For those that have been watching the growing tensions between the Russia, Europe and the US, this latest salvo is disturbing to say the least. As reported by FT.com, a new Russian military doctrine is to be released next month, which will openly designate the United States as a “threat” and/or adversary, which is guaranteed to escalate the growing distrust which many see as a return to the “cold war” era.
Russell Moore, the president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, and Saddleback megachurch leader Rick Warren will team up with Roman Catholic Pontiff Francis later this month for an interfaith Vatican conference on marriage and family. “Complementarity of Man and Woman,” will be held Nov. 17-19 at the Vatican, and is expected to feature more than 30 speakers from over 20 countries.
An overwhelming majority of Catalans have said “yes” to independence and secession from the central Spanish government in Madrid in a highly-anticipated but symbolic referendum poll on Sunday. Some 80.72 percent voted to form a state independent of Spain, Joana Ortega, vice president Catalonia said shortly after midnight, with over two million Catalans reportedly turning out for the unofficial referendum.
Kenya’s Catholic bishops are charging two United Nations organizations with sterilizing millions of girls and women under cover of an anti-tetanus inoculation program sponsored by the Kenyan government. According to a statement released Tuesday by the Kenya Catholic Doctors Association, the organization has found an antigen that causes miscarriages in a vaccine being administered to 2.3 million girls and women by the World Health Organization and UNICEF.
On its official website, the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs (yes, that’s really a thing and yes, it is housed right here in the United States) announced that the UN’s Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) “will enter into force on 24 December 2014.” Merry Christmas! It is ironical that on the day before the world’s 2.
Ukraine’s military accused Russia on Friday of sending a column of 32 tanks and truckloads of troops into the country’s east to support pro-Russian separatists fighting government forces. Thursday’s cross-border incursion, if confirmed, is a significant escalation of a conflict that has killed more than 4,000 people since the separatists rose up in mid-April and would call into question Russia’s commitment to a two-month-old ceasefire deal. The truce has looked particularly fragile this week, with each side accusing the other of violations after separatist elections last Sunday condemned as illegitimate by the West.
Even Southern Baptists know not to turn down an invitation from the Pope. Rick Warren, senior pastor of Saddleback Church, and Russell Moore, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberties Commission, will meet Pope Francis and offer an “evangelical Protestant” perspective as part of a Vatican colloquium on marriage and family held this November 17-19. “I am willing to go anywhere, when asked, to bear witness to what we as evangelical Protestants believe about marriage and the gospel, especially in times in which marriage is culturally imperiled,” wrore Moore on why he’s going to the Vatican despite his disagreements with the Pope.
A Russian Northern Fleet nuclear submarine on Wednesday fired a test intercontinental missile from the Barents Sea to the country’s far eastern Kura Range on the Kamchatka Peninsula, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement Wednesday. “Within the frameworks of testing the reliability of marine strategic nuclear forces, the Tula [nuclear submarine] launched a Sineva intercontinental ballistic missile from the Barents Sea to the Kura Range [in Kamchatka],” the statement says. The RSM-54 intercontinental ballistic missile Sineva (NATO code name SS-N-23 Skiff) is part of the D-9RM launch system.
China has developed a laser cannon to shoot down small, low-flying drones, according to China’s state-controlled news agency Xinhua. The weapon can zap targets within a radius of 1.2 miles.
A Christian couple accused of desecrating a Koran have been killed by a mob of Muslim vigilantes in Pakistan. The husband and wife, known only as Shama and Shehzad, were beaten to death. Their bodies were then burned in the brick kiln where they worked.
Europe has an estimated 421 million fewer birds than three decades ago, and current treatment of the environment is unsustainable for many common species, a study released on Monday said. The population crash is related to modern farming methods and the loss and damage of habitats, according to the study published in science journal Ecology Letters. “This is a warning from birds throughout Europe.
Swirling winds and heavy downpours probably did more than the massive Israeli police presence to dampen Palestinian protests in Jerusalem over the weekend. Dire predictions that a third intifada was about to erupt after the brief closure of the Temple Mount — known to Arabs as the Noble Sanctuary — came to nothing. But the weather could not sweep away the toxic atmosphere in the city.
While east Ukraine, aka the Donetsk Republic, was voting over the weekend in what the west pre-emptively classified as another sham vote as its outcome would merely push east Ukraine even closer to the Kremlin, Russia was busy conducting its most comprehensive Nuclear preparedness drill in recent history, one involving the entire “nuclear triad” consisting of strategic bombers; submarines and an the ICBM shown below on Saturday morning. As reported earlier by the Barents Observer, the silo-based Topol-M intercontinental ballistic missile was launched from Plesetsk in Arkhangelsk Oblast. A few minutes later, the dummy nuclear warhead hits its target on the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia’s far eastern corner, the Ministry of Defense reports.
Ongoing tensions in East Jerusalem and the West Bank cannot be separated from the larger reality that remains unresolved in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a senior United Nations official told the Security Council today. Briefing the Security Council on the situation in Jerusalem, Jeffrey Feltman, UN Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, acknowledged that recent heightened tensions over unilateral actions, provocations and access restrictions at holy sites in Jerusalem are contributing to a volatile situation, and stressed that further delay in negotiations and the pursuit of peace would only serve to deepen divisions and further exacerbate the conflict. “The status quo is not a viable option,” Mr.
When it comes to Israel, President Obama has been Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
Russia has successfully test-fired a Bulava submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) from the Borey-class Yury Dolgoruky nuclear-powered submarine, the Russian Defense Ministry said Wednesday. The missile was launched from the submerged submarine at a location in the Barents Sea and hit a designated target at the Kura test range on Russia’s Kamchatka peninsula, the ministry said in a statement. According to the statement, it was the first operational test launch of Bulava in line with the program of combat training.