Why? First, there was the Greek financial crisis, which threatened the stability of the Euro Zone. Then, in response to the refugee crisis, each nation tried to palm off the problem on its neighbors. Now the renewed specter of terrorism haunts Europe. Nations are closing their borders in direct violation of the idealistic Schengen Agreement. The dream of a united Europe threatens to become a nightmare.

Why does all this matter? First, because our trade ties to Europe make their economic illness acutely contagious. But these events also have great symbolic significance. To many people, nationalism - competition among nations - is one of the primary causes of international conflict. Any serious hope for world peace requires rising above nationalism and knitting nations together into larger and, therefore more stable, entities.

The European Union was literally the hope of the future for many committed internationalists. That hope could now be dashed on the rock of cruel experience. I'm Bob Evans, and that's my perspective.

Without a doubt, the leader of the largest religious organization in the entire world would be privy to information that would not be available to ordinary people like you and I. Could it be possible that he is aware of something that is coming that is going to dramatically change life on this planet? What we do know is that our world is becoming increasingly unstable.

World War III threatens to erupt in the Middle East at any time, the number of terror attacks around the globe continues to increase, earthquake activity continues to rise, giant cracks are opening up in the ground all over the world, and we are rapidly plunging into a brand new global financial crisis. There is certainly a lot to be concerned about, but what would make the Pope so glum that he would actually call Christmas a “charade”?

For instance, tech guru Elon Musk believes that World War III “could erupt at any time”… That’s the warning from top technology boss Elon Musk. The billionaire businessman, whose companies include Tesla Motors and SpaceX, believes a number of factors including the growth of religious extremism could trigger a third World War. Musk believes that in the future the world could find itself locked in a nuclear World War “far worse than anything that’s happened before.”

If life is so great and everything is under control, then why are world leaders like Elon Musk and Pope Francis so seemingly obsessed with apocalyptic scenarios? Could it be possible that everything is not really “under control”? The truth, of course, is that most of us have a gut feeling that big trouble is on the horizon. Many of us may not know exactly what that trouble will consist of, and we may not be able to put our feelings into words, but deep inside most of us understand that the future is not bright.

But precisely what is fundamentalism? If you go to Google, it is defined as “a form of a religion, especially Islam or Protestant Christianity, that upholds belief in the strict, literal interpretation of scripture.” So does Pope Francis really intend to “combat” those that believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible?

I know that this may sound really bizarre to many of you. But apparently the Pope really said these things. The following is an excerpt from an article that has been posted on Life Site News… “Fundamentalism is a sickness that is in all religions,” Francis said, as reported by the National Catholic Reporter’s Vatican correspondent, Joshua McElwee, and similarly by other journalists on the plane. “We Catholics have some — and not some, many — who believe in the absolute truth and go ahead dirtying the other with calumny, with disinformation, and doing evil.”

“They do evil,” said the pope. “I say this because it is my church.” “We have to combat it,” he said. “Religious fundamentalism is not religious, because it lacks God. It is idolatry, like the idolatry of money.”

But the Pope didn’t stop there.

He went on to blame Christians for starting many wars… “Like everything, there are religious people with values and those without,” he said. “But how many wars … have Christians made? The sacking of Rome was not done by Muslims, eh?” During his papacy, Francis has made it a point to reach out to leaders from all sorts of different religions. But apparently his “tolerance” does not extend to those that believe that the Bible is actually true.

The program run by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) - the largest foreign program the organization has ever undertaken - has the declared objective of preparing "a select elite among Syria's future leadership" for "active participation in organizing" post-war Syria. This assures Germany a wide range of channels for influence in Damascus over the next few decades.

Berlin is also making efforts to sift out students from among the refugees arriving in Germany to be included in its efforts to gain influence. This would crystallize into Germany's becoming the Syrian elite's top European point of reference.

The Home Office released no details of her trip at the time or announced that the deal had been signed. The only public acknowledgement was a year later in a Foreign Office report which obliquely referenced an agreement to “modernise the Ministry of the Interior”.

But now following a Freedom of Information request from the Liberal Democrats, who were in Government at the time, it has emerged that the agreement is far wider than has been acknowledged. In its grounds for refusing to publish details of the memorandum the Home Office has admitted it “contains information relating to the UK’s security co-operation with Saudi Arabia”.

Releasing the document it says “would damage the UK’s bilateral relationship” with the Kingdom and potentially damage Britain’s national security. Human rights groups have expressed alarm at the secretive nature of the deal with a regime which has been condemned for its human rights record.

