NBC’s Engel, TV crew escape abduction in Syria

BEIRUT (AP) — NBC‘s chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel said Tuesday he and members of his network crew escaped unharmed after five days of captivity in Syria, where more than a dozen pro-regime gunmen dragged them from their car, killed one of their rebel escorts and subjected them to mock executions.

Appearing on NBC’s “Today” show, an unshaven Engel said he and his team escaped during a firefight Monday night between their captors and rebels at a checkpoint. They crossed into Turkey on Tuesday.

NBC did not say how many people were kidnapped with Engel, although two other men, producer Ghazi Balkiz and photographer John Kooistra, appeared with him on the “Today” show. It was not confirmed whether everyone was accounted for.

Engel said he believes the kidnappers were a Shiite militia group loyal to the Syrian government, which has lost control over swaths of the country’s north and is increasingly on the defensive in a civil war that has killed 40,000 people since March 2011.

“They kept us blindfolded, bound,” said the 39-year-old Engel, who speaks and reads Arabic. “We weren’t physically beaten or tortured. A lot of psychological torture, threats of being killed. They made us choose which one of us would be shot first and when we refused, there were mock shootings,” he added.

“They were talking openly about their loyalty to the government,” Engel said. He said the captors were trained by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and allied with Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite militant group, but he did not elaborate.

There was no mention of the kidnapping by Syria’s state-run news agency.

Both Iran and Hezbollah are close allies of the embattled Syrian government of President Bashar Assad, who used military force to crush mostly peaceful protests against his regime. The crackdown on protests led many in Syria to take up arms against the government, and the conflict has become a civil war.

Engel said he was told the kidnappers wanted to exchange him and his crew for four Iranian and two Lebanese prisoners being held by the rebels.

“They captured us in order to carry out this exchange,” he said.

Engel and his crew entered Syria on Thursday and were driving through what they thought was rebel-controlled territory when “a group of gunmen just literally jumped out of the trees and bushes on the side of the road.”

“There were probably 15 gunmen. They were wearing ski masks. They were heavily armed. They dragged us out of the car,” he said.

He said the gunmen shot and killed at least one of their rebel escorts on the spot and took the hostages into a waiting truck nearby.

Around 11 p.m. Monday, Engel said he and the others were being moved to another location in northern Idlib province.

“And as we were moving along the road, the kidnappers came across a rebel checkpoint, something they hadn’t expected. We were in the back of what you would think of as a minivan,” he said. “The kidnappers saw this checkpoint and started a gunfight with it. Two of the kidnappers were killed. We climbed out of the vehicle and the rebels took us. We spent the night with them.”

Engel and his crew crossed back into neighboring Turkey on Tuesday.

The network said there was no claim of responsibility, no contact with the captors and no request for ransom during the time the crew was missing.

NBC sought to keep the disappearance of Engel and the crew secret for several days while it investigated what happened to them. Major media organizations, including The Associated Press, adhered to a request from the network to refrain from reporting on the issue out of concern it could make the dangers to the captives worse. News of the disappearance did begin to leak out in Turkish media and on some websites on Monday.

Syria has become a danger zone for reporters since the conflict began.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, Syria is by far the deadliest country for the press in 2012, with 28 journalists killed in combat or targeted for murder by government or opposition forces.

Among the journalists killed while covering Syria are award-winning French TV reporter Gilles Jacquier, photographer Remi Ochlik and Britain’s Sunday Times correspondent Marie Colvin. Also, Anthony Shadid, a correspondent for The New York Times, died after an apparent asthma attack while on assignment in Syria.

The Syrian government has barred most foreign media coverage of the civil war in Syria. Those journalists whom the regime has allowed in are tightly controlled in their movements by Information Ministry minders. Many foreign journalists sneak into Syria illegally with the help of smugglers and travel with rebel escorts or drivers.

