The reports could not be verified independently.

Opposition sources said the shelling began in the morning on areas near the northern entrance of Hama, after a series of rebel attacks on army roadblocks in the city, and resumed in the evening on the southern al-Malaab district.

A video circulated by opposition sources purportedly showed a group of people, including two toddlers, lying wounded or dead on the floor of a mosque in the city, including several bodies with severed limbs.

The reports came as the U.N. Security Council met on Sunday to discuss a separate recent massacre in the Syrian town of Houla, which the United Nations has blamed on the Syrian government but Damascus and Moscow suggested was due to a rebel attack.

© Thomson Reuters 2012

The Civil Protection Authority said the quake hit an area near Modena at around 8:20p.m. and checks for damage were being carried out.

Thousands of people are still accommodated in tents or other makeshift housing a week after the original earthquake, the most serious to hit Italy since the 2009 shock in L’Aquila which killed almost 300.

An almost continuous series of minor aftershocks has rattled the area over the past days, making it potentially unsafe for many people to return to their badly damaged homes.

Last Sunday’s earthquake carved a swathe of destruction across the prosperous Emilia Romagna region, destroying or damaging hundreds of buildings including homes, factories and farms as well as historic churches and castles.

The government of Prime Minister Mario Monti has declared a state of emergency and pledged emergency funding of around 50 million euros.

Thomson Reuters 2012

Another 300 people were injured in the incident, Mood told the Security Council. Syrian authorities have denied responsibility for the killings, which have sparked international outrage and prompted the Council meeting.

Mood said the deaths were from “shrapnel” and gunfire at “point-blank” range, diplomats said.

On Saturday, Mood — the head of a UN observer mission deployed under a peace plan brokered by UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan — warned of “civil war” after the incident in Houla, which is located in central Homs province.

UN observers had initially counted 92 dead in Houla, 32 of them children.

Mood had on Saturday also called on the Syrian government to “cease the use of heavy weapons, and on all parties to cease violence in all its forms.”

AFP

SHAAM NEWS/AFP/GettyImages

The bodies of 92 people, including 32 children, before their burial in the central Syrian town of Houla on Saturday.

Images of bloodied and lifeless young bodies, lain carefully side by side after the onslaught on Friday, triggered shock around the world and underlined the failure of a six-week-old UN ceasefire plan to stop the violence.

Syrian authorities blamed “terrorists” for the massacre, among the worst carnage in the 14-month-old uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, which has cost about 10,000 lives.

“Women, children and old men were shot dead. This is not the hallmark of the heroic Syrian army,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Jihad Makdesi told reporters in Damascus.

Opposition activists said Assad’s forces shelled Houla after a protest and then clashed with fighters from the Sunni Muslim-led insurgency.

Activists say Assad’s “shabbiha” militia, loyal to an establishment dominated by members of the minority Alawite sect, then hacked dozens of the victims to death, or shot them.

Maysara al-Hilawi said he saw the bodies of six children and their parents in a ransacked house in the town.

BULENT KILIC/AFP/Getty Images

Demonstrators protest in front of the Syrian consulate in Istanbul Sunday against the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

“The Abdelrazzak family house was the first one I entered. The children’s corpses were piled on top of each other, either with their throats cut or shot at close range,” Hilawi, an opposition activist, said by telephone from the area.

“I helped collect more than 100 bodies in the last two days, mostly women and children. The last were six members of the al-Kurdi family. A father and his five kids. The mother is missing,” he said.

Syrian forces shot dead two men on Sunday at a protest in Damascus against the killings in Houla, opposition activists said. The men’s funerals also turned into demonstrations.

Footage broadcast by activists in the Damascus suburb of Yalda showed a crowd of hundreds at one of the men’s funerals shouting “the people want the downfall of the regime”.

UN military and civilian observers counted 32 children under 10 years old among at least 92 dead in Houla on Saturday. More bodies have since been found, activists said.

The observers confirmed the use of artillery, which only Assad’s forces have, but did not say how all the victims died.

The UN and Arab League’s Syria envoy Kofi Annan and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon accused the Syrian government of using artillery in populated areas.

“This appalling and brutal crime involving indiscriminate and disproportionate use of force is a flagrant violation of international law and of the commitments of the Syrian Government to cease the use of heavy weapons in population centers and violence in all its forms,” they said in a joint statement on Saturday.

Western countries and Arab states opposed to Assad put the blame for the deaths squarely on Damascus.

The Gulf Cooperation Council of Sunni-led monarchies accused Assad’s soldiers of using excessive force and urged the international community to “assume its responsibilities to halt the daily bloodshed in Syria”.

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton spoke of a “heinous act perpetrated by the Syrian regime against its own civilian population” in a statement on Sunday. The head of the European parliament said it could amount to a war crime.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton demanded that those who carried out the killings be held to account.

“The United States will work with the international community to intensify our pressure on Assad and his cronies, whose rule by murder and fear must come to an end,” she said.

France said it would call a meeting of the Friends of Syria, a group of Western and Arab countries keen to see Assad removed.

Britain said it would summon Syria’s envoy over the massacre and that it would call for a meeting of the UN Security Council in coming days.

The United Arab Emirates requested an urgent meeting of the Arab League, whose head, Nabil Elaraby, urged the U.S. Security Council to stop the killing.

But there was no immediate official word from Russia, which along with China has vetoed Security Council resolutions calling for tougher action. Russia has previously blamed both the government and Syrian rebels for causing the violence.

Former UN secretary-general Annan is to brief the UN Security Council on Wednesday and is likely to be guided on who is responsible by reports from UN observers in Houla.

Although the ceasefire plan negotiated by Annan has failed to stop the violence, the United Nations is nearing full deployment of a 300-strong unarmed observer force meant to monitor a truce.

The plan calls for a truce, withdrawal of troops from cities and dialogue between government and opposition.

Syria calls the revolt a “terrorist” conspiracy run from abroad, a veiled reference to Sunni Muslim Gulf powers that want to see weapons provided to the insurgents.

The United Nations has accused Assad’s forces and insurgents alike of grave human rights abuses, including summary executions and torture.

© Thomson Reuters 2012

The crisis over Greece’s possible exit from the eurozone is just the tip of a series of much bigger problems that are leading the world into a period of tremendous uncertainty, he believes.

“Greece is the immediate trigger because you have got the referendum,” said Mr. Micklethwait, who will be in Toronto May 30 as a guest speaker at a meeting of the Bon Mot Book Club.

“The European Union can handle Greece, if it was just Greece. But the problem is that it then goes through to the other countries on the periphery. The European Union is just one huge area, but if you look elsewhere there is a lot of uncertainty.”

He points to the permanent members of the UN Security Council.

“You have France, which has already changed hands; you have got Russia, which has already changed hands — allegedly; you have China coming up at the end of this year; and you have got the American elections.

“So you have a time of unusual political change and you have a time of huge economic question marks based around the European Union.

“You have the question mark about America and what is going to happen to the budget deficit, and in China you have the question mark about how resilient is the economy. And then you have other things off to one side, like Iran, which is a good example of something that could go horribly wrong very quickly. There is no shortage of things to talk about.”

Mr. Micklethwait is a world-renowned authority on globalization, who worked as a banker at Chase Manhattan for two years before joining The Economist as a finance correspondent.

He went on to run news bureaus in Los Angeles and New York before becoming editor-in-chief of the magazine, which now has a worldwide circulation of 1.4 million.

He is the opening speaker in a series of events sponsored by the Bon Mot Book Club, which invites authors to debate and discuss topics with a small audience of diners.

The May 30 event takes place at the Windsor Arms Hotel in Toronto and will focus on world politics and a look at the world ahead.

“There is no shortage of things to discuss,” said Mr. Micklethwait.

