What's happening the week of June 8th to 15th

[Shammu]

Pope called for inter-religious dialogue
Nicosia, 5 June

Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday called for dialogue between Christians and people of other faiths during the second day of his landmark visit to Cyprus. The Mediterranean island is divided between Greek Orthodox Christians and Muslim communities from Turkey. It is the first visit to Cyprus by a pope and Benedict's first to an Orthodox country.

The pope also emphasized the need for cooperation between different Christian faiths.

"Much still needs to be done throughout the world," the 83-year-old pontiff said with regard to inter-religious dialogue.

"Only by patient work can mutual trust be built, the burden of history overcome and the political and cultural differences between peoples become a motive to work for deeper understanding," he said.

Benedict spoke at a Maronite primary school near Nicosia. The ancient Maronite church has its roots in Lebanon and Syria that is in communion with Rome and has been present in Cyprus for centuries, primarily in the northern part of the island that has been occupied by Turkey since 1974.

Most of the Maronites have moved to the Christian south leaving a number of villages almost empty.

In an address to the pontiff, Maronite Archbishop Youssef Soueif on Saturday asked Benedict to "please help us return to our villages."

Four ancient Maronite villages there have virtually died out, mostly the result of displacement after the Turkish invasion and occupation of the north in 1974.

Pope called for inter-religious dialogue

[Shammu]

Muslims Order Christians to Leave Village in Pakistan

Christians drew wrath by objecting to sexual assaults on girls and women.
KHANEWAL, Pakistan, June 7 (CDN) — The head of a Muslim village last week ordered 250 Christian families to leave their homes in Khanewal district, Punjab Province, local residents said.

Abdul Sattar Khan, head of village No. 123/10R, Katcha Khoh, and other area Muslim residents ordered the expulsions after Christian residents objected too strenuously to sexual assaults by Muslims on Christian girls and women, said a locally elected Christian official, Emmanuel Masih.

Most of the village’s Christian men work in the fields of Muslim land owners, while most of the Christian women and girls work as servants in the homes of Muslim families, said Rasheed Masih, a Christian in the village who added that the impoverished Christians were living in appalling conditions.

The Muslim employers have used their positions of power to routinely sexually assault the Christian women and girls, whose complaints grew so shrill that four Christian men – Emmanuel Masih, Rasheed Masih, his younger brother Shehzad Anjum and Yousaf Masih Khokhar – sternly confronted the Muslims, only to be told that all Christians were to leave the village at once.

“The Muslim villagers came to us with the expulsion order only after Christian women and girls raised a hue and cry when they became totally exasperated because they were sexually attacked or forced to commit adultery by Muslims on a daily basis,” said Khokhar, a Christian political leader.

Khokhar said the unanimous decision to compel the Christians to leave their homes and relocate them was possible because the Christians were completely subject to the Muslims’ power.

“The Muslims had been telling the Christian women and girls that if they denied them sex, they would kick them out of their native village,” Emmanuel Masih added.

Christians created the colony when they began settling in the area in about 1950, said Anjum. Since then the migration of Muslims to the area has left the Christians a minority among the 6,000 residents of the village, said Emmanuel Masih.

“There is no church building or any worship place for Christians, and neither is there any burial place for Christians,” Emmanuel Masih said.

He said that the Rev. Pervez Qaiser of village No. 231, the Rev. Frank Masih of village No. 133 and the Rev. Sharif Masih of village No. 36, Mian Channu, have been visiting the village on Sundays to lead services at the houses of the Christian villagers, who open their homes by turns.

Asked why they didn’t contact local Katcha Khoh police for help, Emmanuel Masih and Khokhar said that filing a complaint against Muslim village head Khan and other Muslims would only result in police registering false charges against them under Pakistan’s notorious “blasphemy” statutes.

“They might arrest us,” Khokhar said, “and the situation would be worse for the Christian villagers who are already living a deplorably pathetic life under the shadow of fear and death, as they [the Muslims] would not be in police lock-up or would be out on bail, due to their riches and influence, very soon.”

Couples Charged with ‘Blasphemy’
That very fate befell two Christian couples in Gulshan-e-Iqbal town, Karachi, who had approached police with complaints against Muslims for falsely accusing them of blasphemy.

On May 28, a judge directed Peer Ilahi Bakhsh (PIB) police to file charges of desecrating the Quran against Atiq Joseph and Qaiser William after a mob of armed Islamists went through their home’s garbage looking for pages of the Islamic scripture among clean-up debris (see “Pakistani Islamists Keep Two Newlywed Couples from Home,” May 27).

Additional District & Sessions Judge Karachi East (Sharqi) Judge Sadiq Hussein directed the PIB police station in Gulshan-e-Iqbal to file a case against Joseph and William, newlyweds who along with their wives had shared a rented home and are now in hiding. The judge acted on the application of Muslim Munir Ahmed.

Saleem Khurshid Khokhar, a Christian provincial legislator in Sindh, and Khalid Gill, head of the All Pakistan Minorities Alliance in Punjab, said that police were threatening and harassing relatives and close friends of Joseph and William to reveal their whereabouts.

Islamists armed with pistols and rifles had waited for the two Christian couples to return to their rented home on May 21, seeking to kill them after the couples complained to police that the radical Muslims had falsely accused them of desecrating the Quran.

The blasphemy laws include Section 295-A for injuring religious feelings, 295-B for defiling the Quran and 295-C for blaspheming Muhammad, the prophet of Islam – all of which have often been misused by fanatical Muslims to settle personal scores against Christians.

Maximum punishment for violation of Section 295-A, as well as for Section 295-B (defiling the Quran), is life imprisonment; for violating Section 295-C the maximum punishment is death, though life imprisonment is also possible.

