WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. special Mideast envoy Martin Indyk resigned on Friday to return to a Washington think-tank in a move symbolizing the collapse of the latest American effort to forge an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal. .

Indyk's departure, while not unexpected due to the failure of the talks, comes amid turmoil in the region and as relations between Israel and the Palestinians are at a low point with little hope for a resumption in negotiations.

Secretary of State John Kerry said in a statement that Indyk, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel, would return to his position as vice president and director of foreign policy at The Brookings Institution think-tank in Washington but would continue to serve as special adviser on Mideast peace issues.

"Ambassador Indyk has invested decades of his extraordinary career to the mission of helping Israelis and Palestinians achieve a lasting peace. It's the cause of Martin's career, and I'm grateful for the wisdom and insight he's brought to our collective efforts," Kerry said.

"The United States remains committed not just to the cause of peace, but to resuming the process when the parties find a path back to serious negotiations," Kerry said.

Kerry appointed Indyk to the envoy post last July while announcing a resumption in long-stalled peace talks with a nine-month deadline for a settlement. Negotiations broke down before the end-of-April target date with recriminations from both sides.

View gallery

FILE - This July 29, 2013 file photo shows Secretary of State John Kerry listening as Martin Indyk s …

With the peace process on hiatus, it is unclear whether Indyk will be replaced. His deputy, Frank Lowenstein, will assume the envoy position on an interim basis.

Indyk's resignation marks the second time Obama has lost a Mideast peace envoy following a failed bid to bring the parties together. Former Sen. George Mitchell stepped down from the post in May 2011 after two years of frustrating efforts to get negotiations going during President Barack Obama's first term.

Mitchell's attempt was marked by severe turbulence in U.S.-Israel ties, mainly over Jewish settlements on disputed territory and tensions between Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,

The latest effort, in which Kerry and Indyk had invested significant time and energy, collapsed in March when Israel and the Palestinians each backed out of pledges they had made when the peace talks resumed. Each side blamed the other for the breakdown.

The Palestinians accused Israel of reneging on a promised prisoner release and continuing to construct settlements in the West Bank and housing construction in east Jerusalem, which the Palestinians claim as their future capital. Israel accused the Palestinians of seeking greater U.N. recognition in violation of their agreement to negotiate.

The Palestinians then formed a unity government backed by the militant Hamas movement, which Israel refuses to deal with and now blames for the abduction of three Israeli teenagers two weeks ago.

Indyk, 62, had taken a leave of absence from his job as vice president and foreign policy director of Brookings when he was appointed envoy on July 29, 2013.

At the time, he thanked President Barack Obama and Kerry for "entrusting me with the mission of helping you take this breakthrough and turn it into a full-fledged Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement."

"It is a daunting and humbling challenge, but one that I cannot desist from," Indyk said then.

Prior to joining Brookings, Indyk had served as former President Bill Clinton's ambassador to Israel and was a key part of the 2000 Camp David peace talks. He was also a special assistant to Clinton and senior director for Near East and South Asian affairs at the National Security Council from 1993 to 1995. And he served as assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs in the State Department from 1997 to 2000.

BEIRUT (AP) — The Syrian rebels that the U.S. now wants to support are in poor shape, on the retreat from the radical al-Qaida breakaway group that has swept over large parts of Iraq and Syria, with some rebels giving up the fight. It is not clear whether the new U.S. promise to arm them will make a difference.

Some, more hard-line Syrian fighters are bending to the winds and joining the radicals.

The Obama administration is seeking $500 million to train and arm what it calls "moderate" factions among the rebels, a far larger project than a quiet CIA-led effort in Jordan that has been training a few hundreds fighters a month. But U.S. officials say it will take a year to get the new program fully underway. The U.S. also faces the difficult task of what constitutes a "moderate" rebel in a movement dominated by Islamist ideologies.

Opposition activists complain that after long hesitating to arm the rebellion to topple Syrian President Bashar Assad — their main goal — the United States is now enlisting them against the Islamic State out of its own interests. They have long argued that the group, which aims to create a radical Islamic enclave bridging Syria and Iraq, was only able to gain such power in Syria because more moderate forces were not given international support.

"This decision is a year and a half too late," said Ahmad Ramadan, a senior member of the Western-backed Syrian National Coalition opposition group. "Had it not been for Obama's hesitation all along, this wouldn't be happening in Iraq today nor would there be this proliferation of extremist factions in Syria," he added.

Meeting with Syrian opposition leader Ahmed al-Jarba in the Saudi city of Jeddah on Friday, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry made clear the priority in helping the rebels was to fight the Islamic State — with hopes that their battlefield successes in Syria could dilute their insurgency's power in Iraq.

