Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on December 6, 2017
Is nationalism best served by expressing passionate sentiments for one’s country in song or does a nation’s progress need more than love? Egyptians’ tendency to voice their emotional attachment to their country is not only a sign of hypocrisy; it also aims at highlighting their dependence on the state and, in turn, enhances the state’s prominence and citizens’ need for it.
Egypt is one of a few countries that produce numerous songs in praise of national glory. We sing in praise of the pyramids, the Sphinx, the Nile, ancient monuments and of course our civilization in general. The Egyptian government obviously supports this trend, rewarding such singers by enrolling them into its entourage. However, simultaneously while celebrating these songs, many of us abuse our national resources — by engaging in the illegal trafficking and mistreatment of our ancient relics, for example.
Our government is constantly repeating that the Nile is a matter of life or death for the Egyptian people. Yet we have been carelessly damaging this lifeline for decades by inefficiently consuming our share of the river’s water, polluting it with waste, and mismanaging our conflict with Ethiopia over Nile water allocation. Nonetheless, along with the abuse, we maintain our sentiments for the river, saying that visitors who drink from the Nile will always come back to our country.
Sadly, we have been carelessly damaging the Nile for decades by inefficiently consuming our share of its water, polluting it with waste disposal, and mismanaging our conflict with Ethiopia over water allocation.
The Egyptian singer who spent years singing a very emotional and popular song in praise of the Nile is currently being prosecuted because of a word that slipped out as she tried to make a joke at a live concert. Meanwhile, millions of citizens who have been abusing the Nile for decades continue to do so without being penalized.
Zooming out, many Egyptians often express their sentiments for the military and police apparatus that protect our national security, apparently convinced that spending their time singing for our soldiers who are facing terrorists and enemies on the front line is a serious pursuit that helps to keep our country in good shape. Not only is this hypocritical, it also reflects an unjust attitude toward citizens who put their lives on the line and to others whose utmost contribution is to express their love.
Many Egyptians are privileged by the state for humming “Long Live Egypt” in song. The phrase has become a password used by people to express loyalty to their country, in return for which they are granted state positions and immunity from being held to account for their ineffectiveness or for involvement in corruption. Meanwhile, Egyptians who want to play a constructive role in the development of their country are marginalized for not being in tune with the rhythm required by the state.
“Rest assured that we will solve the problem,” was President El-Sisi’s recent response to the grave concerns of Egyptians regarding their share of Nile River water upon learning that technical negotiations with the Ethiopian government on the Renaissance Dam had come to a deadlock. In my view, the Egyptian government should have negotiated this issue and struck a deal with Ethiopia when the dam was still a proposal. Now that it is close to realization, reaching a solution is infinitely more complicated.
Seeing the government lose a number of internal and external political battles makes us justifiably concerned. Candidness is not as essential a quality for a ruler as competence; a competent ruler would be able to solve our challenges — or at least to provide some sign that we are on the right track. Sadly, the Nile conflict might drag Egypt into an unpleasant internal scenario that could have been avoided had the issue been addressed well in advance.
Source: ArabNews
My Note: Such a rational thought is found very rarely among Arab folks, good observation! Egypt should better start begging Ethiopia for each drop of Nile water.Here another fake report on Qatar financing the Great Renaissance Dam. Just unbelievable – even more unbelievable how some commentators share their primitively disgusting racialist thoughts. This sort of thing is all over the net, lately. How sad!
Worries over water security for millions of people prompted the Arab League yesterday to say it is following “with extreme concern” talks between Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia over the latter’s Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), which it is building on the Blue Nile.
Ethiopia was not “cooperating and coordinating enough”, said Ahmed Abul-Gheit, secretary general of the league, a regional association of 22 countries in Africa and the Middle East.
“We do not feel that Ethiopia was cooperating and coordinating enough. The Ethiopian plans to operate the dam and use its water in irrigation are ambiguous and concerning,” he said, reportsEgyptian news site Ahramonline.
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on November 15, 2017
A famous Egyptian singer faces trial for “spreading provocative publicity” after she suggested that drinking from the River Nile could make someone ill.
