"For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths." Northwoods is a ministry dedicated to refreshing Christians and challenging them to search for the truth in Christianity, politics, sociology, and science
"I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life"
Father God, thank you for the love of the truth you have given me. Please bless me with the wisdom, knowledge and discernment needed to always present the truth in an attitude of grace and love. Use this blog and Northwoods Ministries for your glory. Help us all to read and to study Your Word without preconceived notions, but rather, let scripture interpret scripture in the presence of the Holy Spirit. All praise to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
Please note: All my writings and comments appear in bold italics in this colour
Gunmen have killed a local security volunteer and at least ten members of his family in Nigeria’s northwestern Zamfara State, set their home ablaze, and abducted 13 other people, police have said.
The attackers raided Gidan Taba village in Maradun district over the weekend, targeting the volunteer after he repeatedly helped security forces repel armed groups from the community, Zamfara police spokesperson Yazid Abubakar said on Monday.
“They considered him an obstacle to their activities,” Abubakar said. Security forces have since been deployed to the area and are working to secure the release of the 13 abductees, he added.
Local reports initially put the death toll at 12 members of the same family, including women and children. A resident told Nigerian newspaper PUNCH that the victims had taken refuge in a room to avoid abduction before the attackers set it on fire.
Maradun council chairman Sanusi Ahmad Dosara also said in a Facebook post on Sunday that 12 people were killed in the “horrific” Gidan Taba attack. He said he had attended the funeral of the victims. In a separate post the on Monday, Dosara said he met the commander of the Nigerian Army’s 1 Brigade in Zamfara over worsening attacks that he said were causing loss of life and property in Maradun, and called for stronger military action to restore security.
Days earlier, the Nigerian Police Force said armed bandits ambushed officers traveling to Zamfara for election duty, killing five and wounding two others. Seven officers were rescued, while the attackers made off with five service rifles. Police said joint forces were still searching for the gunmen and the stolen weapons.
Zamfara has been at the center of a long-running security crisis in northwest Nigeria, where armed groups locally known as bandits raid villages, abduct residents for ransom, steal livestock, and attack major roads. In January 2024, the state government launched a Community Protection Guard to support police and military operations against the violence.
In July, at least 24 farmers were killed in attacks on communities in Talata Mafara, while more than 150 people, mostly women and children, were reported abducted from villages in Bukkuyum in April. In June, police said gunmen seized seven students from off-campus accommodation in Kaura Namoda.
The latest attack comes amid a wider security crisis across Africa’s most populous nation, including a jihadist insurgency in the northeast that began in 2009 with Boko Haram and later Islamic State West Africa Province. Nigeria’s military said last week that 588 operations in September and October killed 435 terrorists and bandits, led to 809 arrests, and rescued 717 kidnapped.
According to Grok:
Burned alive?
Yes. Family members of Mallam Muhammadu Sani (also referred to as Sani Ɗanwawo), a local vigilante, locked themselves in a room to avoid abduction. The attackers ordered them to open the door; when they refused, the bandits set the room/building on fire. Reports state 11–13 people (most commonly cited as 12 family members, including the father, wives, and children; police often said 11) died from the intense heat and fire. One account notes the fire mainly engulfed the roofing and they died from the heat rather than direct flames, but multiple sources describe them as “burnt to death,” “burned alive,” or killed by the blaze while trapped. Others were abducted. The victims were buried the next dayaccording to Islamic rites, with Maradun LG Chairman Sanusi Ahmed Dosara leading the funeral
Merz threatens EU budget veto over Ukraine aid – media
The German chancellor is reportedly demanding that every member state contribute to Kyiv’s financing before Berlin approves the bloc’s next seven-year budget
Published 10 Nov, 2026 04:53
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has threatened to block the EU’s next seven-year budget unless all member states commit to providing more financial aid to Ukraine, several media outlets reported on Monday.
