* UN watchdog hiding evidence on Iran nuclear program The world’s nuclear weapons watchdog is hiding data on Iran’s drive to obtain nuclear arms.

* Dozens killed in Baghdad attacks Truck bombs and a barrage of mortars have killed at least 75 people and hurt at least 310 in central Baghdad in the deadliest series of attacks in months.

* ‘Russia to rethink S-300 sale to Iran’ President Shimon Peres said Wednesday the Kremlin has promised to reconsider the planned delivery of air defense missiles to Iran.

* New Israeli settlements ‘on hold’ Israel’s government has stopped issuing settler housing tenders in the West Bank, hoping to reach common ground with the US.

* Assad in Iran to congratulate Ahmadinejad, free academic Syrian President Bashar Assad opened talks with Iranian officials Wednesday in a visit expected to include an appeal to free a French academic accused of plotting to overthrow the Islamic regime.

* Mubarak: U.S. will unveil first draft of Mideast plan next month President Barack Obama has promised Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak that he will present a rough draft of his Middle East peace plan in September.

* Turkey: Israel must show it wants peace Israel must take steps to show that it wants a resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

* German political parties agree Lisbon treaty law Germany’s ruling political parties on Tuesday (18 August) reached agreement on how to implement the Lisbon treaty after week’s of negotiations.

* Peres: Israel, PA, U.S. ready for 3-way summit President Shimon Peres told reporters during an official visit to Russia on Wednesday that he welcomed a future meeting between President Barack Obama, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

* Violence Shakes Kabul on Afghan Election Eve Afghan security forces are making their presence felt in Kabul after gunmen wearing suicide vests stormed a bank in the capital on the eve of national elections.

* Huckabee says two states in Holy Land ‘unrealistic’ Former US presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee said Tuesday there is no room for a Palestinian state “in the middle of the Jewish homeland”.

* Deadly pre-poll attack hits Kabul A suicide car bomber has killed seven people in an attack on a convoy of Western troops in the Afghan capital.

* Peres stresses Iran threat to Medvedev Russian President Dmitry Medvedev hosted President Shimon Peres for talks Tuesday that were expected to focus on the Middle East and the Iranian nuclear standoff.

* Mubarak makes White House return President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt is preparing for his first talks at the White House since 2002, when a chill descended on US-Egyptian ties.

* Iranian Ayatollah Creates ‘Private’ Militia Iran’s top leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has established a new security force personally loyal to him.

* Arab League wants EU to back monitoring of Israeli nukes The Arab League has requested that the European Union back its resolution calling on Israel to submit to international monitoring of its alleged nuclear capability.

* Iran: No preconditions for nuke talks Teheran is ready for nuclear talks with the West without preconditions, a senior Iranian nuclear official was quoted.

* Iraq-Syria set for security talks Iraq’s prime minister is visiting neighbouring Syria for talks that are expected to focus on border security.

* Huckabee’s visit – show of support,or well-planned attack? Former Arkansas governor and US presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee kicked off his visit to Israel on Monday by telling reporters that recent American policy toward the Jewish state has been “far more harsh” than that of previous administrations.

* Violence, graft overshadow Afghan elections An incumbent president and 38 challengers, including two women, are vying for the votes of 17 million registered Afghans against a backdrop of war, graft, poverty and illiteracy.

* US shouldn’t tell Jews where to live Former Arkansas governor and presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee says the US has taken too harsh a stance against Israel on the issue of settlements.

* Mubarak in Washington In February 1982 when Hosni Mubarak made his first visit to Washington as Egypt’s president, it was Ronald Reagan who was waiting for him in the White House.

* Settlers: Rabbis’ support for dismantling of outpost homes not a precedent Rabbi Haim Druckman ruled it was permitted according to Halacha to voluntarily evacuate three modular homes at the unauthorized Bnei Adam outpost.

* Deadly blasts hit Iraq market Two bomb blasts in a crowded Baghdad market have killed at least eight people and wounded 21, Iraqi officials say.

* Anti-gay attacks on rise in Iraq Gay Iraqi men are being murdered in what appears to be a co-ordinated campaign involving militia forces.

* Twitter tweets are 40% babble A study of messages sent by users of micro-blogging site Twitter finds that 40% of tweets are “pointless babble”.

* Google Goes Palestinian Google, which came online 10 years ago with its leading internet search engine, has taken a political stand, opening up a domain specifically for Palestinian Authority and Gaza Arabs.

