Force for Good: Salt of the Earth

By Peter Amsterdam

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The Family International at its heart has been a witnessing and soul-winning movement for 45 years. We have witnessed to millions, led millions of souls to Christ, and distributed millions upon millions of pieces of Gospel-based literature in scores of languages. We have worked hard to fulfill the commission the Lord gave us to be faithful witnesses. Despite the fact that our numbers haven’t exceeded 10,000 adults, we have overcome enormous challenges, traveled the world, and preached the Gospel in over 150 countries.

Passing the hope that is in us along to others is one of our greatest gifts and joys in life. Lifting downcast spirits through our love, joy, and confidence in God’s Word is a key to what makes us who we are. When people see the hope that is in you, they are drawn to it as one is to light in a dark place. Jesus compared that special spark of life that sets us apart from the children of this world to salt. He said, “You are the salt of the earth.”—Maria Fontaine1

Maria and I are thankful to be part of a movement that, despite our growing pains, mistakes, and failings along the way, has been used of the Lord to bring the Gospel message to so many.


Seasoned with salt

As Christians, we strive to be agents of change in the lives of others, and ultimately in society. That can mean making waves or going against the flow. Not everything you do and value will be in harmony with the status quo.

Nearly a decade ago, Pope John Paul II was reported as speaking to university students about overcoming the temptation of mediocrity and conformity. He said, “Following Christ, the crucified King, believers learn that to reign is to serve, seeking the good of others, and they discover that the real meaning of love is expressed in the sincere gift of self.” He stated that when life is lived with this spirit, the Christian becomes the “salt of the earth.” He went on to say, “It is not an easy way; it is often contrary to the mentality of your contemporaries. It means, of course, to go against the current, with respect to the prevailing conduct and fashions. … The mystery of the cross teaches a way of being and acting that is not in accord with the spirit of this world.”2

As Christians, we are called to spice things up with the seasoning of faith we bring. We must also realize that not everyone will like the flavor or be amenable to having the world around them seasoned with beliefs and values that are different from the ones they have been accustomed to. Some things—including challenges to our faith and opposition—are part of the Christian walk.

In Colossians, Paul said, “Live wisely among those who are not believers and make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be gracious and attractive, seasoned with salt, so that you will have the right response for everyone.”3 This seems to present a good balance of “making the most of every opportunity” in our witness to those who are unbelievers while ensuring that our speech is both gracious and attractive, and seasoned with the salt of our faith and Christian example. That is what Paul concludes will enable us to have the right response to everyone, or as Peter said, to “be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.”4

It has been said that “God scattered [the early Christians] throughout the world to salt the whole earth and enlighten all mankind.”5 Ultimately, salt is embraced by many people as a needed ingredient that will bring out the best in food. When Jesus compared His followers to salt and light, it seems a reasonable assumption that He expected Christians to be embraced by many and for the Christian faith to become as essential as salt and light to many people’s lives. That’s quite a commission and quite a privilege that He empowers us to have an impact on others and be a force for good in their lives.




Salt in the Bible

Salt played a major role in Old Testament sacrifices and offerings. For this reason, Jesus’ use of this metaphor was familiar to His followers. In biblical times, salt was used for several purposes:
Seasoning: Just as it does today, salt served an important gustatory purpose. People would use salt to bring out the inherent flavor of foods. By comparing His followers to salt, Jesus indicated that they were to add flavor, or seasoning, to society.
Preservative: Since primitive times, salt has been used to preserve meat and other foods. Salt prevents decay and degradation of food products. In the same way, Jesus taught His followers to point others to the way of life, to show how they might be preserved from death and destruction.
Melting Ice: Salt has always been useful for thawing and melting ice. By serving as salt, Jesus’ followers might thaw people’s hearts with their kindness, making them open to friendship, relationships, and to God’s truth. 6

Salt is a necessity of life and is a mineral that was used since ancient times in many cultures as a seasoning, a preservative, a disinfectant, a component of ceremonial offerings, and as a unit of exchange. The Bible contains numerous references to salt. In various contexts, it is used metaphorically to signify permanence, loyalty, durability, fidelity, usefulness, value, and purification.7

Pliny, the first-century Roman naturalist and writer, and contemporary of Jesus, wrote in one of his encyclopedias, “Nothing is more useful than salt and sunshine.”

In the ancient biblical world, salt was a precious commodity. It gave flavor and zest to food; it served as an important preservative; salt also made people thirst for something more. Jesus wanted His disciples to give flavor and zest to the world through His teaching; to preserve the truth as He proclaimed it to the world; to make the world thirst for more. … If we do this as His disciples, we, too, will also be “light of the world.” Being the light of the world means, for Christians, spreading everywhere the light that comes from on high. It means fighting darkness due to evil and sin and often caused by ignorance, prejudice, and selfishness. The more we look on the face of Jesus, like an impressionist painting, the more light we see and the more we are transfigured by it. By their deeds the disciples are to influence the world for good.8

As salt seasons food by being lightly scattered upon it, so too Christians season the earth by being scattered throughout the various nations of the earth. By living in accordance with God’s way of life, Christians also preserve the earth by slowing the decay of morals in the society around them.9


