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UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Egypt's new President Mohammed Morsi assigned himself the heavyweight's role in the Middle East on Wednesday, declaring in his first speech to the United Nations that the civil war raging in Syria is the "tragedy of the age" and must be brought to an end. In a wide-ranging address that touched on all major issues confronting the region, Morsi also decried Israeli settlement-building on territory Palestinians claim for a future state and condemned a film produced in the United States that denigrates Islam's Prophet Muhammad. He urged all U.N. member nations to join in an effort...

Editor's note: President Barack Obama will address the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday at around 10:00 a.m. You can follow along here as we live blog his speech or watch it live on CNN.com. [Updated at 10:22 a.m. ET] President Barack Obama began his address to the U.N. General Assembly by speaking about Ambassador Chris Stevens who was killed in the attack on the U.S. embassy in Benghazi, Libya. "He came to love and respect the people of North Africa and the Middle East, and he would carry that commitment throughout his life," Obama said. "As a diplomat, he worked...

Angry protesters climbed the walls of the U.S. Embassy in Cairo today and hauled down its U.S. flags, replacing them with black flags with Islamic emblems.

Iran could hit U.S. bases in the Middle East in response to any Israeli strike on its nuclear facilities even if American forces played no role in the attack, the leader of Lebanon's Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah said on Monday. "A decision has been taken to respond and the response will be very great," Hezbollah Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said in an interview with the Beirut-based Al Mayadeen television. "The response will not be just inside the Israeli entity—American bases in the whole region could be Iranian targets," he said, citing information he said was from Iranian officials. "If Israel...

Once again the Demcorats prove that they are the party of the enemy, the traitor, the jihad. Despite public outcry, the jihadist Jumah will tale place at the DNC. The event has in its crosshairs the Patriot Act, the NYPD, the National Defense Authorization Act, and anti-Shariah sentiment. "I will stand with them should the political winds shift in an ugly direction." Barack Hussein Obama, page 261, The Audacity of Hope A couple of weeks back, I posted about the Jumah jihad at the DNC, an event led by an imam who urged the overthrow of the "filthy" U.S. government...

Meles Zenawi, Ethiopia's long-time ruler who held tight control over this East African country but was a major U.S counterterrorism ally, died of an undisclosed illness after not being seen in public for weeks, Ethiopian authorities announced Tuesday. He was 57. Meles died Monday just before midnight after contracting an infection, state TV said. Hailemariam Desalegn, who was appointed deputy prime minister and minister of foreign affairs in 2010, became acting prime minister and will be sworn in as prime minister after an emergency meeting of parliament, said Bereket Simon, the communications minister. Parliament is controlled by Meles' ruling party...

An 11-year-old Christian girl has been arrested after being accused of desecrating pages of a book containing Islamic text. She was detained for blasphemy after an angry mob demanded her arrest and threatened to burn down Christian homes outside of the capital, Islamabad, Pakistani media say. The girl is known to have learning difficulties, officials say. Police have taken her parents into protective custody following threats. According to Dawn newspaper, police said the girl had been unable to answer questions properly during the interrogation. Dr Paul Bhatti, Pakistan's minister for National Harmony, told the BBC that the girl was known...

The Egyptian army has been deploying large anti-terrorist forces in parts of the Sinai peninsula without informing Israel in advance. The peace treaty between the two countries limits the Egyptian military presence in Sinai. Some of the Egyptian forces in the peninsula were sent there with Israel's consent, but Haaretz has learned that forces have also been deployed without Israel's prior approval. Israeli government officials only learned about it after the fact. Although Israeli defense officials declined to comment on the matter, they did note that there has been good security cooperation between the two countries, adding that there is

Iran is set to host a meeting on promoting "the issue of Palestine and the Intifada" and "liberating the Holy Qods" (Jerusalem), the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported Sunday. … It is intended to promote ideas on "the influence of the Islamic Awakening on the issue of Palestine and the Intifada" and "focus on ways to attain the ultimate goal of liberating the Holy Qods which embodies the dignity of the world Muslims." …

Security services record Islamist exodus to Egypt Published: 12 Aug 12 10:53 CET German security services have recorded a leap in the number of radical Islamists traveling to Egypt, according to a report due to be published in Monday's Der Spiegel magazine.

Egypt branded Islamist gunmen who killed 16 police near the Israeli border as "infidels" and promised on Monday to launch a crackdown following the massacre that has strained Cairo's ties with both Israel and Palestinians. An Egyptian official said jihadist militants crossed into Egypt from the Gaza Strip before attacking the border station on Sunday. They then stole two vehicles and headed to nearby Israel, where they were eventually killed by Israeli fire. … Mursi has promised to honor Egypt's 1979 peace treaty with Israel and has done little to suggest a major shift in ties. He has also reached...

