Speaking after a boat carrying migrants capsized off the Libyan coast on Saturday night, leaving 700 people feared dead, the Pope said: "I make a heartfelt appeal for the international community to act decisively and promptly so as to avert similar tragedies being repeated." The Pontiff made the comments in his weekly Angelus address to a crowd of pilgrims gathered in St Peter's Square.

Francois Hollande, the French president, called on Sunday for a meeting of EU foreign and interior ministers. Mr Hollande, speaking during a wide-ranging interview on French television, said that if the death toll were confirmed "it would be the worst catastrophe in recent years" in the Mediterranean.

He said Europe "must act" against the growing catalogue of mass drownings of migrants attempting to reach its shores, and called for closer surveillance of the routes used by smugglers. Mr Hollande called for "more boats, more aerial surveillance and an intensified fight against trafficking."

Practitioners of the “free range” philosophy of parenting, which emphasizes teaching children independence, Alexander and Danielle Meitiv felt they were well within their rights to allow their 6- and 10-year-old children to play alone in a neighborhood park on Sunday not far from their Silver Spring home. Police picked up the children and turned them over to Child Protective Services for a short time.

The Meitivs, who in the days since have been the subject of both praise and criticism for their decision, are filing suit to fight the “unlawful seizure of their children” and to stand up for the belief that they, not the state, knows what is best for their children.

But more often than not, parents who find themselves in similar situations — sometimes after leaving a child in a car while they run into a store or allowing a child to supervise younger siblings — buckle under the threat of losing custody of their children even for a short time and plead to neglect or other charges.

Having moved with his young family from the Zimbabwean capital, Harare, to South Africa four years ago, Mr Dlomo found a job with a building firm and had hoped to put years of penury behind him. But his resistance lasted for as long as it took the gang to pin him down and smash his head with a rock. "They came inside and started hitting people," he told The Telegraph. "Some of us tried to fight back but they were too many. They hit me and one pulled out a gun and fired above my head. That's when we ran away."

Mr Dlomo put his wife and young children on a bus back to Zimbabwe, and stood this week fingering a livid gash across his skull and looking down on a refugee camp where 1,500 people have sought safety amid an outbreak of xenophobic violence across South Africa that has already claimed at least five lives. Thousands more have been injured by mobs wielding machetes, bricks and firearms, driven from their homes and had their businesses looted.

The disease, symptoms of which include headache, weight loss, blurred vision and loss of consciousness, killed the victims within 24 hours of their falling ill, he said. Laboratory tests have so far ruled out Ebola or any other virus, Mr Akinmade added.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) said it had information on 14 cases with at least 12 dead. "Common symptoms were sudden blurred vision, headache, loss of consciousness followed by death, occurring within 24 hours," spokesman Tarik Jasarevic said.

GSK markets Flulaval as “a vaccine indicated for active immunization disease”; however does not indicate that the vaccine is effectual. According to the insert for Flulaval, “there have been no controlled trials adequately demonstrating a decrease in influenza disease after vaccination with” this product.

Another shocking confession about Flulaval by GSK is that the vaccine has “not been evaluated for carcinogenic or mutagenic potential, [and] impairment of fertility” along with the fact that “safety and effectiveness of Flulaval in pediatric patients [has] not been established” which includes:

• Pregnant women
• Women nursing
• children

However, some of the adverse effects of Flulaval reported are:

• Eye pain and chest pain
• Arthritis
• Dizziness, tremors and losing consciousness (syncope)
• Convulsions and seizures
• Gullain-Barre Syndrome
• Cranial nerve paralysis or limb paralysis
• Swelling of the brain
• Partial facial paralysis

The current strain of flu “attacking” people is H3N2 which is believed to have “mutated from the earlier strain”. Vaccines available to the public are only 25% effective at combating H3N2, however doctors are recommending it as prevention – better than nothing at all.

