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For evangelical Christians, it is difficult to look at major developments in the Middle East without wondering about biblical prophecy. Should we rejoice over the historic peace treaty between Israel and the UAE and Bahrain? Or is this leading to a dangerous, false peace that will only hasten the reign of the antichrist? Let’s first recognize just how historic this peace treaty actually is. For 30 years, from 1948 until 1978, not a single Middle Eastern nation made peace with Israel. It was not until 1979 that Egypt made that historic move, ultimately factoring into the assassination of the courageous...

The talks with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe focused on implementation of agreements on joint economic activity in the southern Kurile islandsMOSCOW, May 26. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin has noted the significance of seeking solutions to the issue of a peace treaty between Russia and Japan, since it should meet the interests of both counties and be supported by their peoples, he said after talks with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Saturday. "We believe it important to keep looking patiently for solutions [to the peace treaty] which should meet strategic interests of both Russia and Japan and would...

The European Union could remove Colombian guerilla movement FARC from its list of known terrorists, pending the signing of the peace agreement between the group and the country’s government. EurActiv Spain reports.Ahead of a formalization of the deal between FARC and the Colombian government, the EU indicated that it could soon remove the group from its terrorist blacklist. “FARC currently sits on the list of terrorist organizations in Colombia,” confirmed European Commission spokesperson Maja Kocijancic today (26 September), adding that the EU “has strongly supported the Colombia peace deal”. […] The European Court of Justice last week recommended that Hamas...

Stop by your local post office and you might just see a poster of Rodrigo “Timochenko” Londono hanging next to the Most Wanted posters of bank robbers and fugitives. The State Department is offering a $5 million reward for information about the Communist terrorist leader. But all the State Department had to do was ask Secretary of State Kerry. Obama did the wave with the Cuban dictator and Kerry met with Timochenko , the leader of FARC, a Marxist terrorist organization that appears on his own department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations a little above Al Qaeda. Timochenko is a...

North Korea said it could stop its nuclear tests in exchange for signing a peace treaty with the U.S. and a stop to annual military exercises between the U.S. and South Korea. The North's statement carried by the state media late Friday was a repeat of past offers that have been rejected by the U.S., which wants Pyongyang to commit to a complete abandonment of nuclear weapons. An unnamed spokesman of the North's Foreign Ministry called the purported hydrogen bomb test on Jan. 6 a justifiable move to ensure its survival against external threats. ...

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un speaks during a ceremony to award party and state commendations to nuclear … SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea on Saturday called for the conclusion of a peace treaty with the United States and a halt to U.S. military exercises with South Korea to end its nuclear tests. The isolated state has long sought a peace treaty with the United States, as well as an end to the exercises by South Korea and the United States, which has about 28,500 troops based in South Korea. "Still valid are all proposals for preserving peace and stability...

US Secretary of State John Kerry will offer Israeli and Palestinian negotiators a political trade-off: Israeli recognition of the 1967 lines as a basis for the future Palestinian state, in return for Palestinian recognition of Israel as the state of the Jewish people, Palestinian sources told the Saudi daily Al-Watan on Sunday. According to the sources, the mutual recognition will constitute the core of a framework agreement to be signed by the end of January, and negotiated in greater detail during the following months. “The coming weeks will be difficult for the Palestinian and Israeli sides, since they will need...

Tamarod, the Egyptian movement which led the opposition to ousted President Mohammed Morsi, apparently now has a new target: the peace treaty with Israel. Egyptian media reported on Saturday that Tamarod, which amassed 22 signatures to a petition demanding Morsi’s departure before the army ousted him in July, is now collecting signatures to a new initiative calling to cancel the peace treaty signed between Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin in 1979. Tamarod’s latest initiative, according to the reports, comes in the wake of what they called the “unacceptable U.S. interference in Egypt’s political affairs.” The...

The relationship established in 1978-9 between Israel and Egypt constituted a significant change in the mindset of the international community. It was a revolutionary change that laid the foundation for the ensuing Middle East peace process. In Article III of the peace treaty, Egypt and Israel undertake: “to ensure that acts or threats of belligerency, hostility, or violence do not originate from and are not committed from within its territory, or by any forces subject to its control or by any other forces stationed on its territory.” Both states are obligated to prevent the use of their territory for acts...

The decision to halt Egyptian natural gas exports to Israel was not due simply to commercial differences, international shareholders in EMG said yesterday, dismissing claims they were behind in payments. "Any attempts to characterize this dispute as a mere commercial one is misleading," shareholders in East Mediterranean Gas Co. (EMG) said in a statement to Reuters. "This is a government-backed contract sealed by a memorandum of understanding between Egypt and Israel that specifically refers to the [1979] peace treaty."Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has tried to play down termination of the 2005 deal, saying cancellation of the contract supplying Israel with...

