Excerpts: Internet technology aids Egypts outlawed Muslim Brotherhood.
Pakistan catastrophe growing, Ex- UN Chief world-wide nuclear inspections
warning. Neighborhood Jews walking along mosque courtyard sparks Muslim
violence. Iraqs Sunni militiamen fear bloodbath at US exit August 27, 2010

+++SOURCE: Naharnet (Lebanon27 Aug '10:"Ikhwanbook: Egyptian Muslim
Brotherhood's Answer to Facebook", Agence France Presse

SUBJECT: Internet technology aids Egypt's outlawed Muslim Brotherhood

EXCERPTS: The Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's influential Islamist opposition
movement, will launch its own social networking site next month to promote
moderate Islam, an official said on Wednesday(25 Aug).
Ikhwanbook.com, which is already up, was created by the Brotherhood's
headquarters in Cairo to "promote moderate Islam and clarify who we are,"
said politburo member Mohammed Mursi.. . .

The Brotherhood, the largest Islamist opposition movement in the Muslim
world, was founded in Egypt in 1928. Despite a ban on religious parties, it
controls a fifth of seats in the country's parliament through independents.

Its members are regularly arrested and charged with possessing literature
belonging to a banned organization. It advocates an Islamist state achieved
through peaceful means.

"Technology is not banned for anyone," said Mursi. "We use the Internet to
ease communications between people and clarify who we are and what we want."

The group has already launched other websites that mimic user-based sites
such as YouTube and an online Brotherhood encyclopedia modeled on
Wikipedia.. . ..

Websites like Facebook and Twitter have assumed an increasing role in the
country's vibrant opposition movement, with several demonstrations organized
over the social networking sites this year.(AFP)

+++SOURCE: Saudi Gazette 27 Aug.'10:"FLOODS THREATEN FURTHER HAVOC IN
PAKISTAN"

SUBJECT: Pakistan catastrophe growing

QUOTE:"The catastrophe has affected more than 17 million people and left 8
million dependant on aid to survive."

EXCERPTS:HYDERABAD, Pakistan - Pakistan ordered nearly half a million people
to evacuate towns Thursday(26 Aug) as rising floods threaten further havoc
in a country straining to cope after its worst humanitarian disaster.
Torrential monsoon rains triggered massive floods affecting a fifth of the
country where a US official warned that foreign aid workers are at risk from
Taliban attacks.. . ..

Water lined the road from Hyderabad to Thatta town, as workers frantically
used bulldozers to dig embankments only just higher than the flooding, and
where people camped out under open skies or in makeshift tents.

The catastrophe has affected more than 17 million people and left eight
million dependent on aid to survive.

The Pakistani government has confirmed 1,600 people dead and 2,366 wounded,
but officials warn that millions are at risk from diseases and food
shortages.

In the southern province of Sindh, where the floods have washed away huge
swathes of the rich farmland on which Pakistan's struggling economy depends,
a senior administration official warned that fresh floods threaten three
towns.. . .

+++SOURCE: Saudi Gazette 27 Aug.'10:"'Iran has material for 1-2 atom bombs'

SUBJECT:Ex-UN Chief world-wide nuclear inspections warning

QUOTE:"Iran's uranium reserve still represented a 'threat'

