India

Rumors Of Wars: China, India, North Korea, South Korea, Israel And Turkey All Move Toward War

As if we didn’t have enough already going on in 2020, now we are facing the possibility that several regional wars may erupt. China and India had both been pouring troops into a disputed border region, and now there has been an incident where they were actually killing each other. On the Korean peninsula, North Korea just blew up “a joint liaison office” that it had used for talks with the South Korean government. And in the Middle East, Turkey is warning of grave consequences if Israel goes ahead with a plan to annex portions of Judea and Samaria. If a major regional war erupts at even one of these flashpoints, it will be another devastating blow for a global economy that is already imploding, and there is a very strong probability that the U.S. and other major western powers could be drawn into the conflict.

Right now, most Americans are focused on our internal problems, and so they are paying very little attention to the growing crisis on the border between China and India.

Both nations had sent substantial contingents of troops to an area of the border that has long been disputed, and a meeting that was supposed to defuse tensions actually resulted in soldiers killing one another…

Chinese state media described the incident Monday night in the Galwan River valley where both countries have deployed troops in recent weeks as “the most serious clash between Chinese and Indian soldiers so far,” confirming casualties but offering no further details about them. Indian government sources speaking on the condition of anonymity told The Times of India that 20 Indian army personnel had died in the fighting.

American intelligence believes 35 Chinese troops died, including one senior officer, a source familiar with that assessment tells U.S. News. The incident took place during a meeting in the mountainous region between the two sides – both of which had agreed to disarm – to determine how the two militaries would safely withdraw their presences from the region.

This is the very first time in decades that Chinese and Indian troops have killed each other, and apparently very little shooting was involved…

The meeting grew tense and resulted in a physical confrontation between the troops. According to the assessment, all of the casualties were from the use of batons and knives and from falls from the steep topography, the source says.

That sounds like a scene from an overly gory Hollywood war movie, but reportedly this actually happened.

Hopefully the leaders of the two nations will be able to cool tensions for a while, but the Chinese have a very long history of very bitter border disputes with their neighbors, and without a doubt China will continue to make attempts to exercise sovereignty over this area.

Meanwhile, tensions on the Korean peninsula have risen to a level that we haven’t seen in many, many years. On Tuesday, North Korea actually blew up a building that had been used for negotiations with South Korea…

North Korea has blown up a joint liaison office used for talks between itself and South Korea, the latest sign that ties between the two longtime adversaries are rapidly deteriorating.

North Korean state media reported that the four-story building, which is located in the town of Kaesong just north of the demilitarized zone that divides the two Koreas, was “completely destroyed by a “terrific explosion” at 2:50 p.m. local time.

That is certainly one way to make a statement.

And this comes just days after Kim Jong Un’s sister, Kim Yo Jong, had issued a very ominous warning…

In a cryptic statement late Saturday, Kim Yo Jong vowed her country would “soon take a next action” against South Korea — a move she suggested would be carried out by the country’s military.

“By exercising my power authorized by the Supreme Leader, our Party and the state, I gave an instruction to the arms of the department in charge of the affairs with enemy to decisively carry out the next action,” Kim said in the state-run Korean Central News Agency.

All of a sudden, North Korea’s approach to relations with South Korea has dramatically shifted, and that shift has coincided with Kim Yo Jong taking a much more prominent role in national affairs.

I believe that there is much more going on in North Korea than we are being told, and Kim Yo Jong appears to favor a much more militant approach than what we have become accustomed to in recent years.

Over in the Middle East, the Times of Israel is reporting that the IDF is gearing up for a “state of war” as Israel prepares to annex portions of Judea and Samaria…

Just over two weeks before a possible Israeli annexation of some as-yet unspecified portion of the West Bank, the Israel Defense Forces is preparing for a wide range of scenarios for potential regional fallout — up to and including a large-scale wave of terror attacks — while still not being told exactly what the government has in mind.

The military is gearing up for possible massive unrest, Channel 12 reported Sunday evening, including what it is calling a potential “state of war” characterized by a Second Intifada-style onslaught of suicide bombing attacks.

This week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu once again made it clear that he does not intend to alter his plans, and that means that the process of annexation could start as soon as the beginning of July.

A few weeks ago, I wrote an entire article about how this could potentially spark a major war in the region, and Arab leaders continue to make it clear that there will be “consequences” if Israel goes through with this…

Israel’s plan to extend its sovereignty to the Jordan Valley, and parts of Judea and Samaria, will “destroy all hopes” for lasting peace in the Middle East, Turkey’s top diplomat said on Wednesday.

“If the occupying power [Israel] crosses the red line, we [Muslim countries] must show that this will have consequences,” Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said during a special meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation Executive Committee, according to Turkey’s Anadolu Agency.

We shall see what happens.

I think that Netanyahu is convinced that Donald Trump is probably going to lose in November, and so that means that he probably believes that he only has a window of a few months in which he could annex portions of Judea and Samaria with U.S. support.

It appears that Netanyahu is absolutely determined to move forward, and it also appears that Israel’s Arab neighbors are prepared to respond very forcefully.

In just a few weeks, missiles could start flying back and forth, and the entire Middle East could erupt in flames.

This is such a critical time, and let us pray for peace.

But without a doubt we are living during a time of “wars and rumors of wars”, and it certainly isn’t going to take much to unleash a major conflict.

About the Author: I am a voice crying out for change in a society that generally seems content to stay asleep. My name is Michael Snyder and I am the publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe. I have written four books that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned) By purchasing those books you help to support my work. I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but due to government regulations I need those that republish my articles to include this “About the Author” section with each article. In order to comply with those government regulations, I need to tell you that the controversial opinions in this article are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the websites where my work is republished. The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions. Those responding to this article by making comments are solely responsible for their viewpoints, and those viewpoints do not necessarily represent the viewpoints of Michael Snyder or the operators of the websites where my work is republished. I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help. During these very challenging times, people will need hope more than ever before, and it is our goal to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with as many people as we possibly can.

His Attackers Confirmed That He Was Dead – But Then This Mighty Christian Evangelist Came Back To Life

Incredible miracles are happening all over the world on a continual basis, but we never hear about them because the mainstream media will never cover them.

On this website we hope to highlight many of those miracles so that the world can know that God is still doing the same things today that we read about in the Bible.

In India, one pastor was so dedicated to his evangelistic ministry that he was willing to give his life for the gospel. The following is a short excerpt from a recent article posted by Open Doors…

Tilak’s reply was slow but strong. As soon as he had completed his sentence, his attackers hurriedly tied his hands behind his back and bound his legs together. Grabbing a thick stick, they began to beat him, ordering him to climb the mountain. Amidst the blows, Tilak continued the slow ascent on his hands and knees, dragging himself through thorns and jagged rocks.

His body was bloody and mangled, the pain surreal. A vivid picture of his Lord on the way to Calvary kept him sane as he crawled on through the night, blow by blow, inch by inch. With each passing moment, he felt himself growing weaker, the struggle to move becoming more intense.

He could feel the hatred of these men, and to think–it was all because his ministry had seen 40 families turn to Christ.

How many ministers in the western world would be willing to endure such suffering for the cause of Christ?

Pastor Tilak’s attackers continued to beat him mercilessly, and eventually they believed that they had successfully killed him…

When he could bear it no longer, Tilak collapsed, motionless. The Naxalites checked his pulse. Nothing. They called a village doctor just to be sure. Reassured that they had done their job, the men threw Tilak’s body into a ditch without mercy, returning to the village with their heads held high.

