Turkey Doomed to Collapse?

Is this a chain reaction or mass epidemic? Either way, the fact remains - the political upheavals in the Muslim world that began in Tunisia swept across North Africa and Syria, and now a wave of instability has reached Turkey. A member of the Presidium of the Academy of Geopolitical Issues Araik Stepanyan analyzed this complex, ambiguous situation in the country.

"We will identify the external and internal factors that have caused, for the lack of a better word, social unrest in Turkey.

Internal factors have deep roots. The main reason is the collapse of the Ottoman Empire after the First World War and the Turkish Republic established by the "father of the Turks" Kemal Ataturk. He decided to raise the status of the ethnic Turks that was low in the Ottoman Empire, turning them into an overriding ethnic group and create a political nation - the Turks.

In 1926, a law was passed stating that all residents of Turkey were ethnic Turks, and different names - the Kurds, Armenians, Laz, Circassian, and so on - were insulting to the Turkish national identity and must not be used. Everybody was recorded as Turks. And, although many years have passed, the first problem in Turkey is a problem of national identity.

There is a huge mass of people, more than half of today's Turkish population, who do not consider themselves Turks. They see themselves as citizens of Turkey, but ethnically they do not identify themselves with the Turks, and do not want to. But because they live in the country where they have to be Turks to have a chance for a career, they are considered Turks. In 2000-2002, Western funds conducted a secret survey of the Turkish population and obtained evidence that only 37 percent of all Turkey residents saw themselves as ethnic Turks. The national issue has aggravated, and rallies and slogans are convincing evidence. 

The second internal factor that undermines today's Turkey is a debate about the type of the government - secular or theocratic. The elite of modern Turkey have serious disagreements about this. The heirs of the Ottoman Empire believe that the highest level of prosperity in Turkey was in the days of the Ottoman Empire, where all citizens were equal, except for Christians, and ethnicity was not emphasized. That means, people were Osman regardless of the ethnicity - the Turks, Circassian, or Kurds. 

The secular government afraid of Islamic influence is holding to the legacy of Kemal Ataturk. This is the army general staff who until recently served as the guarantor of the Constitution by the secular power. But Erdogan came to power and abolished that item of the Constitution. Incidentally, this is a revolutionary step, and can be compared with the constitution of the Soviet Union whose sixth article stated that the Communist Party was the governing body of the Soviet state. Once it was removed, the state has collapsed. Eliminating his "sixth paragraph," Erdogan dealt a crushing blow to the General Staff and the army. Naturally, the army is very unhappy and wants to overthrow Erdogan, although it is not directly involved in the rallies.

Third internal factor is the Kurdish issue. The Kurds are seeking autonomy in Eastern Anatolia (the largest region of Turkey), their number is approximately 20 million. Despite the talks started by Erdogan (negotiations with Barzani, president of the Kurdish autonomy in northern Iraq, and Ocalan, the PKK leader) armed clashes between Kurdish rebels and the official Turkish army continue, with daily casualties on both sides. Thus, this is the third most important factor.

The fourth factor is the Armenian issue. Armenians living in the south-eastern and eastern Anatolia, the original Armenian territories of Western Armenia, have, so to speak, their hidden aspirations. They are hidden because they have bitter experience of being eliminated and thrown out. The Turkish elite, the intelligentsia, too, in turn, realizes that it is impossible not to recognize the Armenian Genocide. About three thousand Turkish intellectuals on Turkish websites apologized to the Armenians for the Genocide and eviction. Then there was football diplomacy with signing the agreement on opening the border between Turkey and Armenia. The Armenians are now fighting with diplomatic methods. 

Turkish demographic policy denies all other nationalities. Turkey strongly advocates that 82 percent of the population is Turks. But for obvious reasons this is not the case. There is a vast array of Greek Muslims who do not even speak the Turkish language and as many Bulgarian Muslims.

There are Armenians who speak Kurdish, Armenians who speak Turkish and Armenians who speak the Armenian dialect. But the state considers them all Turks. This is not the case, but a reason to oppose the government in one form or another.

The fifth factor is internal - it's Alawites, a religious movement with millions of people who adhere to the same religious beliefs as Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian Alawi. When I see banners proclaiming "Erdogan, you are a thief!" I understand that these are Alawites. In the course of combat activities in Syria, Aleppo in particular, gunmen took out everything - from machines to museum exhibits, and exported them to Turkey, with the connivance of the authorities, and sold or appropriated them.

But Gezi Park or Taksim Square where rallies are held now is a special topic that overlaps, incidentally, with the Armenian issue.

First, in 1500 sultan Suleiman presented this territory to his Armenian assistant who uncovered a conspiracy. In 1560, an Armenian cemetery was laid there. The cemetery existed until late 19^th century and was eliminated after a well-known cholera epidemic, but the ownership was left to the Armenian community. After the genocide in 1915, when the Armenians were expelled, the owner clearly changed.

Barracks were built there, then a park. When the authorities planned to build a shopping center, the community exploded. All ethnic minorities, anti-globalization activists, gays, lesbians, football fans, the "green" joined against the destruction of the park. Clearly, everyone had different views and goals, but the only reason was rejection of the current government that none of these social groups liked. Yes, individually they are in the minority, but this is the case where the sum of minorities produces the majority, incidentally, in contrast to Russia.

There is also an external factor. The U.S. lost interest in Turkey after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Turks tried to start building a new Turkic empire, the so-called Great Turan based on pan-Turkism, but the Turkic-speaking states, newly formed in the Soviet Union, gave the initiative a cold shoulder despite the extent of the economic expansion of Turkey in these regions which is impressive.

The U.S. does not really support these imperial ideas. Especially when Turkey did not provide its territory for ground operations during the recent war in Iraq, did not let the American ships into the Black Sea during the Russian-Georgian conflict in 2008, incidentally, rightly so, in accordance with the international status of the Black Sea and the Bosporus and the Dardanelles.

