UK - The leaders of all the major faiths in Britain are issuing an unprecedented joint attack on Lord Falconer’s assisted dying Bill, condemning it as a “grave error” which would change British society forever. The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev Justin Welby, Cardinal Vincent Nichols, the leader of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales, and the Chief Rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis, are among 23 religious leaders issuing a direct plea to Parliament on the eve of the Bill’s first hearing.
GERMANY/PERU - The Catholic relief organization Misereor is sharply criticizing the new "Raw Materials Partnership" accord, concluded between the Federal Republic of Germany and Peru. Misereor writes that it fears "an aggravation" of the already growing "social conflicts developing around mining projects" in this South American country. This recently signed raw materials treaty grants German companies privileged access to Peru's resources. The German government has now "signaled the Peruvian government" that "the expansion of the raw materials sector takes priority" over social and ecological regulations affecting that sector.
USA - The US Federal Reserve has begun to pivot. Monetary tightening is coming sooner than the world expected, with sober implications for overheated bourses, and for those in Asia, eastern Europe and Latin America that drank deepest from the draught of dollar liquidity. We can expect a blistering dollar rally, perhaps akin to the early 1980s or the mid-1990s. It is fortuitous that the BRICS quintet of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa have just launched their $100 billion monetary fund to defend each other's currencies. Some of them may need it.
MIDDLE EAST - All the claims that the Jews are planning to destroy the Al-Aqsa mosque are false. For years it has been protected and guarded by Israel. If they wanted to, the Jews could let Hamas's missiles land in Jerusalem, possibly destroying the mosques on the Temple Mount, or they could destroy the mosques themselves and claim that Hamas's rockets had done it. Not the Jews but Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, in their efforts to destroy the holy city, prove that Jerusalem and its mosques are of no importance to them.
USA - There’s a lot to love about America and its people: their pioneering spirit, their entrepreneurship, their ability to think outside the box, their passion for the arts, etc. Increasingly, however, as time goes by, I find the things I don’t like about living in a nation that has long since ceased to be a sanctuary for freedom are beginning to outnumber the things I love.
USA - A decade ago, exposure of President George W Bush’s Total Information Awareness scheme brought assurances that it had been shelved, but its Orwellian intent was only shifted to the NSA and it now gives the US government nearly god-like powers, says Norman Solomon. As a matter of faith, some people believe that God can see and hear everything. But as a matter of fact, the US government now has the kind of surveillance powers formerly attributed only to a supreme being.
ISRAEL - A five-hour humanitarian ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas has begun in the Gaza Strip after nine days of fighting. Correspondents say people are queuing outside banks and traffic is building up as they rush to get supplies. Fighting continued until the truce came into effect at 10:00 local time (07:00 GMT). Officials in Gaza say Israeli raids have left 227 Palestinians dead. Hamas rocket attacks have killed one Israeli. Israel launched its military operation on 8 July with the stated objective of halting Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel. However, the United Nations says most of those killed in Gaza have been civilians. Israel accuses Hamas of hiding its military infrastructure within the civilian population. A senior Israeli security official told the BBC the military would "respond and intercept immediately" if attacked during the ceasefire.
USA - The California state Senate sees their share of interesting and controversial legislation proposals. One of the most recent bills, Assembly Bill No. 1014, is one which, if passed, would permit the secret seizure of a California state resident’s guns, after just one complaint that they pose a risk of committing an act of violence. California Assembly members Das Williams, a Democrat from Carpinteria, and Nancy Skinner, a Democrat from Berkeley, first introduced the legislation last year. Favor of the bill increased after the Island Vista shooting rampage on May 23, when the shooter’s mother claimed she had raised concerns about her son’s mental state, but no action had been taken. Even if no crime had been committed, the bill states that it would permit a court to issue an “ex parte gun violence restraining order,” along with a firearm seizure warrant based solely on the “reckless use, display, or brandishing” of firearms, or on the “recent acquisition of firearms or other deadly weapons.“
GERMANY - Its football team brushes aside all opposition to win the World Cup. Its Chancellor Angela Merkel dominates the European continent. Its mighty export machine keeps its factories humming, racking up big trade surpluses, and laying the foundations for what many people regard as the world’s most successful economy. There is not much wrong with Germany right now — and plenty that is right.
JAPAN - The research was carried out by scientists at the Institute of Earth Sciences in Grenoble, France and the Institute of Global Physics in Paris, working in collaboration with Japanese scientists. On 22 June 2014 Mount Fuji was added to the World Heritage List as a Cultural Site, one of Japan’s ‘Three Holy Mountains’. For the first time they observed the response of Japanese volcanoes to seismic waves produced by the Tohoko earthquake of 2011. Their conclusions, published in Science, reveal how earthquakes can impact volcanoes and should help to assess the risk of massive volcanic eruptions worldwide. 'Our work does not say that the volcano will start erupting, but it does show that it's in a critical state,' Dr Florent Brenguier, lead author of the publication, told The Guardian.
USA - China became the largest international buyer of US homes (in dollar value) last year, according to a report from NAR, taking over from Canada. In terms of volume of transactions, Canadians still represented the largest foreign buyers. Over the 12 months ended March 2014, Chinese buyers bought about $22 billion worth of properties in the US, accounting for about 25% of total international sales. What's more, 76% of sales were all-cash purchases, while 24% required mortgage financing. But what exactly were Chinese buyers looking for and where were they looking? California, Washington, and New York were the biggest markets for Chinese buyers. The median price of homes they purchases was $523,148.
USA - It’s cost $40 billion so far to clean up America’s biggest nuclear waste site — half the size of Rhode Island — and it’s going to take another 40 years and $100 billion to finish the job. In the meantime, workers from the Hanford nuclear site in Washington State are still getting sick from exposure to any one of 1,400 chemicals identified there, while allegations of mismanagement, negligence and secrecy over what may be life-threatening risks persist. And delays keep piling up even though at least a third of the aging tanks storing 56 million gallons of radioactive waste have leaked or are leaking, pouring some of the world’s most dangerous contaminants into the Columbia River.
USA - From our fields to our forks, huge corporations have an overwhelming amount of power over our food supply every step of the way. Right now there are more than 313 million people living in the United States, and the job of feeding all of those people is almost entirely in the hands of just a few dozen monolithic companies. If you do not like how our food is produced or you don't believe that it is healthy enough, it isn't very hard to figure out who is to blame. These mammoth corporations are not in business to look out for the best interests of the American people. Rather, the purpose of these corporations is to maximize wealth for their shareholders.
UK - The "worried well" are contributing to a boom in celebrity-inspired "free from" foods, as analysis shows half of shoppers now buy produce without gluten, wheat or lactose. Just one per cent of the UK population has been diagnosed with coeliac disease, an autoimmune condition that requires sufferers to avoid all gluten, and an estimated 15 per cent are lactose intolerant. However, the market for "free from" foods has doubled in the past five years as an increasing number of people cut out foods from their diet as part of a "lifestyle choice". Tesco buyer Lauren Tredgett told the magazine that "the massive growth in demand is being driven by an increase in customers becoming more aware of their intolerance to wheat and gluten".
GERMANY - Amid the worsening Berlin-Washington spy row, German politicians are considering going back to old-fashioned manual typewriters for confidential documents to protect national secrets from American NSA spooks. Patrick Sensburg, the chair of the German parliament’s enquiry into NSA alleged spying, said committee members are considering new security measures and are seriously thinking about abandoning email and returning to old school typewriters. “As a matter of fact, we already have [a typewriter], and it’s even a non-electronic typewriter,” he told the ARD Morning Show Monday.
“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!
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