Engel joined NBC in 2003 and was named chief foreign correspondent in 2008. He previously worked as a freelance journalist for ABC News, including during the U.S. invasion of Iraq. He has lived in the Middle East since graduating from Stanford University in 1996.

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New Android botnet discovered across all major networks

A new Android spam botnet has been discovered across all major networks that sends thousands of text messages without a user’s permission, TheNextWeb reported. The threat, which is known at SpamSoldier, was detected on December 3rd by Lookout Security in cooperation with an unnamed carrier partner. The malware is said to spread through a collection of infected phones that send text messages, which usually advertise free versions of popular paid games like Grand Theft Auto and Angry Birds Space, to hundreds of users each day.

[More from BGR: Facebook’s Instagram monetization plan: License users’ photos without paying for them]

Once a user clicks on the link to download the game, his or her phone instead downloads the malicious app. When the app is downloaded, SpamSoilder removes its icon from the app drawer, installs a free version of the game in question and immediately starts sending spam messages.

[More from BGR: How not to fix Apple Maps]

The security firm notes that the threat isn’t widespread, however it has been spotted on all major carriers in the U.S. and has potential to do serious damage if something isn’t done soon to stop it.

This article was originally published by BGR

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CBS dominates week in TV ratings

NEW YORK (AP) — CBS had little competition for dominance last week in the television ratings.

The network had 17 of the 25 most-watched programs on the air last week, according to the Nielsen company. It beat second-place NBC by an average of nearly four million viewers a night last week, and also took the 18-to-49-year-old demographic that advertisers seek.

“60 Minutes” and “NCIS” were the most popular shows on CBS last week. As is typical in the fall, NBC‘s Sunday night football matchup was the week’s most-watched show.

One end-of-year tradition, Barbara Walters‘ survey of the year’s most popular personalities, finished No. 27 in the week’s ratings with 7.6 million viewers.

On cable, Showtime’s “Dexter” and “Homeland” both hit series records for their season finale episodes on Sunday. “Dexter” had 2.8 million viewers and “Homeland” had 2.3 million. Showtime preceded each episode with a disclaimer, warning that audiences might find the shows too intense so soon after the Connecticut school killings.

CBS averaged 11.9 million viewers for the week in prime time (7.3 rating, 12 share). NBC had 7.3 million (4.5, 7), ABC had 5.1 million (3.3, 5), Fox had 4.4 million (2.7, 4), the CW had 1.7 million (1.1, 2) and ION Television had 1.3 million (0.9, 1).

Among the Spanish language networks, Univision led with an average of 3.2 million viewers (1.7, 3). Telemundo had 1.3 million (0.7, 1), TeleFutura had 850,000 (0.4, 1), Estrella had 340,000 (0.2, 0) and Azteca had 140,000 (0.1, 0).

NBC‘s “Nightly News” topped the evening newscasts with an average of 9.4 million viewers (6.3, 12). ABC’s “World News” was second with 8.3 million (5.5, 11) and the “CBS Evening News” had 7.2 million viewers (4.9, 9).

A ratings point represents 1,147,000 households, or 1 percent of the nation’s estimated 114.7 million TV homes. The share is the percentage of in-use televisions tuned to a given show.

For the week of Dec. 10-16, the top 10 shows, their networks and viewerships: NFL Football: San Francisco at New England, NBC, 23.23 million; “60 Minutes,” CBS, 19.63 million; “NCIS,” CBS, 17.65 million; “The Big Bang Theory,” CBS, 16.74 million; “NCIS: Los Angeles,” CBS, 15.12 million; “Sunday Night NFL Pre-Kick,” NBC, 14.62 million; “Person of Interest,” CBS, 14.08 million; “Two and a Half Men,” CBS, 13.34 million; “The Voice” (Monday), NBC, 12.33 million; “Criminal Minds,” CBS, 12.01 million.

