Free Republic

Sanae Takaichi, Japan’s first female prime minister, declared in her inaugural address to parliament her intention to sign a peace treaty with Russia to formally end the state of war lingering since World War II. The statement sparked lively discussions in Moscow: is rapprochement with Tokyo possible given its sanctions policy and the long-standing dispute over the Kuril Islands? We explore what lies behind Takaichi’s words, why the treaty remains unsigned, and how the Kremlin views the situation. The Kurils: A Perennial Sticking Point Russia and Japan are the only World War II participants that have not concluded a peace...

President Donald Trump‘s peace deal in Gaza is not simply unprecedented due to the longevity of the conflict between Israel and Hamas. If the deal even somewhat holds, it’s a categorical repudiation of a quarter-century of failed diplomatic consensus. It proves the futility of the democracy promotion of the Bush and Obama-era neoconservatives and negates the notion that the rest of the world should walk on tenterhooks to appease Iran and its proxies in order to garner a consensus in the Middle East. The Gaza deal repudiates the notion that any regional peace hinges on prioritizing a Palestinian state, and...

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Something historic has just happened. After years of war, Israel and Hamas have agreed to move forward with a U.S.-brokered peace plan designed by President Donald Trump. The deal, which includes the release of hostages, phased ceasefires, and a new governing structure for Gaza, has been accepted by all parties and backed by an international coalition. A “Board of Peace” — reportedly with potential oversight from both the United States and European figures like Tony Blair — will supervise the agreement’s implementation. Multiple nations will act as guarantors. The fighting will stop. Gaza will begin rebuilding. For much of the...

There's an old fable about a scorpion that convinces a frog to carry it across a river. The scorpion repeatedly promises it won't sting the frog, and finally convinces the amphibian to carry it across. When they reach the other side, the scorpion promptly stings the frog. The dying frog asks why, after all the promises, the scorpion stung. The scorpion replied, "I couldn't help it. It's in my nature."It's in the nature of Hamas to be murderous and brutal, and only a day after the signing of a historic peace deal between the terrorist group and Israel, Hamas is...

1:07 VIDEO AT LINK. She gets it................ On another note: Why do people make all these videos in their cars?..................

In a landmark diplomatic achievement, President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi and President Donald Trump jointly signed a peace agreement to end the war in Gaza during the opening day of the Sharm El-Sheikh Peace Summit. The high-stakes gathering, co-chaired by President El-Sisi and President Trump, brought together more than twenty global leaders with the shared goal of halting hostilities and launching a new chapter of peace in the Middle East. Speaking at the summit, President Trump praised President El-Sisi as “a great leader,” commending his pivotal role in de-escalating the conflict in Gaza. “President El-Sisi is a great leader and I...

When I first heard this news about the Board of Peace in Gaza, I felt some trepidation: Does Donald Trump need one more project to lead, given all that he’s doing in the U.S.? But the fact is, Trump is probably the best person to head this Board, and there are several reasons why. We don’t know many specifics about the plans for the Board, but we can identify the benefits of the organization and Trump’s role. Here’s what we do know at this point:The Trump plan envisions a ‘Board of Peace’ of international overseers led by Trump himself and...

The organizers of the Nobel Peace Prize are investigating whether insiders used privileged information about this year’s winner to profit on crypto prediction market Polymarket, according to local reports. Roughly 11 hours before the closely watched award was given to Venezuelan resistance leader Maria Corina Machado this morning, the odds of her victory surged from near-zero to over 70% on Polymarket. The market on this year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner has accumulated over $21.4 million in trading volume since opening in July.For nearly all of that time, the odds of Machado receiving the coveted prize have hovered around a 1%...

Two years after the outbreak of the war against the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Israeli authorities have released a new overall toll of military and civilian casualties. According to Channel 12, the Ministry of Defense, the National Insurance Institute, and the Eran (Emergency Psychological Assistance) association have released "unprecedented numbers" of victims, injuries, and people suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Since the conflict began on October 7, 2023, 1.152 Israeli military and security forces personnel have died, 42 percent of whom were under the age of 21. The victims include 1.035 members of the Israel Defense...

