Week in Review: Europe Besieged by Immigrants, Poland Turns Pro-Germany, Islamic State Goes After Lebanon, and More

SAMEER AL-DOUMY/AFP/Getty Images; Sean Gallup/Getty Images; ALEXANDER KLEIN/AFP/GettyImages; PAUL CROCK/AFP/Getty Images

Week in Review: Europe Besieged by Immigrants, Poland Turns Pro-Germany, Islamic State Goes After Lebanon, and More

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

Get all the important news from August 8-14 by downloading our Trumpet Weekly report. You can subscribe to receive it by e-mail every week here.

Top Stories:

8,000 asylum seekers in Germany

  • “Germany cannot bear the strain if, as has been the case, around 40 percent of all asylum seekers to Europe come here,” said Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière.
  • Immigrants will raise fears of higher unemployment rates and Islamist extremism.
  • Approximately 100,000 immigrants enter Europe every month.
  • The world according to Duda

  • Polish President Andrzej Duda wants to unite eastern European nations into an anti-Russia alliance.
  • Duda wants a stronger German and nato presence in Poland.
  • “Duda said that his priority would be to overcome German resistance to an expanded nato ground presence in the region,” wrote Politico. “His second overseas destination as president is Berlin.”
  • Islamic State heading for Lebanon

  • “Up until this week, Lebanon was the only country whose border crossings were still in Assad’s hands,” wrote Arutz Sheva. Then the Islamic State attacked.
  • Arutz Sheva added: “Islamic State chalked up several gains: it isolated Damascus, cutting it off from the Alawite coastal area, surrounded the cities of al-Qusayr and Homs, gained control of an important border crossing, and surprised Hezbollah in what it sees as a strategic victory, as Hezbollah will now have to transfer fighters from Syria back to Lebanon in order to protect the country and its Shiites. … The fate of the Druze, Christians and Alawites in Lebanon will be no better than the fate of the Shiites, and Lebanon—once called the Switzerland of the Middle East—may soon become its hell on Earth.”
  • Report: China’s active radar on par with F-22s—since 2009

  • China may have developed an active phased array radar six years ago that performs to the same level as radars used by American F-22 fighters.
  • The report fits into a trend in recent years of China and Russia catching up to American military technologies in a way that would have seemed unimaginable just a few years ago.
  • “[T]he problem isn’t just an administration that acts as if America is weak,” said United States National Defense Panel member James Talent. “The problem is also that America is weak, and becoming weaker, relative to the threats posed by its adversaries—which is the only measurement of military power that really matters. The world will get a lot messier until that changes.”
  • China’s economic warfare

  • China fired its warning shot on August 11 when it initiated the greatest single-day devaluation of the yuan in China’s history.
  • Commentators compared the consequent currency wars that broke out around the world to the conditions in the 1920s and 1930s, prior to World War ii.
  • Reuters quoted unnamed “powerful voices” within China’s government who suggested the yuan needed to fall by 10 percent. Morgan Stanley predicted a 15 percent fall earlier this year.
  • Based on Bible prophecy, Herbert W. Armstrong warned that the beginning of World War iii would be “economic in nature.” About America and Britain in particular, Mr. Armstrong stated: “God prophesied a virtual trade war will get underway against the United States and Britain—and [that] our national economics will falter, and then collapse!”
  • Other news:

    When Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras came to power in January, he adamantly opposed selling off government assets as a bailout deal-breaker. Now, Greece has agreed to sell, beginning with 14 airports worth$1.37 billion. The buyer is Germany.

    Tension between North Korea and South Korea is rising around the 38th Parallel as the two Koreas exchange fire.

    During the month of July, an average of 135 unaccompanied children per day were caught illegally crossing into the United States from Mexico.

    Psychologists confirm that playing violent video games is linked to aggressive and callous behavior. This follows a review of almost a decade of studies.

    Get more details on these stories and more by subscribing to the Trumpet Weekly!