President Barack Obama declared Syria's main opposition group the sole “legitimate representative” of its country's people Tuesday, deeming the move “a big step” in the international diplomatic efforts to end Syrian President Bashar Assad's embattled regime.Obama said the newly formed Syrian Opposition Council “is now inclusive enough” to be granted the elevated status, which paves the way for the greater U.S. support for the organization.“Obviously, with that recognition comes responsibilities,

TEHRAN (AP) ― Iran’s Revolutionary Guard on Monday said it has decoded all of the data from an advanced CIA spy drone captured last year.The Guard’s aerospace chief, Gen. Ami Ali Hajizadeh, told state-run Press TV that that the RQ-170 Sentinel craft had not carried out missions over nuclear facilities before it went down in December 2011 near the eastern border with Afghanistan.Tehran had previously said it recovered information from the top-secret stealth aircraft, but Monday’s announcement sug

WASHINGTON (AFP) ― The United States is planning a new launch of its tiny, pilotless military space plane on Tuesday as part of a futuristic Air Force program that has fueled speculation over its mission.The X-37B, which weighs 5 tons and is 8.9 meters long, can return material to Earth in the way of the retired shuttle Orbiter program but is designed to stay in orbit for much longer at 270 days.The last X-37B returned in June after orbiting for 469 days in a test of endurance.The United Launch

BERLIN (AFP) ― Germany on Monday expelled four employees of the Syrian Embassy in Berlin, the foreign minister said, as part of moves to further isolate the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.“We are sending a clear message with the expulsion of four Syrian embassy staff that we are reducing relations with the Assad regime to an absolute minimum,” Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said in a statement.“We are counting on the (opposition) National Coalition growing more stable and develop

SYDNEY (AP) ― They say they expected a hang-up and a few laughs. Instead, the Australian DJs behind a hoax phone call to the London hospital where the pregnant Duchess of Cambridge was being treated were deeply apologetic Monday as they described how their joke ended up going too far.The phone call ― in which they impersonated Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Charles ― went through, and their station broadcast and even trumpeted the confidential information received. Whatever pride there had been o

When Presbitero Matias Maestro cemetery in Lima received its first body in 1808, the best plots went to the elite, unless the noble had been dishonored or disgraced.Thus were the Marquis Torre Tagle and his wife relegated to niches in a wall of crypts. He had attempted to betray independence leader Simon Bolivar and died of scurvy after living on rats for 13 months in a military fort near the Pacific Ocean.Visitors to the 54-acre cemetery just 20 blocks from Lima‘s presidential palace, one of La