National Post
pgoodspeed@nationalpost.com

Running ahead of schedule, station commander Oleg Kononenko and flight engineer Don Pettit opened the hatch to Dragon just before 6 a.m. EDT (1000 GMT), NASA mission commentator Josh Byerly reported from Mission Control in Houston.

The bell-shaped capsule, which was making its second test flight, arrived at the space station on Friday.

The crew wore protective masks and goggles, but the interior of Dragon, which is 350 cubic feet (10 cubic metres), about the size of a large walk-in closet, proved clean.

“There was no sign of any kind of (debris) floating around,” Pettit radioed to Mission Control.

“It kind of reminds me of the cargo capability that I could put in the back of my pickup truck. And the smell inside smells like a brand new car,” Pettit added.

Dragon is carrying about 1,200 pounds (544 kg) of food and other supplies for the station, all non-essential items because NASA and Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, did not know beforehand if it would actually make it to the station.

Following Tuesday’s launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, Dragon had to demonstrate that it could be commanded and controlled by operators on the ground as well as by the orbiting space station crew.

Dragon and SpaceX mission control in Hawthorne, California, aced two days of precision flying and systems tests, clearing the way for Dragon to fly within reach of the station’s 58-foot (17.7 meter) robot arm on Friday.

NASA TV/Reuters

The SpaceX Dragon commercial cargo craft is seen docked to the Harmony node of the International Space Station with the Japanese Kibo Laboratory module in the foreground and the earth in the background, May 26, 2012.

BERTHING PORT

Astronauts snared the capsule at 9:56 a.m. EDT (1356 GMT) Friday as the two spacecraft zoomed around the planet at 17,500 mph (28,164 kilometers per hour). It was anchored into a berthing port on the station’s Harmony connecting node a few hours later.

“You made history today and it firmly locked us into place and locked the future direction of the American space program in place,” NASA administrator Charlie Bolden radioed to the crew later on Friday.

NASA’s use of commercial spaceships to fly cargo – and eventually astronauts – to and from the station will “revolutionize the way we carry out space exploration,” Bolden added.

SpaceX and a second company, Orbital Sciences Corp, hold NASA contracts worth a combined US$3.5-billion to fly cargo to the station.

Orbital plans to debut its Antares rocket and Cygnus capsule later this year.

NASA is reviewing proposals from at least four firms, including SpaceX, seeking funding under a related program to develop spaceships for flying astronauts as well. Awards are expected in August.

“This event isn’t just a simple door opening between two spacecraft — it opens the door to a future in which U.S. industry can and will deliver huge benefits for U.S. space exploration,” the Space Frontier Foundation, an advocacy group, said in a statement.

Since the retirement of the space shuttles last year, the United States is dependent on Russia to fly crews to the station, a US$100-billion project of 15 nations. It hopes to break the Russian monopoly, which costs NASA about US$400-million a year, in 2017.

Once unloaded, Dragon will be filled with about 1,300 pounds (590 kg) of equipment and science gear that need a ride back to Earth – the first big return load since the final shuttle flight last July.

Dragon is due to depart the station on Thursday and splash down into the Pacific Ocean about 250 miles (402 km) off the coast of southern California later that day.

- With a file from The Associated Press

Thomson Reuters 2012

The youths who put national pride before religion when they protested against Mr. Mubarak’s autocratic rule last year have increasingly despaired, saying the revolution they initiated has been hijacked by generals and the Muslim Brotherhood.

Their worst fears were confirmed Friday, when initial results of Egypt’s first free presidential election sent the Brotherhood’s Mohamed Mursi and ex-air force chief Ahmed Shafiq, Mr. Mubarak’s last prime minister, into a June 16 and 17 runoff.

“I am in shock. How could this happen? The people don’t want Mursi or Shafiq,” said Tareq Farouq, 34, a Cairo driver. “This is a catastrophe for all of us.”

With moderate candidates now out of the 12-man race, the runoff pits the two most polarizing figures against each other, reviving the decades-old power struggle between the secular-led military elite and its powerful Islamist opposition.

The Tahrir Square protesters are shocked the runoff has boiled down to a member of the feloul, the derisive term for the remnants of Mr. Mubarak’s old guard, and an ikhwani, or a brother, from the conservative Islamist group that has battled the authorities for most of its 84-year-old history.

“Ahmed Shafiq will mean the old regime — the revolution is liquidated — and with the Muslim Brotherhood it means we are too near to some kind of religious state,” said Hassan Nafaa, a political scientist who sided with protesters against Mr. Mubarak.

AFP/Getty Images

Muslim Brotherhood candidate, Mohamed Mursi; former prime minister Ahmed Shafiq

Revolutionaries see Mr. Shafiq as a carbon copy of Mr. Mubarak. Both were air force commanders and a Shafiq win would simply extend the 60-year tradition of having military men at the helm.

But the Brotherhood, which has the biggest parliamentary bloc, is just as unattractive for many, with its pledge to apply sharia law they fear will curb social freedoms, stifle liberal debate and squeeze out other voices.

“What happened to our revolution? A Shafiq victory means a reproduction of the old regime and a Mursi victory will be a disaster. The Brotherhood will be in control of the presidency and parliament and will have a monopoly over everything,” said Mohamed Hanafi, 30, a factory worker.

“We don’t know where it will all end.”

It is not just the fate of Egypt’s 82 million people. What happens in the Arab world’s most populous nation will reverberate across a region convulsed by revolts and conflicts.

An Islamist takeover could frighten liberal forces, which have played a big part in the Arab uprisings that toppled leaders in Tunisia, Libya and Yemen, as well as Egypt.

The return of a military strongman could embolden Syria’s leadership which has used tanks to try to crush a rebellion.

Yet, 15 months after hundreds of thousands of people packed Tahrir Square to celebrate the end of Mr. Mubarak’s three-decade rule, exhilaration has given way to disillusion and anger.

The transition, overseen by generals in charge since Mr. Mubarak fell and who have promised to hand over power by July 1, has been marred by violence, political gridlock and economic woes.

Mohammed Abed/AFP/Getty Images

Thousands of Egyptian anti-government demonstrators at a protest calling for the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak at Cairo's Tahrir square in February 2011.

The second round vote may bring more turbulence. Activists and others have already said they will go back to the streets if Mr. Shafiq is victorious, though this may be more difficult to sustain if the second round proceeds smoothly.

Whoever wins, the army is likely to remain the main power broker, giving it the upper hand in defining the president’s prerogatives. These have yet to be determined because of tussles over who should write the post-Mubarak constitution.

The generals insist they will return quietly to barracks, but most Egyptians do not expect them to give up the privileges and influence they have enjoyed for decades. They say a Shafiq win will make rolling back the military harder still.

Whatever the president’s powers, the army will keep a tight grip on foreign policy and will protect a peace treaty with Israel that brings in US$1.3-billion of U.S. military aid a year.

This may restrict a Mursi presidency’s room to manoeuvre abroad, but put a bigger focus on work at home. Liberals and some other Egyptians fear the Islamists will want to stamp their mark by seeking imposing more religious values.

“This is not what we wanted or what we fought for. As a woman I am deeply upset,” said Dalia Hamdi, a human resources manager, in the upscale Cairo district of Zamalek.

“Definitely we won’t be able to wear what we are wearing now,” she said pointing to a friend in a sleeveless T-shirt and jeans, and without the headscarf most Egyptian women wear.

Mr. Mursi has not defined what his call for implementing sharia law would mean in practice. But liberals fear it could mean more restrictive marriage and divorce laws for women. A stricter society might also deter tourists, a main revenue source.

Near the Giza pyramids, on a street famed for its night life, some bar workers said they dreaded a Brotherhood president, recalling how an Islamist mob vandalized nearby casinos and bars last year, smashing liquor bottles seen as symbols of vice.

“I am sure the Brotherhood will close us down if they get elected. They will ban alcohol,” said Huda Husseini, 19, a bartender.

“According to them, dancing, drinking, music is all forbidden. Everything is forbidden.”

