The federal government shut down has caused a headache for tourists wanting to visit national parks and museums. And one of the more high-profile stories this week concerned a group of World War II veterans who had to literally pass government tape to gain access to the World War II Memorial on the National Mall.

In a story about the monument closure, Fox News host Anna Kooiman fell prey to a false report from aparody site, which claimed that President Obama had offered to keep the International Museum of Muslim Cultures open with cash from his own pocket.

“The Republican National Committee is offering to pay for it to keep it open so that the veterans from Honor Flight are going to be able to go and see this because who did it honor? It honored them,” Kooiman said during a report on Friday. “It really doesn't seem fair, especially — and we're going to talk a little bit later in the show too about some things that are continuing to be funded. And President Obama has offered to pay out of his own pocket for the museum of Muslim culture out of his own pocket, yet it's the Republican National Committee who's paying for this.”

Kooiman was referencing a quote from the National Report, a parody news site that ran the fake story on Obama. The key quote from the story reads:

“The International Museum of Muslim Cultures is sacred. That is why I have taken it upon myself to use my own personal funds to re-open this historic piece of American culture.”

On one hand, Media Matters points out that the National Report removed a disclaimer it once posted on its site acknowledging that the material contained within was parody.

On the other hand, the National Report currently contains a set of “news” headlines such as “Jesus Christ boycotts Hobby Lobby,” and “Police barge into kindergarten classroom and taser multiple children ‘for the check of it.’”

But in the fast world of TV news, it’s most likely that a producer told Kooiman about the so-called news report, which then made it on air before anyone could confirm the report’s details.

Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said the previous offer, made by the P5+1 group at two meetings in Kazakhstan in February and April, before Rouhani's June election, was no longer valid.

"The previous offer by the P5+1 is history and they should come to the negotiating table with a new approach," the ISNA news agency quoted Zarif as saying.

Those proposals required Iran to suspend uranium enrichment at the 20 percent level it says it needs for a medical research reactor, and to halt enrichment at its underground plant at Fordo near the central city of Qom.

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who represents the six powers in the talks, said on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly last month that she was still waiting for Iran's response to those previous proposals.

After talks with foreign ministers of the six powers in New York on September 27, Zarif said he hoped a deal could be reached within a year to allay international concerns about Iran's ambitions.

View gallery."

The five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany meet with Iran over their nuclear …

On Sunday, he renewed his insistence that a deal could be reached to address the concerns of both sides.

"Our goal is to master peaceful nuclear energy, including uranium enrichment on our soil. Their goal is to keep Iran's nuclear programme peaceful forever.

"We should find a way to achieve both goals at the same time," he said.

CNN aired an interview with Zarif on Sunday in which he called for improved relations between Iran and the West.

"Nobody has benefitted from this pattern of relations that we've had over the last eight years. There is a need for change," he said.

"And I hope that everybody realises that we need to change that process, put an end to something that was a lose-lose situation and hopefully begin something that will be to the benefit of everybody."

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A file handout picture released by the official website of the Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali …

Iran vows 'full transparency'

Western powers and Israel have long accused Iran of seeking to develop nuclear bombs in the guise of a civilian programme, charges Tehran has always vehemently denied.

"We won't have a bomb, because we don't see it in our interests," Zarif told CNN.

ISNA quoted Zarif as saying Iran was ready to ensure "full transparency" to reassure the international community of the peaceful nature of its nuclear programme.

, comprising the five UN Security Council permanent members -- Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States -- plus Germany.

They will be the first formal talks, the first direct contact between presidents of the two countries since Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution.

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends the weekly cabinet meeting at his Jerusalem office …

“We support the diplomatic initiative of the government and attach importance to its activities in this trip," he told military commanders and graduating cadets in remarks carried Saturday by his website, Khamenei.ir.

However, Khamenei added that “some of what happened in the New York trip was not appropriate... although we trust in our officials.”

While he did not elaborate, analysts said his criticism was directed at the 15-minute telephone call between Rouhani and Obama.

Rouhani won a first-round election victory after vowing to engage with the international community in order to lift crippling US-led international sanctions.

On Sunday Economy

"The sanctions on Iran are working. They are very strong; they are a moment away from achieving their goal," Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday ahead of a weekly cabinet meeting.

"The sanctions must not be eased before reaching the goal of dismantling Iran's enrichment capability -- the ability to produce nuclear weapons."

Netanyahu warned in a speech to the United Nations last week that Israel would act alone militarily if necessary to defend itself from Iran's nuclear programme.