They went straight to the homes of local Christians, laughing and shouting, “See, as your Jesus was beaten and killed, so have we killed your pastor now. His body is in a ditch in the forest. Find him and bury him!”

But even though he had no pulse and everybody thought he was dead, it wasn’t too long before life returned to his body and Pastor Tilak was able to open his eyes…

As local Christians made their way towards Tilak’s hut, they struggled to believe that he was dead. When they arrived and saw his body and the mourning crowd gathered around it, the reality of their pastor’s murder began to set in.

But as they mourned, something unfathomable happened. Slowly at first, Tilak’s body began to move. They were sure their emotions and the dim light were playing tricks on them. It was impossible. As Tilak’s eyes began to gradually open, they were overcome with awe.

He was alive!

I hope that you were as inspired by this story as I was.

God is still in the business of doing miracles, and signs and wonder will follow the ministries of those that are preaching the gospel the way that it should be preached.

Severe Drought: India’s 6th Largest City Is Almost Completely Out Of Water

(CNN) The floor of the Chembarambakkam reservoir is cracked open, dry and sun-baked. About 25 kilometers (15.5 miles) away, in Chennai, India’s sixth largest city, millions of people are running out of water.

Chembarambakkam and the three other reservoirs that have traditionally supplied Chennai are nearly all dry, leaving the city suffering from an acute water shortage, said Jayaram Venkatesan, an activist in the city. (Read More…)

Airstrikes, Tanks Heading To The Border And Planes Shot Down – India And Pakistan Are In A State Of War

War has erupted in Asia. India is the second largest country in the world by population, and Pakistan is the fifth largest, and they both possess large nuclear arsenals. If this conflict continues to escalate, things could get really, really bad very quickly. On Wednesday, military aircraft were shot down by both sides, there was shelling across the border by both armies, and in recent hours videos have been posted of Pakistani tanks and Indian tanks both heading to the border. Once one army crosses the “Line of Control”, it is going to be very difficult to get the two sides to sit down at the negotiating table. War is one of the elements of “the perfect storm” that I have been warning you about, and I have a feeling that this is just the beginning of the conflict that we are going to see in 2019.

The Pakistani military was greatly embarrassed by the successful Indian airstrikes on Monday, and on Tuesday military aircraft from both sides were shot down…

Earlier today Pakistan and India said they had shot down each other’s warplanes, in a dramatic escalation of the dangerous confrontation between the nuclear-armed rivals.

Pakistan said it downed two Indian jets in its airspace and captured two pilots, later amended to one: whom they then seemingly paraded – blindfolded and bloodied – for the camera.

On Tuesday evening, Islamabad used heavy calibre artillery to shell 12 to 15 places along the Indian side creating panic among the populace on the border where bunkers are being hastily thrown up to ease their fears.

When the Indian pilot that was shot down was discovered by locals in Pakistan, they started beating the living daylights out of him. The following comes from the Mirror…

The brief clip shows the cameraman approach a group of people huddled around the stricken pilot in what appears to be a small creek.

The pilot, whose arms are being held above his head, is struck in the face twice before being kicked in the back of the head, with someone behind him appearing to attempt to knee him.

The Pakistani military was able to rescue the pilot from the locals, and they are now holding him in a detention facility.

In addition to airstrikes, it is being reported that both armies “have been shelling across the LoC (Line of Control)”. Needless to say, a lot of civilians that live along the border are really freaked out, and on the Indian side of the border a total of 14,000 bunkers are hastily being constructed to give concerned citizens some shelter.

Most westerners don’t really think of India and Pakistan as prominent global military powers, but the truth is that they both have very large standing armies. And at this point India is allocating even more money than the UK toward military spending…

India, home to 1.3 billion people, has a conventional army of about 1.4 million soldiers. Pakistan, with a population of over 200 million people, has about 650,000 troops. Both countries have spent billions developing conventional arms. Last year, Pakistan spent about $11 billion or about 3.6 percent of its gross domestic product on defense. India meanwhile allocated about $58 billion, or 2.1 percent of its GDP on defense, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies. India’s ballooning military spending has propelled it to the world’s fifth-biggest defense spender, surpassing the United Kingdom, according to the IISS.

But the big concern is that this crisis could go nuclear.

If India and Pakistan fought a war and it stayed strictly conventional, the rest of the world would probably not be affected too much.

However, it is being reported that India and Pakistan both “possess more than 100 nuclear warheads each”, and if such weapons are actually used the global impact would be “devastating”…

Both India and Pakistan are believed to possess more than 100 nuclear warheads each and have conducted atomic weapon tests. Both countries have test-fired nuclear-capable missiles. Pakistan also has refused to renounce a first-strike option with its atomic bombs should it feel outgunned in a conventional war. It takes less than four minutes for a missile fired from Pakistan to reach India. The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists warns that “computer models have predicted that the physical impacts of a nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan, or even a single strike on a large city, would be devastating and would reverberate throughout the world.”

Approximately one out of every five people on the entire planet lives in either India or Pakistan.

So the death toll in a nuclear conflict between these two nations could result in a death toll that would be unimaginable.

And let us not forget that it looks like the U.S. is about to enter another new war as well. In an article that I posted yesterday, I discussed the fact that Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev has just accused the United States of shipping troops to Colombia and Puerto Rico in preparation for an invasion of Venezuela. China has come out very strongly against western military intervention in Venezuela, and the Russians already have special forces there.

If someone makes the wrong move, it could end up sparking World War 3.

We are living in one of the most pivotal times in all of human history, and most people don’t even realize it.

If India backs down, Pakistan will probably be willing to go to the negotiating table. But if India’s tanks cross the Line of Control, Pakistan may feel forced to resort to using nukes because they can’t match India’s military strength, and then all hell could break loose.

Similarly, if the U.S. backs down and doesn’t arm the opposition in Venezuela, there probably won’t be a bloody war in that nation. But if the U.S. arms the opposition and decides to invade on top of that, it is going to unleash a series of negative consequences that we will not be able to control.

Critical decisions are being made right now that are going to greatly alter our future, and let us hope that cooler heads prevail.

About the author: Michael Snyder is a nationally-syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is the author of four books including Get Prepared Now, The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters. His articles are originally published on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News. From there, his articles are republished on dozens of other prominent websites. If you would like to republish his articles, please feel free to do so. The more people that see this information the better, and we need to wake more people up while there is still time.

World War Erupting? India Just Bombed Pakistan, And Russia Is Accusing The U.S. Of Preparing To Invade Venezuela

One country with a large nuclear arsenal just bombed another country with a large nuclear arsenal, and the mainstream media in the United States barely reported on it. And the mainstream media also almost entirely ignored the fact that Russia just publicly accused the United States of preparing to invade Venezuela. Could it be possible that the relative peace and stability that the globe has been experiencing is about to be greatly shaken? Even though I warned about a potential conflict between India and Pakistan just a few days ago, I was stunned when I found out that India had just bombed Pakistan for the first time in more than 40 years…

On Tuesday morning, India launched an airstrike on Pakistani territory, reportedly targeting a militant training facility. The airstrike was in retaliation for a suicide bomb attack that killed dozens of Indian troops in the Indian-controlled part of Kashmir, a disputed border region, earlier this month.

