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APRIL 18, 20141

THE TRUMPET WEEKLYTHE TRUMPET WEEKLYA P R I L 1 8 , 2 0 1 4

Iran says it is allowed to enrich to 90 percent 2

An arsonist pretending to be a fire inspector 4

$10k bounty for captured Russian soldiers 5

Another university censors criticism of Islam 8

Showdown with Russia a dangerous game 9

BY ROBERT MORLEY

R - oil producer Gazpromsaid its preliminary moves to sell gas or euros insteado dollars was moving orward. In e-mailed comments

reported by Reuters, Gazprom chie Alexander Dyukovsaid that percent o those under contract with the com-pany were ready to make the switch.

Dyukov made sure to highlight that this move to selloil or euros instead o dollars was simply Gazprom doingwhat was necessary to protect the company rom potentialU.S. sanctions. It was nota policy set by Russian PresidentVladimir Putin.

Regardless, this latest effort by Gazprom may mark a

seemingly slight but significant changein Moscows recentassault on the U.S. dollars reserve currency status.Earlier this month, Andrei Kostin, president and

chairman o the powerul Russian Bank, said thatmuch o Russias oil industry was ready to switch romthe dollar to the Russian rubleas payment or exports. Hesaid that Russias biggest oil producer, Rosnef, as well asthe state-owned deense company, Rosoboronexport, wereamong those companies willing to boycott the dollar. Re-uters reported that three oil importers rom China and Ja-pan said they had been asked by Gazprom to pay or the oilin other currencies than the dollar. wo said they were sti llconsidering the proposal. Te third said it had paid in eurosin the past and did not see doing it again as a problem.

It is time to change the entire international financial

system that considers the dollar the key reserve currency,Kostin told Platts. Te world has changed. [Chinas] yuanand [the Russian] ruble have to

Russias Euros-for-Oil ThreatensDollars Reserve Currency Status

see CURRENCY page 12

Russian energy giant, Gazprom

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APRIL 18, 20142THE TRUMPET WEEKLY

MIDDLE EAST

Hamas Leader Urges,Kidnap Israeli Soldiers

JERUSALEM POST | April 16

H P Minister IsmailHaniyeh is urging Palestinians tokidnap Israeli soldiers, in light o therecent halt in Israeli-Palestinian peacetalks, reported PalestinianMaan

News Agencyuesday night.Abducting Israeli soldiers is a toppriority on the agenda o Hamas andthe Palestinian resistance, Haniyehreportedly said during a conerence.

Negotiations with the occupationhave ailed.

According to the Palestinian newsagency, the Gaza leader called the endo recent U.S.-backed peace talksan

unquestionable act.

Protesters DemandNuclear ProgramLOS ANGELES TIMES | April 11

P a boisterous rallyafer Friday prayers demanded thatIran retain its nuclear rights,as thepublic voiced its displeasure with thelack o concrete results rom ongoingnegotiations with world powers.

Echoing earlier comments rom

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iranssupreme leader, the protesters vowedthat Iran would not shut down itsnuclear program or relinquish its ura-nium enrichment capabilities.

Many Iranians, eager or a lifing ocrippling economic sanctions, are un-happy about the lack o tangible prog-ress in the talks, which seek to build onan interim deal brokered last year.

Tough hard-line conservativeshave long been skeptical o the nucleartalks, even some moderates havequestioned whether President HassanRouhani might be willing to give toomuch away in an effort to lessen thegrip o international sanctions. ManyIranians view the nations nuclearprogram as a source o pride.

A major worry in ehran is thatworld powers might attempt to usethe talks as leverage on other sensitiveissues, such as Irans ballistic missile

program or its human rights record.

Temple Mount:a Hamas City-State?

ARUTZ SHEVA | April 16

P M Benjamin Ne-tanyahu has been accused ohypocrisy afer criticizing PalestinianAuthority leader Mahmoud Abbas

or incitement, while simultaneouslyturning a blind eye to Hamas-ledincitement in the heart o Jerusalem.

Te past ew days have seen re-newed activityby Hamas on theemple Mount, Judaisms holiest site,with Islamists literally taking it overor several hours on the eve o theJewish estival o Pesach (Passover),in a successul bid to keep Jews rom

visiting the site.Tis morning, riots broke out again,and Jewish amilies who had gatheredto Jerusalem rom across the countrywere once more banned rom visit-ing in responseprovoking a uriousreaction rom emple Mount activists.

emple Institute InternationalDirector Rabbi Chaim RichmantoldArutz Shevathat as recently asMarch , authorities had promisedhim that they would make every ar-rangement to acilitate Jewish visits to

the emple Mount.Ultimately, however, he stressed

that the responsibility or ensuringJewish rights on the emple Mountand preventing Hamas violencetherelies with the prime minister.

Te act that Israeli authorities arecaving into Islamist violence and arenot allowing Jewish prayer on Juda-isms holiest site is a national catas-trophe, he said.

In the middle o Jerusalem there is

I chie asserted Sunday that under the terms

o the recently agreed upon treaty with the West, the IslamicRepublic has the right to enrich uranium to percent grade.

Firstly, we believe that we are entitled to any right thatany Non-Prolieration reaty and [International AtomicEnergy] Agency member has, which means that enrich-ment rom percent to percent is our right, Ali AkbarSalehi said in an interview Sunday, according to a transla-tion provided by the Iranian Fars News network.

Salehi, who serves as the head o the Atomic EnergyOrganization o Iran, added that his country was alsoconsidering building our more nuclear power plants in thecoming years, with the help o Russian experts.

Te government-run daily Iran quoted Salehi, the

Iranian negotiator in talks with six world powers, as saying

that Iran needs , more centriuges to enrich uraniumand produce enough nuclear uel to run its Bushehr powerplantor a year.

World powers negotiating a final nuclear deal with Iranwant a reductionnot an increasein the number ocentriuges ehran is operating to remove concerns thatthe Islamic Republic may use its enrichment capabilities tobuild a nuclear weapon.

Te Bushehr plant, near the southern port city with thesame name, was made with Russian help and has been on-line since . Russia provides uel or the ,-megawattacility, but Iran says it wants to be sel-sufficient and notremain dependent on oreign suppliers or nuclear uel.

Iran Is Entitled to Enrich Uranium to 90 PercentTIMES OF ISRAEL | April 14
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a city-state with diplomatic immunitywhere the enemy flag is unurled andwhere plans are being made to attackJews that is absolutely unspeak-able.

