World Roundup
Summary of Key Stories That Have Made the News This Week
The main article in this week’s Sons of Issachar News was too long to all the world roundup to be published with the main story and so I am sending this separately.
Around the World
USA
Who is running the US? Many believe it is Biden’s chief of staff Ron Klain and Domestic Policy Advisor, Susan Rice. Like Nancy Reagan in President Reagan’s day, Jill Biden is very influential but not influential enough to prevent Kamala Harris from being selected as the Vice-President. Jill is reported to have had serious misgivings about Kamala and she was correct. Kamala has had 12 staffers leave since she was sworn-in as Vice-President and the latest is her chief-of-staff. Harris has an approval rating trending towards zero and her lack of experience and knowledge is evident every time she speaks.
Susan Rice is probably the most influential person in the Biden administration as the domestic policy advisor and she has close links to the Obamas, who seem to be very influential in relation to the agenda of the Biden administration. Between Klain and Rice, they are guiding the US into political and financial disaster. In the face of horrific inflation, the solution is to spend more and increase taxes, which will push inflation higher. This, together with opening immigration at the southern border even further, will destroy what is left of US stability. There will be a huge backlash in the November mid-term elections unless the Democrats line up another pandemic or another crisis that allows rigged postal voting.
Of course the news this week has been full of commentary related to Elon Musk’s buyout of Twitter . Twitter seems to be a good medium to stay off as it is mainly populated by left-wingers on welfare support, apart from Musk himself who has 80 million followers on Twitter.
I was going to ignore this story but it seems to be important in relation to future free speech which Musk supports, in contrast to so called “harmful speech” which seems to be anything that the left-wing doesn’t like. It is hard to know whether Musk is a “goodie” or a “baddie” but he does publicly support freedom of speech which is positive. There are likely to be more restrictions on opinions in the days ahead and the “Trusted News Initiative” already ensures that most alternative opinions are not permitted. Recent announcements have also highlighted what is being described as a “Ministry of Truth” proposed within the Department of Homeland Security to combat “disinformation”. We are going to hear a lot more about this in the coming months with government proposals to combat “misinformation”, “disinformation” and “hate speech” which are said to be due to “right wing extremists”. It does appear as though the definition of “right wing extremists” is those who disagree with a left-wing agenda, which now dominates schools, universities the media and most Western governments.
United Kingdom & Europe
At one stage in the early 20th century, the United Kingdom had an empire on which “the sun never set”. Many tie the decline in the British empire to the failure to support the Jews in the quest for a homeland following the Balfour Declaration in 1917. God stated in Genesis 12:1-3 that he “would bless those who bless you (Abraham and his descendents) and curse those who curse you”. The UK’s decline in prominence and influence could be directly related to its reluctance to support the fledgling Jewish state in 1948 and the period since then. The issue was Arab oil, with the UK reluctant to have the Arab world offside, and this is still an ongoing challenge for UK foreign policy. The Arab-Israeli conflict has come into prominence recently because of Israeli created Pegasus spyware which is thought to have been placed on phones of Boris Johnson’s team while they were in the United Arab Emirates. The clever thing about the spyware is that it can be used to access mobile devices and computers without users being aware that all their information is being transmitted to a third party. It seems likely that we will see confidential UK government information appearing in the media in the months ahead and demonstrates the way technology is being used to hack government secret data.
Boris Johnson is under increasing pressure in relation to “partygate” but it seems that he is hoping that everyone will become worn out by the issue and he appears safe for the moment because the UK Conservative Party does not have an alternative Prime Minister and the next election is 2 years away. The good news for Boris is that he is well regarded in Ukraine where a town near Odessa has decided to name a street after him. It looks as though if things get really tough, Boris can move to Ukraine!
Russia and Ukraine
The latest reports are that Russia targeted Kyiv with rockets during a visit by the UN Secretary General, Guterres. A British army volunteer has been killed and another is missing. Putin will not leave Ukraine without taking control and in the meantime, the US seems prepared to provide financial support and weapons until the last Ukrainian is left standing. It seems unlikely that President Putin will ignore the extensive weapons supply coming from the US, Europe and the UK and at some stage there will be a strike by Russia against the supply lines outside Ukraine. In Kyiv this week, the US Defense Secretary, Lloyd Austin, said that the US
“wants to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine”.
Meanwhile Europe is, in effect, funding the Russians with the purchase of Russian oil and gas and the Washington Examiner reported that there has been a spike in sales since the invasion with US$66 billion in Russian income despite sanctions. It does look as though Putin will keep the Russian forces in Ukraine and with the various forms of military support from the UK, Europe and the US, it is possible that there could be an unforeseen event that could result in dramatic escalation. Sweden and Finland, previously neutral, are indicating that they will join NATO, which places further pressure on Putin and he could suddenly lash out. The Russians already have threatened the use of nuclear weapons and so an extension of the conflict seems likely. The possible outcomes seem bad for us all and there will be no winner, except the arms manufacturers.
China vs The West
It is interesting that COVID-19 lockdowns have extended in China and now are said to impact 165 million people. In a nice touch towards environmentalism, Shanghai residents have been caged in with green fencing. One wonders if the Chinese government are just flexing their muscles and showing the population who is the boss or whether there is another agenda? Two years of data from many countries has shown that lockdown is ineffective controlling the coronavirus and a report by the American Institute for Economic Research in December 2020 indicated that “there is no relationship between lockdowns and virus control”.
It does appear that we are being set up for another “plandemic” with the former Director of the US CDC, Robert Redfield warning of a bird flu pandemic that will have mortality in the 10-50% range. This has been followed by the announcement in China of the first H3N8 case of human “bird flu” in a 4 yo boy and authorities are destroying poultry flocks. We need to take note of these “warnings” and prepare ourselves for the next “pandemic” and authoritarian lockdown in the West.
Israel
As there have been memorials for Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom HaShoah) in various parts of the world, it is good for us to remember the horrific events that unfortunately are being forgotten. Many of the young ones today know little of the Holocaust as educational curricula have been loaded with information about the “climate emergency” and other trendy topics. The threat to Israel and Jews is well demonstrated by the Iranian rallies on Friday for “Jerusalem Day” where crowds shouted “death to America”, “death to Israel” . Iran is serious and it is incredible that the Biden administration would negotiate with this terrorist state regarding their acquisition of nuclear technologies. The Vienna nuclear talks have become bogged down in relation to the US taking the Iranian Revolutionary Guard off its terror list. The Biden administration is desperate for an agreement to be signed and so undoubtedly there will be a compromise that gives Iran what it wants.
The Israeli government coalition, united only by their hatred of Benjamin Netanyahu has been fractured by the withdrawal of the Arab minority Ra’am party from the government. However, discussions between Yair Lapid, the foreign Minister, and Mansour Abbas, the head of the Ra’am party have led to Ra’am once again voting with the government. It will be a miracle if there is not another election before the end of the year because one of the key Yamina Party members (the party led by Naftali Bennett, the Prime Minister) left the coalition which in any case only had a one seat majority. Governing Israel is an ongoing challenge and it seems remarkable that with all the difficulties, the country somehow survives.