India blamed Pakistan for the suicide attack, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi vowed to “avenge every tear that was shed” for the victims. That vengeance came on Tuesday in the form of an airstrike — the first time India has sent warplanes into Pakistani territory since the 1970s.

The Pakistani military is the most important political entity in that entire nation, and this attack greatly, greatly embarrassed them. The Pakistani government is promising “to respond” to India’s surprise airstrike, and they have even called a special session of the group “that oversees the country’s nuclear weapons”…

Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has now promised to respond. Khan also called a special session of the National Command Authority, the Pakistani government arm that oversees the country’s nuclear weapons, according to the New York Times.

In other words, Pakistan is strongly hinting that they could go nuclear as this crisis escalates.

And one expert on the region is entirely convinced that “there will be some form of escalation”…

“There will be some form of escalation,” Kamran Bokhari, an expert on Pakistani-Indian relations at the Center for Global Policy with the University of Ottawa told Bloomberg. “Pakistan will have to strike back — I am not saying this will lead to an all out war, but I don’t see that it’s over.”

Let us hope that cooler heads prevail, but right now things are extremely, extremely tense.

And it may already be too late to settle things down. Following the airstrike, there were reports that the Pakistani military and the Indian military were “exchanging gunfire” along the border between the two nations…

An Indian Defense spokesman says Pakistan and India are exchanging gunfire along the Line of Control. Tensions continue between the two nuclear armed countries.

Most of us in the western world don’t spend too much time thinking about either India or Pakistan, but the truth is that they are both very important. Approximately one out of every five people on the entire planet lives in one of those two nations, and a nuclear conflict in the region would have enormous consequences for the entire globe.

Meanwhile, the Russians are now publicly accusing the United States of making preparations to invade Venezuela…

Russian Security Council secretary Nikolai Patrushev claims the US is amassing troops near the Venezuelan border ahead of a military operation in the south American country.

US forces have been deployed to “overthrow the lawfully elected incumbent president [of Venezuela] Nicolas Maduro”, he said.

And he didn’t stop with just making a generalized accusation. Patrushev went on to specifically name the countries where U.S. troops have been deployed…

“The transfer of American special forces to Puerto Rico, the landing of US forces in Colombia and other facts clearly indicate that the Pentagon is reinforcing the grouping of troops in the region in order to overthrow the lawfully elected incumbent president Maduro.”

If the Trump administration does ultimately decide to invade Venezuela, we could find ourselves directly fighting Russian troops, because they already have special forces there.

In addition, an invasion of Venezuela would cause our relations with China to deteriorate even further, because they have now come out very strongly against military intervention…

“China maintains that all countries should abide by the basic principles of international law and international relations, opposes foreign interference in the internal affairs of Venezuela, and opposes military intervention in Venezuela,” Ma Zhaoxu, China’s permanent representative to the UN, said at a Security Council meeting on the situation in Venezuela.

The envoy also said China opposes US attempts to offer “humanitarian assistance” to the people of Venezuela, echoing a line used by the Maduro regime that the aid is merely a ploy to try and sow instability in the country.

“China opposes using the issue of so-called humanitarian assistance for political purposes to create disability or even turbulence inside Venezuela and in the neighboring region,” he added.

“This serves no party’s interest,” the ambassador noted.

These are the times that I have been warning about. All of the elements of “the perfect storm” are coming together, and war is one of those elements.

Let’s keep a close eye on the Middle East as well. A major regional war could erupt over there at literally any moment.

After so many horrible wars in the past, humanity has still not learned how to live in peace. And now we possess weapons of mass destruction of immense power, and it is inevitable that those weapons will be used in future conflicts.

The worst wars in human history are ahead of us, and the death and destruction are going to be absolutely unimaginable.

Unfortunately, much of the world seems to be in the mood for war right now, and that is deeply, deeply troubling.

“Wars And Rumors Of Wars”: The U.S., Venezuela, Cuba, Russia, India And Pakistan All Move Closer To Military Conflict

Humanity never seems to learn. During the 20th century, at least 108 million people were killed during all wars combined, and you would think that after so much bloodshed humanity would never want to go down that road again. And in this century, an enormous amount of American blood has already been shed in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere. Unfortunately, the drumbeats of war are starting to get louder once again. Very angry talk often precedes military conflict, and right now there sure is a lot of angry talk going on.

Before we get to the U.S., let’s talk about India and Pakistan. They are both nuclear powers, and thanks to a horrific terror bombing last month, they are once again on the verge of war…

Pakistan’s prime minister offered to hold talks with India, even as he warned New Delhi to refrain from launching any attacks on his country following last week’s suicide bombing in Indian-controlled Kashmir.

Imran Khan said he hoped “better sense” would prevail after the attack on a paramilitary convoy that killed at least 40 Indian troops. But he warned in a televised speech Tuesday that if India attacks, “Pakistan will not merely think of retaliation, but rather, we will retaliate.”

In fact, it is being reported on Twitter that Pakistan has even “begun its logistics preparations for possible war with India”…

#BREAKING: Pakistan has begun its logistics preparations for possible war with India, has put hospitals along the frontier on stand-by mode – @timesofindia

Of course most Americans don’t even know that this is happening.

Sadly, the truth is that most Americans couldn’t even point out where Pakistan and India are on a blank map of the world.

But Americans should at least be concerned that the U.S. could soon be entering a new war. President Trump has repeatedly threatened to use the U.S. military in Venezuela if the Maduro government does not step down peacefully, and that is definitely not going to happen.

In fact, Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino had said that if the U.S. wants regime change in his country, they are going to have to do it “over our dead bodies”…

Trump has refused to rule out US military action in Venezuela. He raised the pressure on Monday, issuing a warning to the Venezuelan military.

He told them that if they continue to support Maduro, ‘you will find no safe harbor, no easy exit and no way out. You will lose everything.’

Padrino rejected Trump’s threat, branding the US president ‘arrogant.’

If foreign powers try to help install a new government by force, they will have to do so ‘over our dead bodies,’ Padrino said.

And could it be possible that U.S. troops are already being positioned for an invasion of Venezuela? That is exactly what Cuba is claiming…

Cuba said Wednesday that the U.S. is secretly moving special forces closer to Venezuela as part of a plan to practice military adventurism in the country under the guise of “humanitarian intervention.”

In a release from Granma, the Cuban government’s official press, Havana officials say that between Feb. 6 and 10 there has been military transport from the U.S. to Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and other Caribbean nations without the knowledge of those countries.

Of course the U.S. is claiming that Cuba already has troops inside Venezuela and is helping to prop up the Maduro regime. And that is probably true. So if the U.S. decides to invade Venezuela, we could find ourselves fighting a war with Cuba also.

In addition, John Bolton is talking as if regime change is on the agenda for Nicaragua too. Just check out what he just posted on Twitter…

The Ortega regime has sentenced three farm leaders to 550 years in prison for their roles in protests in 2018, where Ortega’s police forces reportedly killed 300 activists. As President Trump said Monday, Ortega’s days are numbered and the Nicaraguan people will soon be free.

And previously Bolton had collectively referred to Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba as “the Troika of Tyranny”…

The US has repeatedly backed the uprising against the left-wing government, and last November Bolton made a keynote speech calling for the “crumbling” of what he called the “Troika of Tyranny” – Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Cuba – saying the states represented a “a sordid cradle of communism in the Western hemisphere.”

