After another round of Israeli-PA talks on the Wye timetable, PA chief negotiator Erakat says that an agmt. implementation is near, that there is "suddenly an atmosphere of trust between the two sides." (WP 8/25; YA 8/27 in WNC 9/1)
The PA suspends talks with Israel on the Wye prisoner release, citing lack of progress. Hisham `Abd al-Raziq, head of the PA team, calls the mtgs. "a waste of time." (NYT 8/25; AYM 8/25 in WNC 8/27)
Israel says that PM Barak has phoned European, Scandinavian leaders to urge them to promote a European-wide effort to aid Turkey's earthquake victims out of concern that militant Islamists might seek to gain political advantage fr. the Turkish government's inept response to the crisis. Islamic groups have worked intensively to help victims fr. the 1st day of the disaster, whereas the Turkish military did not join rescue efforts until several days after the quake. The government has also frozen the accounts, raided offices, confiscated the relief supplies of Islamic humanitarian groups, saying that they should "divert funds to purposes other than earthquake relief in the absence of strict government oversight." Israel also announces plans to assemble prefabricated city of 1,000 housing units for Turkish quake victims. (ATL 8/24 in WNC 8/25; WT 8/25; NYT, WP, WT 8/27; WP 8/29; ATL 8/31 in WNC 9/1)
Jordanian Artists Association expels one of its senior mbrs., Nadir Omran, for "normalizing" relations with Israel by inviting Israeli artists to participate in a theater festival earlier this yr. (JT 8/26 in WNC 8/27)
In s. Lebanon, 5 South Lebanon Army (SLA) mbrs. are wounded in a clash with Hizballah. (VOL 8/24 in WNC 8/25)