The White House is beginning to move away from its ally. Moreover, according to the plan of a military expert Ralph Peters of the National Military Academy of the United States, in accordance with the concept of the Greater Middle East, Turkey is disintegrated.

 A large Kurdistan is created, and Mount Ararat goes to Armenia. Most important task, of course, is to take control of the Bosporus and the Dardanelles, close access for Russia to the Mediterranean Sea, and so on. The U.S. has a clear plan and is implementing it. The European Union, of course, agrees with this plan.

America will not save Erdogan despite the fact that he supported the Muslim extremists against Assad. Only Assad is winning, and Turkey has lost its authority with the nearby neighbors. It is likely to face open hostility, because no one has forgotten the Ottoman Empire or the imperial motives of the Turkish foreign policy. Turkish leaders have painted themselves into a geopolitical trap. There are still chances of getting out of it, but, judging by Erdogan's recent statements, they are becoming slimmer every day.

All of these factors combined lead Turkey to a collapse. It will not happen overnight, but the trend is moving in this direction. All mass movements just show the causes, both external and internal. Therefore, even if the military who wants to overthrow Erdogan comes to power, and the constitution and the role of the General Staff is restored, it will be impossible to stop the process of globalization and crush the rebellion of ethnic groups.

Araik Stepanyan

Pravda.Ru

Special Report: Syria's Islamists Seize Control As Moderates Dither

(Reuters) - As the Syrian civil war got under way, a former electrician who calls himself Sheikh Omar built up a brigade of rebel fighters. In two years of struggle against President Bashar al-Assad, they came to number 2,000 men, he said, here in the northern city of Aleppo. Then, virtually overnight, they collapsed.

Omar's group, Ghurabaa al-Sham, wasn't defeated by the government. It was dismantled by a rival band of revolutionaries - hardline Islamists.

The Islamists moved against them at the beginning of May. After three days of sporadic clashes Omar's more moderate fighters, accused by the Islamists of looting, caved in and dispersed, according to local residents. Omar said the end came swiftly.

The Islamists confiscated the brigade's weapons, ammunition and cars, Omar said. "They considered this war loot. Maybe they think we are competitors," he said. "We have no idea about their goals. What we have built in two years disappeared in a single day."

The group was effectively marginalized in the struggle to overthrow Syria's President Bashar al-Assad. Around 100 fighters are all that remain of his force, Omar said.

It's a pattern repeated elsewhere in the country. During a 10-day journey through rebel-held territory in Syria, Reuters journalists found that radical Islamist units are sidelining more moderate groups that do not share the Islamists' goal of establishing a supreme religious leadership in the country.

The moderates, often underfunded, fragmented and chaotic, appear no match for Islamist units, which include fighters from organizations designated "terrorist" by the United States.

The Islamist ascendancy has amplified the sectarian nature of the war between Sunni Muslim rebels and the Shi'ite supporters of Assad. It also presents a barrier to the original democratic aims of the revolt and calls into question whether the United States, which announced practical support for the rebels last week, can ensure supplies of weapons go only to groups friendly to the West.

World powers fear weapons could reach hardline Islamist groups that wish to create an Islamic mini-state within a crescent of rebel-held territory from the Mediterranean in the west to the desert border with Iraq.

That prospect is also alarming for many in Syria, from minority Christians, Alawites and Shi'ites to tolerant Sunni Muslims, who are concerned that this alliance would try to impose Taliban-style rule.

REPROBATES AND OUTLAWS

Syria's war began with peaceful protests against Assad in March 2011 and turned into an armed rebellion a few months later following a deadly crackdown. Most of the rebel groups in Syria were formed locally and have little coordination with others. The country is dotted with bands made up of army defectors, farmers, engineers and even former criminals.

Many pledge allegiance to the notion of a unified Free Syrian Army (FSA). But on the ground there is little evidence to suggest the FSA actually exists as a body at all.

Sheikh Omar told the story of his brigade while sitting in a cramped room at his headquarters, a small one-storey building surrounded by olive tree fields in Aleppo province. Wrapped around his chest he wore a leather bandolier that held two pistols, grips pointing outwards, ready to be drawn by crossing his arms.

He said he was from a poor background in rural Aleppo province. When he and a handful of others had started a rebel group to oppose Assad, fear had made it hard to recruit. The rich and law-abiding were scared. Only outlaws and reprobates would join him at first.

"We were looking for good people. But who was willing to work for me and help me? Those who used to go to bars, to fight with people and steal. Those are the people who allied with me and fought against the regime." As he spoke some of his remaining fighters tried to interject; he silenced them, saying he wanted to be honest.

LOOTING

Ghurabaa al-Sham started with modest aims, Omar said. They would enter small police stations and negotiate a handover of weapons in return for free passage out of the area for the police.

But their numbers grew to 2,000 men, he said, and they fought battles to take border posts withTurkey and were one of the first rebel brigades to move into Aleppo, Syria's most populous city with 2.5 million inhabitants.

More than half of the city fell to the rebels, but Assad's army pushed back, fighting street by street for months. A stalemate ensued. Very little progress has been made from either side for almost a year.

Where the government forces did cede ground, Aleppo's residents did not welcome the rebels with open arms. Most fighters were poor rural people from the countryside and the residents of Aleppo say they stole. Omar acknowledged this happened.

"Our members in Aleppo were stealing openly. Others stole everything and were taking Syria's goods to sell outside the country. I was against any bad action committed by Ghurabaa al-Sham. However, things happened and opinion turned against us," he said as his men squirmed in their seats, uncomfortable with his words.

Ghurabaa al-Sham was not the only group to take the law into its own hands. In Salqin, a town in Idlib province bordering Turkey, fighters from a rebel brigade called the Falcons of Salqin have set up checkpoints at the entrances to the town.

