USA - Some of the most drought-ravaged areas of the US are also heavily targeted for oil and gas development using hydraulic fracturing - a practice that exacerbates water shortages - according to a new report.
IRAN - Islamic Jihad leader Ramadan Abdullah Shalah is currently in Iran to meet senior officials of the Islamic regime. On Wednesday, the terror group leader met Ali Larijiani, chairman of the Iranian parliament.
ISRAEL/VATICAN - Pope Francis apparently plans to heed Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas's calls, and use his upcoming visit to Israel in May as a propaganda move for the Palestine Authority (PA) against Israel, according to reports in Makor Rishon.
SOCHI, RUSSIA - Olympic fans of the world, where are you? Sochi is (more or less) ready for you to come to its Winter Games. Thousands of athletes, soldiers, journalists and herds of smiley volunteers are in place, eager to help. So far, though, it seems like the only spectators milling about are Russian. Fears about terrorism and the hassle of reaching Sochi from points abroad may be keeping some foreigners away - and undermining Vladimir Putin's plans to transform Sochi into a magnet for international tourism. A train travelling between Olympic sites and downtown Sochi cheerily announces to visitors in English: "We wish you a pleasant journey!" But on a recent ride, its seats were half empty. And a sweep through four train cars found ... not a single foreign fan.
RUSSIA - Amid continued debate over whether or not Sochi is prepared to host the 2014 Olympics reporters from around the world are starting to check into local hotels — to their apparent grief. Some journalists arriving in Sochi are describing appalling conditions in the housing there, where only six of nine media hotels are ready for guests. Hotels are still under construction. Water, if it’s running, isn’t drinkable. One German photographer told the AP over the weekend that his hotel still had stray dogs and construction workers wandering in and out of rooms.
IRAQ - Just two years after US troops pulled out of Iraq, the US ambassador there says the country may be one suicide attack away from a full-on civil war. “We’re in a very precarious situation where a misstep anywhere could set off larger conflicts within the country, and that's what we need to stay away from,” Ambassador Robert Stephen Beecroft told “On the Radar” during an interview at the US embassy in Baghdad. “The wrong person gets killed, the wrong mosque gets attacked and exploded and you run the risk of sectarian conflict.”
UK - Scotland Yard is investigating a far-right group after members launched 'Christian patrols' to 'draw out' and confront Muslims by drinking and smoking outside one of Britain's biggest mosques. Vigilantes from Britain First, a group led by a former BNP linchpin, filmed themselves on Brick Lane in east London and told Asian men: 'This is our country. You want to live here, you adhere by our laws'. The group says it is a response to 'Muslim patrols' that walked the area and warned couples holding hands, uncovered women or those drinking it was a 'Muslim area' and they faced 'hell fire'.
USA - Panic is making an enemy of telephones for Catherine Yeung, the director for equities at Fidelity Investment Management Ltd in Hong Kong. “My children hate that BlackBerry,” said Yeung, whose clients have been calling amid two weeks of declines that erased $3 trillion from global stocks. Strategists from Goldman Sachs Group Inc to AMP Capital Investors and JPMorgan Chase & Co are also telling clients to hang on after losses that began with currencies in Turkey and Argentina spread to developed markets. “We didn’t expect the US would be this weak,” Kathy Matsui, chief Japan strategist for Goldman Sachs in Tokyo, said.
UK - Nearly a third of all couples bringing up children have a child from an earlier relationship in their family, a report said yesterday. The rapidly growing number of step-families means that nearly two million children live in a two-parent family – but with one parent who is not their own. The army of step-children has appeared as their parents increasingly come to regard serial relationships, not one committed marriage, as normal behaviour. Sarah Poulter of Aviva said: 'This research shows that there is no "normal" family any more. What was seen as the traditional model is becoming more and more diverse.'
USA - Drought-stricken California farmers facing drastic cutbacks in irrigation water are expected to idle some 500,000 acres of cropland this year in a record production loss that could cause billions of dollars in economic damage, industry officials said. Large-scale crop losses in California, the Number 1 US farm state producing half the nation's fruits and vegetables, would undoubtedly lead to higher consumer prices, especially for tree and vine produce grown only there. Hardest hit would be such annual row crops as tomatoes, broccoli, lettuce, cantaloupes, garlic, peppers and corn. Wade said consumers can also expect higher prices and reduced selection at grocery stores, particularly for products such as almonds, raisins, walnuts and olives.
UK - Horrific storm-force gales of up to 100mph will lash the coasts while devastating gusts of 70mph are expected inland. Up to two inches of rain will pound flood-hit regions in a matter of hours on Friday night before yet another storm smashes into Britain on Saturday.
EUROPE - It’s not like Europe is out of the woods, after years of recession, lurching from bank bailout to country bailout, and sweeping remaining fetid matters under the rug. But its banks are now sinking deeper into an even greater morass: the emerging-markets fiasco.
USA - We find it truly extraordinary that anyone is surprised the financial system is under duress again. After all, what have the Central Banks accomplished in the last five years?
USA - Justice Antonin Scalia predicts that the Supreme Court will eventually authorize another a wartime abuse of civil rights such as the internment camps for Japanese-Americans during World War II.
USA - One of the most significant geopolitical events of 2013 was the failed push for war in Syria by the Obama Administration. It didn’t merely fail as a result of a war weary public (although that played a key role), it also failed due to the fact our clownish “leaders” were attempting to offer military support to rebels with a large al-Qaeda element.
“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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