Kaufman questions how such an event had been permitted to take place, and why the politicians had not demanded a translation of the chants. These types of incidents, where anti-Israel rhetoric turns violently anti-Semitic, have created a climate of fear for Sweden’s small Jewish community, which numbers 15,000.

Hate crimes against Jews are on the rise, with 2014 seeing a 38 percent increase in reported anti-Semitic incidents from the previous year, according to a report by the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention. The government’s stance on Israel is deeply ingrained in the political system, Hanif Bali, a member of parliament for the center-right Moderate Party, the largest party in the opposition bloc believes.

Pro-Palestinian groups are eligible to receive governmental funds to conduct lobbying activities, further ingraining their perspective as part of the government’s official stance. When asked if he could imagine a pro-Israel group getting access to such funds, Bali says: “I think that would be very, very difficult. I cannot imagine that it could happen.”

So convinced is British cardiologist Dr Aseem Malhotra of sugar’s addictive properties, he says we should all stop worrying about saturated fat in the diet – he is one of growing numbers of doctors internationally who say saturated fat isn’t the health demon we’ve always been told it is – and start worrying about how much sugar we are eating.

Malhotra is science director of Action on Sugar, a UK-based group of 23 specialists working to reach consensus with the food industry and government over harmful effects of a high-sugar diet, and to reduce hidden sugars in processed foods, that is making headway.

Here, UK and US scientists look at why the story of sugar and tobacco are closely aligned – both products were initially produced through slave labour, and originally thought to be beneficial to health, and how their sudden, mass consumption from the mid-17th century onwards created the health risks associated with them today.

The obesity epidemic – along with related diseases including cancer, dementia, heart disease and diabetes – has spread across every nation where sugar-based carbohydrates have come to dominate the food economy.

German authorities, however, are going to great lengths to argue that the German citizenry's sudden interest in self-defense has nothing whatsoever to do with mass migration into the country, despite ample evidence to the contrary.

The spike in violent crimes committed by migrants has been corroborated by a leaked confidential police report, which reveals that a record-breaking 38,000 asylum seekers were accused of committing crimes in the country in 2014. Analysts believe this figure — which works out to more than 100 crimes a day — is only a fragment: many crimes are not reported.

Germans, facing an influx of more than one million asylum seekers from Africa, Asia and the Middle East, are rushing to arm themselves. All across Germany, a country with some of the most stringent gun-control laws in Europe, demand is skyrocketing for non-lethal self-defense weapons, including pepper sprays, gas pistols, flare guns, electroshock weapons and animal repellants. Germans are also applying for weapons permits in record numbers.

Andreas Reinhardt, a gun shop owner in the northern German town of Eutin, said he now sells four to five self-defense weapons each day, compared to around two per month before the recent influx of asylum seekers. "The current social upheaval is clearly driving the current rush to self-defense," he said. "I never thought that fear would spread so quickly," he added.

“This is a betrayal of the grassroots and of the Republican Party,” Schlafly said in an exclusive interview with WND. “We thought we were electing a different crowd to stand up for America, and they didn’t. We’re extremely outraged by what Congress has done. Nancy Pelosi couldn’t have engineered it any better. I think the people are going to react by electing Donald Trump.”

Trump put out a statement Friday to ABC News saying, “If anyone needs more evidence of why the American people are suffering at the hands of their own government, look no further than the budget deal announced by Speaker Ryan. In order to avoid a government shutdown, a cowardly threat from an incompetent president, the elected Republicans in Congress threw in the towel and showed absolutely no budget discipline.”

Trump continued, “Congress cannot seem to help itself in bending to every whim of special interests. How can they face their constituents when they continue to burden our children and grandchildren with debts they will never be able to repay? Our government is failing us, so we must do something about it. Who knows how bad things will be when the next administration comes in and has to pick up the pieces?”

Schlafly applauded the GOP front-runner’s fighting spirit. “It sounds like Donald Trump is the only one who has any fight in him,” she said. “He will fight for the issues that we really care about and are very hot at the present time, such as the immigration issue. I don’t see anyone else who’s eager to fight.”

The Republican-controlled Congress just sold America down the river in the “worst kind of betrayal,” Schlafly told WND. “It’s the worst kind of a betrayal because we thought we elected a bunch of good guys who would shape up the party,” she said. “We had a lot of fancy promises that the Republicans were going to shape up and change course. And they disappointed us. Betrayal is an appropriate word to describe it.”