The Week in Review

Middle East

Tuesday, Palestinian terrorists violated a ceasefire that began only last week by launching a rocket attack against Israel. Wednesday, Israel responded by closing its Gaza crossings. In another demonstration of the futility of the truce, Hamas leader Ismail Haniya stated the day after the ceasefire began that arms smuggling into the Gaza Strip would not stop.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s Kadima party and Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s Labor Party struck a deal on Wednesday to prevent the ruling coalition from collapsing as a result of the Olmert bribery scandal fallout. Kadima has agreed to hold primaries to elect a new party leader (and hence prime minister) by September 25, and Labor has agreed not to push for early national elections. What may appear to be a show of unity, however, is anything but: It is simply a desperate measure to avoid an election that would bring to power the more popular Likud. While under normal circumstances this would mean the current government would serve out its term, which ends in 2010, in the rocky arena of Israeli politics (only 2 of 31 governments have ever completed their term) it is entirely possible that further political crisis will prevent that.

Intelligence documents seen by Spiegel Online reveal that Iran was working toward the production of weapons-grade plutonium in Syria at the time Israel destroyed a nuclear facility in that country last September. “The report states that North Korean, Syrian and Iranian scientists were working side by side to build a reactor to produce weapons-grade plutonium. Sources say that the Iranians were using the facility as a ‘reserve site’ and had intended sending the material back to Tehran” (June 23).

The U.S. State Department has leaked word of the possibility of the U.S. opening a diplomatic interests section in Iran, Stratfor reported June 25. “So, a week after word was leaked to the New York Times of Israeli maneuvers in preparation for a possible air strike on Iran, the administration has opened a diplomatic door.” Rather than confront Iran, it appears the United States has chosen to appease it. Iran’s cooperation in reining in Shiite militias in Iraq has been a strong contributor to the increased security in that country in recent months. However, it also gives additional leverage to Tehran in its dealings with Washington.

Dozens of white European converts to Islam have been trained in terrorist camps in Pakistan’s tribal regions over the past few months, according to U.S. intelligence sources cited by abc News. Government officials fear these terrorists have been dispatched to plan attacks in Europe and possibly the United States.

Europe

Germany is planning to send 1,000 more troops to northern Afghanistan, the German defense minister announced this week. As we wrote in our article “Germany vs. nato: Playing Hard to Get,” Germany is not going to give away something for nothing: It is sending the troops in an effort to gain more leverage within nato. The German troops will not be allowed to engage in the heaviest fighting, which takes place in the south of the country. Tomas Valasek, a military expert at a research institute in London, said, “When you speak to officers in the field, they tell you they’d rather have one soldier with no strings attached, or what are called caveats, than five soldiers with caveats.” Extra troops will soon be in Afghanistan, but if nato wants to use them, Germany must get something in return.

It appears the last chance of preventing Britain’s full ratification of the Lisbon Treaty has been destroyed. UK millionaire Stuart Wheeler attempted to force a referendum on the treaty by taking the issue to court, claiming there was a legitimate expectation of a referendum. The judges dismissed the case this week and denied Wheeler the right to appeal. It is becoming more and more obvious as time goes on just how determined EU leaders are to force their agenda forward regardless of public opinion. We can expect these undemocratic strong-arm tactics to grow worse with time.

Finally, apes in Spain are about to be given human rights. A parliamentary committee in Spain ruled that great apes should have a right to life and liberty. The decision is based on the theory of evolution, that the only thing separating humans from apes is a few random genetic mutations. The reality, however, is that there is a profound difference between apes and men. For more information, read our free booklet What Science Can’t Discover About the Human Mind.

Asia

North Korea handed over a much-delayed declaration of its covert nuclear activities to China on Wednesday. This handover is a long-overdue part of a nuclear disarmament deal that North Korea agreed to in February 2007. U.S. President George W. Bush quickly responded to the news by announcing that he will lift some of the U.S. trade sanctions against North Korea and remove the nation from America’s list of terror-sponsoring nations. Just nine months ago, North Korea was helping Syria and Iran build a secret weapons-grade plutonium refinery. The handover of nuclear documentation is not a sign that North Korea has renounced its atomic ambitions and now loves the U.S. It is a sign that North Korea is willing to cooperate with China in return for security and economic prosperity. At the end of the day, all North Korea has done is agree to work alongside an even bigger nuclear-powered rival of the United States.

