Middle East/North Africa

The House voted down two suspension bills Monday night — one aimed at encouraging private interests in Turkey to invest in U.S. Indian tribal economies, and another allowing North Dakota to constructs levees on certain properties designated as open space lands.

Suspension bills are those that are not subject to the normal House rules of debate. Because they are usually non-controversial, they are subject to much less debate, and therefore must receive a two-thirds majority vote to pass.

Obama said the Middle East nation "will be held accountable" if it uses chemical weapons on foreign invaders

Republican Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) on Monday sided with Israel in criticizing the BBC's Olympics coverage.

Kirk tweeted that he is "disappointed BBC News refuses to recognize" Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office has created a Facebook page called “Jerusalem is the Capital of Israel" as a means to publicize the BBC's decision to not list Jerusalem as the capital in its official Olympics coverage. Kirk linked to the page — which has garnered 17,642 "likes" since last week — in his tweet.

Fact: #Jerusalem is the capital of #Israel. Disappointed @BBCNews refuses to recognize this on its Olympic site facebook.com/JerusalemCapit…

— Mark Kirk (@SenatorKirk) July 23, 2012

President Obama's campaign team argued Monday that Mitt Romney will need to prove that his overseas trip isn't "one long photo op and fundraising tour" by offering a substantive foreign policy platform during his travels to the United Kingdom, Israel, and Poland.

"He'll need to prove to the American people that he sees foreign policy issues as worthy of substantive discussion rather than just generality and soundbites in this campaign," said campaign spokesman Robert Gibbs. "It's widely accepted that President Obama has an exceptionally strong record on national security issues, and I think quite frankly Mitt Romney is having a tough time making an argument against the president of the United States on these issues."

Gibbs went on to detail the itinerary of President Obama's foreign trip as a candidate in 2008, pointing out that then-Sen. Obama met with troops in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Kuwait and gave a number of extensive speeches and interviews to demonstrate his foreign policy bona fides. Romney does not currently have any plans to meet with American service members while abroad, and the Romney campaign has not advised whether they, like Obama did in 2008, will hold interviews with network news outlets.

As the death toll from Monday's string of terrorist attacks in Iraq climbed over 100, Defense Department officials say the country's military and police forces will be able to hold off a newly resurrected al Qaeda in the country. 

The prime minister said intelligence officials knew with "certainty" the attack in Bulgaria on Israeli tourists "was a Hezbollah operation."

McCain Sunday called for a "buffer zone" to aid rebels and warned of a "risk" Assad would use chemical weapons.

Committee leaders criticized Bachmann for circulating a letter suggesting Muslim Brotherhood efforts to inflitrate the government.

Congressional hawks say new revelations about Syria’s chemical weapons show the urgent need for U.S. intervention.

The United Nations Security Council on Friday unanimously approved a 30-day extension of the U.N.'s 300-member observer mission to Syria, The Associated Press reports, giving the troubled peace effort a lifeline among increasing violence.

The mission expires Friday, and its future was in doubt after Russia and China vetoed a U.S.-backed resolution tying its renewal to sanctions against the Syrian government if violence continued. The new resolution allows for the mission to be renewed if the violence simmers down, which seems unlikely as President Bashar Assad's forces battle the 17-month-old rebellion for control of the capital Damascus. 

The council voted shortly after the Russian ambassador to France said Assad is ready to step down "in a civilized way," the AP reports, something Syria immediately denied.