Looking for His glorious appearing! Titus 2:13

Wormwood
Jun 8th, 2013
ComentaryPhotorama
Categories: Prophecy

(Nuclear Contamination)When the Chernobyl nuclear reactor suffered a meltdown, the prophetic community went into overdrive when they learned that the English word for Chernobyl is Wormwood. In Revelation, John talks about water becoming contaminated by a star named wormwood--a compelling similarity to a nuclear warhead falling back to earth.

"And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers,and upon the fountains of waters; And the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many mendied of the waters, because they were made bitter" (Rev 8:10-11).

Which Foreign Hand Stirred Up Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan’s Troubles?
Jun 8th, 2013
Daily Newsdebkafile
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

The disturbances engulfing Turkish cities since Friday left Western media readers asking: Who is the real Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan? The quintessential moderate Moslem leader, author of his country’s stability, democratic tradition and thriving economy, and strategic partner of US presidents - from G.W. Bush to Barack Obama - or the arrogant autocrat who jails critics?
Erdogan A was roughly unmasked and Erdogan B exposed by the speed with which a modest sit-down demonstration against the paving of a popular Istanbul park on May 31 ripped through some 100 Turkish cities, inflicting irreversible damage to his image and authority.
Erdogan’s “economic miracle,” which even took in Western credit rating agencies, showed its shaky foundations, when its supposed beneficiaries, Turkey’s middle class – secular students, lawyers, doctors and some observant Muslims - kicked back.
Erdogan has consistently denied the accusations leveled some years ago by former US ambassador to Turkey Eric Edelman that he has “eight accounts in Swiss banks,” and offered the “lame” explanation that “his wealth came from the wedding presents guests gave his son.”
But a whiff of alleged political corruption tainted the air along with excessive police tear gas.
Erdogan won his third term in office two years ago by an impressive margin. He claims to be the most democratic ruler in the region. But ten years of his increasingly authoritarian and Islamist agenda appear to be more than important segments of Turkish society are willing to stomach.

Erdogan’s hubris cracked his image

The protesters shouting “Tayyip out!” swiveled the limelight onto some of the less attractive aspects of Erdogan-style democracy, such as his curbs on freedom of speech and incarceration of scores of Turkish army generals and hundreds of Turkish journalists, editors, artists and intellectuals, who criticized the increasingly Islamist bent of his Justice and Development Party (AKP)’s rule.
By avoiding covering the rising wave of dissent, Turkish media confirmed claims that they were under the ruler’s thumb.
Even foreign media were slow to catch on to the frailties of this respected head of a NATO member nation.
But Erdogan went too far when he sneered at middle class grievances. Many were already smarting over his pro-Muslim ban on the sale of alcohol after 10 p.m. and denial of alcohol licenses to establishments near mosques or schools. His response to their grumbling was: “Let them drink at home.”
In one Turkish city after another, banners held aloft vowed never to let Ankara and Istanbul become another Tehran or Beijing, where rulers tell citizens how to live their private lives.
As for his bridges to the Muslim world, his attempts to push himself forward as a moderate Muslim democratic ruler and exemplary role model for regional rulers to emulate, was brushed off in scorn by the parties which rose to power in the upheavals viewed in Washington as the “Arab Spring.” Even the Palestinians kept their distance.
His efforts to mediate regional conflicts were spurned by Egypt, Syria, Iran and the Gulf emirates. Some leaders like the Saudis ridiculed the Turkish leader’s regional hegemonic pretensions as a ridiculous bid to revive the Ottoman Empire.

Did a clandestine foreign hand stir up the protest?

President Obama must therefore be faulted with picking the wrong partner in Erdogan as his point man in the Middle East and Muslim world when, even on the Syrian issue, he proved wanting when it came to curbing Assad’s blood bath.
The US president partly redeemed this error by using his regular exchanges with the Turkish prime minister to remold Ankara into a more fitting role as Middle East military and diplomatic partner of the US, Israel and NATO.
But the depth of his unpopularity at home caught the Obama administration unawares. The disarray in Washington was betrayed by the incautious words of Vice President Joe Biden Tuesday, June 4: "Turkey's future belongs to the people of Turkey and no one else,” he said. “But the United States does not pretend to be indifferent to the outcome.”
Those words to the American-Turkish Council’s annual conference suggested that thought of intervening in the Turkish crisis had crossed some high-placed administration minds. Concern over the declining reputation of their ally in Ankara was registered in Biden’s next comment which urged the Turkish government “to respect the rights of its political opponents.”
However, the damage was done, with ramifications at home and abroad - at the very least, second thoughts in Washington, Brussels and Jerusalem about their close military, intelligence and economic relationships with Ankara.