In an interview with Reuters, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said that the U.S. dollar has fallen so far that it has become an international problem. He blamed America for facilitating this crisis saying its current position in the international financial system does not match its actual abilities. The solution, he said, is for other countries to strive toward a world dominated by a multicurrency financial system. In other words, the Kremlin thinks the U.S. has dominated the world’s financial system long enough and that it is time for nations like Russia to exert more global financial clout.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (asean) is becoming more and more alarmed by rising oil prices and is seriously considering building nuclear power plants to energize the electric needs of its 10 member nations. asean energy ministers and delegates met in Manila this week and are forming an asean Power Grid. asean members are looking into the possibility of using nuclear power as a countermeasure to dependence on oil. A Southeast Asian nuclear power grid could work in conjunction with nuclear power plants already in India, China, Russia and Japan to turn the Asian continent into a giant nuclear power bloc—both civilly and militarily.

South America, Africa

The global supply of coca and opium has dramatically increased, according to the United Nations. Coca cultivation in Colombia—the top worldwide producer of cocaine—increased 27 percent in 2007 alone. This output primarily originated from just 10 of the country’s 195 municipalities. “In Colombia, just like in Afghanistan, the regions where most coca is grown are under the control of insurgents,” said UN Office on Drugs and Crime Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa. Afghanistan’s numbers are even more shocking: The world’s opium output—92 percent of which comes from Afghanistan—doubled between 2005 and 2007. The profit largely went to Taliban militants. The war on terror and the war on drugs are closely connected. The drug industry is even larger than the automotive industry—a $500 billion cash cow. President Bush identified the connection in 2002: “When we fight drugs, we fight the war on terror.” Drugs often finance terror and provide infrastructure for terrorists to utilize, so recent growth in the drug industry is bad news on both fronts. Read Gerald Flurry’s November 2003 Trumpet article “Why We Cannot Win the War Against Terrorism” for more about the failure on that front.

Despite his opposition pulling out, Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe went ahead with a run-off election on June 27. Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai pulled out because of ongoing violence against his supporters, some of whom have been killed, and took refuge in the Dutch Embassy. “What will happen tomorrow,” he said Thursday, “is that people will be forced to vote … because the military were mobilized to accompany this process.” Mugabe continues to blame Britain and Western powers for his country’s woes despite presiding over a slide from the most prosperous country in Africa under British rule to a country with 2 million percent inflation—a loaf of bread is going for $6 billion. For more on Zimbabwe’s slide, read theTrumpet.com’s March 12 article “Winds of Change.”

Anglo-America

Californians, who have seen it all in terms of moral and environmental disasters, have witnessed an “unprecedented” week. Last week, the California Supreme Court’s decision to legalize homosexual marriage went into effect, and homosexuals have since been flocking to the state to wed. The law also provides for homosexuals from other states to be married in California, a clause aimed at ultimately making homosexual marriage bans in other states untenable. At the same time, Southern California is baking under temperatures reaching beyond 119 degrees Farenheit, overloading parts of the electrical grid. In northern California, an unprecedented lightning storm with 5,000 to 6,000 lightning strikes ignited as many as 842 wildfires.

Outside of California, America continues its sickening moral plunge toward ground zero this week. Massachusetts representative James Fagan, also a defense attorney, has made headlines for comments he made on the floor in the state House vehemently arguing against mandatory 25-year prison sentences for sexual predators who attack children. As a defense lawyer cross examining children on the witness stand, Fagan said he would do this to 6-year-old rape victims: “I’m gonna rip them apart. I’m going to make sure that the rest of their life is ruined, that when they’re 8 years old, they throw up; when they’re 12 years old, they won’t sleep; when they’re 19 years old, they’ll have nightmares and they’ll never have a relationship with anybody.” Fagan said doing so was his oath and obligation as a trial lawyer defending his clients’ “liberty.” Equally revolting has been many law experts’ reaction to the comments made by Fagan, who is the chairman of the state House ethics committee. Some have said, with all candor, that the lawmaker was expressing a basic courtroom truth, that a lawyer who attacks a child in this way is “just doing his job.” Many times defense attorneys do so knowing that their client is guilty. Fagan’s floor testimony shows not only the reprehensible conduct of some men and women, but also the horrifically flawed intrinsic nature of American adjudication itself.