The New York senator is among the most influential Jewish lawmakers in the United States. He was the first Senate Democrat to announce his opposition to the agreement. Another influential Jewish lawmaker, US Representative Eliot Engel, the top Democrat on the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, also said on Thursday he would oppose the nuclear pact in a statement obtained by Reuters.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been pushing lawmakers to oppose the nuclear agreement, which he considers a threat to his country's survival. Some pro-Israel groups have also been spending millions of dollars on an advertising campaign to push members of Congress to vote no.

Obama has been engaged in his own lobbying effort, including a combative speech on Wednesday in which he said abandoning the agreement would open up the prospect of war. Speaking at a news conference on a visit to the Vietnamese capital Hanoi, US Secretary of State John Kerry, who negotiated the deal on the US side, said he respected Schumer and Engel but added that "rejection is not a policy for the future."

"It does not offer any alterative and many people in arms control and others have actually pointed that out. While I completely respect everybody’s individual right to make a choice, I obviously disagree with the choice made," he said. The US Congress has until September 17 to consider a resolution of disapproval of the Iran deal, which would eliminate Obama's ability to waive all sanctions on Iran imposed by the US Congress, a key component of the agreement.

The odds of this “deal” holding up over the long term appear to be somewhere between slim and none. But even if this deal does survive, that does not mean that everything will be okay in the Middle East. In fact, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is convinced that Obama’s deal with Iran will actually “lead to war”…

Over and over, Netanyahu has been adamant about the fact that his government will never allow Iran to get a nuclear weapon. If Obama’s “peace deal” ever had a prayer of bringing peace to the Middle East, it had to convince the Israeli government that Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons had been completely stopped. On that point, Obama failed miserably.

And of course the Iranians have never even pretended to abandon their ultimate goal – the destruction of the Jewish state and the liberation of Jerusalem. According to the New York Post, Iran’s supreme leader has just put out a 416 page book all about this…

Let us hope that it is delayed for as long as possible, but without a doubt a major war is coming to the Middle East. It will be a war unlike anything that we have ever seen in the Middle East before, and vast numbers of people will die. If Barack Obama was trying to prevent this, he failed miserably. But if he was trying to set the stage for such a war, he has accomplished his mission.

Standard & Poor's lowered its outlook to "negative" in February. "We view Saudi Arabia's economy as undiversified and vulnerable to a steep and sustained decline in oil prices," it said. The Saudis are now trapped. Even if they could do a deal with Russia and orchestrate a cut in output to boost prices - far from clear - they might merely gain a few more years of high income at the cost of bringing forward more shale production later on.

Yet on the current course their reserves may be down to $200 billion by the end of 2018. The markets will react long before this, seeing the writing on the wall. Capital flight will accelerate. The government can slash investment spending for a while - as it did in the mid-1980s - but in the end it must face draconian austerity. It cannot afford to prop up Egypt and maintain an exorbitant political patronage machine across the Sunni world.

Social spending is the glue that holds together a medieval Wahhabi regime at a time of fermenting unrest among the Shia minority of the Eastern Province, pin-prick terrorist attacks from ISIS, and blowback from the invasion of Yemen. Diplomatic spending is what underpins the Saudi sphere of influence in a Middle East suffering its own version of Europe's Thirty Year War, and still reeling from the after-shocks of a crushed democratic revolt. We may yet find that the US oil industry has greater staying power than the rickety political edifice behind OPEC.

During the meeting he also said churches should face up to tough issues when discussing unity. Francis said he hopes this initiative will encourage further steps toward unity, with God's help, "and our collaboration with Him and one another," Catholic News Agency reported. On December 18, the general secretary of the Lutheran World Federation, Rev Martin Junge, said relations between the Lutheran and Catholic churches have reached an epoch-making turning-point.

He spoke during preparations in Rome for the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation in 2017 when Lutherans and Catholics are expected to cooperate in an act of Christian unity. Pope Francis said at his meeting with Archbishop Jackelen that Christians seeking unity should not be afraid to broach potential areas of disagreement such as marriage, family, and sexuality. "All Catholic faithful" are invited "to take up, recognize the signs of the times, the way of unity for overcoming divisions among Christians," the pontiff said during his audience with Jackelen.