In village 123/10R in Khanewal district, Anjum noted that it is only 22 kilometers (14 miles) from Shanti Nagar, where Muslims launched an attack on Christians in 1997 that burned hundreds of homes and 13 church buildings.

Yousaf Masih added, “Muslim villagers have made the life a hell for Christians at village.

Muslims Order Christians to Leave Village in Pakistan
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Islam is showing their true colors, hate, lies, deceivers, and rapists. I don't think I need say anymore, so my temper doesn't boil over.

[Shammu]

NKorea warns UN not to discuss warship sinking
Wed Jun 9, 7:26 am ET

SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea sent the U.N. Security Council a letter warning the world body to not even open debate on the deadly sinking of a South Korean warship blamed on Pyongyang, state media reported Wednesday.

South Korea last week officially asked the U.N. Security Council to punish North Korea, after an international investigation said a North torpedo attack sunk a South ship in March, killing 46 sailors. North Korea flatly denies responsibility and says any punishment would trigger war.

Sin Son Ho — North Korea's permanent representative at the U.N. — sent Security Council president Claude Heller a letter Tuesday saying the council must not open a debate on the "the unilaterally forged" investigation results because that would fringe upon the North's sovereignty, the official Korean Central News Agency said in a dispatch from Pyongyang.

"No one would dare imagine how serious its consequences would be" over security on the Korean peninsula if the debate starts, Sin said in the letter, according to the KCNA dispatch.

Sin said the U.N. council instead should take steps helping South Korea and the U.S. accept North Korean inspectors to verify the investigation results, it said.

The ship sinking is the first inter-Korean provocation in which the South has taken the North to the Security Council, despite a history of attacks by the North since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War.

The Security Council has several choices: a resolution with or without new sanctions against North Korea, a weaker presidential statement calling for specific actions, or a press statement.

The Security Council earlier imposed sanctions against North Korea after its two nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009. These include U.N. embargoes on nuclear and ballistic missile-related items and technology, on arms exports and imports except light weapons, and on luxury goods.

NKorea warns UN not to discuss warship sinking
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The BULLY of the area thinks he can force his way..................

[Shammu]

More Active Sun Means Nasty Solar Storms Ahead
SPACE.com Staff

SPACE.com Space.com Staff

space.com Wed Jun 9, 6:00 pm ET

The sun is about to get a lot more active, which could have ill effects on Earth. So to prepare, top sun scientists met Tuesday to discuss the best ways to protect Earth's satellites and other vital systems from the coming solar storms.

Solar storms occur when sunspots on our star erupt and spew out flumes of charged particles that can damage power systems. The sun's activity typically follows an 11-year cycle, and it looks to be coming out of a slump and gearing up for an active period.

"The sun is waking up from a deep slumber, and in the next few years we expect to see much higher levels of solar activity," said Richard Fisher, head of NASA's Heliophysics Division. "At the same time, our technological society has developed an unprecedented sensitivity to solar storms. The intersection of these two issues is what we're getting together to discuss."

Fisher and other experts met at the Space Weather Enterprise Forum, which took place in Washington, D.C., at the National Press Club.

Bad news for gizmos

People of the 21st century rely on high-tech systems for the basics of daily life. But smart power grids, GPS navigation, air travel, financial services and emergency radio communications can all be knocked out by intense solar activity.

A major solar storm could cause twenty times more economic damage than Hurricane Katrina, warned the National Academy of Sciences in a 2008 report, "Severe Space Weather Events—Societal and Economic Impacts." [Photos: Sun storms.]

Luckily, much of the damage can be mitigated if managers know a storm is coming. That's why better understanding of solar weather, and the ability to give advance warning, is especially important.

Putting satellites in 'safe mode' and disconnecting transformers can protect electronics from damaging electrical surges.

"Space weather forecasting is still in its infancy, but we're making rapid progress," said Thomas Bogdan, director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)'s Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colo.

Eyes on the sun

NASA and NOAA work together to manage a fleet of satellites that monitor the sun and help to predict its changes.

A pair of spacecraft called STEREO (Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory) is stationed on opposite sides of the sun, offering a combined view of 90 percent of the solar surface. In addition, SDO (the Solar Dynamics Observatory), which just launched in February 2010, is able to photograph solar active regions with unprecedented spectral, temporal and spatial resolution. Also, an old satellite called the Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE), which launched in 1997, is still chugging along monitoring winds coming off the sun. And there are dozens more dedicated to solar science.

"I believe we're on the threshold of a new era in which space weather can be as influential in our daily lives as ordinary terrestrial weather." Fisher said. "We take this very seriously indeed."

More Active Sun Means Nasty Solar Storms Ahead

[Shammu]

Christian Woman in Pakistan Abused, Forced to Resign
SARGODHA, Pakistan, June 10 (CDN)

A Christian woman here said she has been falsely accused of theft, beaten, threatened with rape and forced to resign her job in a bid to keep her from obtaining full benefits as a regular government employee.

Razia Bibi, a 38-year-old sanitation worker known as Rajji of village No. 47-NB (Northern Branch), Sargodha, was due to obtain regular status as a government employee at Aysha Girls’ Hostel at the University of Sargodha at the end of May. On May 7, however, Muslim office worker Safia Bibi accused her of stealing 10,000 rupees (US$120) from her cubicle – and when Muslim hostel warden Noshaba Bibi learned of it, she called female police officers and ordered them to beat her until she confessed, Rajji said.

“Lady police constables subjected me to inhumane thrashing with bamboo sticks and kept saying that I must confess or they would not spare me,” she said, adding that she was beaten for four hours in one of the hostel rooms. “I said that, being a Christian from childhood, I had learned not to steal, therefore I told them the truth, but it seemed they were bent on making me confess a crime I had not committed.”

