Week in Review: Pope Pushes for Unity, Abridging Religious Freedom, Russia Braces for Nuclear War, and Much More

Week in Review: Pope Pushes for Unity, Abridging Religious Freedom, Russia Braces for Nuclear War, and Much More

ANDREAS SOLARO/AFP/Getty Images, DOD, iStock.com/Joe Belanger, VYACHESLAV OSELEDKO/AFP/Getty Images

Week in Review: Pope Pushes for Unity, Abridging Religious Freedom, Russia Braces for Nuclear War, and Much More

All you need to know about everything in the news this week

October 8, 2016

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Highlights:

Papal push for unity with Anglicans

  • The pope and archbishop of Canterbury prayed together publicly for the first time since the churches split nearly 500 years ago.
  • Pope Francis and Archbishop Justin Welby held a combined service on Wednesday at St. Gregory.
  • The church building is named after a sixth-century pope who dispatched missionaries to England to spread Catholicism.
  • Protestants are clearly “returning to the fold” as we wrote in our free booklet He Was Right.

    • Threat against religious freedom

  • Last June, the Massachusetts State Legislature passed a law banning sex-segregated bathrooms in public places. Now the organization tasked with enforcing this law, the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination, has released a guidebook explaining the nuances of the new laws.
  • “[T]his new law basically provides the state and trans activists with a legal tool to force pastors into using terms that violate their beliefs (and basic biological facts),” wrote Bre Payton for the Federalist.

    • More agitation for Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood

  • Egypt’s Interior Ministry announced Tuesday that it had killed a senior official of the “armed wing” of the Muslim Brotherhood.
  • The ministry’s statement said Mohammed Kamal had been targeted for arrest during a raid on Monday. Kamal was reportedly killed in a subsequent gun battle, together with another Brotherhood member.
  • The Muslim Brotherhood disputes the government’s version of the circumstances leading up to Kamal’s death. It said that the group’s youth-wing leader had disappeared hours before his death was announced.
  • “This could lead to more irresponsible acts of violence by the young people,” a senior Brotherhood official exiled in Turkey told Reuters. “The youth are outraged.”

    • Iran’s threat to the Red Sea

  • On October 1, a United Arab Emirates-operated advanced transport vessel in the Yemeni port of Mokhawas was attacked by an antiship missile. Iranian-sponsored Houthi rebels claimed responsibility for the attack.
  • Stratfor reported that the attack, “if confirmed, would indicate that the group has acquired new capabilities. … [T]he attack could suggest a shift in the group’s tactics that may equally threaten ships in the Red Sea.”
  • “The Houthi takeover in Yemen proves that Iran is implementing a bold strategy to control the vital sea lane from the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea,” Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry warned in April 2015. “We need to understand the gravity of this new situation in Yemen!”

    • Russia’s nuclear drills

  • Moscow initiated a nationwide civil defense training drill on Tuesday to ensure that Russians are ready in the event of a large-scale disaster, including a nuclear attack from the West.
  • The drill involved 40 million people, 200,000 specialists and about 50,000 units of equipment.
  • Amid these developments, it’s noteworthy that “Russia increased its deployed nuclear warheads over the past six months under a strategic arms reduction treaty as U.S. nuclear warhead stocks declined sharply,” according to Washington Free Beacon.

    • Other news:

  • A deal on Thursday expressed that “the [European Union] and the government of Afghanistan intend to cooperate closely in order to organize the dignified, safe and orderly return of Afghan nationals to Afghanistan who do not fulfill the conditions to stay in the EU.” EU leaders pledged $15.2 billion.
  • Suspected al-Shabaab militants killed six people in an attack on Thursday in northern Kenya near the border with Somalia. The Somali-based, al Qaeda affiliate claimed responsibility for the attack. It also claimed that it had targeted Christians.

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