UK - Rural campaigners have criticised comments that the government has to choose between town and countryside over which should get priority for flooding defences. Deluged farming communities nationwide have expressed their anger and frustration at the Environment Agency (EA) chairman’s flood policy that the government can “protect towns or country, not both” and that homes rather than agricultural land must take priority. "For [Lord] Chris Smith to say that and infer that farm land is unimportant is quite frankly ridiculous. Where do they think the food comes from?"
EUROPE - The extent of corruption in Europe is "breathtaking" and it costs the EU economy at least 120 billion euros (£99 billion) annually, the European Commission says. EU Home Affairs Commissioner Cecilia Malmstroem has presented a full report on the problem. She said the true cost of corruption was "probably much higher" than 120 billion. Organised crime groups have sophisticated networks across Europe and the EU police agency Europol says there are at least 3,000 of them. Bulgaria, Romania and Italy are particular hotspots for organised crime gangs in the EU, but white-collar crimes like bribery and VAT (sales tax) fraud plague many EU countries.
ISRAEL - Figures detailing Israel's water levels show that January was an extremely arid month, with water readings in certain areas at the lowest ever since the meteorological services began keeping records 88 years ago. The Kinneret Lake's level was at 25% less than average for the month of January. In the national scale, the amount of precipitation from last September through January was only 64% the annual average for the same period. Israel has been suffering from drought for several years.
USA/ISRAEL - US Secretary of State John Kerry on Saturday threatened Israel that a failure in the peace talks would lead to global boycotts and de-legitimization of the Jewish state. The warning comes as no surprise to those familiar with reports earlier in the month, which revealed that Kerry is orchestrating the European boycotts against Israel.
UK - Credit card companies are quietly raking in an extra £1.4 billion a year by shrinking the minimum amount cardholders have to pay back. Around one in ten borrowers repays only the minimum sum requested every month and each now finds themselves more than £400 worse off each year.
USA - California's water agency has announced it may for the first time be unable to deliver water to local agencies, amid a worsening drought. Two-thirds of state residents and 1 million acres (404,500 hectares) of farmland get part or all of their drinking and irrigation supplies from the agency.
ISRAEL - George Orwell constructed a world in his Classic Work "1984" that more resembles the world of today than back 30 years ago. With the fall of the Berlin Wall under President Reagan the world had a true chance to move forward and upward.
USA - Show this article to anyone that believes that the economy has actually improved under Barack Obama. On Tuesday evening, Barack Obama once again attempted to convince all of us that things have gotten better while he has been in the White House.
USA - Feel like Big Brother is watching you these days? You’re not alone. “This is not some far-out Orwellian scenario,” wrote the late William Safire of The New York Times in 2002, in the panicky aftermath of 9/11.
PAKISTAN - Top-secret documentation collected by Pakistani field officers gives detailed information on 330 US drone strikes that have occurred in Pakistan since 2006. The CIA-run program is estimated to have killed 2,371 people. From solitary individuals riding on horseback to mountain hideouts crammed with people, the CIA drone program has had no shortage of targets in the Islamic Republic, according to newly released information obtained by The Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ).
UK - Women are being failed by NHS maternity services with more than 14 babies a day in England either stillborn or dying within seven days of their birth, according to a scathing report by MPs. It said there were 5,183 such tragedies in England in 2011 – at rates higher than in other EU nations. Separate data from the World Health Organisation reveals that the country’s stillbirth rate is 3.5 per 1,000 births. Only a handful of European countries including France, Austria, Latvia, Bosnia and Romania have a worse rate.
SUMATRA, INDONESIA - A volcano has erupted on Indonesia's western island of Sumatra, killing at least 11 people, officials have said. Mount Sinabung, which has been active with low-level eruptions for months, spewed clouds of hot ash into the air, engulfing nearby villages. Emergency official Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said a group of schoolchildren on a sightseeing trip were among the dead. The volcano began to rumble last September after being dormant for three years.
USA - Global equities recorded their worst start to a year since 2010 as turmoil in emerging markets left nervous participants seeking safety in highly rated government bonds, the dollar and the yen. The mood of risk aversion in the markets intensified this week as central banks in India, Turkey and South Africa raised interest rates to counter increasing pressure on the currencies of all three countries, and offset the risk of rising inflation. However, the policy makers’ actions had only limited success, and raised concerns in some quarters that they smacked of desperation.
USA - Retiring Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, who was replaced by Janet Yellen as of today, is leaving the Federal Reserve with an unprecedented $4,102,138,000,000 in total assets on its balance sheet, up 391 percent from the $834,663,000,000 in total assets the Fed showed on its balance sheet when Bernanke took over as chairman in February 2006. Much of the increase in the Fed’s assets has come in the form of US Treasury securities and Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae mortgage-backed securities that the Fed purchased over the last five years in its attempts to stimulate the economy.
UK - On the streets and in people’s minds, a ghost is rising: one we haven’t seen stirring with such menace for almost eighty years. The ghost of Oswald Mosley is walking amongst us and, like any good ghost story, it should send a chill down our collective spine. Our beloved right wing press, UKIP and the noisy, ever-growing hard-line faction within the Tories do an excellent job of whipping up a storm of ill feeling aimed at migrants coming to the UK. Recently, the outpouring of hatred has been due to the lifting of restrictions stopping Bulgarian and Romanian immigration to the UK. Much of our Muslim community will almost be relived that right-wingers have a new bogeyman, for the time being.
“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