On Monday, Trump name-checked the same three countries, saying their “great potential” would be unlocked with the collapse of socialism.

On top of everything else, Russian President Vladimir Putin is warning that U.S. that we could soon be facing “a Cuban Missile-style crisis”…

Vladimir Putin has said that Russia is militarily ready for a Cuban Missile-style crisis – if Donald Trump is is ‘foolish’ enough to want one – and that his missiles could reach the US faster that theirs could hit Moscow.

Putin has said he does not want an arms race with the United States, but that he would have no choice but to act if Washington deployed new missiles in Europe, some of which he says would be able to strike Moscow within ten to 12 minutes.

When I hear people call President Trump “a Russian asset”, I just have to laugh.

Our relations with the Russians are going downhill very rapidly, and Trump and Putin are much more likely to start World War 3 than they are to sit down and have a beer together.

And the Russians continue to prepare for the coming war with the United States by creating impressive new weapons systems. For example, they just completed tests on a new intercontinental nuclear torpedo known as “the Poseidon”…

The 24 m long UUV armed with a nuclear warhead is designed to navigate autonomously with a maximum speed of 107 kt and detonate near an enemy coastal city, generating a tsunami wave, Russian state media reported.

“On its way to a target, ‘Poseidon’ will be able to avoid and overcome any anti-submarine barriers and other enemy defence systems due to the fully automated operating system. All together, the intellectual and performance characteristics of the vehicle will make it invulnerable and secure a guaranteed target destruction,” an unnamed defence industry source told Russian state media.

We do not have a similar weapon, and we have absolutely no way to defend against it.

We live at a time of “wars and rumors of wars”, and over the last several decades the nations of the world have armed themselves to the teeth with weapons of mass destruction that would have been unimaginable in previous eras of human history.

We literally have the technology to wipe ourselves off the face of the planet, and let us pray that cooler heads prevail before it is too late.

Major Currencies All Over The World Are In “Complete Meltdown” As The $63 Trillion EM Debt Bubble Implodes

The wait for the next global financial crisis is over. Major currencies all over the planet are in a “death spiral”, many global stock markets are crashing, and economic activity is beginning to decline at a stunning rate in quite a few nations. Over the past 16 years, the emerging market debt bubble has grown from 9 trillion dollars to 63 trillion dollars. Yes, you read that correctly. Now that emerging market debt bubble is imploding, and as a result emerging market currencies all over the globe are in “complete meltdown”. In fact, at least 20 different currencies have fallen by double-digit percentages against the U.S. dollar so far in 2018, and nobody is quite sure what is going to happen next.

You may be tempted to think that this must be a good thing for the United States since the value of the U.S. dollar has been rising, but it is not.

During the “boom years”, trillions of dollars were borrowed by emerging market economies, and a high percentage of those loans were denominated in U.S. dollars. Now that their currencies are crashing, it is going to take much more local currency to service those U.S.-denominated debts, and a whole lot of them are going to start going bad.

That means that many financial institutions here in the United States and over in Europe are going to end up holding enormous piles of bad debt, and the losses could potentially be astronomical.

The dominoes are starting to fall, and even the mainstream media is admitting that what we are facing is really bad. For example, the following comes from a CNBC article entitled “The emerging market crisis is back. And this time it’s serious”…

The crisis has engulfed countries across the globe — from economies in South America, to Turkey, South Africa and some of the bigger economies in Asia, such as India and China. A number of these countries are seeing their currency fall to record levels, high inflation and unemployment, and in some cases, escalating tensions with the United States.

When I say that the world has been on the greatest debt binge in human history since the last financial crisis, I am not exaggerating one bit.

The emerging market debt bubble is now three times larger than it was in 2007, and it is seven times larger than it was in 2002. Here is more from CNBC…

Emerging markets are also heavily plagued by debt and a stronger dollar makes it tougher for them to pay this debt. The latest data from the Institute of International Finance shows that debt in emerging markets including China increased from $9 trillion in 2002 to $21 trillion in 2007 and finally to $63 trillion in 2017.

Of course this bubble was going to burst.

Anyone with half a brain should have been able to see that.

Now we have a full-blown crisis on our hands, and nobody seems to have any idea how to solve it.

As Charles Hugh Smith has observed, emerging market currencies all over the globe “are in complete meltdown”…

As the chart below illustrates, a great many currencies around the world are in complete meltdown. This is not normal. Nations that over-borrow, over-spend and print too much of their currency to generate an illusion of solvency eventually experience a currency crisis as investors and traders lose faith in the currency as a store of value, i.e. the faith that it will have the same (or more) purchasing power in a month that it has today.

This is the chart that Charles Hugh Smith referenced in that quote…

I am not sure that I even have the words to describe financial carnage of that magnitude.

Since the financial markets are not crashing here in the United States yet, most Americans do not really seem to be concerned about this crisis at this point. But that is a mistake. This meltdown has started with the weaker nations, but ultimately what we are witnessing is an “unraveling” of the entire global financial system…

The fact that so many currencies are melting down at the same time is telling us the global financial system is unraveling, and unraveling fast. This is a symptom of a fatal disease. Currencies reflect all sorts of financial information; they’re akin to taking an economy’s pulse: trade balances, debt levels, interest rates, central bank policies, fiscal policies, and so on.

The global financial system is inter-connected, but this is not a viable excuse for the meltdown. The general explanation floating around is that currency weakness is like the flu: one currency gets it, and then it spreads to other weak currencies.

This diagnosis is misleading. What’s actually happening is the unprecedented global bubble of debt and assets of the past decade is popping, and it’s laying waste to the most indebted, over-leveraged and mismanaged nations first, either via stock market declines or meltdowns in currencies.

Earlier today, we learned that the South African economy has officially plunged into a new recession. This crisis is spreading very quickly, and the United States won’t be immune from what is happening. This is a point that Charles Hugh Smith made very well as he wrapped up his most recent article…

The illusion that the U.S. is immune to the unraveling of debt and asset valuations won’t last. When the defaults start piling up, so will the losses, and when asset bubbles pop, incomes and spending decline. Although few seem to notice, almost half the profits of the S&P 500 corporations are earned overseas.

The belief that U.S. markets are somehow disconnected from global markets and immune to the repricing of risk, debt, assets and currencies is magical thinking.

I am entirely convinced that we have reached a major turning point.

For several years it has seemed like things have been getting “better”, but it was largely an illusion. Our ridiculously high standard of living was financed by the greatest debt binge in the history of the world, and it was inevitable that a day of reckoning would arrive.

Now that day of reckoning is knocking on the door, and our society is completely and utterly unprepared for what is going to happen next.

This article originally appeared on The Economic Collapse Blog. About the author: Michael Snyder is a nationally syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is publisher of The Most Important News and the author of four books including The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters.

Economic Doom Returns: Emerging Market Currencies Collapse To Record Lows As Global Financial Chaos Accelerates

After a little bit of a lull, the international currency crisis is back with a vengeance. Currencies are collapsing in Argentina, Brazil, India, Turkey and other emerging markets, and central banks are springing into action. It is being hoped that the financial chaos can be confined to emerging markets so that it will not spread to the United States and Europe. But of course the global financial system is more interconnected today than ever before, and a massive wave of debt defaults in emerging markets would inevitably have extremely serious consequences all over the planet. It would be difficult to overstate the potential danger that this new crisis poses for all of us. Emerging market economies went on an unprecedented debt binge over the past decade, and a high percentage of those debts were denominated in U.S. dollars. As emerging market currencies collapse, it is going to become nearly impossible to service any debts denominated in U.S. dollars, and that could ultimately mean absolutely enormous losses for international lenders. Our system tends to do fairly well as long as everybody is paying their debts, but once the dominoes begin to tumble things can get messy really quickly.

