Society & Politics

• Could heated talk over the dinner table become a Hate Crime in the UK? The Law Commision says that the offence of stirring division could extend to private homes, meaning that conversations in the home could lead to police probes and potential imprisonment. In Scotland, the situation could be more worrying still. The SNP’s notorious Hate Crime and Public Order Bill could mean that children who repeat in the school playground their parents’ views in regard to, for example, transgender ideology, could see mum and dad investigated for ‘hate crime’. Read more here and here.
• School girls propositioned in UK’s first legal ‘red light’ district. Teenagers attending school near England’s first official red-light district say they have been repeatedly propositioned for sex. Pupils have told teachers they do not feel safe passing through the so-called ‘Managed Approach’ area in the Holbeck district of Leeds – where so-called ‘sex workers’ are allowed to operate without fear of arrest. Children say they regularly see curb-crawlers, drug taking, used condoms and discarded needles on their walk to school. Plans are underway to open up more such red-light districts across the country. Read more here.
• Chief Rabbi 'proud' to help keep Corbyn out of Downing Street. Last year, Britain’s Chief Rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis accused Jeremy Corbyn of allowing the 'poison' of anti-Semitism to take root in the Labour Party, and said it could no longer claim to be the party of diversity, equality and anti-racism. Mirvis said the majority of British Jews were “gripped by anxiety” over the thought of Corbyn as Prime Minister. Now almost a year on, the senior Jewish leader said it “felt good” that his decision to speak out against Mr Corbyn has been given credence by a report into Labour's antisemitism by the Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC). He has said he is “proud” of how the “British public has taken hatred seriously”. Read more here.

Church Issues

• Calls for National Day of Prayer in UK unheeded. Throughout both periods of lockdown there have been numerous calls from Church leaders, Christian politicians and ordinary believers for the Prime Minister to declare a National Day of Prayer. One, arranged by David Hathaway in August, has attracted just over half the required 50,000 signatures. DUP MP, Jim Shannon (supported by Ian Paisley Jnr) raised the topic in the House of Commons, adding that the Government should "recognise the importance of prayer". So far, such calls have been unheeded by both the Queen and Boris Johnson. And perhaps they will continue to be, as the nation turns to a new ‘saviour’ in the form of a recent vaccine which has been found to be more than 90% effective in preventing Covid-19. Meanwhile, the Evangelical Alliance, which represents thousands of churches and organisations across the UK, decided to declare a UK day of prayer anyway – it takes place today, Friday 13th November.

World Scene

Prophecy Today is deeply saddened to report two appalling massacres of Christians in East Africa:-

• At least 54 mainly Christian Amharas reported massacred at school in Ethiopia. The massacre occurred at a school in the western Oromia region of Ethiopia, when around 60 armed terrorists opened fire on a gathering of 200 in Guliso, in the west of the country. The senseless, mind-numbing attack is the latest in a spate of recent massacres in Ethiopia, which have left several dozen dead, apparently targeting the Amhara, a mainly Christian ethnic group. Read more here.
• Jihadists behead over 50 people in football pitch massacre in Mozambique. In an equally cold-blooded and chilling assault, Islamic militants turned a village football pitch in northern Mozambique into an execution ground where they beheaded more than 50 people during three days of savage violence between 6th and 8th November. Anyone who tried to flee was caught, decapitated and chopped to pieces in a series of ferocious attacks in Muslim-majority Cabo Delgado province. Read more here.

• Remarkable unity between Kenya and Tanzania over National Days of Prayer. Differing perspectives on handling the coronavirus had led to a diplomatic spat between Presidents Kenyatta of Kenya and Magufuli of Tanzania. However, Kenyatta became impressed with the low number of Covid deaths in Tanzania. So when Magufuli assured Kenyatta that prayer truly works, also calling his fellow Tanzanians to set aside time to pray for their Kenyan neighbours, the Kenyan President was deeply moved. He subsequently announced a three-day national prayer initiative in his own country. Read more here.
• Catholic leader warns Trump of Global Reset. Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, the Vatican’s former ambassador to the United States, penned a letter to US President Donald Trump prior to the election, warning him that the “global elite” are planning a ‘Great Reset’ that, if implemented, intends to undermine God and humanity. He warns that this "nefarious global elite" wants nothing more than to “subdue all of humanity, imposing coercive measures with which to drastically limit individual freedoms and those of entire populations.” Though sounding like a massive conspiracy theory, the 'Great Reset' is an actual global agenda devised by the World Economic Forum. Among its aims are to “to shape the system for the post-corona era” by “changing the traditional context for decision-making”. Many politicians and social commentators have found the stated aims of the WEF deeply disturbing, devoid of democratic principles and rooted in socialist values. Read more here and here.

Israel & Middle East

• Donald Trump was Israel's “Greatest friend”, claimed Benjamin Netanyahu. Such positive views of Trump’s international policy towards Israel were also reflected in the nation generally, with some 70 percent of Jewish Israelis suggesting that a victory for Donald Trump in the US presidential election would have been preferable for the Jewish state. Biden’s victory may have downgraded Israel’s ranking on the list of US foreign-policy priorities, as well as diminishing Netanyahu’s stature on the global stage. But Biden and Netanyahu are no strangers, having had a 38-year long connection. Experts say that their relationship will be particularly strained by Biden’s plan to re-enter the Iran deal that Trump abandoned two years ago. Read more here.