U.S. Puts Syria on theBack BurnerDEUTSCHE WELLE | April 7

T G peace talks wereabandonedwithout a resolution atthe end o January, and with the mili-tary escalation in Ukraine deepeningthe gul between the U.S. and Russiain the meantime, no one has raisedthe prospect o repeating the exerciseany time soon.

In act, the crisis over the Crimean

Peninsulahas played into the handso Syrian President Bashar Assad anddelivered yet another blow to the rebelorces. According to Lebanese news-paperAs-Safir, an opposition sourcereceived news that the U.S. admin-istration was not only holding backarms shipments to rebel orces, but

was postponing announcing its policy

on Syria so as not to heighten tensionswith Russia.

[]he Syrian conflict, which hasclaimed , lives since peaceulprotests turned into violent sup-pression in , is being put on theback burner or the sake o keepingpeace with Russia, which continues

to support Assad and oppose oreignintervention in Syria.

TW I N B R I E F

nNegotiations: Israel gives, thePalestinians getAfer a long history as a negotiator andgo-between or the Israelis and Pales-tinians, the U.S. has borne witness torepeated attempts toward peace. Tismakes the current U.S. assumptionthat Israel is to blame all the more

difficult to comprehend because inevery ailed negotiation to date, Israelhas had the most to lose. Lets take alook at what Israel has conceded in anattempt to bring about peace with thePalestinians, and what the Israeli peo-ple received in return. One instanceis the Sept. , , Oslo Agreement.Israel would withdraw rom the West

Bank and Gaza in stages. In return,the Palestine Liberation Organizationwould recognize Israels right to be anation and live in peace. Since ,Israeli towns and cities have been heldto ransom by terrorists launchingrocket afer indiscriminate rocket intothe Israeli state. Te Israel Deense

Forces has reported over , rocketattacks since the withdrawal. Begin-ning on July , , negotiations ora new peace deal were heavily one-sided. Israel promised to release Palestinian prisonerssome o themconvicted murderersin return orthe Palestinians to remain at the ne-gotiating table and not pursue unilat-eral statehood through the UN. Hereagain, Israel made all o the tangibleconcessions in exchange or promises.We must remember that the ultimate

Palestinian goal is not merely the es-tablishment o a Palestinian state. Tereal goal is the complete replacemento Israel. Te history o the entirepeace process is largely the same: Is-rael gives all and gains nothing. Undersuch a scenario, there can only be oneoutcome: the realization o Palestiniangoalsand the destruction o Israel.

EUROPE

Why Germany ShouldStop Arming the WorldTHE LOCAL | April 15

G the war in Iraqand its troops deployed in the mission in Aghanistan weremainly kept out o combat.

Last months decision to take part

in the European Unions peace-keep-ing in the Central Arican Republicwas made only on the condition thatGermanys main contribution bemedical transport planes.

But the countrys military coynesshas not prevented it rom selling weap-ons into the worlds war zonesnot

just as business but as oreign policy.Chancellor Angela Merkel all but

declared her send guns not soldiersstrategy in a speech at a political

oundation event in . She hadevidently decided it would be morepolitically prudent to arm regional al-lies than put soldiers in harms way.

And under Merkel, the arms busi-ness has boomed, reaching a peakin , when her government approvedarms exports worth a record turnovero . billion [. billion]a ten-old increase on .

Lately though, German weaponsfirms have increasingly been selling tocountries outside Germanys circles oimmediate allies, who may not neces-sarily share Germanys security inter-ests or its commitments to protectinghuman rights.

As the Stockholm InternationalPeace Research Institute showed in areport on Monday, non- statesare boosting their deense spend-ing while countries like the U.S. and

Germany are slashing theirs. On uesday, Germanys constitu-

tional court considered a complaintby three Green party politicians whoaccuse the government o not ully an-swering a request or inormation theymade in on a potential deal to sell Leopards to the Saudis.

Henrik Heidenkamp, Germandeense industry expert at the Royal

United Services Institute, told Te Localthe economic value was not the point,but about nurturing Germanys deenseindustry so that it will be able to supplyarms to the German Army and its allies.

Only a commercially viable deenseindustry can deliver needed equipmentto the armed orces in order to sustainthe national deense effort, he said.

In other words, Germany needs tosell guns so it can make guns or itsown soldiers.
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But what i those soldiers thenend up acing enemies with the same

German-made weapons? In practice, the stability argumentmeans selling arms to both sides oany simmering conflictin the past,Germany has sold arms to Egypt andIsrael, India and Pakistan, Saudi Ara-bia and Iran, urkey and Greece. Tetruth is that nothing makes the worldmore dangerous.

An Arsonist Pretending

to Be a Fire InspectorFOREIGN POLICY | April 10

F Y Sergeyev, the Ukrainianambassador to the United Na-tions, the last hours o Russiasstage-managed separatist ermentin Ukraines eastern and southernregions dont remind him o Mos-cows invasion and annexation oCrimea in March. Tats because thediplomats memory goes back much

urther than that. Te Soviet Unionorganized separatist movements, and

these movements organized pseudo-reerenda and immediately demandedmilitary support, Sergeyev said. Ithappened in all three Baltic states inthe s. Te Soviets also tried to dothe same in Finland. Tey ailed. Itswhy they launched a war and tried tooccupy all o Finland.

War and occupation are verymuch on Sergeyevs mind today. Ina wide-ranging -minute interviewwith Foreign Policyconducted atthe Ukrainian mission in midtown

Manhattan, he addressed what he seesas Russian President Vladimir Putinslatest conspicuous efforts to destabilizea nascent, wobbly government in Kievand to determine Ukraines nationaldestinywith or without the consento the Ukrainian people. Russia ispressuring us, involving external part-ners, to demand rom the Ukrainiangovernment constitutional reorms andto have a ederalized state, Sergeyevsaid. Well, Russia has a ederalized

state, but the problems in Russia itseldemonstrate that this solves nothing.

You like such a ederal status as Chech-nya has? You want the ederal status oany o the Caucasian republics?

But its unlikely that Russia is inter-ested in a good-aith discussion aboutUkraines uture. As Sergeyev readilyconcedes, Putin is once again marshal-ing the same semitransparent tradecrafoprovokatsiya(which is exactly what itsounds like) that the and Commu-nist Party used to justiy their domina-tion o hal o Europe in the th cen-tury. All the markers o orthcoming

raternal assistance to the supposedlyembattled ethnic Russian population oUkraine are on display now.