___

ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Co. CBS is owned by CBS Corp. CW is a joint venture of Warner Bros. Entertainment and CBS Corp. Fox and My Network TV are units of News Corp. NBC and Telemundo are owned by Comcast Corp. ION Television is owned by ION Media Networks. TeleFutura is a division of Univision. Azteca America is a wholly owned subsidiary of TV Azteca S.A. de C.V.

___

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Neighbor took six survivors into his home

NEWTOWN, Conn. (AP) — Gene Rosen had just finished feeding his cats and was heading from his home near Sandy Hook Elementary school to a diner Friday morning when he saw six small children sitting in a neat semicircle at the end of his driveway.

A school bus driver was standing over them, telling them things would be all right. It was about 9:30 a.m., and the children, he discovered, had just run from the school to escape a gunman.

"We can't go back to school," one little boy told Rosen. "Our teacher is dead. Mrs. Soto; we don't have a teacher."

Rosen, a 69-year-old retired psychologist, took the four girls and two boys into his home, and over the next few hours gave them toys, listened to their stories and called their frantic parents.

Rosen said he had heard the staccato sound of gunfire about 15 minutes earlier but dismissed it as an obnoxious hunter in the nearby woods.

"I had no idea what had happened," Rosen said. "I couldn't take that in."

He walked the children past his small goldfish pond with its running waterfall, and the garden he made with his two grandchildren, into the small yellow house he shares with his wife.

He ran upstairs and grabbed an armful of stuffed animals. He gave those to the children, along with some fruit juice, and sat with them as the two boys described seeing their teacher being shot.

Victoria Soto, 27, was a first-grade teacher killed when 20-year-old Adam Lanza burst into her classroom. It wasn't clear how the children escaped harm, but there have been reports that Soto hid some of her students from the approaching gunman. The six who turned up at Rosen's home did apparently have to run past her body to safety.

"They said he had a big gun and a little gun," said Rosen, who didn't want to discuss other details the children shared.

Rosen called the children's parents, using cellphone numbers obtained from the school bus company, and they came and retrieved their children.

One little girl, he said, spent the entire ordeal clutching a small stuffed Dalmatian to her chest and staring out the window looking for her mommy.

And one little boy brought them all a moment of levity.

"This little boy turns around, and composes himself, and he looks at me like he had just removed himself from the carnage and he says, 'Just saying, your house is very small,'" Rosen said. "I wanted to tell him, 'I love you. I love you.'"

Rosen said Sandy Hook had always been a place of joy for him. He taught his 8-year-old grandson to ride his bike in the school parking lot and took his 4-year-old granddaughter to use the swings.

"I thought today how life has changed, how that ground has been marred, how that school has been desecrated," he said.

He said it wasn't his training as a psychologist that helped him that day — it was being a grandparent.

A couple of hours after the last child left, a knock came on his door. It was a frantic mother who had heard that some children had taken refuge there. She was looking for her little boy.

"Her face looked frozen in terror," Rosen said, breaking down in tears.

"She thought maybe a miracle from God would have the child at my house," he said. Later, "I looked at the casualty list ... and his name was on it."

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N. Korea displays Kim Jong Il a year after death

PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — North Korea unveiled the embalmed body of Kim Jong Il, still in his trademark khaki jumpsuit, on the anniversary of his death Monday as mourning mixed with pride over a recent satellite launch that was a long-held goal of the late authoritarian leader.

Kim lies in state a few floors below his father, national founder Kim Il Sung, in the Kumsusan mausoleum, the cavernous former presidential palace. Kim Jong Il is presented lying beneath a red blanket, a spotlight shining on his face in a room suffused in red.

Wails echoed through the chilly hall as a group of North Korean women sobbed into the sashes of their traditional Korean dresses as they bowed before his body. The hall bearing the glass coffin was opened to select visitors — including The Associated Press — for the first time since his death.

North Korea also unveiled Kim’s yacht and his armored train carriage, where he is said to have died. Among the personal belongings featured in the mausoleum are the parka, sunglasses and pointy platform shoes he famously wore in the last decades of his life. A MacBook Pro lay open on his desk.

