“And
he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image
of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not
worship the image of the beast should be killed.”
(Revelation
13:15)
Power To Give Life
***
FOX NEWS
Robot priest added to 400-year-old Buddhist temple in Japan: 'It will grow in wisdom'
By Caleb Parke
August 14, 2019
A 400-year-old Buddhist temple in Kyoto, Japan, is using a $1 million humanoid to reach a younger generation, but foreigners are repulsed by it.
The Kodaji Temple, in a partnership with the robotics team at Osaka University, unveiled "Mindar" earlier this year. The robot is a 6-foot tall android, made of silicon and aluminum and modeled after Kannon, the Buddhist deity of mercy who preaches what is called the "Heart Sutra" in Japanese, with English and Chinese translations projected on a screen for tourists.
"Artificial intelligence has developed to such an extent we thought it logical for the Buddha to transform into a robot," Tensho Goto, the chief steward of the temple, told AFP. "Obviously a machine doesn't have a soul, but Buddhist faith isn't about believing in God. It's about following Buddha's path, so it doesn't matter whether it is represented by a machine, a scrap of iron or a tree."
Goto, a self-proclaimed "fuddy-duddy" priest, believes the robot will help reach the younger generation to help overcome pain and ease suffering, the goal of the Buddhist religion.
"It is here to save anyone who seeks help," Goto added. "Modern society brings other kinds of stress, but the goal hasn't really changed for over 2,000 years."
After months of temple worship with the robot, Osaka University polled people about their experience and many Japanese adherents expressed a positive interaction.
"I felt a warmth you wouldn't feel from a regular machine," one of them said.
Another temple goer added: "At first it felt a little unnatural, but the android was easy to follow. It made me think deeply about right and wrong."
Foreigners, however, have been repulsed by it.
"It could be the influence of the Bible, but Westerners have compared it to Frankenstein's monster," Goto added. "Japanese people don't possess any prejudices against robots. We were brought up on comics where robots are our friends. Westerners think differently."
(“And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.” Revelation 13:15
With the advent of the mixture of AI and trans humanism how far do you think we are from the fulfillment of Revelation 13?)
***
CHARISMANEWS
Beware of the Latest New Age Deception
J. LEE GRADY
August 14, 2019
Don't let this New Age deception snare you. (slavemotion/Getty Images)
It's not surprising to find a New Age guru in the nation of Sri Lanka. But when that same guru mixes Christian faith, the Lord's Supper and prophetic revelation with New Age teachings, you can understand why church leaders around the world are concerned.
The man at the center of this controversy is Kirby de Lanerolle, 44, a Sri Lankan who says he was raised in the Methodist Church. Today he leads WOW Life Church in the capital city of Colombo. (WOW stands for "Works of Wonder.") His growing crowd of followers say his ministry is accompanied by unusual miracles including instant weight loss, gray hair turning black, gold dust and cash appearing supernaturally in wallets.
But de Lanerolle's trademark is his revelation of "breatherianism"—the belief that humans don't need food to exist. Basing his ideas on ancient Eastern philosophy, de Lanerolle believes he receives most of his nutrition from vibrations of energy as well as sunlight. He also takes daily Communion, and claims that Jesus was a breatharian because He fasted for 40 days.
De Lanerolle's teachings obviously appeal to people who struggle with their weight—and this may explain why he's gaining popularity in the United States. De Lanerolle claims to be able to "impart" to others the ability to tap into spiritual vibrations so they lose their appetite for food.
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"Jesus said man does not live by bread alone," de Lanerolle says in one of his video teachings on YouTube, "but by every vibration frequency of God." He calls Holy Communion a "superfood" and claims that he once ran a half marathon after fasting for two months.
Making things even weirder, de Lanerolle teaches what is known as "immortality on earth," the belief that humans can live forever. He claims to have secret revelation about this concept, and he draws his inspiration from the teachings of a controversial charismatic preacher named Kobus van Rensburg of South Africa. (Ironically, van Rensburg died of cancer in 2013. He was directly tied to the controversial Nigerian minister T.B. Joshua.)