Other Moscow-ruled autonomousrepublics, Sergeyev said, dont bodewell or the peninsulas uture. Com-pare the situation in Abkhazia todaywith the situation in Adjara, in Geor-gia. Abkhazia used to be the best resortin the Soviet Union. And now this isthe worst place. Nothing changed romthe [ Russia-Georgia] war. Tey

T EU launched its Sentinel-a satellite rom FrenchGuiana on April as it began the rollout o its advancedfleet o Earth-monitoring satellites. Once the Sentinel-assister satellite, the b, is launched, the pair will be able togive radar images o anywhere on the Earth within three to

six days.Teyre part o the EUs Copernicus project, which aims

to give the EU an extensive view o the Earths surace.Tere is no Earth-observation project as big as this,

said Pro. Anne Glover, the EUs chie scientific adviser.We should remember that any system designed to study

the Earth in detail or scientific reasons is also very useulmilitarily. Te publicity or these launches ocuses on theenvironment, global warming and disaster response, butthe EU admits, in the small print, that these satellites haveintelligence and even military applications.

Teres no doubt that Copernicus promises excitingnew applications or land management and environmental

science, said Ben Hayes o the civil l iberties group State-watch.But its already abundantly clear that the new sys-tem will also be used or military operations and surveil-lance purposes, some o which are highly controversial.

Its hardly surprising that the Commission is stress-ing Copernicuss green credentialsbut its still politicalsugarcoating, he added.

Te Copernicusprogram used to be known by the much

less-catchy name o (Global Monitoring or Envi-ronment and Security). At first it was designed to supportenvironmental security, but, as a European Parliamentdocument noted, this mission was adjusted ever so slightly:It now aims to support the environment andsecurity

(original emphasis). Te systems declared military usesinclude EU peacekeeping operationsi.e. European mili-tary missions, as well as border monitoring outside theEU and resource monitoring. Te latest sentinel satellitewill serve these purposes.

Te EU will, o course, use its new satellites or envi-ronmental monitoring. But they are also vital intelligenceresources that will be used in planning and carrying outmilitary missions. In assembling this constellation o satel-lites, the EU is quietly extending its military power and di-minishing its reliance on the U.S. or accurate satellite data.Copernicus is just one o many satellite projects underwaywithin the EU.

Once Europes Copernicus and Galileo satellite systemsare complete, according to EU officials, they will be themost technologically advanced systems in operation.

Space is an important theater or any aspiring military.Watch or the EU to continue to expand on this rontier. Formore details on Europes space program, read our articleTe Quiet Space Race.

Follow Richard Palmer: Twitter

The EUs Covert Military Satellite ProgramRichard Palmer | April 14
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ASIA

B F, the lieutenant governor o Dnipropetro-vsk, Ukraine, said on Wednesday that he would personal-ly pay , or each Russian invader captured in Ukraine,and , or the liberation o any government buildingin Donetsk that is now under pro-Russian occupation.

Mr. Borys Filatov made the offers on his Facebook page

around midnight Ukraine time on April . We have anoffer: For each captured green maneach pro-Russia mer-cenary walking on our soil and trying to push us into civilwara reward o U.S. ,. [And] or each vacatedbuilding a reward o U.S. ,. All details, moneytranser location, contact numbers tomorrow in a specialmessage o Staff o National Deense.

Such offers show that the crisis underway in Ukraine isat a boiling point, and is only becoming more tense. Backin March, Russian President Vladimir Putin brought theCrimean Peninsula back into the motherland, effectivelyredrawing the borders o Europe in one ell swoop. Sincethen, turmoil has gripped eastern Ukraine, which many

ear is a prelude to more Russian annexations.On Tursday, Ukrainian, Russian and Western officials

held an emergency meeting during which Putin said hewants to avoid using orce in Ukraine, but he did not ruleout sending in Russian troops. In his annual televisedphone-in later in the day, Putin even reerred to easternUkraine several times as new Russia. And despite Russiasclaims to the contrary, the situation on the ground shows

that Moscow is already waging covert operations in partso the region. Tese efforts have already seen armed pro-Russian activists take hold o swaths o Ukraine, includingthose government buildings that Mr. Filatov is offering topay to liberate.

Despite some isolated victories and despite concerted e-orts by such Ukrainian leaders as Filatov, the overall pushby the Ukrainian military appears to be losing momentumagainst Russian might.

Te situation is raught with tension, and the million-ruble question remains: Will Mr. Putin go urther, officiallyannexing more territory in Ukraine or other parts o East-ern Europe? o know what to expect, read rumpeteditor

in chie Gerald Flurrys analysis, Te Crimean Crisis IsReshaping Europe. Follow Jeremiah Jacques: Twitter

Ukrainian Oligarch Offers $10k for Captured Russian InvadersJeremiah Jacques | April 17

have no tourist attraction, no economicincentives. In Adjara, Donald rumperected several big hotels there. I Russiaailed to invest in Abkhazia a single ruble,they could hardly invest in Crimea.

TW I N B R I E F

nEU pushes nations to increasedefense spendingTe EU crisis is a wake-up call said thedeputy head o the EUs external actionservice Maciej Popowski on April at a meeting o EU deense ministersin Luxembourg, adding that now weneed to get serious about deense. EUForeign Minister Catherine Ashton

asked the group: I Ukraine is not atrigger to get serious about spending,about pooling and sharing, about smartdeense, then what more do we need toget real? s secretary general said,

We need to train and exercise more to-gether, or instance the ResponseForce and the EU battlegroups, so that

we stand ready or whatever the uturemay bring. Tis is exactly the Europeanresponse Mr. Flurry warned about in hisarticle Te Crimean Crisis Is ReshapingEurope.

nEU extends Mali missionEU deense ministers agreed to ex-tend its training mission to Mali until

May , to ensure all eight MalianArmy units were battle ready. Tey alagreed to send a second mission to trMalis police. Te first mission is madup o over personnel, including trainers. Te second will be smallerprobably about people. Te EUsoriginal mission was to train only ha

Malis army. Europe is taking over rothe U.S. as the most influential Westepower in North Arica. Small traininmissions like the one in Mali are a vecheap way or the EU to ensure that ifluence continues. For more inormaton Europes involvement in Arica, reour recent article EU Plans Mission Central Arican Republic.

