Indonesian authorities on Aug. 11 charged well-known radical Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Bashir with aiding an al-Qaeda-linked terrorist cell. Bashir, who was arrested Aug. 9 is accused of operating a terrorist training camp in the mountains of the northwestern province of Aceh to prepare Islamic radicals to carry out attacks in the capital of Jakarta.

Russell Defreitas and Abdul Kadir, two men charged with plotting to blow up targets at New York's John F. Kennedy Airport, were found guilty of conspiracy charges Aug. 3 by a federal jury in Brooklyn. Defreitas, 67, a naturalized US citizen and former cargo handler at the airport, was found guilty of all six charges against him. Kadir, 58, a citizen of Guyana who once served as a parliament member there, was found guilty on five of the six charges, acquitted of surveillance of a mass-transportation facility. The men could face life in prison, with sentencing scheduled for December. Prosecutors said the men sought aid from al-Qaeda operative Adnan Shukrijumah, recently indicted in federal court in a supposed plot to launch suicide attacks on the New York City subway system. (WSJ, Aug. 3)

While assistance is being provided to hundreds of thousands of Pakistanis affected by the country's worst flooding within memory, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in a new report Aug. 12 that relief supplies are reaching only a fraction of the millions who need help. The report says that more than 14 million—nearly one in every 10 Pakistanis—are affected by the flooding, which began in late July due to heavy monsoon rains. The official death toll has risen to 1,343, with 1,588 people now reported injured. At least two million have been left homeless.

Thousands of protesters again filled the streets in Indian-controlled Kashmir Aug. 13 after security forces killed four and injured at least eight others for defying a curfew. In the northern town of Pattan, troops enforcing the curfew reportedly killed a 65-year-old man. In Sopore, a large crowd gathered after Friday prayer services and threw stones at a camp occupied by Indian paramilitary troops, who opened fire, killing two. In Kupwara, police fired on a crowd of 2,000 who had gathered in defiance of the curfew, killing a 23-year-old man. In Srinagar, the regional capital, officials did not impose a curfew for fear of sparking further, and Friday prayer services were held at the city's historic mosque for the first time in six weeks. (NYT, AP, Aug. 13)

Israeli soldiers used force to shut down weekly non-violent anti-wall protests in villages across the West Bank on Friday Aug. 13. International, Israeli and Palestinian activists in Bil'in, Nil'in, and An-Nabi Salih, near Ramallah, and in al-Ma'sara, near Bethlehem, were met with tear-gas grenades as they marched towards the separation wall to protest the confiscation of their lands.

Fuel for generators is running out as the power crisis in Gaza continues, an electricity company official said Aug. 13. Kin'an Obed, vice-president of the Palestinian Energy Authority in Gaza, said the quantity of diesel that Israeli authorities allowed into the Strip that day was only sufficient to power one generator, and would run out within three days. Already, the power company has been forced to schedule 8-to10-hour power cuts every day for several months, Obed added. The sole power station in Gaza shut down totally on last week due to a shortage of fuel, leaving hospitals reliant on emergency generators.

The Israel Government Tourist Office (IGTO) lost an appeal Aug. 4 of a British ban on a vacation advertisement that described the Western Wall as part of Israel. The IGTO appealed after the UK's Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) upheld a complaint in April that the Kotel is actually in the Occupied Territories. An image on the advert for vacations in Israel showed a picture of the wall with the gold Dome of the Rock in the background, captioned "Jerusalem." A spokesman from the ASA said: "After careful consideration, including of a report from the Independent Reviewer, the ASA Council has decided not to overturn its original upheld decision. The original adjudication will remain unchanged." (Jewish Chronicle, London, Aug. 5; IRNA, Aug. 4)

The Turkish Foreign Ministry announced Aug. 11 that it will conduct an investigation into the May flotilla incident, in which Israeli forces raided several Turkish ships bound for the blockaded Gaza Strip. The investigatory commission will operate under the office of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and will prepare a report to be presented to the UN panel established earlier this month to investigate the incident.