Abu Naim Jamjoom, deputy commander of the brigade, said the rebels take a cut of any produce - food, fuel or other merchandise - that enters Salqin. The goods are distributed to the town's residents, he said, but some rebel groups steal this "tax" for themselves.

Part of the problem is that the rebel groups are poorly equipped and badly coordinated. Jamjoom said he had 45 men with guns and two homemade mortar launchers but was desperately low on ammunition. "Everything we have has been looted from the regime," he said, echoing the response of most rebel commanders when asked if they have received any outside support.

Jamjoom, who wore a blue camouflaged outfit and kept a grenade in his left pocket, said he had registered his group with the Supreme Military Council, a body set up by the U.S.-backed Syrian National Coalition of opposition groups to help coordinate rebel units.

"We haven't received any help from the military council," Jamjoom said, drinking sweet tea on the balcony of his headquarters, the house of a pro-Assad dignitary who had fled the area. "We have to depend on ourselves. I am my own mother, you could say."

He tugged at his uniform. "I bought this myself, with my money," he said. He also said his group buys weapons from other brigades, "from those who have extra." Weapons trading by rebel groups raises the risk that arms supplied by Western powers may fall into the hands of Islamist groups.

Western officials say military aid will be channeled through the Supreme Military Council. A Western security source told Reuters the council is trying to gain credibility, but as yet it has little or no authority.

Meanwhile, Jamjoom and his men were largely staying around Salqin, low on ammunition and low on energy. Inside the mansion they have commandeered, rebels lazed about on the gaudy fake-gold furniture in a room full of books, including religious texts and a copy of "The Oxford Companion to English Literature."

ISLAMIST ARBITERS

The Islamists are more energetic and better organized. The main two hardline groups to emerge in Syria are Ahrar al-Sham and Jabhat al-Nusra, an al Qaeda offshoot that has claimed responsibility for dozens of suicide bombings, including several in Damascus in which civilians were killed.

But Islamist fighters, dressed in black cotton with long Sunni-style beards, have developed a reputation for being principled. Dozens of residents living in areas of rebel-held territory across northern Syria told Reuters the same thing, whether they agreed with the politics of Jabhat al-Nusra or not: the Islamists do not steal.

Aaron Zelin, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy who researches Islamic militants, said the main reason groups such as Jabhat al-Nusra and Ahrar al-Sham have become popular is because of the social provisions they supply. "They are fair arbiters and not corrupt."

In Aleppo four Islamist brigades, including Jabhat al-Nusra and Ahrar al-Sham, have taken over the role of government and are providing civilians with day-to-day necessities. They have also created a court based on Islamic religious laws, or sharia.

The Aleppans call it "the Authority" and it governs anything from crimes of murder and rape tobusiness disputes and distributing bread and water around the city. The power of such courts is growing, Authority members and rebels said, and is enforced by a body called the "Revolutionary Military Police."

At the police's headquarters, a five-storey building surrounded with sandbags, a large placard outside read: "Syrian Islamic Liberation Front." It referred to a union of several Islamist brigades, forged in October 2012, which seeks to bring together disparate fighting groups. Its Islamist emphasis has already alienated some other fighters.

The head of the Aleppo branch of the Revolutionary Military Police, Abu Ahmed Rahman, comes from Liwa al-Tawhid, the largest rebel force in Aleppo. Ostensibly al-Tawhid has pledged its support for the U.S.-recognized Syrian National Coalition, but its role in the Authority alongside Ahrar al-Sham and Jabhat al-Nusra shows an alliance with more radical groups.

As Rahman sat at a large desk on the ground floor, people rushed in and out, asking him to stamp and sign documents. He said that the worst problem the police had encountered so far was with Ghurabaa al-Sham, who had clashed with a sub-division of Liwa al-Tahwid for control of Aleppo's industrial city, a complex of factories and office blocks sprawling over 4,000 hectares on the north-east outskirts of the city.

"Ghurabaa al-Sham fighters were annoying people, looting," he said. The industrial area offered plenty of plunder. Residents of Aleppo said rebels found machinery and equipment in the factories that could be sold in Turkey.

Rahman said the Authority summoned Ghurabaa al-Sham to a hearing but they didn't show up. "Then all the brigades went to get them. Jabhat al-Nusra, Ahrar al-Sham and other rebel units," he said.

Abu Baraa, an employee at the Authority, said: "We gathered a lot of people with guns and everything. We went to the industrial city and we arrested everyone who was there. Then we did the interrogation. Those who did not steal were set free, and the others were put in prison.

"Before this Sharia Authority, every brigade did whatever it wanted. Now they have to ask for everything. We are in charge now, God willing. We are the supervisors. If you do something wrong, you will be punished."

A POWER STRUGGLE

Members of Ghurabaa al-Sham gave a different version of events and have a different world view. "Why is the Sharia Authority allowed to control us? We didn't elect them," said Abdul-Fatah al-Sakhouri, who works in the media center for Ghurabaa al-Sham, an old taxi station in Aleppo where he and some other fighters upload videos of battles against the Syrian army onto YouTube.

Al-Sakhouri, previously a mathematics teacher, said the head of the Ghurabaa al-Sham unit in the industrial city had gone to the Authority to sort out the dispute. "Commander Hassan Jazera was there for three hours and then left. It shows that they didn't arrest him and there were no real charges against us," he said.

The dispute, Ghurabaa al-Sham fighters said, was really about power. They said their brigade, made up of fighters ranging from Islamists to secularists but all in favor of a civilian state, was not part of the Islamist alliance formed between Jabhat al-Nusra, Ahrar al-Sham and Liwa al-Tawhid.

Another member of Ghurbaa al-Sham, who called himself Omar, said the Islamist alliance wanted to weaken his group because it disagrees with Islamist ideology and seeks democracy.

Illustrating his fear of Islamist cultural restrictions, Omar said he was a fan of the American heavy metal band Metallica and pulled out a mobile phone to show a Metallica music video. The 24-year-old said Syrian businessmen once promised millions of dollars to bring Metallica to Aleppo but, in the end, the government rejected the plan.

