NEW YORK (ANP/RTR/AFP) - VN-topman António Guterres heeft de Israëlische aanvallen op Hamas-leden in Doha veroordeeld. Hij sprak over een "grove schending van de soevereiniteit en territoriale integriteit van Qatar".
Guterres zei dat Qatar een positieve rol heeft gespeeld bij pogingen om tot een bestand te komen in de Gazastrook. "Alle partijen moeten zich inzetten voor het bereiken van een permanent staakt-het-vuren, niet voor het vernietigen ervan."
Golfstaat Qatar geldt als een belangrijke bemiddelaar bij dat diplomatieke overleg. Israël zou er woningen hebben bestookt waar leden van het politieke bureau van Hamas verbleven. Het is nog onduidelijk of daarbij ook doden zijn gevallen.
WASHINGTON (ANP/AFP) - De Verenigde Staten wisten dat Israël een aanval zou uitvoeren op Hamaskopstukken in Qatar. "We zijn vooraf ingelicht", zegt een hoge functionaris in het Witte Huis tegen meerdere media.
De VS hebben nog niet officieel gereageerd op het Israëlische bombardement op een bevriend land. Israël benadrukt dat het helemaal zelfstandig te werk ging.
STRAATSBURG (ANP) - Het voorstel van de Europese Commissie voor de nieuwe EU-meerjarenbegroting is "teleurstellend", zeggen de Europarlementariërs die namens het Europees Parlement hierover gaan onderhandelen met de Commissie en de lidstaten. De omvang is niet groot genoeg en ook met andere belangrijke onderdelen zijn ze het oneens, zoals het samenvoegen van de huidige grote fondsen voor landbouw en achterstandsbeleid in één groot fonds.
Ook het voorstel van de Commissie om het geld vanuit dat nieuwe grote fonds aan de lidstaten te geven, dat zij vervolgens zelf naar eigen inzicht kunnen besteden, wordt verworpen. Dat is niet alleen on-Europees, maar ook onacceptabel, zei Europarlementariër Siegfried Mureşan, een van de twee onderhandelaars, dinsdag op een persconferentie.
De controlerende rol van het Europees Parlement wordt daarnaast uitgekleed, voegde mede-onderhandelaar Carla Tavares eraan toe. "Dit voorstel kunnen we niet accepteren", concludeerde Tavares.
TER APEL (ANP) - Meer dan 2000 asielzoekers hebben afgelopen nacht in het aanmeldcentrum in het Groningse Ter Apel geslapen. Daarom moet het Centraal Orgaan opvang asielzoekers (COA) voor het eerst een dwangsom van 50.000 euro betalen. Eerdere dwangsommen waren lager.
Volgens het COA overnachtten 2034 mensen in het aanmeldcentrum. Dit is meer dan het opvangorgaan had afgesproken met de gemeente Westerwolde, waar Ter Apel in ligt. De dwangsom wordt dan ook aan de gemeente betaald, elke dag dat er meer dan 2000 mensen verblijven.
Voor het eerst sinds 1 november vorig jaar slapen er meer mensen in Ter Apel dan toegestaan.
Silicon is one of the most common elements in the universe, but we’ve never found it in the atmospheres of Jupiter, Saturn, and other gas planets around other stars. Webb might have found the answer in a celestial “accident.”
A citizen scientist participating in a program that allows people to look through data collected by NASA JPL’s now-retired NEOWISE (Near-Earth Object Wide Field Infrared Survey Explorer), discovered an odd object in 2020. It was a brown dwarf, a ball of gas that’s neither a planet, nor a star. It was dubbed “The Accident” because even amongst oddball objects like brown dwarfs, this one was unusual.
It is so faint and odd that the infrared sensitivity of Webb was needed in order to examine its atmosphere. Webb data showed a molecule scientists initially could not identify. It turned out to be silane (SiH4), a molecule that researchers have expected to find (but haven’t yet) in our solar system’s gas giants. The Accident is the first object where this molecule has been identified.
Scientists are fairly confident that silicon exists in Jupiter and Saturn’s atmosphere, but is hidden. When silicon binds to oxygen, as it likely did on the gas planets, it forms oxides like quartz that can seed clouds that would sink beneath the lighter layers of water vapor and ammonia clouds, making the silicon-containing molecules invisible to spacecraft that have studied these planets up close.