De Lanerolle does not expect to keep his unusual brand of spirituality in Sri Lanka. He is spreading it abroad, and he will lead a five-day retreat on breatherianism in Missouri in September. He is now also linked to some leaders in the charismatic revival stream, and he is scheduled to speak at a charismatic conference in Pennsylvania this fall.
Some Christian leaders in India issued a warning about de Lanerolle back in 2015 after he visited Bangalore and Chennai. "We are of the opinion that since Kirby's teachings are clearly not in line with the word of truth; he ... has to be evaluated not on the basis of the signs and wonders but on the basis of the doctrine he believes in and teaches," said Jeyakaran Emmanuel, a spokesman for a coalition of Indian pastors known as the Grace and Truth Coalition.
"Kirby may be a sincere follower of Christ, but he is sincerely wrong in such unbiblical teachings such as immortality on earth and breatharianism," Emmanuel said.
Most thinking people would agree it's dangerous to teach that food isn't necessary. That alone could be the foundation for a Jim Jones-style cult. But de Lannerole also teaches universalism ("All religions point to one place," he has said) and that human beings are evolving into gods. In one of his recorded messages, he says, "We are all in the process of evolution. I believe in evolution. We are all in the process of evolution into being God Himself."
Pastor Ivor Poobalan of the Kollupitiya Methodist Church in Sri Lanka preached a bold message in July 2019 about the spread of heresy in the modern church. In a sermon posted online, he warns his members about de Lanerolle's strange teachings and laments that pastors of 500 Sri Lankan churches have come under the "covering" of WOW Life Church, which now claims to be the largest denomination in the country.
"Some years ago, Kirby claimed that God sent angels to reset his DNA and made his body capable of living without food," Pastor Poobalan says. "This has now led to the most reckless teaching that is central to WOW Life, the promise of immortality on earth. The followers are now promised that they are the first generation of Christians that will physically live on and not die until Jesus returns in the future."
How can someone with such strange, unbiblical beliefs be welcomed into a Christian conference? It's obvious that discernment in the church today is at a low point. In many charismatic circles today, we chase after anyone who can perform miracles—no matter how bizarre. We've lost the ability to spot an impostor.
The apostle Paul warned the Corinthians about "false apostles" and "deceitful workers" who "disguise themselves as servants of righteousness" (see 2 Cor. 11:13,15, NASB). Paul was willing to mark such men as dangerous instruments of Satan. Today we are too nice to judge. We give the false prophets a microphone and pay them an honorarium.
Satan is busy trying to unleash a new wave of deception in the church. Don't buy it. Please warn your friends not to expose themselves to Kirby de Lanerolle's teachings—or to anyone who spreads similar New Age doctrines designed to turn people's hearts away from Jesus.
***
BREAKINGISRAELNEWS
Preparing for Ezekiel 38:19? Israel’s Navy Leads Major Multinational Earthquake Drill
August 14, 2019
“For I have decreed in My indignation and in My blazing wrath: On that day, a terrible earthquake shall befall the land of Yisrael” Ezekiel 38:19 (The Israel Bible™)
The Israel Navy led a first-of-its-kind multinational exercise dedicated to earthquake response this week, in a drill which brought representatives from 10 naval forces, as well as NATO, to the Haifa Port on Israel’s northern coast.
The week-long “Mighty Waves 2019” exercise, which included ships and personnel from the United States, France and Greece, as well as representatives from the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Italy, Cyprus, Chile and NATO, was the largest-ever naval exercise led by the Jewish state.
Could they be preparing for the earthquake that is prophesized in Ezekiel:
“For I have decreed in My indignation and in My blazing wrath: On that day, a terrible earthquake shall befall the land of Yisrael” (Ezekiel 38:19)
Although the IDF Spokesperson denied a direct connection, he did mention that the original name that the Israeli earthquake drill was Mashbirim Adirim (mighty waves) which is based on the passage in Psalms:
“Above the thunder of the mighty waters, more majestic than the breakers of the sea is Hashem, majestic on high” (Psalms 93:4)
“This is the largest international exercise the Israeli navy has led to date,” said Brig. Gen. Gil Aginsky, commander of the Haifa naval base.
Haifa’s Rambam Medical Center also participated in the drill.
