Week in Review: German Burka Ban, Reclaiming Sirte, a Phone Call From Taiwan, Undermining Parents, and Much More

Week in Review: German Burka Ban, Reclaiming Sirte, a Phone Call From Taiwan, Undermining Parents, and Much More

Ashley Pon/Getty Images, Fairfax Media/Getty Images, JOSEPH EID/AFP/Getty Images, ABDULLAH DOMA/AFP/Getty Images

Week in Review: German Burka Ban, Reclaiming Sirte, a Phone Call From Taiwan, Undermining Parents, and Much More

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

December 10, 2016

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Highlights:

Germany bans the burka

  • As German Chancellor Angela Merkel continues her pursuit of another term in office, she is changing her tune to blend with strong popular opinion.
  • On December 6, she declared that she wanted Germany to ban the burka, the Muslim full-face covering. “The full-face veil is not acceptable in our country,” she said at the Christian Democratic Union’s convention. “It should be banned wherever it is legally possible.”
  • This is a revolutionary step—the moment Germany joins Europe’s cultural clash with Islam.

    • Post-Islamic State Libya: chaotic and divided

  • The announcement Tuesday that Libyan militias backed by United States airpower had finally routed the Islamic State from its northern Libyan stronghold of Sirte was supposed to be a moment of jubilee and hope for unity.
  • Yet, as Sudarsan Raghavan wrote for the Washington Post, “Libya could become even more chaotic after the Islamic State loses its stronghold.”
  • Foreign Policy’s Tarek Megerisi referred to the development as a “hollow victory.”
  • The longer Libya remains chaotic, the more vulnerable it becomes to intervention from foreign powers. Daniel 11:40-43 indicate that the chief powers involved in Libya will be a German-led Europe and an Iranian-led alliance.

    • The Taiwan-Trump phone call

  • On December 2, President-elect Donald Trump received a phone call from Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen.
  • But according to China, Taiwan isn’t a real country, and that means a phone call with the next American president shouldn’t happen.
  • Will China give in to the rhetoric of Donald Trump—this man who has made it clear that his decisions are based on an isolationist, America-first worldview?
  • Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry wrote in August 1998: “How could anyone fail to see that Taiwan is destined to become a part of mainland China? These 21 million people are going to be forced into the Chinese mold; and it is going to happen for one reason: because of a pitifully weak-willed America.”

    • War on family in Ontario, Canada

  • Ontario law once stated that “for all purposes of the law of Ontario, a person is the child of his or her natural parents,” with the exception of adoption.
  • Now, with the passage of Bill 28, known as the “All Families Are Equal Act,” on November 29, the terms “mother,” “father” and “natural parents” are being purged from all Ontario statutes and replaced with the neutered term “parent.” The new law makes it possible for a child to have up to four “parents.”

    • Other news:

  • In 2009, Germany’s ruling coalition stated that removing American-owned nuclear weapons from German soil was one of its goals. Now the debate has moved on—and some want Germany to build its own nukes, as Ulrich Kühn, fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, wrote in “The Sudden German Nuke Flirtation.”
  • Anti-Assad rebel forces in Aleppo, Syria, have essentially been defeated. It’s likely that we are about to witness a fracturing within in the Assad alliance, as both Iran and Russia vie for dominance over Syria’s future.

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