Let’s start our roundup today with India. While India is currently not in as bad shape as some of the other emerging markets, the truth is that they could get there pretty rapidly if they keep going down this path.

On Thursday, concerns about rising oil prices drove the Indian rupee to a brand new all-time record low…

The Indian rupee fell to a record low on Thursday morning, following a declining trend all year — which economists attributed to rising oil prices, broader emerging market concerns, and strong month-end dollar demand.

It slid to 70.8100 against the dollar, after a previous new low just a day before at 70.475. That marked a 10.97 percent decline since the start of the year.

But at least India is doing much better than Argentina.

The Argentine peso collapsed to another all-time record low on Thursday, and at this point it has fallen more than 45 percent against the U.S. dollar so far this year…

The Argentine peso crashed to record lows on the news. It saw steep losses in the previous session and collapsed another 15 percent to hit 39 pesos against the U.S. dollar on Thursday morning.

The peso is down more than 45 percent against the greenback this year, exacerbating pre-existing fears over the country’s weakening economy while inflation is running at 25.4 percent this year.

As Wolf Richter has noted, the Argentine peso was worth one U.S. dollar in 2002.

Today, it is worth 2.4 cents.

That is what a collapse looks like.

In an desperate attempt to stop the bleeding, the Argentine central bank raised interest rates to 60 percent…

On Thursday, the central bank said it was increasing the amount of reserves that banks have to hold, in a bid to tighten fiscal policy and shore up the currency. It hiked rates by 15 percentage points to 60 percent from 45 percent and promised not to lower them at least until December.

Yes, I know that looks like a misprint, but it is not.

Interest rates in Argentina have not been raised to 6 percent. They have been raised to 60 percent.

Could you imagine what 60 percent interest rates would do to the U.S. economy?

Well, we will get there someday if we don’t change our ways, because we are going down the exact same path that Argentina has gone.

Things continue to get even worse in Turkey as well…

The risks are fast multiplying in Turkey’s beleaguered economy. In a clear sign of deterioration, Turkey’s economic confidence index plunged 9% month-on-month to 83.9 points in August, its lowest since March 2009. The country’s currency, the Lira, resumed its downward spiral. And Moody’s downgraded 20 financial institutions in Turkey.

The financial nightmare in Turkey is the gift that just keeps on giving. Their entire system is in the process of imploding, and President Erdogan seems to be in a persistent state of panic these days.

Also on Thursday, the Brazilian central bank directly intervened in the market to keep their currency from plunging to another new all-time record low…

The bloodbath in Argentina and Turkey is evident in Brazil also where Bloomberg reports that the central bank just intervened for the first time since June 22.

BCB reportedly intervened at 4.20 “to provide liquidity” adding that intervention intensity and frequency will depend on the market. The BCB also attempted to provide some confidence by reaffirming that monetary policy is not directly linked to recent market shocks.

A global financial crisis has begun, but because it has not really affected the United States too much yet, the mainstream media and most Americans aren’t really paying any attention.

But if the markets start crashing here too, then it will suddenly be all over the news.

Most people are aware that most of the biggest stock market crashes in U.S. history have happened in the fall, and the calendar is about to turn to the month of September.

We have definitely entered a “danger zone”, and more shocks seem to hit the global economy with each passing day. For example, we just learned that President Trump apparently intends to follow through on his threat to hit the Chinese with another 200 billion dollars in tariffs…

Bloomberg reported Thursday that Trump had told aides that he wants to follow through on a threat to impose tariffs on another $200 billion worth of Chinese goods as early as next week. That would mean more than half of all Chinese imports would be subject to tariffs.

The tariffs could go into effect after the public-comment period ends on September 6.

Of course the Chinese will retaliate, and that will mean more disruption for the global economic system.

Many people believe that the U.S. economy is much stronger than it was in 2008, and that we will be able to easily weather any shocks that come along.

Unfortunately, that is not true at all.

The truth is that all of our long-term problems are much worse than they were in 2008, and the stage is definitely set for an economic disaster of unprecedented proportions.

Christianity CRACKDOWN: Fury at plans to create a CHRISTIAN-FREE village in India

(The Express) Srinivas Sapa, a pastor and 42-year-old resident of the village located in Maharashtra, told International Christian Concern the issue has sparked “panic” among Christians living there.

He said: “All that the Hindu radicals want is for Sangameshwar to be a ‘Christian-free’ village.

“Of all the 50 odd Christians who are native to Sangameshwar, most were born in the village and are now panicked over the situation.”

In India, a pregnant goat died after being gangraped by 8 men

(Hindustan Times) Police have booked eight men in a village in Haryana’s Mewat district for raping a goat Wednesday night. The seven-year-old goat was pregnant and died a day after the assault, police said.

Police said the accused are locals and alleged history-sheeters. Three of them were beaten up by villagers in Maroda village about 73 kilometres south of Gurugram after the owner of the goat caught them in the act.

Eight ‘drunk men gang-rape then kill a pregnant goat’ after stealing it from a shed in India https://t.co/PF2peqOckD

— Daily Mail Online (@MailOnline) July 30, 2018

Man With World’s Longest Fingernails Cuts Them Off After 66 Years, Sells Them To Museum

(Newsweek) A man with fingernails longer than a bus finally cut them off during a “nail clipping ceremony” in New York earlier this week after 66 years of growing them out.

Shridhar Chillal, 82, from Pune, India, holds the Guinness World Record for the longest fingernails on one hand.

He was first inspired to grow out nails on his left hand in 1952, when he was 16 years old, after a teacher berated him for accidentally breaking one of hers. According to Chillal, the teacher warned him about the level of care required to grow out nails and said he would never understand unless he experienced it for himself, reported The Guardian.

Radical Hindu Mob In India Beats 150 Christians During Prayers – 20 Seriously Injured, Limbs Broken

(Christian Post) A radical Hindu mob of some 35 people attacked a group of 150 Christians last week that had gathered together for prayer in the Pratapgarh District of India’s Uttar Pradesh State, seriously injuring 20 of them.

International Christian Concern, which reports on violence believers face around the world, said that the assault happened on July 2 during a prayer meeting.

India Has Never Faced A Water Shortage This Bad

Supplies of fresh water in India continue to dwindle, and the population continues to explode.

As a result, India is now facing an unprecedented water crisis. The following comes from our friends at TruNews…

According to a report published in the Niti Aayog newspaper, which is based on data from 24 of the country’s 29 states, approximately 200,000 Indians die each year due to lack of clean water. Other key takeaways from the report:

• 600 million people—roughly half of India’s population—face “high” to “extreme” water stress;

• 75% of homes do not have potable water;

• 84% of rural homes don’t have access to piped-in water; and

• 70% of the nation’s water sources are heavily polluted.

So what do you think?

Is there a solution to this crisis?

Teenage girl’s ears are hacked off while she is being gang-raped in latest horrific sex attack to shock India

A teenager girl’s ears were hacked off while four men were trying to gang-rape her in the latest horrific sex attack to shock India, it has emerged.