A lawsuit was filed after video emerged showing Sherine Abdel Wahab being asked at a concert last year to sing Mashrebtesh Men Nilha (Have You Drunk From The Nile?)
She responded by saying “drinking from the Nile will get me schistosomiasis” – a disease commonly known as bilharzia.
“Drink Evian, it’s better,” she added.
On Tuesday, the Egyptian Musicians Syndicate announced that it banned the 37 year old from performing over her “unjustified mockery of our dear Egypt”.
The union said it had opened an investigation and would not grant Abdel Wahab the necessary permits until she appeared before officials to answer questions.
“My beloved country Egypt and sons of my country Egypt, I apologise to you with all my heart for any pain I may have caused you,” she added.
But on Wednesday, state newspaper al-Ahram reported that Abdel Wahab would face trial on 23 December at a Cairo misdemeanours court on the charge of “spreading provocative publicity”. A lawsuit accused her of insulting the Egyptian state and undermining efforts to produce tourism, it said.
State television would also no longer play her songs, according to al-Ahram.
My Note: Actually, Egyptians should listen to her, and better beginn storing enough Evian water, perhaps, beneath the Pyramids, as they won’t be able to drink from the Ethiopian Nile soon.
[Isaiah 19:5-8]
The waters of the river will dry up,
and the riverbed will be parched and dry.
The canals will stink;
the streams of Egypt will dwindle and dry up.
The reeds and rushes will wither,
also the plants along the Nile,
at the mouth of the river.
Every sown field along the Nile
will become parched, will blow away and be no more.
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on October 20, 2017
Abstract
Volcanic eruptions provide tests of human and natural system sensitivity to abrupt shocks because their repeated occurrence allows the identification of systematic relationships in the presence of random variability. Here we show a suppression of Nile summer flooding via the radiative and dynamical impacts of explosive volcanism on the African monsoon, using climate model output, ice-core-based volcanic forcing data, Nilometer measurements, and ancient Egyptian writings. We then examine the response of Ptolemaic Egypt (305–30 BCE), one of the best-documented ancient superpowers, to volcanically induced Nile suppression. Eruptions are associated with revolt onset against elite rule, and the cessation of Ptolemaic state warfare with their great rival, the Seleukid Empire. Eruptions are also followed by socioeconomic stress with increased hereditary land sales, and the issuance of priestly decrees to reinforce elite authority. Ptolemaic vulnerability to volcanic eruptions offers a caution for all monsoon-dependent agricultural regions, presently including 70% of world population.
Introduction
The need to adapt to and mitigate the impacts of anthropogenic climate change has revived interest in longstanding but unsettled questions concerning how past climatic changes have influenced human societies1. Egypt provides a unique historical laboratory in which to study social vulnerability and response to abrupt hydroclimatic shocks. As one of the Ancient World’s great “hydraulic civilizations”2, its prosperity was overwhelmingly tied to the annual cycle of Nile summer flooding, with diminished flooding (Nile failure) often associated with major human impacts through its many millennia of recorded history3. Of all Ancient Egyptian history, that of Ptolemaic Egypt (305–30 BCE; Fig. 1a) is most richly furnished with contemporary documentation. As the longest-lived successor to Alexander the Great’s empire, the Ptolemaic state was a major force in the transformative Hellenistic era, a period marked by large-scale conflict but also material and cultural achievement. Ptolemaic Egypt featured one of the largest cities of the Ancient Mediterranean (Alexandria), including the Great Library and Lighthouse, and was a hub for invention, boasting minds such as Euclid and Archimedes. Technological advances such as the saqiya4, a rotary-wheel water-lifting machine documented by the mid-third century BCE, maslin (mixed wheat-barley) cropping, as well as grain storage, acted to mitigate the impacts of the mercurial Nile flood. Families also distributed land in geographically dispersed individual shares to further hedge against the risk of Nile failure, and tailored agricultural decisions to annual flood conditions6. External territories (e.g., Anatolia, Syria) capable of rainfed agriculture also helped buffer the state against Nile failure. The existence of these mitigation and adaptation strategies highlights the importance of managing Nile variability in Ptolemaic Egypt, yet discussion of the impact of hydroclimatic shocks is effectively absent from modern histories of the period.