* World’s smallest laser unveiled The spaser promises ultrafast nanocircuits.

* Mubarak: Peace Now, Israel Later Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, several hours before his scheduled meeting on Monday with U.S. President Barack Obama, said that the Arab world will not make any gestures towards Israel until a regional treaty is signed.

* Peres heads to Russia for state visit President Shimon Peres travels to Russia for a two-day state visit at the invitation of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.

* Gaza Islamist leader dies in raid The leader of a radical Islamist group involved in a shootout with Hamas in Gaza is one of at least 24 people killed in the raid.

* Nasrallah: We can hit any Israeli city Recent Israeli warnings were part of a “psychological war” aimed at preventing Hezbollah from joining a new Lebanese unity government, group leader Hassan Nasrallah said.

* Hamas, Fatah trade accusations over Gaza clashes Islamic Hamas movement and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party on Saturday traded accusations over deadly clashes.

* Mubarak travels to U.S. to meet with Obama Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak departed for Washington on Saturday, his first visit to the U.S. capital in five years.

* Iraqi protest at media censorship About 200 Iraqi journalists, writers and publishers have protested in Baghdad at what they say is growing state interference in their work.

* 20 Syrian civilians killed in failed missile test Twenty Syrian civilians were killed and 60 more were injured after a Scud missile test-fired jointly by Syria, North Korea and Iran in late May strayed off course.

* Profile: Jund Ansar Allah The Palestinian Islamist militant group Jund Ansar Allah, or the Soldiers of the Companions of God, announced its presence in the Gaza Strip in June.

* Top rabbis declare day of fasting over ‘evil’ swine flu Two leading Israeli rabbis have announced this coming Wednesday will be a day of fasting and prayer because of the swine flu epidemic.

* ‘Arab tycoons bought land in Galilee’ Wealthy individuals from Arab states that do not have diplomatic relations with Israel have recently procured hundreds of dunams of private agricultural land in the Galilee.

* Turkey marks 25 years of Kurd rebellion Turkey marked 25 years Saturday since the first Kurdish rebel attacks.

* Poll: 70% of Americans see Israel as U.S. friend More than two-third of Americans regard Israel as an ally despite recent diplomatic tensions.

* ‘Hamas ready for Obama’s ME peace plan’ Hamas is prepared to deal “positively” with US President Barack Obama’s Middle East peace plan.

* Following election triumph, Fatah sets out to ‘liberate’ Gaza At the start of the week, a member of Iz al-Din al-Qassam, the military wing of Hamas, died in the Palestinian Authority’s Juneid Prison.

* Arabs to EU: Make Israel expose nukes Arab states are lobbying the European Union for support in their drive to force Israel to open up its secretive nuclear program to international perusal.

* Assad to visit Iran to congratulate Ahmadinejad Syrian President Bashar Assad was scheduled to embark on an official visit to Tehran next week.

* Beirut braces for Hizbullah rally marking ‘victory over Israel’ Hizbullah will mark three years since the “victory over Israel” in the Second Lebanon War with a rally in the Dahiya neighborhood in south Beirut on Friday evening.

* Pakistan’s tribal areas to get parliamentary reps Pakistan lifted a ban on political activities in its tribal regions on Friday.

* Syria insists on Turkish mediation in peace talks Syrian Ambassador to Turkey Nidal Kablan said his country would not give up on the Turkish mediation.

* All Fatah’s Gaza leaders quit over vote Fatah appeared to be in turmoil on Thursday as a large number of its top representatives questioned the credibility of the elections.

* J’lem not counting on Gulf states’ gestures The winds of change blowing in from the Gulf are being received coldly in Jerusalem.

By: Yahoo Inc.

The shadowy Revolutionary Guards already oversee a 130,000-strong parallel army and run large swatches of Iran’s economy, from dentist clinics to the country’s controversial nuclear program. But signs have emerged in recent weeks that the Élite military arm isn’t satisfied: it may just want to run the entire Islamic republic.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), or Sepah for short in Farsi, is widely believed to have played a large role in orchestrating the crackdown on political dissidents and protesters following the disputed presidential election. Its political influence within the regime has always far exceeded the actual army’s, and it has increased exponentially since President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected to office in 2005. But the speculation among Iranian opposition sources is that, these days, the IRGC’s powerful patron – whose second term officially began last week – has now become its puppet, falling under the influence of a gang of security chiefs (the so-called New Right) that harbor schemes to further radicalize the regime or topple it in a military takeover.

