News and Prophecy Staff

A recent Georgetown University study showed that when people in the lowest caste in an Indian city began to follow Biblical values, they were much more likely to break the poverty cycle (Catholic News Agency, December 20, 2013). Biblical values like hard work, integrity, taking care of one’s home and planning for the future were central to people breaking free of their generations-old cycle of poverty (ibid.).

Conditions are deteriorating in the CAR, foreign governments are evacuating their citizens, and African Union and French forces are being sent to quell the violence which is mostly Muslim vs. Christian (BBC, December 31, 2013). There are more than 6,000 child soldiers in CAR, and factions are murdering and beheading children in “atrocious revenge attacks,” in a clear violation of international humanitarian law (ibid.).

For centuries, Jews have been forbidden to pray on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem—a site that is only open to Muslim worship (The Times, December 23, 2013). However, there is a growing movement in Israel for Jews to be able to pray where the ancient Temple stood.

At the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union, University of Utah researchers reported new results of their study of the Yellowstone caldera. Dr. Bob Smith stated in a BBC interview, “We’ve been working there for a long time, and we’ve always thought it would be bigger… but this finding is astounding” (New York Post, December 12, 2013).

“A senior High Court judge is stepping down after being reprimanded by the Lord Chief Justice and Lord Chancellor for speaking out on the problems of marriage breakdown” (The Times, December 18, 2013). Last December, the judge, Sir Paul Coleridge, wrote an article that criticized “the Government’s plans to allow gay marriage and accused ministers of wasting effort on an issue that affects ‘0.1 per cent’ of the population.