USA - This Sunday could be a distressing day for millions of churchgoers across the country. As many as 400 pastors, some of them leading megachurch congregations, may resign following the Ashley Madison leak.
EUROPE - Security on Europe's rail networks will be stepped up with cross-border armed patrols and increased spot checks on trains, European ministers said on Saturday. Tickets on international routes could also bear passengers' names, under a proposal to be considered by European states. In response to the foiled gun attack on a French train last weekend, Theresa May, the Home Secretary, and ministers from eight other European countries agreed at a meeting in Paris to step up cooperation between national police and security forces. The ministers stressed the need for “coordinated and simultaneous checks on targeted routes” and urged the European Commission to strengthen gun control.
RUSSIA - As Russia and China were staging their biggest joint maritime exercises in history, RT correspondent Daniel Bushell was aboard the Russian flagship to take the action in first hand. Chinese and Russian commanders coordinating the drills, which have been dubbed ‘Joint Sea 2015 II,’ described it as an “unprecedented show of military cooperation,” according to Bushell. A total of 22 ships, 20 aircraft, 40 armored vehicles, and 500 marines from the two countries, including the Varyag missile cruiser, flagship of the Russian Pacific fleet; and the Shenyang destroyer, the Chinese flagship, participated in the active phase of the exercises. The drills were held in Peter the Great Bay not far from the port-city of Vladivostok in Russia’s Far East, as the vessels conducted their training operations in both Russian territorial waters and neutral waters in the Sea of Japan.
EUROPE - Around 800 potential terrorists "prepared to do anything" have returned to Europe after fighting or training with Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil), Spanish security experts have warned. Those returning are believed to have been trained in terrorist camps in Syria and Iraq, Spanish anti-terrorism forces told their European colleagues following the attack on the Amsterdam-Paris train on Friday by Ayoub El-Khazzani. The potential terrorists “are not especially well trained”, but “they are prepared to do anything and once they have been indoctrinated, they receive minimal training in the use of weapons”, the radio station Cadena Ser quoted security experts saying.
ISRAEL - Disturbing footage has surfaced Friday, of a band of Muslims terrifying preschool-age Jewish children on the Temple Mount. Veiled and masked Muslim women are seen shouting so violently at the children that the Israel Police is forced to escort them along a wall - not the main path. Despite regular harassment, rioting, and even assaults of non-Muslims on the Temple Mount, arrests of violent Muslim extremists are relatively rare. In fact, Israeli authorities have submitted to the Jordanian Waqf's demands to ban all forms of non-Muslim worship on the Temple Mount - despite its status as the holiest site in Judaism - to the point of turning a blind eye to outright incitement.
ISRAEL - Chief Ashkenazic Rabbi says Sabbath is being violated in Ashdod and elsewhere in Israel. Rabbi David Lau, the Chief Ashkenazic Rabbi, said Monday that he was extremely upset by the fact that the Sabbath is being violated in public, in Jerusalem, Ashdod, and elsewhere in Israel. The rabbi's announcement opened a session of the Chief Rabbinate Council. He was referring to the opening of a new “Yes Planet” cinema house in Jerusalem, which will operate on Sabbaths, as well as the Big shopping complex in Ashdod and other shopping centers, which operate on Shabbat. "The Sabbath is important to all the Jewish people, and we are horrified to learn that it has been violated in many places in Israel,” he said. "We call upon all of the heads of the public to make a great effort for the honor of the Sabbath,” he added.
USA - About 13,000 people on public assistance tumble into homelessness every month in Los Angeles County, according to a new study that experts say provides the clearest picture yet of extreme poverty in the region. Although many quickly find work or rely on family to get off the streets, the number experiencing "continuous, unremitting, chronic homelessness" continues to grow, even after 10,000 people were housed over the last three years, according to the report being released Tuesday by the Economic Roundtable, a nonprofit research group in Los Angeles.
The report recommended that the welfare system intervene to help children and young adults who become homeless before their condition becomes chronic.
USA - Guess who wins when someone challenges the US Supreme Court’s rules concerning free speech on the plaza in front of its building? Yeah, it’s the Supreme Court. The ruling came from the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, which affirmed a ban on expressive activity such as handing out leaflets or carrying a sign on the US Supreme Court plaza, the publicly owned patio leading to the steps of the court.
JAPAN - Tens of thousands of people gathered outside the Japanese parliament building on Sunday to reject plans put forth by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe that would see an aggressive expansion of the nation’s armed forces despite a long-standing constitutional mandate for a “defense only” military posture. The enormous crowd — estimated by organizers as more than 120,000 people — is opposing a set of bills moving through the country’s legislature which would allow the country’s military to engage in overseas fighting and ratchet up spending on new weapons systems. Despite loud public protest against the plan, Abe has continued to defend the plan. Demonstrators carried banners reading “Peace Not War” and “Abe, Quit!”
USA - Ironically, US college campuses are rapidly becoming the least free, most censored places in the country. Many people have commented on this, including high profile, enormously talented comedians such as Chris Rock and Jerry Seinfeld. In fact, Chris Rock was so appalled that he stopped playing colleges because audiences had become “too conservative”.
UK - Police investigating missing persons cases should look into information they receive from psychics, clairvoyants and witches, according to official new guidelines. The College of Policing, which governs training for officers across England and Wales, said police hunting someone who has disappeared should evaluate reports from people who claim to have “extrasensory perception”. But the guidelines warn that such information should not be allowed to become a “distraction … unless it can be verified”. A spokesman for charity Missing People, said: “We respect the fact that some families of missing people will want to try every avenue in order to find a loved one. Research based on interviews with the families of missing people conducted by the charity shows that no interviewees reported significant findings or comfort from the experience of consulting psychics or mediums.”
USA - Sweeping into office in 2009, President Barack Obama captured near rock-star status around the world among millions who saw him as the embodiment of a new sense of social purpose. Now, that baton has largely been passed to Pope Francis, whose visit to the White House next month will put his common cause with Obama on vivid display.
VATICAN - Pope Francis believes he has a divine mandate to continue Obama’s devilish job of “radically transforming” America. He is not just the Pope of the world’s Catholics, no, not by a long shot. Francis has stepped out of the shadows and with each new undertaking continues to shore up his base of political power and influence.
VATICAN - Pope Francis has blessed a lesbian author for “spreading authentic human and Christian values.” In his message to writer Francesca Pardi, who authored “Why Do You Have Two Mommies,” the pope also wished her and her partner “ever more fruitful work in the service of young generations.”
ISRAEL - Radical Israeli Islamist slams move to ban his rioters, Al-Aqsa academy president claims 'Jewish terrorists' plan to murder Muslims on Mount. In response to Internal Security Minister Gilad Erdan's (Likud) call Monday to ban the Islamist organizations that routinely riot on the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism, the leader of one such radical organization spoke out against the move.
“Just what is an APOSTLE?”
Today we find the Church of God in a “wilderness of religious confusion!”
The confusion is not merely around the Church – within the religions of the world outside – but WITHIN the very heart of The True Church itself!
Read online or contact email to request a copy