North Koreans paid homage to Kim and basked in the success of last week’s launch of a long-range rocket that sent a satellite named after him to space.

The launch, condemned in many other capitals as a violation of bans against developing its missile technology, was portrayed not only as a gift to Kim Jong Il but also as proof that his young son, Kim Jong Un, has the strength and vision to lead the country.

The elder Kim died last Dec. 17 from a heart attack while traveling on his train. His death was followed by scenes of North Koreans dramatically wailing in the streets of Pyongyang, and of the 20-something son leading ranks of uniformed and gray-haired officials through funeral and mourning rites.

The mood in the capital was decidedly more upbeat a year later, with some of the euphoria carrying over from last Wednesday’s launch. The satellite bears one of Kim Jong Il’s nicknames, Kwangmyongsong, or “Lode Star,” a moniker given to him at birth according to the official lore.

Cameras were not allowed inside the mausoleum, and state media did not release any images of Kim Jong Il’s body.

With the death anniversary came a hint that Kim Jong Un himself might soon be a father.

His wife, Ri Sol Ju, was seen on state TV with what appeared to be a baby bump as she walked slowly next to her husband at the mausoleum, where they bowed to statues of Kim’s father and grandfather.

There is no official word from Pyongyang about a pregnancy. In addition, Ri is shown wearing a billowing traditional Korean dress in black that makes it difficult to know for sure.

North Koreans are reluctant to discuss details of the Kim family that have not been released by the state. Still there are rumors even in Pyongyang about whether the country’s first couple is expecting.

To honor Kim’s father, North Koreans stopped in their tracks at midday and bowed their heads as the national flag fluttered at half-staff along streets and from buildings.

Pyongyang construction workers took off their yellow hard hats and bowed at the waist as sirens wailed across the city for three minutes.

Tens of thousands of North Koreans gathered in the frigid plaza outside, newly transformed into a public park with lawns and pergolas. Geese flew past snow-tinged firs and swans dallied in the partly frozen moat that rings the vast complex in Pyongyang’s outskirts.

“Just when we were thinking how best to uphold our general, he passed away,” Kim Jong Ran said at the plaza. “But we upheld leader Kim Jong Un. … We regained our strength and we are filled with determination to work harder for our country.”

Speaking outside the mausoleum, renamed the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun, the military’s top political officer, Choe Ryong Hae, said North Korea should be proud of the satellite, calling it “a political event with great significance in the history of Korea and humanity.”

Much of the rest of the world, however, was swift in condemning the launch, which was seen by the United States and other nations as a thinly disguised cover for testing missile technology that could someday be used for a nuclear warhead.

The test, which the U.N. Security Council said violated a ban on launches using ballistic missile technology, underlined Kim Jong Un’s determination to continue carrying out his father’s hardline policies even if they draw international condemnation.

Washington said Monday it has no option but to seek to isolate Pyongyang further.

“What’s left to us is to continue to increase pressure on the North Korean regime and we are looking at how to best to do that, both bilaterally and with our partners going forward until they (North Korea) get the message. We are going to further isolate this regime,” U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said.

Some outside experts worry that Pyongyang’s next move will be to press ahead with a nuclear test in the coming weeks, a step toward building a warhead small enough to be carried by a long-range missile.

Despite inviting further isolation for his impoverished nation and the threat of stiffer sanctions, Kim Jong Un won national prestige and clout by going ahead with the rocket launch.

At a memorial service on Sunday, North Korea’s top leadership not only eulogized Kim Jong Il, but also praised his son. Kim Yong Nam, president of the Presidium of North Korea’s parliament, called the launch a “shining victory” and an emblem of the promise that lies ahead with Kim Jong Un in power.

The rocket’s success also fits neatly into the narrative of Kim Jong Il’s death. Even before he died, the father had laid the groundwork for his son to inherit a government focused on science, technology and improving the economy. And his pursuit of nuclear weapons and the policy of putting the military ahead of all other national concerns have also carried into Kim Jong Un’s reign.