The youngster, from the Baghpat district of Uttar Pradesh, north of the capital Delhi, said she was mutilated when she tried to resist her attackers.

She had earlier been kidnapped by four men who took her to a house and tried to rape her.

(Read the rest of the story here…)

100 tons of dead fish in Indonesia, thousands more in Brazil 12.5 million chickens and ducks culled in South Korea ends another week in paradise

Department of Marine and Fisheries (DKP) have reported an incredible 100 tons of fish have died in Agam, Sumatra, Indonesia. The reason for the deaths is also incredible as poison (residual sludge feed), strong winds and lack of oxygen are being blamed.

Sludge is also being blamed for thousands of fish found dead along the banks of Ipiranga River in northern Brazil. According to the coordinator of the Tamar project of the Chico Mendes Institute of Biodiversity Conservation (ICMBio), João Carlos Thomé, it is possible that the deaths are related to local mining sludge flowing into the river.

(Read the rest of the story here…)

Foxconn Fires 25 Percent Of India Workers As Demonetization Destroys Sales

While piecemeal anecdotes and surveys have already exposed the devastation that PM Modi’s demonetization plan has had on the Indian economy, tonight we see the first hard evidence as Foxconn has asked 25% of its workforce to leave after the cash ban caused sales to collapse by 50% forcing the company to slash production by half.

Amid social unrest and loss of faith in the nation’s currency, India’s economy has ground to a halt with its Composite PMI crashing by a record in the last month as demonetization strikes.

(Read the rest of the story here…)

India Confiscates Gold, Even Jewelry, in Raids on Hidden Money

Global financial repression picks up steam, led by India. After declaring large denomination notes illegal, India now targets gold.

It’s not just gold bars or bullion. The government has raided houses, no questions asked, confiscating jewelry.

For background to this article, please see my November 27 article Cash Chaos in India, 86% of Money in Circulation Withdrawn; Cash Still King in Japan.

Large denomination means 500-rupee ($7.30) and 1,000-rupee notes ($14.60), which account for more than 85 percent of the money supply. They are no longer legal tender, effective immediately.

(Read the rest of the story here…)

Angry Mobs Lock Up Indian Bankers As Cash Chaos Soars: “We Are Fearing The Worst”

India’s demonetization campaign is not going as expected.

Overnight, banks played down expectations of a dramatic improvement in currency availability, raising the prospect of queues lengthening as salaries get paid and people look to withdraw money from their accounts the Economic Times reported.

While much of India has become habituated to the sight of people lining up at banks and cash dispensers since the November 8 demonetisation announcement, bank officials said the message from the Reserve Bank of India is that supplies may not get any easier in the near future and that they should push digital transactions. “We had sought a hearing with RBI as we were not allocated enough cash, but we were told that rationing of cash may continue for some time,” said a banker who was present at one of several meetings with central bank officials.

“Reserve Bank has asked us to push the use of digital channels to all our customers and ensure that we bring down use of cash in the economy,” said a banker. This confirms a previous report according to which the demonstization campaign has been a not so subtle attempt to impose digital currency on the entire population.

(Read the rest of the story here…)

2016: A Year For Living With No Fear

2016 is just a few days old, and already there has been a tremendous amount of shaking. Stock markets all over the world are crashing, a huge earthquake just hit India, the middle portion of the United States is dealing with record flooding, Islamic terror continues to spread in the Middle East and elsewhere, and Saudi Arabia has suddenly cut off relations with Iran. Our world is becoming increasingly unstable, and I believe that this is just the beginning. In fact, I am fully convinced that 2016 is going to be an incredibly chaotic year.

So does that mean that we should all cower in fear and try to find somewhere to hide?

Not at all.

My wife and I seek to live our lives in a constant state of “shalom”, which is the Hebrew word for peace. And we believe that 2016 is a year to be lived with no fear whatsoever. Yes, immensely great challenges are coming to this nation. But with great shaking comes great opportunity. In 2016 we believe that there will be incredible opportunities to be a light in the darkness.

We are moving into a time when so many of the things that we have become preoccupied with will fall to the wayside and we will start focusing on what really matters. Many of you have been preparing for the future for many years, and this is going to be the year when those preparations begin to pay off.

When great challenges come, they reveal the true nature of our character. And as things fall apart all around us, people are going to be looking for leaders. To be a leader, sometimes you don’t even have to say anything. People are going to be watching how we respond to the events that are going to be happening this year, and we need to decide right now whether we are going to respond with strength or fear.

If you want to be a leader, you need to be ready to be a rock in the storm. When the waves start crashing all around you, that is the time to set your face like flint and choose not to be moved. Many are going to want to dig a hole and try to hide from the world, but those with courage are going to be running to the front lines instead.

This is what we have been training for.

This is what we have been preparing for.

You were born for such a time as this.

If you look back throughout history, almost all of the heroes that we greatly admire were birthed during times of great crisis. It is when times are the darkest that the light is needed the most. And the hard times that are coming are going to be crying out for strong men and women to arise.

For years, “watchmen on the wall” such as myself have been relentlessly warning about what is coming. In fact, I have been sounding the alarm so loudly and for so long that some of my readers are probably sick of it. But the purpose has never been to “create fear”. I believe that there is hope in understanding what is happening, and I believe that there is hope in getting prepared.

And the truth is that there is very much a spiritual dimension to all of this. For decades, God has been calling America to return to Him, but instead this nation has been feverishly running the other direction. Now a day of reckoning is upon us, and we are going to experience the consequences of decades of very foolish decisions.

In the legal world, there is always a pronouncement of guilt before a judgment is administered. And in 2015 I believe that we were very clearly shown our guilt in a myriad of ways. Some examples include the gay marriage Supreme Court decision, the Ashley Madison scandal, and the undercover Planned Parenthood videos. I don’t believe that it was any accident that those videos came out exactly when they did. The whole world got to see that we are murdering millions of babies, harvesting their body parts and organs, and selling those body parts and organs off to the highest bidder. Those body parts and organs are then used in bizarre scientific experiments, and the federal government is funding the entire thing.

But instead of repenting, Congress just authorized hundreds of millions of dollars of funding for Planned Parenthood for the coming year, and surveys have found that the American people approve of federal funding for Planned Parenthood by about a 2 to 1 margin.

I believe that we were given one last chance to repent in 2015, but instead we chose to shake our fist at God.

Now a great shaking is coming, and I believe that it has already started. Since September, we have seen a very highly unusual series of disasters in America. We have seen horrific flooding in Missouri, South Carolina, Texas and Oregon, a nightmarish wave of wildfires starting at the end of the summer resulted in more acres being burned in this country than ever before, the state of Oklahoma set a brand new all-time record for earthquakes in a single year, a series of very unusual tornadoes just ripped through areas near Dallas, and much of California continues to suffer through the worst multi-year drought in the history of the state.

When we look at the Bible, we see that there is often a progression to judgment. For example, frogs and lice were a couple of the early plagues that hit Egypt in the book of Exodus, but by the end all of the firstborn of the Egyptians were dead. A similar pattern exists in the book of Revelation. Each “shaking” is intended to bring about repentance, and if there is no repentance then more shakings come.

We should be happy that shaking is coming to America, because without shaking I don’t believe that there would be any widespread repentance.

God has been warning us about what is coming, but most of us don’t want to listen.