Mohamed Mursi, 60

• First-round success showed off the unequalled political muscle of Egypt’s the Muslim Brotherhood.
• Former chairman of the Freedom & Justice Party, the Brotherhood’s political arm, stepped in after Khairat El-Shater was disqualified.
• Calling himself the only authentic Islamist in the race, Mr. Mursi targeted devout voters whose support helped the Brotherhood and the ultra-orthodox Salafi Islamist movement win 70% of parliament seats this year.
• Has promised to implement sharia law, though he has been vague about what this actually means. Pushed by one TV interviewer to clarify what Islamist rule might mean for bikini-wearing on Egypt’s beaches, one element of a vital tourist industry, he did not give a clear answer.
• Wants a review of Cairo’s 1979 peace treaty with Israel, saying Egypt’s neighbour has not respected the agreement.
• Studied engineering at Cairo University and in 1978 travelled to University of Southern California to complete his studies. Obtained a doctorate in engineering and went on to teach at California State University.
• Like other Brotherhood members, Mr. Mursi has sworn allegiance to it, raising questions over whether that would outweigh his loyalty to Egypt. Brotherhood leader Mohamed Badie has said Mr. Mursi would be relieved of the oath if elected president.

Ahmed Shafiq, 70

• Egypt’s last prime minister is seen as a divisive military figure.
• Strong showing in the first round reflects the anxiety of many Egyptians about a breakdown of law and order and the often violent political disputes that have punctuated an army-led transition since a popular revolt ousted Hosni Mubarak last year. It also rested on the fear, not least among the country’s 10% Christian minority, of rising Islamist power.
• Mr. Shafik, who favours open-necked shirts under the blazers or sweaters he wears in public, has vowed to uphold Egypt’s 1979 peace treaty with Israel, saying, “I object to Israel’s current actions, but I am a man who honours past agreements.”
• Says he has the military and political experience to lead Egypt into a new democratic era, yet his links to Mr. Mubarak have polarized voters.
• Sees himself as slotting into the country’s 60-year-old tradition of drawing presidents from the military.
• In a military career spanning four decades, served in wars with Israel and is credited with shooting down an Israeli aircraft in the 1973 war.
• When he led the air force in the 1990s, Mr. Shafik sought to modernize it with more advanced weapons. Some Egyptian officials say Washington, which gives Egypt US$1.3-billion a year in military aid, opposed some plans because of Israeli objections.

Thomson Reuters 2012

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Monday

Twenty billion dollars and a new Mrs. Zuckerberg by my side. Sometimes, life is just so perfect and magical I could burst. As always, though, those lecherous paparazzi were crowded around my front fence trying to sneak a peek. Vultures; out to pilfer the private lives of strangers for profit. Call me old-fashioned, but I think there are some things the publicdoesn’t need to know about Mark Zuckerberg, be they the details of my nuptials or late-stage revelations that Facebook revenues are much, much lower than I initially reported.

Tuesday

A dip in the stock price, today. That’s fine — but proof of what a good decision it was to dump several million of my shares on the first day of trading. I suppose that might look bad to other investors, but again, I don’t see why people need to know about that.

So now Forbes is predicting that Facebook’s slipping price could be the bursting of a second tech bubble. I couldn’t even bring myself to dignify that with a response. I was too busy, anyway: Priscilla was planning mutton for dinner and in keeping with my oath on only eating animals I can kill myself, that meant a two-hour drive to the only sheep farm in California that still lets you slaughter your own livestock. It was dark by the time I arrived, but I felt my way through the field and did just as thefarmer directed: A hammer to the back of the head, just above the ears. Thefirst blow only stunned it, so I had to finish the job with a few more. Three, four, five … 10… 38. Damn you, Forbes! I am not Pets.com!

Wednesday

Well, the class action lawsuits have mobilized, and by next week analysts are saying investors will be lucky to squeeze out $9 a share. Getting a little concerned, I slipped out to finally accept a meeting with that shady character, Mr. Potter, from MorganStanley.

Stepping into his dimly-lit office, I told him $4 billion of market value had already vanished and I was ready to do anything to stop the bleeding. We could do the full Yahoo! if it came to that: Plaster every page with pop-up ads, embed spyware in our mobile app; give the Chinese whatever IP addresses they wanted.

“You used to be so cocky” he sneered back. “You once called me a warped, frustrated old man, but now look at you: A miserable little hacker crawling in here on your hands and knees and begging for help.” I had no idea what he was referring to, but he started calling the SEC and I had to make a quick break for the door.

Thursday

Priscilla saved a child’s life today. She was popping into the UC San Francisco Medical Centre when a mother ran in clutching hersix-year-old, who had stopped breathing after going into anaphylactic shock. Priscilla quickly gave the child a shot of epinephrine, laid her down and raised her feet until her breathing stabilized. The mother couldn’t stop crying with joy.

Must be nice. What do I get? A study out of England claiming that Facebook is responsible for one third of all British divorces. BecauseFacebook encourages extra-marital flings? No because — get this — tens of thousands of people are evidently too stupid not to post “my wife is a bitch” on their message wall.

Two years ago, I wrote a few lines of code and loaded it onto a flash drive I wear around my neck at all times. Just a few megabytes, but simply popping it in any port at our Santa Clara server farm, it would instantly erase every last photo, meme and “like” anyone ever uploaded to Facebook. Sometimes I go there late at night and find myself dangling the drive over a USB port. Each time it seems to get just a little bit closer.

Friday

A bright and early start at headquarters today: I never, ever miss the Friday “all-hands” meeting — although I must admit, my tattered appearance worried them. “I’ve been … out,” I said.

It seems everybody wants a piece of Zuckerberg lately: Why does he wear the exact same outfit, day-in, day-out? Why does he have “The will is decisive” tattooed across his chest? Leave me alone, you crows! For under $40 a share, I gave you the largest arena of contained humanity in world history; a digital forum larger than the armies of Rome, Napoleon and Genghis Khan combined. So what if I concealed subdued revenue projections from investors? Or repeatedly make sweeping changes to our privacy settings for no discernable reason? Or thatFacebook’s Latin American headquarters are located in a hollowed-out volcano? Or that I once wrote a blog post claiming that social networking was a mere conduit towards subjugating the population? Facebook is awesome. Why isn’t that enough information?

National Post

Soon after, nine people were hanged from a bridge in Nuevo Laredo. Fourteen heads were left in coolers outside city hall. Eighteen mutilated bodies were dumped by a scenic lake in western Mexico. The decapitated bodies of 49 people were dumped outside a small town 75 miles from the U.S. border.

The man who appears likely to become Mexico’s next president says he can ease the waves of violence consuming the country by changing the focus of its six-year offensive against organized crime.

Mexico’s current administration has targeted the top ranks of the country’s drug cartels, deploying thousands of troops to capture crime kingpins and seize their drugs and weapons, often in close co-ordination with the U.S. It is not uncommon for President Felipe Calderon’s administration to boast of its success in arresting many of the country’s most-wanted men.

Enrique Pena Nieto, who has a double-digit lead five weeks before the July 1 election, says his top security priority will not be arresting the leaders of the organizations that move hundreds of millions of dollars of narcotics each year into the United States. Instead, he and his advisers say, they will focus the government’s resources on reducing homicide, kidnapping and extortion — the crimes that do the most damage to the greatest number of Mexicans — by flooding police and troops into towns and cities with the highest rates of violent crime.

“This doesn’t mean that we don’t pay attention to other crimes, or that we don’t fight drug trafficking, but the central theme at this time is diminishing violence in the country,” Pena Nieto told The Associated Press in a recent interview.

Pena Nieto’s campaign said drug cartels could still be attacked, particularly if they carry out murders, kidnappings and extortion, but arresting their leaders will no longer be the focus of government efforts.

