Important Takeaways:
- Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Thursday warned France that Russia has “no more red lines” for the country.
- His warning was directed at French President Emmanuel Macron, who earlier in the day reaffirmed Paris’ firm support for Kyiv in its war against Russia’s invading forces while meeting with France’s other party leaders at the Elysee Palace.
- Le Monde reported that after the meeting, Fabien Roussel—national secretary of the French Communist Party—said Macron had expressed how “France’s position has changed” regarding the war, and that “there are no more red lines, there are no more limits.
- Medvedev addressed the report from the French newspaper in a threatening X post.
- “Macron has said, ‘there are no more red lines, there are no more limits’ in terms of supporting Ukraine (Le Monde). Then that means, Russia has no more red lines left for France,” Medvedev wrote.
- The Kremlin official then added, “In hostem omina licita,” a Latin phrase that roughly translates as “everything is legal if it is done to an enemy.”
- “Nothing should be excluded,” the French President said, following a gathering of Ukraine’s backers in Paris on February 26. “We will do anything we can to prevent Russia from winning this war.”
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Important Takeaways:
- ‘Catastrophic scenario’ if NATO troops deploy to Ukraine – top Russian senator
- The possibility mulled by the French president could be taken as a declaration of war on Moscow, Konstantin Kosachev has said
- The potential deployment of NATO troops to Ukraine will lead to a “catastrophic scenario,” and could be interpreted as a “declaration of war” on Moscow, top Russian senator Konstantin Kosachev has said.
- The Vice Speaker of Russia’s upper chamber, the Federation Council, offered his take on remarks by French President Emmanuel Macron on the possibility of sending troops in a Telegram post on Tuesday. The approach exhibited by the French leader carries a risk of the situation devolving into a “catastrophic scenario,” Kosachev warned, stating that the move would not be tolerated by the Kremlin.
- “This is the line beyond which it’s no longer just NATO’s involvement in the war – this has been happening for a long time, but can be interpreted as the alliance entering direct hostilities, or even as a declaration of war,” Kosachev wrote.
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Important Takeaways:
- France Says Russia Threatened to Shoot Down Its Military Aircraft
- Russian forces threatened to shoot down French flights patrolling last month in international airspace over the Black Sea, signals of increasingly aggressive behavior from Moscow as its invasion of Ukraine struggles to make headway, France’s defense minister said Thursday.
- French flights include long-range patrols by its AWACS surveillance aircraft. Flying high above the Black Sea coast, they use their powerful radar and other surveillance gear to peer across to the Crimean Peninsula that was seized from Ukraine by Russia and annexed in 2014. The surveillance flights can spot missile launches, airborne bombing runs and other military activity in the Ukraine conflict.
- Russian pilots have at times made clear that they don´t like being watched.
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Important Takeaways:
- France, Germany and Italy called for the European Union to set up a special sanctions scheme to target Hamas as EU foreign ministers met on Monday to consider possible next steps in response to the Middle East crisis.
- In a letter to EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, the foreign ministers of the bloc’s three biggest countries said it was important the EU take “all necessary measures against the terrorist group Hamas and its supporters”.
- Hamas is already listed by the European Union as a terrorist organization, meaning any funds or assets that it has in the EU should be frozen.
- The EU said on Friday it had added Mohammed Deif, Commander General of the military wing of Hamas, and his deputy, Marwan Issa, to its list of terrorists under sanction.
- Some suggested a decision last week by the United States, Israel’s biggest backer, to start imposing visa bans on people involved in violence in the West Bank could encourage EU countries to take similar steps.
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Important Takeaways:
- Over a Million Left Without Power as 100mph+ Storm Rips Through Britain and France
- Strong winds and rain also battered southern England and the Channel Islands, where gusts of more than 160 kph (100 mph) were reported. Hundreds of schools stayed closed in the coastal communities of Cornwall and Devon as downed trees and flooding hindered morning commutes.
- Flights from airports on the Channel Islands of Jersey, Guernsey and Alderney were canceled. Dutch airline KLM scrapped all flights leaving and arriving in the Netherlands from the early afternoon until the end of the day, citing the high sustained wind speeds and powerful gusts expected in the country.
- “It looks like a once-in-every-few-years storm for the U.K. and France,” Bob Henson, a meteorologist and science writer with Yale Climate Connections said Wednesday, adding that Ciaran could turn into “a once in a generation storm.”
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Important Takeaways:
- France and the European Union Are No Friends of Israel
- At the recent European Summit in Brussels, the heads of state and government did not make the call for “humanitarian pauses” conditional on the release of the Israeli and foreign hostages held in Gaza by Hamas.
- Thirty-five French citizens were murdered by Hamas on October 7, and nine others are being held hostage (among approximately 230 hostages), but France wants to provide aid to those who are holding them?
- Unsurprisingly, according to reports, Hamas has been hoarding the food and medicine intended for the suffering people of Gaza… Cement for “rebuilding Gaza” has instead been diverted to building attack tunnels, and water pipes from the European Union are made into rockets. Hamas has also reportedly hoarded food, water, medicine and fuel, with the fuel being used in their rockets.