It is official: David Cameron’s renegotiations are over before they have even begun. Yesterday unelected European Union President Jean-Claude Juncker announced there will be no changes to EU Treaties whilst he is in office. This means, according to Juncker, no treaty negotiations can even begin until November 2019 at the earliest, ruining our Prime Minister’s plans for any renegotiations before an In/Out referendum by the end of 2017.

Juncker’s motives are quite clear. By taking treaty changes off the agenda this is a deliberate revenge attack for Cameron’s attempt to block Juncker from taking office in June last year. However, by seeking to humiliate the Prime Minister, Juncker has spitefully sabotaged his own goal of keeping Britain entangled within an EU hurtling towards full political integration.

Yesterday Martin Schulz waded in too. As President of the European Parliament and another arch-federalist he explained his own opposition to changes to EU treaties as a way to keep Britain in. He argued it would set a precedent by attempting to solve the Eurozone problems with a new treaty. This is something he and all the other bureaucrats of Brussels are desperate to avoid. Schulz has also said it is a "relief" other Member State heads, such as France's President Hollande, are turning against treaty change due to fear of referendums to ratify such changes in their home countries.

If EU treaties are altered, any new settlement must be put before the electorate of a number of EU Member States and all it would take is one country voting ‘the wrong way’ and the dreams of a United States of Europe will be scuppered.

Both of them played down the threat to the Euro from Greece, saying they wanted the experts to make more rapid progress assessing Greece’s latest policy offering, and claiming to be relaxed about the Greek visit to Moscow. Stories circulate that Greece may face capital controls and suspension of bank account convertibility if things get worse, or that Greece is even planning to nationalise the Greek commercial banks and issue a parallel or new Greek currency to pay the bills. The Greek government denies these rumours and has just tabled new proposals to try to comply with some of the requests of their creditors.

All this reinforces a central truth for the UK. The Euro is driving relentlessly the process of political union for its members. They will volunteer for more and more joint projects, investments and shared networks as part of a deliberate policy to blur national distinctions and make more matters truly European.

They are edging towards a proper banking union, where the ECB is still financing the Greek commercial banks as they are under pressure. They will need to make more progress in achieving common welfare and larger transfers of cash from the richer to the poorer areas. The UK wants no part of this, and will have to battle to stay out or get out of the intrusive features of political union to support the monetary union.

I just hope enough UK people understand the urgency of all this. The Greek drama is driving events at a fast pace. The UK needs a new relationship soon to avoid being sucked into the EU political union.

The Vatican’s “Protect the Earth, Dignify Humanity” conference April 28, which will feature UN General-Secretary Ban Ki-moon, aims “to elevate the debate on the moral dimensions of protecting the environment” and build “a global movement across all religions for sustainable development and climate change.” Thomas Horn, co-author with Cris Putnam of “Petrus Romanus: The Final Pope is Here,” notes the Vatican conference anticipates the encyclical on global warming and the environment by Pope Francis, currently scheduled for June or July publication.

Horn sees the Vatican’s attempt to join forces with the United Nations on the issues of global warming and climate change as additional evidence the Vatican is following a blueprint “for structuring the world’s political and economic authorities into a centralized world government.” He points out that Cardinal Peter Turkson, the head of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, helped write the first draft of the pope’s encyclical and also wrote a document in 2011 on behalf of the Vatican calling for establishing a global authority to eliminate economic inequalities and redistribute wealth.

Horn told WND people “should sit up and take notice” of the UN event because of the Vatican’s October 24, 2011, document authored by Turkson titled “Toward Reforming the International Financial and Monetary Systems in the Context of a Global Public Authority.” Horn said the paper “amounted to a call by the Vatican for a global political, environmental and financial authority to be established under the United Nations.”