“Each administration chooses its operational objectives, and the objective per se is not the extradition or capture of big bosses, or the burning of seized drugs,” Pena Nieto’s campaign co-ordinator, Luis Videgaray, told the AP.

Some observers say that a strategy to reduce violence above all else could mean that drug dealers who conduct their businesses discreetly will be quietly left alone.

“I think that it’s very clear that he’s moving in the direction of concentrating the resources that the federal state has (toward) fighting crime and violence that affect people in Mexico … as opposed to concentrating the resources on combating drug trafficking,” said Former Foreign Minister Jorge Castaneda. “”If you have scarce resources and you’re focusing them on A, you’re not focusing them on B.“

Pena Nieto’s Institutional Revolutionary Party, known by its Spanish initials as the PRI, ruled Mexico for 70 years until it lost the presidency in 2000, and high-ranking party figures and their relatives were often accused of striking deals with cartels in exchange for political protection. Violence was far lower, in large part because cartels maintained uncontested control of smuggling routes in many parts of the country.

Opponents have been quick to say that Pena Nieto will go back to the old PRI model of cutting a deal with cartels.

“They’ve shown themselves to be absolutely tolerant of organized crime,” said Josefina Vazquez Mota told Spanish newspaper El Pais in a recent interview. Vazquez Mota is running on the presidential ticket for the National Action Party.

With Mexicans expressing strong support in polls for a militarized confrontation with crime, Pena Nieto is promising continuity in key aspects of Mexico’s U.S.-backed drug war.

He has rejected legalization, called for more co-operation with Washington and praised Calderon’s decision to confront the cartels shortly after taking office. On the campaign trail, Pena Nieto has been emphasizing his plans to maintain or increase the military presence in violence-torn cities like Monterrey and Veracruz. He has pledged an increase in the number of federal police officers from 36,000 to 50,000, and is also proposing a new semi-military police force composed of former soldiers and marines under civilian command that would be deployed to the towns and cities suffering from the highest violence and weakest policing.

But those pledges imply a subtle but potentially important change.

Pena Nieto’s new approach “would not stop fighting the drug cartels but it would shift from targeting the heads of the cartels,” campaign spokesman Diego Gomez said. “What Calderon has been doing is just targeting a few main cartels and splitting them up and what you have is chaos.”

All three major Mexican presidential candidates have been criticized for vagueness of their proposals on conducting the war against crime, and many observers have remarked upon the absence of debate about the direction of the country’s security policy.

Vazquez Mota has been vocally supportive of her party’s current policy, pledging to expand the federal police to 150,000, a roughly four-fold increase over current numbers. Fellow backers of the current U.S. Mexican strategy argue that the attack on cartels is showing results, with crime groups weakened by Calderon’s six-year offensive, and preliminary and unofficial statistics showing signs of violent crimes beginning to wane in some parts of the country.

Leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has placed more emphasis on withdrawing back the military from the streets, fighting corruption among government officials and reducing crime by reducing social inequality.

A change in approach would align Pena Nieto with a new strain of thinking in public-policy circles in Mexico and the United States that calls for making violence the overwhelming focus of law-enforcement activity in the drug war, deemphasizing narcotics trafficking and other crimes.

“I and other people have been advocating for a strategy that focuses on reduction in violence,” said Eric Olson, who oversees studies of U.S.-Mexico security co-operation and research on organized crime and drug trafficking at the Mexico Institute of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington.

Olson acknowledged that the focus on violence could mean relenting in operations against cartels that use less violence than their rivals, but he called that a necessary and temporary letup in order to get a handle on Mexico’s biggest problem, the violence that is terrorizing the population and undermining the legitimacy of the state.

“Crime will always exist. The question is can you make it less harmful and get it out of people’s lives as much as possible,” he said. “It’s not a de facto negotiation with them. It’s a question of what comes first.”

Delegates at the World Health Assembly — the decision-making arm of the World Health Organization — are locked in discussions over recommendations published last month by an expert group which says a “global binding instrument” is necessary to help provide poorer countries with the drugs and technologies they need.

The experts suggest that any potential treaty should include provisions such as a requirement for member states to commit 0.01 percent of their GDP to research and development on diseases like tuberculosis, and neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) such as sleeping sickness.

Public investment in health research is currently dominated by wealthy countries and their own priorities, the WHA-appointed group said.

Medecins Sans Frontieres has accused the United States and European Union delegations of “blocking” efforts to move towards a binding convention at the talks which began on Wednesday.

In a draft resolution submitted to the WHA, Kenya has urged the immediate set-up of an intergovernmental negotiating body to develop a convention based on the panel’s recommendations.

But in another document, the U.S., Japan and others support more informal consultations on ways to address the issue “including but not limited to” the methods suggested by the group.

Members were attempting to agree on a resolution by Saturday, the final day of the annual assembly.

“We are especially surprised to see the U.S. taking such a hardline position, since they already meet the level of financial contributions to medical R&D suggested in the expert report,” said director of policy at MSF’s Access Campaign, Michelle Childs.

President of the humanitarian group Marie-Pierre Allie also regretted what she described as a lack of support from France.

“We are surprised to see France not supporting this initiative, when in the past it has played a central role in terms of solidarity with developing countries,” said Allie.

The California-based SpaceX, owned by Internet entrepreneur Elon Musk, has now reached the climax of its test mission to become the first privately owned craft to reach the space station, restoring U.S. access to the space outpost.

With no humans on board, the capsule is delivering about a half ton of supplies and science experiments for the ISS, and aims to return a slightly larger load of gear to Earth on May 31.

“It looks like we got us a Dragon by the tail,” said U.S. astronaut Don Pettit, who was operating the Canadian-built robotic arm from the space station as it reached out and hooked on to the unmanned SpaceX capsule at 9:56 am (1356 GMT).

The two spacecraft were traveling about 250 miles (402 kilometers) above northwest Australia at the time of the grab, NASA said.

AP Photo

This image provided by NASA-TV shows the SpaceX Dragon commercial cargo craft after Dragon was grappled by the Canadarm2 robotic arm and connected to the International Space Station, Friday, May 25, 2012.

“Dragon captured by the International Space Station! Just awesome,” wrote SpaceX chief executive Musk on Twitter.

Next, a formal berthing brought the capsule closer to latch on at the station’s Harmony module at 12:02 pm (1602 GMT), NASA said.

The Dragon is toting 521 kilograms (1,148 pounds) of goodies for the space lab, including food, supplies, computers, utilities and science experiments. It plans to return a 660-kilogram (1,455-pound) load to Earth.

“Everything has gone very smoothly,” said a NASA commentator, adding that the six member ISS crew would soon start working on equalizing pressure between the two spacecraft.

The hatches are set to open on Saturday so that the unloading of the Dragon’s more than half ton of cargo can begin.

A press conference is scheduled for 1 pm (1700 GMT) to discuss more details on the mission.

The U.S. space shuttle program ended last year, leaving only Russia capable of carrying astronauts to the ISS and the space agencies of Russia, Japan and Europe able to send cargo missions to service the $100 billion space station.

SpaceX hopes its gumdrop-shaped Dragon capsule will be able to carry astronauts to the ISS in about three years’ time. Until then, U.S. astronauts must pay Russia about $63-million per seat aboard the Soyuz.

The capsule blasted off atop the Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral in Florida on Tuesday.

The demonstration flight has been near flawless, according to progress reports from NASA and SpaceX, after the launch marked what NASA, the White House and SpaceX officials described as a “new era” in spaceflight.

In addition, a successful berthing mission opens the way for SpaceX’s $1.6-billion contract with NASA to supply the space station and return cargo to Earth in 12 missions over the coming years.

SpaceX and a handful of other companies are using their own funds but are also being helped in their endeavors with seed money from NASA to build cargo and crew capability.

Both SpaceX and NASA have praised their newfound partnership, while insisting that any missteps that may occur are a necessary part of such demonstration missions.

