OSAC EARLY BIRD

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From Arab NewsCITIZENS SHOP EARLY FOR SACRIFICIAL GOATS TO BEAT PRICES

TEACHER WANTS RAPE CHARGES DROPPED

From CNNTURKISH PM ANNOUNCES ADDITIONAL SANCTIONS ON ISRAEL

HAIL OF BULLETS STRIKES SYRIANS FLEEING TO TURKEY

From The Washington PostPAKISTAN CLAIMS SIGNIFICANT AL-QAEDA ARRESTS

INDONESIAN MAID, MADE RICH BY DONATIONS AFTER ESCAPING SAUDI EXECUTION, NOW HATED BY NEIGHBORS

From The New York TimesLEAK OFFERS LOOK AT EFFORTS BY U.S. TO SPY ON ISRAEL

EASING STANCE, IRAN OFFERS INSPECTORS ‘SUPERVISION’ OF NUCLEAR PROGRAM

From Arabian BusinessGLOBAL FEARS WEIGH ON SAUDI PETCHEMS; DUBAI ENDS HIGHER

US FASHION BRAND SIGNS DEAL FOR GULF EXPANSION

Photo Provided By Bruce Kendall

Citizens Shop Early For Sacrificial Goats To Beat Prices

A number of Saudi citizens have started shopping early for sacrificial goats after Eid Al-Fitr when prices are down before they shoot up during Eid Al-Adha, a local daily reported.

As a precautionary measure, some citizens began buying little goats to raise them at home and use them to sacrifice during Eid Al-Adha.

Citizens say that they will not wait for the prices to slowly increase and reach a level where they cannot afford them anymore.

Some citizens interviewed said that the rising living costs and prices of commodities had reached a level where middle-income people could

not afford paying for a sacrificial goat anymore.

Fahd Al-Otaibi, a Saudi citizen, said, "Prices of livestock keep increasing, especially with the approach of Eid Al-Adha. The price of one goat increases to SR1,200, which is a very high price compared with off-season prices.

Livestock businessmen keep on saying that the law of supply and demand is the reason behind the price increase."

Saudi citizen Abdullah Al-Fahmi said that the Ministry of Commerce should monitor the prices. He said that there was a large number of goats in the market, and yet the prices were rising unacceptably.

He said that the only reason behind it were greedy businessmen, who should be punished.

"I decided to buy goats early to avoid the price increase later. I expected the prices to decline this year, but there is no sign of this," Al-Fahmi commented.

Ali Al-Ghamdi said that his favorite brand of goats cost SR800 in normal times and could reach SR1,400 during Haj. He said he found it logical to buy it now and keep it in the backyard until Haj.

Livestock businessmen, on the other hand, defended the price

increase saying that they had to because of price increases in fodder and rent. They agreed that the increase was justifiable and normal and within the limit.Teacher Wants Rape Charges Dropped

The lawyer of a Saudi schoolteacher accused of raping 13 underage girls has called for dropping 11 out of 13 charges against his client and asked for the case to be heard quickly.

"My client is innocent of all the serious charges against him," Wael Jawharji told a press conference in Jeddah on Monday.

He said he expected to receive a reply to his request to drop the charges from the Bureau of Investigation and Prosecution within two weeks.

The brother of the suspect claimed at the press conference that one of the investigators asked him to sign a report stating that his brother was psychologically sick or under a magical spell to secure his release.

"I would never have defended the accused if I was not sure of his innocence," the lawyer said, and expressed hope his client would soon be acquitted.

Jawharji blamed the media for defaming his client and his family but ruled out any legal action.

"However, we are ready to take the media to court if they continue to defame my client," he said, asking the media to use the term “detained” instead of “suspect” or “accused” to refer to the teacher.

The lawyer said he was holding the press conference to influence public opinion in favor of the suspect following substantial negative coverage about him.

He said the police broke a number of laws, such as preventing his

client from appointing a lawyer until he had been detained for a month.

"I was not allowed to visit my client though I have official authorization from the family. I was excluded from some questioning sessions with my client," he said.

The lawyer said the prison’s director justified these actions by claiming the issue was sensitive. "This was not a convincing enough explanation for me," he said.

Jawharji said his client was still under investigation and that no official charges were made against him. He, however, explained that the Bureau of Investigation and Prosecution has the right to detain a suspect for six months without charge.

The brother of the accused said there was substantial evidence proving his innocence. "The alleged victims did not recognize him.

Some of them who identified him as their attacker also said the same thing about the other suspect who was released. The DNA did not match with that of my brother," he said.

Turkish PM Announces Additional Sanctions On Israel

Turkey's fiery prime minister ratcheted up rapidly-escalating tensions with Israel on Tuesday, comparing Ankara's once-close ally in the Middle East to a "spoiled boy" and announcing additional sanctions would soon be imposed.

"We are completely suspending all of these, trade relations, military relations, related with the defense industry," Recep Tayyip Erdogan said, according to the semi-official Anatolian Agency. "All of these are completely suspended and other measures will follow this process."