"Jabhat al-Nusra wouldn't want this either," he said.

So far the Islamist groups have been the ones to attract outside support, mostly from private Sunni Muslim backers in Saudi Arabia, according to fighters in Syria.

With the help of battle-hardened Sunni Iraqis, these groups have been able to gain recruits. "They had military capabilities. They are actually organized and have command and control," said Zelin of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

As moderate rebel groups dithered, so did their backers outside the country. Bickering among the political opposition, a collection of political exiles who have spent many years outside Syria, also presented a problem for the United States about whether there would be a coherent transition to a new government if Assad fell.

But most importantly, Western powers fear that if weapons are delivered to Syrian rebels, there would be few guarantees they would not end up with radical Islamist groups, such as Jabhat al-Nusra, who might one day use them against Western interests.

The moderates are losing ground. In many parts of rebel-held Aleppo, the red, black and green revolutionary flag which represents more moderate elements has been replaced with the black Islamic flag. Small shops selling black headbands, conservative clothing and black balaclavas have popped up around the city and their business is booming.

Reuters met several Islamist fighters who had left more moderate rebel brigades for hardline groups. One member of Ahrar al-Sham, who would only speak on condition of anonymity, said: "I used to be with the Free Syrian Army but they were always thinking about what they wanted to do in future. I wanted to fight oppression now."

Source

Two "Radical Developments" From The Syrian Conflict

This information comes from Debka's latest:

Turkey Ditches Syrian Rebels. Will Israel Attack Hizballah's Scuds?

Two radical developments arising from the Syrian conflict are revealed by DEBKAfile: In an astonishing about face, Turkey has just turned away from its 14-month support for the anti-Assad revolt alongside the West and made common cause with Russia, i.e. Bashar Assad.

Right on schedule. One aspect of this conflict in Syria was how it seemed that Turkey and Russia weren't aligned, and that didn't make sense, as we know from Ezekiel 38-39 that these two countries will be aligned in the Gog-MaGog alliance.

Now, in this development, we see Turkey, Russia and Iran all united regarding the situation in Syria. Russia and Iran have been working together all along regarding their support for Assad's regime, and now with Turkey changing their stance, all three countries - the cornerstone of the Gog-MaGog alliance - are aligned regarding their approach towards Syria. It's amazing how with some patience, the essential elements of biblical prophecy always line up at some point.

The story of how this situation developed is interesting:

Further exacerbating fears of a “proxy war” involving Israel, Iran and Syria, the Lebanese Hizballah is getting ready to bring its Scud D missiles, which can reach any point in Israel, and other advanced weapons, including anti-air missiles, out of secret storage in Syria and transfer them across the border to Lebanon.

Two years ago, Israel issued an ultimatum through Washington that the Scuds would be destroyed if they were moved over to Hizballah’s launching pads in Lebanon.

The Lebanese Shiite group has since kept its most advanced hardware stashed at the Syrian Al Hame and Al Zabadani military bases near Damascus.

Now that Syrian rebel attacks are closing in on Syrian military targets, Tehran and Hizballah leaders are working on plans to get them across into Lebanon without exposing them to Israeli attack.

One plan is to enlist the Palestinian Jihad Islami in the Gaza Strip and exploit a clash over the Scuds’ transfers a trigger for an all round military offensive against Israel. It would be timed for the moment the Western-Arab intervention in Syria against President Assad crosses the line between covert and overt military action and begins an operation to establish safe zones as bases for rebel operation.

And here the story comes back to Turkey:

It was then realized that Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and his Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu had stabbed Western-Arab Syrian policy in the back and moved over to help prop Assad up at the very moment his regime was on the point of buckling under international after-shocks from the systematic massacres of his own people.

That day, Erdogan’s betrayal was confirmed when Davutoglu announced over Turkish NTV: “We have never advised either the Syrian National Council or the Syrian administration to conduct an armed fight, and we will never do so.” He added: “The Syrian people will be the driving force that eventually topples the Syrian regime. Assad will leave as a result of the people’s will.”

This was precisely the view voiced this week by Russian President Vladimir Putin, when he spoke out against violent rebellion, military intervention and sanctions to topple the Syrian ruler.

For the time being, the pro-Assad Moscow-Tehran front, bolstered now by Ankara, has got the better of Western and Arab policies for Syria.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Bashar Assad and Hassan Nasrallah have drawn encouragement for advancing to their next step: to confront the United States and Israel with another accomplished fact, the deployment of Scuds aimed at Israel from Lebanon.

The article closes on this ominous note:

Failing to curtail their transfer across the Syrian-Lebanese border in compliance with its 2010 ultimatum will seriously shake Israel’s deterrent capabilities and undercut its military credibility against its enemies, including Iran.

If on the other hand, the Obama administration again holds Israel back from military action, this time to destroy the long-range Scuds, Bashar Assad, Hizballah and Tehran will be awarded a winning hand – and not only in Syria.

Source

Son of Witchdoctor Found Jesus

In his village in southern Zimbabwe, people still seek help through
witchdoctors, who offer a portal into the darkness of the supernatural
realm. But one young man found healing in the arms of Jesus after his
father's gods proved impotent.

"In our country, people believe in God, but the way to reach God is
done through dead spirits," says Nhamo Chigohi, the son of a
witchdoctor.

Nhamo suffered a painful infection and boil on his head, that
rendered him unable to move from his bed. He spent many days listlessly,
 barely able to turn over, yet his father refused modern medical care.
"He would not allow me to go to the hospital because he believed he
could heal through witchcraft," he notes.

Nhamo's father called on his spirits – the spirits of lesser gods – but they could not heal the young man.

One day a team came from a neighboring village to show the JESUS
Film. "I was warned by my father not to see any activity sponsored by
the local church," he says. When Nhamo's father and mother left him
alone, they warned him not to watch the JESUS movie on the evening it
was presented in their village.