The navies simulated a 7.5-magnitude quake centered in the Beit Shean Valley in northern Israel with 7,000 dead, 100,000 wounded, hundreds of buildings damaged, including hospitals and national infrastructure such as water and power supplies, leaving over 150,000 people homeless.
Goals of the exercise included the establishment of a “sea gate” to enable the safe passage of humanitarian aid to Israel, the coordination of multiple national and international organizations, and search and rescue operations at sea.
The drill operated on the assumption that most of the humanitarian aid arriving in Israel in the wake of such a disaster would arrive by sea rather than by air, given the far greater storage capacities of sea vessels and Israel’s situation amid enemy countries.
It also factored in possible damage to the country’s ports, and was based on the creation of a Naval Coordination Center comprised of Israeli ports, security and naval authorities, emergency and medical services and representatives of foreign navies.
According to a report in The Times of Israel, the simulation scenarios were developed by Israel’s National Emergency Management Authority, known by its Hebrew acronym, RACHEL, based on the earthquake scenarios in Haiti in 2010 and Japan in 2011.
Israel is situated on the Great Syria-Africa Rift, a fault line running along the border between Israel and Jordan.
The last major earthquake along that line was a 6.2 magnitude temblor in 1927, which killed 500 people. Seismologists have warned that Israel is due for another tectonic event, with one occurring approximately every 100 years.
(“And his feet shall stand in that day on the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the mount of Olives shall cleave asunder, half of it toward the east and the west, a very great division; and half the mountain shall lean to the north, and half of it to the south. And the valley of my mountains shall be closed up, and the valley of the mountains shall be joined on to Jasod, and shall be blocked up as it was blocked up in the days of the earthquake, in the days of Ozias king of Juda; and the Lord my God shall come, and all the saints with him.” Zechariah 14:4-5)
***RT
MailOnline
Donald Trump boasts that Israeli Jews love him like 'the second coming of God' as he quotes conspiracy theorist who claims American Jews 'don't know what they're doing or saying' amid escalating row over president calling Democratic Jews 'disloyal'
President Donald Trump quoted conservative radio host Wayne Allen Root, who has backed numerous conspiracy theories
On Tuesday Trump said Jews who vote for Democrats either have a total lack of knowledge or are 'disloyal,' prompting furious pushback from Jewish groups
Trump quoted Root saying he was the 'greatest President for Jews and for Israel in the history of the world'
He said Jews 'love him like he is the second coming of God' – which is a reference to the return of Jesus Christ
Root says Trump is good for 'all Jews, Blacks, Gays, everyone'
Root backed the conspiracy theory that Barack Obama wasn't born in the U.S. and another about the murder of a DNC staffer
By GEOFF EARLE, DEPUTY U.S. POLITICAL EDITOR FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
PUBLISHED: 14:20, 21 August 2019 | UPDATED: 00:02, 22 August 2019
Donald Trump sparked fury on Tuesday when he said Jewish voters were disloyal if they voted Democrat. On Wednesday he quoted conservative conspiracy theorist Wayne Allyn Root who said Israeli Jews revere him like he is the 'second coming of God'
GATESTONE INSTITUTE
The Extinction of Christians in the Middle East
by Giulio Meotti
August 18, 2019
"I don't believe in these two words [human rights], there are no human rights. But in Western countries, there are animal rights. In Australia they take care of frogs.... Look upon us as frogs, we'll accept that — just protect us so we can stay in our land." — Metropolitan Nicodemus, the Syriac Orthodox archbishop of Mosul, National Catholic Register.
"Those people are the same ones who came here many years ago. And we accepted them. We are the original people in this land. We accepted them, we opened the doors for them, and they push us to be minorities in our land, then refugees in our land. And this will be with you if you don't wake up." — Metropolitan Nicodemus.
"Threats to pandas cause more emotion" than threats to the extinction of the Christians in the Middle East. — Amin Maalouf, French-Lebanese author, Le Temps.
