Week in Review: A Plan for Euroarmy, Legal Japanese Nukes, Iran in Africa, Fascist Croatia, London’s Muslim Mayor, and More

Sascha Schuermann/Chris McGrath-Pool/ATTA KENARE/AFP/JUSTIN TALLIS/Getty Images

Week in Review: A Plan for Euroarmy, Legal Japanese Nukes, Iran in Africa, Fascist Croatia, London’s Muslim Mayor, and More

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

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Highlights:

Plans leaked for a European army

  • A report leaked to Süddeutsche Zeitung and the Financial Times shows Germany wants to form a European army.
  • “Germany is to push for progress towards a European army by advocating a joint headquarters and shared military assets, according to defense plans that could ricochet into Britain’s EU referendum campaign,” the Financial Times wrote.
  • As former defense official at Carnegie Europe, Jan Techa, said, “This is the time of a new Germany.”
  • Read more about that new Germany in our recent article “Germany Is Taking Over the Dutch Army.”
  • Nuclear-armed Japan?

  • The Japanese government’s reinterpretation of Article 9 of its pacifist Constitution allows it to develop and use nuclear weapons.
  • The government did clarify that even though the Constitution does not forbid Japan from having nuclear weapons, it still maintains a nuclear-free policy for the time being.
  • The history of Japan in World War ii and the recent evolution of Japan’s constitution from open pacifism to subtle aggression makes this development unsettling—and prophetic.
  • Iran’s war of terror in Africa

  • Iranian meddling is less apparent in Africa than it is in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Yemen, Bahrain and other Middle Eastern nations. But it’s hugely significant nonetheless.
  • In the article “Iran’s Other Shadow War Is in Africa,” the War is Boring blog wrote: “Sub-Saharan African states, in particular, have long been the setting of Iranian intrigue. In a contradictory arrangement, the public face of Iran’s relationship with Africa is that of economic strengthening for mutual benefits, while simultaneously engaging in covert action undermining the stability of the very economies Tehran seeks to work with.”
  • Iran’s terrorist tentacles reach such African nations as Kenya, Nigeria, Sudan, Senegal and Gambia.
  • Fascism flourishing in Croatia

  • Croatia’s new government is turning a blind eye to the surge of the far right, according to observers in the European Union nation. In some cases, they said, the government is even contributing to fascist sentiment in Croatia.
  • Many in Croatia see the murderous Nazi puppet state of 1941–1945 as the country’s founding fathers.
  • Historian Tvrtko Jakovina told Agence France-Presse that the downplaying of Croatia’s Nazi atrocities “has existed for years, but in a different intensity.”
  • “It has now penetrated cabinet ministers and the mainstream media.”
  • Londonistan’s Muslim mayor

  • “The fight to run London,” in the words of Reuters, “has pitted Labor’s [Sadiq] Khan, 45, the son of [a Pakistani] immigrant bus driver, against Conservative Zac Goldsmith, 41, the elite-educated son of a billionaire financier.”
  • Khan won that fight and has become London’s first Muslim mayor.
  • He has also become London’s first mayor to have ever shared “a platform with an extremist who called for Jews to drown in the ocean,” according to British Prime Minister James Cameron.
  • The Bible warned of Britain’s liberal immigration policies causing major problems. In Hosea 7, God warns that Britain “hath mixed himself among the people; Ephraim is a cake not turned. Strangers have devoured his strength, and he knoweth it not: yea, gray hairs are here and there upon him, yet he knoweth not.”
  • Other news:

  • Wildfires in the western Canadian oil city of Fort McMurray have burned down 1,600 structures and forced the evacuation of 88,000 people.
  • Russia is creating three new military divisions to counter the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s planned expansion into Poland and the Baltic states, according to remarks from Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu.
  • Communists, socialists, anarchists and anticapitalists of all shades celebrated International Worker’s Day on Sunday by staging rallies, protests and riots around the world. In London, Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn joined thousands of Stalinist protesters waving red flags emblazoned with the hammer-and-sickle Communist emblem.
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