He said division is not only in opposition "to the will of Christ, but is also a scandal to the world and causes damage to the holiest of causes: the preaching of the Gospel to every creature." During the May 4 private audience at the Vatican, the Pope stressed that unity should be compelled by charity toward those suffering from poverty and violence, and those in need of mercy. "Especially the witness of our persecuted brothers and sisters pushes us toward fraternal communion," he said.

Sockeye salmon losses in the Columbia River due to the heat are in the hundreds of thousands, said Jeff Fryer, senior fishery scientist with the river’s Inter-Tribal Fish Commission. The fish were returning from the ocean to spawn when the “unprecedented” warm water killed them, he said. On Friday, Seattle hit 90 degrees for the 11th time this summer. That’s an all-time record for normally mild Seattle. The current heat wave is expected to last into early next week. Meanwhile, 100% of Washington and Oregon are now in a drought at the same time, something that hasn’t happened since 2001.

The trouble for the fish actually began months ago, when a lack of snowpack from an unusually warm winter resulted in drought conditions throughout much of the Pacific Northwest. Typically, a decent snowpack slowly provides water to rivers and streams, helping to sustain fish through the drier summer months, according to the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. But, with little or no snowpack, flows in many rivers have dropped significantly and water temperatures have increased — deadly conditions for fish.

Scientific materialism is the default philosophy underpinning virtually all modern science: medical science, agricultural science, technology, economics and more. It is based on the false assumption that everything in our universe is made of material stuff. This belief excludes any idea of consciousness, free will, the non-physical mind and the value of any conscious being which possesses such qualities.

Scientific materialism is essentially a philosophy of death... A philosophy that places no value in life whatsoever, believing that life itself is nothing more than a purposeless accident that just happened to take place on our planet, without any meaning, design, or end goal.

Virtually all scientists in the Western world today operate from a cult-like belief in scientific materialism. By definition, then, they do not believe in the existence of consciousness, free will, or the mind. Thus, when they see an infant that is alive and being delivered from the womb of a mother, they do not see a conscious being that can experience pain, retain memories, or one day make decisions of its own. All they see is a collection of tissue: heart, liver, genitals, a brain, legs and arms and so on.

The declaration was initiated by the Islamic Supreme Commission, which is headed by former Jerusalem mufti Sheikh Ekrima Sabri. The Israeli presence in Jerusalem, the sheikh emphasized, was an “illegal occupation,” and added that Israel has no sovereignty over the Aksa Mosque. Sabri told journalists at the press conference that the Aksa Mosque, as well as all the area surrounding it and above and beneath it, was “purely and exclusively sacred to Muslims.”

Neither Jews nor any other party had any right to the site, “not even one grain of soil,” he said, adding that entering the site is considered an incursion of Palestinian Muslim rights. “This would be a grave assault and desecration against the Aksa Mosque,” he added. Speakers at the press conference warned Israel against pursuing its policy of allowing Jews to visit the Temple Mount and called on the Arab and Muslim countries to intervene to stop the “desecration” of the holy site.

"This is [done] by establishing facts on the ground, for the Muslims, so they will accept the inevitability of the situation." "Every month there are invasions (ie visits by Jews to the Temple Mount)," he continued. "Last month, there were more than 184 invasions into places of worship, and especially into the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque [plaza] (ie the Temple Mount), as the Israeli establishment allows the herds of settlers to enter the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque [plaza] daily - which provokes the feelings of Muslims - under protection of the Israeli occupation police."

The PA adamantly opposes excavations near the Temple Mount and in the City of David because the many archaeological finds in those areas related to Jewish history expose the falsehood of PA claims that Jews never lived in Jerusalem and that there never was a Jewish Temple. The PA therefore charges that the excavations are intended to cause the Mosque to collapse.

The gathering was held in the wake of an arson attack that claimed the life an 18-month-old toddler, Ali Dawabsha, who was burned alive Friday morning after suspected Jewish extremists set fire to his family home in the village of Duma, located in the northern West Bank, according to AFP. Scrawled in graffiti near the site of the incident was the word "revenge" written in Hebrew.

Abbas argued during the meeting that the attack was directly linked to the government's inaction to quell rising Jewish extremist groups in the West Bank and halt settlement expansion efforts, "where (the Israeli government) gives grants to build thousands of settlement units and it continues its crimes by the herds of settlers, which ended with the burning of the Dawabsha family member."