Her comment about being a Christian and therefore not having stolen anything seemed to especially enrage Safia Bibi and Noshaba Bibi, she said.

“Hostel officials turned violent, and they called Haaser Khan, the chief security officer of the university, accompanied by two junior security guards, and ordered them to take me into a cubicle and take off my clothes and rape me,” she said. “I raised a cry for help, but there was no one to help me.”

Her husband, Nayyer Aftab, told Compass that someone informed him that his wife was in serious trouble at her workplace. Rushing to the girls’ hostel, he said, he found the security guards dragging his wife on the ground as she screamed for help. When Aftab asked why they were treating her this way, Khan charged him with his baton and left him injured on the ground, Aftab said. The chief security officer took Rajji inside.

“Both hostel officers, Noshaba and Safia, told me that Rajji had stolen 10,000 rupees, and that because she didn’t confess her crime the security guards were going to teach her a lesson,” Aftab said.

Aftab said he knew that his wife would not confess to theft even to spare herself from rape, and he pleaded with the two accusers to stop the security guards, promising that he would pay them the amount of the allegedly stolen money.

“At this both Safia and Noshaba ordered to bring Rajji out and not rape her,” Aftab told Compass. “They gave me an hour to make payment of the allegedly stolen amount.”

He said he went to friends and relatives to gather up the 10,000 rupees and gave it to Safia Bibi and Noshaba Bibi, but Aftab said they still compelled his wife to resign by forcibly obtaining a thumb print from the illiterate woman on a resignation statement.

Rajji said she had been happily looking forward to obtaining regular employee status.

“In three weeks I was going to become a regular employee as a sanitation worker at the university, but as I am a Christian, the Muslim hostel officers Safia and Noshaba wanted a Muslim regular employee after their hearts instead of me,” she told Compass. 
 
Noshaba Bibi initially refused to comment on the allegation that she falsely accused the Christian woman of theft in order to provide a job to someone of her choice. After repeated questioning by Compass, however, she became exasperated and used coarse language, yelling, “Yes, I have done it, do whatever you want!”
 
The Christian couple in the village in Punjab Province has an 8-year-old daughter and two sons, ages 9 and 5.

Christians Beaten, Jailed
In a village in southern Punjab Province, Muslim extremists on Saturday (June 5) attacked Christians trying to construct a church building, and then got police to file charges against them for defending themselves, according to the All Pakistan Minorities Alliance (APMA).

A club-wielding Muslim mob led by Muhammad Nazir Ahmed beat Christians who were laying the foundation for the church building in village No. 184/9-L, in Cheechawatni of Sahiwal district, seriously injuring several of them, said Javed Akber Gill, APMA district coordinator in Sahiwal.

Ahmed later enlisted Inspector Allah Ditta, station house officer at the Dera Rahim police station, to file charges against four Christians – Noreen Mumtaz, who is pregnant, and her husband Mumtaz Inayat, Aftab Inayat and Kashif Masih, Christian sources said. All four were charged with critically injuring others and attempting to kill or threaten to kill, they said.

Inspector Ditta refused to respond to repeated requests by Compass for comment on allegations that he colluded with the Muslim extremists to falsely accuse the Christian victims of the attack.

The accused Christians pleaded with police that they were innocent, to no avail. Gill said that he was doing his best to resolve the issue peacefully in an attempt to avert the kind of violence that hit the Christian communities of Gojra and Korian in July and August of 2009 and Shanti Nagar in 1997.

The Rev. John Rizwani of Cheechawatni city said the government had allotted a small piece of land to the Christians for the building and that they had permission to build. There are only 25 Christians’ homes amid the approximately 500 Muslim homes in the village.

Ferhan Mazher, chairman of Rays of Development Organization, Azher Kalim, general secretary the Christians Lawyers Foundation and Khalid Gill, head of APMA in Punjab, condemned the attack.

“Attacks on worship places usurp basic human rights and constitute a conspiracy to belittle the name of Pakistan worldwide,” Mazher said.

Christian Woman in Pakistan Abused, Forced to Resign

[Shammu]

Egyptian Couple Shot by Muslim Extremists Undaunted in Ministry
CAIRO, Egypt, June 9 (CDN)

Left for dead, Christians offer to drop charges if allowed to construct church building.

Rasha Samir was sure her husband, Ephraim Shehata, was dead.

He was covered with blood, had two bullets inside him and was lying facedown in the dust of a dirt road. Samir was lying on top of him doing her best to shelter him from the onslaught of approaching gunmen.

With arms outstretched, the men surrounded Samir and Shehata and pumped off round after round at the couple. Seconds before, Samir could hear her husband mumbling Bible verses. But one bullet had pierced his neck, and now he wasn’t moving. In a blind terror, Samir tried desperately to stop her panicked breathing and convincingly lie still, hoping the gunmen would go away.

Finally, the gunfire stopped and one of the men spoke. “Let’s go. They’re dead.”

‘Break the Hearts’
On the afternoon of Feb. 27, lay pastor Shehata and his wife Samir were ambushed on a desolate street by a group of Islamic gunmen outside the village of Teleda in Upper Egypt.

The attack was meant to “break the hearts of the Christians” in the area, Samir said.

The attackers shot Shehata twice, once in the stomach through the back, and once in the neck. They shot Samir in the arm. Both survived the attack, but Shehata is still in the midst of a difficult recovery. The shooters have since been arrested and are in jail awaiting trial. A trial cannot begin until Shehata has recovered enough to attend court proceedings.

Despite this trauma, being left with debilitating injuries, more than 85,000 Egyptian pounds (US$14,855) in medical bills and possible long-term unemployment, Shehata is willing to drop all criminal charges against his attackers – and avoid what could be a very embarrassing trial for the nation – if the government will stop blocking Shehata from constructing a church building.