The EU has pledged to cover around €45 billion ($52 billion) of Ukraine’s projected €70 billion funding shortfall in 2027, as the conflict with Russia approaches its fifth year in February. However, Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic have signaled opposition to contributing to additional financial assistance for Kiev, while Bulgaria is expected to follow suit.
“Bilateral assistance to Ukraine is distributed unevenly and carried mostly by only a few member states,” Merz wrote in a letter to European Council President Antonio Costa, according to Bloomberg. The chancellor reportedly argued that supporting Ukraine was “a matter of our indivisible European security.”
“A collective commitment that all of us, without exception, will contribute fairly to closing this gap is an essential prerequisite for resolving this issue and for discussing any further matters, particularly those with financial implications,” Merz wrote, as cited by Euronews.
Is Merz's power move really about a few billion Euros from the little Balkan states. Is he so stupid, after watching France burn, that he's determined to give Ukraine tens of billions of Euros out of Berlin's budgets to continue their losing war with Russia?
Does he not know that ending the war will bring much cheaper energy prices to Germany and ease the strain on family and business budgets? Or is he smart enough and tough enough to find an elegant way to end the EU's remarkable financing of the NATO proxy war with Russia? Smart and tough are not words normally associated with Merz, so I seriously doubt it, but wouldn't it be nice?
He also called for “a sound and multiannual financing perspective for Ukraine from 2028 onwards, including the interest liabilities that have already accrued.”
Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic had previously secured exemptions from financial obligations, including interest payments, on the EU’s €90 billion ‘loan’ to Ukraine agreed in December 2025.
Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico warned last month that linking Ukraine’s financing to negotiations over the EU’s next long-term budget would be dangerous. He has also argued that financing the war would prolong the fighting rather than bring peace.
Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis similarly argued that funds for Kiev “should not be part of the multiannual financial framework, where member states do not have enough money.”
Merz is also facing mounting political pressure at home amid widespread dissatisfaction with his government. According to an ARD-DeutschlandTrend poll published on November 5, only 12% of Germans were satisfied with his performance, while 85% were dissatisfied.
The chancellor’s declining popularity has coincided with major electoral setbacks for his CDU. In September, the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) won state elections in Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, while the left-wing Die Linke came first in Berlin, defeating the CDU. Merz described his party’s performance in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania as a “disaster.”
A 20-year-old Christian from Egypt has been killed by the Islamic State (ISIS) in Libya after he refused to deny Jesus and convert to Islam while held captive by its fighters.
The victim, Milad Malak, was the sole Christian among the Egyptian workers the militants held, Open Doors reported, citing two Muslim friends held alongside him and later freed.
For several days, the captors allegedly tortured him and threatened to kill him to force him to give up Christianity for Islam. Malak turned down every demand, and he is thought to have been killed by the militants after they were unable to force him to convert.
“Even if you cut me into pieces, I would never renounce my faith,” he told his captors, according to the U.S.-based persecution watchdog International Christian Concern.
He was kidnapped and killed in early October. Speaking to Worthy News, his sister, Madonna Malek, said the family paid a ransom. The kidnappers kept him because he alone among the captives was a Christian, and they used violence to push him to convert, she said.
Malak served as a deacon at a Coptic church in Sebarbay, his home village in Egypt’s northern Gharbia governorate.
He was among many young Egyptians who went to Libya for jobs as their own economy declined, hoping to provide for his family and settle into a secure life.
He left on Sept. 2, traveling with two friends from Sebarbay, both Muslims. After a one-day trip, the three reached Zliten, a city on Libya’s Mediterranean coast, where they lodged with fellow Egyptians who had come for work. ISIS fighters seized them on the morning of Oct. 4.
The kidnappers abused the captives and demanded money for their release. The two friends went free after their families paid $4,700, and both are now in a hospital in Egypt for medical treatment.
Malak’s family learned of his death from the friends. Relatives then asked the Egyptian government to step in and press for his body to be sent home.
The body was handed over several weeks later.
