Week in Review: A Body Blow to the EU, Religion in Russia, Mexico in Crisis, the Battle for the North Pole, and More

RONALDO SCHEMIDT/ALEXEY DRUZHININ/BART MAAT/AFP/Getty Images/©iStock.com/OceanFishing

Week in Review: A Body Blow to the EU, Religion in Russia, Mexico in Crisis, the Battle for the North Pole, and More

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

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Highlights:

Dutch voters deal body blow to the European Union

  • Voters in the Netherlands rejected a free-trade treaty between the EU and Ukraine on April 6.
  • The vote was “generally viewed as a vote on the credibility of the EU,” noted CapX.
  • If EU foreign policy can be so easily hijacked by a single country, what does the future hold for the 28-nation combine?
  • It can either be a strong, reasonably united power with a coherent foreign, economic and military policy. Or it can be a power where citizens of nation-states have a say in policy and where what they say actually counts. But it cannot do both.
  • ‘Religion’ in Russia

  • Russia is swiftly becoming a nuclear-armed czarist empire!
  • The post-Soviet era “rise of the Orthodox Church hasn’t brought religious liberty to Russia,” wrote Trumpet writer Andrew Miiller. “It has simply replaced the Communist Party as the ideological state apparatus used to forcibly unite Russians!”
  • “This development has dangerous implications for the world.”
  • Mexico: Bordering on collapse

  • For over 75 years, revenue from Mexico’s giant oil production company, Pemex, “almost single-handedly sustained” the nation, according to Wolf Street’s Don Qujijones.
  • But that company may soon go bankrupt. Moody’s Investors Service downgraded Pemex to just one notch above a junk rating. Subsequently, the rating agency downgraded Mexico’s sovereign rating from stable to negative.
  • “America’s increasingly unstable southern neighbor,” wrote Trumpet columnist Robert Morley, “is facing many stressors and declining revenue, and the situation could melt down quickly. Our Mexican readers would do well to be wary of these conditions. And the amassing of tens of millions of hungry and unhappy people across the Rio Grande is sure to also affect America far beyond simply reducing oil deliveries.”
  • Militarizing the Arctic

  • The Arctic climate is so inhospitable to human life that only the United States, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Russia hold claims to Arctic territories.
  • None of these nations consider the Arctic a priority—except Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
  • To date, Russia has six new bases north of the Arctic Circle. It has deployed advanced S-400 long-range surface-to-air missiles and supersonic antiship missiles.
  • The Week wrote that “the vastness of the Arctic means these weapons don’t threaten other countries, but they do create fortified bases that will allow Russia to springboard ships, planes, and Arctic-trained troops into contested territory.”
  • Newly empowered Iran: Belligerent as ever

  • The Pentagon announced on April 4 that a United States Navy vessel intercepted a cache of Iranian weapons in the Arabian Sea on March 28.
  • The arms shipment included 1,500 AK-47s, 200 rocket-propelled grenade launchers and 21 machine guns.
  • That was the third time in two months that Iranian weapons were confiscated at sea.
  • “The United States’ waning influence and lack of willpower are on full display,” wrote Trumpet managing editor Joel Hilliker. “So too are Iran’s terrorist activities and waxing belligerence. What we are seeing is directly in line with the Bible’s prophecy of a king of the south: an Iran that is newly dominant, stronger than ever, and ready to push as never before.”
  • Other news:

  • Hamas is finding itself between a rock and a hard place. To ensure its survival, Egypt demanded that it sever all ties with the organization that shaped it—the Muslim Brotherhood.
  • Over 40 percent of college students who borrowed money from the government aren’t making payments.
  • The Islamic State released a video on Tuesday threatening to attack more cities in Europe. The video threatened: “If it was Paris yesterday, tomorrow it will be London or Berlin or Rome.”
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