View gallery

In this photo taken Wednesday, June 25, 2014, fighters of the al-Qaida-inspired Islamic State of Ira …

The moderate opposition in Syria "has the ability to be a very important player in pushing back against ISIL's presence and to have them not just in Syria, but also in Iraq," Kerry said. A senior State Department official traveling with Kerry later said the secretary did not mean to imply that Syrian rebels would actually cross the border to fight in Iraq. The official was not authorized to brief reporters by name and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Al-Jarba, who leads a coalition in exile that only has nominal authority over some rebels on the ground, welcomed the aid, and appealed for more. But in Syria, opposition activists were skeptical.

The aid "will only worsen the crisis," said an activist in the northern city of Aleppo, using his nickname Abu Bishr for his own protection. "They want Syria to enter a new war" between rebels and extremists. "This will not help at all."

As the Islamic State has blitzed across much of northern and western Iraq this month, its fighters have also advanced in Syria against other rebels. They now hold most of the Euphrates River valley in eastern Syria. They have tightened their siege on the one major hold-out city in that region, Deir el-Zour.

In the past two weeks, they have also captured a string of villages in the northern province of Aleppo. Islamic State's fighters in Syria have been boosted by advanced weapons, tanks and Humvees captured in Iraq and then transported to Syria.

View gallery

A burned police truck is left behind in the northern city of Mosul, Iraq, Friday, June 27, 2014. Two …

In a significant development, beleaguered Nusra Front fighters surrounded by Islamic State forces in the town of Boukamal on the border with Iraq defected this week and joined the Islamic State. That effectively handed the town over to the Islamic State, which controls the Iraqi side of the crossing.

The Syrian uprising began in March 2011 with largely peaceful protests against the Assad family, which has ruled Syria for more than four decades. After the government brutally cracked down on the protest movement, many Syrians took up arms to fight back. As the uprising shifted into civil war, the Western-backed Free Syrian Army emerged, a loose term for a collection of self-formed brigades and defectors from Assad's military that fight under a nationalist banner.

But Islamic fighters became the dominant force in the armed opposition, ranging from religious-minded Syrians calling for rule by Shariah law to more extreme al-Qaida-inspired ideologies. Foreign jihadis flooded into the conflict.

The Islamic State, which was at the time Iraq's branch in al-Qaida, barged into the Syria war in 2012, sending its forces and joined by foreign jihadis. At first, many rebels welcomed its experienced fighters. But they quickly turned on each other in violent clashes as other rebels accused Islamic State of using particularly brutal tactics and of trying to take over the opposition movement for their own transnational goals.

Even other Islamic extremist factions among the rebels fought the Islamic State, including the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front, which the U.S. has declared a terrorist group. Al-Qaida's central leadership booted the Islamic State out of its network, blaming it for clashing with other groups.

View gallery

A damaged Iraqi army Humvee is left behind in the northern city of Mosul, Iraq, Friday, June 27, 201 …

But the rebels are being eroded by the war-within-a-war with the Islamic State.

"The Syrian opposition is exhausted," said Adam al-Ataribi, a spokesman for the Mujahedeen Army, a small group fighting alongside other rebels against the extremists.

An opposition activist based in the northern town of Marea said the FSA has lost more people fighting against the Islamic State in the past year than it has against Assad's forces. "There is a steady attrition within rebel ranks," he said.

More hardline rebels currently fighting the Islamic State could follow in joining it.

"ISIL is currently the top dog with the most money in the jihadi universe. Siding with them would seem like a rational choice, at least temporarily," said Bilal Saab, a senior fellow for Middle East Security at the Atlantic Council's Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security.

View gallery

FILE - This undated file image posted on a militant website on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2014, which has bee …

Activists say other fighters in the nationalist-minded opposition are just abandoning the fight altogether due to frustration and disillusionment. Judging how many is difficult, but several activists in Syria speaking to the AP saw it as a growing trend.

"We have no reliable information on how many fighters have quit the FSA, but the view on the ground is that attrition is high," said Sam Whitt, principle investigator for the Voices of Syria project, which tracks public opinion from inside the Syrian civil war through survey interviews.

Abdullah, a 27-year-old former FSA fighter, said that when the Islamic State overran his hometown of al-Bab in northern Syria in the spring, killing two of his friends in the rebel ranks, he decided to quit and leave.

"The whole world has abandoned us. I realized that our uprising has been hijacked by others, and that nothing will be settled unless there is an agreement between Iran and Saudi Arabia," he said, speaking via Skype from Turkey and referring to the main patrons of Assad and the rebels, respectively.

"That's not worth dying for."

___

Associated Press writer Bassem Mroue in Beirut, Lara Jakes in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and Ken Dilanian in Washington contributed to this report.

With Iraq needing all the help it can get in pushing back Islamic militants, the government has requested 1,400 additional Hellfire missiles from the United States to restock its depleted supply. Iraq burned through its inventory of 300 Hellfire missiles two weeks ago.