Before Shehata was shot, one of the attackers pushed him off his motorcycle and told him he was going to teach him a lesson about “running around” or being an active Christian.

Because of his ministry, the 34-year-old Shehata, a Coptic Orthodox Christian, was arguably the most visible Christian in his community. When he wasn’t working as a lab technician or attending legal classes at a local college, he was going door-to-door among Christians to encourage them in any way he could. He also ran a community center and medical clinic out of a converted two-bedroom apartment. His main goal, he said, was to “help Christians be strong in their faith.”

The center, open now for five years, provided much-needed basic medical services for surrounding residents for free, irrespective of their religion. The center also provided sewing training and a worksite for Christian women so they could gain extra income. Before the center was open in its present location, he ran similar services out of a relative’s apartment.

“We teach them something that can help them with the future, and when they get married they can have some way to work and it will help them get money for their families,” Shehata said.

Additionally, the center was used to teach hygiene and sanitation basics to area residents, a vital service to a community that uses well water that is often polluted or full of diseases. Along with these services, Shehata and his wife ran several development projects, repairing the roofs of shelters for poor people, installing plumbing, toilets and electrical systems. The center also distributed free food to the elderly and the infirm.

The center has been run by donations and nominal fees used to pay the rent for the apartment. Shehata has continued to run the programs as aggressively as he can, but he said that even before the shooting that the center was barely scraping by.

“We have no money to build or improve anything,” he said. “We have a safe, but no money to put in it.”

Tense Atmosphere
In the weeks before the shooting, Teleda and the surrounding villages were gripped with fear.

Christians in the community had been receiving death threats by phone after a Muslim man died during an attack on a Christian couple. On Feb. 2, a group of men in nearby Samalout tried to abduct a Coptic woman from a three-wheeled motorcycle her husband was driving. The husband, Zarif Elia, punched one of the attackers in the nose. The Muslim, Basem Abul-Eid, dropped dead on the spot.

Elia was arrested and charged with murder. An autopsy later revealed that the man died of a heart attack, but local Muslims were incensed.

Already in the spotlight for his ministry activities, Shehata heightened his profile when he warned government officials that Christians were going to be attacked, as they had been in Farshout and Nag Hammadi the previous month. He also gave an interview to a human rights activist that was posted on numerous Coptic websites. Because of this, government troops were deployed to the town, and extremists were unable to take revenge on local Christians – but only after almost the entire Christian community was placed under house arrest.

“They chose me,” Shehata said, “Because they thought I was the one serving everybody, and I was the one who wrote the government telling them that Muslims were going to set fire to the Christian houses because of the death.”

Because of his busy schedule, Shehata and Samir, 27, were only able to spend Fridays and part of every Saturday together in a village in Samalut, where Shehata lives. Every Saturday after seeing Samir, Shehata would drive her back through Teleda to the village where she lives, close to her family. Samalut is a town approximately 105 kilometers (65 miles) south of Cairo.

On the afternoon of Feb. 27, Shehata and his wife were on a motorcycle on a desolate stretch of hard-packed dirt road. Other than a few scattered farming structures, there was nothing near the road but the Nile River on one side, and open fields dotted with palm trees on the other.

Shehata approached a torn-up section of the road and slowed down. A man walked up to the vehicle carrying a big wooden stick and forced him to stop. Shehata asked the man what was wrong, but he only pushed Shehata off the motorcycle and told him, “I’m going to stop you from running around,” Samir recounted.

Shehata asked the man to let Samir go. “Whatever you are going to do, do it to me,” he told the man.

The man didn’t listen and began hitting Shehata on the leg with the stick. As Shehata stumbled, Samir screamed for the man to leave them alone. The man lifted the stick again, clubbed Shehata once more on the leg and knocked him to the ground. As Shehata struggled to get up, the man took out a pistol, leveled it at Shehata’s back and squeezed the trigger.

Samir started praying and screaming Jesus’ name. The man turned toward her, raised the pistol once more, squeezed off another round, and shot Samir in the arm. Samir looked around and saw a few men running toward her, but her heart sank when she realized they had come not to help them but to join the assault.

Samir jumped on top of Shehata, rolled on to her back and started begging her attackers for their lives, but the men, now four in all, kept firing. Bullets were flying everywhere.

“I was scared. I thought I was going to die and that the angels were going to come and get our spirits,” Samir said. “I started praying, ‘Please God, forgive me, I’m a sinner and I am going to die.’”

Samir decided to play dead. She leaned back toward her husband, closed her eyes, went limp and tried to stop breathing. She said she felt that Shehata was dying underneath her.

“I could hear him saying some of the Scriptures, the one about the righteous thief [saying] ‘Remember me when you enter Paradise,’” she said. “Then a bullet went through his neck, and he stopped saying anything.”

Samir has no way of knowing how much time passed, but eventually the firing stopped. After she heard one of the shooters say, “Let’s go, they’re dead,” moments later she opened her eyes and the men were gone. When she lifted her head, she heard her husband moan.

Unlikely Survival
When Shehata arrived at the hospital, his doctors didn’t think he would survive. He had lost a tremendous amount of blood, a bullet had split his kidney in two, and the other bullet was lodged in his neck, leaving him partially paralyzed.

His heartbeat was so faint it couldn’t be detected. He was also riddled with a seemingly limitless supply of bullet fragments throughout his body.

cont'd next post

[Shammu]

Samir, though seriously injured, had fared much better than Shehata. The bullet went into her arm but otherwise left her uninjured. When she was shot, Samir was wearing a maternity coat. She wasn’t pregnant, but the couple had bought the coat in hopes she soon would be. Samir said she thinks the gunman who shot her thought he had hit her body, instead of just her arm.