On Oct. 28, relatives and other Christians gathered to mourn him and honor his life. A family friend said he stayed faithful to Christ until he died.
Libya is ranked No. 9 on Open Doors’ annual World Watch List of the most dangerous countries for Christians.
In the Muslim-majority country, Christians come under heavy pressure to leave their religion.
Both Open Doors and ICC linked Malak’s death to the killing of 20 Coptic Christians and a Ghanaian man by ISIS in Libya in 2015. According to Open Doors, the militants took the men to a beach and beheaded them after they refused a final demand to renounce their faith. ISIS filmed the killings and posted the video online.
Copts belong to the Coptic Orthodox Church, the largest Christian community in Egypt and the Middle East.
Most of the men killed in 2015 came from villages in Minya province in southern Egypt. Like Malak, they were laborers who had gone to Libya to earn money. The Ghanaian victim, Matthew Ayariga, had been working there alongside the Egyptians.
ISIS released the video of the beheadings in February 2015. Egypt responded the next day with airstrikes on ISIS targets in the eastern Libyan city of Derna.
The head of the Coptic Orthodox Church, Pope Tawadros II, later declared the 21 men martyrs. In 2023, Pope Francis added them to the Roman Catholic Church’s list of martyrs.
Egypt and Libya share a long land border, and Egyptian laborers have sought work there for decades.
Libya has been in turmoil since a 2011 uprising toppled longtime ruler Muammar Gaddafi and has been split between rival governments since 2014.
At least eight migrants were killed, two are missing and 28 were rescued after their boat got into difficulty in a storm off the island of Crete, Greek authorities said Monday. File photo by Bougiotis Evangelos/EPA-EFE
Nov. 9 (UPI) --At least eight migrants were killed, two are missing and 28 were rescued after their boat got into difficulty in a storm off the island of Crete, Greek authorities said Monday.
The Hellenic Coastguard said in a news release that one of its lifeboats recovered seven bodies from the vessel on Monday, 12 miles west-south-west of Kala Limenas, having initially rescued 29 Sudanese nationals, one of whom was deceased, in a rescue attempt early Sunday that was abandoned after conditions became too dangerous to continue.
Survivors told the coastguard at least two people had earlier fallen overboard on Friday afternoon and had not been seen since -- but were unable to give the location where they went missing.
"Towing and further recovery became completely impossible and extremely dangerous due to the severity of the weather conditions, with gale force northerly winds, resulting in the boat being left at the scene," said the coastguard.
Survivors said they had set sail from Libya headed for Greece on Tuesday or Wednesday, paying between $1,870 and $2,493 for the crossing.
The bodies and survivors were brought ashore in Kala Limenas before being transferred to Heraklion, the island's capital, where two of the survivors were being treated in the hospital.
An estimated additional 87 people were rescued in two separate operations about 35 and 36 miles south of Kali Limenas, respectively, after being located with assistance from manned and unmanned aircraft, picked up by Frontex vessels and were being brought to Kali Limenas.
Two people, both Sudanese nationals, were arrested in connection with the incidents.
Separately, the state-run Senegalese Press Agency reported that at least 34 migrants were killed after a small wooden boat trying to reach the Canary Islands went down of the coast of the west African country.
Senegal's interior ministry said one person had been rescued but an unknown number of people remained unaccounted for after the vessel capsized between Dakar and Saint-Louis.
The Canary Islands are part of Spain and therefore the European Union.
At least 635 people died attempting to reach the Canary Islands on the so-called Atlantic route in the five months to May, according to Walking Borders, a Spanish migrant rights group, which said it estimated that at least one in five people who made the crossing lost their lives doing so.
Auhtorities on the islands said more than 30 boats carrying more than 3,300 people had arrived in November alone.
Again, we Iranians woke up this morning to horrifying news:
The Islamic Republic has hanged three more innocent protesters.
Shocking that how hanging human beings for speaking, for demanding Freedom has become the Islamic Republic’s new normal. Worse, the world seems to be getting used to it.
