News

Political struggles are threatening the internal cohesion of the European Union. Following the elections for the European Parliament, British Prime Minister David Cameron warned, “his country could leave the European Union if Luxembourg’s former premier Jean-Claude Juncker became the next European Commission president” (Agence-France Presse, May 31, 2014). Britain is not alone in its mistrust of Mr. Juncker, who is known to favor deeper integration for a more federated Europe.

“A treaty to launch the Eurasian Economic Union spanning Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus has been signed by the countries’ presidents in the Kazakh capital. The bloc will come into being next January” (Deutsche Welle, May 29, 2014). “Armenia and Kyrgyzstan have said that they want to join the union later. The Eurasian Economic Union will base its executive body in Moscow, a high court in Belarus and a top financial regulator in Kazakhstan” (ibid.).

This week in a visit to Israel and the West Bank, "Pope Francis inserted himself directly into the collapsed Middle East peace process… issuing an invitation to host the Israeli and Palestinian presidents for a prayer summit meeting at his apartment in the Vatican, in an overture that has again underscored the broad ambitions of his papacy" (New York Times, May 25, 2014).

Long ago the prophet Daniel foresaw an end-time European empire composed of ten kingdoms or nations and represented by feet of "iron and clay" (Daniel 2:41-43). The mixture of "iron and clay" is symbolic of a union of nations that do not naturally adhere to each other. This past week’s parliamentary elections reflected the iron and clay nature of the European Union and illustrated that "Europe is a divided continent" (EU Observer, May 26, 2014).

"Scientists using two different age-determining techniques have shown that a tiny zircon crystal found on a sheep ranch in western Australia is the oldest known piece of our planet, dating to 4.4 billion years ago… They used a technique known as atom-probe tomography that was able to identify individual atoms of lead in the crystal and determine their mass, and confirmed that the zircon was indeed 4.4 billion years old" (Reuters, February 23, 2014).