At ~6825 km, the Nile is among the Earth’s great rivers, fed by rainfall in Africa’s equatorial plateau (mainly via the White Nile) and the Ethiopian Highlands (mainly via the Blue Nile and Atbara rivers)8. Before twentieth century damming, the summer flood, driven primarily by monsoon rainfall in the Ethiopian highlands, began with rising waters observed at Aswan as early as June, peaking from August to September, and largely receding by the end of October, when crop sowing began2. Nile flood suppression from historical eruptions has been little studied, despite Nile failures with severe social impacts coinciding with eruptions su
Explosive eruptions can perturb climate by injecting sulfurous gases into the stratosphere; these gases react to form reflective sulfate aerosols that remain aloft in decreasing concentrations for approximately one to two years11. While most studies of the climatic effects of volcanism have focused on temperature changes, contemporary and historical societies were also vulnerable to hydrological changes12. Hydroclimate is harder to reconstruct and model, but studies are increasingly noting global and regional hydroclimatic impacts from explosive volcanism. Volcanic aerosols influence hydroclimate through multiple mechanisms. Aerosol scattering of solar radiation to space reduces tropospheric temperatures; if lower-tropospheric relative humidities remain unchanged, the mass of water converged by a given wind distribution decreases, and precipitation minus surface evaporation (P-E) is thus reduced21. This thermodynamic effect may represent the principal means by which equatorially symmetric aerosol distributions from tropical eruptions alter P–E15. In addition, extratropical eruptions increase sulfate aerosols on one side of the equator, cool that hemisphere, and may thus alter tropical P–E primarily by changing winds. In particular, a high-latitude energy sink in one hemisphere forces an anomalous Hadley circulation, shifting the intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ) away from that energy sink1. Aerosol cooling of northern high latitudes can thus force a southward shift of northern hemisphere (NH) summer monsoon precipitation, promoting drought in the northern parts of monsoon regions. These energy-budget arguments provide a more fundamental perspective on the controls on tropical rainfall than arguments based on land-ocean temperature contrast because large-scale tropical circulations are driven by horizontal gradients in the total (sensible plus latent) energy input to the atmosphere24. The hypothesis that a decrease in land-ocean temperature contrast will cause monsoon rainfall to weaken has been disproven by the observation that continental monsoon regions are cooler during years of enhanced monsoon precipitation25, and by the fact that monsoon winds weaken as land-ocean temperature contrast strengthens in projections of next-century warming.
There are about 700 facilities manufacturing a variety different products located along the Nile river. Some of these facilities dump chemicals into the Nile, while others’ runoff finds its way to the water.
Some of the chemicals that find their way into the river would be phosphors, nitrogen, and pesticide residue. Once dumped, these chemicals can have negative affects on the microorganisms living in the water, by increasing the population of unhealthy bacteria by 50%-180%
2. Food Industry
Studies show that more then 350 different factories discharge their waste in to the Nile. The majority of these factories are involved in the food industry.
The Nile is suffering from the amount of agricultural waste that’s being dumped into the river. The waste is full of toxic chemicals like detergents, heavy metals, and pesticides. Discharge of oil and grease can come from untreated domestic waste water. Fortunately, those chemicals can be treated and removed from the water, but some like mutagens, and neurotoxins remain unaffected by water treatment.
3. Phosphate
On April 22 2015, an Egyptian military owned barge spilled 500 tons of phosphate in to the Nile.
Phosphate is a mineral that comes from rocks when they are eroding. In small amounts, phosphate is good for water bodies. For example, it can help the growth of plankton and aquatic plants.
But in large amounts, like what was dumped into the Nile, it is very harmful. The mineral can cause a nutrient imbalance in the water, which can damage the aquatic plants and kill them, and can also speed up the aging process of the river.
2:44ላይ፡ “Once the dam is finished, IF IT’s FINISHED…!„ እረፍት የሌላቸው ግብዞች፣ ቅሌታሞች፣ አሰልቺዎችና አስቀያሚዎች ናቸው!
