RUSSIA - Russian submarines and spy ships are aggressively operating near the vital undersea cables that carry almost all global Internet communications, raising concerns among some American military and intelligence officials that the Russians might be planning to attack those lines in times of tension or conflict. The issue goes beyond old worries during the Cold War that the Russians would tap into the cables — a task American intelligence agencies also mastered decades ago. The alarm today is deeper: The ultimate Russian hack on the United States could involve severing the fiber-optic cables at some of their hardest-to-access locations to halt the instant communications on which the West’s governments, economies and citizens have grown dependent.
CHINA - China has slammed the US for ignoring repeated warnings and allowing one of its destroyers to sail close to artificial islands created by Beijing in the South China Sea. It said the USS Lassen’s actions “damage peace and stability in the region. These actions of the US warship are a threat to the sovereignty and security of China, and safety of people living on the islands; they damage peace and stability in the region.”
USA - The first batch of heavy US military vehicles has been shipped to Estonia and is due to arrive at a NATO base on October 26, General Staff of the Estonian Defense Forces says. The shipment contains 40 pieces of military equipment, including four M1A2 Abrams tanks and ten Bradley armored vehicles. It was delivered from Latvia to Estonia by rail and is earmarked for the company-sized unit of the US 3rd Infantry Division that will replace another US unit previously deployed in the country. The new US troops being rotated in were deployed at a military base in the Estonian town of Tapa on Friday, local media report. The US troop rotation in Estonia is part of the US’ Operation Atlantic Resolve, a series of measures reportedly intended to “reassure NATO allies and partners of America’s dedication to enduring peace and stability in the region in light of the Russian intervention in Ukraine.”
USA - Are you a conservative, a libertarian, a Christian or a gun owner? Are you opposed to abortion, globalism, Communism, illegal immigration, the United Nations or the New World Order? Do you believe in conspiracy theories, do you believe that we are living in the “end times” or do you ever visit alternative news websites?
USA - The US Department of Justice issued a memo on Thursday containing new guidelines stating that it will pursue the prosecution of individual employees, and not just their companies, for their role in precipitating the financial crisis in 2008.
VATICAN - On Monday morning, Rome Fiumicino airport was filled with weary clerics, bleary-eyed after three weeks of intense and sometimes tense debate. They were returning home to the 120 countries they had travelled from to discuss and debate openly, as Pope Francis had asked them to do, how the Church treats the Catholic family across the world.
NORWAY - Ghosts, or at least belief in them, have been around for centuries but they have now found a particularly strong following in highly secular modern countries like Norway, places that are otherwise in the vanguard of what was once seen as Europe’s inexorable, science-led march away from superstition and religion.
USA - Hot dogs — both vegetarian and meat-based — were found to contain a lot more than you bargained for in a new report by a food watchdog group. Think you’re making the healthy choice by picking a vegetarian hot dog? Check the brand you’re buying: A new report found that 10 percent of the vegetarian hot dogs tested contained meat, including chicken in a vegetarian breakfast sausage and pork in a vegetarian hot dog. Some dogs were labeled pork-free — important for certain religions — but were found to contain pork after all. Others listed only one type of meat but included several or didn’t contain all the ingredients listed. Even grosser: 2 percent of all samples were found to have traces of human DNA in them. Veggie dogs were the worst off, accounting for 67 percent of the hygiene issues and two-thirds of the human DNA found.
ISRAEL - Israelis are, per capita, one of the world's smallest consumers of pork products – and that's a healthy thing, the World Health Organization said in a new report. Much of the rest of the developed world gorges itself on processed pig products such as bacon, sausage, and ham – processed meats that carry with them as strong a risk for cancer as cigarettes.
VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis, ending a contentious bishops' meeting on family issues, on Saturday excoriated immovable Church leaders who "bury their heads in the sand" and hide behind rigid doctrine while families suffer. The pope spoke at the end of a three-week gathering, known as a synod, where the bishops agreed to a qualified opening toward divorcees who have remarried outside the Church but rejected calls for more welcoming language toward homosexuals.
VATICAN - Observant Catholics, Nathalie and Christian Mignonat have worked for years in France with people who are divorced and remarried without an annulment, what the church calls “irregular unions.”
USA - Peek behind the curtain of some "progressive" or "hip" evangelical churches, past the savvy technology and secular music, and you will find more than just a contemporary worship service. You'll find faith leaders encouraging young evangelicals to trade in their Christian convictions for a gospel filled with compromise. They're slowly attempting to give evangelicalism an "update" — and the change is not for the good.
SAUDI ARABIA - Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the UK has warned of the "potentially serious repercussions" of a breakdown in relations between the two countries. Prince Mohammed bin Nawaf bin Abdulaziz, ambassador to the UK complained of a lack of "mutual respect" after a deal to train prison staff in the Gulf state was cancelled.
GERMANY - Even as Germany has welcomed its refugees, another, uglier side has been festering with the return of the anti-Muslim Pegida movement. The threat posed by the far-right has the potential to spiral out of control. Even as an image of a Germany taking great pains to welcome hundreds of thousands of refugees has bolstered the country's image abroad, it has also been accompanied by a wave of hatred that cannot be played down.
EUROPE - Marching in an almost perfect single column, tens of thousands of migrants weave their way through fields as they edge their way through Europe in bitterly cold conditions. The incredible movement was filmed high from the sky as an unprecedented number of refugees crossed through Rigonce in Slovenia, as the country's prime minister warned the crisis could destroy the European Union.