Even though Nhamo did not see the film, the sound carried into his
room, so he could follow the soundtrack as he lay motionless on his bed.
 "I heard the voice when Jesus was healing people and I said to myself,
'I believe this same Jesus can come and heal me too.'

"The next day members of the JESUS Film team went door-to-door
throughout the village. "They shared the story of salvation with me and
prayed for my healing," he recalls. Even though he didn't fully
understand, Nhamo prayed a simple prayer of faith to receive Jesus and
he was born again.

The shift in his mental outlook was instantaneous. "I had faith I
would not die of this sickness," he says. "The fear of evil spirits and
witchcraft was completely removed from me.

"When his parents returned and discovered what happened, Nhamo's
father was furious. He flew into a rage, shouting epithets at Nhamo and
his mother.

Then a terrible tragedy struck. Nhamo's mother developed food
poisoning and died three days later. It was a horrible shock and Nhamo
grieved heavily for days, but he was not prepared for his father's
malevolent response.

"You are a disgrace to the spirit of your ancestors," his father
said, referring to Nhamo's newfound faith in Jesus. "Because of what you
 have done I will not take care of you. No one will take care of you. I
will have to drive you out of my house."

Nhamo went to live in the streets of a nearby town, Neshuro. His
headaches began to subside and he actually felt normal, despite his
ordeal. After Nhamo became homeless he prayed, "Lord, please help me.
I'm alone and I'm hungry."

After months of gritting through a meager survival, Baptist
missionary David Griggs found Nhamo in a deserted alley. Nhamo summoned
the courage to share about his faith and his father's rejection.

"When he heard my story he was so happy and he adopted me into his house, where his wife home-schooled me," Nhamo recalls.

A few months later Nhamo learned some sad news. "My father hanged himself. He had no joy at all," Nhamo laments.

Pastor Griggs discipled the younger man in the Lord, and trained
Nhamo to share his testimony after they showed the JESUS Film. The young
 man grew in wisdom and favor, and eventually became a pastor to his
ancestral people, the Shangaan.

Pastor Nhamo Chigohi has planted over 60 churches in his region. He
is the administrator of seven schools and also oversees an orphanage,
which is close to his heart. "When I was on the streets, it was my
training for orphanage ministry," he notes."

"God is moving," he says. "He has opened the Gospel to the Shangaan people and many others."

Source

Gospel Proclaimed in the Scottish Parliament

The head of an "unashamedly Christian" charity has delivered a powerful gospel message at the
opening of this week's business in the Scottish Parliament.
Chamber Business usually begins each week with 'Time for Reflection'. Speakers include representatives of Scotland's different faiths, as well as those of no religious affiliation.
This week's Time for Reflection was delivered by Andy Hawthorne OBE, founder and chief executive officer of The Message Trust.
He said: "Presiding Officer, thank you for the privilege of sharing a reflection here today with this great Parliament.
I work for The Message Trust, an unashamedly Christian charity that has developed a knack for reaching the hardest to reach.
"For the past two decades, we have been working in some of England's toughest estates, and seen crime come down, churches grow and communities transformed in places that were previously spiritual wastelands.
"Right now, we are exploring partnerships with Scottish churches to begin similar new projects here in Scotland.
"Over the past 20 years of doing that, I have become convinced of one thing: God has not finished with us yet.
"I can say with conviction that Tuesday 11 June is an exciting day in the Christian church's history - perhaps it is the most exciting day in its history.
"That is because, almost certainly, more people will come to know Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour today than on any other day since he rose from the dead.
"It is hard to believe that when you live in Scotland, one of the very few places in the world where the Christian church has not been growing recently, but if we lift our eyes, it is obvious that God is well and truly on the move.
"As recently as a century ago, two thirds of the world's Christian believers lived in Europe.
"Now, the vast majority live in Africa, South America, Asia, India or China. In my lifetime, the world has been turned upside down spiritually.
"When Jesus Christ said, 'I will build my church and Hell itself will not be able to stop it,' I am sure that the religious leaders watching him suffer and die thought, 'Sure thing, you're going to build a church. You've never set foot outside of a country smaller than Scotland; you've never written a book; you've got no money, and you've got hardly any followers any more.
"You're dying a criminal's death and yet you claim you're going to build a church that will spread throughout the world and go on into eternity.'
"Well, I have good news. Jesus Christ keeps his promises - all of them. And today, Tuesday 11 June, more people than ever will discover what I discovered almost 40 years ago: a God who delivers on his promises for his planet, and his promises for individual faithful people.
"Promises of peace, joy and love for him and for others; a confidence of a glorious hope for the future. Now, that is what I call good news."
- See more at: http://mychristiandaily.com/index.php/uk/176-news-item-1-uk-europe/6442-gospel-proclaimed-in-the-scottish-parliament#sthash.nfoBS5xR.dpuf

Man Sent to Jail for Whipping Muslim in Australia as Religious Punishment

SYDNEY –  A man who whipped a Muslim convert as a religious punishment for drinking alcohol was sentenced Friday to at least 16 months in jail.

Wasim Fayad, 45, was convicted earlier this year of the 2011 attack on Christian Martinez. Sydney Central Local Court Magistrate Brian Maloney sentenced Fayad, who had been Martinez's spiritual mentor, to a maximum of two years in jail for assault occasioning actual bodily harm.

"You have brought much shame upon the Islamic faith," Maloney told Fayad during the sentencing hearing. "You have proved yourself unscrupulously cunning, deceptive and dishonest. You profess to be a religious man, however you resorted to violence upon Mr. Martinez."

The attack happened after Martinez called Fayad to admit he'd spent a night out drinking and doing drugs. Islamic Sharia laws prohibit alcohol and recommend whipping as a punishment for several offenses.

Fayad showed up at Martinez's Sydney home and whipped him 40 times with an electric cord while three other men held him down on his bed. Martinez said he cried and begged for them to stop, and was in pain for about a week after the attack.

