Signs, Signs, & More Signs

The featured news could prove to be the fulfillment of major portions of Scripture.

Daniel 9

27 - And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.

Bible students have interpreted the above text to mean that the anti-christ will confirm a peace treaty with Israel, and this will start the clock on the find week (seven years) in Daniel's 70 weeks. If it is we will soon know if the rapture will occur before the beginning of the tribulation. We could be flying soon! PTL!

www.drudgereport.com
Syria Agrees to Attend Mideast Summit

Nov 25, 9:51 PM (ET)By ANNE GEARAN
WASHINGTON (AP) - Arab holdout Syria agreed Sunday to attend a Mideast peace conference called by President Bush to restart talks to resolve the six-decade conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, yet expectations for the summit remained low. The two sides came to Washington without agreeing on basic terms for their negotiations.

Bush invited the Israeli and Palestinian leaders to separate meetings at the White House on Monday to prepare for the centerpiece of his Mideast gathering - an all-day session Tuesday in Annapolis, Md. It is to be the only time that Bush, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas meet together, and their three-way handshake is expected to be the conference's symbolic high point. Bush closes the U.S. effort with a second set of separate Israeli and Palestinian meetings at the White House on Wednesday.

"The broad attendance at this conference by regional states and other key international participants demonstrates the international resolve to seize this important opportunity to advance freedom and peace in the Middle East," Bush said in a statement Sunday.

Israeli and Palestinian negotiators were meeting with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her deputy for the Mideast region, still trying to write a framework for talks that their U.S. hosts had hoped would be complete by now. Rice's spokesman said the last-minute work is not surprising.

"We're confident there will be a document and we'll get to Annapolis in good shape on that," but bargaining may well continue behind the scenes during the session Tuesday, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said in an interview.

"It will memorialize their common understandings to this point," and look ahead to negotiations the two sides expect to begin in earnest after the session, McCormack told The Associated Press.

Separately, Palestinian negotiators Ahmed Qureia and Saeb Erekat met with Tzipi Livni, Israel's lead negotiator, for unscheduled talks Sunday evening. Asked if they were optimistic about the prospect for reaching a consensus on a joint declaration, Qureia replied, "You don't meet if you're not optimistic."

Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs David Welch also met with Palestinian negotiators Sunday in an attempt to reach a breakthrough, a member of the Palestinian delegation said.

Bush's national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, said the joint statement was not as important as it might have seemed when it was first broached. The two sides took the unexpected step of seeking negotiations, and the declaration no longer needed to serve as a vehicle to prod them to do so, Hadley said.

"If we get something, if they can agree on some things as an input to the negotiations, that would be fine," Hadley said. "But I think it is really no longer on the critical path to a successful conference."

The Bush administration, which has largely taken a hands-off approach to the nitty-gritty of Mideast peacemaking until now, says the goal is to set up an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel. Israeli and Palestinian leaders have said they want to do that by the time Bush leaves office in January 2009. While there are widespread doubts in the administration about that time line, Rice has said she is game to try.

"This is not a negotiation session, it is to launch negotiations," Hadley said.
Hadley said that during his address to the conference Tuesday, Bush will make clear that the Mideast peace process has his support, and that it is a top priority for the rest of his time in office. But he is not expected to use his speech to advance any of his own ideas on how to achieve that by wading into the issues that have kept the parties bitterly divided.

The conference is meant to draw Arab and other outside backing for what will be difficult negotiations. The idea is also to let Arab states have their say alongside Bush, making it more difficult for them to complain that Washington is not doing enough or is not listening to good advice from those closest to the conflict.

Syria, which borders Israel and has no diplomatic relations with the Jewish state, gave Washington a partial victory Sunday by agreeing to send a lower-level envoy to the session. Syria wants to raise the question of the Golan Heights, strategic territory Israel seized from Syria in the 1967 war. The U.S. hosts and Israel have agreed, at least tacitly, to listen.

