In 1952, the Turkish government allowed members of the Ottoman family to return to Turkey, and the prince and princess moved to Istanbul in 1957. The princess took the surname Osmanoglu, or son of Osman, along with other surviving members of the dynasty. Neslisah Sultan is survived by a son, daughter and a grandson. Her nephew, Abdulhamid Kayihan Osmanoglu didn’t reveal the cause of death. The princess, was the oldest member of the Ottoman dynasty.

Historian Murat Bardakci, whose biography of the princess was published last year quotes her,”When we were in exile we lived longing for the country. “My mother had friends who would go to Istanbul. I would ask them to bring me back a bit of soil from Istanbul, but none did.” “When I go out in the streets, I see that all nice things were built by my grandfathers.” “I therefore cannot help think that they belong to me. I feel like I am a part of this place and that I belong to this land.”

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan stated, “She was the poster-child for nobleness who carried the blood of Osman, referring to Osman I, the Anatolian ruler who established the Ottoman Empire. “We remember her with high regard and our blessings.”

The patriarch, known in Arabic as Baba Shenouda, headed one of the most ancient churches in the world, which traced it founding to St. Mark, who is recognized to have brought Christianity to Egypt in the 1st Century during the reign of the Roman emperor Nero. Shenouda was born Nazeer Gayed on Aug. 3, 1923, in the southern city of Assiut.

After entering the priesthood, he became an activist in the Sunday School movement, which was launched to revive Christian religious education. At the age of 31, Gayed became a monk, taking the name Antonious El-Syriani and spending six years in the monastery of St. Anthony. After the death of Pope Cyrilos VI, he was elected to the papacy and took the name Pope Shenouda III in 1971.

He is an author of many books, and over the past three decades he has kept the custom of giving a Wednesday lecture. Throughout, he insisted on the Copts’ place in Egypt, where they lived before the advent of Islam. “Egypt is not a country we live in but a country that lives within us,” he often said.

Egypt’s estimated 10 million Coptic Christians, found Shenouda to be a religious thinker and a charismatic leader, also known for his sense of humour. Many Copts saw him as the guardian of their minority living amid a majority Muslim population in Egypt, a country of more than 80 million people.

Pope Shenouda III clashed with the government in 1981 when he accused the government of failing to rein in Muslim extremists. President Anwar Sadat sent him into internal exile in the desert monastery of Wadi Natrun, north of Cairo. Sadat, who was assassinated later that year by Islamic militants, accused Shenouda of fomenting sectarianism. Mubarak ended Shenouda’s exile in 1985, allowing him to return to Cairo.

Many Copts saw Mubarak as their best protection against Islamic fundamentalists and the Muslim Brotherhood but at the same time, Mubarak’s government often made concessions to conservative Muslims to keep their support. During the 1990s, Islamic militants launched a campaign of violence, centred in southern Egypt, targeting foreign tourists, police and Christians until they were put down by a heavy crackdown. Pope Shenouda managed to contain the Coptic community’s anger over the killings. During the rule of President Hosni Mubarak, Shenouda gave strong support to his government, while avoiding pressing Coptic demands vocally in public to prevent a backlash from Muslim conservatives.

After Mubarak’s fall in 2011, Christians grew increasingly worried over the rising power of Muslim conservatives. Islamic extremists carried out a string of attacks on churches and their clerics alleged that Christians were hoarding weapons and seeking to take over the country.

In the past six years, Muslim-Christian violence has escalated. On New Year’s eve of 2000, sectarian battles killed 21 Copts and a Muslim in the southern village of el-Kusheh. The northern city of Alexandria twice saw sectarian bloodshed in 2005 when Muslims rioted over an anti-Islamic play put on in a church and again in early 2006 when Christians rioted over a series of knife attacks at Coptic Christian churches.

Christian anger over the violence further escalated when troops violently stopped a Christian protest in Cairo, killing 27 people. In an unprecedented move aimed at showing unity, leaders from the Muslim Brotherhood along with top generals from the ruling military joined Shenouda for services for Orthodox Christmas in January 2012 at Cairo’s main cathedral. A sector of Christians who supported the revolution against Mubarak were critical of Shenouda, claiming his conservative approach was provoked the escalation of anti-Christian violence and discrimination against their community.

Shenouda preferred back-channel efforts with the government while Copts have pressed for a greater representation in government, but their numbers remain small. Shenouda largely worked to contain anger among Copts. In a 2004 incident, he stepped aside to allow Coptic protests in an effort to win concessions from the government. While Copts protested, Shenouda isolated himself at the Saint Bishoy monastery north of Cairo until the government intervened to ensure Constantine returned home.