China Urges GreaterMilitarization of SpaceFOX NEWS | April 15

C is calling on hiscountry to boost its military powerin space by increasing coordination

between its air and space deenseprograms.

Xi Jinping told officers to speed upair and space integration and sharpentheir offensive and deensive capabili-ties, Xinhua news agency reportedlate Monday, according to Reuters.

Te news agency did not elaborate

as to how China expects to do this,but state media uesday called it aresponse to the United States increas-ing militarization o space.

Te idea o combining air and spacecapability is not new to the Chinese airorce, as a host o experts have under-scored the importance o space, the
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official China Dailynewspaper said.China says its space program is or

peaceul means, but a Pentagon reportreleased last year claimed Beijing islooking at ways to block its rivals romusing space-based assets during acrisis, Reuters reports.

An analysis o satellite images also

suggests that a Chinese rocket launchin May was actually a test o ananti-satellite weapon .

Jinping previously has said hewants China to become a superpowerin space.

Russia and China

Forge Closer TiesEU OBSERVER | April 17

R rolling out two major proj-ectsa gas pipeline and a Crimeadeep water portwith China, as EUcountries and the U.S. weigh optionson economic sanctions.

Russias ambassador to the EU,Vladimir Chizhov, told EU Observeron Wednesday (April ) that workon the Power o Siberia pipeline and

the Chinese construction o a -meterdeep port in Crimea are proceeding asnormal despite the Ukraine crisis.

Describing the pipeline as a mega-project, he said it will pump bil-lion cubic meters (bcm) o gas a yearrom the Kovykta and chayandins-koe gas fields to Russias ar east, witha branch line to deliver up to bcm ayear to China.

He noted that Gazprom andChinas have a legally bindingagreement rom and that exploi-

tation o the chayandinskoe fieldshould start in .

Chizhov said Moscow and Beijingare also going ahead with plans or Chi-nese firms to build a -meter deep portin Crimea as part o a new transportcorridor rom Asia to EuropeTeEconomic Belt o the Great Silk Route.

He indicated that Russias annexa-tion o Crimeadubbed illegal by theUNhas done nothing to stop theport investment, worth billion in

the first stage alone. He added the Ukraine

crisis has also done nothing toslow Russias plan to launch a

Eurasian Union with Arme-nia, Belarus, Kazakhstan andKyrgyzstan next year.

Te Eurasian Economic

Union is due to be launchedon Jan. , , regardlesso the situation in Ukraineor any other country notinvolved at this stage in the in-tegration process . Negotia-tions on accession o Armeniaare expected to be completedsoon and those with Kyrgyz-stan are also under way, hesaid.

Te EU and U.S. havewarned they will blacklist

more Russian officials andcompanies unless Russia de-escalates . But the al-lies made clear they will not go to warwith Russia no matter what it does tothe ormer Soviet state.

Te UK and ormer Soviet andCommunist EU countries are themost hawkish. But Cyprus, France,Germany, Greece, Italy, Portugal andSpain have voiced concern in recentEU meetings.

For his part, Cypriot Foreign Min-ister Ioannis Kasoulides told Germandaily Die Welt on Wednesday that EUcountries should be ree to opt outrom the measures.

He said an EU-Russia economic warwould destroy Cypruss economy.

China to Buy S-400 toDeter TaiwanINDIA DEFENSE | April 14

J D Scholar maga-zine website on April quoted aRussian commercial television reportthat Putin has approved the sale toChina o two to our sets o S- airdeense missile systems. Te deal isalready in negotiations. I approved, itwould allow China to become the firstoreign customer or this advanceddeense system. At present, Chinahas deployed many Soviet-era S-

deense systems. Te S- system itsel may be

greatly improved in China to someunexpected developments o militarystrength. Range o the missile systemis kilometers [. miles] andexperts believe that this would giveChina an advantage in air superiorityover the aiwan Strait. Once the S-ground-based system is inducted and

combined with fighters, Chinawill increase its rhetoric against ai-wan with more confidence. It will alsoact as a deterrent to U.S. intervention.

Chinas deployment o the S-is not only to deter aiwan, but alsoJapan over the disputed islands andIndia, too, over its unresolved bound-ary dispute. Japan should respond e-ectively to Chinas S-, because thesystem will overwrite Japans claimsover the Diaoyu Islands.

TW I N B R I E F

nPutin boosts Russias negotiationleverage in UkraineProessionally armed, pro-Russianprotesters stormed and occupied gov-ernment buildings and police stationsin eastern Ukraine over the last week.Te protesters have secured control

Related: The Collapsing China Fantasy

Related: Asia: Region-Wide Arms Race Is

Underway
https://www.thetrumpet.com/article/7478.21806.128.0/asia/china/the-collapsing-china-fantasyhttps://www.thetrumpet.com/article/7478.21806.128.0/asia/china/the-collapsing-china-fantasyhttps://www.thetrumpet.com/article/7478.21806.128.0/asia/china/the-collapsing-china-fantasyhttps://www.thetrumpet.com/article/7689.6264.0.0/world/military/asia-region-wide-arms-race-is-underwayhttps://www.thetrumpet.com/article/7689.6264.0.0/world/military/asia-region-wide-arms-race-is-underwayhttps://www.thetrumpet.com/article/7689.6264.0.0/world/military/asia-region-wide-arms-race-is-underwayhttps://www.thetrumpet.com/article/7689.6264.0.0/world/military/asia-region-wide-arms-race-is-underwayhttps://www.thetrumpet.com/article/7478.21806.128.0/asia/china/the-collapsing-china-fantasyhttps://twitter.com/js_jacqueshttps://www.thetrumpet.com/article/7478.21806.128.0/asia/china/the-collapsing-china-fantasyhttps://www.thetrumpet.com/article/7478.21806.128.0/asia/china/the-collapsing-china-fantasy

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o buildings in towns in a series ocoordinated occupations. While thepro-Russian protesters are officiallyunidentified, Western governments,including the United States, havesaid Moscow is behind them. Tough

violence rom the protests has eruptedin several towns, Ukrainian authori-

ties have so ar proven unwillingtoimplement a large-scale crackdown

on the protesters. Te occupationscame during the same week as Genevanegotiations between the U.S., Russia,Ukraine and the EU, and they makea powerul statement about Moscowspower in Ukraine. Te occupation ogovernment buildings, Strator wroteon April , demonstrates Russias

ability to destabilize Ukraine throughnon-military means and thus gives the

Kremlin leverage in its negotiationswith Ukraine and the United States.Since Americas will to fight is broken,and the EU is not yet politically andmilitarily united, Russian power inits ormer Soviet periphery appearsundisputed. Although the will oAmerica will only urther deteriorate,

the disunity o the European responsewill not last long.