The church leadership in Samalut was quickly informed about the shooting and summoned the best doctors they could, who quickly traveled to help Shehata and Samir. By chance, the hospital had a large supply of blood matching Shehata’s blood type because of an elective surgical procedure that was cancelled. The bullets were removed, and his kidney was repaired. The doctors however, were forced to leave many of the bullet fragments in Shehata’s body.

As difficult as it was to piece Shehata’s broken body back together, it paled in comparison with the recovery he had to suffer through. He endured multiple surgeries and was near death several times during his 70 days of hospitalization.

Early on, Shehata was struck with a massive infection. Also, because part of his internal tissue was cut off from its blood supply, it literally started to rot inside him. He began to swell and was in agony.

“I was screaming, and they brought the doctors,” Shehata said. The doctors decided to operate immediately.

When a surgeon removed one of the clamps holding Shehata’s abdomen together, the intense pressure popped off most of the other clamps. Surgeons removed some stomach tissue, part of his colon and more than a liter of infectious liquid.

Shehata could not eat normally and lost 35 kilograms (approximately 77 lbs.). He also couldn’t evacuate his bowels for at least 11 days, his wife said.

Despite the doctors’ best efforts, infections continued to rage through Shehata’s body, accompanied by alarming spikes in body temperature.

Eventually, doctors sent him to a hospital in Cairo, where he spent a week under treatment. A doctor there prescribed a different regimen of antibiotics that successfully fought the infection and returned Shehata’s body temperature to normal.

Shehata is recovering at home now, but he still has a host of medical problems. He has to take a massive amount of painkillers and is essentially bedridden. He cannot walk without assistance, is unable to move the fingers on his left hand and cannot eat solid food. In approximately two months he will undergo yet another surgery that, if all goes well, will allow him to use the bathroom normally.

“Even now I can’t walk properly, and I can’t lift my leg more than 10 or 20 centimeters. I need someone to help me just to pull up my underwear,” Shehata said. “I can move my arm, but I can’t move my fingers.”

Samir does not complain about her condition or that of Shehata. Instead, she sees the fact that she and her husband are even alive as a testament to God’s faithfulness. She said she thinks God allowed them to be struck with the bullets that injured them but pushed away the bullets that would have killed them.

“There were lots of bullets being shot, but they didn’t hit us, only three or four,” she said. “Where are the others?”

Even in the brutal process of recovery, Samir found cause for thanks. In the beginning, Shehata couldn’t move his left arm, but now he can. “Thank God and thank Jesus, it was His blessing to us,” Samir said. “We were kind of dead, now we are alive."

Still, Samir admits that sometimes her faith waivers. She is facing the possibility that Shehata might not work for some time, if ever. The couple owes the 85,000 Egyptian pounds (US$14,855) in medical bills, and continuing their ministry at the center and in the surrounding villages will be difficult at best.

“I am scared now, more so than during the shooting,” she said. “Ephraim said do not be afraid, it is supposed to make us stronger.”

So Samir prays for strength for her husband to heal and for patience. In the meantime, she said she looks forward to the day when the struggles from the shooting are over and she can look back and see how God used it to shape them.

“There is a great work the Lord is doing in our lives, we may not know what the reason is now, but maybe some day we will,” Samir said.

Government Opposition
For the past 10 years, Shehata has tried to erect a church building, or at a minimum a house, that he could use as a dedicated community center. But local Muslims and Egypt’s State Security Investigations (SSI) agency have blocked him every step of the way. He had, until the shooting happened, all but given up on constructing the church building.

On numerous occasions, Shehata has been stopped from holding group prayer meetings after people complained to the SSI. In one incident, a man paid by a land owner to watch a piece of property near the community center complained to the SSI that Shehata was holding prayer meetings at the facility. The SSI made Shehata sign papers stating he wouldn’t hold prayer meetings at the center.

At one time, Shehata had hoped to build a house to use as a community center on property that had been given to him for that purpose. Residents spread a rumor that he was actually erecting a church building, and police massed at the property to prevent him from doing any construction.

There is no church in the town where Shehata lives or in the surrounding villages. Shehata admits he would like to put up a church building on the donated property but says it is impossible, so he doesn’t even try.

In Egypt constructing or even repairing a church building can only be done after a complex government approval process. In effect, it makes it impossible to build a place for Christian worship. By comparison, the construction of mosques is encouraged through a system of subsidies.

“It is not allowed to build a church in Egypt,” Shehata said. “We can’t build a house. We can’t build a community center. And we can’t build a church.”

Because of this, Shehata and his wife organize transportation from surrounding villages to St. Mark’s Cathedral in Samalut for Friday services and sacraments. Because of the lack of transportation options, the congregants are forced to ride in a dozen open-top cattle cars.

“We take them not in proper cars or micro-buses, but trucks – the same trucks we use to move animals,” he said.

The trip is dangerous. A year ago a man fell out of one of the trucks onto the road and died. Shehata said bluntly that Christians are dying in Egypt because the government won’t allow them to construct church buildings.

“I feel upset about the man who died on the way going to church,” he said.

Church-for-Charges Swap
The shooters who attacked Shehata and Samir are in jail awaiting trial. The couple has identified each of the men, but even if they hadn’t, finding them for arrest was not a difficult task. The village the attackers came from erupted in celebration when they heard the pastor and his wife were dead.

Shehata now sees the shooting as a horrible incident that can be turned to the good of the believers he serves. He said he finds it particularly frustrating that numerous mosques have sprouted up in his community and surrounding areas during the 10 years he has been prevented from putting up a church building, or even a house. There are two mosques alone on the street of the man who died while being trucked to church services, he said.