Preserving the saltiness

Jesus said, “Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can you make it salty again?” His answer: “Have salt in yourselves.”10

It’s up to each of us to carry those qualities of salt within us, so that we can season the world around us with His flavoring. The goal of having an alive, deep, and meaningful relationship with Jesus, of manifesting a Christian example and following Jesus’ teachings, of living and working in unity with others, has always been to be able to be “the salt of the earth,” part of “the light of the world, a city set on a hill,” that attracts others to the Lord, so that they too can come to know and love Him, and, if they’re willing, to help others to do the same.11

Being a force for good rests within each of us, as we do our part to love God, to stay true to His Word, and to share His love and Word with others whenever and wherever possible. As we strive to live and hold true to our Christian values, we can fulfill His commission to be the spice of life of this world; to give its full flavor and meaning to others, to be preservers of the good, and to share our faith—the true currency of the world—with others.

May the Lord bless your life and strengthen your witness and mission works so that they can serve as the salt of the earth and a lamp to light the paths of many. There is a world before us to reach and there are countless ways of spreading the good news and being a positive influence in the lives of others—a force for good.



PS: Four additional posts in the "Force for Good" series have been posted on Anchor, making a total of nine. You can find the full series by selecting the "Force for Good" tag.

Originally published March 2011. Excerpted and republished July 2013.
Read by Simon Peterson.


1 Maria Fontaine. Originally published March 2002.

2 Address to UNIV 2002 Congress in Rome, as reported by Zenit news service, March 25, 2002.

3 Colossians 4:5–6 NLT.

4 1 Peter 3:15 NIV.

5 David Berg. Originally published March 1971.

6 Linda Ann Nickerson, “Origin and Meaning of ‘Salt of the Earth,’” http://www.helium.com/items/414322-origin-and-meaning-of-salt-of-the-earth.

7 John L. McKenzie.

8 Father Thomas Rosica, CSB, Zenit news service, February 1, 2011.

9 Wiki Answers.com.

10 Mark 9:50 NIV.

11 Matthew 5:13–14.

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Preparing For The Third Temple

By Daniel Ben Simon, Al-Monitor Israel Pulse, June 7, 2013

I went to visit the Jewish Quarter in the Old City of Jerusalem to see how the preparations for the establishment of the new temple were getting on. For hundreds of Israelis, the task of renewing the temple has become the job of their lives.

It is about time, so they believe, to establish the Third Temple in its proper place—right on the site where the First Temple and the Second Temple were once standing before being destroyed.

Yehuda Glick is one of the “elite soldiers of the temple" who dedicate their lives to the mission. Since moving to Israel, he has been preparing for the great day, waiting to see the construction of the edifice that is to become the holiest place on earth for the Jewish people. A black skullcap adorning his head, his Hebrew flavored by an Anglo-Saxon accent, Glick spends his time as a tourist guide, escorting visitors to the Temple Mount.

I met Yehuda at the entrance gate to the Temple Mount. There is no greater thrill in his life than to walk on the soil of the Temple Mount. While he has visited the place hundreds or even thousands of times„ his heart still beats with excitement on each visit.

"As far as I see it, an amazing divine move is manifested here," he explained while we were waiting in line at the gate. “The state of Israel is a part of this divine move, which will culminate in the establishment of the Third Temple."

"When I started visiting the Temple Mount 15 years ago, you could hardly gather a minyan—the quorum—for prayer. These days, hundreds of thousands of Jews are coming to pray on the Temple Mount. They expect us to rebuild the temple, and God willing, it will be built."

Hundreds of tourists, most of them Christians, were standing in line under the scorching sun, waiting for the security check that every visitor seeking entry to the Temple Mount is required to pass. Jews are not allowed to bring in scrolls of the Torah, prayer books, copies of the Book of Psalms or any other article of worship that could be used to establish a mystical association between the Temple Mount and the holy Jewish Scriptures.

Under the current arrangements agreed on between Israel and the Kingdom of Jordan, Jews visiting the Temple Mount are banned from openly praying on the premises or swaying in worship. One single event of deviation from the set rules could be enough to spark an international incident.

In fact, precisely such an incident occurred while I was waiting at the entrance gate to the Temple Mount. All of a sudden, shouts were heard from inside the enclosure. The policemen standing on guard at the gate went on alert and hurried to lock it.

It turned out that a Muslim worshipper accused an Israeli policeman of knocking down a Quran she was holding in her hands.

The Temple Mount was closed to visitors right away and the incident was promptly brought to the attention of the top echelons in Israel, the Palestinian leaders in the territories and the Jordanian king’s palace.

The commanding officer in charge of the Temple Mount site told me that incidents of that kind were an everyday matter. “The policeman on duty reported that the worshipper had thrown down the book on purpose, to stir up a provocation and, needless to say, I believe him," he said, adding: “Even a minor event is liable to trigger an international incident."

As the gates to the Temple Mount were closed, Yehuda and I headed for the Jewish Quarter, where the Temple Institute is located. Hundreds of tourists visit the Temple Institute store daily to see at close hand the preparations for the establishment of the temple.