God sends warnings because He does not want us to fear. He knows everything that is going to happen in advance, He is in control, and He has a plan.

And even in the midst of all the chaos and darkness that is beginning to engulf the world, God is raising up a Remnant.

This Remnant is going to be the army of the last days. It will walk in faith and not in fear. It will boldly take action while others cower. This Remnant is going to become what God always intended His people to be, and it is going to do things that are going to shock the world.

The greatest move of God and the greatest harvest of souls that the world has ever seen are coming. But just because we know what God is going to do in these last days does not mean that we automatically get to be part of it. Now is a time to press in and seek Him like never before. We need to pray that God will pour out His fire on our lives and equip us to be warriors of light in a world that is filled with darkness.

Jesus is coming back for His bride, but right now we are not ready.

Jesus deserves the greatest bride of all. He deserves a bride without spot or wrinkle and that is madly and wildly and passionately in love with Him.

Without Him nothing is possible, but with His help we can become the bride that we were always intended to be.

In 2016, everything changes.

Are you ready?

Drought-hit Indian village looks to ‘water wives’ to quench thirst

In the parched village of Denganmal, in western India, there are no taps. The only drinking water comes from two wells at the foot of a nearby rocky hill, a spot so crowded that the sweltering walk and wait can take hours.

For Sakharam Bhagat, as for many others in the hamlet some 140 km (85 miles) from Mumbai, the answer was a ‘water wife’.

Bhagat, 66, now has three wives, two of whom he married solely to ensure that his household has water to drink and cook.

“I had to have someone to bring us water, and marrying again was the only option,” said Bhagat, who works as a day laborer on a farm in a nearby village.

“My first wife was busy with the kids. When my second wife fell sick and was unable to fetch water, I married a third.”

(Read the rest of the story here…)

Hospitals overwhelmed as India heatwave toll nears 1500

Hospitals in India are struggling to cope with an influx of victims of a blistering heatwave that has claimed nearly 1500 lives in just over a week.

Hundreds of people – mainly from the poorest sections of society – die at the height of summer every year in India but this year’s figures are unusually high.

In southern Andhra Pradesh – by far the worst-hit state – 1020 people have died since May 18, more than double the number of heat-related deaths for the whole of last year.

In neighbouring Telangana, where temperatures hit 48 degrees Celsius over the weekend, 340 people have died from the heat recently compared to 31 in the whole of last year.

(Read the rest of the story here…)

Heatwave from hell: Temperatures of (118F) sweep through India, killing 540 so far – and there’s no reprieve in sight

India is sweltering under a heatwave which has seen temperatures soar to 118F and left more than 500 dead.

And the intense heat which has gripped northern and southern parts of the country looks set to continue this week, officials said today.

The hottest place in India was Allahabad, a city in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, which saw mercury rise to 47.7 degrees Celsius (117.8 Fahrenheit) on Sunday, while the capital Delhi recorded a high of 43.5C (110.3F).

Most of the 539 recorded deaths have been of construction workers, the elderly or the homeless in the southern states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana where temperatures have been hottest, said officials, but some deaths have also occurred in Uttar Pradesh, Odisha and West Bengal.

(Read the rest of the story here…)

Guru who ordered 400 followers to be castrated ‘so they could be closer to God’ is investigated for grievous bodily harm in India

A guru who ordered 400 of his followers to undergo castrations he said would bring them closer to God is under investigation by police in India.

The country’s top crime fighting agency registered a case against Gurmeet Ram Rahim – known as the ‘guru in bling’ for his penchant for garish clothes and jewellery – over the operations at his ashram.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) said Rahim is being investigated for criminal intimidation and causing grievous bodily hurt after an alleged 400 castrations were carried out.

(Read the rest of the story here…)

Hindus In India Set Church On Fire, They Also Take Christians And Set Them On Fire

Anti-Christian violence is intensifying every day in India, and this new story further illustrates it. A church in Delhi was recently set on fire. The Indian police is saying that it was an accident, but the evidence speaks otherwise. All of the icons of Christ were gutted, and according to the priest, Father Cyril Patrick, security footage reveals that someone threw a burning object inside the church.

There is also other violence happening, including some events in which Hindus have raped Christian women, and even set other Christians on fire.

(Read the rest of the story here…)

Woman who tried to drown herself in the sea alongside her parents and four sisters in mass suicide attempt washes up on beach alive… only to be raped by fishermen who find her

A woman who was washed ashore alive after attempting to drown herself alongside her parents and four sisters claims she was raped by two fisherman who found her lying unconscious on the beach.

The victim and her family had attempted a mass suicide on December 18 after they were evicted from their home in Puducherry, India.

Two of the sisters and the mother drowned while the two other sisters, the victim and the father were washed ashore at different locations along the coast.

(Read the rest of the story here…)

Radical Hindus Push Christian ‘Purification,’ Converting Churches to Temples

Hindu radicals in India are intensifying their religious purification practices, amping up cleansing, reconversion and converting Christian churches in the state of Uttar Pradesh to turn it into a Christian-free zone. The brutal religious cleansing attacks that have engulfed the Christian community have left many Christians feeling like they are facing a life and death struggle in the world’s largest democracy.

Radically right-wing Hindu organizations such as Dharma Jagran Vibhag, Shuddhikaran (Cleansing) Movement and Religious Awakening have increased their reconversion campaign to turn India into a Hindu nation by carrying out numerous attacks on Christian communities. Mr. Rajeshwar Singh, a leader within the Religious Awakening, said in a newspaper interview that, “On Dec. 23, the martyrdom day of Swami Shraddhanand (the leader of the 19th century re-conversion movement), we will convert Muslims to Hinduism in at least 50 locations in west UP,” Singh claimed. “On Dec. 25, the day when Christians convert people to their religion, this year, we will do the reverse—by converting them back to Hinduism. In two to three years, the rural hinterland will be free of Christians.”

(Read the rest of the story here…)

Russia, India will expand payments in national currencies — Putin

Russia and India will expand payments in national currencies, Russian President Vladimir Putin said during his official visit to India. “We agreed to use national currencies more actively in the payments,” Putin said.

Russian energy giants Rosneft and Gazprom together with Indian companies are preparing projects on developing the Arctic shelf, Russian President Vladimir Putin said after talks with India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday.

“Our largest companies, Rosneft and Gazprom, together with their Indian counterparts are preparing projects on developing Russia’s Arctic shelf and expanding the supplies of liquefied natural gas (LNG),” Putin told journalists.

(Read the rest of the story here…)

8-limbed ‘God Baby’ draws crowds in India

A baby boy born with four arms and four legs has been nicknamed “God Boy” and drawn thousands of excited people to the city of Baruipur in eastern India. The boy’s family is overjoyed because the birth defect makes him resemble a Hindu god, according to the Daily Mail. “The nurses said he was badly deformed, but I could see this was a sign from God,” a relative tells local media. “In fact, this is a miracle, it’s God’s baby. Indian gods have extra limbs just like this.” A police officer struggling to control the curious crowds, however, says it is “tragic” and that hundreds of people are praying and crying in the streets; some even believe the birth is a sign of the end of the world.

