News and Prophecy Staff

The concept of a two-speed Europe is back in the news again (Wall Street Journal, March 2, 2017). This week Joseph Muscat, the Prime Minister of Malta and current EU president revived the call for a two-speed Europe where nations ready to move forward without the others can do so! At the same time, he called for greater involvement from the Roman Catholic pope in determining the future Europe (EU Observer, February 27, 2017). Mr.

“E coli microbes have been modified to carry an expanded genetic code which researchers say will ultimately allow them to be programmed… Now, the first living organisms to thrive with an expanded genetic code have been made by researchers in work that paves the way for the creation and exploitation of entirely new life forms” (The Guardian, January, 24, 2017).

The 10-member Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) recently met in the Philippines and were “unanimous in their expression of concern about what they see as a militarization of the region” (Reuters, February 21, 2017).

“The world is ‘on the brink’ of a ‘post-Western age’, a leading German think tank has warned” (EU Observer, February 14, 2017). The Munich Security Conference (MSC) report suggested that the age we may now be entering is “one in which non-Western actors are shaping international affairs”—a reference to nations such as China, Russia, and Turkey (ibid.). The MSC spokesman also observed “that if U.S.

“Scientists warn that parts of southern Africa already hit by record droughts now face another potential food crisis because [of] the invasion of a crop-eating pest, known as the ‘fall armyworm’” (BBC, February 14, 2017). Experts are unsure of how this caterpillar, native to the Americas, arrived in Africa, and the pest has arrived following two years of drought. “South Africa, the region’s biggest maize producer, has confirmed the destruction of crops from the pest in six different provinces.