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Highlights:
Seehofer in Russia
German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s “most dangerous critic” will visit Russian President Vladimir Putin next week, wrote Deutsche Welle.Merkel’s nominal coalition partner and Christian Social Union chairman, Horst Seehofer, has “for months … been bombarding the chancellor with ultimatums.”
Deutsche Welle concluded: “The csu’s brand of foreign policy has always had something unique about it. csu grandees Franz-Josef Strauss and Edmund Stoiber were always good for political bomb shells on the domestic front. Strauss’ ‘foreign policy on our own terms’ was legendary. … Whether the emotional Seehofer is able to stand up to Putin’s persuasiveness will determine if the trip simply becomes a historical footnote—or [if it] further strains the fragile coalition in Berlin.”
Has Germany’s strongman finally arrived?Shinzo Abe’s explicit calls for amending Article 9 of Japan’s Constitution
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s calls to amend the part of Japan’s Constitution that has kept Japan pacifistic since World War ii have previously been ambiguous and vague—that is, until he addressed the House of Representatives Budget Committee on Wednesday.Abe reminded the committee that Japan’s Constitution was created by the United States during the Occupation of Japan after World War ii and that “some parts [of it] do not fit into the current [time] period.”“Japan’s shift away from pacifism and toward becoming a full-fledged military power has long been a focus of the Trumpet as well as our forerunner, the PlainTruth,” we wrote in August 2015. “The Trumpet reports on Japanese efforts toward remilitarization because each is one small step closer to [a prophesied] 200 million-man army.”An impending war in Libya
The oil-rich, ungoverned and ungovernable nation that is Libya is increasingly becoming a safe haven for the Islamic State: The fighting and the airstrikes in Syria are forcing top Islamic State commanders to seek refuge in lawless Libya, and the terrorist outfit is redirecting the flow of its incoming recruits to Libya.War drums for another intervention in Libya are beating as defense officials warn of about 6,500 Islamic State militants in the country—almost double earlier estimates.Europe is just 400 miles away, and “options under discussion include sending Italian and other European troops to Libya to establish a local stabilization force and reviving a Pentagon plan to train Libyan counterterrorism troops,” the New York Times reported.For more, read “Radical Islam’s New Top Target: Rome.”The big winner of the Iowa Caucus
Self-avowed Democratic Socialist Bernie Sanders tested out his radical vision of American socialism with real American voters in Iowa last Monday.His narrow loss to (or tie with) Hillary Clinton “is a victory in itself,” said David Duhalde, the deputy director of the Democratic Socialists of America. It’s a victory for Democratic Socialism. But it’s part of America’s dangerous turn left, as Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry wrote in his January article.
Other news:
The Iran nuclear deal has loopholes, and Commentary Magazine discussed one of those: North Korea. The Obama administration appears completely blind to any work Iran is doing in North Korea, including funding and hands-on involvement in missile production and tests.The U.S. national debt hit a new record Monday morning. Total federal debt now exceeds $19 trillion. That figure averages out to over $58,000 for each man, woman and child in the United States.The United States Drug Enforcement Administration reported Tuesday that it had uncovered a major money laundering operation between the Iranian-aligned terrorist group Hezbollah and a Colombian drug cartel. The U.S. State Department declassified Hezbollah as a “global terrorist” threat just last year.Get more details on these stories and more by subscribing to the Trumpet Weekly!