Asked to clarify whether this meant Turkey will halt more than $3 billion in bilateral trade, an official in the Turkish prime ministry, speaking on condition of anonymity under government protocol, insisted Erdogan was not referring to trade relations.

"He was referring to the defense industry," the official said. "Nothing more than the measures that have been announced so far."

Last week, Turkey declared it was downgrading relations with Israel, suspending all military agreements between the two countries and giving senior Israeli diplomats less than a week to leave Turkish territory.

"If the current steps are regarded as 'plan B,' there will be a 'plan C,'" Erdogan said on Tuesday in his first public comments on the matter since Ankara imposed sanctions on Israel.

Erdogan's government is incensed that Israel refuses to apologize or pay compensation for eight slain Turks and one Turkish-American.

The humanitarian workers and activists were shot dead by Israeli commandos in a botched 2010 raid on an aid convoy that was trying to bust Israel's sea blockade of Gaza.

But "Israel does not want to see a further deterioration in the relationship with Turkey," said a senior Israeli government official, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue.

"There have been a number of proposals on the table to prevent a deterioration and unfortunately they have not been successful, but from our point of view a deterioration in the relationship serves neither side's interests."

Multiple Israeli sources said they are doing what they can to be

responsible and reverse the negative dynamic.

Some Israeli officials believe the current troubles between the two countries are minor bumps that can be smoothed out with time and the proper diplomacy.

Others believe the deteriorating relationship has little to do with Israel and more to do with a reorientation of Turkish foreign policy towards the Muslim world.

A possible Erdogan trip to Gaza is contributing to that school of thought. Diplomats in Cairo and Ankara tell CNN that Erdogan is tentatively scheduled to visit Cairo next week.

There is growing speculation in local media that the Turkish prime minister may try to visit Gaza via Egypt's Rafah border crossing."This is a process that will continue until the last moment," Erdogan said Tuesday, according to Anatolian, when asked about a trip to Gaza.

"We will make the final decision there, talking to our Egyptian friends and brothers. According to that, there may be a trip to Gaza."

Despite deteriorating political relations between Jerusalem and Ankara, trade has grown substantially between the two countries over the last year, according to Turkish government statistics.

On Monday, Stanley Fischer, governor of the Bank of Israel, gave a speech in which he highlighted the importance of Israel's economic ties with Turkey.

He noted that Turkey's economy was the largest in the region, with a gross domestic product in excess of $700 billion, and that Turkey is becoming a key player in regional trade.

Turkey is a significant Israeli trading partner, Fischer said, and damage to the trade relationship between the two countries could have serious consequences for Israel.

Prior to the report about Erdogan's comments Tuesday, Amos Gilad, a senior Israeli defense official, told Israeli radio that despite the reports, Turkey is not disengaging from Israel.

Contrary to what is being reported, he said, the Israeli military delegation to Turkey is continuing his work there.

Hail Of Bullets Strikes Syrians Fleeing To Turkey

A deadly hail of bullets struck Syrian refugees as they tried to flee across the border to Turkey on Monday, killing one man and wounding another, the Turkish government said Tuesday.

"Yesterday there was a bunch of people trying to cross the border to Turkey," said a Turkish Foreign Ministry official, speaking on condition of anonymity according to diplomatic protocol.

"While one of the groups tried to pass, there were shots fired from the Syrian side, I assume from the Syrian soldiers... two people were shot, one died on the Syrian side of the border, and (his body) was also carried with a wounded guy to the Turkish side."

A video emerging on YouTube showed an apparently dead man lying on the floor with blood leaking from his head. Off camera, a man says in Arabic "they shot him, the snipers."

The video identified the victim as Abdul Salam Hasoon. The description of the incident and the name of the victim were both confirmed by the London-based

Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

"He was killed by snipers from the Syrian side while he was crossing the border," wrote the Observatory's Mousab Azzawi, in an e-mail to CNN.According to the Turkish Foreign Ministry, at least 330 Syrians fled on Monday through an old border checkpoint at the Turkish village of Belengoz.

Several Turkish residents living in the nearby Turkish border village of Guvecci told CNN they heard gunfire from the direction of Belengoz on Monday.

The latest movement of fleeing Syrians comes after opposition activists claimed Syrian security forces launched a fresh wave of military operations in areas close to the Turkish border.

The Turkish diplomat said the wounded refugee was rushed to treatment and is now in stable condition in a Turkish hospital.

Throughout the uprising and subsequent government crackdown in Syria, more than seventeen thousand Syrians have fled across the border to Turkey, according to statistics published by the Turkish disaster and management directorate.

A growing number of exiled activists have operated out of Turkey, which has also hosted a number of opposition meetings and conferences.

In a separate online video emerging from Syria, a group of uniformed men identifying themselves as defecting soldiers claimed responsibility for a deadly attack on fellow Syrian security forces on Monday.