THE VANISHING NILE
ENVIRONMENT
The Nile river and its fertile delta were long the source of Egypt’s wealth and greatness. Today, they face relentless assault from both land and sea. (Yale Environment 360)
Teachers, scroll down for a quick list of key resources, including today’s MapMaker Interactive map.
This massive shortage of freshwater would threaten health, agriculture, and electrical supplies in Egypt.
What Features Threaten The Nile From The Sea?
sea level rise. The Mediterranean Sea may swallow as much as a third of the Nile delta. This would be catastrophic for Egypt’s population and economy.
The lowering of land elevation in the Nile delta can be attributed to two phenomena. The first is seismic activity—earthquakes and other interactions between the African, Arabian, and Eurasian tectonic plates. The second is a lack of nutrient-rich flood sediments from the river. (Dams such as the Aswan Dam prevent the Nile from predictably overflowing its banks and depositing silt on the delta.)
Saltwater from the Mediterranean may jeopardize a third of freshwater volume in the Nile delta.
diplomacy. Some experts think Egypt may be able to negotiate with Ethiopia to lengthen the time to fill the GERD reservoir. While benefitting Egypt, this would mean Ethiopians would have to wait for benefits (water, electricity) of the dam.
desalination. Many experts are advising Egypt to imitate its neighbor, Saudi Arabia, and invest in costly desalination plants on its Mediterranean and Red Sea coasts.
drip irrigation. Egypt will almost certainly have to invest in drip irrigation methods for agriculture. Drip irrigation conserves water by reducing runoff and evaporation.
family planning. Egypt’s water crisis is exacerbated by its “contraception crisis,” in which family planning medications are increasingly unavailable. A smaller population would put less stress on the Nile.
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on March 3, 2017
Major Egyptian Christian Bishop Declares ‘We Christians Have Done All We Can To Forgive Our Persecutors But The Muslims Keep Butchering Us And Nobody Cares’
Bishop Anba Angaelos is episcopal head of the Coptic Church for the United Kingdom. In a scathing analysis of the situation in Egypt, he said that Christianity was being wiped out and that Christians have done all they can do to forgive their persecutors, but unless something is done they will be massacred at the hands of the Muslims:
At least 40 Coptic Christians have been killed in “targeted attacks” in Egypt over the last three months and many are being warned they must “leave or die,” a prominent Coptic bishop has said.
Coptic Bishop Anba Angaelos, the general bishop of the Coptic Orthodox Church in the United Kingdom, issued a statement Tuesday decrying the escalating violence the Christian community in Egypt has faced over the last several weeks.
As The Christian Post has reported, there has been an ongoing series of murders of Christians and deliberate attacks on the Coptic community in recent weeks, some of which Islamic State militants in the Sinai Peninsula are believed to be responsible for.
Angaelos has said the number of Christians who’ve been murdered in recent attacks on the Coptic community is now up to 40 in just the last three months.
“I have now drafted and redrafted this statement numerous times over the past weeks, wanting to say something about the deadly attacks experienced by Coptic Christians in Egypt on a daily basis. Yet every time I do, there seems to be a new and often more horrifying attack that needs to be addressed,” Angaelos wrote in a statement shared with CP. “In the past three months alone 40 Coptic Christians have been murdered in targeted attacks in Egypt.”
“From the [Dec. 11] terrorist bombing on St. Peter’s Coptic Church in Cairo that claimed the lives of 29 mainly women and children, to the murders of individuals across the country since, the one common denominator is that these innocent children, women and men have had their lives brutally and tragically ended for no other reason except that they are Christians,” Angaelos said.
“Incitement by terrorist groups that call for the killing of Christians in Egypt has spiralled over the past weeks to the extent that lists of churches and individuals have now been released as desirable targets,” Angaelos explained. “While persecution is nothing new for the Coptic community, this escalation of attacks over the past months, culminating in the most recent murders of seven Christians in Al-Arish, has resulted in the displacement of hundreds forced to leave their generations-old homes in North Sinai.”
“These horrific attacks have gone largely unnoticed by the international community, but Copts continue to suffer tragic violations daily,” Angaelos added.
