The Nile River, one of the longest rivers in the world, is fed by two major tributaries—the White Nile and the Blue Nile. The Blue Nile, responsible for some 80 percent of the Nile’s water, begins in the mountains of Ethiopia. Yet, for decades, Ethiopia has not had full rights to the water flowing through its own land.

Author Wolfgang Münchau recently wrote for The Spectator, “What we are witnessing is the birth of a new breed of Euroskepticism.… This all amounts to a moment of great danger for the EU.” Münchau spoke of the plummeting respect for German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron and the impact on the future of the EU.

Chastening—along with related terms such as chastisement, correction, and discipline—is often considered negative and equated with punishment, spanking, being yelled at, having privileges removed, or suffering other penalties. But can chastening actually good for us?

The southern part of Madagascar, an island off Africa’s eastern coast, is in the throes of a severe famine and its worst drought in decades. “1.14 million people are food-insecure [i.e., in danger of lacking enough food] and 400,000 people are headed toward starvation” (Washington Post, July 1, 2021). Due to three years of little rain, winds have swept away productive topsoil.

Over the past year, Israel, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco signed a historic pact known as the Abraham Accords, normalizing relations among those nations.