Flanked by eleven men in army uniforms holding Kalashnikov rifles, a man identified himself in the video as Lieutenant Zahir

Abdul Karim Fraiter of the 7th Division of the Syrian armed forces.

"I have seen with my own eyes the massacres committed by the corrupt regime," Fraiter said.Fraiter then claimed responsibility for killing security forces and pro-government shabiha militia-men near the town of Maharda.

On Sunday, the Syrian state news agency SANA reported that six army officers and three "civilian employees" were killed after an "armed terrorist group set an ambush at the crossroads of Salhab-Khatab near the town of Maharda...

opening fire with machine guns at a military bus carrying a number of officers."

In the video, Fraiter said the attack on government forces in Maharda was retaliation, for a military operation against the village of Maarat Hirma and the killed of a political activist named Abdul Samad Issa.

CNN cannot independently verify these claims, because the Syrian government has repeatedly denied requests for journalists to report inside Syria.

Pakistan Claims Significant Al-Qaeda Arrests

The Pakistani military said Monday that its top spy agency had worked with the CIA to arrest three senior al-Qaeda figures near the southwestern city of Quetta, including one militant leader who was directed by Osama bin Laden to strike economically significant targets in the West.

It was unclear how high that militant, whom the army identified as Younis al-Mauritani, ranked in the al-Qaeda hierarchy, or when the arrests took place.

But the unusual announcement, backed up by the White House, appeared to signal renewed cooperation between the top Pakistani and U.S. intelligence agencies, whose long-fraught relations decayed to a near breaking point this year.

The Pakistani military said al-Mauritani was plotting strikes on American dams and gas and oil pipelines and planning bombings of U.S. ships and oil tankers using explosives-rigged speed boats.

Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency detained him along with two other senior leaders, Abdul Ghaffar al-Shami and Messara al-Shami, in an operation planned and carried out with the help of “technical assistance” from U.S. intelligence, the military said in a statement said.

In Washington, Tommy Vietor, a White House spokesman, said the action had “led to the capture of a senior al-Qaeda operative who was involved in planning attacks against the interests of the United States and many other countries.”

Both the White House and the Pakistani military portrayed the arrests as a significant blow to al-Qaeda, an organization that American officials have said may be near strategic defeat following the U.S. commando raid that killed Osama bin Laden at his hideout in Pakistan in May.

The announcement of the arrests came one week after U.S. and Pakistani officials said al-Qaeda’s second-in-command, Atiyah Abd al-Rahman, had been killed in a CIA drone strike in the Waziristan area of Pakistan’s rugged tribal region.

The officials characterized his death as a major loss for al-Qaeda.According to the Long War Journal, a U.S.-based Web site that covers the war on terror, a detained German-Afghan al-Qaeda figure

falsely identified al-Mauritani last year as the organization’s No. 3 operative.

Senior U.S. intelligence officials countered at the time that while al-Mauritani was a senior member of al-Qaeda’s committee to plan attacks on the West, he was not its leader, the Web site reported.

Pakistan’s top spy agency, known as the ISI, has long worked closely with the CIA on counterterror operations and hunts for senior al-Qaeda figures, many of whom are believed to be based in the Pakistani mountains bordering Afghanistan.

But relations between the agencies have frayed in recent years over disagreements on CIA drone strikes, which Pakistani officials say have become too frequent and unilateral, and over U.S. beliefs that Pakistani spies provide support to some Islamist militants they deem strategically useful allies.

Cooperation took a nose dive in January after a CIA security contractor, Raymond Davis, fatally shot two Pakistanis he sad were trying to rob him in the eastern city of Lahore.

Relations deteriorated further after the bin Laden raid, which the United States carried out without alerting Pakistani officials, in part out of fear that they would scuttle the plan. Pakistani officials said joint operations had been cut off.

The Pakistani statement Monday, however, praised the countries’ intelligence relationship as “strong” and its cooperation as “intimate.”

“Both Pakistan and the United States Intelligence agencies continue to work closely together to enhance security of their respective nations,” the statement said.

Indonesian Maid, Made Rich By Donations After Escaping Saudi Execution, Now Hated By Neighbors

One Indonesian maid is beheaded in Saudi Arabia. For a second one on death row, strangers at home rally to her cause and raise tens of thousands of dollars. She not only escapes the sword, she’s now rich. And hated.

Darsem binti Dawud Tawar, 22, shot to fame earlier this year in Indonesia after spending more than three years in a Saudi prison accused of killing a man who allegedly tried to rape her.

But when the former maid safely returned to her small fishing village, the public tide swiftly turned against her.

She’s accused of living in luxury, building a fancy house along the dusty track that passes for Main Street, throwing around cash and draping herself in jewels.

“She acts like a bling-bling celebrity now,” said Siti Patonah, a 32-year-old vendor, scrubbing apples and watermelons at a market as five or six housewives gather.“It’s true,” one says. “Like a nut that forgot its shell.”