Before the meeting, Arab League Chief Nabil al-Arabi said, "The Arab Group (at the UN) must act to submit a draft resolution to the Security Council concerning terrorist crimes by Israeli settler groups against the Palestinian people. What is required is real international protection, through a Security Council decision," he added.

“This country would enjoy total military supremacy if nuclear weapons were abolished,” he added. The 84-year-old political veteran called nuclear weapons “unacceptable” and “inhumane” in our modern society as they can easily “wipe out the entirety of civilization”. “Weapons like this have never existed before in history and they cannot be allowed to exist. If we do not get rid of them, sooner or later they will be used.”

Demilitarization should be put “back on the agenda of international politics,” believes Gorbachev. “This includes a reduction of military budgets, a moratorium on the development of new types of weapons and a prohibition on militarizing space.” If these actions are not performed, then the talks on any nuclear demilitarization will be just “little more than empty words,” he added. “The world would then become less safe, more unstable and unpredictable. Everyone will lose, including those now seeking to dominate the world."

I agree with Mr Fischer that Germany argued strongly for a Euro in Germany’s own image. He went on to explain how the economic policy put onto Greece will not work and how Germany now wants the Euro as a sphere of influence rather than as a European project. I do not agree with him that this means less Europe, as he puts it. It means more Europe of the kind Germany seeks. It will mean more budgetary controls over other member states, more common economic policies.

Germany’s main interest now seems to be to avoid making the transfers and payments that rich parts of a currency zone have to make to allow it to work. That is why Germany recommends more austerity for a country like Greece, in preference to sending Greece grants to assist her in a time of need.

States other than Greece will become, in Mr Fischer’s words, “European protectorates” following German led policy. Mr Fischer is right to tell us we now have a German-led Europe. In view of the stresses and strain, and the need for more discipline and centralised policy for the Euro area, the case for UK exit from the EU or that fundamental change of relationship becomes clearer by the day.

“The threat of the outbreak of the third world war by the terrorists is serious,” Rafsanjani was quoted as saying in a meeting with Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni, who was in Tehran this week for a meeting with Iranian officials. Rafsanjani blamed the United States and NATO for fostering the conditions that will lead to World War III.

“The US and the NATO had invaded Afghanistan to uproot terrorism and narcotics, but we saw that terrorism expanded in the form of the ISIL, Boko Haram and Al-Nusra Front to remote parts of the world from Al-Qaeda and Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan,” he was quoted as saying. Rafsanjani went on to demand that the United States and other Western countries “stop their support for the terrorist groups” in the region.

Moscow seized the moment and Putin laid out his vision of the situation in Syria to Mohamad Bin Salman: After four years of fighting, there is a tangible change in the international mood. Geneva 3 is no longer on the table neither is Moscow 3 or Moscow 4. In the meanwhile, terrorism is creeping towards your homeland. In the meantime also, the position of the Syrian Army is improving on the ground and there are no other parties left who are convinced that the Syrian “regime” should fall other than Saudi Arabia and Turkey. There is no option but to cooperate with him [Assad] in order to fight terrorism that is threatening everyone.

The Saudi Prince seemed convinced though very reluctantly that the essence of Putin’s harangue was that the Syrian “regime” is here to stay. This encouraged his host to go a step further and suggest a meeting between the Prince and a Syrian official without any preconditions. Both parties lashed at each other accusing each other of inflaming the situation. There is nothing to indicate that this was not done within the norms of diplomacy. The meeting concluded without reaching any results, but the ice has been broken.

The significance of this extremely historic meeting is enormous. It has the potential to be pivotal in whatever happens from this point on. It is not unrealistic to see this meeting as the beginning of the end. There will be many hurdles to overcome, but the road is getting clearer and smoother for a huge victory.

(Translation, Interpretation and Analysis by Ghassan Kadi. This text is a translation of an Al Akhbar article published in Arabic)

In a letter to a constituent seen by the Telegraph, Spencer said the Extremism Disruption Orders (EDOs), which will be used to target hate preachers suspected of radicalizing vulnerable young people, could see teachers prosecuted. “Teachers will still be free to express their understanding of the term ‘marriage,’ and their moral opposition to its use in some situations without breaking the new laws,” he wrote.

“The EDOs, in this case, would apply to a situation where a teacher was specifically teaching that gay marriage is wrong.” Deputy Director of the Christian Institute Simon Calvert, however, said Christian teachers would be “branded extremists for teaching that marriage is between a man and a woman.”