Middle East

The Palestinian terrorist group Hamas declared an end to its six-month truce (if one could call it that) with Israel on Thursday, saying it would not renew the truce that was to expire the following day. “The calm is over,” a Hamas official said. Prior to the official end of the truce, Gaza terrorists had already escalated their rocket attacks on southern Israel. On Wednesday, 22 missiles landed in Israel, causing widespread damage and injuring two people. The attacks continued Thursday, with 14 rockets being fired at various Israeli targets. The attacks were carried out by Islamic Jihad, under orders by Hamas to escalate the situation, according to Israel Defense Forces sources. Israel had hoped to extend the “truce” and fears a further escalation of violence. Some sources close to Hamas, however, are saying that Hamas’s announcement that it was ending the truce was a ploy to extract further concessions from Israel as a precondition to extending the truce. Whether there is an “official” truce or not does not much matter: Hamas continues to strengthen its terrorist capabilities and strike at Israel, all the while seeking international sympathy and Israeli concessions.

On December 8, hundreds of Iranian students gathered in front of the Egyptian Embassy in Tehran to protest Egypt’s alleged cooperation with Israel against the Gaza Strip. Students held up signs glorifying the assassination of former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat as well as signs against Egypt’s current President Hosni Mubarak, calling for his death. In addition, in early December, leading Iranian-government newspapers called for the people of Egypt to rise up against their government and follow the example of Khaled Islambouli—the man who assassinated President Sadat. The Iranian protest was most likely coordinated in conjunction with Egypt’s radical opposition movement, the Muslim Brotherhood, reports from the London-based Arabic-language al-Hayat newspaper indicate. If President Mubarak passes from the scene, the Muslim Brotherhood would likely become the dominant political force in Egypt. That is why Iranian threats against Mubarak’s life are so significant.

On December 13, Pakistan accused India of violating its airspace. Islamabad said two Indian fighter aircraft on two separate occasions crossed over into Pakistan, though New Delhi denied this. Stratfor says it is unlikely the incidents were accidental but rather were a means through which India is increasing pressure on Pakistan to crack down on Islamist militants and their sympathizers within the Pakistani security establishment. While Islamabad has fired several dozen individuals from Pakistan’s intelligence service as a result of investigations following the Mumbai attacks, it has refused to hand over any suspects to New Delhi. This is unlikely to satisfy India, because Pakistan has arrested suspects and banned Islamist groups in the past only to allow them to then continue operating. Stratfor believes the pressure is still on India to take military action against Pakistan.

Making it even more difficult for the U.S. and nato to get their supplies into Afghanistan—and highlighting the degree of danger the supply lines through Pakistan are in—the Khyber Transport Union in Pakistan announced on Monday that it would boycott the transportation of military supplies into Afghanistan. “If all the countries of nato cannot control the situation in Afghanistan,” the union’s president said, “how can escorts from [Pakistan’s paramilitary] Frontier Corps ensure our safety?” This comes a week after Islamist militants attacked shipping depots in Peshawar, the last major Pakistani city before the Khyber Pass, which leads to Kabul. The truck drivers “are on strike not for more money,” writes Stratfor, “but because they are not looking to sacrifice their lives for the transportation of U.S. and nato military supplies” (December 16). The U.S. relies on Pakistan to help secure those supply lines. If Pakistani troops are diverted to Pakistan’s border with India in the wake of the Mumbai bombings, protecting those supply lines into Afghanistan may get even more difficult.

Europe

European bureaucrats passed a law enforcing their will on their subjects yet again this week. The European Parliament voted to make it illegal for any employees to be exempted from the current Working Time Directive, which dictates a 48-hour week. Several countries, including the UK, used to opt out of the limit on working hours. But now the EU parliament has ruled that after 2011 they will no longer be allowed to do so. Nations that do not want to come under the law are negotiating with the EU, but the law will likely be forced on them anyway; the democratically elected governments of these sovereign states won’t be able to do anything about it. The fact that the European government can make this law, and the member states are helpless to prevent it, shows just how powerful the European bureaucracy has become. The prospect of a government that has so much power that it can dictate to its citizens exactly how much they can work—with democratic national governments unable to overrule the dictates of this government—should be setting off alarm bells.

A neo-Nazi stabbed the police chief of a city in Bavaria this week, with the knife missing the man’s heart by inches. Bavaria’s interior minister, Joachim Herrmann, said the assault showed that neo-Nazi violence has risen to a new level. “This attack on an individual prominent representative of the state is new,” Herrmann told Spiegel Online. “We must take this escalation of violence very seriously.” He said that Bavarian authorities had registered an increase in neo-Nazi activity. Far-right views are growing in Germany—and not just on the fringes of society and politics. For more information, read our Sept. 6, 2006, article “Nazi Ideals Inch Toward German Mainstream.”