In a sign of the rocket launch’s importance, Kim Jong Un invited the scientists in charge of it to attend the mourning rites in Pyongyang, according to state media.

The reopening of the mausoleum on the anniversary of the leader’s death follows tradition. Kumsusan, the palace where his father, Kim Il Sung, served as president, was reopened as a mausoleum on the anniversary of his death in 1994.

___

Associated Press writers Hyung-jin Kim in Seoul, South Korea, and Matthew Pennington in Washington contributed to this report. Follow Jean Lee, AP’s bureau chief for Pyongyang and Seoul, at www.twitter.com/newsjean.

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Specs for HTC’s ‘M7′ phone may include 1.7GHz quad-core CPU, 4.7-inch full HD display

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Channing Tatum, Jenna Dewan-Tatum expecting baby

NEW YORK (AP) — The Sexiest Man Alive will soon be a sexy dad.

Actor Channing Tatum and his wife Jenna Dewan-Tatum are expecting their first child in 2013, their reps confirm.

The news was first reported by People.com, which named Tatum the Sexiest Man Alive in November.

The couple, who recently co-starred in the film “10 Years,” met on the 2006 dance film “Step Up,” and wed in 2009.

Besides a baby, the new year will be a busy year for the parents-to-be. Tatum has at least four movies in the works while Dewan-Tatum appears on this season of “American Horror Story: Asylum” and has a TV movie called “She Made Them Do It” premiering Dec. 29 on Lifetime.

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Many have ovary surgery even with negative gene test

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Many women who test negative for gene mutations that heighten the risk of ovarian cancer still get their ovaries removed despite a lack of evidence that it reduces the risk of dying, says a new study.

“A higher number than expected went through with the surgery, and it probably has to do with doctors in the community not having enough information on their patients’ risk levels,” said Dr. Gabriel Mannis, the study’s lead author.

According to Mannis and his colleagues, who published their study in the Archives of Internal Medicine on Monday, the average woman’s risk of developing ovarian cancer is about 2 percent, but women with BRCA1 and BRCA2 gene mutations have a 40 percent and 20 percent risk, respectively.

For women that test positive for the gene mutations, the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) says, if they choose to have their ovaries removed, it should be when they are done having children and near 40 years old.

There are no guidelines, however, on ovary removal and screening for women whose blood tests don’t show the gene mutations but who may still be at an increased risk of cancer based on their family’s medical history.

“We don’t have a clear sense of what their risk level is, or what the role of screening should be,” said Mannis, of the division of oncology at the University of California, San Francisco.

For the new study, the researchers surveyed women at two hospitals about 4 years after they were tested for the gene mutations to see if they decided to be screened or have their ovaries removed.

Of 1,077 women surveyed, about 19 percent tested positive for a BRCA mutation, about 10 percent had no mutation, and the rest had unclear results.

The researchers found that about 70 percent of the women who tested positive for a mutation had their ovaries removed by the time they took the survey.

But, despite a lack of evidence that they should have their ovaries removed, about 12 percent of the women with unclear results still had the surgery.

OVARIAN CANCER SCREENING

The researchers also found that despite the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommending against screening for ovarian cancer in women without the gene mutations, about 20 percent of women whose test results didn’t clearly show the mutations still ended up getting screened in the year before taking the survey.

In a previously published study, women screened annually for ovarian cancer were no less likely to die from the disease than those who didn’t get regular screening (see Reuters Health article of Sep. 10, 2012. http://reut.rs/QAmMdk).

Aside from not being shown to help, the tests are also imperfect, said Dr. Jed Delmore, chair the Gynecologic Oncology Sub-committee for ACOG.

“I can simply say that as of today we don’t have a good screening,” said Delmore, of the University of Kansas School of Medicine in Wichita.