Russian or Western agents at work – or paranoia?

In a bid for damage control, Erdogan on Monday, June 3, promised that Turkish intelligence would look into possible links between the disturbances in Istanbul’s Takism Square and “foreign powers.”
He said: “It is not possible to reveal their names, but we will have meetings with their heads,” hinting at clarifications Turkey will seek from the intelligence officials of certain foreign powers.
According to our sources, Erdogan’s most loyal adviser, Hakan Fidan, director of Turkey’s MIT intelligence service, raised the suspicion that the Russian secret service had manipulated Marxist student groups, which are influential among young Turkish intellectuals, into stirring up the unrest.
That suspicion is shared by a number of Mideast intelligence services.
The thinking behind this view is that Moscow, having helped Syrian President Bashar Assad's army and the Lebanese Hizballah militia pull off major victories over the Syrian rebels, turned its attention to frustrating any possible Western intervention in Syria by Turkey or from Turkish military bases.
To this end, the Russians are alleged by this theory to have taken action for discrediting the Turkish prime minister. With his country in turmoil, Erdogan would be in no shape to make the Turkish military and territory available for a US or NATO operation against Syria.
Other suspected engineers of the Turkish disturbances were Western intelligence agents with a view to using them to spark unrest on Iranian city streets in the overheated atmosphere of the run-up to the June 14 presidential election.
This theory was taken with the utmost seriousness in Tehran, where Iranian government and security chiefs, after urgent meetings this week, ordered the Revolutionary Guards Corps and Basij militia to stay alert and keep units readily available near the main towns.
Tehran fought back with a spate of spy fever, announcing mass arrests of Israeli and Qatari “spy rings” and the execution of two CIA and Israeli Mossad agents.
DEBKA Weekly's Iranian sources report that the spy stories were pure fiction, drummed up solely to deter foreign undercover agents from importing to Iran the popular unrest besetting Turkey.

The Kurdish key to Erdogan’s presidential ambition

One ingredient in the cauldron of unrest was to be found in the Turkish prime minister’s quiet effort to reach a peace accord with the Turkish PKK Kurdish separatists and end three decades of war while, at the same time, preparing the ground for Turkey’s transition to presidential rule. The two projects are closely interconnected.
In early May, he concluded a deal for the jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan to order PKK forces to withdraw from Turkey to the autonomous Kurdish Region of Iraq - after Erdogan obtained the consent of its president Masoud Barzani. Ocalan would be released from prison and the Kurdish minority granted regional and cultural concessions.
At the same time, Kurdish representatives would be added to the parliamentary committee on constitutional reform to help carry the measure granting the president of Turkey the prerogative for dissolving parliament.
Erdogan would then run for president in 2014 with nine million Kurdish votes in his pocket.
This power grab would keep the new president and his Justice and Development party in power for many years to come with powers closely resembling those of the Russian president rather than the president of the USA.

The army bides its time

With these audacious projects moving forward behind closed doors, the prime minister and his advisers felt they could safely ignore a bunch of environmentalists protesting about the uprooting of a few trees in an Istanbul park.
Erdogan has typically kept his cards close to his chest. He has not shared with his government or his ally in Washington the substance of his accords with Ocalan – their future relations, Turkish-Kurdish diplomatic and military cooperation, the effect on the Kurds of Iraq and Syria and on Ankara’s policies toward those two neighbors.
Do those accords envisage the creation of a large independent Kurdish state spanning their regions in Iran, Syria and Turkey? And who will control the oil resources in this vast expanse?
But the Turkish bazaars are traditionally hives of information. Erdogan’s presidential ambitions were certainly no secret and the eruption of protest in so many Turkish towns radiating from Istanbul and engulfing the capital Ankara, almost certainly put a damper on his presidential prospects.
The protesters were saying they would not stand for the fulfillment of his aspiration to become his country’s first directly-elected president with virtual dictatorial powers.
Another striking feature of this week’s protest demonstrations was the silence of the military.
It is hardly surprising that none of the generals gave voice when so many languish in Erdogan’s jails. It is possible, however, that after a decade of humiliation at his hands, the army is biding its time ready for the first chance to regain its old position as guardian of secular Turkey, a role long suppressed by the Islamist ruler.

The Spider in the Cornfield
Jun 8th, 2013
CommentaryArt Sadlier
Categories: Bible Salvation

There once was a spider that lived in a cornfield. He was a big spider and spun his web between two stalks of corn.  He got fat eating all the bugs that got caught in his web. He liked his home in the cornfield and planned to spend the rest of his life there.

