This Week: Five Events You Need to Know (July 16)

The port city of Hamburg is Germany's tor zur welt (gateway to the world). It is known for its high culture, its industrial production and its shipping. During the recent G-20 summit, however, the city descended into "an orgy of violence" and stirred troubling historical associations. Meanwhile, one day before the G-20 summit, Pope Francis reiterated his calls for a federal Europe to help solve the world's evils.

Here are five of the most important news stories this week, as well as relevant links to the full articles and videos here on theTrumpet.com.

The Far Left Vs. Germany

Mobs of left-wing extremists at the July 7-8 G-20 summit looted stores and burned cars, causing millions of dollars' worth of property damage. They hurled rocks, bottles and fireworks at the police, injuring nearly 500 officers.

The media described the chaos as "an orgy of violence." Justice Minister Heiko Maas said it was "a historic high point in terms of politically motivated violence." Yet as Germany's Interior Ministry recently implied, it is all part of a noticeable increase in "the acceptance and intensity of violence in the far-left scene."

Political violence in Germany carries troubling historical and prophetic associations.

Pope Wants Federal Europe

Pope Francis fears "very dangerous alliances between powers that have a distorted vision of the world: America and Russia, China and North Korea, Putin and Assad in the Syria war."

Francis told an Italian newspaper that these alliances pose a great danger to "the poor, the weak and the excluded, of whom immigrants are part."

The danger posed by these alliances, according to Pope Francis, can be pacified by a different kind of alliance: "Countries will act if they recognize one truth," he pontificated. "Either Europe becomes a federal community or it will no longer count for anything in the world."

EU and Japan Outline New Free-Trade Deal

On July 5, the EU and Japan agreed on the outlines of a new trade deal.

The actual deal is probably at least a year away, but the July 5 agreement, just two days before the G-20 summit, was a powerful declaration of intent between the two powers.

"Japan and Europe have a pointed message for the U.S.: We're taking your place as global leaders in free trade," Vox wrote. "The fact that it was concluded right before Trump's first G-20 summit is a symbolic poke in the eye to the Americans."

As our April Trumpet discussed, "trade wars have begun!"

German Intelligence: Iran Working to Advance Nuclear Program

Iran is relentlessly pursuing nuclear weapons and associated missile technology, according to several German intelligence reports.

One report stated that there is "no evidence of a complete about-face in Iran's atomic policies in 2016." Instead, Iran has used a Chinese company as a front for procuring ballistic missile technology from Germany. Further, Iran has, according to another report, joined Russia and China as a "major player" in cyberwarfare and "espionage activities that are directed against Germany."

These are matters of human survival, and Germany is taking note. You can be sure it is already seeking ways to effect "a complete about-face" in Iran's dangerous behavior.

Rare Temple Mount Attack Causes Officials to Reevaluate Security Arrangements

Three Arab terrorists wielding knives and guns approached the Golden Gate, the eastern entrance to the Temple Mount compound in Jerusalem, and killed two Israeli Arab police officers and injured another on July 14.

General day-to-day security at the Temple Mount is handled by the Jordanian Waqf rather than Israeli police officers. But Israel's Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan, who called the attack an "extremely serious event which crossed all red lines," stated that there was a need now to "reevaluate all of the security arrangements on the Temple Mount and its environs."

Such arrangements, ironically, could invite a heavy backlash from Arabs fearing a Jewish attempt to jeopardize Arab control of the site.

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