In mid-July the US plans to deliver to Iraq the 200 missiles still remaining from an expedited purchase earlier this year of 500 missiles, Pentagon Press Secretary Rear Admiral John Kirby said Friday.

However, Kirby also disclosed that "another sale of more than 600 Hellfire missiles is in execution right now, with a delivery of most of them expected by the end of July."

The US, he said, has "received a letter from Iraq asking for another 800, and we're processing that as we speak."

Kirby added that the missiles' manufacturer Lockheed Marin has two shifts "working at full capacity right now to modify and test these missiles and get them on their way."

The Iraqi military uses the missiles to great effect, with a small Air Force that lacks fighter aircraft, Iraq has two Cessna Caravan aircraft that have been rigged to fire the missiles.

ABC News has learned that Iraq ran out of its current stock of Hellfires two weeks ago.

In addition to the missiles, Kirby said that the US continues to meet Iraqi requests for "small arms and ammunition, rifles, grenades, flares, and those are all being worked on as fast as possible right now. Kirby said "a lot of energy" has been applied to the requests," adding, "we're doing this as fast as we can."

With 180 US military personnel now in Baghdad to serve as assessment teams and advisors for the Iraqi Security Forces, Kirby confirmed that the U.S. is now flying some armed drones over Baghdad to provide for their protection. The drones are among the mix of unmanned and manned aircraft that have been flying 30 to 35 missions a day over Iraq for reconnaissance purposes.

"The reason that some of those aircraft are armed is primarily for force protection reasons now that we have introduced into the country some military advisors whose objective will be to operate outside the confines of the embassy," he said.

Kirby added that President Obama has not made any decisions about the use of airstrikes or "kinetic force" in Iraq which means the Pentagon plans and prepares for that in case a decision is made, but that "the primary reason that some of the aircraft flying over Iraq is armed is for force protection purposes."

Separately, a U.S. official told ABC News that as the teams move outside of Baghdad so will the drones, but for now they're limited to the Baghdad area.

Kirby said the number of assessment advisors in Iraq will likely stay at 180 as they begin their assessment in and around Baghdad.

Iraq asks U.S. for more Hellfire missiles

The Iraqi government wants 1,400 additional items to restock its depleted supply.
Manufacturer at 'full capacity'

ASUNCION, Paraguay (AP) — Floods caused by torrential rains have forced the evacuation of 200,000 people living near the Paraguay and Parana rivers, Paraguyan officials said Friday.

Neembucu state Gov. Carlos Silva said the rains have destroyed crops, flooded homes and blocked roads needed to supply food to more than 8,000 people in his state.

He also said that United Nations and Red Cross experts have evaluated the situation and he's hoping help from abroad will be sent soon.

Paraguay's National Emergency Secretariat said the government has spent more than $3 million in food to assist flood-hit families. Most of them were still evacuated and are seeking shelter higher ground in camps where they're sleeping on improvised tents.

Paraguay floods force 200,000 to flee

Torrential rains filled homes, destroyed crops, and blocked roads, a state official says.
International aid needed

The Red Cross is so reluctant to disclose how it spent the more than $300 million it raised for Hurricane Sandy that it hired a law firm to block a Freedom of Information Act request and declared its Sandy information is a "trade secret," according to ProPublica.

ProPublica has been investigating the way the Red Cross spends donor money for several months now and the organization hasn't been exactly forthcoming with details. Recently, ProPublica asked the Red Cross to disclose documents being provided to New York's attorney general's office (which is also investigating the charity). The Red Cross declined, which led to the ProPublica FOIA request, which led to the hot shot law firm petitioning the attorney general on the basis that the information is a "trade secret."

Specifically, disclosing the documents could cause the Red Cross "competitive harm because its competitors would be able to mimic the American Red Cross's business model for an increased competitive advantage," according to a letter sent to the attorney general by the Red Cross's lawyers. Because apparently other charities want to know how an organization being investigated by the press and the government does business. The attorney general agreed to redact parts of the documents.

RELATED: Despite Reform, Overdraft Fees Still Make Customers Really Angry

This isn't the first time Red Cross spending has been under scrutiny. In May 2013 the charity was criticized for holding on to over $100 million in Sandy aid seven months after the storm, even as people lacked decent housing and heat during the winter months,according to the New York Daily News. The organization has also been accused of mismanaging emergency funds after September 11 and Hurricane Katrina. CEOs were pushed out of the company after both disasters. In both cases, as with Sandy, there were questions of how money was being spent and where it was being spent.

This article was originally published at http://www.thewire.com/national/2014/06/red-cross-refuses-to-disclose-details-of-hurricane-sandy-spending/373583/

The group is mum about how $300M raised for Sandy relief was spent, and hired a law firm to protect the info.
'Trade secret'