“At this point if doctors are going to proceed with screening in this group of women, there needs to be a conversation that we don’t really know if this will prevent you from dying sooner of ovarian cancer or that it may come back as a false positive,” said Mannis.

In that previous study, about one in ten screened women had a false positive result, and of those a third had one or both ovaries removed.

That means some women had both ovaries removed even though they were not at an increased risk for cancer, which needlessly put them in danger of a complication and forced them into menopause.

Plus, the removing an ovary can cost over $ 3,000.

Delmore told Reuters Health that it seems like an intermediate ground has been reached with a majority of BRCA-positive women having surgery to reduce their risk, and fewer BRCA-negative women having it.

He agreed with Mannis that doctors need to be honest with their patients about the limitations of today’s screenings and treatments.

“We have pretty solid information for women who are BRCA positive and clearly BRCA negative,” he said. “It’s just that group in the middle.”

Mannis told Reuters Health that the next step would be to identify that group’s risk levels, but both he and Delmore said that won’t be easy.

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/WiwDtv Archives of Internal Medicine, online December 17, 2012.

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Newtown residents seek solace in church and prepare to bury their dead

A couple leaves a morning service at Trinity Church not far from the Sandy Hook School on Sunday. (Getty)

NEWTOWN, Conn. -- Residents of this shell shocked community attended church services and prepared to bury their dead two days after a gunman mowed down more than two dozen people in one of the worst mass shootings in U.S. history.

President Barack Obama left the White House mid-afternoon Sunday to head to Newtown, where he was to meet with first responders and families of the 20 children and 6 adults who perished Friday at Sandy Hook School. Funeral directors across the state were lending their help in preparing the dead, including 20 children, for burial.

But the ritual of Sunday worship even turned chaotic for some residents. St. Rose of Lima Roman Catholic Church was evacuated during its noon mass after an unidentified man called in threats to the congregation.

At Newtown United Methodist Church, senior pastor Mel Kawakami said he's not sure he's ready to forgive the suspected shooter, identified by police as 20-year old Adam Lanza. Lanza allegedly shot and killed his mother in the home they shared before blasting into the school he once attended.

"I'm not sure I'm there yet. My heart is still broken," Kawakami told the packed congregation at  the 10 a.m. service. Pews were lined with Kleenex boxes in the church, which is located less than a half-mile from the school.

Before Rev. Kawakami's sermon, many parents dropped their children off on a lower floor to shield them from a discussion of the tragedy.

Prayers were offered for the victims and for an end to gun violence. One father asked that the congregation pray for his son's best friend, who died at the school.

The altar was lit with 28 candles, one for each of the dead. "Yes, even the shooter," Kawakami said.

Kawakami said the community might one day find forgiveness. Meanwhile, he said, "We have more to mourn, and children and adults to bury."

Funeral directors across the state were already at work helping the lone Newtown funeral home prepare the victims for burial.

Six Connecticut funeral directors have traveled to Newtown's Honan Funeral Home, a family-owned facility located two miles from the site of the shooting, to help coordinate with families of the deceased.

The Connecticut Funeral Director's Association, which has 220 members, is matching the funeral directors receiving bodies of the deceased with others who have offered support in the form of transportation, caskets and cosmetics, spokeswoman Laura Soll said.

Soll said offers for help have come from all corners—everything from Canadian funeral homes to a tent company offering to donate a tent for guests at the Honan location.

At St. Rose of Lima's early morning mass, signs saying "No Press" greeted churchgoers.

Some hugged each other in the parking lot before making their way into the church, pausing briefly at a table filled with at a table dotted with candles. Others paused, pointing to the crush of media camped along the side of the road.

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Egyptians hand Islamists narrow win in constitution vote

CAIRO (Reuters) – Egyptians voted in favor of a constitution shaped by Islamists but opposed by other groups who fear it will divide the Arab world’s biggest nation, officials in rival camps said on Sunday after the first round of a two-stage referendum.