Most Christian churches in and around Mosul, Iraq were desecrated or destroyed by ISIS. Pictured: The heavily damaged bell tower of Saint John's Church (Mar Yohanna) in the town of Qaraqosh, near Mosul, on April 16, 2017. (Photo by Carl Court/Getty Images)
Convert, pay or die. Five years ago, that was the "choice" the Islamic State (ISIS) gave to Christians in Mosul, then Iraq's third-largest city: either embrace Islam, submit to a religious tax or face the sword. ISIS then marked Christian houses with the Arabic letter ن (N), the first letter of the Arabic word "Nasrani" ("Nazarene," or "Christian") . Christians could often take no more than the clothes on their back and flee a city that had been home to Christians for 1,700 years.
Two years ago, ISIS was defeated in Mosul and its Caliphate crushed. The extremists, however, had succeeded in "cleansing" the Christians. Before the rise of ISIS, there were more than 15,000 Christians there. In July 2019, the Catholic charity, Aid to the Church in Need, disclosed that only about 40 Christians have come back. Not long ago, Mosul had "Christmas celebrations without Christians".
This cultural genocide, thanks to the indifference of Europeans and many Western Christians more worried about not appearing "Islamophobic" than defending their own brothers, sadly worked. Father Ragheed Ganni, for instance, a Catholic priest from Mosul, had just finished celebrating mass in his church when Islamists killed him. In one of his last letters, Ganni wrote: "We are on the verge of collapse". That was in 2007 -- almost ten years before ISIS eradicated the Christians of Mosul. "Has the world 'looked the other way' while Christians are killed?" the Washington Post asked. Definitely.
Traces of a lost Jewish past have also resurfaced in Mosul, where a Jewish community had also lived for thousands of years. Now, 2,000 years later, both Judaism and Christianity have effectively been annihilated there. That life is over. The newspaper La Vie collected the testimony of a Christian, Yousef (the name has been changed), who fled in the night of August 6, 2014, just before ISIS arrived. "It was a real exodus", Yousef said.
"The road was black with people, I did not see either the beginning or the end of this procession. There were children were crying, families dragging small suitcases. Old men were on the shoulders of their sons. People were thirsty, it was very hot. We have lost all that we have built for life and nobody fought for us".
Some communities, such as the tiny Christian pockets in Mosul, are almost certainly lost forever", wrote two American scholars in Foreign Policy.
"We are on the precipice of catastrophe, and unless we act soon, within weeks, the tiny remnants of Christian communities in Iraq may be mostly eradicated by the genocide being committed against Christians in Iraq and Syria".
In Mosul alone, 45 churches were vandalized or destroyed. Not a single one was spared. Today there is only one church open in the city. ISIS apparently also wanted to destroy Christian history there. They targeted the monastery of Saints Behnam and Sarah, founded in the fourth century. The monastery had survived the seventh century Islamic conquest and subsequent invasions, but in 2017, crosses were destroyed, cells were looted, and statues of the Virgin Mary were beheaded. The Iraqi priest, Najeeb Michaeel, who saved 850 manuscripts from the Islamic State, was ordained last January as the new Chaldean Catholic archbishop of Mosul.
ISIS, together with Al Nusra, an offshoot of al-Qaeda in Syria, followed the same pattern, when its militants attacked the Christian town of Maaloula. "They scarred the faces of the saints, of the Christ, they shattered the statues", Father Toufic Eid recently told the Vatican agency, Sir.
"The altars, the iconostases and the baptismal font were torn to pieces. But the thing that struck me most was the burning of baptism registers. It is as if they wanted to erase our faith".
In the cemetery of the church of St. George in Karamlesh, a village east of Mosul, Isis dug up a body and beheaded it, apparently only because it was a Christian.
The fate of Mosul's Christians is the similar to those elsewhere in Iraq. "The International Union for the Conservation of Nature has several categories to define the danger of extinction that various species face today", writes Benedict Kiely, the founder of Nasarean.org, which helps the persecuted Christians of the Middle East.
"Using a percentage of population decline, the categories range from 'vulnerable species' (a 30-50 per cent decline), to 'critically endangered' (80-90 per cent) and finally to extinction. The Christian population of Iraq has shrunk by 83 per cent, putting it in the category of 'critically endangered'".
Shamefully, the West has been and still seems to be completely indifferent to the fate of Middle Eastern Christians. As the Syriac Orthodox archbishop of Mosul, Metropolitan Nicodemus, put it:
"I don't believe in these two words [human rights], there are no human rights. But in Western countries, there are animal rights. In Australia they take care of frogs.... Look upon us as frogs, we'll accept that — just protect us so we can stay in our land.