Shehata has decided to forgo justice in pursuit of an opportunity to finally construct a church building. He has approached the SSI through church leaders, saying that if he is allowed to construct a church building, then he will take no part in the criminal prosecution of the shooters.

“I have told the security forces through the priests that I will drop the case if they can let us build the church on the piece of land,” he said.

The proposal isn’t without possibilities. His trial has the potential of being internationally embarrassing. It raises questions about fairness in Egyptian society during an upcoming presidential election that will be watched by the world.

Regardless of what happens, Shehata said all he wants is peace and for the rights of Christians to be respected. He said that in Egypt, Christians have less value than the “birds of the air” mentioned in the Bible. According to Luke 12:6, five sparrows sold for two pennies in ancient times.

“We are not to be killed like birds, slaughtered,” he said. “We are human.”

Egyptian Couple Shot by Muslim Extremists Undaunted in Ministry
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I pray, and hope that the Lord protects them, and allows their ministry to flourish.

[Shammu]

Arab nations cheer Turkey for tough Israel stand
By Selcan Hacaoglu, Associated Press Writer
Jun 10, 7:20 am ET

ISTANBUL – Arab nations burst into applause Thursday as Turkey's prime minister walked to the podium at a summit, reflecting Turkey's meteoric rise on the world stage amid disputes over Israel's blockade of Gaza and U.N. sanctions against Iran.

The Turkish-Arab Economic Forum opened with calls for an international investigation into the May 31 Israeli commando raid on aid ships bound for Gaza, a topic emphasized by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

"Are we going to remain silent over the murder of nine people? We can't turn a blind eye to this banditry in international waters," Erdogan told the Turkish-Arab Economic Forum. "From now on, this can't continue as it is."

Arab league chief Amr Moussa also accused Israel continued "atrocity and assault" in violation of human rights and international law and praised Turkey for challenging Israel on the raid that left eight Turkish activists and a Turkish-American teenager dead.

Israel insists its commandoes acted in self-defense after being attacked by pro-Palestinian activists on the aid ships.

Moussa said the nine dead "are our martyrs as well."

Turkey's popularity in the Muslim world has surged as it led the world in condemning Israel for the raid on ships trying to break Israel's blockade of Gaza. Turkey — a non-Arab, predominantly Muslim country — also won favor among Arab allies for objecting to new sanctions against Iran, which the U.N. Security Council passed Wednesday after rejecting an Iranian nuclear fuel swap-deal brokered by Ankara.

"Arms, embargoes and exclusion are not working," Erdogan said, adding that the world was paying a heavy price as a result of such policies in Iraq and Afghanistan. "There are hundreds of thousands of widows, who will account for this? There are orphans, who will account for this? Those who turn this geography into this (mess) have to be held accountable."

Erdogan, however, said his country would still work to keep the nuclear swap-deal Turkey brokered to resolve the Iranian dispute on the table.

He strongly rejected allegations in the West that Turkey was shifting toward the East, describing such claims as "evil intentioned" and attempts to prevent Turkey from establishing relations with the Arab world.

Erdogan stressed Turkey's commitment to its membership bid in the European Union, but at the same time accused the EU countries of not being sincere and raising obstacles.

Lebanon's Prime Minister Saad Hariri and other foreign ministers from about 15 other Arab nations also attended the summit.

Hariri said the Middle East was suffering under Israel's "criminal and barbaric" attitude.

"We support Turkey's demands not only about the international investigation, but for Israel to apologize," Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said. "We support Turkey's demand to try those behind these acts."

Turkey also says Israel's partial easing of its Gaza blockade was not enough. At another summit in Istanbul earlier this week, Turkey and 21 Asian countries urged Israel to join the nuclear nonproliferation treaty and place its nuclear capabilities under the safeguards of the International Atomic Agency.

Turkey said Israel should not be left out from any scrutiny of its alleged nuclear arsenal, which Israel has never confirmed, and also said Iran should be able to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.

Although courting membership in the European Union, Turkey has also strengthened its ties with its Arab neighbors by mediating several conflicts, cultivating new relationships with former rivals such as Syria and Iran, forging free trade zones and gradually lifting mutual visa requirements.

The economic forum, set up in 2007, aims to build on a trade volume that soared to $29 billion last year between Turkey and Arab League countries, from $13 billion in 2004.

Erdogan said direct investments from the Middle East, Gulf and North African countries had reached a total of $8 billion in Turkey over the last five years — a figure that could be improved.

"These figures do not reflect our real potential, and we must work together harder to promote our economic and trade relations," Erdogan said. "We aim to create a free trade area with Arab countries."

Turkey already has free-trade agreements with Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Syria, Palestine and Tunisia, and is negotiating similar deals with Lebanon and Libya, he said.

Turkey also lifted entry visa requirements for Jordanians, Libyans, Syrians and Lebanese and would like to extend "the free-trade and visa-free zone" to other countries in the region, Erdogan said.

Arab nations cheer Turkey for tough Israel stand

[Shammu]

Turks sent to break Gaza siege were paid, armed

TEL AVIV — Israel's military has determined that scores of Turkish Islamists were paid and trained by elements close to their government to battle Israeli soldiers in Ankara's effort to break the siege on the Gaza Strip.

An Israeli military investigation, which included the interrogation of nearly 1,000 passengers of the six-ship flotilla sent to the Gaza Strip in late May, has concluded that nearly 100 Turkish Islamists were trained and financed by elements close to or in the government of Prime Minister Recep Erdogan to abduct or kill Israeli soldiers.

"There were no innocents among the dead," Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilna'i said.

