other half of the country is extremely difficult to tolerate in some places. Racist violence is on the rise. The German Interior Ministry registered 173 instances of criminal right-wing offenses against accommodations for asylum-seekers during the first six months of this year, almost three times as many as during the same period the previous year.
IRAN - The Iran deal will provide Iran with a cash windfall as sanctions are eased and assets are unfrozen. The total amount is estimated to be as high as $150 billion. If so, the Iran deal would give more cash to Iran than the $124.3 billion the US has given in total aid to Israel since 1948. Given how controversial aid to Israel has become on the left (and portions of the right), the sheer scale of Iran’s benefits ought to give pause to supporters of the deal.
USA - US Senator Mike Lee (Republican for Utah) gave America a disturbing look at what happens behind-the-scenes in the legislature. While a printer worked furiously behind him, Lee explained how the Senate was just given under 1 hour to read and comprehend a massive spending bill before the scheduled vote. “If I don’t have time to read legislation before voting on it, my default vote is no,” Senator Lee commented on his video. That’s a principle endorsed by Police State USA in a 2013 article, A Pro-Liberty Approach to Lawmaking.
CHINA - A new bank dedicated to the emerging BRICS countries opened for business in China's commercial hub of Shanghai on Tuesday, the official Xinhua news agency reported. The so-called emerging BRICS countries are made up of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, and their "New Development Bank" has been seen as a challenge to the Washington-based International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
USA - When investing becomes gambling, bad endings follow. The next credit crunch could make 2008-09 look mild by comparison. Bank of International Settlements(BIS) data show around $700 trillion in global derivatives. Along with credit default swaps and other exotic instruments, the total notional derivatives value is about $1.5 quadrillion – about 20% more than in 2008, beyond what anyone can conceive, let alone control if unexpected turmoil strikes.
EUROPE - This is more an opening gambit in a debate about the terms of putative federalisation (a term Hollande was careful to avoid), than a statement of French commitment to it at all costs. If some form of federalisation comes about, it will not be because the French especially desire it, but because the logic of the Euro ultimately demands it.
UK - Either President Obama believes in global government or he has a complete misunderstanding of what the European Union is. This is not simply a loose association of member states, but a fully formed political union with a flag, anthem, President, Parliament and all the rest of it.
UK - The Prime Minister plans another major round of negotiations with Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande ahead of Conservative Party conference. David Cameron will hold face-to-face talks with Angela Merkel and other European leaders on eve of Conservative Party conference amid suggestions he is preparing for an early referendum.
EUROPE - A pre-revolutionary fervour is sweeping Europe. “The atmosphere is a little similar to the time after 1968 in Europe. I can feel, maybe not a revolutionary mood, but something like widespread impatience”. These were the words of European council president Donald Tusk, 48 hours after Greece’s paymasters imposed the most punishing bail-out measures ever forced on a debtor nation in the eurozone’s 15-year history.
ISRAEL - Hundreds of thousands of soldiers are being called up for service in a surprise emergency exercise that began Monday. The reservists – from the air, land and sea branches of the IDF, as well as the Home Front Command – began receiving automated messages calling them up to service, starting at 8:00 AM.
ISRAEL - Dozens of Palestinians threw Molotov cocktails, rocks and shot fireworks at Israeli police Sunday morning on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount on the holiday in which Jews commemorate the destruction of the First and Second Temples.
ISRAEL - Today, on the Fast of Av, Jews throughout the world mourn the destruction of the two Holy Temples of Jerusalem and pray for the rebuilding of the Third Temple. But one organization has been doing a lot more than just praying.
USA - There is very little that the entire world seems to agree upon, but there is one very frightening trend that is now taking hold literally all over the globe. A passionate hatred of Christianity is sweeping across the planet, and very few global leaders have been willing to step forward and speak out against this rising persecution of Christians.