Not quack-checked!

CHINA - Western media have fallen hard for an apparently fake if adorable story about a 100,000-strong “duck army” that China has supposedly mobilized to fight billions of locusts currently laying waste to Pakistan’s food supply. Initially published by local Chinese outlet Ningbo Evening News, the clickbait-tastic story, complete with a video showing a flock of ducks supposedly marching in formation, proved impossible to resist – or to fact-check – and had spread around the world by the time people started asking questions. Supposedly reputable outlets including the BBC, Bloomberg, and Time unquestioningly parroted the story about “special Chinese ducks” that would be “more effective than pesticide” – not to mention better for the environment – in taking on the ravenous swarms. Citing Lu Lizhi, said to be a senior researcher with the Zhejiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences, the stories called the ducks a “biological weapon” and predicted they’d be unleashed against the hungry insects “as early as the second half of this year” following a test-run in China’s Xinjiang Province.

 
Sacrifices on the Temple Mount

ISRAEL - The only thing preventing the Jewish People from performing the Passover sacrifice is the Israeli government. The Passover sacrifice can only be offered in one place; on the Temple Mount. The sacrifice does not require an actual Temple structure but it does require an altar that is built to adhere to the Biblical requirements. Such an altar was constructed last year and stands ready.

The Looming Financial Nightmare

USA - Let’s talk numbers, shall we? The national debt (the amount the federal government has borrowed over the years and must pay back) is $23 trillion and growing. The amount this country owes is now greater than its gross national product (all the products and services produced in one year by labor and property supplied by the citizens). We’re paying more than $270 billion just in interest on that public debt annually. And the top two foreign countries who “own” our debt are China and Japan.

Still think the global supply chain is fine?

USA - In yet another devastating piece of news for the financial markets and global supply chains, consumer products giant Proctor & Gamble has warned that the company’s 17,600 products used 9,000 materials that come from 387 factories / suppliers across China, and that all of them may be disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic.

'Dominoes falling' in global shipping

CHINA - The port of Shanghai Container Shipments have collapsed and there is an acute shortage of dockers and drivers. Container shipping from Chinese ports has collapsed since the outbreak of coronavirus and has yet to show any sign of recovery, threatening weeks of chaos for manufacturing supply lines and the broader structure of global trade. Almost half of the planned sailings on the route from Asia to North Europe have been cancelled over the last four weeks. A parallel drama is unfolding on routes from the Pacific Rim to the US and Latin America. Lars Jensen from SeaIntelligence in Copenhagen said the loss of traffic is running at 300,000 containers a week. This will cause a logistical crunch in Europe in early March even if the epidemic is brought under control quickly. “The dominoes are toppling through the whole chain. When ships don’t leave port in China, they don’t stop to pick up cargo in Hong Kong, Saigon, or Singapore either. Freight rates are in freefall…

 
Dow Dumps 2,000 Points From Highs

USA - Like a champion boxer who is just past his prime, Trump economic advisor Larry Kudlow took to CNBC early Tuesday afternoon to try and jawbone the markets higher as US stocks headed down for their fourth day in a row. Kudlow stressed that the US has been "ahead of the curve" when it comes to "protecting citizens" (by canceling flights, barring foreigners etc) - even as the CDC warns that the US is dangerously unprepared for "community outbreaks" that it believes will inevitably arrive. People need to stay "calm", Kudlow said, adding that we won't really know how bad this will be for the US until a few weeks have passed. Kudlow stressed the human toll of the outbreak, calling it "an incredible human tragedy." But as far as the economy is concerned, "I don't think we're looking at an economic disaster at all," he added. Granted, there have been bright spots, but we can't help but wonder: Is Kudlow looking at the same data we are?

 
6.0-magnitude earthquake strikes off the coast of Australia

AUSTRALIA - A powerful 6.0-magnitude earthquake has struck off the northern coast of Australia sending shockwaves felt across the Northern Territory. The quake hit around 4.30pm local time on Wednesday in the Tanimbar region in Indonesia, about 550km from Darwin. The Bureau of Meteorology said there was no Tsunami threat to Australia from the earthquake.  

