The Faithful Watchman

Plot Thickens Over Origins of Pope’s Civil Union Endorsement

Newsmax – October 22, 2020

Question swirled Thursday about the origins of Pope Francis’ bombshell comments endorsing same-sex civil unions, with all evidence suggesting he made them in a 2019 interview that was never broadcast in its entirety.

The Vatican refused to comment on whether it cut the remarks from its own broadcast or pressured the Mexican broadcaster that conducted the interview to follow suit. And it didn’t respond to questions about why it allowed the comments to be aired now in the documentary “Francesco,” which premiered Wednesday.

In the movie, which was shown at the Rome Film Festival, Francis said gay people have the right to be in a family since they are “children of God.”

“You can’t kick someone out of a family, nor make their life miserable for this,” the pope said. “What we have to have is a civil union law; that way they are legally covered.”

Those comments caused a firestorm, thrilling progressives and alarming conservatives, given official Vatican teaching prohibits any such endorsement of homosexual unions.

While serving as archbishop of Buenos Aires, Francis endorsed civil unions for gay couples as an alternative to same-sex marriages. However, he had never come out publicly in favor of legal protections for civil unions as pope, and no pontiff before him had, either.

One of Francis’ top communications advisers, the Rev. Antonio Spadaro, insisted the pope’s comments were old news, saying they were made during a May 2019 interview with Mexican broadcaster Televisa.

https://www.newsmax.com

Trump Mideast Peace Plan Expands as Sudan Recognizes Israel

Newsmax – October 23, 2020

Sudan on Friday agreed to be the latest Arab nation to recognize Israel, President Donald Trump announced in a new diplomatic coup for him days before US elections.

The United Arab Emirates and Bahrain signed an accord at the White House last month to normalize relations with Israel but Sudan is arguably more significant as an Arab nation that has been at war with Israel.

Trump announced the agreement by Sudan’s year-old civilian-backed government moments after he formally moved to end the nation’s designation of a state sponsor of terrorism, which was a major goal for Khartoum.

Reporters were escorted into the Oval Office where Trump was on speakerphone with Sudan’s leadership and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a close ally of the embattled Republican president.

“We are expanding their circle of peace so rapidly with your leadership,” Netanyahu was heard saying.

Trump said: “There are many, many more coming.”

A senior Trump aide, Judd Deere, said that Sudan and Israel “have agreed to the normalization of relations.”

As part of the deal to get off the terror blacklist, the White House said that Sudan’s transitional government had deposited $335 million to compensate survivors and family members of anti-US attacks that took place when former dictator Omar al-Bashir welcomed Al-Qaeda.

“Today represents a momentous step forward in the United States-Sudan bilateral relationship and marks a pivotal turning point for Sudan,” a White House statement said.

https://www.newsmax.com

There Is No ‘International Right to Abortion,’ U.S. and 31 Other Countries Declare

Michael Foust – October 23, 2020

The United States joined 31 other countries Thursday in signing a document emphasizing the equal rights of men and women and declaring there is “no international right to abortion.”

The Geneva Consensus Declaration was co-sponsored by the U.S., Brazil, Egypt, Indonesia, Hungary and Uganda and represents 1.6 billion people and every region of the world, supporters of the document said. It was signed during a joint virtual ceremony.

“In no case should abortion be promoted as a method of family planning,” the document says.

The declaration involves three primary issues: promotion of equal rights for women, opposition to abortion for family planning, and the recognition of the need for universal health coverage.

“Under President Trump’s leadership, the United States has defended the dignity of human life everywhere and always,” Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo said in a statement. “He’s done it like no other President in history. We’ve also mounted an unprecedented defense of the unborn abroad.”

The Geneva Consensus Declaration, Pompeo said, “protects women’s health, defends the unborn, and reiterates the vital importance of the family as the foundation of society.”

https://www.christianheadlines.com

China Media Says Risk of War With Taiwan Rising, Despite President’s Conciliatory Speech

David Brennan – October 12, 2020

Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen said Saturday that the island democracy is strengthening its defenses against a potential Chinese invasion, but also called for “meaningful dialogue” with Beijing, which claims the country as its own territory.

Tsai—leader of the pro-independence, liberal Democratic Progressive Party and re-elected for a second term in January—took a soft, conciliatory tone in her speech to mark Taiwan’s National Day. The address came after a month of Chinese military exercises in the Taiwan Strait, which separates the two countries.

But Chinese state-backed media was dismissive of Tsai’s appeal to diplomacy, with the nationalistic Global Times newspaper leading the criticism. The newspaper said Tsai had tried to “fool” the world with her speech, and declared that the risk of war has risen “sharply” in recent months.