FULL TEXT:PARIS - Iran has stockpiled enough low-enriched uranium for 1-2
nuclear arms but it would not make sense for it to cross the bomb-making
threshold with only this amount, a former top UN nuclear official was quoted
as saying.
In unusual public remarks about Iran's disputed nuclear program Olli
Heinonen, the former chief of UN nuclear inspections worldwide, told Le
Monde newspaper that Iran's uranium reserve still represented a "threat."
Until he stepped down earlier this month for personal reasons, Heinonen was
deputy director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency and head
of its nuclear safeguards department, which verifies that countries' nuclear
programmes are not being diverted for military use.
A no-nonsense Finn, he was one of the UN agency's leading experts on Iran,
which denies Western suspicions that its nuclear program is aimed at making
bombs despite intelligence indications to the contrary, which he
investigated for years.
In the interview published on Thursday(25 Aug), Heinonen said the Islamic
Republic now possessed three ton of low-enriched uranium, material which can
be used to fuel nuclear power plants, or form the core of a bomb if refined
much further.
"In theory, it is enough to make one or two nuclear arms. But to reach the
final step, when one only has just enough material for two weapons, does not
make sense," Heinonen said in the interview carried out just before he left
office.
In comments translated from English to French, he suggested this was not
sufficient to constitute a serious bargaining chip in any negotiations with
the United States, Tehran's old adversary. "But this constitutes a ...
threat," he said, apparently referring to Iran's LEU stockpile. Meanwhile,
Iran has submitted a proposal to Russia to jointly assemble the nuclear fuel
for the country's new power reactor and any future facilities, state media
reported.
The move appeared to be an attempt by Tehran to gain some control over the
nuclear fuel process at its Russian-built Bushehr nuclear plant. With Moscow's
help, Iran began loading uranium fuel into the facility on Saturday (21
Aug).
The United States and allies lifted their opposition to the Bushehr plant
after Russia pledged to handle all the nuclear fuel to make sure no material
is shifted to a possible Iranian weapons program in the future. The latest
proposal by Iran to have even a sideline role in the nuclear fuel process
could stir backlash in the West.
"We have made a proposal to Russia to create a consortium under Russian
license to do part of the work in Russia and part in Iran," the head of Iran's
atomic energy agency, Ali Akbar Salehi, was quoted as saying by state-run
Press TV. "We should show the world our capability in uranium production and
its conversion into nuclear fuel." Salehi, who is also Iran's vice
president, said Moscow is "studying the proposal." An official at the
Russian nuclear agency said the two countries have discussed the possibility
of creating a facility to assemble the fuel rods for Bushehr. The facility
would operate under Russian license on Iranian territory. - Agencies

+++SUBJECT:Jordan Times 27 Aug.'10:"Settler incursion in mosque sparks
Jerusalem violence",Reuters
SUBJECT: Neighborhood Jews walking along mosque courtyard sparks Muslim
violence

FULL TEXT:Palestinians torched half-a-dozen vehicles in Eastern Jerusalem
on Thursday(26 Aug) and threw stones and firebombs at Israeli police after
Jewish settlers approached a mosque, local residents and police told
Reuters.
There were no reported injuries in the incident in the volatile Silwan
neighbourhood, where tensions have flared between Palestinians and a small
group of settlers who have moved there in the past two decades.
Local residents said settlers tried to reach a spring, which religious Jews
view as a biblical site, by crossing through a mosque courtyard.Israeli
police said Palestinians then tookto the streets in violent demonstrations

+++SOURCE: Jordan Times 27Aug.'10:"Sons of Iraq' feel betrayed by
motherland",By Nafia Abdul Jabbar
Agence France-Presse

SUBJECT: Iraq's Sunni militiamen fear bloodbath at US exit

QUOTE: 'If our houses are being attacked and destroyed by the terrorists
even before the (US) withdrawa, what will happen to us when the US forces
leave?' "