The other three men involved received suspended sentences and were ordered to perform community service.

Read more: here

Turkey Protests Enter Crucial Phase

ANKARA, Turkey –  Turkish activists leading a sit-in were considering a promise Friday by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to let the courts -- and a potential referendum -- decide the fate of an Istanbul park redevelopment project that has sparked Turkey's biggest protests in decades.

In last-ditch negotiations after Erdogan issued a "final warning" to protesters, his ruling party announced early Friday that the government would suspend a controversial construction plan for Istanbul's Gezi Park until courts could rule on its legality. Even if the courts sided with the government, a city referendum would be held to determine the plan's fate, officials said.

The unilateral pledge aimed to cajole protesters into ending a two-week standoff that has damaged Erdogan's international reputation and led to repeated clashes with riot police. After initially inflaming tensions by dubbing the protesters "terrorists" and issuing defiant public remarks, Erdogan has moderated his stance in closed-door talks this week.

It remained far from clear, however, whether the overture would work. The park is one of the few green areas left in the sprawling metropolis of Istanbul and many protesters were still seething over the forceful operations by riot police that at times devolved into violent clashes with stone- and firebomb-throwing youths.

Such scenes prompted the European Parliament on Wednesday to condemn the heavy-handed response by Turkish police and sparked a heated riposte from Erdogan.

A May 31 police raid to clear out the park ignited demonstrations that morphed into broader protests against what many say is the prime minister's increasingly authoritarian style of government. Five people -- four demonstrators and a police officer --were killed in the protests that spread to dozens of other cities.
The protests have centered lately on three cities: Istanbul, Izmir on the Aegean Sea coast, and Ankara, the capital.

Erdogan's opponents, including many protesters, have grown increasingly suspicious about what they call a gradual erosion of freedoms and secular Turkish values under his Islamic-rooted party's government. It has passed new restrictions on alcohol and attempted but dropped a plan to limit women's access to abortion.

Mobilizing instruments of democracy and the state -- the courts, and a referendum -- could shield the prime minister from accusations of an authoritarian response.
"Until the courts give their final verdicts, no action will be taken regarding Gezi Park," said Huseyin Celik, a spokesman for Erdogan's Justice and Development Party, after the meeting. "Even if the court ... is in favor of our government's decisions, our government will hold a referendum to see what our people think -- what they want and don't want."

The Taksim Solidarity group, two of whose members were in the meeting with Erdogan, has emerged as the most high-profile from the occupation that began last month. But it does not speak for all of the hundreds camping in the park. Many say they have no affiliation to any group or party.

Tayfun Kahraman, one of the Taksim Solidarity members who attended the meeting, said he believed Erdogan had offered "positive words," and that fellow activists would consider them in a "positive manner." But he said those in Gezi Park would "make their own assessments."

Suspicion within the park about Erdogan's tactics and motives remains widespread, and the protesters are firmly entrenched:
In recent days, the festive tent-village atmosphere -- with amenities like a medical station and library with donated books -- has been marked by nightly piano concerts.

"The prime minister calls the people he pleases to the meetings and says some stuff," said demonstrator Murat Tan. "We don't care about them much. Today, we saved the trees here but our main goal is to save the people."
Erdogan has pledged to end the protest, and has called his supporters to rally in Ankara and Istanbul this weekend. But those demonstrations could revive the discord between his conservative, Islamic base, and more liberal- and secular-minded progressives and others who are holed up in the park -- potentially torpedoing his own efforts to end to the showdown.

Analysts say the protests don't present a threat to Erdogan's tenure, but threaten his legacy. Some say he has ambitions to enter the history books as a contemporary answer to Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founding father of modern Turkey.

Erdogan has reiterated his support for Turkey's secular democracy in the face of the accusations of authoritarianism -- and sat in front of a portrait of Ataturk during the overnight talks at his residence in Ankara.

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Turkey's Ruling Party Considering Referendum On Park Redevelopment Plans That Sparked Protests

 


Turkey's ruling party says it is open to holding a referendum on an Istanbul park redevelopment plan that has been the catalyst of ongoing anti-government protests that have rocked the country for nearly two weeks.

The announcement, from Justice and Development party spokesman Huseyin Celik, came after Turkey's prime minister met with public figures in hopes of diffusing the protests.
Celik also said those in Istanbul's Gezi Park must immediately leave, Reuters reports. Gezi Park, with its thousands of camped-out demonstrators young and old, has become the symbol of the protests.

The protests erupted on May 31 after a violent police crackdown on a peaceful sit-in by activists objecting to a project replacing Gezi Park with a replica Ottoman-era barracks. The unrest has spread to 78 cities across the country, with protesters championing their objections to what they say is the prime minister's increasingly authoritarian style.

President Abdullah Gul, seen by many as a more moderate voice, said Turkey's government will not tolerate more of the unrest that has disrupted daily life, but authorities would listen to protesters' grievances.

"I am hopeful that we will surmount this through democratic maturity," Gul told reporters. "If they have objections, we need to hear them, enter into a dialogue. It is our duty to lend them an ear."

It was unclear exactly who took part in the meeting, which was scheduled for 4 p.m. local time at Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's office in Turkey's capital, Ankara. Critics in the streets said the 11-person delegation wasn't representative of the protesters — and insisted it wouldn't end the showdown. Only an actor and a singer were confirmed to be among those in the delegation, the Associated Press reports.

Some leaders of civil society groups, including Greenpeace, had previously said they would not participate in the meeting because of an "environment of violence."
The activist group Taksim Solidarity, which includes academics and architects who oppose the redevelopment plan at Gezi Park, said its members hadn't been invited to the meeting with Erdogan and predicted it would yield no results.

"As police violence continues mercilessly ... these meetings will in no way lead to a solution," the group said in a statement.