"Fifty percent of the visitors are not Jewish," recounted Reuven Cohen, the store manager, who immigrated to Israel from England 34 years ago. “The Jews are coming here to look for the roots of the temple, whereas the visiting evangelists are deeply involved in the establishment of the temple. They are well aware that their process of redemption is closely interwoven with ours. They actually believe that the path of return of Jesus Christ to this earth passes through our temple."

The articles of worship intended for use in the new temple, once it is erected, are on display in the store. Kits that include guidelines for proper conduct in the holy site are offered for sale alongside a variety of jigsaw puzzles of the temple—some comprising 24 pieces, for 3-year-old children, and others of 100 pieces and even 1,000 pieces—for the older. Hundreds of books, neatly arranged on the shelves, tell the history of the temples—those that were destroyed and the one that is to be built.

There are books on the sacred golden candelabrums, books on the houses that served the Jewish priests who performed their duties at the temple, and others on the ritual sacrifices and prayers, as well as on the way of life that will prevail in Israel after the temple is established.

"Last year we had 50,000 visitors," David Schwartz, who heads the Temple Institute, proudly stated. “The ever-growing interest shown by tourists reflects the feeling that the days of the Messiah are around the corner. You can sense it in the air—in schools, in synagogues, even in the homes of the secular. Everyone feels it coming up."

While we were talking, hundreds of visiting school students were wandering around the Institute, impressed by the sights. “Yes, that’s true," Schwartz added. “As you can see, people are looking for meaning to life. They want to achieve something. We are currently at the stage of preparing people for the construction of the temple."

On display, next to the architectural building plans, are models showing pilgrims getting down from the light rail at the temple gate station. Others are seen parking their cars in an underground garage to be built beneath the temple. Sophisticated elevators would transport the worshippers right into the temple.

Schwartz, Cohen and Glick are all confident that once the Third Temple is erected, the world will become a fundamentally different place. The Lord would then bestow on Earth great abundance and there would no longer be anyone in need of charity.

"Those who do not feel what is going to happen are either blind or stupid, or ungrateful," Glick noted, clearly annoyed with me, having noticed the skeptical expression on my face. “There has never been anything like that in the history of the human race; the return of an exiled people to its homeland is unique in human annals. It is all written in the Torah. And the last, supreme stage will be the construction of the temple."

However, there is one far from marginal factor left out. In all those plans and photographs and illustrations and puzzles and books put forward by the Jewish believers, the Third Temple is seen at the center of the Temple Mount, rising high up above it.

But there is no trace there of the Dome of the Rock, as if the earth had swallowed it up.

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For Many in Africa, Lack of Electricity Is Barrier to Growth

By Nicholas Kulish, NY Times, July 1, 2013

DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania—Alex Adrian, a carpenter at Yasir Ahmed Hardware, proudly brought out his newest purchase on Monday afternoon, a small lamp with a square solar panel to charge it.

He still had the receipt for 45,000 Tanzanian shillings, or about $28, pay for roughly two full days of work here. Two days of work, that is, unless the power goes out, as it often does. In that case, work stops and no one gets paid. At home, families have to skip meals.

A few minutes earlier, nine workers had huddled around Mr. Adrian, watching President Obama’s arrival at the airport in Tanzania on the tiny screen of his phone. The discussion turned to how the United States could help their country. The answer was unequivocal and unanimous: Electricity.

"We know we have natural gas supplies in this country and we want to use them to provide affordable electricity for work," Mr. Adrian said. “All we need Obama to help us with is a reliable supply of electricity."

Mr. Obama has begun a new push to bring power to the two-thirds of sub-Saharan Africans who have no access to electricity, one of the cornerstones of his policy for the continent. That would mean light for schoolchildren to do their homework after sunset and refrigerators to keep food from spoiling. It would also mean more jobs and more development.

"Electricity is the heart of my business and of the development of Tanzania in general," said Dotto Said, 50, the supervisor at Yasir Ahmed, which sits along the four-lane Nelson Mandela Road in the neighborhood of Mwenge, a stretch of storefronts selling paint, water tanks and office supplies.

Phil Hay, the World Bank’s spokesman for Africa, said that for the continent “to keep growing at this extraordinary rate it depends on more electricity," adding, “That’s good for small traders, shopkeepers, businesses, for lighting roadways, for traffic lights."

Yasir Ahmed’s workshop provides jobs for 35 people who make wooden doors, window frames and metal gates for the local market. There are stacks of wood and piles of piping and rebar. The men worked outside, shaded by a corrugated metal roof, but they still sweat from the exertion. Sawdust drifts are ankle deep in some places.

"Tanzania has some of the most talented artisans and technicians," said Mr. Said, “but we use very old, outdated equipment, mostly from Italy, from the 1960s and ’70s."

In the metalworking area, the men operating the grinding machines wear sunglasses instead of goggles to protect their eyes from sparks. “We don’t do enough because the power is not reliable," said Abdul Nganga, 35, a welder. “We don’t work to our full potential."

The solar lamp allows Mr. Adrian’s 7-year-old daughter to study at night without her father having to worry that if she knocks over the kerosene lamp she will start a fire, another small improvement. “Life is getting better for those who are hard workers," Mr. Adrian said, “except for those depending on electricity."

