IRAN - US Secretary of State John Kerry has warned Iran that talks on its nuclear programme cannot last forever, after a new round failed to make progress. "This is not an interminable process," he said after arriving in Istanbul, at the start of a 10-day trip to the Middle East, Europe and Asia. World powers failed to make headway at two days of talks with Iran in Almaty. Mr Kerry also called on Turkey and Israel to restore good relations without delay.
GERMANY - At first glance, Bernd Lucke seems an unlikely character to be causing sleepless nights for the high command of the European Union. Boyish-looking, softly-spoken and an economics professor, he is almost unheard of outside of his homeland, and far from a household name even within Germany.
ARGENTINA - Argentina's Navy is so poorly funded that only 14 of its 42 vessels are operational - and these can only sail for 10 days at a time. The news emerges just days after Argentine President Kristina de Kirchner met new Pope Francis I and pleaded with him to intervene in the Falklands dispute. Last year, while still Archbishop of Buenos Aires, he declared that the South Atlantic islands had been "usurped" by Britain. With seaborne assault out of the question, diplomatic pressure is now all she can hope for. Argentina is now struggling with 25 per cent inflation and owes many billions in foreign debts.
PORTUGAL - Portugal was teetering on the brink of a new political crisis after its high court blocked austerity plans presented in the 2013 budget, a move that threatened to derail its bailout commitments with European partners.
UK - Fears over a bird flu epidemic in China and the health of the US economy saw almost £24 billion wiped off the value of Britain’s top companies yesterday. The FTSE 100 was down 1.49 per cent after figures showed America created far fewer jobs in March than expected. The London market was 94 points lower at 6249, while on Wall Street the Dow Jones also weakened. Economic fears were compounded by nervousness about an outbreak of bird flu in China which has so far claimed six lives. A third day of falls has seen the FTSE shed £40 billion in value since Tuesday.
USA - On March 23, my colleague Mark Finkelstein noted how MSNBC's Melissa Harris-Perry considers the unborn child a "thing" which takes a "lot of money" to "turn into a human," costing thousands of dollars to care for each year of his/her life. Now it appears that Harris-Perry thinks that, after they're born, children fundamentally belong to the state.
UK - Vegetarian or vegan employees with deeply held beliefs should be allowed to exert their rights in the workplace by refusing to sit on leather chairs or clean out office fridges containing meat or dairy products, according to new guidance.
IRAN - Talks between world powers and Iran on its nuclear programme have ended without agreement, with the EU saying their positions "remain far apart". Over two days of talks in Almaty, Iran was asked to give up work on its most sensitive nuclear activities in return for an easing of sanctions. Iran said it was up to the world powers to demonstrate willingness to take confidence-building steps. World powers suspect Iran of a covert nuclear weapons programme.
JAPAN - The Bank of Japan unleashed the world's most intense burst of monetary stimulus on Thursday, promising to inject about $1.4 trillion into the economy in less than two years, a radical gamble that sent the yen reeling and bond yields to record lows.
AUSTRALIA - The cascade of WikiLeaks-style revelations shedding light on the often murky world of offshore tax havens began when Gerard Ryle received a mysterious letter in the post.
EUROPE - Everyone learned a lesson from the “bail-in” of the Cypriot banks: Russian account holders who’d laundered and stored their money on the sunny island; bank bondholders who’d thought they’d always get bailed out; Cypriot politicians whose names showed up on lists of loans that had been extended by the Bank of Cyprus and Laiki Bank but were then forgiven and written off.
HOLLAND - An interesting development in the precious metals market is that the largest Dutch bank, ABN Amro, has said that they will no longer be providing physical delivery of precious metals including gold, silver, platinum, and palladium bullion coins and bars.
AUSTRALIA - A currency deal enabling the Australian dollar to be converted directly into Chinese yuan, slashing costs for thousands of businesses, is set to be the centrepiece of Julia Gillard's mission to China next weekend. Australia would become the third country, after the US and Japan, to secure such an arrangement from China, which is Australia's top trading partner, with exports and imports totalling $120 billion last financial year.
ISRAEL - Hackers around the globe are making final preparations for a cyberattack against Israel — purported to be the biggest attack to date • They will try to hack into banks, infiltrate government sites and infect users • Israel is also preparing itself.
CHINA - A new and deadly strain of bird flu is threatening two eastern Chinese provinces, with health authorities and virologists suspecting that a virus mutation is the link between the dead pigs that floated past Shanghai, dead migratory birds in north China, and the deaths of three people. Two new cases of H7N9 bird flu, one of them fatal, have been reported in east China’s Zhejiang Province, bringing the total number of infections in the country to nine, according to a report by Chinese regime’s state media Xinhua.
“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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