Angaelos asserted that crimes against Christians are “religiously motivated.” He points out that in many cases, extremists have circulated flyers in villages that tell Christians to “leave or die.”
“Similar events have tragically occurred far too often over the past years, and there is unfortunately little deterrent to prevent them from reoccurring,” Angaelos added.
“In our fast moving world that is filled with so much news of tragedy, war and death, it is all too easy for atrocities to become ‘incidents,’ and for individuals suffering them to become mere statistics, very quickly pushed aside by the next item of news,” he continued. “In the eyes of the perpetrators they are a viable target, and in the eyes of the world they become a regrettable phenomenon; yet what is actually left behind is traumatized individuals, families and communities that have lost loved ones, living the reality of themselves being targeted.”
Angaelos further emphasized that even though Copts in Egypt have faced persecution and atrocities, they have done their part to remain peaceful and forgive their persecutors.
“After the destruction of over 100 places of Christian ministry and worship in August of 2013, the bombing of various churches across the country in the last decade, and the targeted killing of clergy, families, women and children, purely for their faith, the community and individuals within it remain non-violent and resilient,” he stressed. “Despite there being condemnation of these attacks by national government and authorities, there is yet to be a consistent robust and fair implementation of these same sentiments more regionally and locally.”(source)
The Bishop’s insightful comments align with our experience here at Shoebat.com through the Rescue Christians project. While it is good and ideal to try to keep Christians in their native lands, the reality is that these people do not have anything left for them in their native areas. Their homes have been destroyed and along with that the communities, economies, and social networks that make up any human society. Left without any means of sustenance and only able to rebuild based on what foreign money comes to them through donations in combination with the facts that they are isolated as minorities in a hostile Muslim-majority area and the peoples have been thoroughly demoralized and crippled by fear from the attacks, they are completely vulnerable and will be massacred as soon as a Muslim individual, group, or government decides to kill them for any reason.
As the Bishop has said, the Christians of Egypt and really, much of the Muslim world have faithfully done their part and more for keeping peace and trying to build a healthy relationship with their Muslim neighbors in spite of differences and have continued to do it even while they are being abused, cheated, tortured, and murdered. However, like the saying goes, “it takes two to tango”- the Christians can do anything and have all the hope in the world, but unless the Muslims are willing to do their part and reciprocate then nothing further can be done.
The decision that has been made by these Muslims and their governments is clear. Either they are unable to or they are unwilling to put forth a good faith effort to help the Christian peoples of their lands. Whatever the reason, the inaction of the Muslims to uphold their social responsibilities as human beings towards their fellow man is not an excuse for inaction and as we at Shoebat.com noted from our experiences, it is not the time to give the impression of offering help as a political cover for doing nothing. These people are the actual refugees who need to be relocated to the West and other areas because if they are not helped, they will die.
Christianity has survived for 14 centuries in Egypt, and while I do not want to simply “give up,” the fact is also that the welfare of these people come first. Buildings can be rebuilt, economies can be recreated, civilizations can be restored, even if it is a long and difficult process. However, lives cannot be restored once lost.
At the same time, this incident, while sad, is another reminder to Christians that in the struggle with Islam, Christians cannot simply “submit” to Islam because that is simply buying time before your inevitable death and destruction. Christianity has always been at war- a war against all evil for the salvation of the souls of men. In a war, there is no “middle ground”- there is a winner and a loser.
Christ has won the final battle through the cross, but the war for the souls of men will rage until the second coming. That said, it is why Christians must not only be prepared to suffer persecution and help the persecuted, but also to wage active war- spiritual and physical- against the wicked to seek to pervert and destroy God’s people. Just as the Christians of Egypt noted that they can do all they are able to but unless the Muslims are willing to reciprocate, nothing can happen, likewise the Christians can do all they can to be peaceful and avoid physical war with Islam and Muslims, but the fact is that such is as only as good as Muslims are willing to honor it, which they will only do so in as much as it is to their advantage before turning to physical war.
Prepare yourself accordingly, soul, mind and body, for as Islam rises in the West and Christianity becomes a hated religion more than it is already, the horrors of the old world will come full circle. Christians will have much to suffer for the sake of Christ, but they will also have to rise up and meet and defeat the Muslims in physical combat just as the Christians of old did for centuries.