A nuclear resolution could be in jeopardy if the parties cannot agree on how to start negotiations.
'Race against time'

House Speaker John Boehner on Sunday flatly refused to schedule votes for full government funding or to raise the debt ceiling without concessions from Democrats, asserting that the House couldn't and shouldn't take either step without addressing problems with the new health care law and the nation's debt crisis.

In an exclusive interview on ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos," Boehner said he does not know how and when the current standoffs will end.

But he made clear that, in his view, President Obama and Democrats in Congress are to blame for both the government shutdown and the possibility that the United States will default on its debt. The speaker reiterated his demand for negotiations with the president to find a path forward on both fronts.

RELATED: Shutdown Continues, But Furloughed Workers Will Likely Be Paid

"The American people expect in Washington when we have a crisis like this that the leaders will sit down and have a conversation. And I told my members the other day that there may be a back room somewhere, but there's nobody in it," said Boehner, R-Ohio.

"We're interested in having a conversation about how we open the government and how we begin to pay our bills. But it begins with a simple conversation."

The president has said no talks are possible until government operations are fully funded again, and has ruled out entirely negotiations over the debt ceiling.

If the government shutdown lasts longer, and if the nation defaults on its debt, Boehner said blame should fall on the president: "I'm willing to sit down and have a conversation with the president. But his refusal to negotiate is putting our country at risk."

While a growing number of his colleagues have expressed frustration with the House GOP strategy, Boehner gave no ground in continuing his push for changes to the president's health care law, as well as broader fiscal reforms, in the current fights.

Some 21 House Republicans have said publicly that they're willing to support a "clean" measure to extend all government funding without other conditions attached, according to ABC News' count. That's apparently enough, when added to Democratic votes, to pass a bill out of the House.

But the speaker disputed that notion: "There are not the votes in the house to pass a clean CR."

Boehner also appeared to back off of private assurances he's offered colleagues that the nation would not default on its debt. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew has said the nation will run out of ways to continue to pay all of its bills Oct. 17, making an increase in the debt limit an urgent priority.

RELATED: Obama Doesn't Rule Out Using 14th Amendment To Raise The Debt Limit

Boehner said repeatedly that he does not intend to have the nation default on its debt. But he declined to guarantee that he'd bring a debt-limit bill to the floor of the House without concessions from Democrats.

"The nation's credit is at risk because of the administration's refusal to sit down and have a conversation," he said. "The votes are not in the House to pass a clean debt limit. And the president is risking default by not having a conversation with us…. We're not going down that path. It is time to deal with America's problems. How can you raise the debt limit and do nothing about the underlying problem? "

Asked by Stephanopoulos whether that no negotiations means the country will default on its debt, Boehner responded: "That's the path we're on. Listen, the president canceled his trip to Asia. I assumed, well, maybe he wants to have a conversation. I decided to stay here in Washington this weekend. He knows what my phone number is. All he has to do is call."

RELATED: John Boehner Tells GOP Moderates to 'Trust Me'

Boehner acknowledged that the showdown over government funding, aimed at scaling back the Obama health care law, isn't a fight that he chose. He also appeared to confirm that, in conversations with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, he had previously sought to ensure full government funding, only to be convinced to take a different course after consulting with his fellow House Republicans.

"I and my members decided that the threat of Obamacare and what was happening was so important that it was time for us to take a stand. And we took a stand," he said. "I thought the fight would be over the debt ceiling. But you know, working with my members, they decided, well, let's do it now. And the fact is, this fight was going to come, one way or the other. We're in the fight."

Boehner suggested that he'd like negotiations with the president to include entitlement reform. But he ruled out including new tax revenues as part of a deal.

John Boehner

"The president got … $650 billion of new revenues on January the 1st. He got his revenues. Now, it's time to talk about the spending problem," he said. "Very simple. We're not raising taxes."

Responding to Boehner's appearance, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., challenged Boehner to test his claim that the votes aren't there to reopen the government.

"Let me issue him a friendly challenge: put it on the floor Monday or Tuesday," Schumer said on "This Week." "Speaker Boehner, just vote."

He also rejected Boehner's request for negotiations until or unless House leaders agree to end the shutdown and raise the debt limit.

"This is playing with fire. And we are happy to negotiate, but we want to negotiate without a gun to our head," Schumer said.

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Boehner: 'Clean' funding measure not possible

The House speaker says the U.S. is on the path to default if the president continues to refuse to negotiate.
New GOP escalation?

Berlin (AFP) - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has admitted making "mistakes" at the start of the uprising against him in March 2011, in an interview published Sunday by the German weekly Spiegel.