Today, Hassan Dioband, Hamid Kazemi, and Reza Zanganeh were executed over January’s protests.
Three lives taken. Three families shattered.
Stop normalizing executions in Iran.
#StopExecutionsInIran
At least 33 people were killed, 10 were injured and 50 remain missing after Russian forces dropped 3.3 ton bombs on a Ukrianian village school Monday where local residents were taking cover in specially-reinforced bunker. File Photo by Vlad Movchan/UPI | License Photo
Nov. 3 (UPI) --At least 33 people were killed, 10 injured and 50 remain missing after Russian forces unleashed nine 6,600-pound bombs on a village school where residents were taking cover beneath ground in Ukraine's southeastern Zaporizhzhia region.
Zaporizhzhia Gov. Mykhailo Semikin said the sheer force of the blasts in the strike on Monday demolished a specially hardened basement, which was only constructed in 2025 with European Union funding, and set it on fire.
No classes were being held at the school in Komyshuvakha, 20 miles southeast of Zaporizhzhia, the building having been turned over to use as a shelter and center for distributing humanitarian assistance as more and more of the civilian population fled advancing Russian forces, according to Semikin.
Posting footage from the scene of a large bomb crater, President Volodymyr Zelensky said the "utterly horrific" attack was one of the most deadly of the war and that there were still people "under the rubble."
Zelensky said it was impossible that the Russians didn't know that Monday was the day "that the local residents who remained in Komyshuvakha received humanitarian aid there [at the school] every week."
"It is very telling that all of this is happening on the day of the U.S. congressional elections. The Russians believe that America will not notice this signal from them. But such terror must be noticed and stopped," Zelensky said.
The attack came amid an intensification of Russia's airborne campaign against civilian and infrastructure targets -- particularly energy facilities -- as the conflict enters its fifth winter with 14 people killed and 14 injured Thursday in a drone strike that hit a train at Dnipro's main train station and at least 33 killed and 18 injured in an Oct. 8 strike on two buses in Kramatorsk in Donetsk.
A shortage of air defense missiles, including U.S.-made Patriot surface-to-air interceptors, to shoot down incoming Russian missiles has been blamed in part for a jump in the number of civilian casualties in Kyiv and across the country.
U.S.-mediated peace talks stalled since February are due to resume next week when Ukrainian, Russian and American negotiators meet Nov. 10 in Abu Dhabi for "working level" talks, U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff wrote on X.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, left, talks to U.S. President Donald Trump in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Monday, April 7, 2025.
Getty Images
The president said the idea came from Netanyahu himself, suggesting that the agreement was also made to stop Democrats from using US funding to Israel as ammunition to criticize Republicans.
“He brought it up. He brought it up,” Trump said of the Israeli leader.
“He said, ‘I think it would be appropriate if we do not receive aid,’ because he understands that this is one of their points of contention.”
Trump called the roughly $4 billion in aid “the best talking point that these lunatics on the left have.”
“Why should we suffer the slings from lunatics like El-Sayed?” he asked, referring to Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed. who has made Israel aid a flagship issue of his campaign.
A campaign billboard depicts Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Trump in Tel Aviv, Monday, Oct. 26, 2026.
AFP via Getty Images
Trump said the two leaders struck the deal “months ago.”
Netanyahu has been publicly pushing to end the aid since at least January, when he told The Economist he hoped Israel could stop relying on American military funding entirely within a decade. By May, he was telling CBS’ “60 Minutes” that he didn’t “want to wait for the next Congress.”
Days before Israel’s Oct. 27 election, he went further, telling Israel’s Channel 10 that the aid “won’t keep coming because America has changed, not because Israel has. It’s over and it will be over; it’s just a question of time.”
A giant electoral poster for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party with the slogan “no surrender” is displayed on the facade of a building in Tel Aviv, Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2026.