"Those people are the same ones who came here many years ago. And we accepted them. We are the original people in this land. We accepted them, we opened the doors for them, and they push us to be minorities in our land, then refugees in our land. And this will be with you if you don't wake up."
"Christianity in Iraq, one of the oldest Churches, if not the oldest Church in the world, is perilously close to extinction", Bashar Warda, Archbishop of Irbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, remarked in London in May. "Those of us who remain must be ready to face martyrdom". Warda went on to accuse Britain's leaders of "political correctness" over the issue for fear of being accused of "Islamophobia." "Will you continue to condone this never-ending, organised persecution against us?" Warda asked. "When the next wave of violence begins to hit us, will anyone on your campuses hold demonstrations and carry signs that say 'We are all Christians?'"
These Christians seem to have gained space on our television screens and newspapers only at the cost of their blood, their disappearance, their suffering. Their tragedy illuminates our moral suicide. As the French-Lebanese writer Amin Maalouf noted: "That is the great paradox: one accuses the Occident of wanting to impose its values, but the real tragedy is its inability to transmit them.... Sometimes we get the impression that Westerners have once and for all appropriated Christianity... and that they say to themselves: We are the Christians, and the rest is only an archaeological remainder destined to disappear. Threats to pandas cause more emotion" than threats to the extinction of the Christians in the Middle East.
Giulio Meotti, Cultural Editor for Il Foglio, is an Italian journalist and author.
FAITHWIRE
No, Netflix, the National Prayer Breakfast Is Not a Clandestine Vehicle for World Domination
Photo by Chris Kleponis - Pool/Getty Images
By Will Maule
August 15, 2019
As Netflix documentaries go, “The Family” is just about as outlandish as they come.
The documentary lays claim the uncovering of a secretive religious organization, “The Family,” that it alleges has been secretly pulling the strings of the United States government for the past 80 years. The only problem is, they’ve been there the whole time.
Citing covert meetings with the president and the commissioning of sleeper agents to far-flung lands, the documentary paints a wildly sensationalist picture of a Christian group (real name: “The Fellowship Foundation”), whose primary responsibility was to host a prayer breakfast.
Still, the hype keeps growing, with one local British outlet declaring that streamers of the docu-series have found themselves “too horrified to sleep.” Indeed, the reviews have been filed, and the clickbait headlines are beyond ridiculous. “Inside the sinister sect that has infected western democracy,” declared the Guardian, while the Rolling Stone insisted that the documentary exposes an “insidious American theocracy.”
The trailer is equally scandalous, if not plainly unhinged.
“In my 20’s, I stumbled my way in,” spills the first alleged insider. “And what I found was a secretive Christian organization called the family, that had been hiding in plain sight for 80 years.”
Another breathlessly warns that this is a group “with tentacles around the world”; a gaggle of power-hungry fundamentalists led by the “most powerful man you’ve never heard of” — a man by the name of Doug Coe, who passed away in 2017.
Coe was, by all accounts, a quiet man with a penchant for world peace. In 2001, he organized a historic meeting between two warring leaders, Rwanda’s Paul Kagame and Congo’s Joseph Kabila. This would be the first of a series of covert diplomacy moves that would eventually lead to the signing of a historic peace accord that likely saved thousands of lives.
Does that sound like a slick political operator who was hell-bent on world domination? The Netflix program’s claims are farcical and absurd.
But what of the prayer breakfast itself? “The Family” is, after all, solely responsible for the popular annual event. So, are there clandestine side-room policy meetings and codewords being muttered into the ear of the president? Is the room scattered with secret handshakes?
Well, not according to Christian author, Jeff Lucas, who attended the gathering back in 2017.
“We ate eggs and bacon,” he told Premier UK. “No agenda was shared that might lead to world domination. [We] met some interesting people, and….prayed.”
Sounds pretty terrifying, right? One can only hope this lazy effort to stir up some kind of reaction among Americans is shortlived and ineffective.
Indeed, as more people refuse to mindlessly consume this far-fetched documentary and instead endeavor to pick through the facts, they will start to see it for what it is — a ham-fisted attempt at smearing well-connected people of faith.
