News and Prophecy Staff

“In a unanimous decision, The Supreme Court Friday struck down as unconstitutional the nation’s contentious century-old law against assisted suicide” (National Post, February 6, 2015). Justices cited a patient’s “right to life, liberty and security” and to avoid “physical or psychological pain,” as well as their right to “control the method, timing and circumstances of their death” (ibid.). 

With the recent burning of a Jordanian pilot, some analysts speculate this may be the action that forces Arab nations together in the fight against ISIS. Over the weekend, Jordan began airstrikes against ISIS forces in Syria on its own, vowing “We are determined to wipe them from the face of the Earth” (BBC, February 8, 2015). Jordan’s actions demonstrate the growing frustration with the floundering U.S.-led coalition against ISIS.

“Representatives from 22 European Union member states converged on the Silesian Sisters Convent on the edge of this West Bank town [Beit Jala], to protest Israel’s plan to extend the controversial barrier that Israel is building in and around the West Bank through this area” (Jerusalem Post, February 1, 2015). The Israeli “protective wall” is locally expected to be damaging to the economy of the area.

“At least 100,000 people took to the streets of Madrid on Saturday (31 January) to show support for anti-establishment party Podemos, one week after Greek voters almost gave Syriza, a party with similar objectives, an absolute majority” (EU Observer, February 2, 2015). The Podemos party estimated the crowd to be three times this size, while the Spanish paper El Pais estimated 153,000 protestors (ibid.). Spain is scheduled to hold national elections by the end of 2015.

“More than 25 years after the Berlin Wall’s fall, Russian lawmakers are mulling a proposal to condemn West Germany’s 1990 ‘annexation’ of East Germany as Moscow’s answer to Western denunciation of its seizure of Crimea” (The Local, January 28, 2015). Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, under whose leadership the Berlin Wall came down, “called the contention ‘nonsense’” (ibid.).