Gul lashed out at foreign media, as international investors have been concerned about how the disturbances could affect Turkey's fast-growing economy. There has been a double-digit percentage drop in the main stock index since the beginning of the protests.

Traffic returned to Istanbul's Taksim Square early Wednesday after a night of violence, with taxis, trucks and pedestrians returning to the streets. A heavy police presence stood off to the side, near a new barricade erected before dawn to prevent riot police from firing tear gas into the square's still occupied Gezi Park.

Hundreds of protesters remained in the park, clearing up after trying to fend off tear gas, followed by an early morning storm that blew down tents and soaked bedding and blankets. At the park's entrance on Taksim Square, a massive barricade of wrecked cars and construction material stood as rudimentary protection from the police.

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What's Behind The Unrest in Turkey?

When protesters took to Taksim Square in Istanbul last week, the initial focus of their concern was the plan to cut down 600 trees for a big development project in the one of the few green spaces remaining in the congested, pulsating core of the historic Turkish city.

Since then, however, the demonstrations have rapidly escalated, riot police have fired tear gas and water cannons and the unrest is now widely seen as a visible display of pent-up frustration with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
To his critics, the leader of the Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP) is seen as increasingly authoritarian, and presiding over what many secular-minded Turks fear is a creeping conservative social agenda.

That's not the image of Turkey that many Westerners have. They tend to see Turkey as a new-found but strong NATO ally that tries to be a bridge to the Arab world while also speaking out criticaly against its warring neighbour, Syria's Bashar al-Assad.

And Erdogan himself will have none of the dictator talk. He says he is not a "master, but a servant" of the people, and dismisses the 10,000 or so protesters who gathered in the square on the weekend as part of an extremist fringe.
Here's a look at the unrest that has seen thousands congregating, hundreds arrested and hundreds reportedly injured. It has become the largest anti-government disturbance to hit Turkey in many years.

When and why?

On May 28, a small group of mostly young protesters gathered in Taksim Square, a frequent and historic political rallying point, to try to block the removal of trees in the adjacent Gezi park.

The trees in that popular green space in the very un-green heart of Istanbul were to be cut to make way for a development that reportedly includes a shopping mall, a mosque and a rebuilt Ottoman-era military barracks.

People were already "seething" at the development plan, says Ariel Salzmann, an associate professor of Islamic and world history at Queen's University, Kingston, Ont. But when crews went to start the constuction, "which would involve cutting down the trees, that touched off everything."

The demonstration started as an "environmentalist-driven protest," says Reva Bhalla, vice-president of global analysis for Stratfor, a Texas-based geopolitical intelligence firm.

But the situation turned violent on Thursday evening, May 30, when police moved in and attempted to dismantle the sit-in. The situation escalated the next day when, Bhalla says, the main opposition party saw a political opportunity to exploit the demonstrations. High-level representatives of the Republican People's Party joined the protest.

"Even though the demonstration started out as a kind of save-the-trees campaign, a historical preservation campaign against the AKP because they didn’t want this park to be converted to a big multi-use shopping centre, it very quickly just mushroomed into this very vitriolic anti-AKP, anti-Erdogan campaign where they were calling him a fascist, calling for the overthrow of the government and so on."

On May 31, protests spread elsewhere in Turkey, including the capital, Ankara.
A Stratfor analysis says the size of the protests needs to be kept in perspective.
"Many of the areas where protests were reported are also areas where the Republican People's Party would be expected to bring out a large number of supporters," the firm said in a written report. "The protests would be highly significant if they grow to the hundreds of thousands, include a wider demographic and geographically extend to areas with traditionally strong support for the ruling party."

Who's protesting?

The protest has drawn together groups and individuals who would otherwise rarely join forces.

"What's so interesting is the groups across the spectrum, and that's why it's very dangerous to say this is secular versus Islamist," says Salzmann.
She points to videos popping up on YouTube from Istanbul that show women in headscarves sitting on city buses cheering loudly for the young people trying to keep the park green.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan dismissed street protests against his rule as actions organized by extremists and angrily rejected comparisons with the Arab Spring uprisings when he spoke with media on Monday in Istanbul. (Associated Press)

And young people, who Salzmann says might otherwise be called "soccer hooligans," are sitting next to representatives of Istanbul’s LGBT community working for gay rights.

"You have nationalist … Turks sitting next to Kurds, so it is producing on the ground this unity of people who would otherwise be actually very splintered."
Bhalla says amid the “real motley crew” of supporters, there are the traditional people one might expect to see.

"They come from that more staunchly secular camp that has deep-rooted grievances against the AKP and they've been increasinginlly sidelined in the past decade as the AKP has increasingly consolidated its power."

Other groups include liberal youth — many of them university students — and representatives of the moderate Islamist Gulen movenment, who Bhalla says have a complex relationship with the AKP but have also openly rebuked Erdogan.

Stratfor's analysis also notes that the growing dissent is not a simple Islamist-secular divide.
"A perception has developed among a growing number of Turks that [the AKP] is pursuing an aggressive form of capitalism that defies environmental considerations as well as Islamic values," it says.
This diversity, however, might not set this group up for a long future as a fortified protest.
"Because this is such a disparate group of opposition, that doesn't really bode well for its ability to cohere and unite behind a single personality or a single message," says Bhalla.

Why the frustration with Erdogan?

Erdogan has been prime minister for a decade, and last won re-election in 2011.
Salzmann says anger and discontent at the Erdogan's AKP government have been "going on for a long time now."

Erdogan, she says, "has become increasingly authoriatian and has used and abused his powers in a variety of ways … to repress his critics." She points, for example, to hundreds of people — including journalists — who have been jailed.
And then there are social policies that have also proved unpopular in some quarters.

Bhalla notes there are people who come from the secular camp who are very concerned with the gradual social transformation taking place "where laws are being passed like banning alcohol sales after 10 p.m., changing the attire of Turkish Airlines flight attendants and things like that that they feel are infringing on the kind of core secularist … principles of the state."

