The Week in Review
Middle East
On Wednesday, Hezbollah operatives were found guilty of plotting attacks in Egypt. According to Stratfor, however, the Egyptian government caved to Hezbollah on the issue of sentencing the men. While the public sentences handed down for the 26 convicts were harsh—prison terms ranging from six months to 25 years—a Stratfor source says that back-channel negotiations between Cairo and the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah resulted in Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak promising to rescind the verdicts and release the two Hezbollah operatives who were given the longest sentences. “Egyptian authorities reportedly were concerned that the roughly 100,000 Egyptian workers in Lebanon would lose their jobs or come under attack by pro-Hezbollah Shiites if they did not take care to work out a compromise with Hezbollah beforehand” (April 28). Mubarak also reportedly stressed his desire to develop good working relations with Hezbollah. While analysts see this as being motivated by a desire to undercut Iran’s influence, in the end, Bible prophecy reveals that Egypt will actually be aligned with Iran.
Iran announced Monday that its large-scale military exercise in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz that concluded the previous day was successful. During the four-day naval, air and ground exercises, which coincided with the 31st anniversary of the establishment of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, a new high-speed boat was tested and a range of Iranian-made missiles were test-fired. Iran’s Press tv said the military exercise was held to demonstrate the country’s defense capabilities and its determination to maintain security in the region. A senior aide to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei described the naval exercises as a specific response to Washington’s “nuclear threats.” The Pentagon, meanwhile, claimed that Iran’s military drills were “somewhat routine.”
Zvi Bar’el, writing for Haaretz.com, said the military exercises were in fact “part of a passive deployment.” “[T]he Revolutionary Guards’ navy—a separate and much more sophisticated naval force than that of the Iranian Army—dropped naval mines, practiced blowing up ships, photographed underwater targets and carried out exercises in electronic warfare and the operation of Iranian-made unmanned aerial vehicles,” Bar’el wrote. Moreover, a high-level military delegation from the Persian Gulf state of Qatar was present during the exercise. Adm. Abed al-Rahim al-Janahi, who headed the Qatari delegation, said he was planning joint military exercises for the two countries in the future. Qatar has been an important ally of America’s since the late 1990s and particularly since the war on terror began, today hosting the biggest U.S. airbase outside of America. A large part of America’s strategy to contain Iran relies on the military deterrent provided by Persian Gulf countries. When those same countries cooperate with Iran, it clearly demonstrates the unreliable nature of America’s “moderate” Arab allies.
Europe
The survival of the Economic Monetary Union is in jeopardy after Greece’s credit rating was relegated to junk status, and Portugal’s cut to an A- on April 29. The next day, Spain’s was downgraded from AA+ to AA, as economists worried that Greece’s woes could spread to the rest of southern Europe. Default is a serious possibility for Greece. Standard and Poor’s lowered its credit rating from BBB+ to BB+. This is the first time that a euro nation has lost its investment grade. Germany could bail out Greece if it wanted to—but could it bail out Greece and Portugal and possibly other countries? Probably not. Would it be willing? Almost certainly not. Economists are now talking about more than the collapse of Greece’s economy. This could be the end of the euro. Germans now look wistfully back at the deutsche mark. Some have even suggested a new European currency for stable countries only: the euromark. No one can know exactly how this situation will play out. Germany may come to Greece’s rescue after all. Greece, and other states, may be forced to leave the euro. Or the common currency could be destroyed. But biblical prophecy reveals certain longer-term outcomes. After the smoke has cleared, Germany will emerge at the head of a single currency.
The Kuwaiti Emir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah met with Chancellor Angela Merkel and German businessmen on April 28. He is currently engaged in a European tour that will concentrate on developing closer relations with Germany and the Vatican. During his meeting with Chancellor Merkel he is reported to have discussed “a host of bilateral relations that would cement partnership between Kuwait and Berlin” (Kuwait Times, April 28). A small but relatively rich state, courtesy of its healthy oil reserves and high prices for that commodity, Kuwait nestles at a vitally strategic point at the northern extremity of the Persian Gulf. With the imminent drawdown of U.S. troops from Iraq, Kuwait is obviously concerned about the prospect of having a worse headache than Saddam Hussein on its doorstep in the form of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. With an ongoing war in neighboring Afghanistan, instability in Iraq, threats from Iran to Kuwait’s Gulf coast, plus an increasingly reluctant protector in Washington, this tiny Arabic nation is rethinking its foreign policy. The alignment of certain Arab states with Europe is something the Trumpet has forecast for years based on biblical prophecy.