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The Global Hunt for Edward Snowden

By Spiegel Staff, July 1, 2013

At the headquarters of the United States National Security Agency (NSA) in Fort Meade, Maryland, there is a giant granite memorial plaque listing the names of 171 agents killed in the line of duty, with the words “They Served in Silence" carved into the stone. It’s a very American way of remembering the country’s heroes.

They will never say that about Edward Snowden, the biggest whistleblower in recent American history. Nevertheless, he is now a hero for many, because he burst America’s dream of total data control.

Snowden has been traveling around the world carrying four laptops filled with secret documents since the end of May, when he flew from Hawaii to Hong Kong and eventually on to Moscow, leaving behind a trail of global revelations. He exposed the NSA’s Prism program, which uses data from Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Skype; he revealed the role played in surveillance by the British intelligence agency GCHQ, whose Tempora program extracts data from hundreds of fiber-optic cables; and now he has also revealed the NSA’s spying activities in Germany. New revelations seem to emerge by the day.

Since then Snowden has been engaged with US authorities in a global hunt with elements of a Cold War thriller—only this time with 21st-century technology. He’s also being pursued by hundreds of journalists, millions upon millions of viewers and presumably no small number of agents. This 30-year-old system administrator has already set off minor and major diplomatic tremors, because the revelations also show the extent to which allied countries spy on each other. The insights into its eavesdropping operations have embarrassed the United States in its relationship with China and Russia, as well as helping enemies and humiliating friends, who must now fear that their own spying activities will be scrutinized.

Snowden probably couldn’t imagine all of this happening when, on May 20, he left his apartment in Hawaii and boarded a flight to Hong Kong. He was carrying a small, black suitcase containing the laptops, on which thousands of highly classified documents were stored. He told his girlfriend that he would be back soon, and he told his employer he needed to take some time off.

Snowden had been working in Hawaii for the security firm Booz Allen Hamilton, which does work for the NSA, for almost three months—and he had access to America’s biggest secrets. Although Snowden was a school dropout, he was also ambitious. When he enlisted in the army, he said that he was a Buddhist and committed to non-violence. The CIA and the NSA hired him because of his skillful handling of data networks.

In Hong Kong, Snowden took a room at the Mira, a five-star hotel in the Kowloon district. His choice of the Chinese special administrative region as a hideout was carefully calculated. He believed that he was safe there from the clutches of both American and Chinese authorities. He was also familiar with the city and had an acquaintance there. It was from Hong Kong that he launched a series of revelations that would shock America and the world before long.

He had already chosen a cohort in Glenn Greenwald, a blogger for Britain’s Guardian newspaper. Greenwald, a former lawyer, has been advocating the disclosure of government secrets for years, and is seen as a passionate champion of transparency and someone who doesn’t make compromises. Greenwald was the man Snowden now needed, so he asked him to come to Hong Kong.

Greenwald, a colleague from the Guardian and documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras arrived on June 1. Snowden gave them elaborate directions to meet, and used a Rubik’s cube to identify himself. The trio questioned their informant for almost a week. Then, on June 5, the Guardian published the first revelation, the story of a secret court ruling that showed that the US government had forced the telecommunications company Verizon to hand over telephone data for thousands of US citizens. The Prism surveillance program was disclosed the next day, followed by revelations about a similar program used worldwide, known as “Boundless Informant."

The disclosures coincided with the first meeting between the two most powerful men in the world. On June 7, US President Barack Obama invited Chinese President Xi Jinping to the Sunnylands Ranch in California. It was hot, 43 degrees Celsius (109 degrees Fahrenheit), and to the annoyance of the Chinese, their hosts had added the subject of cyber security to the agenda at the last minute. Obama told Xi that he would like to see a world order in which everyone played by the same rules. It was an admonition, from those who feel victimized, against the presumed malefactors in the cyber war—the Chinese.

Although the Americans had taken notice of the revelations in the Guardian, they didn’t know that a man on the other side of the Pacific was about to disclose even more secrets.

The video in which Snowden, a previously unknown system administrator, catapulted himself out of anonymity into the public eye, transforming from an everyman into the world’s most wanted person on June 9, is 12 minutes and 35 seconds long. It had been clicked on 1.7 million times soon after its release.

The man in the video is young and pale, is wearing angular glasses and has a three-day beard. He speaks clearly, slowly and confidently. He says he has no intention to hide, because he hasn’t done anything wrong. When asked why he didn’t want to remain anonymous, Snowden replies: “The public is owed an explanation."

Snowden describes the NSA as a super-agency, a giant octopus that accesses massive amounts of data worldwide. He also explains that he decided to become a whistleblower when he realized that what he was experiencing on a regular basis were abuses, and that the more he wanted to talk about it, the more he was ignored and told that it really wasn’t a problem.

The hunt was on. Snowden’s hiding place was discovered a few hours later, but he had already disappeared and gone to the apartment of a Hong Kong acquaintance.

Meanwhile, he was in contact with journalists from the South China Morning Post. After a conversation with Snowden, they revealed that the NSA had also hacked into the servers of telephone companies in China and Hong Kong and had collected millions of text messages.