LATIN AMERICA/AFRICA

V P Nicolas Maduro has aced steep

opposition over the last ew months. Violent protestshave lef dead, finally orcing the president to the nego-tiation table.

Last Tursday, President Maduro met with the op-position headed by Henrique Capriles. Tis marked thefirst major effort at reconciliation since anti-governmentprotests began to roil Venezuelan cities in early February,reported AP. Both sides discussed their worries over thedeclining state o Venezuela and expressed strong eelingsagainst a possible coup dtat.

Present during the meeting was the Vaticans Venezu-elan representative, Aldo Giordano, who read a message

rom Pope Francis. In the letter, Pope Francis is urgingVenezuelans on both sides to put aside their politica l di-erences and demonstrate the necessary courage to reachan agreement that avoids more bloodshed afer weeks o

violent protests, wrote AP.

Te two sides are expected to continue their peace talks,

but not without the Vaticans mediation. Vatican Radioreports, Te Venezuelan government leaders have invitedVatican Secretary o State Cardinal Pietro Parolin to thepeace talks between the government and an oppositioncoalition. Te high-ranking cardinal is expected to act asa neutral party between the opposing sides in upcomingtalks this week.

During ormer president Hugo Chvezs -year reign,the Venezuelan government distanced itsel rom theVatican by squabbling ofen with the countrys conserva-tive Catholic hierarchy. Now both the opposition and thecurrent government are seeking the Vaticans mediation.

Expect to see the Vatican play a bigger role in Venezu-elas uture. Under Hugo Chvez, Venezuelas ties withthe Vatican looked bleak, but, as we asked in February,Could the Venezuelan Protests Be Good News or theVatican?

Vatican Plays Peacemaker in VenezuelaSam Livingston | April 17

Tension Rising Overthe Falkland IslandsAnthony Chibarirwe | April 18

T the United King-

dom and Argentina over the Falk-land Islands rose urther when theBritish announced routine militaryexercises in the disputed islands. Temilitary drills are taking place romApril -.

Te exercises have provoked angerin Buenos Aires, which has sum-moned the British ambassador toArgentina to protest British displayo orce. Argentine President CristinaFernandez de Kirchner accused the

British o setting up a base withnuclear weapons in the Falklands.

Almost all Falklanders want the is-lands to remain British territories. TeUnited Kingdom has been steadast inits strong position over the disputed

islands. But so has Argentina. On thend anniversary o its invasion o theBritish-occupied islands on April ,Argentina launched a new pesocurrency proudly displaying a map othe islands.

At the same time Argentine pressureis mounting against the British, U.S.support or the British cause is waning.On the same day Argentina launchedits new peso bill, a British House oCommons report decried the souring

special relationship between Britainand the United States over the Falk-lands. It read: We are disappointedthat the U.S. administration ails to givepriority to the principle o sel-determi-nation in its position on sovereignty o

the Falkland Islands.Te U.S. has been criticized or its

neutral stance over the dispute. Someobservers believe the U.S. has alreadycrossed the neutral line toward Argen-tinas side. Bible prophecy shows thatas surely as God gave the Falklands(and all o Britains colonies) to theBritish in order to ulfill an ancientpromise, God will remove thoseblessings to teach the importance oobedience.
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TW I N B R I E F

nSuspected Boko Haram atrocitiescontinue in NigeriaAt least people were killed and wounded when a car bomb detonatedat a commuter bus terminus in the Ni-gerian capital, Abuja. Te attack, sus-pected to be yet another Boko Haram

terror campaign, occurred during the

ANGLO-AMERICA

Bows to IslamicCensorshipBrent Bozell and Tim Graham, NEWSBUSTERS | April 12

I time. Many col-lege students are preparing or theircommencement ceremonies. On somecampuses, some students are playinga game o what we might call Dumpthe Speaker. Conservative speakerschosen to deliver commencement ad-dresses are being howled off campusby lefist student organizations, andaculty as well.

Rutgers recently aced this by

inviting Condi Rice, and reused tobudge. But Brandeis University has

just knuckled under to student andaculty protests over its announcedspeaker, author Ayaan Hirsi Ali. She

was dis-invited.Youd think a human rights advo-

cate would be cheered by liber-als. Youd think theyd positivelyswoon at a human rights advocate orwomen!But no. She is a conservative.

Te Muslim students and theirallies didnt want to hear anythingAli had to say about honor kil lings oremale gender mutilation. Explain-ing why aculty members signeda demand the invitation be revoked,

Why David FoughtKing David of Israel was a man of Godand also a man of

war. The leaders of the modern nations of Israel are not likeDavidthey will not fight for God.GERALD FLURRY

Click to Play

Pro. Bernadette Brooten offered anempty justification: non-Muslimscommit violence, too.

We stressed that we recognize theharm o emale genital cutting, orcedmarriages and honor killings, but that

this selection obscures the violenceagainst women than happens amongnon-Muslims. Brandeis then an-nounced Ali was a compelling wom-ens advocate, but we cannot overlookcertain o her past statements that areinconsistent with Brandeis Universi-tys core values. For all concerned, weregret that we were not aware o thesestatements earlier.

Aha. Past statements. Te Foun-dation or Individual Rights in

Education rightully declared that aBrandeis core value is hypocrisy:Archbishop Desmond utu receivedan honorary degree rom the uni-

versity in spite o earlier commentscomparing Israel to apartheid SouthArica and stating that Zionism hasmany parallels with racism. Dr. AlanGuttmacher received an honorarydegree in despite having servedas vice-president o the AmericanEugenics Society.

