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White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters today that the Obama Administration will not release the president’s THREE PAGE Apology letter to Hamid Karzai. The Tatler reported: The White House press secretary told members of the press pool aboard Air Force One today that President Obama’s “sincere” apology to Afghan President Hamid Karzai for a Koran-burning incident “is not appropriate to show” to reporters. Jay Carney spoke with reporters for about 20 minutes as the presidential entourage flew to Florida for a speech on energy at the University of Miami. Obama’s letter to Karzai that included the apology was “a...

Syria’s deputy oil minister has announced his resignation, saying he is instead joining the anti-government revolt against President Bashar Assad in a video posted on YouTube overnight. Abdo Hussameddin Abdo Hussameddin, 58, one of the highest ranking Syrian officials to defect since the uprising began one year ago, said he did not want to die “serving a criminal regime”. Mr Hussameddin, who served in the Syrian government for 33 years, also denounced Russia and China for backing the regime saying they were not "friends of the Syrian people but partners in the killing of the Syrian people". The resignation came...

But as the Sunni-Shi'ite split in the Middle East deepens, Hamas appears to have cast its lot with the powerful, Egypt-based Sunni Islamists of the Muslim Brotherhood, whose star has been in the ascendant since the Arab Spring revolts last year. Hamas makes its choice "This is considered a big step in the direction of cutting ties with Syria," said Hany al-Masri, a Palestinian political commentator. Damascus might now opt to formally expel Hamas's exile headquarters from Syria, he told Reuters. Banned by deposed Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak, the Muslim Brotherhood has moved to the center of public life. It...

“When you look that closely at someone, you almost always develop sympathy for them,” Rockwell says. “It's like sitting next to someone for a long bus ride. … I want to think about who these people are and why they made the choices they did. I want to share the results of my thoughts, which are my paintings, with other people.” She was particularly inspired to paint bin Laden. “We take for granted who he was and what he did and why, and stop thinking of him as a human being with profoundly human motivations. The war on terror is...

KOCHI: Susan Nathan, the British-born Israeli writer who achieved fame through her book 'The Other Side of Israel', is continuing to stay in India despite her visa expiring as she wants to be in a war-free zone, her counsel submitted to the Kerala High Court. When the writer's petition challenging the deportation move came up for hearing on Friday before division bench of acting Chief Justice Manjula Chellur and Justice PR Ramachandra Menon, her counsel Manjeri Sunder Raj submitted that she was staying in India as she wanted to be in a "war-free zone" in the last years of her...

Diplomatic sources said that while the Arab League called for Mr. Assad's exit, there was hardly any consensus within the 22-nation grouping on how that result could be achieved. The call by Qatar, which was endorsed by Saudi Arabia to arm the Syrian opposition, which itself stood divided, had not been endorsed by the rest of the League... With the divergences on how to resolve the Syrian crisis remaining unbridged, the Arab League and its components are set to hold a flurry of meetings. Their diplomatic activism includes an upcoming meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), whose core members,...

QUSAYR, Syria -- This city of 35,000 is largely empty. Seven miles from the Lebanese border, it is the last rebel stronghold in this part of Syria. Residents and rebel fighters spoke in hushed tones about the shelling they expect to begin any day. Those who have decided to stay are resigned to their fate. The Syrian military holds positions in some neighborhoods in the city, and tanks were said to be taking up positions surrounding Qusayr in preparation for a final assault... Fatma said the army had entered the city three times before, and that the assault on Qusayr...

Several Democratic senators are calling on the Obama administration to allow Syrians who are already in the United States to stay, at least temporarily, out of concern it would be "too dangerous" for them to return home. The senators want President Obama to invoke what's known as "temporary protected status" for thousands of Syrians in the U.S. The designation typically is given to foreign nationals whose home countries are beset by war or natural disaster and who could face harm should they return. The senators argued that Syrians in the U.S. are in just that kind of predicament, as Syrian...

Priorities: Veterans of the war on terror will be rewarded with higher insurance premiums that favored unions are exempt from. Obama-Care must be served, after all, and that soccer field for Gitmo detainees must be paid for. For the soldiers who served in Iraq and Afghanistan and lost their legs from mines and improvised explosive devices, it is bitterly ironic news that detainees at Guantanamo, who helped maim them, will now be kicking around soccer balls at a new $750,000 field that is half the size of an American football field. This comes as the military is bearing the brunt...

Criticism of President Barack Obama's apology for the burning of Qurans in Afghanistanis not helpful, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Sunday in a wide-ranging interview with CNN. "I find it somewhat troubling that our politics would enflame such a dangerous situation in Afghanistan," Clinton said of the complaints by Republican presidential candidates and some experts about Obama's apology. Obama apologized Thursday in a letter to Afghan President Hamid Karzai for the burning of Qurans, which he called "inadvertent" and an "error." "It was the right thing to do to have our president on record as saying this was not...

