News and Prophecy

In recent months, tension and attacks have escalated throughout the Middle East region, leading to increasing instability.  A recent suicide attack in Afghanistan killed more than 44 people and showed the capabilities of an ever-tenacious Taliban. “Causing the biggest death toll in a single attack since 2011, the militants, strapped with explosives, stormed the...

Pope Francis, who is known for his ecumenical perspective, “reached out to Rome’s Jewish community at the very start of his pontificate, pledging to continue to strengthen the increasingly close ties between Catholics and Jews”—and his overtures were received with high hopes (Associated Press, March 16, 2013). As archbishop of Buenos Aires, then Cardinal...

“Two trends in the international arms trade, in particular, have caught the attention of Western governments. For one, for the first time since the Cold War, the ranking of the world’s five largest arms exporters has changed. China has pushed Britain out of the Top Five. And secondly, military expenditures in Asia in 2012 exceeded those of the European Union for...

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...