Weekly Prophecy Review

News from around the world...

• The spreading of the gospel in the west African nation of Benin has received a strong boost from its President, Matthew Carricou. A former Marxist, Carricou is now referred to as the "pastor President" because every time he speaks to a crowd or goes on television, he preaches to them.

• In New York City a group known as Pastors for Peace plans to violate the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba. They say they will transport 500 tons of food, medicine, medical equipment, and Bibles into Mexico, and then on to Cuba. In 1996 Federal agents arrested a dozen pastors from this group and confiscated 500 computers which were bound for Cuba. The 36-year old embargo has become increasingly unpopular since the Pope's visit last winter.

• Cable Television's Family Channel will soon undergo drastic changes. Gone will be the family- friendly reruns such as Bonanza. In their place the new Fox Family Network will air comedies and cartoons in the day and programming for adults in the evenings. According to a company spokesman, the new programming will combine "the Fox attitude with family values."

• Apparently, at least one nation will not get to experience that new "Fox attitude." Afghanistan's minister for the prevention of vice and the promotion of virtue (his actual title) has ordered everyone in that country to dispose of their television sets, VCR's, satellite dishes, and films! Religious police will smash the sets if they are not gone in the next 15 days. According to this Minister, "television and video are the cause of corruption in this society."

• Twenty Christian foreign nationals in Saudi Arabia have been detained by the religious police. One was a pregnant woman who was being held merely to coerce her husband, an expatriate church leader who fled to the Philippines, to return to the country. The woman, who gave birth during detention, is reportedly too weak to nurse the child and may die. Her husband has appealed to the International Red Cross for the release of his wife and new-born child.

• A woman who fled China to avoid a forced abortion entered Japan illegally on a Korean fishing boat. For this offense, she could face a year in prison. Said the prosecutor, "Childbirth cannot be the only reason for coming illegally."

• With sky-rocketing crime and a shrinking economy, the situation in Russia grows more serious daily. With this in mind, a California-based ministry has launched a discipleship pen-pal program to assist new Christians in the former Soviet Union. This ministry has literally thousands of respondents who speak English and are desiring help in their new-found Christian walk. For more information contact ASSIST on the web, or write to ASSIST at P.O. Box 2126, Garden Grove, CA 92842-2126, USA.

News from Israel...

• The United Nations voted to upgrade the status of the Palestinian Authority. Though they cannot display their flag (which, by the way, portrays an outline of the entire nation of Israel), they can now participate in the decision making of other countries. The vote was 124-4.

• An Arab MK (Minister of the Knesset) may be indicted for incitement. It seems Salah Salim has publicly called for the murder of any Arab land-dealers who sell to Jews.

• A recent study based on genetic evidence suggests much of the Jewish priestly class can trace its lineage back 3,000 years. The members of the Cohanim, who are descendants of Moses and Aaron, have the same version of the Y chromosome. The explanation is that they have never been allowed to intermarry. That, so they could keep their bloodline pure and, according to Jewish beliefs, become priests when the Jewish Temple is again rebuilt.

• In a meeting in Cairo, Arafat, Hussain of Jordan, and Mubarek of Egypt joined to condemn the recent plan to extend the boundaries of Jerusalem. In a joint statement the leaders asserted their "absolute rejection of Judiazing Jerusalem." An Israeli spokesman, David Bar-Illan, responded by saying, "We find particularly offensive the mention in the Cairo communique about the 'Judiazing of Jerusalem.' This is an ugly, racist remark, aside from it being an insult to one's intelligence. Jerusalem has had a Jewish majority for more than one hundred years."

• Sheikh Ahmed Yasin, spiritual leader of the Moslem terrorist organization, Hamas, has predicted that Israel will cease to exist as a nation within 40 years. Yasin had just returned from tour of the Middle East in which he raised millions of dollars for Hamas, an organization claiming responsibility for the suicide bombings which have killed scores of Israel citizens since 1993.

News that might actually have something to do with prophecy...

U.S. throws in the towel on the "peace process"

The U.S. is apparently abandoning the role it has assumed for the last several months; that is, trying to force a completion of the peace process as it was mapped out in the 1993 Oslo Accords. On Friday, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright indicated the U.S. is withdrawing from the diplomatic process between the Israelis and the Palestinians. She said that the U.S. can do no more for the peace process unless the two sides sit down and work out an agreement together.

While the Israelis were naturally pleased at this development, the Palestinians expressed anger at what they termed, a U.S. betrayal. Many fear increased violence will be the likely result of this latest action. Moreover, the leader of the Meretz party, who attacked the U.S. for abandoning the peace process, opined that "the Israelis and the Palestinians will never be able to revive it [the peace process] on their own."

This startling development, plus the Palestinian provocations of last week (blockading the Israeli road to Gush Katif), may indeed stiffen the resolve of Israeli leaders to resist further withdrawals. We pray that will be the case.

Till He returns...