Sudan Has ‘Declared War Against Christians’ To Stop Them From Leading Muslims To Christ, Says Pastor
The Sudanese government has not officially announced it. However, a pastor who was once wrongfully imprisoned in the country has revealed that Khartoum has virtually “declared war against Christians.”
This is the reason why pastors are being locked up in jail and churches demolished in the Muslim-majority East African nation, according to the persecution watchdog group International Christian Concern (ICC).
On behalf of The Christian Post,the ICC’s East Africa team interviewed Pastor Michael Yat, one of the pastors who have suffered imprisonment in Sudan for their faith.
Yat told the ICC team that when he travelled to Khartoum to take up a new assignment with the South Sudan Evangelical Presbyterian Church in 2014, “little did I know that Sudan had declared war against Christians.”
Thus, on the second day he preached at a church in Khartoum, Yat was arrested and thrown in jail, where he was held for nine months.
Yat explained the reason why the Sudanese government hated Christians, especially those who can speak Arabic. He said it’s because the regime of President Omar al-Bashir is fearful that Christians “can easily reach out to the Muslims and win them to Christ.”
A number of pastors are still languishing in Sudanese prisons reportedly on trumped-up national security charges. One of them, the Rev. Hassan Abduraheem, is the subject of a global release petition made by The American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ). Abduraheem has been sentenced to 12 years in prison for his faith.
destroying a sign indicating Muslim ownership of a school called the Evangelical School of Sudan, according to The Christian Post.
The al-Bashir government has ordered the demolition of numerous churches, with at least 25 church buildings demolished last month alone.
Sudanese authorities also continue to harass Christian church congregants and threaten foreign Christians with expulsion, ICC said.
ecuting country in the world on its 2017 World Watch List.
Sudan has been on Open Doors’ World Watch List since 1993 and has almost always been ranked in the top 20 over the years.
The Christian persecution watchdog states that the persecution of Christians in Sudan “is systematic and reminiscent of ethnic cleansing.”
The lying snakes of Islam and their western enablers and apologists cry the blues when a Muslim over here gets a dirty look, or a piece of bacon put on a doorknob. They run to the media with fake “Islamophobia” and Hijab hoaxes, and claim how the Muslim community lives in “fear” from Donald Trump supporters, or they are made uncomfortable on a campus.
Boo effing hoo. You are all liars. Every day around and throughout the Islamic world this crap goes on as a matter of rule, not exception. The same Islam that creates this in Egypt and Pakistan is the same Islam found in every western Mosque. We are now seeing the effects of mass Muslim immigration to Europe and what really happens when their numbers increase beyond a small little minority. This is why the Islamic world declined from about A.D. 1100. The Golden Age is a myth. Anything that occurred during this time was in spite of Islam, not because of it. Like the suffocating Burka that restricts the free expression and movement of Muslim women, Islam itself does this to the mind. Keeping out the rays of light of knowledge beyond the Koran and Hadith.
The Muslim world has created nothing that contributes to the advancement of civilization. It is a destroyer of culture, language, free expression, thought and speech, free enquiry, reason and logic. Everything is to be subordinated to Islam. Is it any wonder that it has found an enabler in Leftism? Just as the socialist regimes of fascism and communism prohibit with extreme prejudice anything that threatens it from within, the same can be found in Islam’s Koran and Hadith. Islam has been kept alive through threats and violence; actual or implied. The draconian punishment of death for apostasy, blasphemy or insulting the prophet of Islam has cowed its followers into submission since its early beginnings. Just as surely as any dictator of the 20th century.
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on January 14, 2017
Because it is only ETHIOPIA and her Almighty God EGZIABHER Who the anti-Christians from Arabia are terrified of. Remember of Prester John of Ethiopia? By coincidence that the inauguration of the President of the United States is taking place almost on the very day of “Ethiopian” Epiphany?
