WorldWatch
Europe
Much of the recent news in Europe has focused on its militaries. Germany’s Defense Ministry got a shake-up when Christine Lambrecht resigned on January 16 after a gaffe and the general impression that she lacked competence for the job. She was quickly replaced by Boris Pistorius, a Social Democrat from Lower Saxony with a reputation for getting things done. He immediately began pressuring the German government to buy more tanks. Asked how the German government would fund purchases, Pistorius said, “Frankly, I don’t care. It is essential that we can provide them quickly.” He also said that the special €100 billion military fund that the German government created a year ago is too small. Watch for Pistorius and others to build and expand Germany’s military into a much more powerful force.
Poland is also focusing on its military. “The war in Ukraine makes us arm ourselves even faster. That is why, this year, we will make an unprecedented effort: 4 percent of [gross domestic product] for the Polish Army,” Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki announced on January 30. This decision means that Poland will spend a larger percentage of its economy on its military than the United States.
Meanwhile, Pistorius and Germany have been at the center of a storm over the decision to send tanks to Ukraine. Pistorius is from the pro-Russia wing of his party and reportedly ended a six-year romantic relationship last summer with the former wife of Gerhard Schröder. Schröder is a former German chancellor who promoted Russian interests before and after leaving office and is considered a close friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Pistorius, along with the current chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has delayed and opposed providing tanks to Ukraine. The United States pressured Germany to stop bluffing, and Germany’s Green Party threatened to bring down the government. It has now committed to sending tanks, but might be delaying them until they are of little use. Learn more in our article “Germany’s Secret Deal With Russia—Exposed!”
Meanwhile, Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni visited Algeria and Libya at the end of January to discuss energy. For years, Europe has depended heavily on Russia for its fossil fuel needs. But since Russia expanded its invasion of Ukraine to full-scale war last year, Europeans have sought alternative suppliers, drawing them deeper into the Middle East. In war-torn Libya, Italy’s ENI has signed a deal with the country’s National Oil Company. The Associated Press reported it as “the largest single investment in Libya’s energy sector in more than two decades.” Libya is recovering from a civil war, and much of the country is not under the control of the internationally recognized government. As Europe extends itself into this volatile region, it will become more involved not only in its trade but in its politics and conflicts.
Middle East
Alliances in the Middle East are becoming more complicated. On January 17, Saudi Arabia announced it is open to discussions about trading in currencies other than the U.S. dollar. Finance Minister Mohammed al-Jadaan stated, “There are no issues with discussing how we settle our trade arrangements, whether it is in the U.S. dollar, whether it is the euro, whether it is the Saudi riyal.”
The dollar was fixed to the price of gold in some fashion from 1944 until 1971, when the United States removed the dollar from the gold standard. To keep the dollar as the dominant currency for international transactions, the U.S. gave Saudi Arabia security promises in exchange for its willingness to sell its oil in dollars. But if public statements from the finance minister are any indication, the Saudis are calculating that ending their support of the dollar may be more beneficial than continuing it (article, page 28).
Deuteronomy 28:52 warns that the modern nations of Israel, including the U.S., will be “besiege[d] in all thy gates.” From prophecies like these in Deuteronomy, the Trumpet and our predecessor magazine, the Plain Truth, have forecast an economic siege. Divestment from and devaluation of the dollar will likely be a major factor in this siege.
America isn’t the only country whose alliances are becoming complicated. Israel and Sudan finalized a normalization agreement on February 2. Sudan, an Arab state, originally reached an agreement with Israel in 2020. A subsequent coup against the civilian government derailed the agreement, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appears to have resurrected the pact with Sudan’s military and political leader, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan.
Until 2019, Sudan had been ruled for decades by brutal dictator Omar Bashir, who sponsored Al-Qaeda, Hamas and other terrorist groups. He was wanted by the International Criminal Court for charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Burhan, a military leader under Bashir for years, successfully led a coup to become de facto head of state: He is a questionable choice as a security and defense partner for Israel.
A prophecy in Psalm 83 states that the Ishmaelites, modern Arabs, will be involved in a conspiracy so that “the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance” (verses 4, 6). “The United Arab Emirates, Bahrain [two other new partners of Israel] and Sudan correspond to the Ishmaelites in this prophecy,” Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry wrote in our January 2021 issue. “While it seems that these nations are moving away from radicalism and violence, we must look beneath the surface. After all, this prophecy reveals that they will take ‘crafty counsel’—subtle and shrewd dealing. This sure prophecy shows that these nations will ally to try to blot out the name of Israel forever! That is intense hatred!”
On February 6, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken waived sanctions impacting both Russia and Iran. A vestige of President Barack Obama’s 2015 Iran nuclear deal, the waivers allow Russia, a nation it is opposing in Ukraine, to assist Iran, a terrorist-sponsoring nation, with its nuclear program. Mr. Flurry writes in America Under Attack about how and why Obama was deliberately aiming to help Iran accomplish its nefarious goals. This measure revives the benefits of that disastrous nuclear deal for the purpose of helping Russia and especially Iran.