Snowden apparently hoped to avoid extradition by provoking Chinese rage against the Americans. And he needed to do something, because Washington had already started to apply pressure. Although it has no extradition treaty with China, Hong Kong is largely autonomous and signed its own extradition treaty with the United States in 1996. US politicians were already demanding that Snowden be prosecuted “to the fullest extent of the law."

"People who think I made a mistake in picking HK as a location misunderstand my intentions," Snowden told the South China Morning Post. But he also sensed that he wasn’t safe in Hong Kong. Where else could he go?

At that moment two men entered the equation who wanted some of the whistleblower’s fame to rub off on them: Rafael Correa and Julian Assange.

Ecuador soon announced that it was considering an asylum application by Snowden.

On June 16, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange stood on the balcony at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, together with Foreign Minister Ricardo Patiño. He said nothing but waved to his supporters. In interviews, however, Assange called Snowden a hero and recommended that he seek asylum in Latin America.

Assange has been stuck in London for more than a year now. Police officers are waiting outside the embassy to arrest him and extradite him to Sweden, where he is wanted for questioning over allegations of rape and sexual assault. His room at the embassy isn’t much bigger than a jail cell. It contains a table, a few chairs, a bookshelf and a single bed. The room is so gloomy, Assange said, that he ordered a sun lamp to simulate natural sunlight. He also has a treadmill and receives occasional visits from a personal trainer. Otherwise, he spends his time watching old episodes of “The West Wing" and “Twilight Zone."

Assange arranged travel documents for Snowden from Ecuador and sent Sarah Harrison, a member of the WikiLeaks legal defense team, to Hong Kong. He wanted WikiLeaks to become Snowden’s escape agent and bring him to a safe haven—if such a place even exists anymore.

Snowden left his hiding place again for the first time on June 18. He had become even more cautious. He turned up at a meeting with attorney Albert Ho and two colleagues wearing a hat and sunglasses, and he told everyone to leave their mobile phones in the refrigerator. They ate pizza, drank Pepsi and talked for two hours. The lawyers warned him that no one could guarantee that he would remain a free man during possible extradition proceedings. If that happened, he would be without a computer or access to the Internet. Snowden was nervous. He wanted to leave, but he didn’t know where to go.

It was a situation in which WikiLeaks could be helpful to him. A company that handles the accounting for donations to the organization had offered to pay for a private jet to take Snowden to a safe place. Assange had also activated his global network of supporters. WikiLeaks spokesman Kristinn Hrafnsson filed an application for asylum in Iceland on behalf of Snowden, in case it didn’t work out in Ecuador. But was it just a red herring?

Snowden turned 30 on June 21. That evening, he learned that the US government had filed espionage charges against him, and that Attorney General Eric Holder was personally applying pressure to his Hong Kong counterparts to extradite the whistleblower. A provisional arrest warrant had already been sent to Hong Kong, and his passport had been revoked. The next morning, an intermediary from the Hong Kong government informed Snowden that there would be no objection to his leaving the territory soon. It was clearly a request.

Since the revelations about espionage in China, the leadership in Beijing apparently decided not to extradite Snowden, but instead to urge him to continue his travels. The official explanation reads like a public slap in the face or, even worse, a verbal middle finger pointed at the United States: The documents were incomplete. The US government had used the wrong middle name for Snowden in the extradition documents. The Chinese also demanded prompt clarification of the Americans’ spying activities.

Snowden was too afraid by now, and on June 23 he went to the airport, passed through the normal security control and took an Aeroflot flight to Moscow. His passport was now invalid, but he was presumably traveling with refugee papers from London, accompanied by WikiLeaks activist Sarah Harrison. On the same day, the South China Morning Post published another Snowden revelation. It included his statement that he had deliberately sought a position at Booz Allen Hamilton three months earlier to gain access to classified NSA information. At this point, Snowden was starting to look like a professional spy.

Meanwhile, China’s leaders were relishing the fact that the United States, not China, was now being portrayed as a major data thief. Military expert Wang Changqin called the United States a “hacker empire," saying that there was now proof that China itself was a victim of attacks by foreign hackers, and that it isn’t China but America that plunders the intellectual property of others.

Dozens of journalists and intelligence agents were waiting for Snowden when his flight landed at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo International Airport. But no one came face-to-face with the fugitive, who only spoke with the Ecuadorian ambassador in the transit area. Then he disappeared, and there were soon rumors that he was leaving for Ecuador the next day.

Last Monday there was a crowd at Gate 28, where Aeroflot flight SU 150 was departing for Havana. Two dozen journalists had booked tickets on the flight. But seat 17A, where the fugitive was allegedly seated, remained empty. The flight took off, but Snowden was not on board.

Although Ecuador is playing up its role as a possible safe haven, there are only four connections from Moscow, each with a layover: via Madrid, Miami, Amsterdam and Havana. The first three airports are out of the question for Snowden, and even Cuba has an extradition treaty with the United States—and is currently trying to improve relations with its neighbor. In contrast to the 1970s, Cuba is no longer a safe haven for fugitives.