The execution in June of a 53-year-old grandmother, Ruyati binti Satubim, sparked mass protests in Indonesia and prompted the government’s first effort to do more to protect the 1.2 million women who flock to Saudi Arabia every year to work as domestic help.

It recalled its ambassador from Riyadh, and last month barred any further workers from going to the Gulf kingdom.

But Darsem’s case has stolen the show, sparking fierce debate in the world’s most populous Muslim nation on whether she should donate her windfall.

Some Indonesian lawmakers fret that the public may not be as likely to give next time around, even if a life is at stake.

Life’s been anything but easy for Darsem.

She dropped out of school before finishing 6th grade and moved to the capital, Jakarta, so she could help support her family.

By 15, she was married and pregnant and months later she went to the Middle East — first Oman, then United Arab Emirates and finally Saudi Arabia — as she’d seen many other young women do before her.

Theirs were the nice concrete houses, standing out among the wooden shacks lit by oil lamps. They had the shiny Yamaha motorcycles, the 21-inch TVs carried through doorways in big, brown cardboard boxes.

She’d heard, but chose to ignore, the stories about maids working abroad — women killed by their bosses, stabbed with scissors or burned with hot irons.

“My husband didn’t have a job, my father was getting old, I thought it was our best chance,” Darsem says from the living room of her parent’s two-room house, aqua-blue paint chipping off the walls.She refuses to talk about what happened next, saying she wants to put it behind her.

But according to Saudi media reports, Darsem killed her employer’s relative — a man who was mentally ill — with a hammer to the head after he attacked her.

She then threw his body in an empty water tank and covered it with concrete.

Darsem spent the next 3 1/2 years in a Saudi jail, but it wasn’t until the beheading of Ruyati, also

accused of murdering an abusive boss, that her luck finally turned.

Newspapers and activists on Facebook and Twitter championed her cause.The government quickly scraped together the $500,000 demanded by the family of Darsem’s victim for her release.

The public also chipped in: Men held out boxes and nets on traffic-clogged streets to collect change from motorists, women went to schools or mosques and — when she finally came home — a TV station handed her $140,000 from its viewers.

That’s a fortune in the predominantly Muslim nation of 240 million, where many people make less than $200 a month.

In Trungtum, a struggling, coastal town 110 miles (180 kilometers) from Jakarta, Darsem may as well be a millionaire.

Everyone has a suggestion as to how she should spend the money, she said, and they all have their hands out.

“But why should I give them anything? They did nothing to help my family when I was gone,” she says of her neighbors, pointing to the roof above her, badly damaged in a heavy storm and patched together by her father’s own hands.

Asked why she doesn’t help with legal fees of 23 Indonesians still on death row in Saudi Arabia — the most popular suggestion on Twitter and op-ed pages — the round-faced girl with dark, slow-blinking eyes looks incredulous.

“I didn’t even know those women,” Darsem says. “There were dozens in my cell all the time. They were always coming and going. But really, who are they to me?”

But despite the rumors, Darsem is hardly living large.

The $10,000 house she’s building 50 yards (meters) from her parents’ is not much bigger or more extravagant than any of her neighbors’ and her future plans are modest: Some land to grow rice.

A new, wooden fishing boat for her dad. A sewing machine to open a tailor’s shop.“... A good education for my son,” she says.

But she can’t escape the gossip.Each trip she takes to the market is scrutinized: the baskets filled with colorful fresh fruits, the new kitchen appliances.

The vendors, fishermen and housewives say hello and then, after she passes, talk about her clothes or the gold necklace, studded with a tiny piece of translucent jade, that rests delicately on her brown skin.

Handing out cash — for sympathy and celebration — is common across Asia. But the implications of direct giving are rarely considered.

“I don’t think it was a good idea to give her money beyond what was necessary to set her free,” said Peter Singer, a Princeton University professor who has written extensively about ethics and charity.“But once it’s given to her, you can’t really have any expectations on what she does with it.”

Darsem, meanwhile, says the money she’s clinging too so tightly hasn’t made her happy.

“I feel stressed all the time,” she said, adding that there isn’t one person in Trungtum she’d call a friend.

In the end, she decided to take back her estranged husband, even though he had remarried while she was gone and had another child, ignoring their own son, Ahmad Safi, now 6.

He’s the only one she can come close to trusting.

“I don’t know why everyone’s turned against me,” she said. “Would they rather I was miserable and destitute? Really... it’s not fair.”

The local TV station that collected the $140,000 on Darsem’s behalf has taken much of the heat.

Many viewers thought they were saving the girl from the executioner’s sword, but the government insisted it was responsible for the “blood money” demanded by the victim’s family.

So TVOne decided to give it to Darsem. Standing awkwardly beside her as she accepted the cash — almost a sideshow — was Een Nuraini, the daughter of the woman who was beheaded.