Bestselling author Tom Horn, featured on the blockbuster movie, “The Last Pope?,” told WND in an exclusive interview that the statements imply the man once known as Jorge Mario Bergoglio sees himself as part of a prophecy. Horn stated, “The comments by Pope Francis regarding possible assassination or retirement and that he may not be the pontiff much longer make me wonder if he is a believer in his role as the last pope (pope No. 112 in the ‘Prophecy of the Popes’), which speaks of the destruction of Rome.”

St Malachy’s “Prophecy of the Popes” is said to be based on his prophetic vision of the next 112 popes, beginning with Pope Celestine II, who died in 1144. Malachy presented a description of each pope, culminating with the “final pope,” “Peter the Roman,” whose reign would end with the destruction of Rome and judgment. But other Catholic prophecies also speak of the final subversion of the Roman Catholic Church.

As Horn notes, “Even St Francis of Assisi – the current pope’s namesake and one of the most venerated religious figures in history – gathered his devotees shortly before his death and prophesied, ‘At the time of this tribulation a man, not canonically elected, will be raised to the pontificate, who, by his cunning, will endeavor to draw many into error and death… Some preachers will keep silence about the truth, and others will trample it under foot and deny it… for in those days Jesus Christ will send them not a true pastor, but a destroyer.’”

Horn believes Francis may also see his fate revealed as part of one of the famous “secrets of Fátima.” “The final secret of Fátima was supposedly given to three Portuguese children, Lucia dos Santos, Jacinta Marto and Francisco Marto, when they saw an apparition of the Virgin Mary (Our Lady of Fátima) in 1917.” As Horn observed, “There is a great deal of controversy over whether the third secret was ever completely released by the Vatican, but part of what was released describes a city, which some believe to be the Vatican City. The city is attacked and many priests, including the pope (described as the ‘Bishop in White’), are killed by fighters who could easily be interpreted as members of ISIS.”

Horn said the events in progress may be something far more substantial than simply organizational changes. “Francis appointed Pietro Parolin as his secretary of state, an Italian (Roman) whose name is Peter,” Horn said. “If the Vatican were attacked or Francis and his Camerlengo (papal administrators) were to be killed at the same time or taken out of the way, this man would sit on the pope’s throne and literally be known as ‘Peter the Roman,’ the final line in the Prophecy of the Popes.”

In the United States, where Americans are used to hearing their president always invoke Christianity as a way to silence Christians, British Prime Minister David Cameron’s recent Easter message was moderately refreshing. Among other things, Cameron made it a point to say, “that we should feel proud to say, ‘This is a Christian country.’ Yes, we’re a nation that embraces, welcomes and accepts all faiths and none, but we are still a Christian country.”

The context of Cameron’s statement, it should be recalled, is a UK with a large, and in parts intolerant and aggressive Muslim populace - some among whom seek to treat the UK’s indigenous Christians the way the Islamic world’s indigenous Christians are habitually treated, that is, subjugated, enslaved, raped, and murdered. In fact, Cameron touched on the phenomenon of Christian persecution in mostly Muslim lands:

“We have a duty to speak out about the persecution of Christians around the world too. It is truly shocking that in 2015 there are still Christians being threatened, tortured, even killed because of their faith. From Egypt to Nigeria, Libya to North Korea. Across the Middle East Christians have been hounded out of their homes, forced to flee from village to village; many of them forced to renounce their faith or brutally murdered. To all those brave Christians in Iraq and Syria who practice their faith or shelter others, we will say, ‘We stand with you.’”

Consider what Obama - who is on record saying “we are no longer a Christian nation,” and who never notes the Islamic identity of murderers or the Christian identity of their victims, and who ignored a recent UN session on Christian persecution - had to say about Christians at the Easter Prayer Breakfast: “On Easter, I do reflect on the fact that as a Christian, I am supposed to love. And I have to say that sometimes when I listen to less than loving expressions by Christians, I get concerned.”

This is in keeping with his earlier statements calling on Americans in general, and Christians in particular, to be nonjudgmental and instead to have “humility” and “doubt” themselves.