Ten there is the radical gay play-

wright ony Kushner, honored byBrandeis at the commencement.Here is Kushners opinion o God, asspoken by a Mormon statue in hisplay Angels in America: God splitsthe skin with a jagged thumbnail romthroat to belly, then plunges a hugefilthy hand in. He grabs hold o yourbloody tubes. You might slip to evadeHis grasp, but He squeezes hard, Heinsists. He pulls and pulls, till all yourinnards are yanked out. And the pain

morning rush hour on April . Untilthis attack, Boko Haram atrocities havebeen mostly confined to the northeastregions o Nigeria. I confirmed, thisattack will be Boko Harams first in thecapital since . In the northeasternBono state, suspected Boko Harammilitants kidnapped girls rom an

all-girls boarding school on the same

day. A day prior, on April , Islamistsbombed and shot at villagers in Bonostate, killing at least people. Toughsporadic, attacks rom the group arewearying down the society in Nigeria.Boko Haram is bent on establishing anIslamic state in Nigeria. It has estab-lished ties to Iranand terrorist organi-

zations like al Qaeda.
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cant even talk about it. And thenHe stuffs it back. Dirty, tangled, torn.Its up to you to do the stitching.

God is a monster. But that was justdandy or Brandeis.

Where were Proessor Brooten andher colleagues then? Had Kush-ner said any o this about an ayatol-lah, hed be finished. But it was saidabout Catholics, so it earned him an

honorary degree.In a statement o rebuttal, Ayaan

Hirsi Ali said she accepted the com-mencement invitation months agodue to its history: it was ounded in

T U States has constructed a financial neutronbomb. For the past years an elite cell at the U.S. rea-sury has been sharpening the tools o economic warare,

designing ways to bring almost any country to its kneeswithout firing a shot.

Te strategy relies on hegemonic control over the globalbanking system, buttressed by a network o allies and thereluctant acquiescence o neutral states. Let us call this theManhattan Project o the early st century.

It is a new kind o war, like a creeping financial insur-gency, intended to constrict our enemies financial lie-blood, unprecedented in its reach and effectiveness, saysJuan Zarate, the reasury and White House official whohelped spearhead policy afer /. ...

Bear this in mind as Washington tightens the nooseon Vladimir Putins Russia, slowly shutting off market

access or Russian banks, companies and state bodies with billion o dollar debt (Sberbank data).

Te stealth weapon is a scarlet letter, devised underSection o the U.S. Patriot Act. Once a bank is tainted inthis wayaccused o money-laundering or underwritingterrorist activities, a suitably loose offenseit becomes ra-dioactive, caught in the boa constrictors lethal embrace,as Mr. Zarate puts it.

Tis can be a death sentence even i the lender has nooperations in the U.S. European banks do not dare to deyU.S. regulators. Tey sever all dealings with the victim.

Mr. Zarate told me that the U.S. can go it alone with

sanctions i necessary. It thereore hardly matters whetheror not the EU drags its eet over Ukraine, opting or thelowest common denominator to keep Bulgaria, Cyprus,Hungary and Luxembourg on board. Washington has thepower to dictate the pace or them.

Te U.S. reasury aces a more ormidable prey withRussia, the worlds biggest producer o energy with a tril lion economy, superb scientists and a first-strikenuclear arsenal. It is also tightly linked to the German andEast European economies. Te U.S. risks endangering itsown alliance system i it runs roughshod over riends.

It is in much the same situation as Britain in the mid-th century when it enorced naval supremacy, boarding

alleged slave ships anywhere in the world, under any flag,ruffling everybodys eathers.

Mr. Zarate said the Obama White House has waited toolong to strike in earnest, clinging to the hope that Putinwould stop short o tearing up the global rule book. Tey

should take the gloves off. Te longer the wait, the moremaximalist they may have to be, he said.

I the U.S. reasury says three Russian banks are

primary money-laundering concerns, do you think that, or Standard Chartered will have anything to do withthem?

Tis will graduate to sanctions on Russian deense firms,mineral exports and energytrying not to hurt BP assetsin Russia too much, he adds tactullyculminating in asqueeze on Gazprom should all else ail. Whether you areor or against such action, be under no illusion as to whatit means. We would be living in a different world, andWall Streets S&P would not be trading anywhere near,.

Chancellor George Osborne must have been let into thesecret o U.S. plans by now. Perhaps that is why he issued

last weeks alert in Washington, warning city bankers toprepare or a sanctions all-out. Te city is precious, hesaid, but that doesnt mean its interests will come abovethe national security interests o our country.

Te greatest risk is surely an asymmetric riposte bythe Kremlin. Russias cyberwarare experts are amongthe best, and they had their own trial run on Estonia in. A cybershutdown o an Illinois water system wastracked to Russian sources in . We dont know whetherU.S. Homeland Security can counter a ull-blown denial-o-service attack on electricity grids, water systems, airtraffic control, or indeed the New York Stock Exchange,

and nor does Washington.I we were in a cyberwar today, the U.S. would lose.Were simply the most dependent and most vulnerable,said U.S. spy chie Mike McConnell in .

Te U.S. Deense Secretary Leon Panetta warned o acyber-Pearl Harbor in . Tey could shut down thepower grid across large parts o the country. Tey couldderail passenger trains or, even more dangerous, derailpassenger trains loaded with lethal chemicals. Tey couldcontaminate the water supply in major cities, or shut downthe power grid across large parts o the country, he said.

Sanctions are as old as time. So are the salutary lessons.Pericles tried to cow the city state o Megara in .. by

cutting off trade access to markets o the Athenian Empire.He set off the Pelopennesian Wars, bringing Spartas hop-lite inantry crashing down on Athens. Greeces economicsystem was lef in ruins, at the mercy o Persia. Tat was ataste o asymmetry.

Financial Showdown With Russia More DangerousThan It Looks

Ambrose Evans Pritchard, THE TELEGRAPH | April 16

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, in the wake o World War andthe Holocaust, as a co-educational,nonsectarian university at a timewhen many American universities stillimposed rigid admission quotas onJewish students.

But what was initially intendedas an honor has now devolved into amoment o shaming. Yet the slur onmy reputation is not the worst aspect

o this episode. More deplorable isthat an institution set up on the basiso religious reedom should todayso deeply betray its own oundingprinciples.

Bingo.

Givers Outnumberedby TakersCNS NEWS | April 16

B on the website o theU.S. Census Bureau is a numberevery American citizen, and especiallythose entrusted with public office,should know. It is ,,.

T terriying aspect o the collapse o U.S. powerworldwide is the U.S.s indifferent response to it.In Europe, in Asia, in the Middle East and beyond,

Americas most dangerous oes are engaging in aggressionand brinkmanship unseen in decades.