Backgrounder:
FULL TEXT:SAMARRA, Iraq - The Sunni Arab militiamen who sided with American
soldiers against Al Qaeda during Iraq's brutal insurgency fear the exit of
thousands of US troops will herald a surge in bloody revenge attacks against
them.
Known as the "Sons of Iraq" by the US army that financed them, the former
rebels fought militants loyal to Osama Ben Laden's terror network, but years
later are mocked as "Sons of America" by foes who continue to exact
vengeance.
Dozens of the fighters, who helped avert a civil war and were crucial to
curbing Iraq's sectarian violence when it peaked in 2006 and 2007, have been
killed in recent months in acts of retaliation.
The latest reprisals saw six of the former Sunni rebels killed in a village
north of Baghdad on Thursday(26 Aug), in what police said was an Al Qaeda
attack As US forces steadily leave the country the Sons of Iraq, also known
as the Sahwa (Awakening) force, feel abandoned and its men complain of being
betrayed by the nation they fought to defend.
"If our houses are being attacked and destroyed by the terrorists even
before the withdrawal, what will happen to us when the US forces leave?"
asked Majid Hassan, a Sahwa commander in Samarra, a Sunni-stronghold in
Salaheddin Province north of Baghdad.
Hassan's own home was struck by a bomb on August 13, injuring his leg and
wounding three members of his family. Parents, wives, sons and daughters of
Sahwa members have also been viewed as traitors and killed in revenge.
"The terrorists say, 'You are the Sons of America' and we will not keep any
one of you alive after the withdrawal," the 52-year-old, from the Bubaz
tribe and a farmer before taking up arms in 2006, told AFP.
"We will not be able to destroy Al Qaeda if the Americans are leaving."
The tribe formed a militia against Al Qaeda and sided with the US military
when its chief was executed.
The United States has pulled tens of thousands of soldiers out of Iraq in
recent months, with numbers now below 50,000, less than a third of the peak
level in 2007, ahead of a complete pullout in December 2011.
The Sons of Iraq moved under the control of the Shiite-led Iraqi government
in early 2009 in a tense handover - ministers have always viewed the force
with suspicion - and they have since complained of shoddy treatment.
The militia has recorded hundreds of fatalities since its formation,
suffering almost daily bombings and shootings at checkpoints and a rise in
attacks this year, its members say.
"The government has not shown any cooperation with the Sahwa, to help us get
on with our duties," said Mohammed Al Naqeeb, head of the Sons of Iraq at Al
Tharthar Lake on the border of Salaheddin and western Anbar provinces.
"As the full withdrawal of American troops approaches, the situation for the
Sahwa becomes more dangerous," he said.
In Samarra in February 2006, alleged Al Qaeda fighters destroyed the golden
dome of Al Askari shrine, which houses the remains of two imams venerated in
Shiite Islam, triggering nationwide sectarian violence that blighted the
country in 2006 and 2007.
It was later that same year that the Sahwa began to emerge across the west
and north of Iraq, and in Baghdad, paid a monthly salary by the US.
The force numbered 118,000 at its peak. When control over the militia passed
to the Iraqi government in April 2009, Baghdad promised to integrate 20 per
cent of the men into the police or army and find civil service jobs for many
of the rest.
However, 52,000 of the fighters are still waiting for new employment.
The fighters earn between 300,000 and 600,000 Iraqi dinars ($255 and $510)
per month, according to Khalid Al Nuaimi, the militia leader in Diyala
Province.
But since the transfer of responsibility their wages have often been paid
late, and the US withdrawal has sparked disquiet among the Sons of Iraq that
their security is being compromised.
The defence ministry, however, insists that the former rebels will not be
forgotten, and the government has pledged they will be used to gather
intelligence against insurgents.
"The war against Al Qaeda is a war of intelligence and lots of leaders from
Al Qaeda have been arrested after tip-offs given by the Sahwa," said Zuhair
Al Chalabi, the top Iraqi government official dealing with the Sahwa.
For now, those who remain at their posts remain the targets of insurgents
who regard them as traitors.
Just last month, a suicide bomber blew himself up among a crowd of
militiamen waiting to receive their wages outside Baghdad, killing 45 and
wounding 46.
"Attacks have increased with the approach of the US withdrawal from Iraq,"
said Majeed Abbas, the militia's leader in Samarra, commanding 2,300
fighters across the city.
"Since responsibility fell on the Iraqi government, we have suffered from a
lack of support and salaries."
The 46-year-old added: "This negligence has given the terrorists motivation
to target Sahwa forces and their leaders.
"Each passing day, we record another attack against us."
================
Sue Lerner - Associate, IMRA