Germany to Store Europe’s Energy

Power transition will result in domineering monopoly.

Whether it’s storing money, gold, armaments or sustainable energy, 2013 has seen Europe’s largest country rapidly gobble up key assets, positioning it as continental chief operating officer.

Recently Germany’s government approved €150 million of new investment capital to maintain its Energy Transition policy, or Energiewende. The program is managed by the Ministries of Economics, Environment, Education and Research.

This phase of stimulus is dubbed “sustainable power grids” and comes as part of the government’s sixth stage of energy research. Once created, these power grids will act as smart distribution centers managing supply and demand. The research has established an “Internet of Energy,” which forecasts a 10 percent reduction in domestic utility costs and a 20 percent reduction for commercial businesses.

Europe’s Unemployed: An Army Waiting for a Leader

As Europe edges toward mass anarchy and chaos, the Catholic Church is emerging as the key mediator between Europeans and their leaders.

Europe’s unemployment crisis is one everyone knows about, but no one is thinking seriously about.

Chemical warfare looms over Syria. Israel passes atropine to rebels

Every day, Damascus inches a little closer to fulfilling Isaiah 17:1.

As the Syrian civil way went into its third year this week, signs abounded of increasing readiness for the use of chemical weapons on both sides of the conflict.

Since February, the US, Israel, Ankara and Amman have been aware of Bashar Assad’s resolve to override their threats and resort to deadly poison gas if the rebels closed in on the heart of Damascus. On April 3, an unnamed Syrian army officer made the warning clear. By continuing to advancie on Damascus, he said, “the rebels and their leaders” were assured of “certain death.”

At about the same time, debkafile reported exclusively that the Syrian ruler had ordered protective suits for chemical warfare and gas masks distributed to the 4th and 3rd Divisions defending the capital. Tank commanders were told to activate their filtering systems against chemical and biological agents.

From Sea to Shining Sea

Eighteen miles. That’s the width of the Bab el-Mandab passageway, the narrow stretch of ocean separating Djibouti from Yemen that connects the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean to the Red Sea. In strategic terms, this passage is crucial. Control the Bab el-Mandab passage and you control the eastern half of one of the most important shipping lanes in the world.

That is exactly what Iran is looking to do. Few recognize it—but it’s happening under our noses. All you have to do is look at Yemen.

Iran’s Dual Path to Nuclear Arms

Plutonium versus uranium: A very keen observation that many have failed to distinguish. Many forget that these are two variants that can help Iran achieve the same goal: Nuclear weapons. The Iranians know how to exploit the naïveté and continue to laugh off sanctions and diplomacy. As the article points out, the world might shortly find itself more concerned about how to contain the King of the South in the medium-term rather than halting it. Either way, whether it’s now, soon or later… war is eventually on the horizon.

Iran has two options: uranium or plutonium bombs.

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The talks were fruitless. The Iranians are too far along to stop now. Look at the Iranian pursuit of nuclear weapons in the past. No amount of sanctions can stop them. When Iran has stopped its work in the past it has only been temporary, or a flat-out lie. Europe was pushing Iran to stop centrifuge-based uranium enrichment back in 2003. The Iranians seemed compliant, yet they continued developing the technology, if not the enrichment. We are 10 years on and Iran has the technology. If it stops uranium enrichment, it will have another option, as it did back in 2003.

The heavy-water plant can be used to create plutonium. If Iran stops producing uranium, it can turn its attention to plutonium.

Rome—Where Religion and Politics Meet

Throughout its history, the church has always competed with the state for power.

Having grabbed the attention of the whole world by his shock resignation from papal office, the subsequent actions of Joseph Ratzinger give an inkling as to his future influence within the Vatican and in global politics.

On Saturday, Ratzinger summoned Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti to an unscheduled private audience. With the Italian elections looming within days, the pope has already gone public on endorsing Monti’s candidature for election as Italy’s prime minister.

Zero Hour at the Vatican: A Bitter Struggle for Control of the Catholic Church

When and if the new pope elect happens to be Italian, those who follow Bible prophecy have a reason to be concerned — and it does seem likely.

Benedict XVI, in short, knew what could happen to one who rebelled against a centuries-old tradition in a church in which suffering is far from foreign. But he also knew that it wasn’t just a matter of his own suffering — it was a matter of the exhaustion, weakness and sickness of the church at large.