AFP via Getty Images
On the Iran war, Trump claimed the US had left the country with no navy, no air force and no anti-aircraft defenses.
He confirmed an overnight US strike on an Iranian air-defense site, which he said Iran had spent about two months building.
“As soon as it was completed, we hit it last night very nicely,” he said. “Just a minor attack. It wasn’t war.”
Iranians wave flags by an anti-US billboard of President Trump in Tehran’s Enghelab Square, on Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2026.
AFP via Getty Images
US officials told CNN the limited strikes on Iran’s Qeshm Island, in the Strait of Hormuz, were defensive, with one saying they came in response to Iran firing on an American aircraft.
Asked what comes after Election Day, Trump said, “I’m not looking to, you know, kill lots of people, but if we have to, we’ll have to.”
Germany can’t provide Ukraine with any more US-made Patriot air defense systems because it would dangerously deplete its own stocks, Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has said.
In an interview with the newspaper Berliner Morgenpost published on Friday, Pistorius noted that Berlin had already delivered several Patriot systems and large numbers of guided missiles to Kiev.
“We cannot provide any more at this moment,” the German defense chief stated, explaining that anything Germany supplied now would not be replaced “for the foreseeable future.”
Pistorius urged other Western nations, whom he accused of having “contributed significantly less,” to step up deliveries of air defense systems to Ukraine.
Pistorius had already warned in January that Germany could not send any more Patriot systems, saying it had already handed over more than a third of its capabilities to Ukraine.
Germany, one of Kiev’s key Western backers, has launched a massive rearmament drive since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022, with Chancellor Friedrich Merz setting the goal of building Europe’s strongest conventional army. Berlin has cited a perceived threat from Russia, while Moscow has repeatedly dismissed as “nonsense” claims that it intends to attack NATO.
Apart from a shortage of Patriot air defense systems themselves, Ukraine has experienced significant shortages of modern PAC-3 missiles capable of intercepting ballistic rockets. The deficit intensified after Russia stepped up its long-range missile and drone strikes on military-related targets across Ukraine. Moscow has described its strikes as retaliation for Kiev’s UAV attacks on energy facilities and other civilian infrastructure inside Russia.
Intercepting ballistic missiles can require launching two Patriot interceptors at a single target, with each missile costing between $3.5 and $5 million. Russia, meanwhile, has repeatedly launched large-scale strikes involving dozens of missiles and hundreds of drones.
The US and its allies are also reportedly facing severe shortages of Patriot interceptors after Washington expended large quantities of air defense ammunition during its war against Iran earlier this year. The shortages have reportedly forced Washington to delay contracted deliveries of PAC-3 interceptors to some customers in Europe and Asia.
Nevertheless, Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky has repeatedly demanded that Western backers provide Kiev with more interceptors.
Late last month, Ukrainian Defense Minister Evgeny Khmara asked France, Germany, Italy, the UK, and Poland to donate 10% of their respective interceptor stockpiles to Kiev.
However, the Netherlands and Poland had previously indicated that they had no Patriot missiles to spare, while other European countries are reportedly holding back their own PAC-3 reserves as well.
Moscow has consistently denounced Western weapons deliveries to Ukraine, arguing that they only serve to unnecessarily prolong the bloodshed without changing the conflict’s ultimate outcome, while increasing the risk of
A man carries a wounded child at a hospital following alleged Saudi-led airstrikes in Sana'a, Yemen, Saturday. The Houthi-held Ministry of Health reported that at least 22 people, mostly women and children, were killed and 30 others wounded in alleged Saudi-led airstrikes on houses east of Sanaa, amid growing hostilities between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia. Photo by Yahya Arhab/EPA
Nov. 7 (UPI) --More than 50 people have died in airstrikes in Yemen, believed to be launched by Saudi Arabia.
Houthi officials said one airstrike hit the village of al-Shariya in the Bani Hushaysh district east of Sanaa, Yemen's capital that has been under Houthi control since 2014.