The prevailing optimism in media reports concerning the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafist party's readiness to adhere to the peace treaty with Israel is based on general statements made by senior officials in both parties. These statements maintain that Egypt must honor the international treaties that it signed. Yet a more rigorous examination of the two parties' stances identifies a markedly different tendency. Both seek a way to cast off the Camp David agreement in a manner that will incur minimal diplomatic and economic damage to Egypt, and restore Egypt to its leading role in the circle of states...

The prevailing optimism in media reports concerning the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafist party's readiness to adhere to the peace treaty with Israel is based on general statements made by senior officials in both parties. These statements maintain that Egypt must honor the international treaties that it signed. Yet a more rigorous examination of the two parties' stances identifies a markedly different tendency. Both seek a way to cast off the Camp David agreement in a manner that will incur minimal diplomatic and economic damage to Egypt, and restore Egypt to its leading role in the circle of states...

Amid the Islamic tsunami sweeping Egypt's parliamentary elections the ultra-conservative Salafist Nour party says it is willing to hold talks with Israel. Salafi al-Nour Party spokesman Yousri Hammad told Egypt's daily al-Arabia that reports party chairman Emad Abdul Ghafour was willing to maintain contacts with Israel were true - and added doing so did not violate Islamic principles. “We have not received an official request from Israel yet, but if we sit with Israel, it has to be through the Egyptian Foreign Ministry,” he said. The Salafi al-Nour Party garnered about 25 percent of the votes in the first and...

The Maoist government of Nepal has collapsed after a failed attempt to remove the country's right-wing army chief. The cabinet bid to sack Gen Rookmangud Katawal prompted the second largest party, the centrist UML, to resign from the ruling coalition. The Himalayan country is emerging from a 10 year civil war which ended with a ceasefire in 2006. Last year the former Maoist rebels won national elections and formed a coalition government. But the peace process is now stuck on the issue that sparked the latest crisis – the integration of former Maoist fighters into the traditionally conservative national army....

KATHMANDU: Battling for the removal of the controversial army chief, Gen Rookmangud Katawal, and his defender, President Ram Baran Yadav, Nepal's Maoist party walked into an ambush when an embarrassing video tape showed Maoist Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda boasting his guerrilla troops' number had been five-fold inflated during a UN count. In the same video, aired by Nepal's gleeful public television stations on Tuesday night, he was also shown as making scathing remarks about "reactionary" India and the US, saying that if they scented the constituent assembly election would lead to a Maoist victory, they would never allow...

BEIJING – A 13-year-old American boy campaigning to turn the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea into a peace park tried to get the Chinese president's attention Monday, staging a brief protest near Tiananmen Square before being led away by police. Jonathan Lee unfurled a sign saying "peace treaty" and "nuclear free DMZ children's peace forest" as he stood outside Tiananmen Gate just north of the square in central Beijing. The scene of numerous demonstrations over the years, the gate and square remain some of the most tightly controlled public spaces in China and all protests on it are...

Cheonan the Introduction to Kim's Second Act By Sohn Kwang Joo, Chief Editor [2010-06-03] What does it all mean? Why was South Korea attacked by North Korea? Some say that the Cheonan incident was retaliation for the Daecheong naval battle of November last year, while others say it was related to the succession. But the underlying reason is different. South Korea and the international community have not yet figured out recent changes to Kim Jong Il’s survival tactics. That is, there have been changes to Kim Jong Il’s international and domestic strategy for survival with which his foes have yet...

Caveats:1) The streaming video, located on THIS Japanese news web page, may only be up for a half day or so. The link could go dead, or could link to another, new story.2) Not all computer systems might be able to play the video. You might need Microsoft Silverlight installed, but probably most can see the short stream.3) Go to the link and hit the photo with the white triangle and stream. Now for the explanation of this important video taken today of photos of the cargo of an aircraft seized in Bangkok which was heading from North Korea...

The NY Times covers the thirtieth anniversary of Egypt-Israel peace treaty with an article which goes on and on in saying that Egyptians feel they didn't get anything out of the treaty because they still live under a dictatorship. No mention of billions in U.S. aid as a result. That is truly amazing. The treaty brought Egypt more than $60 billion but that isn't worth mentioning. No mention of how Egypt has not lived up to the normalization aspects--discouraging tourism and trade, for example; or continuing to demonize Israel. No mention of how Egypt didn't contribute very much to the...

Top US State Department negotiator Christopher Hill was spotted yesterday at Washington's Dulles International Airport by Japanese TV reporters and crews.When pressed, he indicated that he would be going to "one additional stop" on the way to China from Japan.Later it was confirmed he is going to Pyongyang, North Korea. He will meet his counterpart, Kim Gye Gwan, Kim Jong il's chief negotiator.He will apparantly be in the "Peoples Paradise" between 3-5 December, to work out details facilitating the removal of North Korea from the US Government's list of "Terrorist Countries", which is expected within the next few weeks...