Free Republic

Egyptian Governor Blames Obama for Burned Churches With hundreds sentenced to death in Minya, the governor blames President Barack Obama for local violence. Friends and family members react after the Minya Criminal Court sentenced 683 alleged rioters to death. Peter Hessler for National Geographic PUBLISHED MAY 2, 2014 So who's responsible for all the trouble in Minya? Over the past year, this relatively obscure governorate in Upper Egypt, with a population of a little more than four million, has produced some of the country's most disturbing headlines. Burned churches, mass death sentences, a looted museum—these have all been prominent Minya...

There was a moment Friday when the leader of the free world explained the awe and sympathy his job provokes among colleagues. At the end of a Group of 20 summit in Russia, President Obama recounted a recent conversation he had had with another head of state, as the question of whether the United States would soon attack Syria loomed over the gathering. “I’m a small country, and nobody expects me to do anything about chemical weapons around the world,” Obama quoted his fellow leader as saying. “They know I have no capacity to do something, and it’s tough because...