WorldWatch
Europe
Europe is facing a steady stream of Islamist attacks. On January 22, a failed Afghan asylum seeker who should have been deported attacked a group of kindergartners in Aschaffenburg, Germany, killing a 2-year-old and an adult who tried to save the child. On January 29, Salwan Momika, who publicly burned a copy of the Koran in Stockholm, Sweden, died of multiple gunshot wounds. On February 13, an Afghan asylum seeker rammed his car into a crowd of trade union protesters in Munich, Germany, killing one and injuring at least 28. The 24-year-old Afghan citizen arrived in Germany in 2016, had his asylum application rejected, yet was allowed to stay. He was known to have committed theft and drug offenses, and he shared Islamist content online leading up to the ramming.
Two days later, a 23-year-old Syrian began randomly stabbing passersby in Austria’s town of Villach, killing a 14-year-old and wounding five others. On February 19, Austrian authorities arrested a 14-year-old of Turkish origin who was planning a terrorist attack at one of Vienna’s largest train stations. On February 21, a Syrian refugee stabbed a tourist at Berlin’s Holocaust memorial. He admitted he was planning “to kill Jews.” The next day, a 37-year-old Algerian man killed one and injured five police officers in a knife attack in the city of Mulhouse in eastern France. On February 4, around nine people were killed in a mass shooting at an adult education center in Örebro, Sweden. The shooting was unconnected with radical Islam or the Middle East, but it was the worst in Sweden’s history.
The steady stream of terror is leaving Europeans desperate for solutions. Most of the attacks involve knives or vehicles, weapons that are hard to restrict. Watch for this to push Europe to more aggressively confront radical Islam.
Meanwhile, just after German and other European border guards arrived at the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt in late January, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier visited the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Turkey from February 3 to 5. Europe is increasing its involvement in the Middle East, a development that Bible prophecy specifically warns about.
In the aftermath of the Hamas massacre of Israelis and other civilians on Oct. 7, 2023, Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry wrote that “the most important” development “is being overlooked completely by most people.” “The most shocking problem in the Middle East is not what is happening in Gaza but what is happening with Germany. … In fact, Germany is building its diplomacy and its military in preparation to intervene in the Middle East in ways that will shock the world” (“As You Watch Gaza—Watch Germany,” Trumpet, January 2024). The Bible prophesies that Germany will get much more involved in the Middle East—and it will all revolve around a peace process. This border guard deployment is a small beginning of an extremely significant turn of events in the region and the whole world.
Asia
China is succeeding in its campaign to turn the world against the island nation of Taiwan, the Economist reported on February 9. Polling data shows that 119 countries, comprising 62 percent of the United Nations, now back the Chinese Communist Party’s claim that it has the right to conquer democratic Taiwan, which it has never controlled. Seventy of those nations support China’s use of “all” efforts necessary. These nations are helping legitimize China’s unlawful claims over Taiwan in the UN at a time when the United States is turning inward, leaving in question its willingness to defend fellow democracies. In his 1998 article “Taiwan Betrayal,” Gerald Flurry wrote, “How could anyone fail to see that Taiwan is destined to become a part of mainland China? These 21 million people [now 23 million] 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.”
Russia has tripled its military strength since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Lithuanian Defense Minister Dovilė Šakalienė reported on February 10. Šakalienė encouraged Europe to increase its military spending to match Russia’s rapid pace of growth. Fear of Russia has motivated Lithuania, Latvia and Poland to each allocate more than 3 percent of their gross domestic product for defense in their 2025 budgets, with further increases to come. Other European nations are not far behind, as the Continent wakes up to the rapidly changing global landscape. Russian President Vladimir Putin is making clear his goal of resurrecting Russia’s Soviet-era military might and wielding that strength to subjugate all opposition, and Europe is taking action.
Defying international trade embargoes, China is smuggling Western drone components to Russia to fuel the Russian war machine. Some 80 percent of these prohibited militarily useful elements are being supplied by China, largely through covert transfers, according to an Estonian foreign intelligence report published February 12. The Bible prophesies that the deepening cooperation between Russia and China spells disaster for the West: A seismic Asian alliance will steer the world toward the worst war in human history. To understand the dire consequences of this Asian alliance, order your free copy of Russia and China in Prophecy.
Middle East
Amid the Israel-Hamas ceasefire, European border guards arrived at the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt on January 31. These include German guards. The last time Europe tried this, 20 years ago, the guards were unarmed. This time, according to the German Press Agency, the government is amending its 2005 decision so that German guards are armed. Italy, Spain and France have also pledged to contribute to the small force, which will likely be in the dozens. But this is an important step toward Europe and Germany becoming peacekeepers in the region.