The Nobel Peace Prize has become mired in scandal today after suspicious bets were placed before a longshot was announced as the winner. Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado was an obscure candidate just 12 hours before she was announced as winner on Friday. Her victory stunned the world after Donald Trump secured a peace deal in Gaza, ending a two-year war that has killed more than 70,000 people. Machado had just a 5 percent chance of claiming victory, according to prediction market Polymarket. But then a buying spree, from a newly created account '6741', rocketed her chances to 70...

The stuffy global elite is simply too self-congratulatory to recognize that their time is overOf course, Donald Trump has not won the Nobel Peace Prize. The Scandinavian grandees on the committee wouldn’t dream of honoring him. It was silly to think that they would. The award has gone instead to María Corina Machado, the Venezuelan opposition figure, so well done to her. Still, it speaks to the fundamental vanity of our age that the Nobel is today’s big story, as if the complexity of world affairs can be boiled down to a yearly episode of Peace Has Got Talent.The headlines...

Great plan. It will -- and did -- get all of the golf claps from the international arena. Don't expect it to go anywhere, though, because Hamas will never agree to go anywhere else. It's still worth a shot, though, even just for the value of clarifying which side is the actual problem:The Trump administration has reportedly put forward a peace plan which would eventually lead to a complete end to the war in Gaza, a Western source told the Lebanese media site Elnashra on Wednesday, only a day after US President Donald Trump met with the leaders of Muslim...

Two wars — Ukraine and Gaza — are killing civilians, destabilizing allies, and draining American power. At their core stand Russia and Iran, two regimes that cannot survive without Beijing’s support. If America wants to end these conflicts on terms that serve U.S. interests, it must compel China to use its leverage — or face consequences. Only Donald Trump has the toughness and pragmatism to make that happen. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has leveled cities, created Europe’s largest refugee crisis since World War II, and cost American taxpayers tens of billions in aid. Hamas’s assault on Israel and the regional...

Alfred Nobel meant for the Peace Prize to go to those who actually end wars – not those who merely wax poetic about peaceWhen Rwandan and Congolese leaders signed a peace treaty at the White House on June 27, it addressed one of the bloodiest conflicts of the last half-century—a war whose death toll numbers in the millions. This alone exemplifies why Donald Trump deserves serious consideration for the Nobel Peace Prize. By Alfred Nobel’s original intent, the Peace Prize should go to those who actually end wars, not those who merely talk about it. In 2025, Trump has brokered...

In Philippians 4:7 we have a wonderful promise: “The peace of God, which passes all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” It is important to note the context of this promise, because that’s where we find the condition: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God” (verse 6). God’s peace is promised to guard those who pray—with thanksgiving—about everything. This peace will transcend our ability to understand it.

President Donald Trump emphasized his involvement in multiple international conflicts during meetings with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and European leaders at the White House. He criticized media coverage, saying outlets fail to recognize his efforts to broker peace and manage crises abroad. 1. Armenia and Azerbaijan – August 2025 Leaders from Armenia and Azerbaijan signed a peace agreement at the White House after decades of conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh. Trump described the deal as a step toward long-term stability, declaring the countries would now “be friends a long time.” The agreement includes a major transit route between the territories, which Trump...

As followers of Christ, we must resist the temptation to reduce complex human suffering to simple narratives that fit our political preferences. The Middle East’s problems will not be solved by reducing them to hashtags or campus chants. They require patient engagement, nuanced understanding, and the kind of costly love that characterizes authentic Christian witness. This means speaking truthfully about Hamas’s terrorism while also acknowledging Palestinian suffering. It means supporting Israel’s right to defend itself while questioning whether all tactics serve the cause of justice. It means caring about Gaza while not forgetting those suffering in many other situations in...

More than a million Russians have been killed or seriously wounded on the battlefields of Ukraine. But there is one man who owes his life to the continuing slaughter. For Vladimir Putin, an outbreak of peace means certain death – by assassination, overthrow and execution, or in an international prison cell as a war criminal. The Russian president's only credible hope of survival in the gangster state he has himself created is to prolong the 'special military operation' in Ukraine or to win in such outrageously successful terms that he can turn his attention to other former client states, other...

I’m old enough to remember when Barack Obama won a Nobel Peace Prize for — I give up. I can’t think of anything that Obama did to earn it just eight months into his presidency. For what it’s worth, the Nobel Peace Prize website says that the committee gave him the prize for his “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.”In his second term, President Donald Trump has gotten real results in his efforts to bring peace to areas of the globe that desperately need it. And he’s done it in less time than it took for...