UK - Russians could be hit with asset freezes and travel bans "within days", Prime Minister says, even if it harms the City and British industries. Sanctions will be imposed on Russia within days unless it loosens its grip on the Ukrainian territory of Crimea, David Cameron announced today.
UKRAINE - Public discussion on Ukraine is all about confrontation. But do we know where we are going? In my life, I have seen four wars begun with great enthusiasm and public support, all of which we did not know how to end and from three of which we withdrew unilaterally. The test of policy is how it ends, not how it begins.
GERMANY - A leading German institute has called for full-blown quantitative easing by the European Central Bank (ECB) to head off a deflation spiral, marking a radical shift in thinking among the German policy elites.
MIDDLE EAST - The Arab League has supported Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's refusal to recognize Israel as a ‘Jewish state,’ the latest setback in a two-state solution. The statement underscores the seemingly impassable chasm that has prevented a diplomatic solution to the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
UK - Years ago when that thoroughly decent man David Steel brought in his Abortion Bill he explained that it was not intended to provide abortion on demand, but to end the sordid trade of the back-street abortionists who frequently botched the procedure, inflicting pain and injury on their clients. Many of those who supported him did so for that reason, despite warnings that it was a step too far on to a very slippery slope which would lead to abortion on demand.
POLAND - The United States is sending a dozen F-16 fighter jets to Poland as a part of a training exercise, amid continuing tensions between Ukraine and Russia, the Polish defence ministry said on Sunday. Three hundred US service personnel will also be sent to Poland as part of the exercise. The deployment will be completed by Thursday. Chuck Hagel, the US Secretary of State for Defence, and his Polish counterpart Tomasz Siemoniak agreed the deployment during a phone call, according to a statement from the Polish ministry. "The unit will be composed of 12 F-16 planes and will transport 300 soldiers," defence ministry spokesman Jacek Sonta told AFP. The fighters had been sent following a request from Poland.
USA - If the US economy is getting better, then why are major retail chains closing thousands of stores? If we truly are in an "economic recovery", then why do sales figures continue to go down for large retailers all over the country?
VENEZUELA - Hundreds of National Guardsmen in riot gear and armoured vehicles prevented an “empty pots march” from reaching Venezuela’s food ministry on Saturday to protest against chronic food shortages. President Nicolás Maduro’s socialist government, meanwhile, celebrated an Organisation of American States (OAS) declaration supporting its efforts to bring a solution to the country’s worst political violence in years, calling it a diplomatic victory. The United States, Canada and Panama were the only nations to oppose the declaration. All over Venezuela, people spend hours every week queuing at supermarkets, often before dawn, without even knowing what may arrive. “There’s nothing to buy. You can only buy what the government lets enter the country because everything is imported. There’s no beef. There’s no chicken,” said Zoraida Carrillo, a 50-year-old marcher in Caracas.
UK - Adults from ethnic minority backgrounds are more likely to be educated to a high standard than their white British peers, according to research. Figures show they are significantly more likely to hold a degree and less likely to have no qualifications at all than their white counterparts. People from the best-qualified group – Chinese – were around 75 per cent more likely to be university educated than those identified as white British. The study by Manchester University also found that many ethnic minorities had seen bigger overall improvements in education standards over the last 20 years.
UK - Virginia Howes has delivered 500 babies as an independent midwife but her occupation is under threat. Virginia can’t imagine doing any other job but after a government decision last week she may have to. It rejected a proposal to fund indemnity insurance, which protects the midwife if anything goes wrong, for independent midwives who operate outside the NHS. The decision means that when a new EU directive is brought in later this year midwives such as Virginia could be working illegally. Up to 200 independent midwives across Britain could lose their livelihood and the 3,000 women they guide through childbirth each year will have to find alternative care.
EUROPE - EU bureaucrats want new powers that would allow their inspectors to remove any plants on the Brussels hit list. Garden favourites such as the Virginia creeper and Hottentot fig are likely to be top of the list along with several types of rhododendron. The aim is to eliminate invasive non-native species that threaten to cause problems in the countryside. However, the Royal Horticultural Society last night expressed its concern at the secrecy behind the decision-making and warned that whole species, including garden hybrids, could end up being banned. Under the new rules, authorities will have the power to come into people’s homes and destroy plants, including popular shrubs such as cotoneasters, which could well be on the banned list.
UK - Easy changes in lifestyle could slash UK cancer cases by tens of thousands. The steps to take are quitting smoking, losing weight, exercising regularly, drinking less alcohol and eating more fruit and vegetables. The first study to look at the effect of following all five rules had dramatic results. It found nearly half of all lung cancers would be prevented completely and the risk of tumours of any kind would be slashed by almost 20 per cent. A number of breakthrough studies have highlighted how each change in lifestyle individually can help ward off the disease. But the 15-year long research involving more than 65,000 people found that following all five could have a major effect on cancer death rates. Last night, experts said the results confirmed that many cancers can be prevented by small adjustments to diet and lifestyle.
NORTHERN CALIFORNIA, USA - A magnitude 6.9 earthquake off the coast of Northern California on Sunday night was the largest on the West Coast since the 7.2 Baja California quake in 2010. Sunday's temblor was followed by a series of at least 13 aftershocks as large as a magnitude 4.6, according to the US Geological Survey. The big quake occurred at 10:18 pm in the Pacific Ocean 50 miles west of Eureka in Humboldt County. The USGS put the depth of the quake at about four miles. Several of the aftershocks were much closer to land, including one about 16 miles off the coast that registered as a magnitude 3.4. By California standards, Sunday's quake was large. Two larger recent quakes occurred in remote areas: the 1999 Hector Mines temblor, magnitude 7.1, and the 1992 Landers quake, which was magnitude 7.3.
EGYPT - The Arab League on Sunday backed Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’s refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, Al-Arabiya reports. The head of the Arab League, Nabil Elaraby, reportedly urged Arab countries to take a “firm stand” against Israel’s demand for the PA to recognize it as a Jewish state.
MIDDLE EAST - Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party is not ruling out a violent struggle against Israel, a senior member of the party recently said. “None of us, especially in Fatah, has ruled out the military options,” declared Fatah Central Committee member Abbas Zaki in an interview which aired on February 26 on Hezbollah’s Al-Manar television.
“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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