Most astonishingly, however, has been the Fellowship’s response to the documentary. In a culture saturated with lawsuits and sharp-tongued Twitter rebuttals, the group’s calm, encouraging and measured words to Netflix were extremely telling of its true mission. Indeed, despite the multi-billion dollar streaming company devoting 245 minutes of feature content to dismantling and disparaging its work, the group offered nothing but grace.
“Though the Netflix docudrama series mischaracterizes the work of the Fellowship and attempts to portray people of faith in a bad light, we are encouraged by how often viewers are introduced to, and challenged by, the person and principles of Jesus, which are at the core of our mission and message,” the Fellowship said in a statement.
“Perhaps they will also better understand the integrity and transformational impact of this informal network to encourage everyone in a spirit of friendship and reconciliation to love God with all their heart, soul and mind, and to love their neighbor as themselves.”
***
RT
‘We are moving into a new, controlled society worse than old totalitarianism’ – Zizek on Google leak
Published time: 17 Aug, 2019 23:12
FILE PHOTO: Banner protesting against 'Google Campus' construction in Berlin, August 17, 2018 © AFP / John MacDougall
Modern censorship is more dangerous than open totalitarianism, it being concealed and incorporated in our daily routine, says Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek, commenting on the insider leak detailing Google’s news blacklist.
The intellectual told RT he’s not advocating for online anarchy, comparing it to snuff movies in hardcore pornography – some regulation should be in place to block harmful content on the internet, he says. But hiding political motives for suppressing voices online is what worries Zizek the most.
“We all know we have to censor things at some level, but the main rule for me is that the process should be transparent. Not in the way – I’m talking about the developed West – it is done now, when all of a sudden somebody is prohibited and you are not even allowed to debate it,” Zizek explains. The “false choice” between politically correct censorship and radical liberalism is a trap, he believes.
This week, conservative transparency group Project Veritas published documents it received from an ex-Google employee. The documents appeared to confirm that Google can boost or de-rank news sources based on a seemingly biased set of internal rules. Calling the practices “dark and nefarious” the whistleblower, Zachary Vorhies, also leaked a doc detailing Google’s “blacklist” that lists nearly 500 websites, including both conservative and leftist media outlets.
Zizek believes the Big Tech's practice of blacklists and shadow bans could prove an opportunity for right-wing activists to show themselves as a group fighting establishment politics and targeted for their opposition. The philosopher thinks this tactic will actually backfire against liberals by giving “the new populist right a position where they can say: you see, we’re the true alternative, we’re the true oppressed.”
Google is likely not the only tech megacorporation with a tight grip on their users’ digital menu, Zizek argues – but “the process isn’t some kind of a dark plot,” rather an inconspicuous slide “into a new, controlled society.”
What’s terrifying about it is that we don’t even experience it as something controlled. We just use social media, buy things, go to a doctor – and all the data about us is out there. But those are the things that we perceive as our freedom. So what we perceive as freedom becomes the very way we are controlled.
One doesn’t know anymore “if there is secret police following you or somebody reading your letters,” and this in Zizek’s mind is what differentiates it from the totalitarianism of the past. Modern control is hidden and undeclared, Zizek says.
***
RT
Iranian tanker leaves Gibraltar despite US demands to seize it
Published time: 18 Aug, 2019 22:08 Edited time: 19 Aug, 2019 05:21
Iranian oil tanker Adrian Darya 1, before being named as Grace 1, sits anchored in the Strait of Gibraltar, Spain, August 18, 2019. © REUTERS/Jon Nazca
The Iranian oil tanker 'Grace 1,' newly released by Gibraltar and renamed 'Adrian Darya 1,' has reportedly set sail, maritime tracking data shows. It comes after a last-minute US request demanding its seizure was rejected.
The tanker left the Gibraltar port at around midnight local time, shipping data showed.
Excited ship spotters took to Twitter to report that marine traffic monitoring sites showed the vessel moving towards open seas. However, its speed soon came to a near-halt, prompting discussions as to whether it was a technical problem or a false start.
About half an hour later, however, the tanker picked up speed, reaching Spanish waters and heading into international waters.