The investigation found that the Turkish-flagged Marmara was allowed to leave Turkey with firearms and other weapons for a confrontation with the Israel Navy in the Mediterranean Sea in which nine passengers were killed.

[On June 7, the Israel Navy was reported to have foiled a sea-based insurgency strike from the Gaza Strip. The Israeli military said a squad of four frogmen was detected and killed as they left Gaza's Nusseirat refugee camp toward Israel.]

Officials said the Turkish government, particularly the new intelligence chief, Hakan Fidan, appeared to have collaborated with the Turkish Islamists on board Marmara. They said Turkish authorities failed to stop the Islamist fighters, nor seize the weapons, body armor and gas masks loaded on to the flotilla.

Most of the weapons and other military-related equipment were said to have been hurled into the sea as Israel Navy commandos boarded Marmara on May 31. The military said it recovered some of the equipment.

"This group boarded separately in a different city, organized separately, equipped itself separately and went on deck under different procedures," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on June 6. "In effect, they underwent no checks. The clear intent of this hostile group was to initiate a violent clash with Israel Defense Forces soldiers."

The military reported that several of the Turkish fighters fired toward the naval commando force, which took more than 30 minutes to commandeer Marmara. But the military determined that most of the shots were believed to have been fired from pistols and a rifle seized from the commandos. The exception was the use of a 9mm revolver not employed by the navy.

"We have credible testimony that the ship contained a range of weapons and possibly valuable components meant for delivery to the Gaza Strip," a military source said. "These items were thrown off the ship during the interception mission."

The investigation also determined that between 60 and 100 of the Turks aboard Marmara were trained and paid thousands of dollars each to battle the Israeli military. The sources said the money came through the Al Qaida-aligned Turkish organization IHH, a sponsor of the flotilla and linked to the Erdogan government.

The military identified five of the Marmara passengers as connected to Al Qaida and Hamas. They were Fatmia Mahmadi, a 31-year-old Iranian native who lives in the United States and sought to transport dual-use electronics to the Hamas regime in the Gaza Strip. Kenneth O'Keefe, a dual British-U.S. citizen, was said to have planned to train Hamas commando units, and Hassan Iynasi, who was reported to have helped both Al Qaida as well as Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

"[O'Keefe's] goal was to reach Gaza in order to help train and establish Hamas commando units," the military said on June 6.

In all, the sources said, at least 50 Turks were each found with an envelope that contained $10,000 in cash. They said none of these Turks carried passports or other identification.

"This is not the kind of money you get from your family," the source said. "This is the kind of money you get from a government."

The military investigation said the Turkish fighters, who employed axes, metal pipes, knives and saws, had tried to abduct at least three of the naval commandos and hold them below deck for ransom. But the commandos managed to flee their captors during the battle with the Israeli force and returned to the upper deck.

"We would have obtained much more information from them [Turkish Islamists] had we been able to hold them for a few days, but there was a political decision to release them immediately," the source said.

Turks sent to break Gaza siege were paid, armed

[Shammu]

Turkish opposition charges Erdogan exploiting, ramping up Israel conflict

ANKARA — Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan has encountered opposition regarding plans to suspend relations with Israel.

Opposition parliamentarians have accused Erdogan of engineering a crisis with Israel in an effort to mobilize Islamist support ahead of elections. The parliamentarians said Erdogan has been tainted by corruption and embezzlement in what has sharply reduced his electoral support.

"Erdogan uses the Ten Commandments as a tool," Turkish opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu said. "But the Eighth Commandment says, 'Thou shall not steal.' What about that?"

Opposition sources said Erdogan has been discussing the feasibility of moving up elections, scheduled for July 2011, to capitalize on the crisis with Israel. They said the prime minister, who has proposed that the government hire 50,000 people over the next year, hoped that his Islamist constituency would mobilize behind the ruling Justice and Development Party.

The opposition charged that Erdogan sought a confrontation with Israel when he supported a Turkish-sponsored flotilla to break the Egyptian and Israeli siege of the Gaza Strip. Opposition deputies said Ankara could have defused the situation through diplomacy with Jerusalem.

"He [Erdogan] almost declared war against Israel in his party's meeting [on June 1]," Kilicdaroglu said. "The Turkish Foreign Ministry should publicly disclose correspondence made with Israel so that we may all learn whether Israel warned Turkey or not. Nothing should remain secret."

Erdogan also faced criticism for his anti-Israeli policy from pro-Kurdish constituents. At one forum, the prime minister was asked how he could condemn Israel for the bloody naval interception of a Turkish-flagged ship to the Gaza Strip when Ankara was killing Kurdish insurgents.

"How can you compare the two?" Erdogan asked.

The prime minister has accused the opposition Republican People's Party of supporting Israel. Erdogan said the opposition wanted to limit the pro-Islamist government to conventional diplomacy.

"Some people speak in the name of Tel Aviv, advocate for Tel Aviv," Erdogan said. "They question our way of diplomacy. The way you did things put us in this dire situation. As I said earlier, we do not work as the 'mon cher' diplomats do."

But opposition sources and independent analysts asserted that Erdogan faced opposition to his anti-Israeli policy from within the Justice and Development Party, which commands a majority of parliament. They cited statements by the deputy prime minister as well as defense and foreign ministers that Ankara wanted to defuse the crisis with Israel.

"If the prime minister wants to understand who is the advocate of Tel Aviv, he should look to his right and he will see [Deputy Prime Minister] Bulent Arinc making different statements from the government," Kilicdaroglu told Turkish television on June 7.

In June, the cleric deemed as the Islamic guide of AKP criticized the Turkish-organized flotilla to the Gaza Strip. Fethullah Gulen, who heads the largest Muslim movement in Turkey and now lives in the United States, issued a statement that Ankara should have first received permission from Israel before sending the flotilla. Later, senior AKP officials agreed.

