This Week: Five Events You Need to Know (December 3)

Here are five of the most important news stories this week, as well as relevant links to the full articles and videos here on theTrumpet.com.

Is Germany’s Election Crisis Fake News?

Just over a week ago, the world was worried about Germany. “Germany Facing ‘Biggest Crisis in 70 Years’ as President Orders Parties to Return to Coalition Negotiations” was a headline in the Telegraph. “Germany Seeks Way Out of Crisis After Government Talks Collapse,” proclaimed Agence France-Presse. “When a Pillar of European Stability Crumbles” was a headline for Stratfor.

Now that a new coalition option is opening up for German Chancellor Angela Merkel, pundits are telling the world to go back to sleep.

The problem is that a grand coalition brushes aside matters such as German culture and the German welfare state, as Geopolitical Futures’ founder George Friedman wrote: “[T]he more it does that, the more the political system and social reality will diverge, until the earthquake inevitably arrives.”

Iran Threatens Europe With Missiles

A senior leader of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps warned that his nation can easily upgrade its ballistic missiles to strike targets anywhere in Europe.

“So far, we have felt that Europe is not a threat, so we did not increase the range of our missiles,” Iran’s Fars News Agency quoted Brig. Gen. Hossein Salami on November 25 as saying. “But if Europe wants to turn into a threat, we will increase the range of our missiles.”

This development is prophetically significant.

President Trump Adds North Korea to State Sponsors of Terrorism List

United States President Donald Trump announced on November 20 that America has re-designated North Korea as a terrorism-sponsoring nation, joining Iran, Syria and Sudan.

North Korea and Iran have worked together in their development of nuclear weapons, and as Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry has said, Pyongyang’s involvement with Tehran may be the area in which the North poses the greatest threat.

Bill Clinton: The Poster Child of Sexual Impropriety

At the height of President Bill Clinton’s impeachment in the late 1990s, many Americans felt that the morality of the president didn’t matter, so long as he championed good policy. Twenty years later, the fruits of this “character doesn’t matter” viewpoint are on full display—and they aren’t pretty.

Even some liberals now admit that turning a blind eye to Bill Clinton’s immorality was a mistake.

Teen Suicides Rise With Smartphone, Social Media Use

Teenage suicide rates in the United States rose between 2010 and 2015 after almost 20 years of decline, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published this summer. This increase has occurred alongside a surge in social media use, and evidence suggests that the two may be linked.

The harmful effects of social media could be one of the reasons tech executives like Apple’s Steve Jobs and Microsoft’s Bill Gates maintained strict control over their children’s technology use. They also could be one of the reasons former Facebook president Sean Parker left the social media company which he said was designed intentionally to “consume as much human attention as possible.” He recently accused Facebook of “exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology” and “putting children’s mental health at risk.”

“This Week” appears every Sunday. To get these same top stories in your inbox ahead of time every Friday afternoon, subscribe to the Trumpet Brief daily e-mail. Sign up by clicking here or by visiting theTrumpet.com home page.