The tanker with some 2.1 million barrels of oil on board was seized by the UK off Gibraltar in early July. Washington accused the then-Panama-flagged ship of transporting the crude to Syria in violation of US sanctions.
Last week, despite the US authorities’ vocal objections, Gibraltar decided to release the vessel, claiming that it had received assurances that it was not bound for Syria. Tehran, however, subsequently denied that it had provided any such guarantees.
On Friday, in a last-ditch attempt to keep the tanker in custody, Washington issueda warrant seeking the tanker’s arrest, along with all of its oil and what is said to be nearly $1 million in an unnamed US bank, while accusing it of supporting the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) by illegally using the US banking system to finance the shipment.
The British overseas territory pushed back against the demand on Sunday, telling Washington that it was not going implement US sanctions on Iran, which are much broader than those imposed by the EU.
***
RT
Iran to establish ferry link to Russia’s Dagestan across Caspian Sea
Published time: 18 Aug, 2019 14:44
Naryn-kala Citadel museum, part of the Derbent State Historical, Architectural and Art Museum-Reserve in the city of Derbent, Republic of Dagestan, Russia. File photo © Sputnik / Vladimir Vyatkin
Tehran is in talks with Moscow over plans to establish a ferry service across the Caspian Sea that would link Iran with Russia’s Dagestan.
The Iranian ambassador to Russia, Mehdi Sanai, had earlier arrived in Derbent to discuss the development of relations between Iran and Russia’s Republic of Dagestan. During the visit, the two sides discussed the question of increasing cargo traffic through Makhachkala Commercial Sea Port, as well as the launch of direct passenger and cargo flights between Makhachkala and Tehran.
Among the issues discussed was a plan to set up a direct ferry service linking the two states, with the head of Dagestan’s republic, Vladimir Vasiliev, highly optimistic about the prospect.
“Derbent attracts Iran like a magnet and [the ferry service] will work. [Tehran] is ready to establish sea links with us, and we are ready to cooperate – and everything will work,” Vasilyev told journalists at a press briefing on Sunday.
He said that Iran’s business community had started to take an interest in Dagestan, in particular in Derbent, with a number of international projects already being implemented and set to transform the region.
“International projects are being implemented in Derbent, there are some very interesting solutions there. The city used to have a billion-plus [rubles] annual income, but now it is receiving four billion [rubles] more [from investors],” Vasilyev stated.
Earlier reports regarding cooperation between Dagestan and the Islamic Republic referred to plans to increase the sales turnover between the two sides, particularly to boost lamb exports to Iran from the current 4,000 tons to 6,000 tons by the end of the year. At present, the volume of trade between Iran and the republics of the North Caucasus is estimated at $54 million (€49 million), while the total Russian turnover is $1.7 billion (€1.49 billion).
***
RT
Trump CANCELS meeting with Danish PM after she refuses to discuss selling Greenland
Published time: 20 Aug, 2019 23:59 Edited time: 21 Aug, 2019 07:48
© Reuters Pictures Archive
US President Donald Trump has cancelled a meeting with the Danish PM after she unequivocally shot down his dreams of purchasing resource-rich Greenland, a much-memed possibility about which the president was quite serious.
Trump thanked PM Mette Frederiksen for being “so direct” and sparing “a great deal of expense and effort” for both countries, which apparently have few pressing matters to discuss absent the gigantic and seemingly absurd real-estate purchase. The meeting, scheduled for two weeks into the future, would be postponed “for another time,” the president tweeted on Monday.
Frederiksen refused to even entertain the possibility, calling the purchase “absurd” and explaining more than once that “Greenland is not for sale” - and that it isn’t Denmark’s to sell, anyway. Trump, for his part, has floated the idea of purchasing the landmass multiple times, musing that “it would be nice” for strategic purposes.
The US already has an airbase on Greenland, and Trump had apparently reasoned that because Denmark is an ally of the US, it would be willing to part with the land, the administration of which costs $700 million annually. However, the island is home to 55,000 people, many of whom are Danish nationals and probably have mixed feelings about becoming US subjects. It has its own Prime Minister and controls its own domestic affairs, though Copenhagen takes care of its military defense and foreign policy.
