Japan split over revision to pacifist constitution

JAPAN - Japan marked the 67th anniversary of its postwar constitution Saturday with growing debate over whether to revise the war-renouncing charter in line with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's push for an expanded role for the military. The ruling conservative party has long advocated revision but been unable to sway public opinion. Now Abe is proposing that the government reinterpret the constitution to give the military more prominence without having to win public approval for the revisions. His push, backed by the US which wants Japan to bear a greater burden of its own defense, has upset the liberals who see it as undermining the constitution and democratic processes. An Abe-appointed panel of defense experts is currently finalizing a recommendation to allow collective self-defense, expected in mid-May, which would pave the way for a Cabinet approval.

 
No limitations on German banks operating in Iran: official

IRAN - There are no limitations on German banks opening branches and offices in Iran, Behrouz Alishiri, the head of Iran’s Organization for Investment and Economic and Technical Assistance, said. In a meeting with a delegation of German businessmen in Tehran, Alishiri said the volume of trade between Iran and Germany has dropped in the past two years due to international economic sanctions imposed on Iran, the Mehr News Agency reported on Saturday.

First openly gay Anglican bishop Gene Robinson announces divorce

USA - Gene Robinson, the first openly gay bishop in the Anglican church, whose ordination split the church in the United States, is to divorce his husband after four years of marriage. The 66-year-old retired bishop married in 2010 when the state of New Hampshire legalised gay marriage, but had been in a relationship with his partner, Mark Andrew, for more than 25 years before announcing the split in an email to the diocese of New Hampshire last weekend. In an article explaining the divorce, Bishop Robinson said that specific reasons would be remain private, but said responsibility fell “on the shoulders of both parties” while paying tribute to Mr Andrew as one of the “kindest, most generous and loyal human beings on earth”.

 
Pope Francis' Holy Land visit: The Itinerary

VATICAN/ISRAEL - In his trip to Jordan, West Bank and Israel between May 24-26, Pope Francis will visit sites important to Christians, Jews and Muslims alike. After spending Saturday, May 24 in Jordan, Pope Francis will arrive in the West Bank on May 25. He will meet with leaders of the Palestinian Authority, and then conduct a holy mass at Manger Square, an important city square in central Bethlehem. The square is home to the Church of the Nativity – the birthplace of Jesus Christ, according to Christian tradition.

Al-Aqsa Imam: Arab Legions Should Attack Jaffa and Haifa

MIDDLE EAST - During a recent conference in Milan, Italy, an imam from the Al-Aqsa Mosque called on “Arab legions” to attack Jaffa and Haifa. The public address delivered by Imam Raed Al-Daan aired on the Al-Jazeera network on April 27 and was translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).

City fights new Trojan Horse Islamic schools plot

UK - Teachers in Bradford are fighting to prevent a takeover of Muslim-majority state schools by a group closely linked to the alleged “Trojan Horse” plotters in Birmingham. Two successful head teachers in the Yorkshire city have left their jobs and a third has been subjected to “constant” criticism by governors trying to “drive her out”, staff at the schools concerned said.

The Last Two Times This Happened, The Stock Market Crashed

USA - The last two times when margin debt reversed and fell after a record-breaking spike, all hell broke loose. In 2000, it was simultaneous. In 2007, it was delayed by a few months. On the surface, everything is still hunky-dory. The Dow is just fractions below its all-time high that it set on Wednesday. But beneath the surface, parts of the stock market are already coming unglued, and holders of momentum stocks have been eviscerated.

Wall Street Criminals Threaten that Economy Will Blow Up If They’re Prosecuted

USA - The Department of Justice is “considering” initiating criminal charges against 2 banks. In response, the normal cast of characters is saying – as they have for years – that prosecuting banks will cause a meltdown of the economy.

Mutiny of the Lab Rats: Europeans Grow Weary of EU Experiment

EUROPE - The people of Europe are finally pushing back against the European Super State, if recent polls are anything to go by. Having grown weary of being treated as lab rats in an increasingly dysfunctional economic and political experiment, a large minority of Europeans seem intent on voting for euroskeptic parties in the upcoming European elections.

