News and Prophecy Staff

The extended drought in the U.S. Plains states has caused beef cattle producers to sell cows. In the short term this sell-off has kept beef prices steady, but eventually this will end and beef prices will increase as fewer cows means fewer calves born to be fattened.  U.S. beef cow inventory declined 3.1 percent in 2011 and the decline continued throughout 2012. Last April, the 2012 U.S.

In two years, the Syrian conflict has claimed the lives of more than 70,000 people! The once beautiful cities of Damascus and Aleppo are becoming piles of ash and rubble, while world leaders cannot agree on a solution to this terrible war. “So far, a consensus has prevailed in the European Union that an arms embargo is a good way to keep the conflict in Syria from escalating” (Deutsche Welle, March 6, 2013).

Wednesday evening, 115 sequestered Catholic cardinals voted in a new pope (New York Times, March 13, 2013). The former archbishop of Buenos Aires, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, 76, hails from Argentina and is the first non-European pope in 1,200 years. He represents the Latin American church and also the Catholic church south of the equator—its fastest-growing region.

Once a British delicacy, prawns are now cheap and commonplace. Although this high demand is good for Thai farmers, techniques for obtaining “prawn food” to feed the growing mollusks are ravaging the environment (Sunday Times, February 24, 2013).

Hugo Chávez died of cancer this week in a military hospital in Venezuela (International Herald Tribune, March 5, 2013). After 14 years of “revolution” and fomenting opposition against the U.S., the charismatic national figure leaves behind a nation in turmoil and a mourning family. Venezuela has been in political crisis as its leader suffered with cancer. Now, many supporters are saying “‘With Chávez everything, without Chávez nothing” (ibid.).