JORDAN - With Washington's backing, Israel is planning to move forward on controversial plans to annex a broad swath of the West Bank, particularly the Jordan Valley, as early as this summer. PM Netanyahu last month issued a likely time table of "within two months". Arab nations, especially in the gulf, have remained uncharacteristically mum about the whole thing as they focus on countering Iran (which has, it should be noted, actually brought Saudi Arabia into a quiet 'covert' intelligence sharing relationship with Israel over the past couple years). But Jordan on Friday finally went on the offensive, with King Abdullah telling the German magazine Der Spiegel that Israeli annexation of parts of the West Bank “will lead to a massive conflict with Jordan”.
TAIWAN - Life goes on almost as normal in Taiwan. The schools are full of children, the streets thronged with shoppers, the bars busy. Even the national sport of baseball has resumed – albeit with no more than 1,000 fans in the stadium. This makes the island nation of 23 million people almost unique among locked down developed countries, a tribute to its success in containing the coronavirus pandemic with just seven deaths and 440 confirmed cases. These figures are even more remarkable when you consider that Taiwan hangs just off the coast of China.
USA - Armed men, a man dressed as Santa Claus, a pop-up barber giving haircuts, and protesters holdings signs which compared President Trump to Rambo and Dr Anthony Fauci to a Nazi were among hundreds who descended on Pennsylvania's state capitol to demand Governor Tom Wolf lift the statewide lockdown. Demonstrators chanted ‘Open us up’ and ‘Let us work’ as they gathered on the steps of the Capitol building in Harrisburg while others in cars circled the area and honked their horns in agreement. Wolf, a Democrat, has faced stiff opposition from Republican-run counties in his state who are demanding that he allow businesses to reopen.
USA - California and Nevada have been rocked by a massive 6.4 magnitude earthquake, with witnesses saying they felt tremors hundreds of kilometres away. The huge 6.4 magnitude quake struck 58km west of Tonopah in Nevada, United States.
Tremors were also felt in Fresno and Clovis in California - hitting just after 4am local time. The earthquake, which has been confirmed by the USGS, hit just after 11am UTC, (12pm BST) at a depth of around 4.1km. One resident of Fresno, a major city of almost half a million people, said: "My bed was shaking and my TV was shaking." EMSC, European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre, claimed the earthquake “has been followed by eight aftershocks”.
GERMANY - Just as Germany starts counting the cost of the coronavirus’s damage to economic growth, officials will get another glimpse of the shaky foundations it was built on. Gross-domestic-product data this week will reflect not only how Europe’s biggest economy began a nosedive in March, but also that its stalling engine was already in need of repair - a legacy of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s rule that will probably outlast the outbreak.
While the virus-induced crash in activity may temporarily drown out any narrative of neglect, it might not silence observers who had long pushed for a large-scale budget stimulus to reinvigorate growth that was outpaced last year by all major euro-area peers, apart from Italy.
USA - The coronavirus has prompted almost two-thirds of American believers of all faiths to feel that God is telling humanity to change how it lives, a new poll finds.
GREECE - On the Greek island of Mykonos, Mayor Kostas Koukas is desperately trying to revive the tourism that is the life blood of the local economy. Koukas, and his counterparts in towns and cities across Europe, are looking to salvage something from the summer season after the coronavirus pandemic brought travel to a standstill. With the disease largely under control in Greece, Mykonos is in a strong position to benefit as restrictions are loosened more quickly than in harder-hit nations like Italy and Spain.
UK - Edward Heath had been warned about the constitutional implications of joining the European Economic Community (EEC) in a letter written by the Lord Chancellor - but he decided to keep quiet and promise the British people the country's entry would not involve any loss of essential sovereignty, unearthed reports reveal.
USA - Even before COVID-19 came along, crazy global weather patterns were playing havoc with harvests all over the globe, the African Swine Fever plague had already killed about one-fourth of all the pigs in the world, and giant armies of locusts the size of major cities were devouring crops at a staggering rate on the other side of the planet. And now this coronavirus pandemic has caused an unprecedented worldwide economic shutdown, and this has put an enormous amount of stress on global food supplies.
USA - There’s plenty of meat in America — for those who can afford it. While many regular American grocers are running out of meat, speciality food producers have plentiful supplies — for those who can afford it.
USA - Armed militia-style protesters have helped businesses across Texas defy coronavirus lockdowns and reopen. Protesters say they are enforcing the Constitution. When Jamie Williams decided to reopen her East Texas tattoo studio last week in defiance of the state’s coronavirus restrictions, she asked Philip Archibald for help. He showed up with his dog Zeus, his friends and his AR-15 semiautomatic rifle...
USA - Many have been warning for years that our economic bubble would eventually burst and that a collapse was inevitably coming, but the ferocity of this new economic crisis has caught just about everyone off guard. And even though some states have been attempting to “reopen” their economies in recent days, the job loss tsunami just continues to roll on.
CHINA - China’s state-run Global Times newspaper warned on Wednesday that, should pressure on the World Health Organization (WHO) to include Taiwan become successful, the Communist Party may be forced to solve “the Taiwan question once and for all via non-peaceful means.” The Global Times blamed the “people of the mainland,” meaning the People’s Republic of China, for the potential violence, asserting Chinese people are increasingly supportive of invading and colonizing Taiwan.
USA - US President Donald Trump has raised already-heightened tensions with Beijing still further by sending a guided-missile destroyer through the Taiwan Strait less than 100 miles from the coast of China. The move is likely to anger China's President Xi Jinping, coming as it does just one week before Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen's inauguration for a second term in office, and given the fact China claims the disputed island as part of its territory.
GERMANY - The highest court in Germany said last Tuesday that parts of the European Central Bank’s (ECB) actions were illegal under German law. The court said one of the ECB’s tools — its quantitative easing program — did not respect “the principle of proportionality” and that the German central bank and government should have challenged the central bank in this regard.
Disclaimer:
The views expressed in this section are not our own, unless specifically stated, but are provided to highlight what may prove to be prophetically relevant material appearing in the media.
“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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