A New Perspective on Constantine

(Worthy News) – Iran’s Revolutionary Guards seized two oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, officials in London said, in a move that appeared to infuriate American and British leaders.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said it had seized British oil tanker Stena Impero, claiming it “was confiscated by the Revolutionary Guards at the request of Hormozgan Ports and Maritime Organization when passing through the Strait of Hormuz, for failing to respect international maritime rules.” [ Source: Times of Israel (Read More…) ]

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(Worthy News) – The House has approved legislation to raise the federal minimum wage for the first time in a decade, to $15 an hour.

Democrats pushed through the bill Thursday with a party-line vote of 231-199, but it has almost no chance in the Republican-controlled Senate.

A hike in the $7.25 hourly wage has been a top Democratic campaign promise. It’s intended to address income inequality that’s driving the 2020 political debate. The legislation, for the first time, would pay tipped workers the same as others earning the minimum, boosting their pay to $15 an hour, too. It’s now $2.13. [ Source: Time (Read More…) ]

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(Worthy News) – U.S. and Chinese officials spoke by telephone on Thursday as the world’s two largest economies seek to end a year-long trade war, with U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin suggesting in-person talks could follow.

Mnuchin and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer spoke with their Chinese counterparts over the phone, Lighthizer’s office said on Thursday, following earlier comments by the Treasury secretary in an interview on the sidelines of the G7 meeting in Chantilly, France.

The United States and China have been embroiled in a tit-for-tat tariff battle since July 2018, as Washington presses Beijing to address what it sees as decades of unfair and illegal trading practices. [ Source: Reuters (Read More…) ]

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(Worthy News) – The U.S. Treasury Department on July 18 imposed additional sanctions on Iran that target its nuclear-enrichment program.

They are the first restrictive measures since Tehran said earlier this month that it would increase enriched uranium levels to above those allowed under the terms of a 2015 nuclear accord.

The blacklist includes five people and an international group of companies in Iran, Belgium, and China that acted as a supply network for Iran’s nuclear program. [ Source: Radio Free Europe (Read More…) ]

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(Worthy News) – Iran said Thursday its Revolutionary Guard seized a foreign oil tanker and its crew of 12 for smuggling fuel out of the country, and hours later released video showing the vessel to be a United Arab Emirates-based ship that had vanished in Iranian waters over the weekend.

The announcement solved one mystery — the fate of the missing ship — but raised a host of other questions and heightened worries about the free flow of traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most critical petroleum shipping routes. One-fifth of global crude exports passes through the strait. [ Source: Ha’aretz (Read More…) ]

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(Worthy News) – The Pew Research Center released its 10th annual report on freedom of religion around the world, spanning over a decade of changes between 2007 and 2017.

The overall trend the report documented was a rise in religious suppression—and governments which carry it out—across the globe, with 52 governments severely restricting freedom of belief in 2017, over just 40 in 2007.

“Almost every faith that’s a majority somewhere is a minority somewhere else and often gets persecuted where they’re a minority,” Sam Brownback, the US ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom, told reporters Tuesday ahead of a meeting with various religious leaders designed to address the issue.

The Middle East and Africa were by far the most conflicted areas in terms of religious violence documented by the report, but a loss of religious freedom was also pinpointed in Europe, where 20 countries in 2017, versus just 5 in 2007, placed significant restrictions on religious dress.

Not surprisingly, and in agreement with a recent British government report commissioned by foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt, Christians were the most persecuted group in the world ranked in terms of the number of countries in which they face persecution at 143, with Muslims a close second at 140.

The post 'We're Talking About A Common Human Right': Government Restrictions on Religion Clamp Down Over Ten-Year Period appeared first on Worthy Christian News.

(Worthy News) – Iran’s state television said Thursday that regime forces captured a foreign tanker with a crew of 12 accused of smuggling oil.

Hours later, it was announced the USS Boxer, a Wasp-class amphibious assault ship, loaded with 2,000 Marines and dozens of helicopters entered the Persian Gulf.

The tanker was seized by Revolutionary Guard forces on July 14 after getting intercepted south of Iran’s Larak Island in the strategic Strait of Hormuz amid allegations that the tanker was smuggling fuel from Iranian smugglers to foreign customers. [ Source: Fox News (Read More…) ]

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(Worthy News) – The Pentagon said on Thursday that the USS Boxer took defensive action against a drone after it came within a “threatening range” in the Strait of Hormuz.

“A fixed wing unmanned aerial system (UAS) approached Boxer and closed within a threatening range,” Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman said in a statement, which did not say to whom the drone belonged.

Hoffman said the incident took place about 10 a.m. local time as the Boxer was transiting into the Strait of Hormuz. [ Source: Reuters (Read More…) ]

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(Worthy News) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday that if Israel was forced into another war with Hezbollah, “we will act with tremendous force and ensure our victory.”

Israeli news site Mako reported that, speaking at a memorial service for soldiers who fell in the Second Lebanon War in the summer of 2006, Netanyahu noted there were three challenges facing Israel in Lebanon.

“The first is the takeover of a neighboring country by radical Islam; the second is the introduction of missiles into Lebanon, and specifically precision-guided missiles; and the third is the danger of penetrating our territory, above or below the ground,” he said. [ Source: Algemeiner (Read More…) ]

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