Daniel 11:40-41 prophesy of a clash between a German-led Europe and Iran-led radical Islam. Verse 41 states that the European “king of the north” will enter “the glorious land,” which today is the land of Israel. “The Hebrew for ‘enter’ indicates a peaceful entry, not forced,” Gerald Flurry writes in his book The Eternal Has Chosen Jerusalem. “The Germans will undoubtedly be invited in as a peacekeeping force.”
The Bible also prophesies that this European force will betray the Israelis who let them enter.
The horrendous spectacle of Hamas’s kidnapping and murders continued to worsen on February 20 as the terrorist group, with music and celebration, relinquished three dead bodies to Israel as part of a United States-brokered ceasefire . One was the body of retired journalist Oded Lifshitz. Two bodies, transported in black coffins, were Ariel and Kfir Bibas, who were kidnapped during the massacre of Oct. 7, 2023, when Ariel was 4 years old, and Kfir was 9 months. The body of their mother, Shiri, was also to be returned, but Hamas sent the body of a dead Gazan woman instead. Shiri’s body was later returned. Hamas claimed the family was killed in November 2023 in an Israeli air strike. But Israeli forensics determined that the boys were beaten to death—a horrific reminder of Hamas’s demonic mode of operation and of the terrorizing, taunting, murdering, raping and butchering these Islamist terrorists committed on Oct. 7, 2023. Hamas massacred children and their families and forces its own children to become human shields as its terrorists operate in schools and day-care centers. The hostage spectacle reminds the world that Hamas, inexplicably saved from destruction by the disastrous ceasefire deal, maintains its gruesome strategy and tactics, and continues to murder Jews—even babies—as it attempts to eradicate Jews “from the river to the sea.”
“The Jews are prophesied here to recognize a deep wound in their body politic,” Mr. Flurry wrote in our November-December 2023 Trumpet issue on the October 7 attacks. “I have been writing for over 20 years that this wound represents the Middle East peace process, by which Israel has surrendered its own land in the vain hope of appeasing its enemies. … Now the world has watched as Hamas has soaked itself and Jewish bodies of men, women, children and babies in blood!” That infamous massacre of 1,200 Israeli men, women and children is “bitter evidence of what a wound that farcical ‘peace process’ has been!”
Anglo-America
United States President Donald Trump is fighting to keep the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. Many financial analysts recognize that Communist China wants nations to stop using the dollar in international transactions and to use instead a new settlements system to convert digital yuan into digital riyal and digital baht into digital dirham.
On January 23, President Trump signed an executive order titled “Strengthening American Leadership in Digital Financial Technology” that bars federal agencies from developing a central bank digital currency and promotes the development of dollar-backed stablecoins worldwide. A stablecoin is a cryptocurrency where the value of the digital currency remains equal to another currency or asset. Stablecoins are redeemable for U.S. dollars at a rate of 1:1.
The world could now be dividing into two giant currency blocs: a U.S.-led bloc promoting stablecoins and a Euro-Asian bloc promoting central bank digital currencies. This fits well with Bible prophecies in Leviticus 26, Deuteronomy 28, and Isaiah 23, which foretell of an end-time “mart of nations” that will put the United States under an economic siege.
President Trump is also threatening stern measures against China, Canada and Mexico to stop the flow of fentanyl into the U.S. In addition to imposing tariffs (but then quickly rescinding them), he also designated eight Latin American drug cartels as terrorist groups and threatened to send U.S. special operations forces across the border into Mexico to train Mexican security forces and perhaps to engage in combat with these terrorist groups. While these measures might help reduce the supply of fentanyl and other illegal drugs in the U.S., they do not combat the demand for these drugs. In 2024, about 7 percent of Americans admitted they used illicit drugs regularly—more than in any other country. America’s drug problem will not end until Americans stop buying drugs.
Many of the problems plaguing America are spiritual at their core. Galatians 5:19-21 warn against “works of the flesh,” including “witchcraft.” The Greek word translated “witchcraft” is pharmakeia, which literally means to “the use or the administering of drugs.” Today, many use fentanyl, heroin and other hard drugs in a vain attempt to fill a spiritual void.
On February 7, President Trump announced the creation of a White House Faith Office led by Paula White-Cain, who has been one of his closest religious advisers for many years. She promotes the so-called prosperity gospel, which deemphasizes the role of repentance in a true Christian’s life and teaches that devotion to God in the form of generous donations brings wealth and health. Amos 7:12-13 warn about religious leaders in the court of an end-time antitype of King Jeroboam II who reject both God’s law and God’s prophecies. There are many such religious leaders active in American politics today.
