UK - According to the British Retail Consortium, around 30 percent of the food consumed across the UK comes from the European Union. Half of all fresh vegetables, and almost all of our fruit, is imported from EU countries. The National Farmers' Union says the UK imports 45 percent of its vegetables, the vast majority of which come from the EU. Spain is the biggest supplier of fruit to the UK, making up around 19 percent of all imports. The 30 percent figure is a yearly average - in the winter, around half of all the UK’s food is imported, according to the Food and Drink Federation. The English channel is a vital and extremely busy trade route, with some 10,000 lorries travelling across the border every day during the Christmas period.
USA - Google informs children when their parents are monitoring their account activity, the tech giant confirmed this month, with the company claiming that doing so is a way of balancing the interests of both parents and children. Google's child-notification policies received attention when film director Robby Starbuck claimed on Twitter that his 7-year-old child had received a warning from Google that his account was being monitored. "Our 7-year-old son has to have google for homeschooling," Starbuck wrote on Twitter, "so naturally we setup parental controls but look what [Google] did. They sent my son an email to tell him his privacy is important to them and telling him we’re supervising his account."
UK - The UK’s virus mutation is nothing but recycled alarmism, with no substance to justify the cancellation of Christmas and plunging us all into yet more misery. It’s unscientific, unjustifiable and unforgivable. Let me set the scene. The world (we are told) is in the grip of a deadly plague. Health services (we are told) are on the brink of collapse. And just when you think things cannot get any worse, the horrific news comes down from on high that our invisible enemy has mutated into an even scarier form. Although it is too early to know anything of substance about it, it is entirely possible that it is more contagious, or more dangerous, or – who knows – maybe both.
UK - The new Covid-19 variant that has ripped through the South East is 70 per cent more contagious than the original strain, Boris Johnson revealed today. The PM today revealed the "frighteningly transmissable" new variant was spreading rapidly - forcing him to put millions of Brits in Tier 4 lockdown for Christmas.
UK - Boris Johnson was last night urged to publish clear evidence of the Covid data he used to cancel Christmas for millions. The Prime Minister has warned the new variant of coronavirus may be up to 70 per cent more transmissible than previous strains and could overwhelm the NHS. But last night one scientist demanded greater transparency over the number that shut down swathes of the UK.
SWITZERLAND - The World Health Organization has finally confirmed what we (and many experts and studies) have been saying for months – the coronavirus is no more deadly or dangerous than seasonal flu. The WHO’s top brass made this announcement during a special session of the WHO’s 34-member executive board on Monday October 5th, it’s just nobody seemed to really understand it. In fact, they didn’t seem to completely understand it themselves.
USA - Well, here we go again. The US House of Representatives just passed a $900 billion stimulus package, and we are being promised that it will provide a real “boost” to the economy. Of course we were told the exact same thing about all of the other “stimulus packages” that have been passed since the beginning of the pandemic. Most importantly to many Americans, $600 stimulus payments will soon be sent out directly to the American people. If you are married and have three kids, you will get a total of $3,000, because each member of your family is counted equally for this round of stimulus payments.
MIDDLE EAST - A US guided-missile submarine passed through the Strait of Hormuz, the Navy said Monday, in a rare disclosure of the movements of one of the United States’s nuclear-powered submarines. The USS Georgia submarine, along with guided-missile cruisers USS Port Royal and USS Philippine Sea, entered the Persian Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz on Monday, according to a news release from US Naval Forces Central Command. “Georgia’s presence in the US 5th Fleet area of operations (AOO) demonstrates the US Navy’s ability to sail and operate wherever international law allows,” the release said.
UK - Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s new Special Envoy on Freedom of Religion or Belief (FoRB) has been praised by Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need as “a doughty defender of religious freedom”. Ms Bruce, an Anglican and an evangelical, said in a press release announcing her appointment: “There is much to do, and my post will be placed at the service of some of the most vulnerable people across the world.” She continued: “This appointment comes in the light of continuing large scale horrors taking place – such as those against Uighur Muslims in China, Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar and Yazidis in Iraq and at a time when, as the late and much respected former Chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sacks, stated, ‘the persecution of Christians throughout much of the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, and elsewhere, is one of the crimes against humanity of our time.’”
JAPAN - The Japanese government has approved a hike in military spending to address an “increasingly tough” security environment, as the country struggles under the world's largest debt and the pandemic-induced economic slump. Japan's cabinet approved on Monday the record-high $1.03 trillion budget proposal for the next fiscal year starting in April 2021. The package includes a stimulus for the economy which has been severely affected by the coronavirus pandemic and a hike in defense spending.
VATICAN - The Vatican told Roman Catholics on Monday that it was morally acceptable for them to use COVID-19 vaccines, even if their production employed cell lines drawn from tissues of aborted fetuses. A note from the Vatican's doctrinal congregation, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said the use of such vaccines was permitted as long as there were no alternatives.
GERMANY - But the Neo-Nazis Were Inside the Police. Death threats linked to police computers and the discovery of far-right chat groups in police departments across Germany have fed concerns about far-right infiltration. Germany’s police force is much more sprawling and decentralized than the military, with less stringent oversight.
USA - The S&P 500 fell Monday as a fast-spreading strain of coronavirus emerging from England prompted fresh travel restrictions, dealing a blow to prospects for the global economic recovery. The broad-based index was down 0.5% in early-afternoon trading. The Dow Jones Industrial Average ticked up less than 0.1%, having bounced back from a mid-morning loss of more than 420 points. The technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite slipped 0.3%. All three indexes were trading at records last week. Overseas, European shares tumbled after countries across the continent and beyond barred travelers from Britain in an effort to keep out an infectious variant of coronavirus that is spreading rapidly in England. The pan-continental Stoxx Europe 600 slumped 2.3%. “People are bracing themselves for a challenging start to 2021,” said Brian O’Reilly, head of market strategy for Mediolanum International Funds.
USA - A statue of Confederate General Robert E Lee was removed from the US Capitol overnight. The statue has stood with America's first president, George Washington, as the state of Virginia's contribution to the National Statuary Hall Collection at the Capitol for more than 100 years. Virginia Governor Ralph Northam, a Democrat, announced on Monday the state will seek to have it replaced with a statue of civil rights icon Barbara Johns. “We should all be proud of this important step forward for our Commonwealth and our country,” Northam said. “The Confederacy is a symbol of Virginia’s racist and divisive history, and it is past time we tell our story with images of perseverance, diversity, and inclusion.”
USA - With the latest, $900 billion covid-stimulus deal now done, attention turns to what's actually in it. First: the good news - the bill will include a fresh round of benefits for small businesses as well as the usual one-time pittance for peasants, amounting to a $600 check. Here are the key components:
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The views expressed in this section are not our own, unless specifically stated, but are provided to highlight what may prove to be prophetically relevant material appearing in the media.
“Just what is an APOSTLE?”
Today we find the Church of God in a “wilderness of religious confusion!”
The confusion is not merely around the Church – within the religions of the world outside – but WITHIN the very heart of The True Church itself!
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