One day the spider caught a little bug in his web, and just as the spider was about to eat him, the little bug said "If you let me go I will tell you something very important that will save your life."

The spider listened for a moment because he was amused.  "You had better get out of this cornfield, the little bug said. "The harvest is coming."  The spider smiled and said, "What is this harvest you are talking about? I think you are just telling me a story."

"Oh No!" said the little bug, "It's true, the owner of this cornfield is coming soon to harvest it."

"All the stalks will be knocked down, the corn will be gathered up and you will be killed by a giant machine if you stay here."

The spider said, "I don't believe in harvests and giant machines that knock down corn stalks.  How can you prove this?"  The bug said "Just look at the corn stalks and see how they are planted in rows.   This proves the field was created by an intelligent designer".

The spider laughed and said, "This field just evolved and it has nothing to do with an intelligent designer - corn just grows that way."  "Oh No", said the little bug, "This field belongs to the owner who planted it, and the harvest is coming soon".

The spider grinned and said "I don't believe you", and he ate the little bug for lunch.

A few days later the spider was laughing about the story the little bug told him, he thought to himself "a harvest, what a silly idea, I have lived in this cornfield all my life and nothing has ever disturbed me.  I have been here since those stalks were just a foot off the ground.  I'll be here the rest of my life, because nothing is ever going to change this field.  Life is good and I have it made."

The next day was a beautiful day in the corn field.  That afternoon as the spider was about to take his nap, he noticed some thick dust in the distance.  He could hear the roar of a great engine.   Just before he took his last nap he said, "I wonder what that could be?"

Matthew 25:13 says "Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of Man cometh."

300 times in the New Testament we are told of His coming. Don't be like the spider in the cornfield.

"He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him" (John #:36). Do you have the Son as your Saviour? He is coming soon to reap the harvest.

The Iranian - Russian-iraqi-hizballah Bloc is the Winning Formula Behind Assad
Jun 8th, 2013
Daily Newsdebkafile
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

It took a combined Syrian-Hizballah military force two weeks of vicious fighting to finally capture the strategic town of Al-Qusayr from rebel control Wednesday, June 6. This victory rounded off Bashar Assad’s conquest of the entire Lebanese border region and its removal from rebel access.
The rebels are reduced to getting their supplies of fighters, arms and money from Lebanon indirectly, through Turkey.
Al-Qusayr therefore crowned the Syrian-Hizballah offensive for cutting the rebels off from their outside sources of supply, before the combined force goes on to its next operations for crushing remaining rebel strongholds in Damascus, Hama and Aleppo.
Most of Damascus has been snatched from rebel hands, aside from a few isolated pockets. The center of the capital and its airport are now in safe army hands. All the main traffic arteries branching out of Damascus - north, south and east - are under Syrian army control.
Another Syrian-Hizballah operation has secured the countryside around Hama in central Syria by seizing 40 outlying towns and villages. The same cold-blooded tactic is being executed in eight outlying Aleppo regions, with a view to capturing them and laying rebel strongholds in the city to siege. Once their sources of supply, along with food and water, are cut off – like the starvation imposed on Qusayr - heavy artillery and air barrages will force them to surrender.

Iranian officers liaise between Hizballah and Syrian units

DEBKA Weekly's military sources report that for the first time in the more than two-year civil war, the Syrian ruler can claim control of a continuous strip of land from Deraa in the south up to the Mediterranean coast in the west, after rendering the rebels incapable of mounting a counter-offensive in any sector.
The only town the rebels have managed to hold onto is Ar-Raqqah, on the north bank of the Euphrates, about 160 kilometers east of Aleppo.
Assad’s success in turning the tide of war around in his favor, which peaked this week, was first disclosed in exclusive DEBKA reports four months ago.
He managed it thanks to the loyalty of the Syrian army backed by four staunch outside helpers:
1. The co-opting of Lebanese Hizballah ground forces to the Syrian army undoubtedly tipped the scales in Assad's favor, boosted morale and instilled in his troops their belief in victory. The division of labor between the two forces works with well-oiled efficiency: Hizballah provides the boots on the ground for storming rebel targets, while the Syrian army lays on an escort of armored vehicles, artillery fire and air support and bombardments.
Iranian officers are in charge of coordination between the Syrian army and the Hizballah forces. They work in the field, out of Syrian general staff headquarters in Damascus or Iranian war headquarters in Beirut. An estimated 8,000 Hizballah personnel are fighting in Syria.
Gen. Selim Idriss, chief of the rebel Free Syrian Army Wednesday, June 6 called Hizballah forces “invaders” and blasted the Lebanese government for doing nothing to stop them.

Where have the Al Qaeda-linked rebels disappeared to?

