📢 Forum Update - Hello everyone! I've made an improvement to the forum that should make following active discussions much easier. Beginning today, forum topics will display the most recent replies first (while keeping the original topic post at the top), so you no longer have to navigate through multiple pages to find the latest conversation. This change also helps improve the browsing experience in long-running discussions with many pages of replies. If you notice anything that doesn't seem to be working correctly or have any feedback, please let me know. — Richard G. As more details about the Iranian regime’s crackdown against its own people emerge amid the ongoing internet shutdown, two recent unconfirmed reports suggest that the regime may have injected protesters with toxins that are meant to kill them days after the fact. One report was cited by a former UK lawmaker, while the other is based on a testimony cited by the opposition-aligned news outlet Iran International. Bill Rammell, a former Labour MP, told GB News on Saturday that he received a report that “People believe some kind of toxic chemical substance has been used against protestors, causing some of the injured to lose their lives days later.” He noted that the report from Iranian-Kurdish sources had not been verified, but he estimated it to be credible. On Monday, Iran International cited a source close to the family of a detained protester, who said that imprisoned Iranians underwent “abuse, including forced nudity, exposure to cold, and injections with substances of unknown composition while in custody.” This was based on a message a young protester was able to transmit from inside a regime prison, where he said officers had stripped the prisoners naked in the courtyard, keeping them there for long periods amid freezing winter conditions and even spraying them with cold water. The next day, the prisoner and several others were injected with an unidentified substance, the source added. The brutal crackdown that could have killed as many as 16,500 protesters has, for now, largely managed to suppress the protests, according to available information. The Catholic Church and its allied denominations in Jerusalem just declared war on Christian Zionism. In a statement released January 17, the Patriarchs and Heads of Churches in the Holy Land—led by the Roman Catholic hierarchy along with Eastern Catholic, Orthodox, and other traditional church leaders—condemned Christian support for Israel as a “damaging ideology” that misleads the public and harms Christian unity. The statement represents the Catholic Church’s most direct assault yet on the millions of evangelical Christians whose biblical interpretation leads them to support the Jewish state. Their territorial claim was unambiguous: “The Patriarchs and Heads of Churches in Jerusalem reiterate that they alone represent the Churches and their flock in matters pertaining to Christian religious, communal, and pastoral life in the Holy Land.” The Bible speaks directly to this issue: “And I will bless them that bless thee, and him that curseth thee will I curse; and in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed” (Genesis 12:3). The Catholic Church’s statement reveals what truly threatens them: losing control. Christian Zionists will continue standing with Israel because their Bibles tell them to, regardless of what ecclesiastical authorities declare... The State of Israel will continue engaging with believers who bless the Jewish people, and no statement from Jerusalem’s Patriarchs will change that. [More at the link] A new paper describes another possible "quasi-moon" of Earth, and the interloping asteroid may have been following our planet around for decades, undetected. Quasi-moons, the Planetary Society states, are “like a gravitational sleight of hand.” They are asteroids, which — from our point of view on Earth — appear to be orbiting our planet like our permanent moon does. However, they actually orbit the sun, only temporarily moving through the solar system alongside our planet. If the status of the newly detected asteroid, called 2025 PN7, is confirmed, it would not be the only object seemingly behaving as a moon of Earth; there are seven other known quasi-moons in Earth-like orbits, and they are "full of surprises," said study co-author Carlos de la Fuente Marcos of the Complutense University of Madrid. Of these quasi-moons, 2025 PN7 is the "smallest and the least stable known quasi-satellite of Earth," de la Fuente Marcos told Live Science in an email. The newly discovered asteroid is only 62 feet (19 meters) wide — slightly smaller than the meteor that exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia, in 2013. The asteroid is officially classified as having a brightness of magnitude 26, meaning it is visible only through good telescopes. (The lower the magnitude, the brighter the object. For comparison, most naked-eye stars are magnitude 6 or lower, and the bright star Sirius is roughly magnitude -1.5.) The quasi-moon designation was first proposed for 2025 PN7 by French journalist and amateur astronomer Adrien Coffinet... "2025 PN7 seems to be a quasi-satellite of the Earth for the next 60 years," Coffinet wrote. Another in the group said it appears, from the object’s orbit, to have been flying nearby us already for about seven decades. So, why didn't astronomers notice 2025 PN7 before now? "It is small, faint, and its visibility windows from Earth are rather unfavorable, so it is not surprising that it went unnoticed for that long," de la Fuente Marcos said. More quasi-moons may be lurking out there. Working Overtime To Squelch The Church: Christian Persecution Reports Reach All-Time High: Christian persecution has reached unprecedented levels in 15 countries across Africa, Asia and the Middle East, according to an annual global ranking of the 50 most dangerous nations for Christ-followers. Open Doors International, which has been ranking countries since 1993 based on reports of violence against Christians, released its 2026 World Watch List on Jan. 14. Open Doors CEO Ryan Brown said that 388 million Christians live in regions of the world where they are highly susceptible to persecution for their faith. “It’s because the Church is advancing,” Brown said. “The enemy is seeking to attack that which is advancing. … As those numbers increase, it shows that the enemy is working even harder to try to squelch the Church.” Open Doors reports that during their most recent analysis, more Christians were killed for their faith in Nigeria than all other nations combined: 3,490 deaths in Nigeria among a global tally of 4,849. North Korea maintains its top spot on the list for the 24th year, with a persecution score of 97; followed by Somalia, with a persecution score of 94; Yemen, third at 93; Sudan, fourth at 92; Eritrea, fifth at 90; Syria, sixth at 90; Nigeria, seventh at 89; Pakistan, eighth at 87; Libya, ninth at 87, and Iran, 10th at 87. “Our founder Brother Andrew (Andrew van der Biji) used to say our prayers can go where we cannot,” Brown said. “And I have heard from our brothers and sisters over and over again that those words are true, because they’ve said it as they’ve sat in prison cells, as they’ve endured experiences that many of us would have difficulty comprehending. The simple fact that they know brothers and sisters around the globe are lifting them up in prayer, they draw comfort and encouragement from that.”
Iranian regime may have used ‘toxic chemical substance’ to kill wounded protesters after several days:
Catholic Church condemns Christian Zionism as “damaging ideology” that threatens Church unity:
New 'quasi-moon' discovered in Earth orbit may have been hiding there for decades: