Excerpt:
A dispute has escalated over plans to build a mosque in Moscow's southeastern outskirts, with local residents vowing to send an appeal with about 2,000 signatures to President Dmitry Medvedev and nationalist groups promising to support them.
Muslim leaders defend the need for the worship site, saying the capital's four mosques are overflowing with people.
Residents of the Tekstilshchiki district in southeastern Moscow will send Medvedev a complaint signed by more than 1,800 people opposing construction of the mosque, mainly on the grounds that it might cause massive traffic jams in the area on Islamic holidays, activist Mikhail Butrimov told The Moscow Times on Friday. Butrimov leads the movement Moi Dvor, or My Yard, which supports residents in their fight against the mosque.