Does this mean that Snowden will remain in Moscow? The Kremlin has ruled out extraditing the whistleblower from the start. Moscow’s power elite sees his presence there as an opportunity to get back at America. Writing in the pro-government newspaper Izvestiya, nationalist writer Eduard Limonov called for revenge: “Let us spit at America and offer Snowden asylum, especially now that we’ve already given the drunkard Gérard Depardieu a passport."

Russian President Vladimir Putin has also commented on the Snowden affair. Because the fugitive was still in the transit area, said Putin, he was not truly in Russia, which was why—unfortunately—Moscow could not extradite him. With a hint of a smile, he added: “Assange and Snowden consider themselves human rights activists and say they are fighting for the spread of information. Ask yourself this: Should you hand these people over so they will be put in prison?"

For Putin, Snowden’s flight to Moscow is a gift. The revelations provide him with ammunition with which to exert control over social networks like Facebook and Twitter. Russia’s intelligence agencies already monitor the online activities of citizens today. The deputy speaker of the Russian parliament even wants to create a “sovereign Internet," free from the control of foreign powers—and all the more controlled by Russian agencies. It wouldn’t be impossible. Of the 20 largest Internet companies operating in Europe, 15 are American and five are Russian.

For Russian intelligence, Snowden’s presence there is a unique opportunity to gain access to top-secret documents, or at least that is the suspicion being expressed out loud in the United States. Many now view the erstwhile hero as a traitor, because he is seeking out the wrong friends. With each day that passes, Snowden is less of a hunter and more of a hunted man. It no longer appears to be his game, but a game controlled by other powers.

By the middle of last week, no one knew where the whistleblower was. Was he in an isolated part of the airport? In a villa near Moscow owned by Russian intelligence? On his way to Ecuador, after all? It seems most likely that he will remain in Moscow for a while longer, and that he may even be applying for asylum there. His fate hangs on two thin threads: that a country allows him to pass through it without stopping him, and that he has the necessary travel documents.

Meanwhile, President Correa is already backpedaling in Quito, where he said: “Snowden is not on Ecuadoran territory, so technically we cannot even process the asylum request." The decision could also take a while, as the foreign minister tweeted, “a day, a week or two months." Snowden seems to be welcome in Ecuador, just as long as he doesn’t actually go there. The longer the diplomatic tug-of-war lasts, the better it is for Correa. He can portray himself as the David of free speech, rising up against a Goliath without having to deal with the problem of American sanctions against a country that depends on the United States economically.

Last Friday evening, Snowden appeared to have three options left. The first was a private plane. The flight from Moscow to Quito would cost about $200,000 (€154,000), and the Russian authorities would have to approve Snowden’s departure.

Snowden’s father Lonnie proposed the second option on Friday: that his son surrender to American authorities. Unlike WikiLeaks informant Bradley Manning, Snowden would be charged in a civilian and not a military court. And he could conceivably be acquitted if the court ruled that he did not commit treason. NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake, for example, received one year of probation for his disclosures.

The last option would be to seek refuge at the Ecuadorian Embassy in Moscow, but that would require Russia’s permission. And then? Snowden would be stuck, just like Assange.

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Simple Daily Habits Of The Delightfully Successful

By Dharmesh Shah, LinkedIn, July 1, 2013

I can’t promise you’ll be as successful as Warren Buffet or Bill Gates or whoever it is you think is super-successful.

But I can promise that if you commit to doing the following, each and every day, you will quickly be a lot more successful:

1. Walk away from gossip. Gossip is often hard to resist. Gossip also diminishes everyone involved.

Shift the conversation. Or walk away. Sure you’ll be different. But that’s okay; do you want to be like the people who gossip? (After all, although most people like gossip… but most people don’t like the people who gossip.)

Delightfully successful people talk to other people instead of talking about them—unless they’re saying great things. That’s part of what makes them delightful.

2. Spend five minutes in another person’s shoes. For five minutes, focus on what your manager needs. Forget your job description: What does your manager hope to accomplish? What are her goals? What are her targets? What are the issues she faces? What can you do to make her more successful?

Or focus on a customer. Forget what you provide: What does that customer hope or need to accomplish? What are his goals? What are his targets? What can you do to make him more successful?

Or focus on a particular employee. What are her career goals? What is she struggling with that impacts her performance? What can you do to make her job more fulfilling and rewarding?

Every day, spend a little time thinking about what someone else really needs and help them get it, even if the effort required falls outside your job description or typical focus or business as usual.

The best way to build your own long-term success is to help other people succeed.

3. Give one person unexpected praise. Ask anyone if they receive enough praise and they’ll likely say no; we all, at least at times, feel underappreciated. Go out of your way to recognize a person who did something well: A colleague, a manager, a customer, a vendor… all you have to do is say, “I was really impressed by how you…"

Praise costs nothing to give but is priceless—and memorable—to the person who receives it. Appreciating other people, especially people who may not expect it, creates a solid and lasting connection. Just make sure that the praise is authentic and genuine. Once you start trying to adopt this habit, you’ll find it is easy to find something every day that someone has done that is praiseworthy.

And it “brands" you in an awesome way.

4. Do one thing no one else is willing to do. Do the same things as everyone else and your career success will be the same as everyone else.

