• Israel’s vaccine results give promising signs to the world. More than half of eligible Israelis – about 3.5 million people – have now been fully or partially vaccinated. Older and at-risk groups, the first to be inoculated, are already seeing a dramatic drop in illnesses, health officials claim. Among the first fully-vaccinated group, there was a 53% reduction in new cases, a 39% decline in hospitalisations and a 31% drop in severe illnesses from mid-January until February 6. Further, in a group that had been fully vaccinated there were no new cases of the virus. Read more here and here.

Church News

• Christians Against Poverty founder steps down after 25 years. John Kirkby, founder of debt relief charity Christians Against Poverty, is leaving the charity after quarter of a century. CAP has grown exponentially since its beginnings in 1996, and has also developed a number of ancillary initiatives, such as the CAP Money Course, Job Clubs and Life Skills groups. CAP extends to hundreds of churches across the country, as well as having an international agency, with branches in Australia, the US and Canada. John will be replaced as CAP CEO by Paula Stringer. Read more here.

Society and Politics

• EU rejects call to ease checks on goods to NI. As part of Brexit negotiations, the UK and EU agreed to the Northern Ireland Protocol which is designed to avoid the need for a border on the island of Ireland. But this has led to disruption on goods crossing the Irish Sea, with new checks imposed on those moving from Britain to the province. Concerns have been raised that Northern Ireland’s place within the UK is being undermined. Read more here. Groups such as Intercessors for Britain have called believers across the UK to remember the issue in prayer. A petition has also been set up on the Government website calling on the Government to stop the EU exploiting the Protocol to the detriment of the people of NI.
• Probe launched into far-left influence on BLM and Extinction Rebellion. Attempts by far-left activists to ‘hijack’ movements including Black Lives Matter and Extinction Rebellion are being investigated in a review ordered by Boris Johnson. This follows the desecration of numerous public statues across Britain by leftist groups last summer. Nevertheless, Lord Walney, who is leading the probe, stressed that there is “not an equivalence of threat between the far-Left and the far-Right” in Britain, pointing out that the latter is a significantly bigger problem, and that both are dwarfed in scale by Islamism. Read more here.
• BBC turns Scotland’s historic rugby victory into blame game. The Scots won the Calcutta Cup from England on English soil for the first time in almost 40 years. All commentators agreed it was a thoroughly deserved win. But how did BBC Reporting Scotland report it? By focusing on the fact that most Scottish players did not ‘take the knee’ to the Black Lives Matter movement. This was regarded as a racist stance and it completely overshadowed the historic victory. It transpired that most Scottish players didn’t ‘take the knee’ simply because they didn’t have prior notice that they would be expected to. Read more here.
• What Israel’s lockdown rules would mean for UK. Israel has announced plans for exiting lockdown. It would open shops, gyms, sporting events, museums, libraries and hotels when, among other things, at least 90 per cent of over-50s are vaccinated. Schools would partially reopen once 70 per cent of over-50s are fully vaccinated in areas in which the virus is under control. Because of its advance in the vaccine rollout, Israel hopes to begin this exit strategy within a few weeks. However, were the UK to apply the same reopening criteria as Israel, it is reckoned that it would not be until May that Britain meets the above criteria. Read more here.

World Events

• RC Bishops rebuke Biden over ‘deeply disturbing’ pro-abortion stance. Leading Roman Catholic bishops in the US have condemned President Joe Biden’s decision to recommence funding for abortions abroad. Such, indeed, was one of his first Executive Order reversals on entering office. The Bishops’ rebuke is the result of Biden – a regular attender of mass – holding to a strong pro-abortion stance which is clearly at odds with Roman Catholic teaching. Archbishop Jose Gomez wrote: “Our new President has pledged to pursue certain policies that would advance moral evils and threaten human life and dignity, most seriously in the areas of abortion, contraception, marriage, and gender”. Read more here.
• Republican congresswoman says her faith led her to vote to impeach Trump. Republican congresswoman Herrera Beutler voted for Trump in the November 2020 elections. But she felt compelled to vote to impeach the former President some weeks later, feeling she had to “put truth above politics……There is no king but king Jesus. … When anybody or anything creeps onto the throne in your heart, don’t be surprised if God Almighty shakes it,” she said. Ms Beutler cited Trump’s refusal to try and stop the Capitol riots as the clincher in her decision, and insists that even if she loses her seat in 2022 over her impeachment vote, she will stand by it. Read more here.
• 70 evangelical orthodox Christians released from prison in Eritrea. 70 Christians from evangelical and orthodox backgrounds, including women, have been released from three prisons in Eritrea, some after being held without charge for more than a decade, according to the UK-based Christian Solidarity Worldwide. On January 27, six female prisoners, who had been in detention since last September, were also released. The women were arrested for worshiping in public. CSW President Mervyn Thomas stated the present good news “must not obscure the Eritrean regime’s continued complicity in egregious violations of human rights”, both within its own borders and also in the Ethiopian region of Tigray. Read more here.

Israel & the Middle East

• Biden admin will keep US embassy in Jerusalem. Newly-inducted US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken said America will uphold the decision made by former President Donald Trump, and continue to recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital, despite Palestinian opposition. In May 2018, the US embassy was moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, to officially recognise Israel’s claim to the city as their capital. The status of Jerusalem has been a major point of contention during the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with each side making claims to the ancient city as their rightful capital. Read more here.
• Israeli advance made in finding ‘cure’ for Covid. Two experimental drugs developed in Israel show great promise in treating Covid-19 patients. The drug EXO-CD24 has said to have cured 30 out of 30 moderate to severe cases in the first phase of a clinical trial at a Tel Aviv hospital. Meanwhile, another Israeli company has reported positive results from a clinical trial of its experimental drug, Allocetra, in severe and critical Covid patients. It is believed that Allocetra may be effective regardless of the various mutations that exist. Read more here.