2. By buttressing the Assad regime, Tehran has achieved an aspiration held for decades, the sight of a Shiite army or, rather, a Muslim army under Shiite command, seizing land from Sunni armies and militias.
One of the big riddles of the war in the last two weeks is posed by the disappearance of the once boldest and most effective rebel groups, Jabhat al-Nusra, dubbed the Syrian Al Qaeda, and the Iraqi Al Qaeda fighters who crossed into Syria at about the same time to fight with the rebels.
Why have they stayed out of the rebels’ pivotal battles in the last ten days when their participation could have tilted the balance and robbed Assad and Hizballah of their victories?
Might their inexplicable disappearance relate to the secret negotiations afoot in Tehran between Iranian and Afghan Taliban representatives?
3. The accelerating Russian and Iranian airlifts to Syria in the past weeks, at the rate of three to four planes a day, are keeping the Syrian army and Hizballah militia units well supplied with arms, ammo and replacement parts.
4. The Assad regime has found a new source of funding for its war chest: Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki is giving Assad unlimited Iraqi credit lines. In other words, Iraq’s multibillion dollar oil revenues are bankrolling the Syrian war effort. The US, Britain, France and every other Western country purchasing Iraqi oil are therefore helping to pay for Bashar Assad’s war on his opposition.
DEBKA-Weekly's intelligence sources report that al-Maliki foots the bill for all Syrian government purchases – from flour to Russian weapons systems and arms on international markets.
Iraq also provides Syria with petroleum, benzene, fuel distillates and oils for the Syrian army's logistical systems.
And as we reported in the last DEBKA Weekly, the Iraqi prime minister has sent 20,000 troops to seal the Syrian border against the entry of rebel reinforcements from the Persian Gulf and Iraqi Sunni militias.
Bashar Assad can hardly fail to win his war against a divided opposition starved of support, given the hefty financial, intelligence and military aid provided him by Iran, Iraq, Russia and Hizballah.

Obama’s New National Security Team Can’t Dodge the Middle East
Jun 8th, 2013
Daily Newsdebkafile
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

President Barack Obama, by picking Susan E. Rice as National Security Adviser and Samantha Power as ambassador to the United Nations, hopes to have rounded off a foreign policy team for attaining his ambition of a policy pivot toward Asia. He wouldn’t be the first US president to delude himself that he can disconnect from the seething, intractable Middle East.
With Chuck Hagel in the Defense Department, John Kerry in the State Department, Rice as National Security Adviser, John Brennan at the CIA and Power at the UN, Obama has assembled a group which advocates American liberal interventionism – maybe in Asia – but certainly not in the Middle East.
Its new makeup offers a temperamental contrast to the outgoing National Security Adviser Tom Donilon: His performance was strictly unemotional (or perhaps he was good at hiding his emotions) and his execution of the president’s policies brilliant and precise, whereas the new duo are emotional, passionate about causes and bring with them the sort of histories that portend lively competition for the president's support – that is unless in the unlikely event, they can line up in unison behind the president’s lead, like Donilon and White House chief of staff Denis McDonough.
Along with an impressive record at the UN, Rice carries the unhappy baggage of her misrepresentation in five TV talk shows of the facts about the Al Qaeda attack on the US Consulate in Benghazi of Sept. 11, 2012, in which Ambassador Chris Stevens and four other US staffers were murdered.
Reciting talking points prepared for her by the CIA and State Department, Rice ascribed the attack to protest demonstrations sweeping Muslim capitals against a tape mocking the Prophet Muhammed.

Rice and Power urged intervention in Libya, but not in Syria

The truth was known from the start to US and Middle East intelligence agencies. Susan Rice stands accused of abetting the Obama administration’s 10-month long cover-up of the facts: There were no demonstrations in Benghazi. The four US diplomats were the victims of a well-planned two-wave attack by a terrorist group, two of whose commanders were Egyptian. One was caught and allegedly committed suicide under suspicious circumstances in an Egyptian prison.
Rice in her new post cannot avoid being haunted by the Benghazi affair. She will be stalked relentlessly by mostly Republican lawmakers, who will not rest until the affair is thoroughly investigated and President Obama or a member of his staff breaks down and admits to the truth. But most of all, because Al Qaeda’s Ayman al-Zawahiri is plotting new outrages to build on their Beghazi success and shock the Obama administration out of its stubborn certainty that the jihadist organization no longer poses an important threat to the US homeland and global interests.
Fresh terrorist attacks are likely to pursue the US President and his White House team and seek out their vulnerabilities.
Samantha Power brings to the White House the record of a brave fighter against genocide. It was she and Susan Rice who, two years ago, pushed President Obama into leading a NATO military intervention in Libya to save thousands of Libyan insurgents in Benghazi who faced massacre at the hands of Muammar Qaddafi.
Yet at present, Powers and Rice are the leading administration voices against US intervention in Syria. Their argument is that, unlike Libya, where the distinction between government troops and rebels was obvious, in Syria, no one can tell who the rebels are and whom Bashar Assad and his army are actually slaughtering.