- Central, however are the hostages. Their release will not be facilitated by a ceasefire or humanitarian corridors; quite the contrary. France and the European Union should have made their aid to Gaza conditional on the hostages’ release, and stated that no “humanitarian” aid will be provided until Hamas releases them. Hamas has created this situation, not Israel.
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Luke 21:11 There will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and pestilences. And there will be terrors and great signs from heaven
Important Takeaways:
- Violence Spiraling Out of Control in France: Massive Police Deployment Fails to Quell Burnings
- The French government is considering “all options” including a nationwide state of emergency after another night of violence which saw hundreds of arrests and injured police officers, and thousands of fires, including many symbols of the state including town halls, schools, post offices, and buses destroyed.
- Some 40,000 police officers were deployed across France on Thursday night in an attempt to forestall a third night of violence triggered by the death on Tuesday of a delivery driver at the hands of a police officer in a Paris suburb after he refused to comply with a traffic stop. Yet the enormous show of force by the French state failed to prevent even greater levels of destruction.
- Per France’s Le Figaro reports there were 875 arrests overnight nationwide, which saw protest and violence spread to urban areas across the country and even to neighboring Belgium, the home of the European Union. Figures that underline the considerable scale of the attacks reveal there were some 3,880 fires set overnight, 249 police officers injured — although none seriously — and 492 buildings damaged.
- Le Parisien cites the Interior Ministry to report 80 police stations were damaged overnight, 34 town halls burnt or otherwise damaged, 28 schools, and 57 other state buildings nationwide. Attacks on symbols of the state appeared so targeted even individual post-boxes were attacked.
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Mathew 24:12 And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold.
Important Takeaways:
- Four children wounded in Annecy knife attack
- Four toddlers and two adults were stabbed in a knife attack in the tranquil French mountain town of Annecy on Thursday, and the government said the suspected assailant was a Syrian refugee.
- Two of the children and one adult were in hospital in a life-threatening condition, while the other victims were less seriously hurt.
- The local prosecutor leading the investigation said there was no indication that terrorism was the assailant’s motivation. He was under investigation for attempted murder.
- The four children were just toddlers, aged between 22 months and three years, Annecy prosecutor Line Bonnet-Mathis told reporters.
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Revelations 13:16-18 “Also it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead, so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name. This calls for wisdom: let the one who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man, and his number is 666.”
Important Takeaways:
- France brings de-dollarization to Europe by trading in yuan
- Following news that Brazil and China agreed to trade in their local currencies, it emerged that a French company charged the export of liquefied gas (LNG) to China National Offshore Oil Corporation in the Chinese yuan. This is another sign that the inexorable process of de-dollarization has gained momentum and even spread to the European Union.
- This should not be surprising given the difficult economic situation across the EU, meaning that companies will look after their own interests above all. None-the-less, the media has already characterized the transaction between the Chinese company and Total Energy in yuan as historic.
- Meanwhile, the dollar, which once accounted for 70% of foreign exchange reserves, has now fallen to 59%. The process is ongoing, and will take a long time, but it cannot be halted. One of the initial goals of the BRICS association was de-dollarization.
- The Chinese insist on payments in the yuan so that it becomes a reserve with the same respect as the dollar, Swiss franc, euro, and yen.
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Revelations 6:3-4 “when he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!” 4 And out came another horse, bright red. Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that people should slay one another, and he was given a great sword.
Important Takeaways:
- When Macron met Xi: Welcome to the New World disorder
- China’s leader is gathering autocratic regimes to his banner, Europe and the US are divided over how to respond, and the French president just lobbed a grenade onto the field of international diplomacy
- In 2019, he famously declared that Nato was experiencing “brain death”.
- In 2021-22, he took it upon himself to mediate, ostensibly on Europe’s behalf, with Vladimir Putin over Ukraine. Even after Putin ignored him and invaded, Macron insisted Moscow should be offered “security guarantees” and that Russia not be “humiliated”.
- At home, Macron has caused uproar in recent months by pushing through controversial pension reforms opposed by two-thirds of the population. The row has contributed to a plunging personal approval rating, down to 30% this month. Facing a confidence vote in March, his government survived by bypassing parliament. The reforms are under legal challenge, while violent nationwide protests are continuing. Yet insouciant Macron seems almost oblivious at times.
- The latest explosion was ignited by an interview Macron gave after a visit last weekend to Beijing…On China policy, European countries were too subservient to the US and should not be Washington’s “followers”… Macron also implied that defending democratic Taiwan from a Ukraine-type Chinese invasion was not Europe’s business.
- China, on the other hand, just loves Macron’s ideas about rescuing Europe from America’s smothering embrace. His comments were wildly applauded in state-controlled media
- If a European consensus view on China actually exists, it was possibly best expressed by Von der Leyen in a speech last month. China, she said, had become “more repressive at home and more assertive abroad,” and Europe must be bolder in response.
- EU countries should use economic measures such as screening of foreign subsidies and restrictions on sensitive technology transfers to rebalance relations with Beijing
- “China is a fascinating and complex mix of history, progress and challenges. And it will define this century,” she said. But her message to Beijing was unapologetic and – Macron please note – unbending. The tried-and-tested democratic international order, based on shared principles and values, could and would prevail.
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