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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Revelations 6:4 “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:
- France on Fire: Over Half a Million Protest Against Macron Government
- Over half a million people took to the streets of France on Thursday to protest Emmanuel Macron’s government.
- The demonstrations are mostly concerned with unpopular pension reforms pushed through by the government, which utilized a loophole within the French constitution to implement an increase to the pension age without the approval of parliament.
- This has prompted a huge degree of anger in the country, with political opposition on both the left and right up in arms about the current ordeal.
- Another target for protesters was the Paris headquarters of various major financial institutions, including the infamous BlackRock investment firm, all the while chanting Antifa slogans.
- Meanwhile, problems the country is having with fuel shortages at gas stations appear to be slowly resolving themselves, though supply will remain scarce at many stations over the Easter weekend.
- That is not to say that Macron has escaped the crisis scot-free.
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Revelations 6:4 “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:
- France: A ‘Field of Ruins’
- France, once again, is on the verge of chaos.
- The subject of the discontent is the adoption of a law reforming the pension system in a minimal way: the legal retirement age in France has been set at 62 since 2010; the law raises it two years, to 64.
- Neither members of the government nor economists on television dare to speak the truth: The French pension system is collapsing. The reform just adopted will not be enough to save it; just allow it to survive a bit longer.
- The system has been bankrupt for years, but its bankruptcy is growing more costly.
- The French pension system is not the only system collapsing. The country is facing a much larger crisis.
- The French health insurance system, also based on mandatory contributions deducted from salaries, also is in terrible shape.
- Food prices in 2022, meanwhile, increased 14.5%.
- The center-left and center-right parties are dead. Neither the Rebellious France Party nor the National Rally Party would be able gather enough votes to constitute an alternative majority. The political situation is blocked.
- “A modest reform based on an implacable demographic observation has tipped France into an existential crisis in which everything is wavering… A much deeper malaise is rising to the surface. That of a country haunted by its decline”. — Vincent Trémollet de Villers, Le Figaro, March 23, 2023.
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Revelations 6:4 “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:
- France protests: Thousands of police deployed as protesters march against pension reforms
- Protesters blocked train tracks and highways and clashed with police in some French cities on Tuesday as they marched across the country against President Emmanuel Macron’s deeply unpopular pension bill.
- Earlier in the day, the government rejected a new demand by unions to suspend and rethink the pension bill, which will bring the retirement age from 62 up to 64, infuriating labor leaders who said the government must find a way out of the crisis.
- Millions of people have been demonstrating and joining strike action since mid-January to show their opposition to the bill. But public frustration has evolved into broader anti-Macron sentiment.
- In particular, the protests have intensified since the government used special powers to push the bill through parliament without a vote.
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Exodus 20:13 “You shall not murder.”
Important Takeaways:
- Sweden’s ‘Conservative’ Govt to Make Abortion a Constitutional Right
- Sweden’s allegedly “conservative” center-right coalition government, led by Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, has expressed a desire to change the country’s constitution to enshrine the right to abort babies.
- “Establishing something in the Constitution – the foundation of our entire legal system – has several functions. It shows the values that characterize our society and it sets up robust protective walls around rights,” they said.
- The move comes as fellow European Union member-state France has also vowed to make abortion a constitutional right
- However, some national conservative-led countries in Central Europe, such as Poland and Hungary, have moved in the opposite direction, enacting more pro-life policies.
- Poland has largely outlawed abortion
- Hungarians have so far taken a more modest approach to strengthening the rights of the unborn, putting in place a policy that requires mothers to listen to the heartbeats of their children before confirming they wish to proceed with a termination.
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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:
- France now world’s biggest buyer of Russian natural gas despite Ukraine invasion
- Between January and October, France imported 4.45 million tonnes of Russian LNG, an increase of 52 percent in one year.
- It comes as Russia’s deputy prime minister opened the door to a return of gas supplies to Poland and Germany via the Yamal gas pipeline, which is currently unused.
- Moscow is currently sending contradictory signals. After threatening to cut its oil production in protest against the European embargo on crude and the price cap, Russia says it is ready to resume gas deliveries via the Yamal pipeline.
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- As US and China vie to win over Asia-Pacific, France warns of need for ‘single global order’
- US-China power struggle poses ‘a big challenge’, French President Emmanuel Macron says, as he warns against having to pick sides
- “America is a strong partner to the economies and the companies of this region because America is and will remain a major engine of global growth,” Harris said.
- In much the same vein, Chinese President Xi Jinping a day earlier urged greater economic integration and cooperation among countries in the Asia-Pacific.
- Xi has increased his engagement with regional leaders over the past week, holding talks with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
- He also met New Zealand’s Jacinda Ardern and Brunei Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah separately on Friday, and called for greater collaboration between nations.
- French President Emmanuel Macron, also delivering a keynote address at the Apec CEO forum on Friday, urged an end to “confrontation,” calling the struggle for supremacy between the two major powers “a big risk and a big challenge”.
- Stressing the need for a “single global order,” Macron said intensifying confrontation between the US and China had forced some countries to pick a side.
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