Do a little extra research. Put in a little more prep time. Revisit what others assumed was a dead end. Take one more shot at salvaging a damaged customer relationship. Make one more phone call, send one more email, reach out one more time.

Every time you do something, think of one extra thing you can do that others aren’t willing to do.

The best opportunities often lie waiting in soil that hasn’t been cultivated. Every day, plow one row other people will not.

5. Shine the spotlight on one person. You’re in a meeting recapping the progress on a warehouse automation project. You share milestones achieved and dependent tasks completed. Great.

Now take one extra, small step. Say, “I’d like to thank Liz for jumping in to help us sort out the logic issues in the routing software. Without her we never would have pulled this off." It takes ten seconds to say… but means the world to Liz.

Find opportunities to publicly praise other people and soon everyone will know you are one of those rare people who shine the spotlight on others. And soon everyone will want to work with—or for—you.

6. “Sell" one thing. The ability to sell is key to business and personal success.

But not used car-style sales. Selling doesn’t involve pressure or manipulation. Selling is the ability to explain the reasoning, logic, and benefits of a decision or a perspective in order to get buy-in. Selling is the ability to overcome skepticism or doubt. Selling is the ability to convince other people to go where you want to go.

When you can stay confident and focused when others disagree, when you can communicate effectively to a diverse range of people, when you know how to build long-term relationships… then you can be successful in a wide variety of fields and pursuits.

Every day, practice selling. Convince someone to try something new. Convince someone to let you help them out. Convince your manager a new initiative will pay off.

Learn how to sell and you can do almost anything… because you’ll know how to get awesome people to work with you.

7. Give one person an unexpected hand. Most people try hard not to ask for help. They see requesting help as admitting to a lack of knowledge, or a lack of skill, or a lack of expertise… basically, they see asking for help as a sign of weakness.

Even though they don’t ask, everyone, at least some of the time, needs help.

So find a way to help that isn’t threatening. Say, “Hey, I’m swinging by accounting… is there anything I can do for you while I’m there?" Say, “Hey, I finished up a little earlier than I thought and I’ve always wanted to learn about (that)… can I help you for a few minutes?" Offer to help in a way that feels collaborative instead of gratuitous or patronizing. And then actually help.

Soon you’ll be a person other people feel they can count on and can actually feel comfortable asking for help.

And that means others will see you as a real leader… even if you’re not in a formal leadership position. Yet.

8. Admit one failing. Say you were wrong. Say you are sorry. Make a joke at your own expense. Ask someone for help (because that implicitly shows you don’t have all the skills or answers.) Admit you bit off more than you could chew.

Admit you aren’t perfect. When you do, you’ll find it much easier to work to improve your weaknesses. Plus you’ll find that other people will gladly help you, usually without being asked.

Admit you aren’t perfect and you’ll also like yourself more, not less. Admit you aren’t perfect and other people will like you better, not less.

Good things always happen when other people like you—and just as importantly when you like yourself.

Dharmesh Shah is founder and CTO at HubSpot.

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A return to Homs: 'The atmosphere here is poisoned by fear of a kind I have only ever seen once before'

Patrick Cockburn, The Independent, 28 June 2013

Khalid is too frightened of travelling the 100 miles from Homs to Damascus to ask officials if they know what happened to his three sons, who disappeared 16 months ago as government troops over-ran the rebel stronghold of Baba Amr. He has not heard anything from them since and does not know if they are alive or dead, though he has repeatedly asked the authorities in Homs, Syria’s third-largest city, about them.

Khalid, a thick-set man of 60 with grizzled white hair—who used to be a construction worker until he injured his back—says he dare not make the journey to Damascus because “as soon as the soldiers at the checkpoints on the road see I come from a place like Baba Amr, with a reputation for supporting the rebels, they are likely to arrest me". He explains that he cannot risk being detained because he has a wife and four daughters who rely on him. He is the last man left in his family since his sons went missing.

Syria is full of parents trying to keep their children alive or simply seeking to find out if they are already dead. It is as if both sides in the civil war are in a competition to see who can commit the worst atrocities. A few days before I spoke to Khalid I saw a picture on the internet of a fresh-faced 23-year-old soldier called Youssef Kais Abdin from near the port city of Latakia. He had been kidnapped a week earlier by the al Qa’ida-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra while serving in the north-east of Syria, close to the Iraqi border. The next his parents heard of Youssef was a call from their son’s mobile at 4am from al-Nusra telling them to look for a picture of their son online. When they did so, they saw his decapitated body in a pool of blood with his severed head placed on top of it.

The Syrian conflict is a civil war with all the horrors traditionally inflicted in such struggles wherever they are fought, be it Syria today or Russia, Spain, Greece, Lebanon or Iraq in the past. For the newly appointed American National Security Adviser Susan Rice, David Cameron or William Hague to pretend that this is a simple battle between a dictatorial government and an oppressed people is to misrepresent or misunderstand what is happening on the ground.