The IRGC’s maneuvering has been quite public. On Aug. 9, it was a top Revolutionary Guards commander who escalated the ongoing confrontation with the opposition leadership by calling for their arrest. “What is the role of [former President Mohammed] Khatami, [former Prime Minister and presidential candidate Mir-Hossein] Mousavi and [presidential candidate Mehdi] Karroubi in this coup?” asked Yadollah Javani, the organization’s political chief, referring to the alleged plot by the opposition to subvert the regime by way of protests. “If they are the main agents, which is the case, judiciary and security officials should go after them, arrest them, try them and punish them.”

The same day, reports trickled out that, following Ahmadinejad’s dismissal of the Intelligence Minister late last month, as many as 20 officials in the ministry who disapproved of the public airing of confessions by political dissidents were purged, including the deputy minister and chief of counterintelligence. The move, according to Hassan Younesi, the son of a former Intelligence Minister, was engineered by Hussein Taeb and Ahmad Salek, two top Guards commanders. “Never has the Intelligence Ministry witnessed such a politically motivated purge since its establishment,” Younesi wrote on his personal blog.

Meanwhile, the IRGC has been cleaning house. According to an opposition adviser who maintains close ties to the Guards leadership, at least five commanders sympathetic to the reformists were put under house arrest in the aftermath of the election. These purges within Iran’s security apparatus consolidated power in the hands of the top Guards commanders, who form a united hard-liner bloc that is opposed to reconciliation with the opposition or the West. The IRGC, then, is the most effective power bloc in the country, certainly more cohesive in its top leadership than the conservative political faction, which has seen spats between the Supreme Leader, Ayatullah Ali Khamenei, and Ahmadinejad. The Revolutionary Guards leadership has a vested financial interest in maintaining the regime’s radical platform and in further isolating the Islamic republic from the West. According to an in-depth study by the Rand Corp., the IRGC reaps $12 billion a year from smuggling operations alone.

While Ahmadinejad has always had close ties to the Revolutionary Guards – 14 of his 21 ministers in his first-term cabinet were said to have been veterans of the force – his current position suggests that it is now he who must pay homage to the Guards. When he appointed a seemingly moderate in-law as his Vice President last month, in defiance of the Supreme Leader, the Revolutionary Guards quickly put him in his place, warning that his political future was “dependent on his acceptance of velayat-e faqih [or rule by the clergy, the founding tenet of the Iranian theocracy and the chief pillar of the Supreme Leader’s power].” Some members of the opposition, already worried that the IRGC is writing the script current events, wonder if the Guards did not pre-plan the entire crackdown. They point out that four days before the presidential election, the Guards’ weekly newspaper, Sobhe Sadeq, warned of a “Velvet Green revolution” and said the IRGC would never permit the opposition movement to come to power.

Opposition members are drawing nightmarish parallels with a neighboring country. In 1977, a disputed election in Pakistan set off widespread street demonstrations and a show trial that ultimately led to the execution of the Prime Minister. In the end, that government was toppled by a military coup led by a general who would rule for a decade with the help of a shadowy security apparatus. Could something similar happen in Iran?

* Earthquake Strikes South of Tokyo; Third Since Aug. 9 A magnitude-6.6 earthquake struck south of Tokyo at 7:49 a.m. local time today.

* Israel shuts door on Turkish-mediated Syria talks Israel under right-wing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will not resume Turkish-mediated peace talks with Syria.

* Iran seeks ban on striking nuclear installations Iran, whose nuclear facilities are under threat of possible Israeli military strikes, proposed Wednesday that a 150-nation conference convening in the fall ban such attacks.

* The Revolutionary Guard: Gaining Power in Iran? The shadowy Revolutionary Guard already oversees a 130,000-strong parallel army and run large swatches of Iran’s economy.

* World population projected to reach 7 billion in 2011 The world’s population is forecast to hit 7 billion in 2011, the vast majority of its growth coming in developing and, in many cases, the poorest nations.

* Huckabee to speak at east Jerusalem hotel Former Arkansas governor and US presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee will take part in a reception at the Shepherd’s Hotel in east Jerusalem.

* France and Germany exit recession The French and German economies both grew by 0.3% between April and June, bringing to an end year-long recessions in Europe’s largest economies.

* Out of WAC: World Archaeological Congress Excludes Israel The World Archaeological Congress (WAC), presently convening a conference of archaeologists from all over the world, has excluded Israel even though the conference is taking place in Ramallah.

