News and Views: 1st May 2025 

Israel

• Israel ablaze in national emergency. Israeli police have arrested as many as 18 suspects in connection with fires that broke out on Wednesday near Jerusalem, amid soaring temperatures and fierce winds, and leading to the cancellation of many Independence Day events. The fires forced 0ver 10,000 evacuations, road closures and the quashing of Israel’s state Independence Day torch-lighting ceremony. Dozens of separate fires have been reported in the affected areas. Over 100 firefighting teams have been working on the ground from various districts, supported by firefighting planes and helicopters – with reports of around 30 firefighters having been wounded.
• New kind of war against Israelis. Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) has been involved and terrorism is strongly suspected. Israel’s National Security Minister and his Chief of Police have deployed 14,000 police officers across the country to stop the arson attempts. The national emergency is seen as a new kind of war against the Israeli people. “This is perhaps the largest fire ever in the country,” Jerusalem’s district fire commander stated.

Upcoming Events

• The Millennium: A 5-part Series commencing this Friday, 2 May at 11.00am. It is a 5-part series presented by Geoff Barnard with an opportunity for interaction. The first part will  take place at 11.00am on Fri, 2 May, and the subsequent parts at 2-week intervals. If anyone is interested to connect with this series pls contact Colin Wilson, ChristiansTogether editor@christianstogether.net

Europe

• Net zero blamed for Europe’s biggest power cut. In what is believed to be Europe’s largest power cut, tens of millions of people in Spain and Portugal were left without electricity, while flights were grounded, trains halted and whole cities were left without power, internet access or other vital services. The cause of the initial fault in the region’s electricity grid will take weeks to investigated, and a cyberattack has been ruled out. However, energy experts have blamed a heavy reliance on solar and wind farms in Spain for leaving the region’s power grid vulnerable to such a crisis. Indeed, REE, Spain’s national grid operator, said it had identified two incidents of power generation loss, probably from solar plants, in the country’s south-west. These incidents caused instability in the electric system and led to a breakdown of its interconnection with France. Meanwhile, Britain’s electricity grid operator is investigating unexplained power plant failures that hit the UK’s system hours before Spain and Portugal were plunged into blackouts.
• Cause of power-cut intensely debated. The Guardian initially ran with the idea that the weather was to blame for the power cut-out, before eventually dropping the story. Several publications called the scenario a mystery, not considering that a reliance on net zero energy might be responsible. The BBC, too, ignored the evidence. Reuters insists that “reliance on renewables is not to blame. Rather, the issue appears to be the management of renewables in the modern grid.” 
• Criticism of Net Zero within Labour. Experts say that should nationwide blackouts occur in Britain, they could quickly lead to disaster – The UK’s National Risk Register listing a failure of the national electricity transmission system as a category five – “catastrophic” – impact event. Even Labour’s former leader Tony Blair laid into the 'irrational' push for green power being championed by Ed Miliband, saying the current approach 'isn't working'. (he was later forced to back down from his criticism). Labour's biggest union backer, Unite, also attacked the Net Zero drive, warning that it is set to become a 'political millstone' around the party's neck.

Society & Politics

• Small boat crossings pass 10,000, breaking all records. The number of people who have crossed the English Channel in small boats in 2025 has exceeded 10,000 at the earliest point in year since 2018, when records began. It is an increase of about 40% compared with the same period last year. Since coming to power, the government has announced a series of measures to tackle people smuggling, but the figures continue to soar. This is in contrast to America, where the Trump administration has arrested and deported over 65,000 illegal migrants - including thousands of known 'scammers' - since the president took office in January. The recent spell of mild weather has only increased the numbers of migrants crossing the English Channel.

Church Issues

• The ongoing investigation re apologist and revivalist Michael L Brown. Investigators who reviewed allegations of sexual misconduct made by two women against well-known revivalist, prolific Christian author and debater, Michael Brown, have concluded they are valid.` Brown has denied any sexual impropriety conceding only to acting foolishly in his relationship with the woman.  However, a group of Christian leaders asked to review the findings of the investigation, have rejected them and have cleared Brown for public ministry, with the expectation that he would follow several specific recommendations. An ardent apologist in the Messianic Jewish movement, in the mid-1990s Brown became one of the leaders in the Brownsville Revival, a charismatic ‘outpouring’ in Pensacola, Florida.

Grooming Gangs

• The gang rape of young girls in UK as bad as ever. A Channel 4 documentary, Groomed: A National Scandal, aired on Wednesday night, reveals that despite the denials of the authorities, organised grooming gangs – many from Muslim communities – across England continue to target adolescent girls. Investigative reporter Anna Hall says one care home manager in Blackpool tells her that the scale of abuse is worse than it has ever been. The documentary also makes it clear that a report identifying over 330 young women at risk from Asian grooming gangs was deemed 'toxic' and suppressed by the Home Office purely because the perpetrators were overwhelmingly British-Pakistani. Read also here and here.

World Events

• Sweden’s elder rape scandal. In Sweden, Multiple cases of rape and sexual abuse of elderly ladies dependent on outside carers to look after them have shaken the country. Councils across Sweden have received a staggering 45 reports of such abuse over the past 5 years, but many further cases have also come to light. The public anger at the torrent of horrific allegations has been matched only by the determination of the authorities to suppress the scandal. Reports of elderly abuse were ignored for long and have only been reported in recent months. A disproportionate number of perpetrators are migrants – Sweden having welcomed a large number of migrants from Afghanistan, Lebanon, Syria, Somalia and Eritrea over recent years, many having come to work in the care sector.

Covid & the vaccines

• Nearly half of ‘Covid deaths’ not caused by the virus, researchers find. Hospitals in Athens, Greece, incorrectly attributed hundreds of deaths to COVID-19, according to a peer-reviewed study published last week in Scientific Reports. A team of 19 Greek doctors and researchers studying 530 deaths that occurred in seven Athens hospitals between January and August 2022 found nearly half of the deaths attributed to COVID-19 were unrelated to the virus. Researchers determined the virus was directly responsible for only a quarter (25.1%) of the deaths. Further, among the 288 deaths of people whose vaccination status was known, and who officially died “from” COVID-19, more than half (53.8%) were vaccinated, and of these, 65.8% were boosted.