While SpaceX is the first in its field, its competitor Orbital Sciences also has a $1.9-billion contract with NASA to supply the space station and is scheduled for its first launch attempt later this year.

SpaceX is the brainchild of Musk, a 40-year-old billionaire who made his fortune founding a company that later merged with the PayPal online service, bought by Internet auction giant eBay for $1.5-billion in 2002.

Today he leads SpaceX, Tesla Motors — a venture marketing electric cars — and SolarCity, a company that makes solar panels for homes and businesses.

AP Photo/NASA

This image provided by NASA-TV shows the SpaceX Dragon commercial cargo craft, top, after Dragon was grappled by the Canadarm2 robotic arm and connected to the International Space Station, Friday, May 25, 2012.

While Paris will still support Kabul and keep some trainers behind, France’s decision to leave ahead of other NATO allies has spawned fears that more nations in the U.S.-led coalition will withdraw early as well. A speedy withdrawal by others nations would destabilize the plan for Afghan forces to gradually take charge of the country’s security over the next 2 1/2 years.

French President Francois Hollande told world leaders at a NATO summit this week in Chicago that he would not renege on his campaign promise to pull French troops out by the end of the year — well ahead of the end of the alliance’s combat mission at the close of 2014.

The French president said that while Paris will withdraw its 2,000 combat troops — out of a total of 3,400 troops plus 150 gendarmes — by Dec. 31, it was not renouncing all support for Afghanistan. France so far has not pledged to help bankroll the Afghan security forces beyond 2014, but Hollande said some French forces would stay behind and help train Afghan soldiers and police.

“Is this an abandonment?” Hollande asked rhetorically during a function at the French Embassy in Kabul. “No. This is a continuation, and will be a further engagement, but in a different form.”

France, which has lost more than 80 soldiers in the war, is the fifth largest contributor of troops after the United States, Britain, Germany and Italy.

The United States is pulling out 23,000 troops by the end of September, on top of the 10,000 it withdrew last year.

Gen. John Allen, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, said this week that on Sept. 30 there will be 68,000 American and about 40,000 other coalition forces in Afghanistan — compared to more than 130,000 last year.

Many European countries face disillusionment and fatigue from the decade-long war and are wrestling with their own economic crises.

In an appeal to war-weary voters in a difficult re-election campaign, former French President Nicolas Sarkozy pledged to withdraw all French troops by the end of next year. Sarkozy announced the accelerated withdrawal after four French troops were killed by a rogue Afghan soldier in January.

Hollande, who defeated Sarkozy and took office this month, made this year’s pullout a pillar of his election campaign.

French military spokesman Col. Thierry Burkhard said the 2,000 troops leaving this year “conduct operations” and that those who will remain include “hundreds” of trainers, troops handling logistics for the pullout and others who help protect the French hospital, air bases and support staff. He added that defence officials were currently deciding how many would remain in each capacity.

French troops are deployed in the Surobi district of Kabul province, Kapisa province to the north of the capital and at Kandahar Air Field in the south where France has three fighter jets. Burkhard said most of the French troops will be withdrawn from Kapisa and Surobi. The French military equipment would leave Afghanistan along ground routes.

“You have carried out your mission,” Hollande told French soldiers stationed in Nijrab district of Kapisa. “The terrorist threat that targeted our territory — while it hasn’t totally disappeared — is in part lessened.”

Hollande told Afghan President Hamid Karzai during a lunch meeting that trainers will continue to work with the Afghan security forces, but he did not say how long they would stay.

“Between now and the end of the year, the Afghan army will take control of the zones protected by our forces,” Hollande said. The transition will be carried out “intelligently and with complete and friendly co-operation with the Afghan authorities.”

The Afghan army and police have started taking charge of security in areas that are home to 75 per cent of the population. The goal is for Afghan forces to be in the lead across the country by mid-2013. NATO and other foreign forces would then assume a support role for the 352,000-strong Afghan security forces until the end of 2014.

Ashraf Ghani, head of a commission overseeing the transition, said earlier this month that “the risks in Kapisa are containable and within our capability.”

Mohammad Hussain Khan Sanjani, chief of provincial council in Kapisa, said the French troops were active in reconstruction, worked with the Afghan army and police and conducted patrols in Alasay and Tagab districts, the two most restive areas of the province.

“Let’s wait and see,” Sanjani said about the effect of the French exit. “I hope the French government will continue to pay attention to training and equipping the Afghan police and army. If they do not help us, our forces will face difficulties.”

Dusko Jevic and Mendeljev Djuric were sentenced to 35 and 30 years in jail respectively for ordering their men to take part in the separation of the men from other refugees in Srebrenica and later to carry out an all-night, all-day killing spree of more than 1,000 captured Muslims.

After they captured the UN-protected enclave of Srebrenica in eastern Bosnia on July 11, 1995, Bosnian Serb troops separated the fighting-age men from the rest of the tens of thousands of Muslim refugees who gathered around the UN base in Potocari, hoping for protection.

The women, children and the elderly were bussed out to nearby Muslim-held territory.

In the days that followed, the Bosnian Serbs killed nearly 8,000 Muslim men and boys captured around Srebrenica and buried them in mass graves.

At the time Jevic was a deputy commander of a special Bosnian Serb police brigade, while Djuric commanded the brigade’s 1st company.

Jevic and Djuric “aided in the partial destruction of an ethnic group and are guilty of aiding genocide,” Sarajevo court judge Mira Smajlovic ruled.

“With their participation in the massacre the members of this unit were a link in the chain that was carrying out a genocide,” added the judge.

According to the ruling, the police brigade’s 1st company took part in the separation of “more than 1,000 Muslim men from their families” in Potocari, just outside of Srebrenica, “knowing that these men will be taken for execution.”

The company later also joined in the killing of more than 1,000 men on the site of an agricultural warehouse in nearby Kravica, where Srebrenica captives were taken, the court found.

“They replaced another unit that started with the executions at the site and killed prisoners during the whole night of July 13th and the whole day of July 14th,” the judge said.

After first firing on the prisoners packed into the warehouse with semi-automatic weapons the 1st company then threw grenades inside the building.

After several hours they called for survivors, offering medical help but when some men staggered out they were lined up and shot on the spot, the court said.

Two other former policemen from the same company were acquitted Friday because of lack of evidence against them.

The maximum sentence for any war crimes case in Bosnia is 45 years in prison, but sentences of over thirty years are rarely handed out and usually only to those accused over Srebrenica.

The Srebrenica massacre was the worst single atrocity in Europe since World War II and was ruled a genocide by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the UN’s top court, the International Court of Justice.

While those deemed most responsible for the massacre– like wartime Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladic arrested in Serbia last year– are being tried by the ICTY, Bosnia’s own war crimes chamber has tried over a dozen Serbs for taking part in the genocide.

In all some 100,000 people were killed during the brutal 1992-95 war between Bosnia’s Croats, Muslims and Serbs. The conflict left the country deeply divided along ethnic lines.

In testimony during a trial against the 75-year-old Berlusconi on charges of paying for sex with an underage prostitute, Marysthell Polanco said she had also dressed as prosecutor Ilda Boccassini.

Boccassini, known as “Ilda the Red” because of her hair color and what Berlusconi says is her communist political sympathies, is one of the prosecutors in the ongoing trial.

“I dressed up as Boccassini with a toga to make him laugh, and also as Obama,” Polanco told the court.

Polanco, a striking 28-year-old from the Dominican Republic, said the parties were innocent fun accompanied by burlesque, but not pornographic, entertainment.

In April, Berlusconi said the parties were “elegant dinners” where there was sometimes entertainment that he called a “burlesque game”.

Previous witnesses who attended his parties painted a more sordid picture, including nudity, mimicked sex, and one described two women wearing nasty versions of nuns’ habits performing a raunchy pole dance.

Berlusconi is charged with paying Moroccan-born Karima El Mahroug for sex in 2010, when she was 17, and then abusing the powers of his office by getting her freed from police custody after she had been arrested for theft.