Other major Arab states whose participation was considered essential had decided on Friday to send their top diplomats.

As 16 Arab nations and the Arab League prepared to sit down with Israel for the first time in more than a decade, Israel's ambassador to Washington said what Arab leaders say and do after the conference can change the bitter atmosphere in the Middle East.

"Annapolis is about two things," Ambassador Sallai Meridor said in an interview. Foremost is furthering direct talks between Israel and the Palestinians "and the other thing it is important for is creating international and Arab support for this process," Meridor said. "We hope the Arabs will come and come with a spirit of peace."

Israel's Foreign Minister Livni suggested that a lack of Arab backing contributed to the failure of the last round of talks. That effort collapsed in bloodshed in the waning days of the Clinton administration in early 2001.

The Arab world, Livni told reporters en route to Washington, "should stop sitting on the fence."

"There isn't a single Palestinian who can reach an agreement without Arab support," she said. "That's one of the lessons we learned seven years ago." But, Livni added, "it is not the role of the Arab world to define the terms of the negotiations or take part in them."

Whatever joint agreement the Israelis and Palestinians present at Annapolis will be a starting point and is likely to sketch only vague bargaining terms.

The big questions that have doomed previous peace efforts, such as the borders of a Palestinian state, the status of disputed Jerusalem and the rights of Palestinians and their descendants to return to homes in what is now Israel, would come later.

Palestinian negotiator Yasser Abed Rabbo said Palestinians hoped to work out a joint document, but that an agreement was not essential because of assurances received in the U.S. invitation to the conference.

That invitation, he said, "includes all the terms of reference for the future negotiation" and "confirms that both sides are committed" to putting in place the peace process. "This is enough to launch negotiations after the conference."

www.foxnews.com
Saudi Arabia Marks 136th Beheading of 2007

Sunday , November 25, 2007
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia —

Saudi authorities on Sunday beheaded a citizen convicted of shooting a man in the head with an assault rifle, the Interior Ministry said.

In a statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency, the ministry said that Ali bin Suweid Al-Domnan killed Diyab bin Ali al-Mansour following an argument in the southern city of Najran.

Saudi Arabia follows a strict interpretation of Islam under which those convicted of murder, drug trafficking, rape and armed robbery are executed in public with a sword.

Sunday's execution brought to 136 the number of people beheaded in the kingdom this year, according to an Associated Press count. Saudi Arabia beheaded 38 people last year and 83 people in 2005.

When You Think You Have Heard It All!

www.foxnews.com
Bones of Baby Found in Detroit Home; 2 Charged With Abusing Second Child

Monday , November 26, 2007

DETROIT —
Police investigating the apparent abuse of a 1-year-old boy say they found the skeletal remains of his baby brother concealed in the ceiling of a home.

The boys' parents, 24-year-old Nickella Reid and 27-year-old Joseph Miller, were arrested Friday after Reid took her year-old son to the hospital with burns. She said he was scalded the day before Thanksgiving by Miller, her boyfriend.
The couple were arraigned Saturday on first- and second-degree child abuse charges. They were jailed on bonds of $700,000 for Miller and $400,000 for Reid, authorities said.The name of the injured boy was not released.

Reid told police that Miller killed another son, Deante Miller, in March 2006, while Miller said he died of natural causes. Miller also denied scalding the younger boy, authorities said.

Authorities say the couple then burned the body in a barbecue grill — to save on funeral costs, they claimed — and hid what was left of the remains in the ceiling of a home once occupied by Miller's sister.

The decision whether to charge the couple in Deante's death will be based on the investigation, Wayne County assistant prosecutor Maria Miller said. A forensic expert will examine the remains, she said.

She said that the surviving boy was severely abused, with burns over one-third of his body. He was in fair condition at a Children's Hospital of Michigan, authorities said.

Reid's four other children were placed in foster care, authorities said.