The pope from Bavaria has given up. Nevertheless, when he announced his resignation last Monday, hastily and almost casually mumbling the words as if he were saying a rosary, as if he were returning the keys to a rental car rather than the keys to St. Peter, there was still a sense of how deeply his move has shaken the Catholic empire.

Archbishop of Berlin Rainer Maria Woelki calls it a “demystification of the papal office.” Already, he says, the pope’s resignation has changed the church.

Australia—Germany’s Strategic Pacific Partner

Germany strengthens its ties with Australia as its springboard for projection of power in the Pacific.

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Students of Bible prophecy are aware that in the latter days a northern power is set to spread its imperial reign “south and east” and ultimately into Jerusalem (Daniel 8:9).

In 1995 Australia and Germany signed the Australia-Germany Partnership 2000 Action Plan. This agreement, vigorously supported by Australia’s prime minister at the time, Paul Keating, and the then German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, mapped out Germany’s future in Australia.

Anne Applebaum on Europe: The world’s new superpower

… and now the press swings towards Europe as the next superpower.

With the U.S. slowly cannibalizing itself out of existence, a new power must fill the vacuum. Contrary to popular belief (mostly within the United States), the end of the United States doesn’t mean the end of the world. While heavy on the info regarding France, the only critical point the article left out is that all roads lead to Europe’s main engine: Berlin, Germany. There are many articles and additional commentary featured within Global Geopolitics’ archive to support this theory. As the world economic/social/political crisis continues to worsen, people will soon be looking to Germany for the answers. NATO, as the article says is (and has been for a long time) losing support. Eventually it will leave (as the Soviets have always wished for) as the United States of Europe will be able to independently function and field its own European Army.

The Fourth Reich is coming. Don’t believe it? Doesn’t matter. It’s going to happen. Today’s jokes are tomorrow’s reality.

“A decade of war is now ending,” U.S. President Barack Obama declared Monday. Maybe that’s true in America, but it isn’t true anywhere else. Extremists are still plotting acts of terror. Authoritarian and autocratic regimes are still using violence to preserve their power. The United States can step back from international conflicts, but that won’t make them disappear.

Fortunately, there is another power that shares America’s economic and political values, that possesses sophisticated military technology and is also very interested in stopping the progress of fanatical movements, especially in North Africa and the Middle East. That power is Europe.

Assad: ‘I will win, even if Damascus is destroyed’

Quoting French sources, A-Sharq Al-Awsat quotes an exchange between Syrian President Bashar Assad and the international envoy to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi.

According to the daily, Brahimi told Assad that he could not remain in power and that the opposition could defeat him, but the cost may be the complete destruction of Damascus. To that, Assad reportedly answered “I will win the war, even if Damascus is destroyed.”

Germany to Cyprus: Terms of Surrender Not Good Enough

Cyprus is nearly conquered land, but as said, it’s part of a larger picture. It gives strategic access to project power into the Middle East. The Greek islands Germany has shown interest in the last five years or more also serve the same principal.

The German Parliament and European Union officials are refusing to support Cyprus’s bailout unless the country submits to further conditions. They’re accusing Cypriot banks of making dodgy deals with shady Russian businessmen, and they want this to stop.

Shortly before the end of last year, Cypriot President Demetris Christofias announced, with “heartfelt pain,” that Cyprus would seek a bailout from the EU. He said that terms had been agreed “in principle.” Spiegel Online wrote that the deal means that Cyprus “will effectively lose its sovereignty.” The “troika”—the European Commission, the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF)—“will essentially take control of the Mediterranean island,” it wrote.

Now we’re seeing that in action. Germany’s parliament is refusing to give Cyprus the money unless it changes its banking system and cracks down on money laundering.

A report by Germany’s intelligence service, the BND, that was leaked last November accused Cyprus of creating the perfect conditions for money laundering. It also said the country was giving Russian oligarchs Cypriot passports that allow them to live anywhere in the EU.

Stop war in Syria before it becomes ‘field of ruins’: pope

Although he didn’t mention Damascus by name, the reference is difficult to ignore. Isaiah 17:1, anyone?

VATICAN CITY: Pope Benedict on Monday urged the international community to end what he called the endless slaughter in Syria before the entire country became a “a field of ruins.“

He made the appeal in particularly strong terms during a yearly “state of the world” address to diplomats accredited to the Vatican.

He said Syria, where the United Nations estimates that 60,000 people have been killed, was “torn apart by endless slaughter and (is) the scene of dreadful suffering among its civilian population”.