News and Prophecy Staff

In a clearly expressed response to what has been called U.S. isolationism, “The European Union and Japan have formally agreed [on] an outline free-trade deal. The agreement paves the way for trading in goods without tariff barriers between two of the world’s biggest economic areas… They also want to send a clear message internationally that the EU and Japan, highly-developed democracies, remain committed to a liberal, free-trading, rules-based world, and they will seek to shape it even if the U.S.

China is now Africa’s largest trade partner. “The economic powerhouse has focused on securing the long-term energy supplies needed to sustain its industrialization, searching for secure access to oil supplies and other raw materials around the globe” (Council on Foreign Relations, July 12, 2017). A new report projects that Chinese investments in Africa could triple over the next eight years to over $440 billion.

As political correctness becomes further entrenched in Western societies, the British government is requiring private religious schools to teach immoral behavior that is contrary to their basic doctrines. According to The Telegraph, “A private Jewish girls’ school which teaches children aged up to 8 has failed three Ofsted inspections because it does not teach pupils about homosexuality or gender reassignment” (June 25, 2017).

A new report from the U.S. State Department demonstrates that nations surrounding Europe are seeing a heavy amount of human trafficking (sex trafficking and human slavery). “On the EU’s eastern side, the U.S. said women from Belarus and Ukraine were being trafficked for sex in Russia, Poland, and Turkey...

The Telegraph ran a sobering headline on July 4: “We are sleepwalking towards a global war—and Russia and China are enabling it.” The writer spoke of the recent launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile indicating that North Korea can place a nuclear device on such a missile and reach U.S. soil as far away as Alaska.