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney supports a two-state solution to solve the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, he told CNN during his visit to Jerusalem. In an interview with the American news network, which took place in Jerusalem on Sunday, Romney was asked if he saw the starting point for negotiations as the borders which existed prior to the 1967 Six Day War. He responded by saying, “I'm not being that specific. I'm saying that there will be borders that have to be negotiated and what the starting point is something which will be decided by the...

A string of bomb attacks across Iraq killed at least 50 people on Monday and wounded 144 more, police and hospital sources said, in one of the bloodiest days in the past weeks. Violence in Iraq has eased since the height of sectarian slaughter in 2006-2007, but insurgents still carry out deadly attacks, especially around the capital, and deadly car bombs on Sunday shattered a lull in violence in the lead-up to the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which started on Saturday. …

Somalia's Islamist al Shabaab militants said on Sunday they had executed three of their own members for treason, two of them for guiding U.S. missiles to kill fellow militants. … Al Shabaab, which is affiliated with al Qaeda, said last January that a missile launched from a drone had killed Bilal el Berjawi, a Lebanese al Shabaab fighter with a British passport. Another missile killed four foreign militants south of the Somali capital Mogadishu in February, according to an intelligence officer. …

Questions about Huma Abedin By Andrew C. McCarthy July 21, 2012 4:00 A.M. Der Spiegel pointed out the obvious: “A certain role of the Muslim Brotherhood in the transition process [to ‘democracy’] in Egypt seems acceptable to the Obama White House.” It was early February 2011, the moment when the uprising that would oust Hosni Mubarak was bubbling over in Tahrir Square. The prominent German newsmagazine figured, who better to ask about the Muslim Brotherhood than the American political establishment’s resident foreign-policy genius, John McCain? So, the reporter asked him, does Obama’s tolerance of the Muslim Brotherhood “concern you”? Senator...

Egypt's Islamist president fired the first volley Sunday in his battle with the nation's powerful generals, calling on the Islamist-dominated parliament to reconvene despite a military-backed court ruling that dissolved it. A week into his presidency, the surprise move by Mohammed Morsi threatened to plunge the country into a new bout of instability and violence, nearly 17 months after the ouster of authoritarian leader Hosni Mubarak. "This is the start of a battle that has for some time been brewing," said Negad Borai, a prominent rights lawyer and activist. "In this battle, the military may be the weaker opponent since...

Iranian Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi condemned the 'Zionists' for inciting global drug trade and addiction in a bid to annihilate non-Jewish communities in accordance with Talmudic teachings, Fars News Agency (FNA) reported. Addressing a ceremony for the International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking held in Tehran on Tuesday, Rahimi alleged that the prevalence of narcotics and drug-addiction throughout the world is rooted in the Talmud. “The book teaches them how to destroy non-Jews so as to protect an embryo in the womb of a Jewish mother,” Rahimi stated. The Iranian vice-president said that the Zionists' direct involvement...

A U.S. think-tank has published satellite images which it says underscore suspicions that Iran is trying to destroy evidence of possible nuclear weapons-related research at a site that U.N. inspectors have not been allowed to visit. The Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) posted the pictures on its website hours after the U.N. nuclear watchdog showed diplomats similar images that western envoys said indicated a clean-up at the Parchin military facility. Parchin, which Iran says is a conventional military complex, southeast of Tehran, is at the center of western allegations that Iran has conducted experiments—possibly a decade ago—that could...

The head of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood has called on Arab forces to confront Israel and for the international community to pressure the “Zionist government to withdraw from the land of Palestine.” The statement – the existence of which was revealed Wednesday by the Investigative Project on Terrorism blog – reminds Brotherhood followers of the movement’s decades-long “sacrifices” in efforts to destroy the Jewish state. “On this day, like every year, the Arab and Islamic nations remember the worst catastrophe ever to befall the peoples of the world,” Badie wrote in the text, translated by The Jerusalem Post. “We demand the

• Will the Obama administration's policy toward Egypt be based on a perception that the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood would be extremely dangerous? Or have they taken the position - voiced in parts of the U.S. foreign policy establishment - that the Brotherhood has become moderate and can be talked to? Initial administration reactions indicate that it does not rule out Muslim Brotherhood participation in a future Egyptian coalition government. • Since January 28, the Muslim Brotherhood's involvement has become more prominent, with its support of Mohamed ElBaradei to lead the opposition forces against the government. In the streets...