Egypt News By Asfory
• • • • •

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert approved the extension of the West Bank barrier, a move that would separate 20,000 Palestinian villagers, Israel’s Haaretz daily reported.

The new plans, which still must be approved by the Israeli cabinet, would push the separation barrier deeper into the occupied West Bank to encompass two Jewish settlements, Nili and Naaleh, where about 1,500 settlers live, the newspaper said.

The extension means that a Palestinian village of about 17,000 residents will end up with the barrier on one side and a fence surrounding the settlement on the other. Another Palestinian village of more than 2,000 villagers will be enclosed by the barrier on three sides.

Click here for more details

The U.S. government wasted tens of millions of dollars in Iraq reconstruction aid, American auditors say in a report that raises alarm about the rampant corruption in the war-torn country.

The 579-page report – the latest in a regular series of updates to Congress – paints a grim picture of Iraq reconstruction efforts that have cost U.S. taxpayers more than $300 billion.

Thousands of unaccounted-for weapons and a never-used camp in Baghdad for hosing police trainers with an Olympic-size swimming pool are among the examples cited in the quarterly audit carried out by Stuart Bowen Jr., the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction (Sigir).

Click here for more details

Continued discriminatory policies against the population of Egypt’s Sinai risk giving rise to further terrorist activity in the peninsula, a report warned.

In a 37-page report entitled “Egypt’s Sinai Question,” the Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG) looked at the socio-economic roots of the deadly terrorist attacks that have rocked the peninsula since 2004.

“The emergence of a terrorist movement where none previously existed is symptomatic of major tensions and conflicts in Sinai and of its problematic relationship to the Egyptian nation-state,” ICG said.

Click here for more details

Training the police is as important to stabilizing Iraq as building an effective army there, but the United States has botched the job by assigning the wrong agencies to the task, two members of the Iraq Study Group said Wednesday.

“The police training system has not gone well,” said former Rep. Lee Hamilton, who co-chaired the bipartisan commission.

For a second day, a key Republican directly challenged President Bush to do more than pay “lip service” to this and other recommendations on how to resolve the troubled conflict in Iraq.

Click here for more details

A German court ordered the arrest of 12 people believe to be CIA agents involved in the abduction of a Lebanese-born German national.

The prosecutor’s office in Munich, southern Germany said that the city’s administrative court had issued the arrest warrants on suspicion of abduction and causing grievous bodily harm to Khaled el-Masri.

“According to current findings, the particulars of the suspects listed in the arrest warrants suggest these could be cover identities of CIA agents,” prosecutors said.

Masri says he was kidnapped by CIA agents in the Macedonian capital, Skopje, on New Year’s Eve 2003, drugged, beaten and then transferred to Afghanistan, where he was subjected to “coercive” interrogation under inhumane conditions.

Click here for more details

تواصلت أعمال العنف في العراق حيث لقي 9 أشخاص على الأقل حتفهم في سلسلة من تفجيرات السيارات الملغومة، وذلك وفقا لما ذكرته مصادر أمنية عراقية.

ففي ضاحية باب المعظم شمال بغداد، لقي 5 أشخاص حتفهم وأصيب 12 في انفجار سيارة ملغومة.

ولقي شخصان حتفهما وأصيب ثلاثة آخرون في اتنفجار سيارة ملغومة بضاحية اليرموك غربي العاصمة العراقية.

وفي انفجار سايرة ملغومة ثالثة سيارة في منطقة حي الأمين شرق بغداد لقي شخص حتفه وأصيب 6 آخرون.

Click here for more details

An Israeli court has found ex-justice minister Haim Ramon guilty of sexual harassment, dealing a blow to key ally Prime Minister Ehud Olmert as he plans a major cabinet reshuffle.

“We find the accused guilty of the charge of an indecent act,” said Hayuta Kohan, chief justice of the three-member panel, on Wednesday.

The unanimous verdict in the case — one of a spate of scandals involving top Israeli officials — was eagerly awaited in political circles as it will have a direct impact on Olmert’s teetering coalition.

Click here for more details

A lawyer for a Muslim cleric kidnapped in a suspected CIA operation in Italy and handed to Egypt said he had been denied access to medical reports that might back his client’s allegations he was tortured in custody.

Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, has complained he was tortured by Egyptian agents using electric shocks, beatings, rape threats and genital abuse after he was grabbed off a Milan street in 2003 and flown to Egypt.

Lawyer Montasser al-Zayat said his client had shown him marks on his back and arms that Nasr said were burn marks.

He also said Nasr, currently held in Tora prison south of Cairo, had attempted suicide three times while in custody.

Click here for more details

A Democratic lawmaker says he will press on with legislation to permanently bar the Pentagon from selling leftover F-14 jet fighter parts despite the Defense Department’s decision to pull them off the market while it considers national security concerns.

The spares rank high on Iran’s military shopping list.

“The Pentagon is shutting the barn door for now when national security demands that we lock it,” Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden (news, bio, voting record) said.

Iran is the only country trying to keep F-14s flyable. With little ability to produce parts on its own, Iran is aggressively pursuing several avenues to get hold of U.S. spares, including Pentagon surplus sales, federal law enforcement officials say.

An Associated Press investigation this month found buyers for countries including Iran and China have exploited gaps in Pentagon surplus-sale security to get their hands on sensitive military equipment. The purchases included parts for the F-14 “Tomcat” and other aircraft and missile components, and law enforcement officials say that in at least one case the contraband made it to Iran.

Click here for more details

A brother-in-law of al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden has been killed in a robbery in Madagascar, relatives say.
Jamal Khalifa was shot dead when a group of at least 20 armed men attacked his house and stole his belongings, his brother said from Saudi Arabia.

Mr Khalifa mined and traded precious stones on the Indian Ocean island and had denied media speculation that he helped to fund al-Qaeda activities.

Click here for more details