According to one of the 268 stories in the Ta’amra Maryam, “The Miracles of the Virgin Mary,” a popular Ethiopian theme, Emperor Dawit prayed to The Virgin Mary before raiding anti-Christian Egypt. In reply she advised the emperor, in the name of God, to divert the Nile. The river is referred to in the leg-ends as the „Abbay“ or the „Geyon“, the Biblical river of paradise that flows through the land of Ethiopia (Genesis 2:13) . When the Egyptians saw that their waters had receded, they sued for peace and promised never again to be the foes of Christianity.
In the 15th century, Emperors Dawit and Yishaq were very successful in fighting the infidel Muslims (pay attention how they project to call us “infidels”) in the Horn of Africa. After Emperor Yishaq defeated Islamic Ifat by capturing Zeilla in 1415, the Mamluk Sultan Barsbay retaliated, as he did when he came to power in 1422, by closing the Ethiopian monastery in Jerusalem. Emperor Yishaq lost no time in taking revenage on mosques and Muslims in Ethiopia, while Barsbay responded by threatening to harm the Copts in Egypt.
With the ascension of the ascension of the greatest of the Solomonian emperor, Zar’a Ya’qob (Seed of Jacob) (1434—1468), to power, the European-Nile connection became central to general Ethiopian strategy. Zar’a Ya’qob launched wars against Muslim Adan and stove to spread Christianity with the help of a united church.
When Sultan Jaqmaq (1438—1453) came to power, he renewed the Mamluks’ attacks against crusaders stationed in Cyprus and Rodes in the eastern Mediterranean. H was especially angered by Coptic participation in the anti-Islamic coordination effort at the Council of Florence (remember this council) and ordered the Coptic Patriarch to report any communication he received from Zar’a Ya’qob. There followed a chain of anti-Coptic actions in Egypt, including new taxes and the burning of churches.
In November 1443 a delegation from Zar’a Ya’qob handed this letter to Sultan Jaqmaq:
From the righteous…. Zar’a Ya’qob….King of Kings of Ethiopia…
To the noble, elevated Imam, the royal Sultan al-Zahir Jaqmaq, sultan of the Muslims and of Islam in Egypt and Syria. It is our goal to renew the understandings that existed between our predecessors. Let these understandings remain preserved without interruption. You, may the good Lord save you, know well what the shepherd needs to do with his sheep. Our father the Patriarch and our brothers the Christians, who are under your government and under your noble kingdom, are very few, weak, and poor. They cannot be more numerous than just one Islamic community in one of the regions of our country. And you, may the good Lord save you, are not aware of the Muslims under our government, that we are the rulers of their kings and and we always treat them well, and their kings live with us wearing golden crowns and riding horses? And are you not aware, you and your Sultan, that the River Nile is flowing to you from our country and that we are capable of preventing the floods that irrigate your country? Nothing keeps us from so doing, only the belief in God and the care for his slaves. We have presented to you what you need to know and you should know what you have to do.
Zar’a Ya’qob’s letter created little understanding. Jaqmaq responded by sending an emissary bearing gifts and an evasive reply. When Zar’a Ya’qob detained the emissary, Jaqmaq detained the Patriarch in Cairo, forcing him to write to the Ethiopian requesting the emissary’s release. Before his release, however, the Egyptian prisoner was taken to observe Zar’a Ya’qob inflict yet another defeat on Adal’s sultan, Shihab al-Din, in 1445. When Jaqmaq wrote to the new Adalite sultan suggesting that he make peace with Zar’a Ya’qob, the latter responded in 1449 that the Ethiopian Emperor had built a navy of 200 ships in preparation for an attack on Mecca and aimed to destroy the Kaaba. He further warned that Zar’a Ya’qob was contemplating blocking the Nile.
Zar’a Ya’qob brought Ethiopia’s awareness of the Nile’s political significance to its peak. He also added significant religious and cultural dimensions to this awareness by overseeing the competion of the translation and modification fo the Ta’amara Maryam. This collection of narratives included The Virgin Mary‘s advice to fight Egypt and Islam by diverting the Geyon, the Nile. Zar’a Ya’qob institutionalized the veneration of Mary as preeminent among the saints of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, and in 1441 he introduced the reading of passages from the Ta’amra Maryam as a major ritual on Sundays. The Nile legacy of the Virgin Mary, together with that of the entire Solomonian period, was to endure. The idea that the Geyon was part of Ethiopia’s biblical heritage, that Ethiopia dominated its flow, and that Ethiopian control of the river was sanctioned by heaven remained part of the Christian Ethiopian ethos.