“I don’t know why they even invited me,” said the 35-year-old who lives in Sukatani, a small village a few hours from Trungtum.

“But when Darsem promised on live TV to share some of the money, I hoped to be able to use it to send my mother’s parents to Mecca for the Hajj pilgrimage.”

Several weeks later, Darsem called and asked her to come.Darsem presented Een Nuraini with an envelope containing $2,000. It was well short of what she expected, and nowhere near enough for her grandparents’ trip.

“I don’t think she understands,” said Een Nuraini, her eyes welling with tears from beneath her dark gray headscarf.

“The only reason she got all this attention — not just the money but also help from the government — was because of my mother.”

She says no one has supported her family. Neither the government, nor the public.

Asked what she intended to do with Darsem’s money, she looks up and says softly, with no sign of regret, “Oh ... it’s gone already.”“I gave it all to the local mosque and orphanage in my mom’s name.”

“I know that’s what she would have wanted.”

Leak Offers Look At Efforts By U.S. To Spy On Israel

When Shamai K. Leibowitz, an FBI translator, was sentenced to 20 months in prison last year for leaking classified information to a blogger, prosecutors revealed little about the case.

They identified the blogger in court papers only as “Recipient A.” After Mr. Leibowitz pleaded guilty, even the judge said he did not know exactly what Mr. Leibowitz had disclosed.

“All I know is that it’s a serious case,” Judge Alexander Williams Jr., of United States District Court in Maryland, said at the sentencing in May 2010.

“I don’t know what was divulged other than some documents, and how it compromised things, I have no idea.”

Now the reason for the extraordinary secrecy surrounding the Obama administration’s first prosecution for leaking information to the news media seems clear:

Mr. Leibowitz, a contract Hebrew translator, passed on secret transcripts of conversations caught on FBI wiretaps of the Israeli Embassy in Washington.

Those overheard by the eavesdroppers included American supporters of Israel and at least one member of Congress, according to the blogger, Richard Silverstein.

In his first interview about the case, Mr. Silverstein offered a rare glimpse of American spying on a close ally. He said he had burned the secret documents in his Seattle backyard after Mr. Leibowitz came under investigation in mid-2009, but he recalled that there were about 200 pages of verbatim records of telephone calls and what seemed to be embassy conversations.

He said that in one transcript, Israeli officials discussed their worry that their exchanges might be monitored.

Mr. Leibowitz, who declined to comment for this article, released the documents because of concerns about Israel’s aggressive efforts to influence Congress and public opinion, and fears that Israel might strike nuclear facilities in Iran, a move he saw as potentially disastrous, according to Mr. Silverstein.

While the American government routinely eavesdrops on some embassies inside the United States, intelligence collection against allies is always politically delicate, especially one as close as Israel.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation listens in on foreign embassies and officials in the United States chiefly to track foreign spies, though any intelligence it obtains on other matters is passed on to the CIA and other agencies.

The intercepts are carried out by the FBI’s Operational Technology Division, based in Quantico, Va., according to Matthew M. Aid, an intelligence writer who describes the bureau’s monitoring in a book, “Intel Wars,” scheduled for publication in January.

Translators like Mr. Leibowitz work at an FBI office in Calverton, Md.

Former counterintelligence officials describe Israeli intelligence operations in the United States as quite extensive, ranking just below those of China and Russia, and FBI counterintelligence agents have long kept an eye on Israeli spying.

For most eavesdropping on embassies, federal law requires the FBI to obtain an order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which meets in secret at a federal courthouse in Washington.

If an American visiting or calling an embassy turns up on a recording, the FBI is required by law to remove the American’s name from intelligence reports, substituting the words “U.S. person.”

But raw transcripts would not necessarily have undergone such editing, called “minimization.”

Mr. Silverstein’s account could not be fully corroborated, but it fits the publicly known facts about the case.

Spokesmen for the FBI, the Justice Department and the Israeli Embassy declined to comment on either eavesdropping on the embassy or Mr. Leibowitz’s crime.

He admitted disclosing “classified information concerning the communication intelligence activities of the United States,” standard language for the interception of phone calls, e-mails and other messages by the FBI and the National Security Agency, which generally focuses on international communications.

Mr. Leibowitz, now in a Federal Bureau of Prisons halfway house in Maryland, is prohibited by his plea agreement from discussing anything he learned at the FBI, Two lawyers who represented Mr. Leibowitz, Cary M. Feldman and Robert C. Bonsib, also would not comment.

Mr. Silverstein, 59, writes a blog called Tikun Olam, named after a Hebrew phrase that he said means “repairing the world.”The blog gives a liberal perspective on Israel and Israeli-American relations. He said he had decided to speak out to make clear that Mr. Leibowitz, though charged under the Espionage Act, was acting out of noble motives.

The Espionage Act has been used by the Justice Department in nearly all prosecutions of government employees for disclosing classified information to the news media, including the record-setting five such cases under President Obama.

