News and Prophecy Staff

Failing governments are major contributors to suffering on a global scale. “Venezuela continues to be embroiled in an economic crisis that has included food shortages.... Inflation is at 700 percent, the country continues to be in a recession and ‘basic food and medicine are in severely short supply’… Venezuelans spend their days queueing for hours at supermarkets, but often go home empty-handed” (US News and World Report, September 2, 2016).

According to a recent report, “the day is fast approaching when the Palestinian Authority [PA] we have known for the past 22 years will cease to exist. PA leader Mahmoud Abbas’s US-trained Palestinian security forces have lost control over the Palestinian cities in Judea and Samaria. His EU- and US-funded bureaucracies are about to lose control over the local governments to Hamas. And his Fatah militias have turned against him” (Jewish Worldview, August 31, 2016).

Zika virus was initially thought to be a risk only for those of childbearing age, and only within a few months of infection. The mosquito-borne Zika causes children to be born with abnormally small brains. Scientists recently discovered Zika can be transmitted sexually—not just by mosquitos (CDC.gov).

“Four of the world’s biggest banks have teamed up to develop a new form of digital cash that they believe will become an industry standard to clear and settle financial trades over blockchain, the technology underpinning bitcoin.

“Nearly 500 years after Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the Castle Church door, the largest Lutheran denomination in the U.S. has approved a declaration recognizing ‘there are no longer church-dividing issues’ on many points with the Roman Catholic Church” (CRUX, August 16, 2016). The Lutheran Presiding Bishop noted, “Though we have not yet arrived, we have claimed that we are, in fact, on the way to unity” (ibid.).