Asia
China continues to push against the United States and its partners by methods both overt and covert.
Via a video link on January 24, Chinese General Secretary Xi Jinping told the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States that China will strengthen its connections with nations in this region. The U.S.-based Center for a Secure Free Society recently reported that Chinese state-owned companies, many of which are associated with the Chinese military, now control 40 Latin American ports and 11 satellite ground stations. Yet this is not enough for Xi and the Chinese Communist Party, which is drawing closer to Cuba, Nicaragua and other nations close to crucial American shipping routes. With Europe also interested in Latin America and the Caribbean, America now has to become increasingly concerned about its opponents projecting power right up into the Gulf of Mexico.
China’s campaign to quietly extend its power is also visible in the United Kingdom. The Guardian reported on January 27 that the Chinese have secretly purchased more than 250 properties across the UK, consisting mainly of critical regional infrastructure, retail parks, trading estates and distribution centers.
Objects have been entering U.S. airspace and have been shot down, most notably a Chinese high-altitude reconnaissance balloon that traversed Alaska and western Canada, and the mainland from Idaho to South Carolina. Chinese authorities insisted it was a runaway weather balloon. This was soon proven to be a lie. China is known to routinely deploy such airships for surveillance purposes; this balloon was aimed at gathering intelligence on sensitive military sites. U.S. authorities claim they jammed the balloon’s equipment, but the world is left to wonder why there is a sudden increase in foreign objects in U.S. airspace, why this particular balloon was allowed to violate U.S. airspace for so long, and what China learned from this and other espionage efforts.
Leviticus 26:15-19 is a prophecy that warns the United States, “[I]f your soul abhor my judgments, so that ye will not do all my commandments, but that ye break my covenant: I also will do this unto you; I will even appoint over you terror …. And I will break the pride of your power.”
Meanwhile, China’s power and pride are rapidly growing. In February 2021, the Trumpet stated, “[A] historic global shift [is] occurring before our eyes: the end of the Anglo-American era, and the beginning of a short, dark period that will mark the final years of the age of man.”
Anglo-America
More releases of internal Twitter documents have further revealed how the corporate media colluded with the federal government to target Americans and their rights. On February 8, former Twitter leaders testified before a House of Representatives committee. They were asked why they censored accurate medical information, banned the accounts of certain members of Congress, protected the Biden presidential campaign by censoring true information about Hunter Biden’s laptop, and engaged in other forms of censorship in coordination with leftist politicians.
On January 27, Twitter owner Elon Musk and journalist Matt Taibbi released files showing that former Federal Bureau of Investigation agent Clint Watts and the Alliance for Securing Democracy falsely accused hundreds of conservative-leaning Twitter accounts of being Russian. The collection of files revealed the truth about the alliance’s “Hamilton 68” digital dashboard, which claimed to track Russian influence on social media. In 2017, liberals in politics and the media cited the dashboard as “proof” that it was mostly Russians who wanted to find out what Democrats were hiding. Meanwhile, the head of Twitter’s Trust and Safety department sent an internal e-mail admitting that accounts flagged by the dashboard “were neither strongly Russian nor strongly bots; they’re just right-leaning users.” This was communicated to leftists, including members of Congress, who continued to claim otherwise in an attempt to muzzle conservative Americans with the largest censorship system in U.S. history.
On January 21, former FBI agent Charles McGonigal was arrested for conspiring to commit money laundering with Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. This is ironic considering McGonigal was in charge of the Counterintelligence Division that investigated whether hostile foreign powers had illegal ties to Donald Trump or to Hunter Biden. The two-year Mueller investigation found no evidence of a Trump-Russia conspiracy, but the Hunter Biden laptop has provided abundant evidence of a Biden-China conspiracy. Agents and employees like McGonigal, Kevin Clinesmith and others at the FBI have made false accusations against Donald Trump while ignoring strong evidence against the Bidens.
Isaiah 10:5-6 state that a foreign nation would punish end-time Israel, which includes the United States, because of double standards and moral hypocrisy. The radical left’s handling of both the Russiagate hoax and the Hunter Biden laptop scandal exposes this gross hypocrisy like few things ever have.
On January 31, Numbeo’s 2023 Crime Index reported that the United States has 12 of the 50 most dangerous cities in the world, more than any other nation. A separate study by John Lott, president of the Crime Prevention Research Center, shows that the worst 5 percent of U.S. counties accounted for 73 percent of all homicides. Certain urban areas have turned into war zones. A large number of Americans have allowed their families to break down and, rather than deal with the problem, have instead antagonized the law enforcement officers trying to keep the peace. Only the moral laws revealed in the Holy Bible bring peace, freedom and fulfillment. But because our society rejects, ignores and mocks these laws, murders, rapes, robberies and other horrific crimes continue to worsen.