Despite the unemployment rate plummeting, more than 92 million Americans remain out of the labor force

USA - The unemployment rate dropped to 6.3 percent in April from 6.7 percent in March, the lowest it has been since September 2008 when it was 6.1 percent. The sharp drop, though, occurred because the number of people working or seeking work fell. The Bureau of Labor Statistics does not count people not looking for a job as unemployed. The amount of Americans not in the labor force in April rose to 92,594,000, almost 1 million more than the previous month. In March, 91,630,000 Americans were not in the labor force, which includes an aging population that is continuing to head into retirement.

 
Are the End Times Upon Us? Author Says ‘Unrestrained Immorality’ Mirrors ‘Pandemic Godlessness’ Seen in the Bible

USA - Is mankind evolving into a more peaceful and prosperous people – or are we on a path toward ever-increasing moral depravity, social chaos and destruction? Answering that dichotomy depends on one’s worldview, but Christian author Jeff Kinley is in the latter camp, telling TheBlaze that he sees human beings continuously and perilously cutting God out of society. “I look around my world and I think, ‘Wow, we’ve written God out of our own story here,’” Kinley recently said in an interview. “We’re content in living in our own lives.” While he said it’s impossible to judge when the end times might unfold, Kinley described the current conditions as matching those presented in the Bible, citing Matthew 24, among other references. “As we ramp up to the end times, there’s going to be, as Romans 1 describes, a simmering hostility against God, against biblical morality,” Kinley told TheBlaze.

 
Germany's interest in Adolf Hitler at record levels

GERMANY - Germans are more interested in Adolf Hitler that at any time since the end of the Second World War, a new study has concluded. The German Media Control research group, which monitors broadcasting, found that documentaries about Hitler are aired twice a day on German television channels and that books and films about the Nazi leader are being produced in record numbers. It established that 242 programmes dealing specifically with Hitler had been shown on television during the first four months of 2013, while 500 other films and documentaries that had dealt with the Nazi era in general had also been aired. Some 2,000 books on Hitler were published in Germany last year. Germany's public ZDF Info channel was found to have screened 109 documentaries on Hitler this year alone.

 
Roger Bootle: why the European Union must change

EUROPE - The EU is a malfunctioning construct for today’s world – and even more so for tomorrow’s. It needs either to undergo fundamental reform or to break up. It was conceived in a world of large blocs, dominated by the Cold War rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union and before globalisation and the rise of the emerging markets. Its agenda of harmonisation and integration inevitably leads to excessive regulation and the smothering of competition. This is largely why, in contrast to the prevailing view that the EU has been an economic success, its economic performance has in fact been relatively poor. If nothing changes, the EU’s share of world GDP is set to fall sharply and, with it, Europe’s influence in the world. Meanwhile, the EU is becoming more unpopular; most people do not want to press on to a full political union; and increasing numbers of its citizens want to leave the EU altogether. European integration is the great issue of our day.

 
Media Focuses In On Flight 370 Conspiracy Theories While World Edges Closer To War

USA - The corporate media has literally spent over a week obsessing endlessly over conspiracy theories involving the alleged disappearance of Malaysian Airlines Flight 370. If you’ve tuned into any of the American cable news networks be it Fox News, CNN or MSNBC over the past several days you would think that this is the only news story of importance. These propaganda pushers have logged countless hours engaging in speculation and conjecture over what may or may not have happened with this airplane. Meanwhile, historically significant events are unfolding in Ukraine that could impact the world for years to come. It'd be one thing if they were providing real analysis but all of their coverage is designed for the purpose of distraction.

 
Polls: Americans Are Sick of the War

USA - Americans Are Sick of the War On Terror, War On Drugs … And All of the Other Failed US Wars. The American people are now overwhelmingly opposed to more war in Ukraine, Syria, Iran and elsewhere. A new Wall Street Journal/NBC poll shows: "Americans in large numbers want the US to reduce its role in world affairs even as a showdown with Russia over Ukraine preoccupies Washington… In a marked change from past decades, nearly half of those surveyed want the US to be less active on the global stage, with fewer than one-fifth calling for more active engagement — an anti-interventionist current that sweeps across party lines.

 
“Just what is an APOSTLE?”
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

Listen to Me, You who know righteousness, You people in whose heart is My Law: …I have put My words in your mouth, I have covered you with the shadow of My hand, That I may plant the heavens, Lay the foundations of the earth, and say to Zion, “you are My people” (Isaiah 51:7,16)