WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. ambassador to Syria said on Wednesday there is no evidence so far to back reports that chemical weapons were used in Syria on Tuesday, but the United States has a large team investigating the issue.

“So far, we have no evidence to substantiate the reports that chemical weapons were used yesterday. But I want to underline that we are looking very carefully at these reports,” Robert Ford, who was recalled from Damascus in February 2012, told a hearing of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. ambassador to Syria said on Wednesday there is no evidence so far to back reports that chemical weapons were used in Syria on Tuesday, but the United States has a large team investigating the issue.

“So far, we have no evidence to substantiate the reports that chemical weapons were used yesterday. But I want to underline that we are looking very carefully at these reports,” Robert Ford, who was recalled from Damascus in February 2012, told a hearing of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. ambassador to Syria told Congress on Wednesday that there is so far no evidence to back reports that chemical weapons were used in Syria on Tuesday.

“So far, we have no evidence which substantiates the reports that chemical weapons were used yesterday. But I want to underline that we are looking very carefully at these reports,” Robert Ford, who was recalled from Damascus in February 2012, said during a U.S. House of Representatives hearing.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A visit to the Congress on Tuesday by Cuba’s best-known dissident may have slightly narrowed one of Washington’s long-standing political gaps – the angry dispute over the U.S. embargo against the Communist government in Havana.

Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez met on Tuesday with both Democratic and Republican members of Congress, including some of the staunchest Cuban-American supporters of the 53-year-old economic embargo against her country.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Lawmakers have seized upon a domestic spending bill as a chance to tighten controls on how Egypt’s Islamist government can use well over $1 billion in military and other aid that Washington sends to Cairo each year.

Five senators – four Republicans and one Democrat – offered separate amendments related to the aid to a fast-track spending measure that seeks to avert a government shutdown on March 27.

WASHINGTON, March 18 (Reuters) – U.S. lawmakers have seized
upon a domestic spending bill as a chance to tighten controls on
how Egypt’s Islamist government can use well over $1 billion in
military and other aid that Washington sends to Cairo each year.

Five senators – four Republicans and one Democrat – offered
separate amendments related to the aid to a fast-track spending
measure that seeks to avert a government shutdown on March 27.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The senior Democrat on the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee is pushing President Barack Obama’s administration to train and arm some Syrian rebels, in addition to providing humanitarian assistance.

Representative Eliot Engel will introduce a bill on Monday that would authorize Washington to provide assistance “including limited lethal equipment” to carefully vetted members of the Syrian opposition, aides and activists aware of Engel’s plans said on Sunday.

WASHINGTON, March 12 (Reuters) – U.S. intelligence leaders
said for the first time on Tuesday that cyber attacks and cyber
espionage have supplanted terrorism as the top security threat
facing the United States.

That stark assessment, in an annual “worldwide threat”
briefing that covered concerns as diverse as North Korea’s
belligerence and Syria’s civil war, was reinforced in remarks by
the spy chiefs before the Senate Intelligence Committee.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Forces seeking to oust Syrian President Bashar Al Assad are gaining strength and territory, but the Syrian opposition remains fragmented and is grappling with an infusion of militant foreign fighters, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said on Tuesday.

Two years into an uprising against Assad’s rule, U.S. intelligence agencies do not know how long the Syrian leader will keep his hold on the country, Clapper said at a Senate Intelligence Committee on global security threats.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Cyber attacks and cyber espionage have supplanted terrorism as the top threats to the United States in an annual “worldwide threat” assessment released on Tuesday by the U.S. intelligence community.

However, in testimony prepared for a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, James Clapper, the director of National Intelligence, played down the likelihood of catastrophic attacks on the United States by either cyber attackers or foreign or domestic militants in the immediate future.