Mr. Silverstein said he got to know Mr. Leibowitz, a lawyer with a history of political activism, after noticing that he, too, had a liberal-minded blog, called Pursuing Justice.

The men shared a concern about repercussions from a possible Israeli airstrike on nuclear facilities in Iran. From his FBI work from January to August of 2009, Mr. Leibowitz also believed that Israeli diplomats’ efforts to influence Congress and shape American public opinion were excessive and improper, Mr. Silverstein said.

“I see him as an American patriot and a whistle-blower, and I’d like his actions to be seen in that context,” Mr. Silverstein said.

“What really concerned Shamai at the time was the possibility of an Israeli strike on Iran, which he thought would be damaging to both Israel and the United States.”

Mr. Silverstein took the blog posts he had written based on Mr. Leibowitz’s material off his site after the criminal investigation two years ago.

But he was able to retrieve three posts from April 2009 from his computer and provided them to The New York Times.

The blog posts make no reference to eavesdropping, but describe information from “a confidential source,” wording Mr. Silverstein said was his attempt to disguise the material’s origin.

One post reports that the Israeli Embassy provided “regular written briefings” on Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza to President Obama in the weeks between his election and inauguration.

Another describes calls involving Israeli officials in Jerusalem, Chicago and Washington to discuss the views of members of Congress on Israel.

A third describes a call between an unnamed Jewish activist in Minnesota and the Israeli Embassy about an embassy official’s meeting with Representative Keith Ellison, Democrat of Minnesota, who was planning an official trip to Gaza.

Mr. Silverstein said he remembered that embassy officials talked about drafting opinion articles to be published under the names of American supporters.

He said the transcripts also included a three-way conversation between a congressman from Texas, an American supporter of the congressman and an embassy official; Mr. Silverstein said he could not recall any of the names.

At his sentencing, Mr. Leibowitz described what he had done as “a one-time mistake that happened to me when I worked at the F.B.I. and saw things which I considered were violation of the law, and I should not have told a reporter about it.”

That was a reference to Israeli diplomats’ attempts to influence Congress, Mr. Silverstein said, though nothing Mr. Leibowitz described to him appeared to be beyond the bounds of ordinary lobbying.

Mr. Leibowitz, 40, the father of 6-year-old twins at the time of sentencing, seems an unlikely choice for an FBI translation job. He was born in Israel to a family prominent in academic circles.

He practiced law in Israel for several years, representing several controversial clients, including Marwan Barghouti, a Palestinian leader convicted of directing terrorist attacks on Israelis, who Mr. Leibowitz once said reminded him of Moses.

In 2004, Mr. Leibowitz moved to Silver Spring, Md., outside Washington, where he was a leader in his synagogue. Mr. Silverstein said Mr. Leibowitz holds dual American and Israeli citizenship.

In court, Mr. Leibowitz expressed anguish about the impact of the case on his marriage and family, which he said was “destitute.” He expressed particular sorrow about leaving his children.

“At the formative time of their life, when they’re 6 years old and they’re just finishing first grade, I’ll be absent from their life, and that is the most terrible thing about this case,” he said.

While treated as highly classified by the FBI, the fact that the United States spies on Israel is taken for granted by experts on intelligence.

“We started spying on Israel even before the state of Israel was formally founded in 1948, and Israel has always spied on us,” said Mr. Aid, the author.

“Israeli intercepts have always been one of the most sensitive categories,” designated with the code word Gamma to indicate their protected status, he said.

Douglas M. Bloomfield, an American columnist for several Jewish publications, said that when he worked in the 1980s for the

American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a lobbying group, he assumed that communications with the embassy were not private. “I am not surprised at all to learn that the FBI was listening to the Israelis,” he said. “But I don’t think it’s a wise use of resources because I don’t see Israel as a threat to American security.”

Easing Stance, Iran Offers Inspectors ‘Supervision’ Of Nuclear Program

Iran on Monday made its first counterproposal in two years to ease the confrontation with the west over its nuclear program, offering to allow international inspectors “full supervision” of the country’s nuclear activities for the next five years, but on the condition that the mounting sanctions against Iran are lifted.

The proposal came from Ferey doon Abbasi, the head of Iran’s atomic energy agency, who was designated by the United Nations in 2007 as a scientist involved in Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile activities, and, as such, subject to a freeze on his assets and limitations on his travel.

He narrowly escaped an assassination attempt last year. Mr. Abbasi’s offer was vaguely worded.

It was far from clear what he meant by “full supervision,” after several years in which Iran has refused to turn over documents to the International Atomic Energy Agency or allow interviews of its most important nuclear scientists.

The government has also restricted where inspectors could travel. Nonetheless, the overture is the first time since October 2009 that Iran has indicated a willingness to negotiate over the program, and one senior Obama administration official said the offer suggested

“that the sanctions are wearing on the leadership.”

Mr. Abbasi made his statement to the Iranian Student News Agency, which is considered a semiofficial organ and has been used to convey changes of position in the past.

