Clinton though stressed that the funds were contingent on commitments to crack down on corruption in Afghanistan.

Worries about rampant corruption in the Afghan government give Congress and donor countries pause about providing aid.

Changes to the training and equipment needs of Afghan forces has allowed DOD to free up the $1 billion. 

Secretary Clinton called the designation a "symbol of our commitment to Afghanistan's future," during an unnanounced trip to that country.

The U.S. set down a list of “redlines” as the first week of treaty negotiations came to a close.

Iran has added Germany and France to the list of countries it claims are behind the assassination of several of its nuclear scientists.

Iranian Intelligence Minister Heidar Moslehi said Friday that German and French intelligence services were involved in the assassination plots, in addition to the United States, Israel and Britain, the countries Tehran had previously accused, according to Iran’s Press TV.

The fifth scientist to be killed since 2007 was targeted in January when a motorcyclist attached an explosive device to a car.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton did not discuss arming Syrian rebels or intervening militarily in the war-racked country during a meeting Friday with French President Francois Hollande, she said.

Clinton spoke with Hollande on the margins of a Friends of Syria meeting in Paris. She urged participants in the meeting of 60 or so Western and Arab countries to press Russia and China to stop “blockading” progress in Syria and push the United Nations Security Council to take up a Syrian transition plan that U.N. Security Council members signed off on last weekend in Geneva.

“We discussed a full range of issues, but not that one,” Clinton told reporters when asked if she'd broached military options with Hollande, who was elected in May. “I think that when it comes to Syria, we do not want to further militarize this conflict. We want to bear down on the approach we are taking together, because, of course, Foreign Minister [Laurent] Fabius was a very active participant at our daylong meeting in Geneva and instrumental in helping to shape the communique that was a result of those efforts. We want to really get a maximum effort on the points that I’ve already mentioned and see how much more pressure we can apply to the regime and hasten its departure.”

Despite very public demands for an end to U.S-led aerial drone attacks inside its borders, Pakistani military and intelligence officials are privately lobbying Washington to gain more control over the controversial airstrikes. 

The secretary of State called out the nations in unusually harsh terms for vetoing U.N. resolutions critical of Syria’s president.