Hundreds of Thousands Protest Across the Mideast

CAIRO — Protesters in Iraq, Yemen, Bahrain and Egypt demanded accountability from their leaders and expressed solidarity with Libya’s uprising on Friday.

Muslim Brotherhood: We reject the religious state

Brotherhood Logo

Representatives of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt said they do not want to take over but merely want to be a part of government, at a press conference Wednesday, CNN reported
"The Muslim Brotherhood is not seeking power," an official told the press. "We will not have a presidential candidate, we want to participate and help, we are not seeking power," according to the report. ... link

Street Battle Over the Arab Future

CAIRO — Whether protest or crackdown prevails in Egypt, the region seems permanently altered.-- story

Thousands Rally Against Government in Yemen

SANAA, Yemen  — Tens of thousands of people called for the Yemeni president's ouster in protests across the capital on Thursday inspired by the popular revolt in Tunisia.
The demonstrations led by opposition members and youth activists are a significant expansion of the unrest sparked by the Tunisian uprising, which also inspired Egypt's largest protests in a generation. They pose a new threat to the stability of the Arab world's most impoverished nation, which has become the focus of increased Western concern about a resurgent al-Qaida branch, a northern rebellion and a secessionist movement in the south.
Crowds in four parts of Sanaa have shut down streets and are chanting calls for an end to the government of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has been in power for nearly 32 years.
story

Mid-air terror scare grounds flight to London

LONDON: A London-bound flight from the UAE was forced to make an emergency landing in Essex, escorted by two British fighter jets, following a mid-air terror scare, a report said. 
story

Islamists In Jordan Call For End to Authoritarian Rule

Clinton Bluntly Presses Arab Leaders on Reform

DOHA, Qatar — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton delivered a scalding critique of Arab leaders here on Thursday, saying their countries risked “sinking into the sand” of unrest and extremism, unless they liberalized their political systems and cleaned up their economies.   story

Bomb hits US Embassy vehicle in Yemen

SANAA: A group of American embassy staffers came under attack when a bomb was thrown near their vehicle outside a restaurant in Yemen's capital, U.S. and Yemeni officials said Thursday. 

No one was hurt in the attack Wednesday evening in Hadda, a commercial district in the capital, said U.S. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley. ..  story

Saudi Arabia receives $1.2bn for damage during Gulf War

DUBAI: Saudi Arabia has received USD 1.2 billion from the United Nations in compensation for the damage caused by the 1991 Gulf War to the environment in the Eastern Province of the Kingdom, the country's head of the Presidency of Metrology and Environment Protection has said.
Following his meeting with a United Nations delegation Prince Turki Bin Nasser Bin Abdul Aziz said compensation was taken from the Iraqi government by the United Nations and given to the kingdom, according to a media report. ... story

Mideast Passions Quiet Over NY Mosque Showdown

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates  -- On the streets of lower Manhattan, there's no mistaking how the passions flow: One side saying its their patriotic duty to block a planned Islamic center and the other insisting America cannot curtail freedoms as revenge for the Sept. 11 attacks.
But in the Middle East -- where the imam spearheading the plans is now touring on a U.S.-funded outreach mission -- the proposed mosque and community center near the former World Trade Center towers is viewed in less stark tones.
Much of it circles back to what the showdown says about Islam's identity in the West, theories about the roots of Islamophobia or even whether the plans in New York are worth the fight.
Mideast commentators argue that many in the region view the clash as a wholly American spectacle -- about political posturing and the lingering wounds of 9/11 -- that distracts from genuine troubles such as Iran's growing clout or Israel's pressure on Gaza.
''The mosque is not an issue for Muslims and they don't care about it being built,'' wrote Saudi columnist Abdel Rahman Rashed in the pan-Arab Asharq al-Awsat newspaper.
''Some Muslims would even consider building a mosque there would be a permanent reminder of the acts of terrorists, who carried out their crime in the name of Islam,'' he added.....  story

Iran:

language: Farsi

UAE concerned by alarming rate of
high school dropouts

Study finds almost 7 out of 10 males in the United Arab Emirates do not graduate high school on time.
An alarmingly high percentage of male Emirati students do not finish high school on time, a new study has found.
The annual report by the Dubai Schools Inspection Bureau, which supervises the United Arab Emirates’ education system alongside the Knowledge and Human Development Authority, found that only 32 percent of male students complete high school on time...
story

Suspected al-Qaida raid on Yemen jail kills 10

SAN'A, Yemen — Under a hail of gunfire and grenades, heavily armed militants believed to be al-Qaida stormed the intelligence services' jail in a southern Yemen port city on Saturday, killing at least 10 people, security officials said...
story

Al-qaida asks Yemeni tribes not to hand over its fighters

Sana'a: Militant outfit al-qaida has called on tribes in oil-rich Yemen not to hand over its fighters to the government, saying such an act would put the tribes to shame.

"The (al-qaida) fighters are your sons, and you (tribal leaders) would put yourself to shame if you hand over them to the government or cut off ties with them," Xinhua quoted the al-qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) statement as saying Friday...
story

"US, Israel would harm all ME states"

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced that Israel and the US are trying to drive a wedge between Iran and Saudi Arabia, following a London Times report that Saudi Arabia will allow Israeli jets to use its airspace to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Ahmadinejad said "there is no doubt that America and the Zionist regime are enemies of Iran and Saudi Arabia," in a meeting with the new Saudi ambassador to Iran. "Should [America and Israel] have the opportunity," Ahmadinejad said, "they would harm all the states in the region. If Iran and Saudi Arabia will be united on regional matters, our enemies will not have the courage to invade Muslim land." --
story

Saudi Arabia gives Israel clear skies to attack Iranian nuclear sites

Saudi Arabia has conducted tests to stand down its air defences to enable Israeli jets to make a bombing raid on Iran’s nuclear facilities, The Times can reveal. In the week that the UN Security Council imposed a new round of sanctions on Tehran, defence sources in the Gulf say that Riyadh has agreed to allow Israel to use a narrow corridor of its airspace in the north of the country to shorten the distance for a bombing run on Iran. To ensure the Israeli bombers pass unmolested, Riyadh has carried out tests to make certain its own jets are not scrambled and missile defence systems not activated. Once the Israelis are through, the kingdom’s air defences will return to full alert...
story

Somali pirates attack Yemeni tanker

SANAA: Somali pirates have opened fire on a Yemeni oil tanker in the Red Sea wounding a guard on board, Yemen's interior ministry quoted the coastguard as saying on Saturday...
story

Iran Revolutionary Guards Ready to Escort Gaza Ships

TEHRAN - Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards are ready to provide a military escort to cargo ships trying to break Israel's blockade of Gaza, a representative of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Sunday.
story

Five women presenters have resigned from the Arabic news channel Al-Jazeera after being accused of not dressing modestly enough.

story

'Israeli subs with nukes in Gulf'

Israel is planning to permanently station a submarine carrying nuclear cruise missiles in the Persian Gulf, the Sunday Times reported on Sunday.
Israeli submarines have visited the Gulf before, but the decision has now been taken to ensure a permanent presence of at least one of the vessels.   link