Berlusconi denies all wrongdoing.

He had a close rapport with former U.S. President George W. Bush, earning several invitations to Washington and even to his Texas ranch, but he never was able to establish a similar relationship with Obama after repeatedly describing him – and later his wife – as “suntanned”.

Israel, bound by an international refugees treaty it ardently promoted, doesn’t seem to have that option, and the gap between rhetoric and reality threatens to send simmering social antagonisms boiling over into open conflict.

It has raised questions, relevant all over the developed world, about how much is owed to the impoverished migrants who manage to sneak in.

Over the past seven years, as many as 60,000 African migrants, most from Sudan and Eritrea, have slipped across Israel’s border with Egypt, exploiting the lack of a physical barrier and widespread lawlessness in the Sinai Peninsula that has been one result of the fall last year of longtime Egyptian ruler Hosni Mubarak.

Israel is erecting a barrier along the roughly 200 kilometres of border. While this work drags on, the migrants continue to arrive at a rate of about 1,000 a month, ragged and penniless, with some reporting being raped, tortured and extorted by the Bedouins who smuggle them through.

Some migrants are fleeing repressive regimes. Others are simply looking for a better life in a richer country. How many fit into each of those categories is a matter of deep disagreement between officials and migrant advocates.

Menahem Kahanamenahem Kahana / AFP / Getty Images

African migrants sit in a bus stop at Levinsky Park in southern Tel Aviv.

Some Israelis worry that their national identity as a Jewish state is being threatened by unauthorized African migrants, who now make up less than 1 per cent of Israel’s population.

“It’s the crumbling of the Zionist dream,” Interior Minister Eli Yishai warned on Thursday.

Officials claim the overwhelming majority of the migrants are not bona fide refugees escaping persecution and war, but economic migrants looking for jobs. Israeli leaders use terms like “infiltrators,” ”cancer“ and ”national scourge” to describe them, setting an inflammatory tone.

After the first rape was reported earlier this month, Yishai declared nearly all migrants to be criminals and said they should all be jailed pending deportation.

Days later, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned, “60,000 infiltrators are liable to become 600,000, and lead to the eradication of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state.”

The issue of how to deal with them has also caused introspection about whether Israel, after a century of conflict with Arabs, has become a racist society.

“What disturbs me most is the racist atmosphere,” social commentator Tom Segev said. “For several years now, Israel society has been moving in that direction, with all the anti-Arab motions in the parliament. … I think that this society is very sick now.”

Others deny that the pushback is racist, finding it unreasonable that their country of about 8 million should be expected to throw open its doors to unlimited numbers of migrants.

Dan Balitly / The Associated Press

Israelis gather during a demonstration in support of African migrants into Israel. Recent rapes blamed on African migrants have ignited a political and emotional backlash against their ballooning numbers, with Israelis and their leaders stridently and in an alarming new development, violently calling for their expulsion.

Israel cannot simply kick out the Africans, as some politicians would seem to suggest. As an enthusiastic backer of a 1951 U.N. treaty drafted to address the plight of World War II refugees, it has pledged not to expel asylum-seekers to any country where they would be in danger.

“We’re not going to pull back on our obligations under the refugee convention,” said Daniel Solomon, legal adviser to Israel’s population and immigration authority. “At the same time, other solutions will have to be looked for,” like finding a third country to take them in.

Because most migrants come from Sudan, an enemy state, and Eritrea, a country with an abysmal human rights record, the line between refugee and economic migrants is blurred. So Israel has quietly allowed most migrants from those two countries to stay, without processing their asylum applications.

The U.S. State Department criticized this practice in a report on global human rights released Thursday, noting that of 4,603 new asylum applications in 2011, Israel rejected 3,692 and approved one. According to the report, asylum seekers without refugee status are not allowed to work and have no access to public health care, and that the government negatively terms the migrants “infiltrators.”

Spokesmen for Israel’s prime minister and Foreign Ministry had no comment on the report Friday.

Because of their precarious status, the migrants scrounge for whatever underpaid and insecure employment and volunteer health care they can find.

“Our objective is to have Israel host these people under proper conditions until the option arises for them to go home,” said William Tall, the envoy of the U.N. refugee agency office in Israel.

The Africans began trickling into Israel after neighbouring Egypt violently quashed a demonstration by a group of Sudanese refugees there in 2005, killing at least 20. The numbers surged as word spread of safety and jobs in Israel, a prosperous and liberal country reachable from Africa overland.

The swelling numbers have spawned slums. Fear and intolerance is mounting among locals, who accuse the migrants of stoking crime, including three recent rapes — even though police records show crime among the migrants is lower than among Israelis.

Firebombs were thrown recently at two buildings where migrants live, and a protest against them Wednesday in a poor southern Tel Aviv neighbourhood where many Africans live turned violent. The crowd shattered windows of shops and cars belonging to Africans, police said, and a witness reported that protesters spat on migrants and cursed them. No one was hurt.

Bashir Abekker, 32, came to Israel four years ago to escape the war in Sudan’s Darfur region. He thought he’d find safety, “but recently, I’m not safe here. I am afraid for my safety,” he said. “After what happened (Wednesday), I was afraid to go out on the street to buy food.”

On Thursday, Netanyahu condemned the violence. “I want to make it very clear that there is no room for the kinds of expressions and actions we saw last night,” he said. “I say this both to public officials and to the residents of south Tel Aviv, whose pain I understand.”

The Hotline for Migrant Workers advocacy group said the refugees are endangered by the “incitement” of politicians.

On the other side of the divide, neighbourhood activist Dror Kahalani said the government is neglecting his already poor community to provide services for migrants, whose rising numbers terrify residents.

“I don’t let my daughters go out unless I go with them,” Kahalani said.

Prominent author and social commentator A.B. Yehoshua came to the defence of the migrants’ Israeli neighbours. “We have to distinguish between economic migrants whom we don’t have to accept, and the bona fide refugees who are suffering and face death if returned,” he said.

For some, the violence against the migrants and calls for their expulsion are difficult to accept given the legacy of the Holocaust, when 6 million Jews were killed by German Nazis and their collaborators. They find it abhorrent that the Jewish state would expel people to face persecution elsewhere.

Others counter that following the mass murder of its own people as the world looked on, Israel has no more of an obligation to help others than the rest of the world does.

Using the station’s 58-foot long (17.7-metre) robotic crane, NASA astronaut Don Pettit snared Dragon at 9:56 a.m. EDT (1356 GMT) as the two spacecraft soared 250 miles (400 km) over northwest Australia at 17,500 mph.

“It looks like we’ve got us a dragon by the tail,” Pettit radioed to NASA Mission Control in Houston.

The capsule, built and operated by Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, is the first of two new commercial freighters NASA will use to fly cargo to the $100 billion outpost following the retirement of the space shuttles last year.

The United States plans to buy commercial flight services for its astronauts as well, breaking Russia’s monopoly on flying crews to the station.

Dragon blasted off aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on Tuesday. It is expected to be attached to a docking port on the station later on Friday.

The capsule is carrying about 1,200 pounds (544 kilograms) of food, water, clothing and supplies for the station crew. It will be repacked with equipment to come back to Earth and depart the station on May 31.

Splashdown in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of southern California would occur later that day.

REUTERS/NASA TV

The SpaceX Dragon commercial cargo craft is seen with the International Space Station's Canadarm2 in the foreground as it holds position 30 metres (98 ft.) from the station as the crew of the ISS conducts final tests before the grapple and docking of the capsule in this image captured from NASA TV May 25, 2012.

This week’s first-round vote has polarized Egyptians between those determined to avoid handing the presidency back to a man from Mubarak’s era and those fearing an Islamist monopoly of ruling institutions. The run-off will be held on June 16 and 17.