* US delegates blame Palestinians for no peace talks The head of a delegation of US Democratic members of Congress blamed the Palestinians on Thursday for failing to hold talks with Israel.

* Hezbollah suspected of setting up camp in Venezuela Venezuela has become Hezbollah’s major terrorist outpost in South America.

By: Tim McGirk – Yahoo! Inc.

Leadership elections inside Fatah, the party of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, are a lot like comets: they only come around every 20 years or so, and are marked by a brief but spectacular display of pyrotechnics that don’t alter reality on the ground. For ordinary Palestinians, life after the Fatah conference will go on much the same – they will still face the daily travails of Israeli military checkpoints around their towns, and dealing with a Palestinian government rotten with corruption and cronyism. (Read “Fatah Conference Aims to Boost Its Radical Credentials.”)

But within the leadership circles of Fatah, a major shift has occurred. The 2,000 delegates to the movement’s first conference in two decades re-elected Abbas as their leader – no surprise there, since he ran unopposed – but it unceremoniously dumped from the ruling Central Committee many of the shuffle-footed old guard associated with the late Yasser Arafat. (See pictures of the 2006 Palestinian election won by Hamas.)

Younger Palestinians, more pragmatic when it comes to accepting the existence of Israel, won 10 of the 14 empty seats on the 18-seat Central Committee. They have seen that the older generation’s refusal to compromise with Israel has doomed Palestinians to an ever-shrinking future state. For every year that passes without a deal, another Jewish settlement rises on a hilltop inside the West Bank. As one new Central Committee member tells TIME, “We can’t keep living on radicalism. We have to be practical and negotiate with Israel.” Implicit in his remark is the realization that the Palestinians need to be ready to compromise.

Having successfully dodged demands by party delegates to account for the millions in missing aid money and donations that have flowed through Fatah’s Central Committee over the past 20 years, many of Arafat’s defeated cronies clambered into their limousines and sped across the Jordan Valley to their plush villas in Amman. Many of Fatah’s leadership live in exile and cling to the demand that all Palestinians turned into refugees by the creation of Israel in 1948 be allowed to return to their confiscated land and homes. Successive Israeli governments have refused to recognize a right of return for the refugees, claiming that the return of millions of Palestinians would soon outnumber Israel’s Jewish majority. The conference affirmed the principle of the right of return for some 4.5 million Palestinian refugees scattered mostly throughout Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and the Gulf States.

Still, the leadership election gave President Abbas a much-needed political booster shot. The conference has allowed him to regain control over Fatah and oust a few rebellious party rivals who were a liability and an embarrassment. But it is doubtful, say party delegates, that the new members of the influential Central Committee will assist Abbas in patching up with Hamas, the Islamist rival movement that beat Fatah in the elections of January 2006 and forcibly ejected Fatah militias from Gaza the following year. Arab and Western leaders have emphasized reconciliation between the rival Palestinian power centers as a key condition for moving forward with the peace process. (See pictures of Israel’s assault on Gaza.)

The new Central Committee includes two influential security chiefs – Mohammad Dahlan and Jibril Rajoub – both of whom are accused by Hamas of leading a brutal crackdown against its members in Gaza and in the West Bank. Dahlan, in particular, is loathed by Hamas and even by many in Fatah, who accuse him of carrying out Israel’s and the CIA’s bidding in trying to sabotage the result of Hamas’ 2006 election victory. Hamas, which refused to let 400 Fatah delegates leave Gaza to attend the Bethlehem conference, having demanded that President Abbas first release 1,000 Hamas prisoners being held in the West Bank, displayed wariness toward the outcome of their rival’s conference. As a Hamas spokesman in Gaza put it: “Time will judge whether they will protect the interests of the Palestinians.”

As a way of flexing its own muscles while Fatah held the spotlight, Hamas has renewed talks through the Egyptians over the release of captive Israeli soldier Corporal Gilad Shalit in exchange for several hundred Palestinian prisoners. If Hamas pulls off the deal, it would undermine Abbas’ own credibility, since his years of negotiating with the Israelis in U.S.-sponsored peace talks yielded few positive results hailed by ordinary Palestinians. Over 11,000 Palestinians remain in Israel captivity, and Abbas has long demanded that Israel free many of them, but to no avail.