“Whenever political decisions are made, mistakes happen. Everywhere in the world. We are all just people," Assad said when asked whether it was a mistake to respond with force to peaceful protests in the early days of the revolt against his family's 40-year reign.

“Personal mistakes by individuals happened. We all make mistakes. Even a president makes mistakes. But even if mistakes were made in the execution, our fundamental decisions were right," he said.

After the regime launched a brutal crackdown on the protesters the conflict rapidly escalated into a full-scale civil war in which 115,000 people have been killed and millions forced to flee their homes.

Asked if the armed opposition has sole responsibility for massacres, and if his forces were entirely innocent, Assad replied: "You can't just absolutely say they carry 100 percent of the blame and we carry zero."

"Reality is not black and white, there also shades of grey. But basically it’s correct that we are defending ourselves," he said.

"And I can’t worry about the mistakes of individuals, given that there are 23 million Syrians. Every country has to fight criminals. They can be anywhere, (including) in the government, in the army."

Assad also denied using chemical weapons against his own people and told Spiegel that his government was cooperating fully with international disarmament experts and UN inspectors.

"We're very transparent. The experts can go to every site. They are going to have all the data from our government."

He also dismissed assertions by US President Barack Obama that Syrian forces carried out a chemical attack that killed hundreds in the Damascus suburbs in August.

"We have not used chemical weapons. This is wrong," Assad told Spiegel.

"And so is the picture you're drawing of me, of someone who kills his own people... Obama presents not a single piece of evidence, not a shred of evidence. He has nothing to offer but lies."

UN inspectors who investigated the August 21 attack said in a report that sarin gas was used, but it was not within their mandate to say who was responsible.

A new team of international disarmament experts have started to destroy Syria's chemical weapons in line with a UN Security Council resolution aimed at averting punitive US military strikes.

Assad concedes 'mistakes' in Syria conflict

The leader admits that even a president isn't immune, during an interview with a German weekly.
But defends decisions

Aid Agencies are Failing the World’s Girls

Two sisters shelter from the rain near a refugee camp in Burma. Photograph: Farjana Khan Godhuly/AFP/Getty Images

By Tracy McVeigh, The Observer – October 6, 2013

http://tinyurl.com/ovuurjn

Girls are not getting the help they need from aid agencies when they respond to disasters and emergencies abroad, according to a new report. Despite often being the most vulnerable in unstable times, adolescent girls are “invisible” and their needs are ignored even within organised refugee camps, warns the survey from children’s charity Plan UK.

The report, In Double Jeopardy: Adolescent Girls and Disasters, finds that during disasters and emergencies girls become even more vulnerable to sexual abuse and exploitation, early pregnancy, violence and disease, but that charities and NGOs aren’t meeting their needs, preferring a “one size fits all” response.

“The humanitarian system is failing adolescent girls,” said Plan UK’s chief executive, Tanya Barron, who highlighted the lack of female emergency workers. A third of needs assessment teams deployed by aid agencies had no women in them at all.

“Discrimination that adolescent girls face in everyday life also affects them in disasters – sometimes at the cost of their lives,” she said.

The report – part of the charity’s Because I Am a Girl campaign – is to be published this week ahead of UN International Day of the Girl Child on Friday. It includes conversations with children in developing countries and with humanitarian workers across the world, and finds that measures to combat sexual- and gender-based violence in refugee camps – such as separate toilets for men and women – are being applied inconsistently.

Meanwhile, a survey of adolescent girls and boys in Ethiopia, South Sudan and Zimbabwe found that most of them thought sisters, rather than brothers, were the most vulnerable in disasters. “It is girls who are most likely to be pulled out of school, married too young or pushed into transactional sex or prostitution in order to help feed families struggling with the chaos disaster brings,” says Barron. “Their specific needs are rarely taken into consideration; they are neither counted nor consulted, and because of this they and their rights are ignored.”

Plan UK is calling on aid agencies to train and recruit more female workers and to consult girls in all stages of disaster response. It also wants more targeted services for girls in education and sexual and reproductive health – and more funding to help protect them.

Baroness Amos, the UN’s under-secretary general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, welcomed the report: “Too often we still follow a ‘one size fits all’ pattern of humanitarian response. Understanding the differing needs of women, girls, boys and men needs to be the responsibility of all humanitarian workers. Without it we will be ineffective and waste time and resources.”

The report comes at a time when natural disasters are becoming increasingly common, with 450 a year in the last decade compared with 90 a year in the 1970s. Nine out of 10 disasters and 95 per cent of deaths in disasters happen in the developing world, where the population is much younger.