The protests were sparked when Wafa Constantine, the wife of a Coptic priest, fled her home to convert to Islam. Many Christians accused police of encouraging Christians to convert or even kidnapping them and forcing them to do so. She was later quoted as stating she converted to Islam because she wanted a divorce from her husband, which is banned by the Coptic Church.

Shenouda has been challenged by secular Copts who call for reform in the church and reducing the role of clergymen in Christians’ life. Many secularists argue that the clergy’s dominance over every single aspect of Christians lives has fed their sense of separation from Egypt’s Muslims, just as Islamic clerics have on the other side of the divide. Shenouda kept a strict line on church doctrine including the ban on divorce, except in cases of adultery.

Christian emigration has increased by the growing influence of conservative Islam in Egyptian society. Coptic immigrants in the United States, Canada, and Australia number an estimated 1.5 million, and the number of Coptic churches abroad has grown from two to more than 100, according to the pope’s official Web site.

With the death of Pope Shenouda III, a church insider stated that an internal power struggle has been looming over the church, between two of the top archbishops and close assistants to the pope: Archbishops Bishoy and Johannes; both of them are rallying supporters to win more votes in the election of the new Pope.

Iran on Saturday hanged a man convicted of multiple rapes of 37 women whom he coerced by filming acts with them, the Fars and ILNA news agencies reported. Isfahan’s prosecutor, Mohammad Reza Habibi, was quoted by ILNA as stating the man “video-taped the victims at his home and used the the films for future abuses.” He did not go into further detail.

The man, aged 67, was executed in a prison in the central city of Isfahan after four years of repeated appeals against his sentence. The official issued a warning to women in the region to “not fall prey to tricksters who seek to sexually abuse them.”

The hanging brought to 219 the number of executions reported in Iran so far this year, according to an AFP tally based on media and official reports. Human Rights Watch tallied 388 execution cases in Iran in 2010, while Amnesty International put the figure at 252, ranking the Islamic republic second only to China in the number of people put to death last year.

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According to the report, the top advisor stated that if Anakara does not distance itself from its hostile attitude, which aims to please the United States, “The Turkish people will turn against it, and Syria, Iran and Iraq will reexamine their ties with it.”

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There is a book called As Easy as Drinking Water, by Afshin Javid, a devout Muslim from Iran. Javid describes how he used “jinn” (spirits) to attack his enemies, in effect, how his religion of Islam taught him to hurl occult curses on those he hated.

Javid states, “Westerners are at least casually familiar with the notion of contacting the supernatural realm by means of séances, meditative techniques, Ouija boards, and magical spells,” he writes.

“The concept of interaction with the spirit realm is present and, in fact, well-known in Islam. Muslims believe in the existence of a parallel race of spirit beings referred to as the Jinn, from which the English word ‘Genie’ is derived.

The Jinn are not considered equivalent to angels and demons but are lesser spirit beings. The Koran frequently discusses the Jinn, indicating they are made from fire, as opposed to human, who are formed from clay.

The Koran also has many verses in which Mohammad addresses the Jinn directly with exhortations beginning, ‘O you assembly of Jinns and men.’ Muslims believe that the Jinn, like us, have the choice to be religious or not and can decide, therefore, to be Muslim or not.”

Javid states, “My contact with the Jinn occurred as a direct result of meditation in the scriptures of the Koran. To be more specific, in the Koran there are certain Surahs which begin with sets of Arabic letters having no apparent meaning. These are referred to as the ‘Secrets’ or the ‘Mysterious Letters’ of the Koran. I had begun meditative chanting of the Secrets of the Koran some time earlier, and by this means I had developed frequent communication with the Jinn. I had learned the practice of calling on them in order to make things happen either for a favor for me or a friend, or payback to an enemy for wrong done to me.”

Heeding Islamic teachings, Javid called on the Jinn to hurt others. Speaking of a guard he hated, Javid writes, “I prayed a curse on him as I summoned all of my contempt, all of my hatred, all of my violent thoughts, and all of my disgust for this pagan. I gathered all the darkness, all the blackness, and all the poison I could summon into a curse, drew my gaze toward him, fixed my eyes on his, took a deep breath, and blew all that spiritual venom across the room like a spitting cobra.

“Suddenly, a look of terror crossed his face. He grabbed his throat and began gasping for air. I maintained eye contact with him and let him suffer for a while. He looked up and flipped his head back and forth as if he were trying to shake himself free. I finally withdrew the prayer and he was able to breathe again. He knew I had been given powers from another realm, and he ran down the hall and never mocked me again. I am not exaggerating when I say that those whom I cursed would, within days, have an accident or get sick. “These powers were obtained by the chanting, recitation, and meditation on the scripture of the Koran alone and from no other book, teaching, or coaching.”