During the conference, Abbas, in typical fashion, bombarded the Israelis with mixed messages. On one hand, delegates proposed revising the charter of Fatah – which was founded in the 1950s to wage an armed struggle against Israel on behalf of the dispossessed Palestinians – to embrace the principle of “two states for two people,” a recognition that Palestinians accept Israel’s right to exist. This revision is expected to be adopted by Fatah’s newly elected leadership bodies. But, on the other hand, the conference delegates refused to strike out a sentence in their charter vowing to “liquidate the Zionist entity,” and the delegates did not rule out the possibility of a return to arms if the faltering U.S.-brokered peace process collapses. Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have yet to meet, despite the White House clamoring for a resumption of talks, with the Palestinian leader insisting that Israel first accept a full settlement freeze.

One of the rising stars in Fatah elected to the Central Committee was Marwan Barghouti, currently serving five consecutive life sentences inside an Israeli prison for terrorism. Despite the terror charges against him, Barghouti is seen as relatively moderate and a pragmatist who advocates both a two-state solution and reconciliation with Hamas. He is also viewed a possible successor for Abbas if the Israelis decide to release him from prison. Although Israel’s Minister of Minority Affairs Avishay Braverman suggested this week that Barghouti be released to help strengthen the hand of Israel’s Palestinian peace partner, it remains unlikely that Netanyahu’s right-wing government will free a man convicted for the death of five people. Meantime, Israel’s hawkish Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Fatah’s “radical and uncompromising positions” created “an unbridgeable gap between us and them.” So, while Abbas may be rejuvenated by Fatah’s first elections in 20 years, his job hasn’t gotten any easier.

* Israeli paper says strike on Iran could delay bomb A major Israeli newspaper ran a front-page story on Wednesday quoting an unidentified “senior defence official” as saying Israel believed a military strike could disrupt what it says is an Iranian nuclear arms program.

* Russia to boost Abkhazia presence Russia is to spend almost $500m (£300m) next year reinforcing its military bases in Georgia’s breakaway region of Abkhazia.

* China warns of ‘arms race in outer space’ China’s Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi called Wednesday for international diplomacy to avert an “arms race in outer space.”

* Fatah Conference Boosts Abbas, but Peace May Remain Elusive Leadership elections inside Fatah, the party of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, are a lot like comets: they only come around every 20 years or so.

* Extremist Christians: ‘God hates Jews’ Members of the extremist Westboro Baptist Church, known for its anti-gay and anti-Semitic rhetoric, protested in front of several Jewish institutions in New York on Tuesday.

* Israel ‘won’t make Jordan Palestine’ A delegation of security officials secretly traveled to Jordan last week in an attempt to assuage concerns that Israel plans to transfer Palestinians from the West Bank to the Hashemite Kingdom.

* Navy to partake in Turkish exercise In a sign that tension between Jerusalem and Ankara has cooled down, two Israeli Navy missile ships will sail to Turkey next week to participate in the annual Reliant Mermaid search-and-rescue naval exercise.

* Despite bombings, Iraq confident it can maintain security A series of bombings in Baghdad and Mosul on Monday killed at least 49 people and wounded more than 230 in the latest attack.

* German Jews back campaign to reprint ‘Mein Kampf’ German academics who have been engaged for years in a campaign calling for the reprinting of an annotated version of Adolf Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” (“My Struggle”) received support from an unlikely source.

* New Google ‘puts Bing in shade’ Google has lifted the lid on its updated search engine, which developers have nicknamed “Caffeine”.

By: Adrian Michaels – Telegraph Media Group Limited

Britain, Spain and Holland will have an even higher proportion of Muslims in a shorter amount of time, an investigation by The Telegraph shows.

Last year, five per cent of the total population of the 27 EU countries was Muslim. But rising levels of immigration from Muslim countries and low birth rates among Europe’s indigenous population mean that, by 2050, the figure will be 20 per cent, according to forecasts.

Data gathered from various sources indicate that Britain, Spain and Holland will have an even higher proportion of Muslims in a shorter amount of time.

The UK, which currently has 20 million fewer people than Germany, is also projected to be the EU’s most populous country by 2060, with 77 million people.

The findings have led to allegations that policy-makers are failing to confront the widespread challenges of the “demographic time bomb”.

Experts say that there has been a lack of debate on how the population changes will affect areas of life from education and housing to foreign policy and pensions.

Although some polls have pointed to a lack of radicalisation in the Muslim community, little attention is being given to the integration of migrants, it is claimed, with fears of social unrest in years to come.