ODD ANDERSON/KHALED DESOUKI/AFP/Getty Images

Muslim Brotherhood presidential candidate, Mohammed Mursi (L), at his office in Cairo on November 28, 2011, and former prime minister and presidential candidate, Ahmed Shafiq (R), in Cairo on March 10, 2012.

The election marks a crucial step in a messy and often bloody transition to democracy, overseen by a military council that has pledged to hand power to a new president by July 1.

The second round threatens further turbulence. Opponents of Shafiq have vowed to take to the streets if he is elected.

But to supporters, Shafiq’s military background offers reassurance that he can restore security, a major demand of the population 15 months after Mubarak’s ouster.

A victory for the Brotherhood’s Mohamed Mursi could worsen tensions between resurgent Islamists and the powerful army, which sees itself as the guardian of the state.

Christians and secular liberals anxious about their own freedoms and the fate of Egypt’s vital tourist industry will fret about a promised Brotherhood push for Islamic law.

“Now Egyptians will have to choose between the revolution and the counter-revolution. The next vote will be equivalent to holding a referendum on the revolution,” Mohamed Beltagy, a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood’s party, told Reuters.

If Mursi becomes president, Islamists will control most ruling institutions — but not the military — in Egypt, the most populous Arab nation, consolidating electoral gains made by fellow-Islamists in other Arab countries in the past year.

Israel has nervously watched the Islamist rise, especially in Egypt, its old enemy until a 1979 peace treaty. Mursi vaguely advocates a “review” of the pact, but the Brotherhood says it will not tear it up. Shafiq has vowed to uphold it.

The bluntly-spoken military man came from behind in a race in which former Arab League chief Amr Moussa and ex-Brotherhood member Abdel Moneim Abol Fotouh were early favorites.

His late surge reflected the anxiety of many Egyptians about a breakdown of law and order and the often violent political disputes that have punctuated an army-led transition since a popular revolt ousted Mubarak on February 11, 2011.

The Brotherhood announced early on Friday that the run-off would be between Shafiq and Mursi after almost all votes were counted. A member of Shafiq’s campaign also said Mursi and Shafiq were in the lead, but that counting was not complete.

Official results are not expected until Tuesday.

Aides to other candidates consistently put Mursi ahead but gave shifting tallies for second place through the night.

Egypt will elect a president before rewriting a post-Mubarak constitution to define the powers of the head of state, parliament and other institutions. The army, bent on preserving its privileges and influence even after the promised handover, might want to curb the mandate of an Islamist president.

The Brotherhood’s Guidance Office, its top body, was meeting to mull a campaign “to galvanize Islamists and Egyptian voters to face the bloc of the ‘feloul’,” a Brotherhood official said, using a scornful Arabic term for “remnants” of Mubarak’s order.

REUTERS/Mohammed Salem

A soldier stands guard as people wait outside a polling station in Cairo May 24, 2012.

TOUGH CHOICE

The Brotherhood, Egypt’s most organized political group, has already secured the biggest bloc for its party in parliament after an earlier vote. Long repressed and banned under Mubarak, the 84-year-old Islamist group has a broad grassroots base.

Young Egyptian revolutionaries who helped topple Mubarak now face what they see as a dispiriting choice between a conservative Islamist and a hardline member of the old guard.

“To choose between Shafiq or Mursi is like being asked do you want to commit suicide by being set on fire or jump in a shark tank,” Adel Abdel Ghafar wrote on Twitter, a networking tool used to devastating effect against Mubarak in the uprising.

Tareq Farouq, 34, a Cairo driver, said: “I’m in shock. How could this happen? The people don’t want Mursi or Shafiq. We’re sick of both. They are driving people back to Tahrir Square.”

Many Christians, who form about a tenth of Egypt’s 82 million people, complained of discrimination in Mubarak’s day, but are likely to vote for Shafiq in preference to an Islamist.

The Brotherhood may be riding high, but to win the run-off it will need to woo the votes of other candidates such as its old adherent Abol Fotouh, who took 20% of the vote on an inclusive platform, according to the Brotherhood’s count.

Two days of first-round voting went off calmly with polls closing on Thursday. Monitors reported no major infringements, although some candidates grumbled about their rivals’ conduct.

The Brotherhood official, who asked not to be named, said that with votes counted from about 12,800 of the roughly 13,100 polling stations, Mursi had 25%, Shafiq 23%, Abol Fotouh 20% and leftist Hamdeen Sabahy 19%.

Election committee officials said late on Thursday that about half of Egypt’s 50 million eligible voters had cast ballots. The Brotherhood official put the turnout at 40%.

REUTERS/Mohammed Salem

Soldiers stand guard as people wait outside a polling station in Cairo May 24, 2012.

© Thomson Reuters 2012

Although Mexican police arrested Ms. Vanier six months ago over an alleged plot to smuggle Mr. Gaddafi to Mexico, Mr. Peters said in an interview the initial plan was to take the dictator’s son to Caracas, Venezuela.

In his first interview since he stepped out of the spotlight in March, Mr. Peters, CEO of Can/Aust. Security and Investigations International, said he and Ms. Vanier had discussed moving Mr. Gaddafi to the South American country.

Mr. Peters showed the National Post an email dated May 9, 2011, which he said was the draft of a letter that was to be signed by Mr. Gaddafi and presented to Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Mr. Chavez.

The letter requested talks that would “hopefully contribute to a peaceful resolution of the issues currently facing Libya” and asked that Ms. Vanier’s company, Vanier Consulting, be retained to “arrange and facilitate high level discussions” to that end.

Alfredo Estrella / AFP/ Getty Images files

A slide from the General Office for the Specialized Investigation of Organized Crime in Mexico showing the details of what it believes to be a plot to smuggle Saadi Gaddafi out of Libya. Cynthia Vanier, pictured top-left, denies involvement in the scheme.

Ms. Vanier, a professional mediator from Mount Forest, Ont., has denied any involvement with Mr. Gaddafi. Speaking from the Mexican prison where she remains in custody, she has said that Mr. Peters “has made a lot of things up,” should not have credibility and had ruined her life with his “delusional portrayal” of events.

Responding to her comments, Mr. Peters said he stood by his allegations that Ms. Vanier had been involved in plans to relocate Mr. Gaddafi. “She was aware of everything and she can’t deny it,” he said.

A Mexican judge was expected to decide this week whether to continue with the case against Ms. Vanier and her co-accused. She is facing four counts, including attempted human trafficking.

Venezuela was considered a “possible destination” for Saadi Gaddafi because of the close relationship between Col. Gaddafi and Pres. Chavez, Mr. Peters said. The two self-styled “anti-imperialist revolutionaries” frequently hosted one another.

Col. Muammar Gaddafi named a stadium near Benghazi after the Venezuelan socialist leader and awarded him the Al-Gaddafi International Prize for Human Rights. “Chavez is a friend of the family,” Mr. Peters said.

The draft letter that Mr. Peters said Mr. Gaddafi was to sign reads: “My request is highly confidential … I realize that I must be a party to the resolution which may include assisting with recommendations and conditions which will require me to leave my country and remove myself permanently or at least until a peaceful resolution has been achieved. I am aware that I will be exiled as I will be acting against the current Libyan governments [sic] wishes.”

VINCENZO PINTO/AFP/Getty Images

Saadi Gaddafi

Mr. Peters said he received the draft by email from Ms. Vanier. A second email dated May 11, 2011 discussed possible air routes between Toronto, Algeria and Caracas, as well as estimates for the costs of planes and “legal fees.” Neither email message mentioned Mr. Gaddafi by name and Ms. Vanier has denied any role in attempts to get him out of Libya.

“He wanted out but he couldn’t get out,” Mr. Peters said of Mr. Gaddafi. “But he wanted out and we were planning that. We were planning that ourselves and then we would give it to him to sign. That’s how that was going to work. So it wasn’t his idea. It was our idea but it was brought up to him.”