The Orthodox and Catholic churches have taken significant steps toward unity, Pope Benedict xvi said this week. “A sincere spirit of friendship between Catholics and Orthodox has been growing over these years,” he said. He praised the progress the churches had made in the area of papal primacy—i.e., accepting that the pope is in charge. The pope wants, and will soon have, primacy over Roman Catholicism’s “daughter” churches. For more information, see our article “O Come, All Ye Faithful” in our sample issue of the Trumpet.

As a reminder of how the bad economic conditions are causing unrest, riots continued to rock Greece this week. Demonstrators hung banners from the Acropolis, rioted in the major cities, and even took over the state tv station. Watch for economic problems to cause more instability in Europe, eventually motivating people to turn to a strong leader to fix their problems. For more information, see our December 16 article “Who Will Stop the Greece Fires?”

Asia

New legislation submitted to the Russian Duma on Friday of last week would allow Russian authorities to label any critic of the government as a traitor. This legislation, which broadens the definition of state treason, would also abolish jury trials for people suspected of treason, hostage-taking, or organizing mass disturbances. According to the Associated Press, human-rights advocates are saying the legislation “returns the Russian justice system to the times of the 1920-1950s.” It certainly is another example among many of how Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is transforming Russia back into a great power by embracing authoritarianism.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry announced on Thursday that preparations to dispatch naval vessels to fight Somali pirates were now officially under way. This military operation will be a first for Beijing, which has not conducted a significant long-range naval combat mission since the 15th century. This mission will protect Chinese merchant ships, give valuable military training to Chinese naval officers and stretch Beijing’s influence from the South China Sea to the Arabian Gulf.

Latin America

Ecuador’s government has decided to default on its $3.9 billion of foreign debt. This will greatly restrict the country’s access to capital, especially with international credit markets already seizing up. There is speculation that it may abandon the dollar as its currency.

The kidnapping crisis within Mexico was graphically highlighted on December 10 when Felix Batista, a U.S. consultant invited by law enforcement to deliver presentations to police and businesses on anti-kidnapping strategies, was himself kidnapped. No ransom demand has been made; Stratfor speculates that the kidnapping “could have been intended as a message from organized crime groups that no one is safe” (December 16). The U.S. Department of Justice stated in its “2009 National Drug Threat Assessment,” released on December 15, that Mexican drug traffickers “represent the greatest organized crime threat to the United States” and that drug trafficking in most U.S. cities is controlled by Mexican drug cartels. The United States consumes 44 percent of the world’s narcotics, according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime. It is easy to look at the problem and simply blame the drug traffickers, but as the late Herbert W. Armstrong would often say, “There is a cause for every effect.” The causes of the huge U.S. drug problem are deeply connected to moral decline. America’s craving for drugs is what causes demand. Eliminate demand and the market dies. Eliminate the cause and you’ll eliminate the effect. For more on why the world’s greatest superpower is also the world’s biggest drug addict, read “The Drugging of America” from the December 2000 Trumpet.

Anglo-America

On Tuesday, the U.S. Federal Reserve cut its interest rates to the lowest levels in history. Desperately trying to stave off the beginning of the Great Recession, the Fed cut rates from 1 percent to a range of zero to 0.25 percent. Highlighting the severity of the crisis is the fact that the federal funds rate has only gone as low as 1 percent one other time since 1913—and it has never before reached the zero-to-0.25 percent range. The federal funds rate is the interest rate at which money stored at the Federal Reserve is lent out to banks. Historically, a lower interest rate would increase borrowing and help push more money into the economy. However, this time the interest-rate reduction is anticipated to have little effect. Uncertainty and fear continue to grip Wall Street. Banks for the most part still refuse to lend to each other for fear they might not get their money back. Similarly, these banks continue to hoard cash, and are actually reining in lending to consumers and businesses. The Federal Reserve for its part knows that the rate reduction will probably have little effect, since banks were already refusing to lend despite incredibly low federal borrowing costs.

The White House is working to stanch at least the hemorrhaging in the auto industry, with a spokeswoman saying on Thursday that they were “very close” to finalizing a plan. President Bush said he didn’t want to leave the problem for the Obama administration: “I believe that good policy is not to dump him a major catastrophe in his first day in office.” The comments came soon after reports that 554,000 Americans filed for jobless claims last week.

In Springfield, Illinois, Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who was caught on tape allegedly trying to sell President-elect Obama’s Senate seat, refuses to step down from office. The Illinois attorney general filed an emergency request with the state Supreme Court to issue Blagojevich a restraining order and to remove him from office, but that request was denied.