Anees al-Asbahi, a spokesperson for the Houthi-run health ministry, said at least 27 people were killed and 30 others wounded in Saturday's attack, most of them women and children, The New York Times reported. He blamed Saudi warplanes. The Saudi government has not spoken about the attacks.
The Houthis are fighting a civil war with Yemen's government. Iran backs the Houthis, and Saudi Arabia, along with many other countries, backs Yemen. There was a cease-fire in 2022, but fighting picked up again in August.
The Houthis and Saudi Arabia have been trading strikes as the Houthis are trying to block the Bab al-Mandab Strait, which would cut off access to the Red Sea, while the United States and Iran have blocked the Strait of Hormuz. On Friday, strikes in the government-run Taiz province on a crowded market killed at least 30 people. The Yemeni government blames the Houthis, but the Houthis blame Saudi Arabia.
Yemen's Presidential Leadership Council has said the government will continue working to dismantle Houthi military capacity and restore sovereignty, Al-Jazeera reported.
For the past month, the Yemeni government has waged a "Dawn of Yemen" offensive against the Houthis after they claimed territory on the Red Sea coast. The mission is to recapture Houthi-controlled areas including Sanaa.
By the end of October, almost 1,800 people have been killed since August, and more than 300,000 people have been displaced, the World Health Organization said. Hospitals in Yemen are running low on medical supplies, aid agencies have reported.
Houthi officials said they will retaliate for the latest deaths. Yahya Saree, the Houthi military spokesperson, said the group would avenge their dead "against the killer of children and women."
A man carries a wounded child at a hospital following alleged Saudi-led airstrikes in Sana'a, Yemen, Saturday. The Houthi-held Ministry of Health reported that at least 22 people, mostly women and children, were killed and 30 others wounded in alleged Saudi-led airstrikes on houses east of Sanaa, amid growing hostilities between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia. Photo by Yahya Arhab/EPA
Nov. 7 (UPI) -- More than 50 people have died in airstrikes in Yemen, believed to be launched by Saudi Arabia.
Houthi officials said one airstrike hit the village of al-Shariya in the Bani Hushaysh district east of Sanaa, Yemen's capital that has been under Houthi control since 2014.
Anees al-Asbahi, a spokesperson for the Houthi-run health ministry, said at least 27 people were killed and 30 others wounded in Saturday's attack, most of them women and children, The New York Times reported. He blamed Saudi warplanes. The Saudi government has not spoken about the attacks.
The Houthis are fighting a civil war with Yemen's government. Iran backs the Houthis, and Saudi Arabia, along with many other countries, backs Yemen. There was a cease-fire in 2022, but fighting picked up again in August.
The Houthis and Saudi Arabia have been trading strikes as the Houthis are trying to block the Bab al-Mandab Strait, which would cut off access to the Red Sea, while the United States and Iran have blocked the Strait of Hormuz.
Ask UPI
On Friday, strikes in the government-run Taiz province on a crowded market killed at least 30 people. The Yemeni government blames the Houthis, but the Houthis blame Saudi Arabia.
Yemen's Presidential Leadership Council has said the government will continue working to dismantle Houthi military capacity and restore sovereignty, Al-Jazeera reported.
For the past month, the Yemeni government has waged a "Dawn of Yemen" offensive against the Houthis after they claimed territory on the Red Sea coast. The mission is to recapture Houthi-controlled areas including Sanaa.
By the end of October, almost 1,800 people have been killed since August, and more than 300,000 people have been displaced, the World Health Organization said. Hospitals in Yemen are running low on medical supplies, aid agencies have reported.
Houthi officials said they will retaliate for the latest deaths. Yahya Saree, the Houthi military spokesperson, said the group would avenge their dead "against the killer of children and women."
Election Day 2026: Democrats celebrate taking control of House, Senate
People react as Democrats win seats in the House and Senate during the 2026 midterm elections during a midterm watch party with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries in Washington on November 3, 2026. Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI | License Photo