While Mr. Gaddafi had ultimately accepted the plan, Mr. Peters said the Venezuelan option was eventually dropped. It proved impossible to fly the dictator’s son to Caracas because of complications created by an international travel ban imposed on Mr. Gaddafi by the United Nations Security Council.

Still, the planning continued, switching to plans to move Mr. Gaddafi instead to Nassau, Bahamas, Mr. Peters said. “And then it couldn’t be done for reasons I don’t know of and then so we went to Mexico,” he said. Mr. Peters stressed that Mr. Gaddafi was only to be moved into exile if it could be done without breaking the law.

He said Mr. Gaddafi’s investment companies would have financed the Caracas and Nassau plans, although he said, “With Venezuela and the Bahamas it never really got to a stage where we nailed down the finances. Mexico would have been [financed by] SNC-Lavalin.”

But it was soon apparent Mr. Gaddafi could not be moved to Mexico either, Mr. Peters said. “June 16 was when I was told it couldn’t be done legally so I dropped it.” He added, “That was the end of it for me, as far as this was concerned.”

Instead, he and Ms. Vanier traveled to Libya together on a fact-finding mission financed by SNC-Lavalin, the Montreal-based engineering and construction firm that had ongoing infrastructure projects in the country but had evacuated most of its staff from Libya following the outbreak of civil war.

During the expedition, Mr. Peters said Mr. Gaddafi twice came to the hotel where he was staying, although Ms. Vanier wasn’t aware of the visits. “I didn’t tell anybody that he was there. He came in the middle of the night, early in the morning,” Mr. Peters said. “We just shot the sh-t, that’s all it was.”

While the main purpose of the trip was to assess conditions in Libya, Mr. Peters said Mr. Gaddafi would have been flown out if necessary. “If it came down to it in an emergency, and you had to go right then, I would have taken him out,” he said.

“But it didn’t happen. We didn’t go there to do that. We didn’t push it to get him out. If he needed to get out — say the sh-t hit the fan over there and he had to go straight away — we were there, that was it. But that wasn’t the point.”

Mr. Peters said he returned to Libya in August when Tripoli was falling to rebel forces and helped transport Mr. Gaddafi to Niger, where the Libyan remains under house arrest. The transitional Libyan government wants Mr. Gaddafi returned to Tripoli to stand trial.

Ms. Vanier was arrested in Mexico City on Nov. 10. Also arrested were San Diego realtor Gabriela de Cueto, her Danish business partner Pierre Flensborg, and alleged Mexican forger Jose Luis Kennedy Prieto. Mexico alleges they conspired to fly Mr. Gaddafi, his wife and their two children to Mexico using falsified Mexican passports. Mr. Peters’ testimony forms part of the evidence against the suspects.

In the interview, Mr. Peters said Ms. Vanier had done nothing wrong when they were planning Mr. Gaddafi’s departure from Libya together. “She hasn’t broken the law as far as I’m concerned, while I was with her. What happened after July after we got back was her thing.”

The Lavalin executives who financed the Libya trip, Stéphane Roy and Riadh Ben Aissa, have since left the company amidst a scandal over $56-million in mystery payments. Swiss authorities have since arrested Mr. Ben Aissa over allegations of bribery, corruption and money laundering.

An Australian citizen who said he was a sergeant in the Royal Australian Army until a decade ago, Mr. Peters said the Canada Border Services Agency had been examining his activities in Libya. The process could lead to his deportation. He is awaiting a decision but said he was resigned to whatever fate the government had in store for him. “If it happens, it happens. I’m getting to the point now that I just don’t care.”

National Post
sbell@nationalpost.com

A former convenience store worker confessed to luring 6-year-old Etan Patz from his school bus stop in 1979 and choking him to death in a basement, police said Thursday, ending a three-decades long investigation into one of the nation’s most baffling missing-children cases.

Pedro Hernandez, 51, of Maple Shade, N.J., was arrested on a murder charge after he told police he promised the boy a soda, took him to his store — just blocks from Etan’s lower Manhattan home — and killed him there, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.

Hernandez told police he put Etan’s body in some trash about a block from the store, Kelly said, where it’s possible it was picked up by sanitation crews.

No body has been recovered, and Kelly said it’s possible the remains would never be found.

Hernandez was questioned by police for more than three hours after he was picked up in New Jersey Wednesday, and gave police a signed confession, Kelly said. His motive was not yet clear.

It’s not clear if he had an attorney; an arraignment was expected sometime Friday. No one answered the door at Hernandez’ New Jersey home Thursday night.

“He was remorseful, and I think the detectives thought that it was a feeling of relief on his part” to confess, Kelly said. “We believe that this is the individual responsible for the crime.”

The arrest is the first ever in the decades-old case that gave rise to the missing-children’s movement and ushered in an era of anxiety about leaving children unsupervised. Etan’s photo was one of the first of a missing child to appear on a milk carton. The anniversary of Etan’s disappearance, which is Friday, was named National Missing Children’s Day by presidential proclamation in 1983.

Detectives are often barraged with hoaxes, false leads and possible sightings around the anniversary of the boy’s disappearance. But Kelly said they believed Hernandez’s story because of specific details he gave to police.

John Roca / Reuters files

Stanley Patz, father of Etan Patz, watches police investigators near his New York home.

Hernandez, then 19, had worked as a stock clerk at the store for about a month and wasn’t questioned at the outset, Kelly said. But he later told relatives, as far back as 1981, that he had “done something bad” and killed an unnamed child in New York City, he said.

After a search of a basement near Patz’s lower Manhattan home last month hurtled the case back into the news, a tipster pointed police to Hernandez. Kelly said the person wasn’t a relative, but knew that Hernandez had said he had done a bad thing, he said.

Hernandez was known to police as being a worker at the convenience store – a popular fixture in the neighborhood – but was never questioned, though other people in the shop were.

He left his job days after Etan disappeared and moved to New Jersey, where he had relatives, Kelly said. Hernandez later worked in construction but has been collecting disability payments since a 1993 back injury, police said. He is married with a teenage daughter, he said.

REUTERS/Andrew Burton

New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, centre, announces the arrest of Pedro Hernandez, who they said had confessed to the 1979 killing of six-year-old Etan Patz in New York Thursday.

The focus on Hernandez came after other leads arose and stalled, at one point taking investigators as far as Israel tracking reported sightings of the boy.

For most of the past decade, the investigation focused on Jose Ramos, a convicted child molester now in prison in Pennsylvania. He had been dating Etan’s baby sitter. In 2000, authorities dug up Ramos’ former basement in lower Manhattan, but nothing turned up.

Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. announced in 2010 that his office was renewing the investigation into the case. A few weeks ago, investigators excavated another basement, down the street from the Patz apartment. The search found no human remains.

Investigators questioned a 75-year-old handyman who had a workspace in the cellar in 1979. But he was not named as a suspect and denied any involvement in the boy’s disappearance.

Neighbors in Maple Shade, N.J., said Hernandez lived with his wife and a daughter who attends college. They expressed surprise Thursday night at the arrest.

“I knew the guy. He was not a problem. His family was great people,” said Dan Wollick, 71, who rents an apartment in Hernandez’ home. “He didn’t bother anybody.”

Sandy-haired Etan vanished while walking alone to his bus stop for the first time, two blocks from his home in New York’s busy SoHo neighborhood, which was a working-class part of the city back then but is now a chic area of boutiques and galleries.

Etan’s parents, Stan and Julie Patz, were reluctant to move or even change their phone number in case their son tried to reach out. They still live in the same apartment.

They did not return a call for comment Thursday.

Lt. Christopher Zimmerman of the Missing Persons Squad said he’d spoken to Patz’s parents.

“Mr. Patz was taken aback, a little surprised, and I would say overwhelmed to a degree,” he said. “He had a few specific questions. He was a little surprised, but I think after everything Mr. Patz has gone through, he handled it very well.”

The Associated Press