May 16, 2013 U.S. President Barack Obama said Thursday that the U.S. and Turkey will continue adding pressure to oust Syrian President Bashar Assad from power, but there's "no magic formula" to stop his violence. "We're going to keep increasing the pressure on the Assad regime and working with the Syrian opposition," Obama said during a news conference with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the ...

WASHINGTON, May 16, 2013 (AFP) President Barack Obama urged Congress on Thursday to fund upgrades to US embassy security around the world, as a way of truly honoring the memory of four Americans killed in Benghazi. Obama made the call in his latest bid to regain the initiative after Republicans accused his administration of covering up details of the attack, to safeguard his re-election hopes last year. The ...

CAIRO, May 15, 2013 (AFP) An Al-Qaeda-linked cell broken up in Egypt at the weekend planned to bomb the French and US embassies in Cairo, state news agency MENA quoted investigators as saying on Wednesday. "The accused planned suicide car bombings outside the embassies of France and the United States in Egypt," MENA said In the case of the French mission, the motive was to register a protest "against French ...

OTTAWA, May 11, 2013 (AFP) Canada is denying a Tunisian man who was arrested in New York for trying to build a terrorism network entered the United States from its territory, Canadian media reported. Ahmed Abassi, who was in New York City when he was arrested on April 22, has been charged with fraudulently seeking a work visa in order to remain on US soil and "facilitate international terrorism." Abassi is ...

WASHINGTON, May 9, 2013 (AFP) The US State Department called Thursday for Japan to take action on child abductions but rejected lawmakers' calls to threaten sanctions to force action on one of the allies' few open disputes. Hundreds of non-Japanese parents, mostly men from the United States and elsewhere, have lost access to their children as estranged partners took them to the country where joint custody i ...

April 28, 2013 While he isn’t the “young Muslim socialist” he used to be, U.S. President Barack Obama can certainly perk up a crowd. Obama drew laughs during his 2013 White House Correspondents' Dinner speech as took a swipe at conspiracists who have doubted his religion, while also making light of his graying hair. "These days, I look in the mirror and I have to admit, I'm not the strapping young Muslim so ...

WASHINGTON, April 24, 2013 (AFP) A report by the US Congress on Wednesday faulted former secretary of state Hillary Clinton over the deadly attack on the US mission in Benghazi, saying she rejected requests for greater security. The report by the Republican chairmen of five committees in the House of Representatives said that the Democratic administration failed to react to warnings of security risks in Lib ...

WASHINGTON, April 23, 2013 (AFP) The United States on Tuesday called on Libya to punish the assailants behind a car bombing of the French embassy in Tripoli and said it stood ready to assist Paris on the case if needed. State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell said that the United States condemned the attack, which caused extensive damage to the French mission, and extended sympathies to the two guards w ...

April 21, 2013 U.S. aid to the Syrian opposition is set to double to $250 million, Secretary of State John Kerry said on Sunday, adding that Washington would also provide new non-lethal military equipment for rebel fighters. The announcement came after talks among the pro-opposition “Friends of Syria” group in Istanbul. But despite the new aid package, the U.S. paid no heed to calls for arms supplies or a d ...

Istanbul, April 20, 2013 The United States is set to boost its support for Syria’s rebels at a meeting of the opposition’s main foreign backers Saturday and could for the first time agree to supply non-lethal military gear. But Washington is expected to stop short of agreeing to rebel demands for arms as the 11-nation core group of the “Friends of Syria” hold talks in Istanbul with key figures in the opposi ...

BOSTON, Massachusetts, April 19, 2013 (AFP) Police captured one of the Boston marathon bombing suspects early Friday but were still chasing a second suspect in a manhunt in which gunfire and explosions were heard, the Boston Globe reported. The suspect was caught in Watertown near the US city of Boston after a chase which started with the killing of a police officer at the elite Massachusetts Institute of T ...

April 18, 2013 As more states in the U.S. legalize same-sex marriage, it is easy to forget that in many communities, such as the Islamic one, homosexuality is frowned upon. The U.S. based Washington Post tells the story of Imam Daayiee Abdullah who is seeking to make a change. The openly gay African-American convert to Islam quietly helps same-sex Muslim couples marry and keep the secret from their families ...