The Chinese Communist Party claims ownership of Taiwan under its “One China” policy, and has vowed to take control of the island by force if diplomatic means fail. Taiwan—officially called the Republic of China—has been independent since the end of the Chinese Civil War as the last bastion of the defeated nationalist forces.

But Global Times—owned by the People’s Daily newspaper, which is the official publication of the CCP—said the regional situation “has been seriously deteriorating” in an editorial published Sunday.

Global Times accused Tsai of “utilizing the idea of facilitating dialogue as an ‘olive branch’ as a delaying tactic, attempting to deceive the international community for sympathy,” and dismissed her administration as “a gaggle of opportunistic politicians.”

https://www.newsweek.com

Boris Walks Away! Bombshell Announcement as UK Declares EU Talks Have Failed

Oliver JJ Lane – October 16, 2020

The European Union has shown no intention of accepting entering into a “Canada-style” deal with the United Kingdom in the post-Brexit era and talks have therefore failed, Boris Johnson said on Friday on the second day of a crunch EU summit.

The United Kingdom will now be putting its energy into preparing the country for a full no-deal Brexit on January 31st, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Friday lunchtime, after two days of high-level talks with European leaders appeared to have failed in producing progress.

The talks had stalled for months over very fundamental differences over what both sides wanted out of the future relationship. While Britain wanted a deal with Europe the same as the one the bloc had already struck with Canada — a former British dominion with similar cultural, political, and legal traditions — which would allow easy trade without the EU exerting political control over the nations’ capital, Brussels had different ideas.

Insisting a Canada-style deal was not possible because the UK was in closer geographical proximity to the European Union, Brussels negotiators instead wanted to retain key controls over Britain, including the right to impose EU laws on Britain and to make decisions over British territorial waters.

Noting despite months of talks nothing consequential had changed in that situation as of today, Mr Johnson said the EU insisting it keep those controls were “completely unacceptable to an independent country”.

https://www.breitbart.com

55 Million People Face Famine as COVID-Ravaged Economies Fail To Meet Funding Goals

Alan Macleod – October 14, 2020

More than 55 million people in seven countries are in desperate need of COVID-19-related famine relief. That is according to a new report from international charity Oxfam, entitled “Later will be too late.” The report details how 55.5 million people in seven countries — Yemen, Afghanistan, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Somalia — are living in severe-to-extreme levels of food insecurity or even famine conditions, thanks largely to the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic.

In March, the United Nations called for $10.3 billion in emergency funding to deal with the worldwide humanitarian impact the pandemic was expected to bring. Unfortunately, it has received barely a quarter of what it has asked for from donors. Every sector, including gender-based violence (58 percent funded), protection (27 percent), health (27 percent), and water, sanitation and hygiene (17 percent) are chronically under-funded. But the worst underwritten parts of its coronavirus response plan are food security (11 percent) and nutrition (3 percent). Indeed, in 5 of the 7 countries noted, the UN has received nothing at all to deal with the crisis. Oxfam called the international community’s response “dangerously inadequate.”

“The Committee for World Food Security must raise the alarm at the UN that famine is imminent on its watch and not enough is yet being done to stop it. We need a fairer and more sustainable food system that supports small scale producers. Years of neglect mean that millions upon millions of people remain unnecessarily vulnerable to shocks like COVID, climate change and conflict,” said Oxfam’s International interim Executive Director, Chema Vera.

Official estimates suggest that around 1.1 million people have died from COVID-19 globally since its emergence in China late last year. While the United States has seen the most cases and deaths overall, it is now countries in the global south that are the most intense hotbeds of the virus, with Brazil, Mexico, and India right behind the U.S. There are currently over 800,000 active cases in India alone.

https://www.mintpressnews.com

Historical Epidemic Making a Scary Comeback Due to a Bacterial ‘Clone’

Ricky Scaparo – October 10, 2020

(ETH) – A deadly pathogen called scarlet fever was once the leading cause of death for children across the western world and was nearly eradicated thanks to 20th-century medicine but new outbreaks of it have surfaced in the UK and North East Asia over recent years suggesting we’ve still got a long way to go

The reason we are experiencing a resurgence of this deadly pathogen still remains a mystery. However, a new study has reportedly uncovered clues in the genome of one of the bacterial strains responsible, showing just how complex the family tree of infectious diseases can be.

According to the report from Science Alert, The species behind the illness is group A strep, or Streptococcus pyogenes; which is a ball-shaped microbe that can churn out toxic compounds called superantigens, that are capable of wreaking havoc inside the body. Especially in children. Results of this in the body can cause mild symptoms such as a bad rash and be as severe as causing a toxic shock that causes organs to fail.

With the invention of antibiotics, outbreaks could easily be managed before they got out of hand. By the 1940s, the disease was well on the way out but this looks to be changing. “After 2011, the global reach of the pandemic became evident with reports of a second outbreak in the UK,

beginning in 2014, and we’ve now discovered outbreak isolates here in Australia,” says the University of Queensland molecular biologist Stephan Brouwer. “This global re-emergence of scarlet fever has caused a more than five-fold increase in disease rate and more than 600,000 cases around the world.”

https://endtimeheadlines.org

Anti-Semitism in Germany ‘sharply rising,’ warns security agency

DW – October 9, 2020

One year after an attack on a synagogue in the eastern city of Halle, the head of Germany’s domestic security service, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), has warned that Germany is experiencing a “steep rise” in anti-Semitism.

“In the past two years, criminal offenses, including acts of violence, against Jews and Jewish institutions in Germany have increased significantly,” BfV chief Thomas Haldenwang said in an interview Friday with the Tagesspiegel newspaper.

On October 9, 2019, an armed 27-year-old man attempted to shoot his way into a packed synagogue on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year in Judaism. A well-secured door prevented him from carrying out an attack inside. The man then killed two bystanders before fleeing and later being taken into custody.

Last week, a man dressed in military fatigues attacked a Jewish man outside a synagogue in Hamburg.

Haldenwang said Friday that attacks at synagogues were especially disturbing because of Germany’s dark past with National Socialism.

“Germany has a special responsibility for Jewish life,” he said, adding that Jews in Germany have reason to be worried about facing violence and hostility while in public.

The danger especially comes from radicalized “lone wolf” attacks, said Haldenwang.

“Security services must be especially vigilant with this,” said Haldenwang. “Above all, society must be made aware that we need to work together in fighting emerging anti-Semitism.”

https://www.dw.com

Netherlands legalizes child euthanasia despite opposition from Christian parties

RT – October 14, 2020

The Dutch government will allow doctors to euthanize terminally ill children as young as one year old, making the Netherlands the second country in the world to permit the practice.

Health Minister Hugo de Jonge announced the change in a letter to Parliament on Tuesday, calling the decision necessary to help “a small group of terminally ill children who are suffering hopelessly and unbearably.”

The decision does not amend any laws, but exempts doctors from prosecution for ending a child’s life in certain conditions and with parental consent. Children between the ages of one and 12 will now be eligible for assisted suicide, whereas previously only newborn infants and teenagers could be euthanized.

Regardless of their age, candidates for euthanasia in the Netherlands must have “unbearable and endless suffering,” and must request death “earnestly and with full conviction.” Two doctors must approve the procedure.

The Netherlands legalized euthanasia in 2001, and was the first country in the world to do so. In 2014, Belgium became the first to legalize child euthanasia.

The Dutch government’s decision was opposed by the country’s two main Christian parties, the Christian Democrat Appeal (CDA) and ChristenUnie. De Jong himself is a member of the CDA, but supported the move based on a recently published study that showed strong support for the practice from doctors.

https://www.rt.com

SCOTUS Blocks Restrictions on Federal Abortion Pill Delivery

Tauren Dyson – October 8, 2020

A Supreme Court ruling will temporarily prevent the enforcement of FDA restrictions that require women to pick up an abortion pill from the doctor during the coronavirus pandemic and will instead allow the medication to be mailed, according to NPR.

The decision lets women continue to get an abortion pill by mail after the high court pushed the case back down to a Maryland federal court for further review.

Three months ago, a federal judge in Maryland decided healthcare providers can have mifepristone mailed to patients. The drug was approved by the FDA in combination with misoprostol to terminate an early pregnancy.

American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists challenged the FDA regulation since the agency has eased similar restrictions for medications such as opioids.

“It is a relief that for the next few weeks the Trump administration cannot force abortion patients to needlessly risk contracting a life-threatening disease as a condition of obtaining care,” said Julia Kaye, lead counsel for ACOG. “When President Trump is trying to rush through a third Supreme Court justice with the express goal of overturning Roe v. Wade, the court’s delayed ruling in this case gives little comfort that the right to abortion is secure.”

The Supreme Court asked for the Maryland federal judge to reevaluate the rule within 40 days, keeping the high court from acting any more on the issue until after the election.

https://www.newsmax.com