TDB Top 5 International Stories: Monday 26th June 2017

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5: Hexes vs. Prayers: Christians and Witches Are Waging Spiritual War Over Trump

Witches have been casting spells against US President Donald Trump since his inauguration. But while there have been numerous reports detailing the efforts of pagan, Wiccan, and Satanic groups against the president, there have been fewer detailing the efforts of Christians to counteract these magical actions with the power of prayer.

Since February, magic practitioners around the world have been notoriously congregating by the light of the waning crescent moon in order to bind Trump from doing further harm. The mass ritual, which was widely reported at the time, garnered an alarmed response from the Intercessors for America (IFA), a prayer and fasting Christian organization, which issued a global call to the cult of Christ: “Whether or not this call for spells pans out and people act on it, we feel compelled, as the body of Christ and intercessors, to come against this evil with immediate and powerful prayer,” the group said in a statement.

This month, it seems, the witches and Christians are at it again. On June 20, the former group mobilized against Trump again—taking advantage of the summer solstice, a time when magical powers are believed to be heightened. Earlier this week, multiple Christian outlets reported that both Jewish and Christian believers had started rallying in support of the Trump administration, and the IFA put out another urgent call for prayer.

Vice News

4: Tillerson: Some demands on Qatar very difficult to meet

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson says some demands on Qatar by a group of Arab countries that have imposed a blockade against it “will be very difficult to meet”.

In a statement issued on Sunday, the top US diplomat added, however, that the list submitted by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain and Egypt includes “significant areas which provide a basis for ongoing dialogue leading to a resolution”.

Aljazeera

3:  RALPH NADER: THE DEMOCRATS ARE UNABLE TO DEFEND THE U.S. FROM THE “MOST VICIOUS” REPUBLICAN PARTY IN HISTORY

THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY is at its lowest ebb in the memory of everyone now alive. It’s lost the White House and both houses of Congress. On the state level it’s weaker than at any time since 1920. And so far in 2017 Democrats have gone 0 for 4 in special elections to replace Republican members of Congress who joined the Trump administration.

How did it come to this? One person the Democratic Party is not going to ask, but perhaps should, is legendary consumer advocate and three-time presidential candidate Ralph Nader.

Nader, who’s now 83 and has been been based in Washington, D.C. for over fifty years, has had a front row seat to the Democrats’ slow collapse. After his bombshell exposé of the U.S. car industry, Unsafe at Any Speed, he and his organizations collaborated with congressional Democrats to pass a flurry of landmark laws protecting the environment, consumers and whistleblowers. Journalist William Greider described him as one of America’s three top models for small-d democratic activism, together with Saul Alinsky and Martin Luther King, Jr. Meanwhile, the 1971 “Powell Memo,” which laid the groundwork for the resurgence of the corporate right, named him as a key enemy of “the system,” calling him “the single most effective antagonist of American business.”

The Intercept

2: Republican Healthcare Bill Gives Tax Cuts to the Rich by Gutting Safety Net for Poor & Middle Class

TDB Recommends NewzEngine.com
After weeks of secret deliberations, Republican senators released a healthcare proposal that would remove millions of low-income and disabled people from Medicaid, prompting protests on Capitol Hill that are expected to continue throughout the country. The bill would also cut subsidies to purchase health insurance, allow states to effectively eliminate protections for people with pre-existing conditions, and defund Planned Parenthood for a year. It was negotiated behind closed doors between 13 Republican male senators. We get response from Harvard professor John McDonough, a chief architect of Romneycare who also worked on the development and passage of the Affordable Care Act, and speak with Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, a key advocate for Medicare for All.
Democracy Now

1: Sixty towers across England found to have unsafe cladding

Test results on building materials in the wake of the Grenfell Tower disaster have revealed that 60 high-rise blocks in 25 areas of England are unsafe, the government confirms.