The European Union is poised to quickly abolish Europe’s fragmented national airspaces, which it says exacerbated disruptions in air travel recently when more than 100,000 flights were grounded because of ash from Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull volcano. Analysts point to the structure in which each country made its own airspace decisions as the primary source of confusion during the volcanic ash crisis. German officials invited EU leaders, aviation experts and industry representatives to Berlin for a meeting on April 27 that aimed to plot a course to establish a unified airspace system. EU transport ministers are also scheduled for an emergency meeting in Brussels on May 4 for discussions about fast-tracking the plan. Under the desired wholesale reform of Europe’s air traffic system, all of the continent’s skyways would be under a single regulatory body rather than being governed by individual countries. The single European sky concept would transform Europe’s separate systems into a seamless model similar to that of the United States. News of Europe streamlining its skyways, and Germany spearheading the project, will come as no surprise to regular Trumpet readers who have seen Germany steer the continent toward unification with increasing speed over the years.
The German government just agreed to purchase Britain’s biggest train and bus firm. The $2.44 billion deal will put 44,000 Arriva employees in multiple European countries under the control of Deutsche Bahn. It is the loss of yet another British crown jewel—and a big one at that. According to Arriva’s website, the company is one of Europe’s leading transport services, with bus and train operations in the UK, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden. Arriva also has bus networks in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Italy, Portugal, Slovakia and Spain, and operates rail services in Poland. Over 1 billion passengers each year ride Arriva’s extensive transport networks. It is rude irony that Deutsche Bahn—the successor company to Deutsche Reichsbahn, which operated the trains that ran to the World War ii extermination camps—will now own British Rail, a company whose predecessors did so much to transport the war stores to those who opposed the Nazis. What the Nazis were not able to accomplish through war, Germany is now accomplishing through more peaceful means. British trade union leader Bob Crow warned that the German government is on its way to having a monopoly of Europe’s strategic transport networks. For more information on this trend, read our articles “Selling Britain’s Corporate Crown Jewels” and “Germany’s Corporate Blitzkrieg.”
Asia
To reflect China’s growing economic power, Beijing’s voting power at the World Bank has been increased from 2.77 percent to 4.42 percent. The shift puts China ahead of Britain, Germany and France and gives it the third-largest share of any nation. China is now behind only the U.S. and Japan. World Bank President Robert Zoellick said, “China’s share has increased because of its growth in the world economy.” Similar shifts are on the horizon within the International Monetary Fund, which is positioning itself to be protector of global economic stability.
An estimated 90,000 Japanese citizens joined local politicians in the streets of Okinawa on April 25 to protest allowing the U.S. Futenma Marine Corps Airbase to remain in the Okinawa prefecture. Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama has vowed to settle the issue by next month, but a growing number of Japanese are growing impatient with the central government for having dragged out the issue for so long. “Some cabinet ministers have indicated their tolerance for the possibility of Futenma airfield remaining as it is, but I say absolutely no to that,” Okinawa Gov. Hirokazu Nakaima said. “I want the prime minister to never give up and to honor his pledge.” This is the second protest about the matter in three months. Regardless of Tokyo’s decision on this particular matter, it is becoming obvious that Japan is not the staunch and reliable U.S. ally that it has appeared to be since the Second World War.
Africa
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad paid a visit to fellow despot Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe last week. Ahmadinejad arrived in Harare on April 22. The two leaders chatted together about how evil the West is. Ahmadinejad opened a trade fair in Bulawayo the next day, before attending a state dinner hosted by Mugabe.
Anglo-America
Hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil are pouring into the Gulf of Mexico. Since a massive explosion sank the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform about 50 miles off the Louisiana coast last week, killing 11 workers, an estimated 1.5 million barrels of crude oil have gushed out of the wellhead 5,000 feet below. Cleanup crews have dispatched 69 vessels, boom oil-collection barriers, helicopters, remote submarines and other equipment to the slick, but despite the massive deployment, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal declared a state of emergency and said the effort “has not slowed the diffusion of the oil, which has reached over a 600-square-mile area.” The White House said the military would be available to try to contain the oil, which hit Louisiana’s ecologically sensitive barrier islands and coastline on Thursday. If not contained quickly, the West Virginia-size spill will become the worst in U.S. history.
The Obama administration is seeking to soften proposed sanctions against Iran. The White House is pushing Congress to provide exemptions for countries like China and Russia in the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability and Divestment Act.
On Wednesday, the Defense Department lifted its ban on women serving on submarines. Women have served aboard Navy surface ships since the mid-1990s. About 15 percent of sailors are women. Navy Secretary Ray Mabus said, “We literally could not run the Navy without women today.”
A new Arizona law is making headlines this week. The measure makes it a misdemeanor to fail to prove lawful residence in the United States. Lawmakers are trying to decrease the state’s illegal immigrant population. It peaked in 2008 at 560,000, when non-citizens held an estimated 280,000 full-time jobs, mostly paid under the table and not subject to taxes. Much of the earnings were then sent out of the country to Mexico.
A new Pew Research poll has found that the American public seriously doubts that the stimulus and tarp economic recovery act did any good. The poll found 88 percent thought of current economic conditions as fair to poor. More than half (55 percent) believe the economy will stay the same or get worse a year from now. Less than a third felt the government has made progress in fixing the causes of the 2008 financial crisis.