“We proposed that the agency keep Iran’s nuclear program and activities under full supervision for five years, provided that sanctions against Iran are lifted,” he told the news agency.

In recent weeks Russia has intervened in an effort to get Iran to make a serious offer to relieve some of the pressure on Iran, in part out of concern that the sanctions were sharply interfering with its energy trade with Iran.

But there is also worry that Iran’s recent decision to move some of its uranium enrichment program to a well-protected underground site could encourage those in Israel who have pressed for military action before it is too late to slow the program.

So far, the United Nations has issued four sets of sanctions, each intended to increase the economic pressure on Iran.

But the effects have been spotty at best, and a run-up in oil prices this year essentially undermined much of the economic effects.

Nonetheless, Iran has run into difficulties obtaining parts for its nuclear program, its ships have been denied insurance and its trade with much of Europe has been sharply restricted.

Mr. Abbasi was appointed to his current job in February, but before that he was well known to American, European and Israeli intelligence agencies.

Officially, he worked at Shahid Beheshti University before taking up his current post, and he was on

his way there last November when a “sticky bomb” was attached to his car.

He narrowly escaped before it went off. One of his fellow scientists, heading to the university that morning on the other side of Tehran, was not so lucky, and he died in a nearly simultaneous attack.

Mr. Abbasi is widely believed, by nuclear inspectors and several intelligence agencies, to be working closely with Mohsen Fakhirizadeh, another academic, who is believed to head some of the central research into how to create nuclear weapons. He, too, is identified on the United Nations list.

In the fall of 2009, in its only real negotiation with the Iranian government, the Obama administration proposed that Iran agree to a fuel swap in which the West would provide an outside supply of fresh nuclear fuel for a research reactor in Tehran.

In return, Iran would agree to a conditional cessation of its production of uranium, which can be used for nuclear power plants or, with further enrichment, for nuclear weapons. A deal was struck in Vienna but was rejected once Iranian negotiators took it back to Tehran.

“We believe it was killed by the supreme leader,” one of President Obama’s aides said earlier this year, referring to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country’s most senior cleric.

Mr. Abbasi said recently that the deal was dead and would not be revived.

In past years, Iran has agreed to specific “work plans” with the international atomic agency to allow inspections or turn over documents. But all of them have fallen apart.

Iran has dismissed the agency’s questions about “possible military dimensions” of its program — a diplomatic phrase referring to evidence the country sought to build nuclear warheads — by saying that it was fabricated by the Central Intelligence Agency and the Israeli Mossad.

At the same time, Iran has allowed regular access to the main nuclear site at Natanz and periodic access to a much newer installation near the holy city of Qum, which Iran made public after it was clear that Western intelligence agencies had found it.

The spotty nature of Iran’s responses explains why the phrase “full supervision” is so important to United Nations inspectors and the group of Western allies who have been the most vigorous in enforcing the sanctions.

If it means that inspectors could visit all the sites on their list, interview scientists who are believed to be linked to military work and review the documents that Iran has declined to turn over, it would mark a significant breakthrough.

But as one American intelligence official put it recently, “We have a list of tunnels to look at that is so long, it would take years.”

Global Fears Weigh On Saudi Petchems; Dubai Ends Higher

Saudi Arabia's index ended lower for a second day, with worries over how a potential double-dip global recession would impact petrochemicals' earnings in the world's top oil exporter spurring renewed selling.

Banks and petrochemicals were the two main sectors on the benchmark, accounting for about two-thirds of the weighting, with the latter a proxy for equity

investors to bet on the kingdom's oil industry, which remains under state control.

"Petrochemicals dominate the Saudi market and they have a high correlation to oil prices, which is the main reason for Saudi volatility," said Shakeel Sarwar, head of asset management at investment bank SICO in Bahrain.

"Oil prices have remained high, as have petrochemicals prices, but investors are nervous about what will happen over the next six to 12 months.

"If there is another global recession it will negatively impact oil prices and petrochemicals' profitability will be impacted. That's how a recession would be transmitted to the Gulf."

National Industrialization Co dropped 1.1 percent and Saudi Basic Industries Corp (SABIC) slid 0.3 percent. The petrochemicals index eased 0.5 percent.Banks also retreated.

SABB dropped 3.6 percent and Banque Saudi Fransi lost 2.2 percent, but trading was thin, with less than 150,000 shares traded combined.The main index dipped 0.5 percent to 6,062 points.

Emirates NBD helped Dubai's index end higher for a first session in three, but gains were minor and UAE markets are seen remaining in the doldrums in the absence of local catalysts to shift investors' focus away from the turmoil on global bourses.

Dubai's top bank by value climbed 1.4 percent, while rival Dubai Islamic Bank added 0.5 percent and budget carrier Air Arabia gained 1.1 percent.

The index rose 0.4 percent to 1,485 points as volumes slumped to a week-low.