Javid states he would communicate with the Jinn “conversationally” and heard their audible voices when the spirits entered his room (requesting recitation of the Koran). They rewarded him with psychic powers (the ability to tell what others were doing in other rooms). It is not fair to say that all or even most Muslims go to this extent. And indeed, there are good people in all religions (and we need to focus on that goodness). Javid was such a devout Muslim that he fasted for weeks at a time.

“Robert James Woolsey, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, told a conference in Washington recently that America needs to realize that it’s “at war” with those who would spread Islamic, or Shariah, law, imposing such beliefs on Christians, an especially daunting possibility when one reckons the occultism that might also be imposed (along with persecution, which already is rampant).

We can’t ignore occult aspects from which they need deliverance. The admissions are not insignificant when we consider the rapid growth of Islam and the widespread hatred among many Muslims of the West. Some have even feared that Islam may one day spawn an “anti-christ.”

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A military court in Gaza City has sentenced a Palestinian Authority Arab resident of Rafiah to death by hanging after convicting him of “spying in favor of an enemy state.” The identity of the enemy state was not revealed. The man, 26-year-old Fadel Msallam Shallouf, was sentenced to death for having violated the Palestinian Revolutionary Penal Code of 1979 of the Palestine Liberation Organization. Shallouf was kidnapped on January 10, 2010 by terrorists from the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC), according to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), who said the group handed him over to Gaza’s Internal Security Service a week later.

The organization noted in a news release that the death sentence was the fourth to be handed down in Hamas-ruled Gaza so far since January of this year. Moreover, the Palestinian Authority itself has issued 116 death sentences since its own establishment in 1994, including 23 that were handed down in Judea and Samaria. Of those, 19 were actually carried out including one on May 4, 2011. Last year, the Hamas de facto government in Gaza executed five death sentences.

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The ICC prosecutors stated Qaddafi should be charged for torture, murder and the brutal suppression of opponents. The Hague’s chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, told a press conference that Qaddafi’s forces have shot at demonstrators and at people leaving mosques and have shelled funeral processions.

NATO forces are restricted by a United Nations Security Council mandate to use force only to protect Libyan civilians. NATO General Sir David Richards stated he wants permission to increase pressure on the Libyan dictator. Although he insisted that Qaddafi is not a target, he conceded that it would be “within the rules” if Qaddafi were killed as a result of an attack on his command center.

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The shooting was carried out by two men on a motorbike and appeared to be linked to last week’s grenade attack on the mission, which caused some damage but no injuries.The diplomat who was driving a silver Toyota Corona and was alone appeared to be on his way to work, stated police officer Zameer Husain Abbasi. He said a 9 mm pistol was used in the assault. Monday’s attack took place not far from the consulate building.

Saudi Arabia has funded hardline Sunni groups in Pakistan for years, angering its minority Shiites. Meanwhile, Iran has channeled money to Shiite groups, and in the 1980 and 1990s the country was the scene of an effective proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia, with Karachi a violent city of 18 million people as a bloody battleground of ethnic, sectarian and political tensions.

Pakistan is a majority Sunni Muslim country, and most of its Shiite and Sunni citizens live with each other peacefully. But extremists on both sides have targeted each other’s leaders for many years. Several of Pakistan’s Sunni extremist groups also are allied with the Taliban and the al-Qaida terrorist network, who view Shiites as infidels. The Sunni-Shiite schism over the true heir to Islam’s Prophet Muhammad dates to the seventh century.

Pakistan’s alliance with Sunni rulers in the Middle East has come under the spotlight since the uprisings there this year. A company with strong links to the country’s army announced it was sending 1,000 Pakistanis to Sunni-led Bahrain to help its security forces put down an uprising by its majority Shiites, angering Pakistani Shiites.

The attacks on the consulate and its staff also follow the May 2 U.S. raid in northwest Pakistan that killed Osama bin Laden, the Saudi-born chief of al-Qaida. Saudi Arabia stripped bin Laden of citizenship and has fought al-Qaida, but money from some of its citizens is believed to help bankroll the terrorist network, which has carried out scores of attacks inside Pakistan over the last 10 years.

In a statement, Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani condemned the attack and “expressed deep grief and sorrow over the tragic death of the Saudi diplomat.”

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The officials did not reveal where in the compound the pornography was discovered. Reports from Abbottabad have stated that bin Laden’s compound was cut off from the Internet or other hard-wired communications networks. It is unclear how compound residents would have acquired the pornography.

A video released by the Obama administration confiscated from the compound showed bin Laden watching pictures of himself on a TV screen, indicating that the compound was equipped with video playback equipment. Materials carted away from the compound by the U.S. commandos included digital thumb drives, which U.S. officials believe may have been a principal means by which couriers carried electronic messages to and from the late al-Qaida leader.

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