A New Perspective on Constantine

(Worthy News) – The United States, Mexico and Canada will expedite NAFTA talks in a push to reach a deal in coming weeks, Mexico’s president said on Saturday after a meeting with the U.S. vice president and Canadian prime minister.

On the sidelines of the Summit of the Americas in Lima, Peru, Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said they thought an agreement could be reached before Mexican elections on July 1, although they also said no deadlines had been set.

“We agreed to keep up work towards reaching a deal and to summon our special negotiating teams to accelerate their efforts,” Pena Nieto told reporters after meeting Pence. [ Source: Reuters (Read More…) ]

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(Worthy News) – Russian President Vladimir Putin warned on Sunday that further Western attacks on Syria would bring chaos to world affairs, as Washington prepared to increase pressure on Russia with new economic sanctions.

In a telephone conversation with his Iranian counterpart, Hassan Rouhani, Putin and Rouhani agreed that the Western strikes had damaged the chances of achieving a political resolution in the seven-year Syria conflict, according to a Kremlin statement.

“Vladimir Putin, in particular, stressed that if such actions committed in violation of the U.N. Charter continue, then it will inevitably lead to chaos in international relations,” the Kremlin statement said. [ Source: Reuters (Read More…) ]

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(Worthy News) – A lawyer for President Donald Trump is pressing a federal judge to allow Trump’s attorneys to sift through the records the FBI seized last week in high-profile searches tied to Trump’s longtime personal lawyer, Michael Cohen.

In a new court filing Sunday night, attorney Joanna Hendon called the use of search warrants to authorize seizure of files from Cohen’s home, office and hotel room “disquieting to lawyers, clients, citizens, and commentators alike.” She also argued that allowing Trump’s legal team access to the confiscated records is the only effective way to safeguard the president’s “sacred” right to attorney-client privilege.

Prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney’s office in Manhattan have argued that they can address those concerns through use of a so-called taint team that would seek out privileged information and prevent it from reaching those investigating Cohen over various issues, including the $130,000 payment he arranged just before the election to a porn star who claimed to have had a sexual encounter with Trump. [ Source: Politico (Read More…) ]

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(Worthy News) – The Rev. John Sanqiang Cao paid no more than three dollars for the trip that would end up costing him his freedom.

For years, he and fellow Chinese Christian teachers would cross the river on a narrow bamboo raft from a tree-shrouded bank in southern China into neighboring Myanmar, carrying with them notebooks, pencils and Bibles. The journey that enabled the missionaries to slip between the countries — a distance no greater than 9 meters (30 feet) — always happened in broad daylight, according to a U.S.-based missionary who traveled with Cao.

The ride on March 5, 2017, was different. Cao and a teacher were on a raft returning to Yunnan province when they saw Chinese security agents waiting for them on the shore. Decades of work in China’s clandestine “house” churches and unofficial Bible schools had prepared the prominent 58-year-old Christian leader for this moment. He quickly threw his cellphone into the water, protecting the identities of more than 50 Chinese teachers he had recruited to give ethnic minority Burmese children a free education rooted in Christianity. [ Source: Fox News (Read More…) ]

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(Worthy News) – The lawyer for a U.S. pastor who goes on trial in Turkey on Monday over alleged links to a group accused of orchestrating a failed military coup said the preacher had been arrested for his Christian faith.

Ismail Cem Halavurt said pastor Andrew Brunson, detained 18 months ago, faced the “totally unfounded” charge of aiding a terrorist organization and should be freed at Monday’s hearing in the Mediterranean city of Izmir.

A Christian pastor from North Carolina living in Turkey for 23 years, Brunson has been indicted on charges of helping the group that Turkey holds responsible for the failed 2016 coup against President Tayyip Erdogan. [ Source: Reuters (Read More…) ]

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(Worthy News) – President Donald Trump on Sunday defended his use of the phrase “Mission Accomplished” to describe a U.S.-led missile attack on Syria’s chemical weapons program, even as his aides stressed continuing U.S. troop involvement and plans for new economic sanctions against Russia for enabling the government of Bashar Assad.

Stepping up the pressure on Syria’s president, U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley indicated the sanctions to be announced Monday would be aimed at sending a message to Russia, which she said has blocked six attempts by the U.N. Security Council to make it easier to investigate the use of chemical weapons.

“Everyone is going to feel it at this point,” Haley said, warning of consequences for Assad’s foreign allies. [ Source: CBN News(Read More…) ]

The post US to Hit Russia With New Sanctions for Aiding Syria’s Assad appeared first on Worthy Christian News.

(Worthy News) – Russia’s stock market opened lower on Monday morning, amid renewed concerns over the prospect of imminent U.S. sanctions.

The Moex index fell 1.3 percent during early morning deals in Moscow, extending losses of more than 4 percent over the last month. Meanwhile, the U.S. dollar-denominated RTS gauge slipped 1.2 percent.

Shares of aluminum giant Rusal plummeted more than 25 percent lower in Hong Kong trade on Monday morning — notching record lows. Oleg Deripaska, the Russian billionaire behind the Hong Kong-listed stock, was one of the executives targeted by U.S. sanctions announced on April 6. [ Source: CNBC (Read More…) ]

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(Worthy News) – With Russia considering supplying the S-300 surface-to- air missile systems to Syria, Israel’s air superiority is at risk of being challenged in one of its most difficult arenas.

With a de-confliction mechanism in place with Russia over Syria in order to avoid any unwanted conflict with the superpower, Israel has largely had free reign over Syrian skies to carry out strikes on targets deemed a threat to the Jewish state.

Over the course of Syria’s seven-year-long civil war, Israel has publicly admitted to having struck over 100 Hezbollah convoys and other targets in Syria, while keeping mum on hundreds of other strikes that have been attributed to the Jewish state. [ Source: Jerusalem Post (Read More…) ]

The post Russian supply of S-300 systems to Syria major threat to IAF appeared first on Worthy Christian News.

(Worthy News) – With Russia considering supplying the S-300 surface-to- air missile systems to Syria, Israel’s air superiority is at risk of being challenged in one of its most difficult arenas.

With a de-confliction mechanism in place with Russia over Syria in order to avoid any unwanted conflict with the superpower, Israel has largely had free reign over Syrian skies to carry out strikes on targets deemed a threat to the Jewish state.

Over the course of Syria’s seven-year-long civil war, Israel has publicly admitted to having struck over 100 Hezbollah convoys and other targets in Syria, while keeping mum on hundreds of other strikes that have been attributed to the Jewish state. [ Source: Jerusalem Post (Read More…) ]

The post Russian supply of S-300 systems to Syria major threat to IAF appeared first on Worthy Christian News.

(Worthy News) – The Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist group said four of its members were killed in an apparent accidental blast in the Gaza Strip on Saturday.

The group said in a statement that it was “mourning its fighters who were martyred during preparations.”

It usually employs those terms to refer to casualties caused by the accidental detonation of weapons or explosives used in attacks against Israel. [ Source: Algemeiner (Read More…) ]

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