 
The “Unsinkable” Financial Markets Just Slammed Into A Massive “Iceberg”

CHINA - We just witnessed the third largest single day point drop in US stock market history, and experts are warning that things will only get worse if this coronavirus pandemic continues to escalate. On Monday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down a whopping 1,031 points, and it looks like there could be more volatility on Tuesday. In fact, the Nikkei is already down 787 points as I write this article.

Netanyahu, Israeli officials mapping West Bank annexation

SRAEL - The US members of a committee formed to map out areas of the West Bank that Israel plans to annex as part of the Trump administration’s peace plan met Monday with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other senior Israeli officials as they pressed ahead with the project.

The Nuclear Family Was a Mistake

USA - This is the story of our times — the story of the family, once a dense cluster of many siblings and extended kin, fragmenting into ever smaller and more fragile forms. The initial result of that fragmentation, the nuclear family, didn’t seem so bad. But then, because the nuclear family is so brittle, the fragmentation continued. In many sectors of society, nuclear families fragmented into single-parent families, single-parent families into chaotic families or no families.

China Re-Quarantines ‘Cured’ Coronavirus Patients

CHINA - Authorities in the Chinese city of Wuhan introduced a 14-day mandatory quarantine this weekend for patients who had supposedly recovered from the coronavirus after some discharged patients again tested positive for the disease. Saturday afternoon, all patients who had recovered and been discharged were forced to return to quarantine, the city’s coronavirus treatment and control command center announced on the Chinese social media site Weibo. The new arrangements were announced after disease control experts warned that those who had supposedly made a recovery from the virus may have not done so after all and may still carry the virus and present a consequent contagion risk.

 
Threat to Africa emerges

AFRICA - Locust swarms have invaded the Horn of Africa and the Middle East with millions of hungry insects breeding at alarming rates, the United Nations has warned. The swarm crossed northern Uganda on strong northeasterly winds, marking the first desert locust swarm since 1944. The desert locust is considered the most dangerous of locust species thanks to its voracious appetite and ability to devour entire fields in short periods of time.

Coronavirus outbreak: Pandemic or Epidemic?

USA - The World Health Organisation has said the world needs to prepare for a pandemic as the coronavirus epidemic continues to spread. So what is the difference between a pandemic and an epidemic? An epidemic generally refers to any event in which a disease is actively spreading out of control. Medically speaking, an epidemic is defined as “a widespread occurrence of a disease in a community at a particular time”. An epidemic is an event in which a disease is actively spreading. A pandemic, on the other hand, refers to geographic spread and is used to describe a disease that affects the entire planet. The WHO defines a pandemic as “the worldwide spread of a new disease”. Pandemics are more likely if a virus is brand new, able to infect people easily and can spread from person to person in an efficient and sustained way. While the coronavirus appears to tick these boxes, the WHO still says it’s not at pandemic-level yet.

 
This Coronavirus Outbreak Just Took Some Bizarre New Turns

USA - Many were hoping that this coronavirus outbreak would begin to subside, but instead we witnessed an explosion of newly confirmed cases over the weekend. In fact, the number of confirmed cases outside of China has doubled over the past five days. If that number continues to double very rapidly, authorities will be talking about a full-blown “global pandemic” in no time. When I watched a victim suddenly collapse and start to twitch on a subway in Hong Kong, I thought about the sort of panic that would set off if that happened in New York.

German authorities focus on alarmingly organized far right

GERMANY - Following multiple high-profile attacks by far-right nationalists, German officials are ramping up their efforts against extremists in a move that Jewish leaders in Germany are carefully watching. This was underlined as federal prosecutors said Thursday they were taking charge of the investigation into a mass shooting in the German city of Hanau a day earlier that left 11 people dead, including the suspect, amid reports that he may have had a far-right motive.

Disclaimer:
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?”
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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Listen to Me, You who know righteousness, You people in whose heart is My Law: …I have put My words in your mouth, I have covered you with the shadow of My hand, That I may plant the heavens, Lay the foundations of the earth, and say to Zion, “you are My people” (Isaiah 51:7,16)