Danish politicians echoed their leader’s dismissal of the American offer, calling the idea “completely ridiculous” and an “April fool’s joke,” and even Trump seemed to find the humor in the possibility, tweeting a photoshopped image of a solid gold Trump Tower in the middle of a Greenland village with the tagline “I promise not to do this to Greenland!”
***
Gastro Obscura
The Soup That Stopped a War
This two-ingredient dish allegedly halted religious conflict, and is still cherished today.
BY LUKE FATER August 15, 2019
THE FIRST WAR OF KAPPEL divided the idyllic Swiss countryside, pitting neighboring cantons against one another in armed religious conflict. Like in most intra-Christian conflicts of the Reformation, men were prepared to spill blood over theological differences. Unlike any war in history, however, it was over before it even began thanks, perhaps, to an iconic pot of soup.
Could a single soup pacify two battle-ready armies? “The milk soup is a legend,” Dr. Georg Kreis of the University of Basel flatly told Great Big Story. But it still resonates today, and the story of the soup’s role in resolving conflict is deeply rooted. In 1564, prominent Protestant pastor Henrich Bullinger wrote of the episode, “With [one] part on our own soil, we ate the milk [together].”
On June 10, 1529, Protestant forces from Zurich and Catholic forces from Zug met on a field in Kappel am Albis that’s today known as Milchsuppestein, or “milk-soup pasture,” to battle over the administration of disputed territories. While the infantries squared off, Hans Aebli, a local magistrate, mediated between rival leaders off-site to negotiate a peace deal. Tired and hungry from a long march, the opposing armies began to disarm and fraternize. Eventually, the legend goes, soldiers pitched a giant soup pot in the center of the battlefield: the Catholics brought milk, the Protestants bread. The crossing of spoons over the inaugural bowl of Kappeler Milk Soup eased tensions long enough to give negotiators time to arrive at a peace deal two weeks later.
Ultimately, war did resume. Several years after their soupy truce, a food embargo (of all things) imposed on Catholic cantons by Zurich brought the opposing forces back to the battlefield. The violence of the Reformation raged on, despite a mutually displayed love of soup.
Today, the site of the bloodless battle is memorialized by the Kappeler Michsuppenstein monument. It stands beside the town monastery, atop a hill overlooking Lake Zug. A famous 1869 painting by Albert Anker, considered Switzerland’s “national painter,” in Zurich’s Kunsthaus Museum depicts the scene: Opposing forces laze around an oversized soup bowl, weapons strewn about them while supping on their peace-making potage.
Milchsuppe itself was embedded in the Swiss national psyche, a fitting symbol for a country with a reputation for neutrality and compromise. Susanne Wey-Korthals, retired Swiss pastor of Kappel Abbey and a part-time historian, told the BBC, “All countries polish their history a little, and we’ve done the same—we’ve turned the soup into a national icon.”
A 16th-century monument that memorializes the bloodless battle overlooks the Milchsuppestein, or “milk-soup pasture.” BASILSTUECHELI/USED WITH PERMISSION
In 2006, Councilor Pascal Couchepin was tasked with mediating a long-standing dispute between two Swiss cities: Protestants from Zurich plundered the Abbey of St. Gall during the 1712 Toggenburg War, claiming countless artifacts, manuscripts, and globes. At the luncheon celebrating the signing of a restitution deal in 2006, Couchepin underscored the closure by serving Kappeler milk soup. In 2017, organizers of “Together to the Middle: 500 Years of Reformation,” an ecumenical event celebrating Swiss Christian unity, held a soup dinner featuring none other than Kappeler milk soup.
The dish is served in restaurants and homes, though less often today. The Swiss ambassador to the U.S., Martin Dahinden, writes in Beyond Muesli and Fondue that although “it often takes time to resolve a disagreement, it [only] presents another opportunity to prepare Kappeler Milchsuppe.” His recipe calls for nutmeg, cloves, and bay leaves, stipulating that while “everyone eats out of the same tureen, [they are] only allowed to eat the bread on their side.”
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next week...keep on believing.
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“And
he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and
they shall beat their swords into plow- shares, and their spears into
sickles: and nation shall not take up sword against nation, neither
shall they learn to war any more.”
(Isaiah 2:4)