As Gordon Chang noted at a symposium in Los Ange-les last month since President Barack Obama enteredoffice in , the Chinese have responded to his overtureso goodwill and appeasement with intensified aggressionagainst the U.S.s Asian allies and against U.S. warships.

In , China seized the Scarborough Shoal rom thePhilippines. Washington shrugged its shoulders despite itsmutual deense treaty with the Philippines. And so Beijingis striking again, threatening the Second Tomas Shoal,another Philippine possession.

In a similar ashion, Beijing is challenging Japans con-trol over the Senkaku Islands even making territorialclaims on Okinawa.

As Chang explained, Chinas recent application o itsAir-Deense Identification Zone to include Japanese andSouth Korean airspace is a hostile act not only againstthose countries but also against the principle o reedomo maritime navigation, which, Chang noted, Americanshave been deending or more than two centuries.

Te U.S. has responded to Chinese aggression with ever-escalating attempts to placate Beijing.

As or Europe, the Obama administrations responses toRussias annexation o Crimea and to its acts o aggressionagainst Ukraine bespeak a lack o seriousness and danger-ous indifference to the ate o the U.S. alliance structure in

Eastern Europe.Rather than send orces to the memberBaltic states, and arm Ukrainian orces with deensiveweapons, as Russian orces began penetrating Ukraine, theU.S. sent ood to Ukraine and an unarmed warship to theBlack Sea.

Ten there is Iran.Te administration has staked its reputation on its

radical policy o engaging Iran on its nuclear weaponsprogram. Te administration claims that by permittingIran to undertake some nuclear activities it can con-

vince the mullahs to shelve their plan to develop nuclearweapons.

Tis week brought urther evidence o the policys com-plete ailure. It also brought urther proo that the adminis-tration is unperturbed by evidence o ailure.

In a televised interview Sunday, Irans nuclear chie AliAkhbar Salehi insisted that Iran has the right to enrich

uranium to percent. In other words, he said that Iran isbuilding nuclear bombs.

Rather than accept that its efforts have ailed, the Obamaadministration is redefining what success means.

[I]n recent months U.S. officials claimed the goal o thenuclear talks was to ensure that Iran would remain yearsaway rom acquiring nuclear weapons. In recent remarks,Secretary o State John Kerry said that the U.S. would su-fice with a situation in which Iran is but six months awayrom acquiring nuclear weapons.

In other words, the U.S. has now defined ailure as success.Ten there is Syria. Te growing worldwide contempt or U.S. power and

authority would be bad enough in and o itsel. What makes the situation worse is the U.S. response to

what is happening. Te Obama administration is respond-ing to the ever-multiplying crises by pretending that thereis nothing to worry about and insisting that ailures aresuccesses.

And the generation coming o age today is similarlyuninterested in U.S. global leadership .

It is because o this that U.S. allies like Japan, SouthKorea and Saudi Arabia, that lack nuclear weapons, areconsidering their options on the nuclear ront.

It is because o this that Israeli officials are openly stat-

ing or the first time that the U.S. cannot be depended onto either secure Israels eastern rontier in the event that anaccord is reached with the Palestinians, or to prevent Iranrom acquiring nuclear weapons.

It is because o this that the world is more likely thanit has been since to experience a world war o cata-strophic proportions.

Americas spurned allies will take the actions they needto take to protect themselves. Some will persevere, otherswill likely be overrun.

The Disappearance of U.S. WillCaroline Glick,JERUSALEM POST | April 17

Related: A Nation of Cowards?

Related: Sharia Finance: Last Gasp of a

Doomed American Economy
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Tat is the number o Americanswho in got up every morningand went to workin the private sec-torand did it week afer week aferweek.

In , according to the CensusBureau, approximately ,,people worked ull-time, year-roundin the United States.

O the ,, ull-time, year-round workers, ,, workedor the government. Tat included,, who worked or state andlocal government and ,, whoworked or the ederal government.

At first glance, ,, mightseem like a healthy population o ull-time private-sector workers. But thenyou need to look at what they are upagainst.

Te Census Bureau also estimatesthe size o the benefit-receiving

population. Tis population, too, allsinto two broad categories. Te firstincludes those who receive benefits orpublic services they perormed or inexchange or payroll taxes they duti-ully paid their entire working lives.Among these, or example, are thosereceiving veterans benefits, thoseon unemployment and those gettingMedicare and Social Security.

Te second category includes thosewho get means-tested government

benefitsor welare. Tese include,or example, those who get Medicaid,ood stamps, Supplemental SecurityIncome, public housing, emporaryAssistance or Needy Families, andWomen, Inants Children.

In the last quarter o , ac-cording to the Census Bureau, ap-proximately ,, people lived in

households where one or more peoplewere on Medicaid. ,, livedin households were someone got oodstamps. ,, lived in house-holds where one or more got .,, lived in households whereone or more got . ,, livedin public or government-subsidizedhousing.

O course, it stands to reason thatsome people lived in households thatreceived more than one welare benefitat a time. o account or this, the

Census Bureau published a neat com-posite statistic: Tere were ,,people in the ourth quarter o who lived in a household that includedpeople on one or more means-testedprogram.

Tose ,, outnumberedthe ,, ull-time private-sectorworkers who inhabited the UnitedStates in by almost . to .

Tis brings us to the first cat-egory o benefit receivers. Tere were

,, people receiving SocialSecurity in the ourth quarter o ,and ,, receiving Medicare.Tere were also ,, gettingunemployment compensation. Andthere were also ,, veterans re-ceiving benefits and , veteransgetting educational assistance.

All told, including both the welare

recipients and the non-welare ben-eficiaries, there were ,, whoreceived benefits rom one or moreprograms in the ourth quarter o. Subtract the ,, veterans,who served their country in the mostproound way possible, and that leaves,, non-veteran benefit takers.

Te ,, non-veteran benefittakers outnumbered the ,,ull-time private sector workers . to .

How much more can the,, endure?

As more baby boomers retire, andas Obamacare comes ully onlinewith its expanded Medicaid rolls andederally subsidized health insuranceor anyone earning less than per-cent o the poverty levelthe numbero takers will inevitably expand. Andthe number o ull-time private-sectorworkers might also contract.

Eventually, there will be too ewcarrying too many, and America willbreak.

L New Hampshire are voting to repeal alaw dating back to which outlaws adultery.In all states stil l have laws which ban married men and

women having sex with anyone other than their spouse.Gradually these statutes, many o which date back to the

early days o the United States, are disappearing, but notwithout a fight.