An Israeli strike against Iran’s nuclear program is realistic

These nice distinctions work fine in White House counsels as benchmarks for policy-making, but divorce Washington from the realities and dynamics of current Middle East events, thereby creating an inviting vacuum.
However, instead of moderating Barack Obama’s deliberate detachment from Middle East affairs, his new advisers prefer to play up his inclination to reorient his policies on less turbulent Asian lands. And meanwhile, Moscow, Tehran, Baghdad, Beirut and al Qaeda are scrambling to fill the vacuum, using to good advantage the weeks and months remaining until Rice and Power settle into their jobs and US foreign policy is back on track.
Another Middle East element demanding consideration is the possibility of an Israeli attack in the near future on Iran’s nuclear program.
DEBKA-Weekly opened this issue with the exclusive disclosure of an Iranian approach to Israel via Washington, asking Israel to state its terms for calling off an attack on its nuclear facilities. This article also cited Secretary of State John Kerry's comments indicating that President Obama had lifted his veto on a unilateral Israel action against Iran’s nuclear program.
The Iranian nuclear issue and potential Israel action is not just a matter for the US and Iran, but Beijing, Moscow and Pyongyang are also intimately involved. Therefore, it is easier to talk about an American policy pivoting towards Asia than to implement it.
The long and short of it is that if Obama continues to run away from the Middle East as he did in 2012 and the first half of 2013, he, Susan Rice and Samantha Power may find the Middle East hotly pursuing them all the way to Asia.

Moscow Asks UN to Reconsider Nyet on Russian Troops for Golan
Jun 8th, 2013
Daily Newsdebkafile
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

Russia asked the UN to rethink its rejection of Vladimir Putin’s offer of Russian troops to replace the 377-strong Austrian contingent which is being withdrawn from the Golan UN ceasefire force. The UN spokesman said the 1974 Israeli-Syrian disengagement accord barred the five permanent veto-wielding members of the Security Council, including Russia, from taking part in the force. Russia's UN ambassador Vitaly Churkin told reporters the Golan force is in dire straits. "Obviously we are aware of that document but we believe that times have changed," Churkin told reporters as he entered emergency UN Security Council talks on the UN force.

Let the Headlines Speak
Jun 8th, 2013
Daily NewsFrom the Internet
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

Syria crisis: UN launches largest ever aid appeal
The United Nations has launched the largest appeal in its history - seeking $5bn (£3.2bn; 3.7bn euros) for humanitarian aid to Syria. The UN estimates more than 10 million Syrians - half the population - will need help by the end of the year.

Iraq Muqdadiyah bomber kills Iranian pilgrims
A suicide bomber in Iraq has rammed a car packed with explosives into a bus, killing at least 10 Iranian Shia pilgrims. At least 30 other people were wounded in the blast in the town of Muqdadiyah, 80km (50 miles) north-east of Baghdad.

Five dead in Santa Monica shooting rampage
At least five people are dead and several others injured after a gun rampage in the beachfront city of Santa Monica, California, police say. The attack began at a house and ended on a college campus where police say they shot the gunman in the library. Police initially put the death toll at six, but later revised it to five people dead, including the shooter.

This is not a Turkish Spring and isn’t likely to be
Turkey’s story has been one of cycles of conflict and then calm, not long-term violence in which citizens gather arms against the regime. Turkish military intervention could, for decades, be counted on to impose order on a divided public or allegedly Islamic-leaning political leaders. While the current protest over Istanbul’s Gezi Park have escalated in violence, domestic tensions no longer portend a coup.

Texas actress charged in Obama ricin threat
A pregnant Texas actress who first told the FBI that her husband sent ricin-tainted letters to President Barack Obama and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, then allegedly said she sent them because her husband "made her" do it, was charged Friday with threatening the president.

Koreas agree to meeting in bid to ease tensions
North and South Korea will meet Sunday at a village straddling their heavily armed border as the sides try to lower tension and restore projects once seen as symbols of their rapprochement, officials said.

TV Nudity Is Increasingly Being Rated Acceptable For Kids
A new study from Parents Television Council (PTC) has revealed that shows like ABC's "The Bachelor" are blurring the lines of how much skin is acceptable to show on primetime broadcast TV.