News and Prophecy Staff

Following Donald Trump’s recent visit to Europe and his choice not to re-commit to NATO Article 5 (which states that if one member of NATO is attacked, the others will come to its support), German Chancellor Angela Merkel observed, “The times in which we can fully count on others are somewhat over, as I have experienced in the past few days” (EU Observer, May 29, 2017).

“The number of birds in Germany and Europe has dropped significantly over the past 30 years… In Germany, one-third of all bird species have seen ‘significant population declines’ since the end of the 1990s… Birds in agricultural areas are particularly threatened, with 300 million pairs of breeding birds living around farmland across the European Union disappearing between 1980 and 2010. That’s a decrease of 57 percent” (Deutsche Welle, May 4, 2017).

Over 6.5 million asylum-seekers from the Middle East intend to enter Europe, according to a confidential German report (The Telegraph, May 25). Half of these people are waiting in Turkey. “Up to one million potential migrants were living in Egypt and in Libya and up to 720,000 in Jordan, the paper said.

Last week, Foreign Policy ran an article entitled “Germany Is Quietly Building a European Army Under Its Command” (May 22, 2017). For decades, German defense spending has been kept very low. However, under its Framework Nations Concept, Germany is working with small European nations like the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, and Romania.

The Independent reports that the prestigious Highgate School north of London may adopt a “gender neutral” dress code allowing boys to wear pleated skirts “in response to growing numbers of children questioning their gender” (May 14, 2017).