Evidence that both sides have committed supporters prepared to fight to the death is borne out by the estimate of some 100,000 dead published this week by the pro-rebel Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. It concludes that fatal casualties come almost equally from the two sides in the civil war: broadly 25,000 of them government soldiers, 17,000 pro-government militia, 36,000 civilians and 14,000 rebel fighters, though the last two figures in particular are probably understated.

Homs, an ancient city at the centre of a province with a population of two million, is a good place to judge the course of the war. It was an early scene of anti-government action in 2011 in the course of which peaceful protests turned into irregular but devastating warfare. Most of Homs today is controlled by the Syrian army, aside from a few important areas including the Old City in the centre, which is held by rebels. Some 400,000 people have fled from here and are now scattered across the rest of the city. The houses they leave behind are occupied by opposition fighters, a fair number of whom are non-Syrian jihadi volunteers intent on waging holy war. “It is very difficult to talk to the Salafi [Islamic fundamentalists] in the Old City," says Monsignor Michel Naaman, a Syriac Catholic priest who used to live there and who has sought to mediate and arrange ceasefires between the Free Syrian Army and government forces.

But the political geography of Homs is not just divided between pro- and anti-government forces but has grey areas of uncertain or disputed control, where hundreds of thousands of people are trying to survive pressures from both sides. They live in an atmosphere poisoned by fear of a kind I have not seen since Baghdad at the height of the sectarian civil war in 2006-7. Where else in the world would not just vulnerable refugees but army generals surrounded by armed guards make me promise not to reveal their names for fear that they and their families might be targeted for retaliation?

Homs is full of people who are refugees within their own city. A lowly government civilian employee, who gave his name as Walid but did not want his exact job identified, told me how he had been forced to move twice.

"I was living in al-Khalidiya when I was kidnapped by the Free Syrian Army because I worked for the government," he said. “Fortunately, I knew somebody in the group who said I was a good man and they let me go, but the shock of my kidnap killed my father who died of a heart attack." Munir moved to another area on the outskirts of northern Homs call al-Waar, where neither government nor rebels are in full control. He said, “I had to leave again because the rebels would set up checkpoints at night and ask people if they were Sunni or Alawite or they would ask for money or take your car."

I had some experience of al-Waar, the district from which Munir had to flee a second time. It is a large area in the north of Homs with high-rise buildings and plenty of accommodation with a population that has risen to 700,000 from 150,000 before the crisis. I had asked to visit a military hospital there earlier this week, had received permission and was guided there by security men in a civilian car. We took a highly circuitous route, driving west out of the city and then circling back to avoid “hot areas". Earth embankments started to appear on roads indicating they were not secure, including the main highway north to Hama. Our guides consulted with soldiers at checkpoints, which were more and more heavily fortified, as to whether it was safe to go ahead and we finally reached the hospital gates, only to be told that the head of the unit would not let us in without a permit from military intelligence.

Some people in Homs flee because they are in areas that support the rebels and others because they are known to work for the government. Most simply want to get to a place of safety. In Homs this is often means taking refuge in a school where the government provides food, water and the basics of life. At one school (again the person in charge asked me not to identify it), where I had met Khalid whose three sons were missing, I talked to Abu Nidal who worked in Homs water and sanitation department. He, too, came from Baba Amr and had left there for two months during the heavy fighting in 2012 when the Syrian army stormed it. “We went back and stayed six or seven months but [in March this year] the rebels came back, the situation was very bad and we had to leave again." He said Baba Amr was now empty and when I drove past it the entrance to the district was blocked by rubble and there was nobody to be seen on the road beyond.

The policy of the government, as expressed by the Governor Ahmad Munir, is not to storm areas in Homs it does not control unless other options have been exhausted. He said he was trying to deal with each case “without a special military operation". He had just arranged for the Syrian army to move into the rebel town of Tal Kalakh near the Lebanese border and for 39 local FSA leaders to surrender. He did not expect the same thing to happen in the Old City because “there are lots of gangs and nobody to negotiate with". The storming of the rebel stronghold of Qusayr earlier this month may have made other communities more determined to avoid similar destruction.

Rickety local ceasefires do not solve the Syrian crisis but they do prevent a lot of people being killed, jailed or driven from their homes. The fact that people in Homs have become inured to living in a constant state of terror does not make their suffering any better. “It must be very dangerous to be a young man of military age here in Syria," I said to a group of refugees in Homs, leading them to laugh dryly and respond: “No, you are wrong. They kill men in their 60s and 70s as well!" I asked if they expected things to get better and they dolefully shook their heads.

By pledging at a meeting in Qatar last weekend to send more arms and equipment to the rebels, the 11-member so-called “Friends of Syria", including the US, UK, France, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, decided in effect to stoke the civil war in Homs and the rest of Syria. To pretend it is not a civil war or to support the rebel side as somehow uniquely representative of the Syrian people flies in the face of demonstrable facts. West of Homs in the port city of Tartus on the Mediterranean there is a long wall with pictures of many of the 2,000 young men from the city killed fighting as soldiers for the government in the last two years. The Syrian state, in control of most of the country, is not going to implode just because the rebels receive fresh supplies of money and arms.

As for Khalid and his hopeless search for his three missing sons, he says, “I wish the Free Syrian Army and the government would leave ordinary people out of it and go and fight each other."

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