Turkey and the 100,000 Armenians
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish prime minister … did something extraordinary. He threatened to expel 100,000 Armenians from Turkey. “They are not my citizens. I am not obliged to keep them in my country.” My citizens? My country? Mass expulsion? This is the mind-set and the language of a dictator.
One of the mysteries of official Turkey is the point-blank refusal to discuss the deaths of probably 1.5 million Armenians as a result of the First World War. These unfortunates were faced with massacre or flight, which usually amounted to the same thing. Genocide is a valid description. Hitler, you remember, used the precedent of the Armenians to apply to the Jews.
In contrast, Turkish intellectuals, including historians and the Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk, do not flinch from examining what happened, even though they may be penalised by the state for it.
A Congressional Foreign Affairs Committee has just passed a resolution that the fate of the Armenians was indeed genocide. The Swedish parliament has passed a similar motion. Turkey has recalled its ambassadors to the capitals concerned. Erdogan doesn’t seem to realise it, but the threat now to expel 100,000 Armenians is an open admission of a guilty conscience.
Extract from: David Pryce-Jones blog, National Review, March 18, 2010.
Britain faces an increased threat of a nuclear attack by al-Qaeda terrorists following a rise in the trafficking of radiological material, a government report has warned.
Bomb-makers who have been active in Afghanistan may already have the ability to produce a “dirty bomb” using knowledge acquired over the internet.
It is feared that terrorists could transport an improvised nuclear device up the Thames and detonate it in the heart of London. Bristol, Liverpool, Newcastle, Glasgow and Belfast are also thought to be vulnerable. …
Downing Street released an update to the National Security Strategy in which it stated that “the UK does face nuclear threats now” and added that there was “the possibility that nuclear weapons or nuclear material fall into the hands of rogue states or terrorist groups”.
The International Atomic Energy Authority recorded 1,562 incidents where nuclear material was lost or stolen between 1993 and 2008, mostly in the former Soviet Union, and 65 per cent of the losses were never recovered.
Another report, on the Government’s “Contest” counter-terrorism strategy, said there was a danger that the increased expertise of insurgents in making bombs in Afghanistan had increased the threat from a radiological “dirty bomb”.
Extract from: Duncan Gardham, The Tele-graph (UK), March 22, 2010.
Can Christian organisations survive in a “tolerant” age?
Can a Christian organisation remain Christian in a culture of postmodern “tolerance”? That question is the focus of a case soon to come before the US Supreme Court.
Controversy arose about five years ago, when leaders of the Christian Legal Society (CLS) chapter at the University of California Hastings College of Law asserted the national policy of the organisation, which states: “In view of the clear dictates of Scripture, unrepentant participation in and advocacy of a sexually immoral lifestyle is inconsistent with an affirmation of the Statement of Faith.”
The issue before the nation’s high court is “whether a Christian student group’s right to religious liberty and the freedom of association can trump a university’s ban on discrimination against gays and lesbians”. Of course, another way of stating the same issue is this: Must a Christian organisation surrender its Christian convictions in order to be recognised by a secular university?
Extract from: Albert Mohler’s blog, March 22, 2010.
