News and Prophecy Staff

“US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter on Monday urged Germany to bolster its defense spending ‘to ensure that Germany’s defense investments match Germany’s leadership role’” (Deutsche Welle, June 22, 2015). “The United States is pleased to hear that Germany is willing to assume a leadership role.

“The global diabetes rate has risen by nearly half over the past two decades, according to a new study, as obesity and the health problems it spawns have taken hold across the developing world” (New York Times, June 8 2015). “The [Lancet] study... reported a 45 percent rise in the prevalence of diabetes worldwide from 1990 to 2013. Nearly all the rise was in Type 2, which is usually related to obesity...” (ibid.).

Article Five of the North Atlantic Treaty clearly states “an armed attack against one or more of them [NATO members] in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all” (EU Observer, June 10, 2015). However, “More than half of Germans, Italians, and French are opposed to using military force to help a NATO ally in a conflict with Russia, according to a survey published by US think tank Pew on Wednesday (10 June).

Recently “the UN has come under fire for failing to act after it prepared an initial 2014 report into alleged child sexual abuse committed by soldiers from France, Chad and Equatorial Guinea…” (Deutsche Welle, June 3, 2015).

Brutal Actions by ISIS: A United Nations envoy on sexual violence recently stated that “Teenage girls abducted by Islamic State fighters in Iraq and Syria are being sold in slave markets ‘for as little as a pack of cigarettes’” (The Guardian, June 8, 2015).