"The government is purposely changing the agenda of the country," Kilicdaroglu said. "Some 114 Turkish soldiers have died since the AKP's move to end the terror problem in the country. Likewise, there have been recent developments in the CHP's agenda regarding unemployment and poverty. However, all discussion of these topics has ended. Nobody talks about them anymore."

Turkish opposition charges Erdogan exploiting, ramping up Israel conflict
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Lord, I know you have said you would but, I'm asking anyway. Please protect Israel, the Jews, and Christians in Israel.

Thank you Lord Jesus.

[nChrist]

More Active Sun Means Nasty Solar Storms Ahead
SPACE.com Staff

UM? - I wonder if Al Gore will try to somehow use this to support his man-made-global-warming con game. NEWS FLASH FOR AL GORE:  only God controls the activity of the sun.

SCIENCE:

More activity on the sun = more heat

Less activity on the sun = less heat

Significant changes in the activity of the sun could fry or freeze us, and God is in complete control of the thermostat.

[nChrist]

Muslims Order Christians to Leave Village in Pakistan
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Islam is showing their true colors, hate, lies, deceivers, and rapists. I don't think I need say anymore, so my temper doesn't boil over.

Brother, I understand and agree completely. This is a good reminder for us to give thanks for our safety and freedom to worship. It's also a good reminder for us to pray for persecuted Christians around the world every day. These rapists and murderers might not get justice from the hands of men, BUT THEY WILL FROM GOD!

Love In Christ,
Tom

[Shammu]

UM? - I wonder if Al Gore will try to somehow use this to support his man-made-global-warming con game. NEWS FLASH FOR AL GORE:  only God controls the activity of the sun.

SCIENCE:

More activity on the sun = more heat

Less activity on the sun = less heat

Significant changes in the activity of the sun could fry or freeze us, and God is in complete control of the thermostat.

I was surprised, to read a majority of Americans still believe in the "Global Warming" farce.............. And I see, I didn't post it, so I will.

[Shammu]

Majority of Americans Still 'Believe' in Global Warming
LiveScience Staff

LiveScience.com livescience Staff

livescience.com Wed Jun 9, 9:05 pm ET

Three out of four Americans believe our planet has been warming as the result of human activity, down from the 84 percent who said so in 2007, according to survey results released today.

"Several national surveys released during the last eight months have been interpreted as showing that fewer and fewer Americans believe that climate change is real, human-caused and threatening to people," said Woods Institute Fellow Jon Krosnick, of Stanford University. "But our new survey shows just the opposite."

With funding from the National Science Foundation, Krosnick conducted the survey from June 1-7, including telephone interviews with 1,000 randomly selected adults.

When asked if the Earth's temperature probably had been heating up over the last 100 years, 74 percent of the respondents said yes. And 75 percent said that human behavior was substantially responsible for any warming that has occurred.

Behind the shifts

As for the decline between 2007 and now, Krosnick said it is "attributable to perceptions of recent weather changes by the minority of Americans who have been skeptical about climate scientists."

In terms of average Earth temperature, 2008 was the coldest year since 2000, Krosnick said, adding that these year-to-year fluctuations in temperature aren't meaningful in the overall picture of Earth's climate trends.

Even so, "people who do not trust climate scientists base their conclusions on their personal observations of nature," Krosnic said. "These 'low-trust' individuals were especially aware of the recent decline in average world temperatures; they were the ones in our survey whose doubts about global warming have increased since 2007."

The decline in those who support the idea that global warming is occurring is just temporary, Krosnic said, adding that if the temperatures on Earth increase again, so will this group's leaning with the large majority who agree our planet is on a warming trend.

Climate skeptics

The so-called climategate controversy, in which e-mail messages were hacked from the computer system at the University of East Anglia in England and characterized climate scientists as colluding to silence unconvinced colleagues, made headlines in December 2009 and had many suggesting it would negatively impact the public's view of the validity of climate-change science.

That didn't bear out in this survey, with only 9 percent of respondents saying they knew about the East Anglia e-mail messages and believing they indicate that climate scientists should not be trusted. Only 13 percent said the same about the controversial Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports. There was some controversy over a few errors in the reports that scientists have said are minor in the grand scope of climate science and do not change the fundamental findings of the report.

"Overall, we found no decline in Americans' trust in environmental scientists," Krosnick said. "Fully 71 percent of respondents said they trust scientists a moderate amount, a lot or completely."

Results also suggest Americans support government action to combat global warming, including:

    * 86 percent of respondents said they wanted the federal government to limit the amount of air pollution businesses emit;
    * 78 percent opposed taxes on electricity to reduce consumption, and 72 percent opposed taxes on gasoline;
    * 84 percent favored the federal government offering tax breaks to encourage utilities to use more alternative energy sources, such as making electricity from water, wind and solar power;
    * 4 out of 5 respondents favored the government requiring or offering tax breaks to encourage the production of cars that use less gas (81 percent), appliances that use less electricity (80 percent) and homes and office buildings that require less energy to heat and cool (80 percent);
    * And only 14 percent said that the United States should not take action to combat global warming unless other major industrial countries, such as China and India, do so as well.

However, a recent survey by esearchers at Yale and George Mason universities found that while most Americans like the idea of conservation, few practice it in their everyday lives.

Majority of Americans Still 'Believe' in Global Warming

[sigourney w.]

There are increasing numbers of scientists coming out against global warming, I think the main motive behind this theory is a global power grab, to control land use and industry through enviromental rules and regulations. It"s no surprise the majority of Americans believe it they are continually bombarded by the liberal media with propaganda. We had a bone chilling winter here in Carolina I would have liked any kind of warming.