MidnightWatcher – Prophecy in Motion

Revelation 13:3a, “And I saw one of his heads as if it had been mortally wounded, and his deadly wound was healed …”

By Sergei Balmasov – “A hundred years after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, Turkey is re-emerging on the international arena. Furthermore, it intends to regain the ground lost in the 19th-20th centuries, which is a direct threat to the interests of all the neighboring countries, including Russia.
 Consider the actions of the Turkish leadership during the past weeks that have caused serious concerns in Israel, Syria, Iraq, Iran and the EU.

Particularly noteworthy are the frictions of Ankara and Tel Aviv, which raise questions about preservation of the Alliance between the two. The Turkish leadership provides a strong support to the Palestinians, and threatened to appeal to the international authorities with a demand to monitor the Israeli nuclear program and promised to prevent the development of Israeli-rich gas fields in the Mediterranean.

Finally, a serious concern in Israel was caused by the fact that on September 7, Turkey announced its intention to sign an important military agreement with Egypt during a corresponding visit of the Turkish government. Of course, this is a historic day in the history of the entire Middle East. Given the sharp rise in anti-Israel sentiment in Turkey and in Egypt, as well as the ongoing processes of evolution of power in several North African countries, the concerns of Israelis about the activity of Ankara on the Egyptian direction are quite understandable.
” Read more.

Report: Erdogan plans to visit Iran – “Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said that he plans to pay a visit to Iran in the near future, according to Turkish media. Erdogan made the announcement in an interview with reporters in Tunisia on Thursday. Erdogan’s visit to Tehran will be important because Turkey has agreed to host an early warning radar as part of NATO’s missile defense system, which is ostensibly meant to counter an alleged ballistic missile threat from Iran. Tehran has expressed disapproval of the decision.” Read more.

Iran FM: Arab Spring heralds emergence of Islamic Middle East – “Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Salehi on Sunday told a conference in Tehran that the Arab Spring is heralding the emergence of an Islamic Middle East, PressTV reported. Speaking at a conference on ‘Islamic Awakening,’ the Iranian foreign minister attributed the developments in the Arab world to ‘the unhealthy and oppressive relations between certain governments and their nations’ in recent decades.” Read more.

Turkey Predicts Alliance With Egypt as Regional Anchors – “A newly assertive Turkey offered on Sunday a vision of a starkly realigned Middle East, where the country’s former allies in Syria and Israel fall into deeper isolation, and a burgeoning alliance with Egypt underpins a new order in a region roiled by revolt and revolution. The portrait was described by Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu of Turkey in an hourlong interview before he was to leave for the United Nations, where a contentious debate was expected this week over a Palestinian bid for recognition as a state.” Read more.

By David Kerr – “New research suggests there are now more practising Muslims in France than practising Catholics.

While 64 percent of French people describe themselves as Roman Catholic, only 2.9 percent of the population actually practice the Catholic faith. That compares to 3.8 percent of the population who practice the Muslim faith. The research was carried out by the French Institute of Public Opinion on behalf of the Catholic newspaper La Croix.

More worrying for Islamic authorities in France is the finding that only 41 percent of the country’s 6 million Muslims actually describe themselves as ‘practising,’ although 75 percent are happy to label themselves ‘believers.’ Seventy-percent also claim to observe the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

Most French Muslims hail from the country’s former colonies in North and sub-Saharan Africa.

There is also further evidence that mosques are being erected at a much faster rate than Catholic churches. Mohammed Moussaoui, President of the Muslim Council of France, last month estimated that 150 new mosques are currently under construction across the country.

By contrast, the Catholic Church in France has built only 20 new churches during the past decade, and has formally closed more than 60 churches. Many of these are now destined to become mosques, according to La Croix.

Research in 2009 by the Amsterdam School for Social Science Research suggested that nearly 500 new mosques were built between 2001 and 2006, taking the present total to over 2,000. Many of these new buildings, however, were erected to re-accommodate local Islamic communities who had previously been using temporary accommodation – the so-called ‘Islam of the basements.’

One of France’s most prominent Muslim leaders, Dalil Boubakeur, who is the head of the Grand Mosque of Paris, recently called for the number of mosques in the country to be doubled again – to 4,000 – to meet growing demand.” Read more.

By Henry Samuel – “Claude Guéant said that ban could later be extended to the rest of France, in particular to the Mediterranean cities of Nice and Marseilles, where ‘the problem persists’.

He promised the new legislation would be followed to the letter as it ‘hurts the sensitivities of many of our fellow citizens’.

‘My vigilance will be unflinching for the law to be applied. Praying in the street is not dignified for religious practice and violates the principles of secularism,’ the minister told Le Figaro newspaper.

‘All Muslim leaders are in agreement,’ he insisted.

In December when Marine Le Pen, then leader-in-waiting of the far-Right National Front, sparked outrage by likening the practice to the Nazi occupation of Paris in the Second World War ‘without the tanks or soldiers’. She said it was a ‘political act of fundamentalists’.

More than half of right-wing sympathisers in France agreed with Marine Le Pen, at least one poll suggested.

Nicolas Sarkozy’s party denounced the comments, but the President called for a debate on Islam and secularism and went on to say that multiculturalism had failed in France.

Following the debate, Mr Guéant promised a countrywide ban ‘within months’, saying the ‘street is for driving in, not praying’.

In April, a ban on wearing the full Islamic veil came into force. Holland today became the third European country to ban the burka, after Belgium, despite the fact fewer than 100 Dutch women are thought to wear the face-covering Islamic dress.

Yesterday, Mr Guéant said the prayer problem was limited to two roads in the Goutte d’Or district of Paris’s eastern 19th arrondissement, where ‘more than a thousand’ people blocked the street every Friday.

However, a stroll through several districts in Paris on a Friday suggests that Muslims spill into the streets outside many mosques.” Read more.

Flashback: In France, far right seizes on Muslim street prayers – “A call to prayer goes up from a loudspeaker perched on the hood of a car, and all at once hundreds of Muslim worshippers touch their foreheads to the ground, forming a sea of backs down the road. The scene is taking place not in downtown Cairo, but on a busy market street in northern Paris, a short walk from the Sacre Coeur basilica. To locals, it’s old news: some have been praying on the street, rain or shine, for decades. But for Marine Le Pen — tipped to take over from her father this weekend as leader of the far-right National Front party — it is proof that Muslims are taking over France and becoming an occupying force, according to remarks she made last month.” Read more.