NEW YORK – A new Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) seeking to end the illegal flow of weapons to terrorist organizations was brought to the table at during a press briefing at the United Nations on Tuesday, as diplomats from more than 100 countries meet this week to negotiate an international agreement.

Global peace and faith leaders were present at the July 3 press briefing, including a former child soldier turned bishop. The participants shared personal accounts of why world leaders and the U.S. government especially need to fully back new regulations on conventional arms and ammunition to address the growing loss of life in impoverished places affected by the illegal weapons trade.

"President Obama needs to promote this arms trade treaty. If he loves the innocent lives, women and children, then he needs to stand for this treaty, and the nation of American and all the nations of this world need to stand for this treaty," urged Bishop Elias Taban, President of the Sudan Evangelical Alliance, who shared at the briefing details of his life as a child soldier back in Sudan. more >>

Jacob George, a Christian war veteran who served three tours of duty in Afghanistan, was one of the dozens of young veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars who gathered outside the McCormick convention center in Chicago last Sunday. The gathering marked the first day of the 2012 NATO Summit and was used to make a historic call upon world leaders for peace and reconciliation in Afghanistan.

The group of American service members who were deployed and redeployed to war zones – often times against their will and while still suffering with post-traumatic stress disorder – were joined by activists and organizations such as the Civilian Soldier Alliance, Iraq Veterans Against The War, Veterans For Peace, and Operation Recovery as they handed back over 100 war medals in protest of the global body's mission in Afghanistan.

"There were a lot of things that protest meant to me," Afghan war veteran and advocate for the rights of veterans Jacob George told The Christian Post. "It was moving, it was inspirational, and it was healing." more >>

A new report on the state of Christians living in the Holy Land aired on CBS' "60 Minutes" last weekend has stirred controversy among some Christian and Jewish groups that have blasted the report as unfairly portraying Israel as an oppressor of Middle East Christians.

CBS' Bob Simon conducted the new report seeking to refute that Muslim discrimination is driving force for the mass exodus of Palestinian Christians from the Holy Land. He argued that it has been Israeli settlements and the policies of Israel that have forced Christians out of the Holy Land.

Today Christians make up 1.5 percent of the population of Jerusalem but just in 1967 had constituted five percent of those living in the holy city, according to the report. more >>

Church groups have urged Sudan and South Sudan to exercise "maximum restraint" in the simmering dispute between the two over their oil rich border region.

South Sudan gave way on Friday to international pressure to withdraw its forces from the Heglig oil field just over the border in Sudan.

Both nations are claiming rights over the oil rich region of Abyei, the border of which has not yet been demarcated. It is accepted internationally that the region falls within Sudanese territory. more >>

A deadly church bombing related to an Easter service held in Nigeria has once again prompted a persecution watchdog to ask for prayers aimed at helping Christians in the country respond to the violence appropriately.

"It's obviously deliberate when on Christmas Day and on Easter Sunday you have these violent attacks against churches and Christians. It's not coincidental," Open Doors Senior Communications Specialist Paul Estabrooks told The Christian Post Monday. "The big challenge is how do you overcome evil with good biblically and non-violently?"

At least 38 people were killed Sunday as a suicide car bomber detonated powerful explosives on a busy road outside a church that was holding a morning Easter service. more >>

Harvest Ministries leader Greg Laurie concluded the last of his three radio interviews with Calvary Chapel founder Pastor Chuck Smith on Wednesday by asking him about the future of Israel.

Affirming that the current threats against Israel are a sign of the end times, he stated, "The Bible tells us that the Lord is going to gather them back into the land and there is going to be an endeavor to destroy them. It is interesting that Iran is one of those nations that will be aligned together with Russia in the attempt to destroy [Israel]. It's interesting how they are all coming together now.

"We see the problems that are over there and we realize that it looks like we are right on the border of the fulfillment of Ezekiel 38 and 39." more >>