The Accident, on the other hand, likely formed about 10 to 13 billion years ago. The universe is about 14 billion years old, so at the time The Accident developed, the cosmos contained mostly hydrogen and helium. Oxygen would later form in the cores of stars and become more abundant, meaning that the silicon in The Accident likely bonded instead with the available hydrogen, creating silane.
This explains why we haven’t detected silicon, or silane, in other places we expected to find it. When oxygen is available, silicon bonds so readily with it that there is almost no silicon left to bond with hydrogen to form silane.
Image description: Illustration of a large spherical object that looks like a gas giant planet or a brown dwarf glowing with wavy, horizontal bands of yellow, orange, and red. The background contains thousands of stars with orange and white gas and dust across the center. The words “Artist’s Concept” are in the lower left corner, and Webb Telescope in the lower right. The title “NASA Study: Celestial ‘Accident’ Sheds Light on Jupiter, Saturn Riddle.”
Max Verstappen delivered a masterclass at Monza with his charge to pole position and the race win, but who else made the top 10 of our Power Rankings list following the Italian Grand Prix weekend? Check out the latest scores and overall leaderboard below...
Laurent Mekies was full of praise for Max Verstappen in the wake of the Dutchman’s third Grand Prix win of the season in Italy, calling the four-time World Champion’s drive “perfection” as he celebrated a victory for the first time as Red Bull Team Principal.
In a previous blog post, we looked at how Psalm 22 and Matthew 27 show us that God is not distant in our suffering.
As we read both of these passages, we may get the sense that suffering seems unjust and chaotic—filled with mockery, violence, abandonment. I suppose, in many ways, we shouldn't be too surprised when we hear the likes of Stephen Fry getting angry about suffering. Because according to their worldview, there is ultimately no higher purpose or reason.
Similarly, it's so tempting to look at the Gospel message as a sign of failure—those during the crucifixion of Jesus certainly did. Yet, what looked like failure was actually God's plan for salvation unfolding.
As we dig deeper into Psalm 22, we find that verses 16–18 find their fulfilment in Matthew 27:35. This is what it says in verses 16-18:
Dogs surround me, a pack of villains encircles me; they pierce[e] my hands and my feet. All my bones are on display; people stare and gloat over me. They divide my clothes among them and cast lots for my garment.
This overlaps with verse 35 in Matthew 27, which says:
When they had crucified him, they divided up his clothes by casting lots.
We can see how this directly references the crucifixion of Jesus, mentioning "they pierce my hands and my feet."
Again, looking at other passages, we can see the mocking in verse 8 of Psalm 22:
He trusts in the Lord," they say, "let the Lord rescue him. Let him deliver him, since he delights in him
which directly mirrors the words of Matthew 27:43:
He trusts in God. Let God rescue him now if he wants him, for he said, 'I am the Son of God.'
As I'm sure you can see now, all these pieces of evidence have a higher purpose, don't they?
Even though these words paint a very detailed picture of the sufferings of Christ, they reveal God's divine plan at work—seeing the Old Testament being fulfilled in the New.
In other words, we can see clearly how even the most painful details were not outside God's control. The suffering of Jesus wasn't a detour from God's plan—it was the plan. What looked like defeat on the cross became the means of salvation for the world.
There are many more passages like this where the Bible is full of prophetic moments in the Old Testament (OT) that are fulfilled in the New Testament (NT)—especially around the life, suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
Take, for instance, the "Suffering Servant". In Isaiah 53:3–7 we read: "He was despised and rejected by men… he was pierced for our transgressions…" which was later fulfilled and explicitly mentioned in passages like Matthew 8:17, referring to Jesus' suffering, silence before His accusers, and sacrificial death. It also gets a mention in Acts 8:32–35, where Philip explicitly quotes Isaiah 53 when explaining the gospel to the eunuch.
The reality is, there are many more Messianic prophecies just like this in the Bible (even the ones which don't explicitly mention suffering), but we couldn't fit them all into a single blog post!
And so, equipped with this knowledge, we can start to see the bigger picture. We can see how the resurrection shows that God's purposes are never defeated by suffering.
Applying this to our own lives, our suffering, much like David's and Christ's, can become part of a larger purpose we may not yet see. We should let this become an encouragement for ourselves, as we have a genuine reason for hope. We know that if God brought redemption through Jesus' suffering, He can work through ours too, shifting our mindset from despair to hope, and recalling God's past faithfulness.
