I was considering the horns, and there was another horn, a little one, coming up among them, before whom three of the first horns were plucked out by the roots. And there, in this horn, were eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth speaking pompous words.
The ten horns are ten kings
Who shall arise from this kingdom.
And another shall rise after them;
He shall be different from the first ones,
And shall subdue three kings.
Who shall arise from this kingdom.
And another shall rise after them;
He shall be different from the first ones,
And shall subdue three kings.
(Daniel 7: 8, 24)
On Monday, the UK successfully blocked France’s effort to have the EU’s Foreign Affairs Council adopt the Paris conference’s final communique, which calls on Israelis and Palestinians to take concrete steps to promote a two-state solution.
After UK blocks EU from endorsing Paris conference communique, Palestinian and European officials accuse London of aligning with Jerusalem to cozy up to Trump
Palestinian and European officials on Monday slammed the UK’s apparent readiness to defy international consensus and stand up for Israel, accusing London of aligning with Jerusalem to garner favor with the incoming Trump administration.
“We were expecting the United Kingdom, in particular, to play an effective role in the international system that rejects the Israeli occupation and its settlement enterprise,” Palestine Liberation Organization Secretary-General Saeb Erekat said in a statement released Monday evening, mere hours after Britain blocked a French effort to have the European Union endorse a peace conference it held Sunday.
“The United Kingdom should revise its positions by holding Israel accountable, as well as support the Palestinian and international initiatives. It is time to end the historic injustice that befell our people who will soon mark the anniversary of the infamous Balfour Declaration.”
Hanan Ashrawi, another senior PLO official, charged that instead of “rectifying its historical responsibility” for the Palestinian “tragedy,” London is “compounding its culpability.”
Based on the same concerns voiced in Paris, Johnson argued against endorsing the text that came out of the Paris conference. A handful of Eastern European nations supported London’s stance and since EU Foreign Affairs Council conclusions require unanimity, the text was not adopted.
The Palestinians weren’t the only ones who took issue with what appears to be a British pivot toward positions close to those of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Several European diplomats said the UK’s sudden departure from its traditional positions is an effort to endear the country, which last year voted to leave the EU, to President-elect Trump. The new US leader has signaled that he intends to reconsider positions that have long been an international consensus regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Mark Hendrick, a lawmaker for the British Labour party, told the Financial Times that Johnson’s decision not to sign the Paris declaration was “alarming.”
“The UK is changing a 20-year policy on the Middle East and settlements for the sake of a good trade deal with Donald Trump,” a European diplomat told the paper
“They’re basically changing 20 years of international consensus.”
By all accounts, the UK’s refusal to sign the Paris declaration and its subsequent effort to prevent the EU from adopting the text, was highly unusual.
On Sunday, participants from 70 other countries endorsed the conference’s final communique, which even Israeli officials said was “softened” compared to last month’s Security Council resolution — which Britain supported.
London expressed “particular reservations” about the Paris meeting since the confab took place against Israel’s expressed wishes and “just days before the transition to a new American president when the US will be the ultimate guarantor of any agreement,” a Foreign Office spokesman said. “There are risks therefore that this conference hardens positions at a time when we need to be encouraging the conditions for peace.”
"Britain prevented on Monday afternoon an EU Foreign Affairs Council decision adopting the closing statement of Sunday's peace conference in Paris, European and Israeli diplomats told Haaretz.
The British move was highly irregular and came a day after Britain refused to sign the Paris conference's closing statement.
Israeli and European diplomats said it was France that moved that the Foreign Affairs Council adopt a relatively brief resolution adopting the Paris peace summit's conclusions, and stress the EU's willingness to award Israel and the Palestinians with economic incentives if they reach a peace treaty.
The British move was highly irregular and came a day after Britain refused to sign the Paris conference's closing statement.
Israeli and European diplomats said it was France that moved that the Foreign Affairs Council adopt a relatively brief resolution adopting the Paris peace summit's conclusions, and stress the EU's willingness to award Israel and the Palestinians with economic incentives if they reach a peace treaty.
A senior European diplomat who attended the Council's meeting told Haaretz that Britain's action angered many EU members.
According to the diplomat, the British were motivated primarily by a need to cozy up to U.S. president-elect Donald Trump, who told the Times on Sunday that he expects Britain to oppose any future UN Security Council resolution against Israel. 'The Brits read what Trump said and implemented it immediately,' the diplomat told Haaretz...
Some of the ambiguity and mystery surrounding the nature of President-elect Donald Trump’s relations with Russia’s Vladimir Putin may disperse after the new US president takes office Thursday, Jan. 20, because one of their first joint military actions is ready to go.
US, Russian, Syrian and Jordanian force is preparing for a major operation to liberate the Syrian heritage town of Palmyra from the Islamic State.
Its capture by this allied force would have important ramifications: It would isolate the ISIS forces dug in in northern and central Syria and disconnect them from the jihadists who control extensive areas in the east and the south, including the Euphrates Valley which runs from Syria to Iraq.
From Palmyra, the key offensive for ousting ISIS from its Syrian capital, Raqqa, would move a sep closer. The Islamic State would also be distanced fromdirectly menacing Jordan’s borders with Syria and Iraq.
The allied operation to liberate Palmyra will be the first joint US-Russian military venture embarked on by the Trump administration. It will be a litmus test for the ability of the new US president and the Russian president to work together.
This was what the president-elect was referring to when he commented last Wednesday, Jan 11: “Russia can help us fight ISIS. If Putin likes Donald Trump, guess what, folks, that’s called an asset, not a liability.”
Our sources report that the US and Russian armies are already in the process of exploring common ground for their “engagement” from their war-rooms outside Amman: The US Central Command (Forward) and the Russian-Jordanian command center not far away.
Syrian government army officers have arrived in Jordan for the first time since the civil war erupted in 2011, and were housed in the Russian war room. The operation to recover Palmyra is by now in advanced stage of coordination.
Antibiotic-resistant superbugs are now killing more people than breast cancer, according to a new data analysis by the UK Sepsis Trust.
According to the British Department of Health, about 5,000 people die each year from drug-resistant infections. But the UK Sepsis Trust and others have criticized these figures for being based on studies conducted in other countries, many of them with flawed methodology.
For the new analysis, the UK Sepsis Trust looked at the Department of Health’s own data to come up with an estimate of 12,000 killed per year by superbugs — more than twice as high as the current estimate.
This surpasses the number killed by breast cancer, officially considered one of the United Kingdom’s top killers.
As the scourge of antibiotic-resistance grows, superbugs will likely continue to overtake other top killers. In 2008, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced that a single superbug, methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), had begun killing more people than AIDS.
Antibiotic resistance is spreading so fast that in 2015, World Health Organization (WHO) head Margaret Chan warned that superbugs might “mean the end of modern medicine as we know it.”
“The rise of antibiotic resistance is a global health crisis,” Chan said. “More and more governments recognize (it is) one of the greatest threats to health today.” (RELATED: Learn how to prevent infections and chronic disease at Prevention.news)
The superbugs are an example of the consequences that follow when man presumes himself to be above The Lord.
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