Raf’ sha’n al-hubshan. Al-Suyuti – in the last section he addresses mythical concepts of future catastrophes and contains short quotation about the destruction of various places all over the world. According to one such tradition, Egypt will be destroyed due to the drying up of the Nile. According to another, Mecca will be destroyed by the Ethiopians.
In defense of Orthodoxy, he nevertheless introduced dramatic innovations in Church life and policy. Many of these changes had to do with the liturgical cycle; after a Christmas Day victory over an invading Muslim army which greatly outnumbered his own, Zara Yaqob decreed that from then on Christmas would be celebrated every month, and went on to add numerous other monthly feasts as well. Intensely devoted to the Mother of God (and greatly impressed by reports of her contemporary miraculous apparition at Metmaq, Egypt), the emperor required that every church have an altar dedicated in her honor, and ordered all 33 of her festivals to be observed as if they were Sundays no matter when they fell in the week. Several classic works of Ge’ez literature date from his reign, most of them in some way connected to veneration of the Theotokos; among them is a translation of the Western European Miracles of the Virgin.
Egypt took delivery of a second French Mistral helicopter carrier on Friday, part of a $1 billion deal signed last year.
Egypt took over the ship at a ceremony in the Atlantic coast port of Saint-Nazaire. It was the second of two France agreed last year to sell to Egypt.
The two ships were originally built for sale to Russia, but that sale was canceled after Russia’s annexation of Crimea.
“It has been a very complicated, uncertain period to manage, but thanks to the French government’s support, we were able to find a navy that needed it,” a spokesman for the state-backed shipbuilder DCNS told Reuters.
The French naval contractor had to strip out all the ship’s information systems and instructions written in Cyrillic script and replace them with Arabic and English lettering.
The “Anwar El-Sadat” will sail from Saint-Nazaire early next week for joint exercises with the French navy before setting off for Alexandria.
The Mistral is known as the “Swiss army knife” of the French navy for its versatility. Capable of carrying vessels and tanks, the will serve as command centers for the Egyptian fleet.
Cairo has tried to boost its military power in the face of a two-year insurgency in northern Sinai and fears that civil war in neighboring Libya could spill over.
Egypt has also ordered four corvettes, 100-metres long, that will be built in two years, and negotiations are under way to order two more, the spokesman for DCNS told Reuters.
Cairo has tried to boost its military power in the face of a two-year insurgency in northern Sinai and fears that civil war in neighboring Libya could spill over.
My Note: Really? We know what the Egyptian snake needs these ships for. And the French, how could we forget, they first stole Djibouti from Ethiopia, and now they are arming her historical enemy (with a covert Russian concession to the ships – Russia, Egypt are in talks on equipment for Mistrals). According to the Book of Daniel those apostate western nations, like the French who betrayed Christianity are now creating temporary alliance of convenience with the Arab Muslim nations. These western nations are assisting anti-Christian Islamic movements everywhere. They were active provoking revolts and chaos in Ethiopia on the eve of September 11, New Year’s Day. The timing has always been very important for them. No! Our nation wouldn’t be fooled another time, but they still try to scare us with the French-made helicopter carrier – which is an important tool of power projection. But, in the end, these Luciferians will crumble big time.
Well, unless they immediately cease engaging in hostile activities directed against the Ethiopian nation and our Coptic brothers and sisters – the secret St. Teklehaymanot brigade will be ready to contaminate THE RIVER with very ancient radioactive material. Again, they’ll never learn, because of their hardened pharaoh heart and stubbornness, the world’s most populated Arab country will soon drop in stature to the lowliest of nations in the world. God Egziabher will surely bring judgment on His enemies.
“It shall be the lowliest of kingdoms; it shall never again exalt itself above the nations, for I will diminish them so that they will not rule over the nations anymore.” [Ezekiel 29:15]
Addis Ethiopia Weblog 