President Obama’s apology to Afghan President Hamid Karzai for the U.S. military burning Qurans at Bagram Air Field, the largest NATO base in Afghanistan, has prompted a fierce reaction. Former House speaker Newt Gingrich called the apology “an outrage.” Our Commander in Chief was courageous to apologize in an election year for an outrageous violation of American values that happened on his watch. But the debate that focuses only on whether it is right or wrong to burn Qurans or whether the Afghan people are justified in responding with rioting misses the larger question: What were American forces doing burning...

A top Iranian military commander said Saturday that nothing but burning the White House and hanging US commanders could remedy the pain caused to Muslims by the burning of Korans at a US military base in Afghanistan, pan-Arab Al Arabiya news channel reported Sunday. "The US has committed such an ugly act and burned Korans because of the heavy slap it has been given by Islam," Basij (volunteer forces) Commander Brig.-Gen. Muhammad Reza Naqdi told Iran's semi- official Fars new agency, according to the Al Arabiya report. “Their apology can be accepted only by hanging their commanders; hanging their commanders...

Obama official goes to VA mosque, Iranian general calls for burning of White House, death of U.S. commanders as Muslims riot and kill. An Obama Defense Department official visited a mosque in Virginia on Friday to repeat the Administration's apology over Korans that were burned at a U.S. base in Afghanistan. But Obama's groveling is not working as planned. My Fox NY reported Saturday: Peter Lavoy, acting assistant secretary of defense for Asian and Pacific security affairs, attended services at the ADAMS Center in Sterling, Va., and told the congregation he was there to express his "sincere regret" on behalf...

Two United States advisers who were shot dead in Afghanistan's interior ministry by an Afghan colleague had been mocking anti-US protests over the burning of the Koran, a government source said. The description of the shooting - which led to NATO pulling all its advisers out of Afghan government ministries - came amid renewed violence in a sixth day of anti-American demonstrations.

The gunman who shot two U.S. military officers on Saturday in the highly secured Afghan Ministry of Interior was a junior intelligence officer with ties to a Pakistani religious school, an Afghan counter-terrorism official said. It's just the latest incident of "green on blue" attacks which have been a rising problem for the U.S. and NATO. A recent Congressional hearing looked at the issue and found that while some were influenced by Taliban ideology, some of the motives were more personal. It adds another layer of difficulty to tamping down the anger and mistrust that has arisen from the admission...

Rick Santorum has condemned President Barack Obama's apology for the burning of Korans at a U.S base in Afghanistan. The Republican presidential hopeful added that Afghanistan should apologise to the U.S. for the deaths of four U.S. soldiers during six days of violence sparked by the incident. 'There was nothing deliberately done wrong here,' Santorum told ABC's This Week today. 'This was something that happened as a mistake. Killing Americans in uniform is not a mistake. It was something that deliberate.' Another eight U.S. servicemen were wounded in a grenade attack today in violent protests that have engulfed Afghanistan this...

Don’t be shocked that Barack has a literary precursor birthed during the turbulent Tudor age in all its manic creativity and grandeur. First modern playwright Christopher Marlowe, whose demons eventually overcame prodigious dramatic gifts, is a fitting author for the backdrop of the sordid tale of Barack Obama. Predating Shakespeare’s feats, Marlowe’s epic Tamburlaine the Great is the story of an unprincipled, megalomaniac, demented ruler whose psyche breaks as his demise is delivered. At the end of this superb play, King Tamburlaine throws down the Koran in an ill-fated and cursed symbol of his war against God. For immediately after...

Sumner looked up from the incident report to find Secretary of State Ernest Tyszczenko and Secretary of Defense Isaac Guillory staring down at him expectantly. "I wouldn't have believed it if it had been any less blatant or less well documented," Sumner said. Guillory nodded. "It was witnessed by more than thirty people, most of them First Division troops." "Where's the murderer now?" "The Afghan foreign minister claims he's in custody awaiting trial," Tyszczenko murmured. "Oh? Really?" Sumner rose and stood with arms akimbo. "Awaiting trial? We'll see about that." He stabbed at the intercom button on his desk phone....

Most Americans don't understand the anti-American sentiments on display in the streets of Afghanistan. Former 4-star General Jack Keane explains it simply, "They [Afghans] want respect." Keane told America's News Headquarters, "That's what is driving this. The Taliban and others who are trying to undermine the government are exploiting it." Some Afghans are still reeling over the burning of Korans at an American base outside of Kabul. The riots continued for a sixth day on Sunday. The crowds battled Afghan security forces and threw grenades at a U.S. base in Kunduz province, wounding seven people. Saturday two Americans were killed...

-snip- A few details of the killing within the Interior Ministry were emerging, although many reports offered conflicting views of what had happened. According to three Afghan security officials familiar with the case, the main suspect was Abdul Saboor, who was said to have worked in the ministry for more than a year as a driver. The two American officers who were killed were shot in the head and the pistol used to kill them was equipped with a silencer, the officials said. Afghan officials said that Mr. Saboor was at large, apparently able to leave the ministry without complication...