Will this become another Arab Spring?

Images of protesters in a central city square conjure memories of the Arab Spring and particularly the unrest that grew in Cairo's Tahrir Square two years ago.

Erdogan flatly rejects any suggestion of a "Tahrir Square" moment in Turkey, and most observers appear to feel that he is correct in that assessment.
"While you do see this gradual dissent that has been building against the AKP, this should not be couched in some sort of Turkish Spring context or anything like that. This is not Tahrir Square," says Bhalla.

"There is a very important, [and] so far, silent majority in play here where the AKP has substantial support in the country.
"If you just look at the 2011 election results, they still have roughly more than half of the country that are still deeply committed to the party and who lack a credible political alternative to the AKP."

High school students chant slogans during a protest at Gezi park in Istanbul on Monday. (Thanassis Stavrakis/Associated Press)

Salzmann considers the protests to be a "summer of discontent against the so-called Turkish model" —the example of a Islamist-rooted government but with a moderate, business-friendly and secular outlook .

But while the AKP has pushed the democratization agenda forward since the 1980s, Salzmann says it has now become a force against it with its unregulated zest for development.

Bhalla says while the current unrest won't likely put Erdogan at risk of "some sort of popular overthrow," it will become more difficult for him to silence his opposition and push forward with his presidential ambitions.
He has been looking for Kurdish support for a referendum that would clear the way to transform Turkey from a parliamentary system to a purely presidential one, with him presumably in that head-of-state role beyond next year, when elections are planned.

"The sight of protesters from the pro-Kurdish Pace and Democracy Party (known as the BDP) joining Republican People's Party supporters for the June 1 protests does not bode well for Erdogan's plan to rely on those votes in the constitutional referendum,” Stratfor said in its analysis of the Turkish protests.

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Obama Defends Surveillance

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama defended sweeping secret surveillance into U.S. phone records and foreigners' Internet use, declaring them a necessary defence against terrorism, and assuring Americans, "Nobody is listening to your telephone calls."

Taking questions Friday from reporters at a health care event in San Jose, California, Obama said: "It's important to recognize that you can't have 100 per cent security and also, then, have 100 per cent privacy and zero inconvenience."

It was revealed late Wednesday that the National Security Agency has been collecting the phone records of hundreds of millions of U.S. phone customers. The leaked document first reported by the Guardian newspaper gave the NSA authority to collect from all of Verizon's land and mobile customers, but intelligence experts said the program swept up the records of other phone companies too.

President Barack Obama pauses while speaking in San Jose, Calif. , Friday, June 7, 2013. (AP / Evan Vucci)

Ground level view of Utah's NSA Data Center in Bluffdale, Utah, Friday, June 7, 2013. (AP / Rick Bowmer)

Another secret program revealed Thursday scours the Internet usage of foreign nationals overseas who use any of nine U.S.-based internet providers such as Microsoft and Google.

In his first comments since the programs were publicly revealed this week, Obama said safeguards are in place.
"They help us prevent terrorist attacks," Obama said. He said he has concluded that prevention is worth the "modest encroachments on privacy."

Obama's defence of the two programs came as members of Congress were vowing to change a program they voted to authorize. Civil liberties advocates were crying foul, questioning how Obama, a former constitutional scholar who sought privacy protections as a U.S. senator, could embrace policies with strong echoes of President George W. Bush, whose approach to national security he had vowed to leave behind.

The disclosures have triggered a fierce debate that cuts across party lines and could overshadow a two-day visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping. They come at a particularly inopportune time for Obama, whose administration already faces questions over the federal tax agency's improper targeting of conservative groups and the seizure of journalists' phone records in an investigation into who leaked information to the media.

Obama said he came into office with a "healthy skepticism" of the program and increased some of the "safeguards" on the programs. He said Congress and federal judges have oversight on the program, and a judge would have to approve monitoring of the content of a call and it's not a "program run amok."
"Nobody is listening to your telephone calls," he said. "That's not what this program's about."

He said government officials are "looking at phone numbers and durations of calls."
"They are not looking at people's names and they are not looking at content. But by sifting through this so-called metadata they might identify potential leads of people who might engage in terrorism," Obama said.

The president's remarks followed an unusual late-night statement Thursday from Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, who denounced the leaks of highly classified documents that revealed the programs and warned that America's security will suffer. He called the disclosure of a program that targets foreigners' Internet use "reprehensible," and said the leak of another program that lets the government collect Americans' phone records would change U.S. enemies' behaviour and make it harder to understand their intentions.

Clapper, in his late-night statement, offered new information about both surveillance programs, saying he wanted to correct the "misleading impression" created by out-of-context news articles even as he acknowledged that publicly discussing the programs comes with inherent security risks.
"I believe it is important for the American people to understand the limits of this targeted counterterrorism program and the principles that govern its use," Clapper said.

And so barely 24 hours after the phone records program's existence was first revealed publicly by the Guardian newspaper of Britain, Clapper took the rare step of declassifying and publicly releasing details about the authority used to authorize it, including that it's reviewed by a special court every three months and that the data collected can only be culled when there's reasonable suspicion -- backed by facts -- that the information is connected to a foreign terrorist group.

At issue were two National Security Agency programs that came to light late Wednesday and Thursday after highly classified documents were leaked to the media.
A top-secret court order, first disclosed by the Guardian, requires the communications company Verizon to turn over on an "ongoing, daily basis" the records of all landline and mobile telephone calls of its customers, both within the U.S. and between the U.S. and other countries. Experts said it's likely the program extends to other phone companies as well.

Another secret program came to light when The Washington Post and The Guardian reported that the NSA and FBI can scour America's main Internet companies, extracting audio, video, emails and other documents to help analysts track a person's movements and contacts. Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube and Apple were all included. Most denied giving the government direct access.

Clapper alleged that articles about the Internet program "contain numerous inaccuracies." He did not specify what those inaccuracies might be.

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