We live at a time when political correctness in America is wildly out of control, and thanks to Obama the US military has become one of the most politically correct institutions in our society. Things have gotten so bad that dozens of top officers that did not agree with Obama’s views have been forced out of the military in recent years. The US military is being transformed into an overtly anti-Christian institution, and for those of us that are Christians that is a very chilling development.

One of the key people that the Obama administration has brought in to advise the Pentagon on matters of faith and the military is a man named Mikey Weinstein. Weinstein is the head of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, and to say that he hates evangelical Christians is a huge understatement.

The following comes from one of my previous articles…

The MRFF is a very insidious organization. It is headed up by a man named Mikey Weinstein. He has called Christians “human monsters” and “enemies of the United States Constitution”. Weinstein is convinced that sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ while in the military is “sedition and treason” and should be punished as such.

With guys like that telling the Pentagon how to treat Christians, no wonder things have gotten so bad. Obama is “fundamentally transforming” the military, and those that aren’t willing to go along are being forced out.

Netanyahu also took the opportunity to reiterate his opposition to a framework agreement reached between the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany (P5+1) with Iran, designed to curb the Islamic Republic's nuclear program so that it will not be able to use it for military purposes.

"Instead of demanding Iran significantly dismantle its nuclear capabilities and conditioning lifting sanctions on it ending its aggressions, the world powers are retreating, leaving Iran with nuclear capabilities and even allowing it to expand them later on regardless to its actions in the Middle East and around the world," he said. "Has the world really learned from the incomprehensible universal and Jewish tragedy of the previous century," he asked, referring to the Holocaust, in which some 6 million Jews were killed by the Nazis.

"The powers turn a deaf ear to the crowds in Iran shouting 'Death to America; death to Israel,'" he added. "The democratic governments made a momentous mistake before World War Two and we, along with many of our neighbors, are convinced that a bitter mistake has also been made now." Netanyahu has repeatedly railed against the framework nuclear agreement between the P5+1 group and Iran, which is meant to be finalized by June 30, leading to a lifting of longstanding economic sanctions on Tehran.

His latest comments came just hours before Israel came to a standstill on Thursday, with sirens wailing for two minutes to mark the anniversary of the liberation of Nazi concentration camps 70 years ago.

And all of this is part of a larger trend. In 2013, we witnessed the most volcanic eruptions worldwide that we had ever seen in a single year, and 2015 is already threatening to be another one for the record books. All over the planet, volcanoes that have long been dormant are beginning to wake up, and this is greatly puzzling many scientists. Fortunately, most of the eruptions in recent years have been relatively small.

But scientists tell us that if we do see a VEI 7 or a VEI 8 eruption today, the amount of energy that would be released would be somewhere in the neighborhood of a million nuclear bombs going off all at once, and such an eruption would completely literally transform our civilization almost overnight. The last VEI 7 eruption that the world witnessed was in Indonesia in 1815.

Just a single VEI 7 or VEI 8 eruption could fundamentally alter the way that we all live our lives in a single moment. Despite all of our knowledge and all of our technology, the forces of nature are still vastly more powerful than we are, and scientists assure us that someday the United States will be directly confronted with that reality.

In addition, government authorities have scheduled a whole host of unusual “training exercises” all over the nation. So are the elite doing all of this in order to prepare for something really BIG, or should we just chalk up all of this strange activity to rampant government paranoia?

In the end, perhaps there is nothing to any of this. Perhaps all of these examples are just unrelated coincidences. But then again, perhaps not.

Ben Enticknap of the conservation group Oceana urged the council to take emergency action, arguing sardines have been overfished since 2009 due to declining reproduction. He added that 90 percent of this year's class of sea lion pups were starving for lack of sardines to eat.

"The sardine populations have crashed 91 percent since 2007," he said after the vote. "We would have liked to see this happen much sooner, but now we can start to rebuild this sardine population that is so important to the health of the ocean."