Opponents say that the repeal is urther evidence omoral decay in the country.

But supporters o the move, which has bipartisan sup-port, say the reorm is long overdue.

Te idea that it would stop an affair is delusional, imOFlaherty, a Democrat member o the New HampshireHouse o Representatives, told the elegraph. It is atleast years since it was enorced.

Te reorm has already cleared the states lower houseand Maggie Hassan, the states governor, said she will ratiythe change i it clears the senate.

Under the current law, offenders ace a , ()

fine i convicted.In , the punishment was being publicly whipped and

paraded in ront o the gallows.Although convictions or adultery in the U.S. are rare,

they are not unknown. In , police in Massachusetts

caught a couplewho were not married to each otherhaving sex in a van. Te woman, who disputed the charge,was fined .

Te punishment could have been ar worse, with Massa-chusetts setting a maximum penalty o three years impris-onment or the offense.

In other states the provisions on the statute book areeven more draconian.

Adulterers in Idaho or example could stil l ace a prisonterm o up to three years i convicted o the offense, whilein Wisconsin it is still regarded as a class elony with apossible six-month jail term.

U.S. State Set to Legalize AdulteryTELEGRAPH | April 17

Related: The God Family Vision
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APRIL 18 201412THE TRUMPET WEEKLY

take their place in international transactions, he added.So ar, Russias move to hurt the U.S. has largely centered

on replacing the dollar with the ruble in oil transactions.As Russia odayreported, Russian Lower House M.P.s areurging Russian oil and gas producers and traders to stopusing the dollar (April ): Te dollar is evil. It is a dirty

green paper stained with blood of hundreds of thousands of

civilian citizens of Japan, Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria,Libya, Korea and Vietnam,one o the authors o the mo-tion, Mikhail Degtyaryov o the conservative nationalistparty said in an interview with Izvestiadaily.

Degtyaryov also said that Russia already had a bilateralagreement with China allowing payment in national cur-rencies and this proved that such step was possible.

Our national industrial giants will not suffer any lossesif they choose to make contracts in rubles or other alterna-tive currencies. Russia will benefit from that. We shouldact paradoxically when we deal with the West. We will sellrubles to consumers of our oil and gas, and later we willexchange rubles for gold. If they dont like thislet them not

do this and freeze to death. Before they adjust, and this willtake them three or four years, we will collect tremendousquantities of gold. Russian companies will at last becomenationally oriented and stop crediting the economy of theU.S. that is openly hostile to Russia,the M.P. said.

Yet analysts see virtually no way the ruble could replacethe dollar as a reserve currency, even considering the actthat Russia is the first or second largest oil exporter in theworld. Te Russian economy, at a litt le over trillion, is

just too small on a global scale.Yet these analysts also overestimate the strength o

America. Tey argue that all U.S. President Barack Obama

would have to do is call Saudi Arabia up and have it startpumping out more oil and the ruble would collapse. Tisview is based on outdated reasoning. First, Americasrelationship with Saudi Arabia is in serious trouble, with

various members o the Saudi royal inner circle explicitlyshowing disgust with U.S. oreign policy and outrightanger over Americas embrace o Iran. Second, it is un-clear how much excess oil capacity the Saudis have at theirdisposal anyway. Saudi oil fields are aging while internalconsumption has soared. Citigroup analysts say the Saudiscould be net importers o oil by !

While the ruble might not be a viable alternative to thedollar or global tradeother countries look on enviously.

Reserve currency status is a prize to be envied.Te dollar enjoys reserve currency status because it is

the primary currency used or the payment o internationaltransactionso which the oil trade is one component, inot the biggest.

Te act that so many nations use dollars to settle tradecontracts has enabled the U.S. to run up massive debts, andallowed the Federal Reserve to print trillions o dollars tokeep the U.S. economy rom collapsing during and sub-sequent to the economic meltdown. Without suchstatus, the dollars value would have plummeted precipi-tously. Without this status, interest rates would be sky

high. Americas economy would be much smaller and U.S.standards o living might be more like Mexico or Spain.

Te U.S. dollars reserve currency status is a big compo-nent o Americas superpower status. Want to use dollars ortrade? Ten you must use Americas financial systemandthat makes you subject to the rules and regulations imposedby America. It also opens up your assets to potential seizure.

Reserve currency status is something any uture super-

power would need.China is clearly afer it. On April , the South China

Postreported that Russia and China were close to finalizinga Holy Grail gas deal in which Russia would pump billion cubic meters o natural gas to China. Te contract,which is set to be priced in Russian rubles and Chineseyuan, is set to come into orce by the end o . Addition-ally, China has given approval or a new yuan clearing hubin Frankurt in order to make it easier or European coun-tries to purchase yuans or bilateral trade with China.

Yet China, with its immature financial centers anduntrusted political system, is an unlikely candidate ornear-term global reserve currency holder.

What about Europe? Would Europe, with its cumulativeeconomy surpassing the U.S., ever want to hold the premierworld reserve currency?

Consider how Russias actions in Ukraine have impactedboth East and West Europe. While Eastern Europeancountries are clamoring or the West to conront Russia,Europes real powerbrokers in Germany and France aremuch more subdued.

Why?With Russia diversiying its oil and gas exports to Chi-

na, Europe knows that Russia will soon be able to turn offthe gas tap to Europe or extended periods o time. Tis is

just the way o lie in the East, so its used to it; but WesternEurope is only now coming to terms with it.Is it any wonder that all three o Germanys most recent

chancellors, Gerhard Schrder, Helmut Kohl and HelmutSchmidt, have each publicly voiced support or Russiasactions in Crimea? Each blamed Europe and the West orinciting Russia, and preer that the rest o Europe cut a dealwith the Kremlin.

Tey appreciate the stick Russia holds.Europe also appreciates the carrot. European interests

have been working or years to internationalize the euroand expand its reserve currency status. However, the eurosshare o global reserves dropped sharply afer the Greece

crisis even though it has now recovered or three consecu-tive quarters.

I even a portion o Russias oil transactions were con-sistently priced in euros, it would be a massive boost to theeuro at the dollars expense.

Russia appears to be dangling reserve currency status inront o the European financial powers. Will Frankurt andBrussels make a deal with Putin? Te Bible says they will,so dont expect a huge response by Europe to conront Pu-tin. Instead, expect Russia and Germany to work out theirdifferences while dividing up Europe in the process.

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