Week in Review: Pressure on Europe to Unite, Hamas Turning From Iran, the Saudis Arming, and More

Week in Review: Pressure on Europe to Unite, Hamas Turning From Iran, the Saudis Arming, and More

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Week in Review: Pressure on Europe to Unite, Hamas Turning From Iran, the Saudis Arming, and More

All you need to know about everything in the news this week

August 1, 2015

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Top Stories:

The Greek economic crisis demonstrates Europe’s need for closer political integration.

  • Editor in chief Gerald Flurry writes in “How the Global Financial Crisis Will Produce Europe’s Ten Kings”: “The American-European financial crisis is empowering Germany to dominate Greece and the rest of Europe in a way that will ultimately pare the European Union down to 10 nations!”
  • Matthew Del Santo writes in his article “Are We on the Threshold of a United States of Europe?” that “with direct taxes still collected by national governments, and with Germany remaining the biggest of those, ultimate financial firepower would remain in the hands of the Bundestag, meaning the German chancellor would remain Europe’s de facto leader for long as Germany remained Europe’s strongest economy.”
  • Former finance minister of Greece, Yanis Varoufakis, says German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble was using the Greek crisis to crush French resistance to transferring budget-making powers from Paris to Brussels.

    • Middle East geopolitics are shifting.

  • Syrian President Bashar Assad’s attack of Sunnis inside his own country caused a split in the alliance between Iran and Hamas, with Hamas now allying with Saudi Arabia.
  • Director general of Israel’s Foreign Ministry, Dore Gold, called Israel’s Sunni-Arab neighbors allies on Wednesday.
  • Saudi Arabia wants to spend $5.4 billion on 600 U.S.-made missiles that can shoot down incoming ballistic missiles.
  • Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas could address European heads of state as a push to jump-start the peace process. It would be Netanyahu’s first address to the EU, and would put the EU as mediator rather than the U.S.

    • More young adults than ever are living at home with their parents.

  • The U.S. Census Bureau reports that more than 20 million adults between 18-34 are staying with parents or relatives. Permanent adolescence is real.
  • Even though the number of people in the 18-34 age bracket has gone up by around 3 million since the 2007 recession, half a million fewer of them are now living independently.
  • This is going on in the UK where a sixth of those still at home admitted they lived a cushy existence—84 percent of their parents report they still do the laundry for them.

    • Other stories in Anglo-America:

    Fitch Ratings credit agency downgraded Chicago’s bonds to junk status. The change impacts it’s $6 billion debt and Fitch says expect more downgrades to come.

    Britain’s national police chief said on Tuesday that the police has given up enforcing cannabis. If it did enforce the law, police would be swamped due to widespread use of the drug. Is this a backdoor to legalizing it?

    President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival program has green-lighted 660,000 illegal immigrants since 2012, according to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. The department said it is issuing more than 144,000 amnesties each month.

    A Sudanese man was killed during an attempt by thousands of migrants to enter Channel Tunnel in France. Thousands of migrants from Africa and the Middle East have been camping in the French city of Calais trying to board trucks and trains bound for Britain—a socialist mecca that grants generous welfare benefits to the world.

    Other stories in the Middle East:

    Turkey suspended talks with Russia over the Turkish Stream natural gas pipeline project on July 31. Unnamed Turkish officials told Reuters the decision was motivated by Russia’s failure to sign off on a key price discount agreement. Turkey is moving squarely into the Western sphere at the expense of Russia.

    Syrian President Assad admitted on Sunday that his army was forced to give up territory to hold on to more important areas. Due to civil war, the Syrian government now only controls 25 percent of the country, but it’s the key part that connects the western regions of Syria to the Mediterranean coast, allowing Iran to access the coastline. The move to draw back was ordered by Iran. When the Islamic State fills the void, it could join the Turkey payroll if it tries to oust Assad.

    Other stories in Asia:

    Russia vetoed a United Nations Security Council draft resolution on Wednesday that would have worked to prosecute those who downed a Malaysian commercial airliner in eastern Ukraine. The veto reveals what a farce the United Nations is.

    Russia and China announced their navies will hold yet another massive joint drill. This one will be in the Sea of Japan and is another sign of a growing Russia and China alliance.

    Philippine generals and other military personnel asked their Congress on Wednesday to triple the nation’s annual defense budget. The military wants to expand and upgrade its equipment so it is trying to make this colossal increase in defense spending. This is another result of the increased aggression by China in the disputed South China Sea.

    North Korea’s ambassador said his country is not interested in making a deal over the country’s nuclear program. North Korea made a nuke deal with the U.S. back in the 1990s, which was similar in many ways to the deal America just struck with Iran. North Korea went on to violate that deal, and it says it doesn’t want any more deals because it is already nuclear and will do what it wants.

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