The boy’s condition is believed to be the result of a “parasitic twin” attached to him in the womb. “With conjoined twins, you have two living fetuses that are attached either by the head, abdomen, or legs,” the chairman of the department of obstetrics and gynecology at Hackensack University Medical Center tells Fox News. But with a parasitic twin, “it’s the same principle, except there is a malformation of one of those twins,” he says. “As a result, the twin never fully develops and is then partially encased in the living fetus.” An eight-limbed girl born in India in 2005 created a similar stir. After a 27-hour operation to sever the twin when she was 2, Lakshmi Tatma was able to walk.

(Read the rest of the story here…)

Ebola in India: Over 1,000 Indians being tracked for Ebola

A total of 1,011 Indians, who have returned from Ebola-affected areas, are being tracked for the virus, the heath ministry Sunday said. Most of those being tracked are from the states of Maharashtra, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, West Bengal and Delhi, an official release said here.

During the past 24 hours, 201 passengers from the affected countries have arrived at the airports of Mumbai (88), Delhi (58), Chennai (24), Bangalore (15), Kochi (11), Thiruvananthapuram (4) and Kolkata (1). The health ministry said that while no passenger has been isolated at the quarantine facility Sunday, 16,531 passengers have been screened till date.

All respective state governments have been provided with the details. According to the WHO, there have been about 3,500 confirmed or probable Ebola cases and more than 1,900 deaths from the deadly disease in West African countries.

(Read the rest of the story here…)

India: Hindu Extremists Pass Laws Restricting Christianity

Christians in India are facing threats as Hindu extremists have taken over village councils to pass laws restricting religions other than Hindu. The laws reportedly make Christian prayer, meetings, and literature illegal, and non-Hindu missionaries are now banned in 50 towns.

Though India’s constitution guarantees citizens freedom of religion, state government authorities in Chhattisgarh have not intervened with the new laws. Authorities maintain that they are monitoring the situation.

Church leaders say that Christians have already been affected. At the most extreme, Christians have been denied access to food and water, or evicted from villages.

Aneesh Andrews, Methodist district superintendent for the area said, “In some places, the passing of the resolution has been followed by attacks on pastors and pulling down of village churches.”

(Read the rest of the story here…)

Chinese Troops ‘Invade’ 25Km Into India, “This Is Chinese Territory, Go Back”

Fifteen months ago we reported China’s stealth invasion of India’s Ladakh region, and now, as PTI reports, Chinese troops are reported to have entered deep into Indian territory in Burtse area in Ladakh where they had pitched their tents last year. Indian troops spotted Chinese personnel 25 to 30 km from the perceived Line of Actual Control (LAC). PLA personnel carried flags reading “this is Chinese territory, go back” in their hands and they refused to move after being confronted by India’s quick response team.

As DNA India reports,

Chinese troops are reported to have entered 25 to 30 km deep into Indian territory in Burtse area in Ladakh where they had pitched their tents last year that had led to a tense three-week standoff. Official sources said on Monday a patrol of Indian troops noticed the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) personnel on Sunday while moving from their base towards the higher ‘New Patrol base’ post in Burtse area of North Ladakh in Jammu and Kashmir. The area is at an altitude of 17,000 feet.

The sources said the troops after walking barely 1.5 km from their base spotted the Chinese personnel in Indian territory 25 to 30 km from the perceived Line of Actual Control (LAC).

…noticed the PLA personnel still sitting on the ground with flags reading “this is Chinese territory, go back” in their hands. A Quick Reaction Team had also accompanied the Indian patrol but nothing could be achieved as Chinese refused to budge from their position, the sources said, adding finally Indian troops returned to their base and informed their higher ups. Udhampur-based Army Spokesperson Col S D Goswami denied that any such incident had taken place but said there was no commonly delineated LAC between India and China which led to transgressions.

“There are areas along the border where India and China have differing perception of LAC. Due to both sides undertaking patrolling upto their respective perception of the LAC, transgressions do occur. However, no incursion or encroachment of Indian Territory by China has taken place along the India-China border,” the spokesperson said in response to an email query.

He said India regularly takes up any transgression with the Chinese side through established mechanisms such as flag meetings, border personnel meetings and normal diplomatic channels like Working Mechanism on Consultation and Coordination on India-China Border Affairs. At these meetings, the issues are resolved through the provisions of various agreements between India and China, he added.

(Read the rest of the story here…)

India, Spain Testing Suspected Ebola Patients; Liberian Quarantine Center Raided

And speaking of spreading, what many have feared may have come to pass after Spain announced it was investigating a suspected case of Ebola after a Nigerian man presented symptoms of the virus at a hospital in Alicante several days after flying in from the West African country.

The Telegraph reports:

The man, who has not been named but is said to be in his 30s, was admitted into San Joan hospital in Alicante on Saturday evening where he was being treated in an isolation unit.

Hospital sources confirmed he was suffering a fever of 38.3 degrees Celsius (100.9F) as well as “other symptoms associated with Ebola – including physical discomfort, vomiting and bleeding”.

The patient told doctors that he had arrived in Spain from Nigeria “a few days ago”.

Hospital authorities said they had “activated protocol” to deal with the infectious disease while they awaited test results.

But even that is nothing compared to what may transpire if what the Times of India reported moments ago, turns out to be accurate: three persons from Ebola-affected Nigeria, who arrived here Saturday morning, have been admitted to the Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital for screening and treatment if required. The three Nigerians, aged 79, 37 and 4 years had fever and their tests were being done at the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Delhi, an official release said here.

In addition to this, a 32-year-old Indian from Durg in Chhattisgarh who returned from Nigeria has been admitted to a hospital in Bhilai. His samples are also being tested at NCDC, the release said. WHO has said air travel, even from Ebola-affected countries, is low-risk for transmission of the disease. WHO has reported a total of 2,127 cases and 1,145 deaths due to Ebola from affected countries.

India is the second most populous country in the world with a population of over 1.2 billion.

(Read the rest of the story here…)

Russia And India Begin Negotations To Use National Currencies In Settlements, Bypassing Dollar

Over the past 6 months, there has been much talk about the strategic proximity between Russia and China, made even more proximal following the “holy grail” gas deal announced in May which would not have happened on such an accelerated time frame had it not been for US escalation in Ukraine.

And yet little has been said about that other just as crucial for the “new BRIC-centric world order” relationship, that between Russia and India. That is about to change when yesterday the Russian central bank announced that having been increasingly shunned by the west, Russia discussed cooperation with Reserve Bank of India Executive Director Shrikant Padmanabhan. The punchline: India agreed to create a task group to work out a mechanism for using national currencies in settlements. And so another major bilateral arrangement is set up that completely bypasses the dollar.

From the Russian Central Bank:

First Deputy Chairman of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation KV Yudaeva and Executive Director of the Reserve Bank of India G. Padmanabhan at the twentieth meeting of the Subgroup on banking and financial issues of the Russian-Indian intergovernmental commission on trade-economic, scientific-technical and cultural cooperation discussed the current state and prospects of cooperation between banks.

The meeting was attended by representatives of central banks, ministries and agencies, credit organizations in Russia and India.

During the meeting dealt with the problems faced by the branches and subsidiaries of banks in the two countries and ways of addressing these problems.

As a priority area discussed the use of national currencies in mutual settlements. Given the urgency of the issue and the interest of commercial structures of the two countries, the meeting decided to establish a working group to develop a mechanism for the use of national currencies in mutual settlements. It will consist of representatives of banks and, if necessary, the ministries and departments of the two countries to coordinate its activities will be central banks of Russia and India.

(Read the rest of the story here…)

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