"There are no local drivers and to a certain extent we are tracking what's happening elsewhere - volumes are very poor," said Julian Bruce, EFG-Hermes director of institutional equity sales.

"The main theme is the very low levels of activity, which will continue until we get a clearer picture elsewhere and maybe some positive news about the UAE, but at the moment we're not seeing either.

"There is some select buying, but no one is in any real hurry, with no big clips of money going to work - the whole market is on the back burner."

Abu Dhabi's measure edged 0.07 percent higher to 2,605 points.National Bank of Abu Dhabi and telecoms operator Etisalat were the main supports, rising 1.3 and 0.5 percent respectively.

RAK Cement Co accounts for more than a quarter of all shares traded, surging 5 percent.

Among the smallest stocks on the bourse, RAK's heavy trade indicated local day traders were dominant, with institutions largely sticking to blue-chip names.

Kuwait and Qatar benchmarks reversed early losses to end higher as a positive opening on European markets eased investors' fears following sharp declines in world stocks a day earlier.

Global markets had tumbled on renewed recession fears for the US and Europe's sovereign debt troubles.

Islamic lender Masraf Al Rayan climbed 0.8 percent, Qatar Electricity and Water added 1.5 percent and Qatar Telecom (Qtel) edged 0.2 percent higher.

"Companies least exposed to global growth such as utilities and telecoms should fare better," says

Robert Pramberger, acting head of asset management at Doha-based investment company The First Investor."Qatar's economic growth is based on gas exports and a global slowdown wouldn't really impact it at a GDP level."

Qatar's economy is forecast to grow 16.7 percent in 2011, according to a June Reuters poll.

The country's index rose 0.3 percent to 8,333 points.

Kuwait also advanced, climbing 0.1 percent to 5,861 points, despite none of the six largest stocks making gains, with trading concentrated in small cap, speculative stocks.

These are the preserve of retail investors, indicating funds are largely absent.

National Bank of Kuwait drops 1.9 percent after Goldman Sachs cuts its price tag for Kuwait's top lender 1.39 dinars from KD1.53, maintaining a neutral rating.

Goldman warns delays in implementing development projects in Kuwait could lead to low loan growth for NBK.Oman's index made its largest decline in four weeks as foreign funds dumped banking and services stocks amid turmoil on global markets.

Bank Muscat , the largest stock by value, fell 2.1 percent, while Oman Telecommunications (Omantel) dropped 1.9 percent and Renaissance Services plunged 4.6 percent, the latter accounting for about a quarter of all shares traded.

Telecoms carrier Nawras also declined, dipping 0.5 percent.

The index slipped 1.1 percent to 5,732 points in its biggest drop since August 9, easing from Monday's five-week high to take its year-to-date losses to 15.1 percent.

"We used to have good sentiment in Oman and strong buying from institutions in the country, but we are now following global sentiment, which is very bad, especially in Europe - that's what is driving us down," said Adel Nasr, United Securities brokerage manager.

"This will continue, but I believe we are stronger than global markets. Banking and services are the hardest hit because foreign investors concentrate on Bank Muscat, Renaissance, Omantel and Nawras so selling pressure is coming to these stocks."

Saudi Arabia's benchmark clawed back early losses to trade 0.03 percent higher at 6,092 points.Al Rajhi Bank fell 0.4 percent, but Samba Financial Group gained 0.9 percent.

"The Saudi market is fairly valued - other markets have witnessed a strong rally in the last two years, whereas Saudi has made only a modest rise," said Hesham Tuffaha, Bakheet Investment Group head asset management.

US Fashion Brand Signs Deal For Gulf Expansion

A US-based fashion company whose customers include Michelle Obama, Oprah Winfrey and actresses Uma Thurman, Gwyneth Paltrow and Hilary Swank, said on Tuesday it has signed a deal to open shops in the Gulf region.

Tory Burch announced its partnership with Chalhoub Group, the distributor and retailer of luxury brands in the Middle East.

With this agreement, Chalhoub Group holds the exclusive rights to distribute and retail Tory Burch products in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait.

"Expanding in the Middle East is a significant step for our brand," said CEO and designer Tory Burch in a statement.

"We are excited to partner with Chalhoub Group and look forward to building a long-term business together."

The first Tory Burch boutique in this region is planned to open in the autumn at The Dubai Mall, the statement added.

Several additional Tory Burch boutiques are planned to open in 2012 across Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait.

The full Tory Burch collection will be available, including ready-to-wear, handbags, shoes, small leather goods, eyewear and accessories.

"With fashion retail in exponential growth, we are delighted to join hands with Tory Burch for its development in the Middle East," said Patrick Chalhoub, co-CEO of Chalhoub Group.

Tory Burch was launched in February 2004 as a lifestyle concept with multiple product categories, including ready-to-wear, handbags, shoes and jewelry.

Going against the minimalist trend that was popular at the time, Burch designed her flagship boutique, in downtown New York, to feel more like a room in her own home than a traditional retail store.