News and Prophecy

“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...

“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...

“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...

“Just hours after bringing his far-left Syriza party to victory in the Greek elections, Alexis Tsipras has been appointed PM and shown that he is prepared to play hardball with eurozone fiscal hawks...” (EU Observer, January 26, 2015). Tsipras, age 40, “is the youngest Greek PM in modern times” and was elected to bring an end to austerity (ibid.). Greek debt is...