Next week’s second round is likely to give another “yes” vote as it includes districts seen as more sympathetic towards Islamists, analysts say, meaning the constitution would be approved.

But the narrow win so far gives Islamist President Mohamed Mursi only limited grounds for celebration by showing the wide rifts in a country where he needs to build a consensus for tough economic reforms.

The Muslim Brotherhood‘s party, which propelled Mursi to office in a June election, said 56.5 percent backed the text. Official results are not expected until after the next round.

While an opposition official conceded the “yes” camp appeared to have won the first round, the opposition National Salvation Front said in a statement that voting abuses meant a rerun was needed – although it did not explicitly challenge the Brotherhood‘s vote tally.

Rights groups reported abuses such as polling stations opening late, officials telling people how to vote and bribery. They also criticized widespread religious campaigning which portrayed “no” voters as heretics.

A joint statement by seven human rights groups urged the referendum’s organizers “to avoid these mistakes in the second stage of the referendum and to restage the first phase again”.

Mursi and his backers say the constitution is vital to move Egypt’s democratic transition forward. Opponents say the basic law is too Islamist and tramples on minority rights, including those of Christians who make up 10 percent of the population.

The build-up to Saturday’s vote was marred by deadly protests. Demonstrations erupted when Mursi awarded himself extra powers on November 22 and then fast-tracked the constitution through an assembly dominated by his Islamist allies.

However, the vote passed off calmly with long queues in Cairo and several other places, though unofficial tallies indicated turnout was around a third of the 26 million people eligible to vote this time. The vote was staggered because many judges needed to oversee polling staged a boycott in protest.

The opposition had said the vote should not have been held given the violent protests. Foreign governments are watching closely how the Islamists, long viewed warily in the West, handle themselves in power.

“It’s wrong to have a vote or referendum with the country in the state it is – blood and killings, and no security,” said Emad Sobhy, a voter who lives in Cairo. “Holding a referendum with the country as it is cannot give you a proper result.”

INCREASINGLY DIVIDED

As polls closed, Islamists attacked the offices of the newspaper of the liberal Wafd party, part of the opposition National Salvation Front coalition that pushed for a “no” vote.

“The referendum was 56.5 percent for the ‘yes’ vote,” a senior official in the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party operations room set up to monitor voting told Reuters.

The Brotherhood and its party had representatives at polling stations across the 10 areas, including Cairo, in this round. The official, who asked not to be identified, said the tally was based on counts from more than 99 percent of polling stations.

“The nation is increasingly divided and the pillars of state are swaying,” opposition politician Mohamed ElBaradei wrote on Twitter. “Poverty and illiteracy are fertile grounds for trading with religion. The level of awareness is rising fast.”

One opposition official also told Reuters the vote appeared to have gone in favor of Islamists who backed the constitution.

The opposition initially said its exit polls indicated the “no” camp would win comfortably, but officials changed tack during the night. One opposition official said in the early hours of Sunday that it would be “very close”.

A narrow loss could still hearten leftists, socialists, Christians and more liberal-minded Muslims who make up the disparate opposition, which has been beaten in two elections since Hosni Mubarak was overthrown last year.

They were drawn together to oppose what they saw as a power grab by Mursi as he pushed through the constitution. The National Salvation Front includes prominent figures such as ElBaradei, former Arab League chief Amr Moussa and firebrand leftist Hamdeen Sabahy.

If the constitution is approved, a parliamentary election will follow early next year.

DEADLY VIOLENCE

Analysts question whether the opposition group will keep together until the parliamentary election. The Islamist-dominated lower house of parliament elected earlier this year was dissolved based on a court order in June.

Violence in Cairo and other cities has plagued the run-up to the referendum. At least eight people were killed when rival camps clashed during demonstrations outside the presidential palace earlier this month.

In order to pass, the constitution must be approved by more than 50 percent of those casting ballots. There are 51 million eligible voters in the nation of 83 million.

Islamists have been counting on their disciplined ranks of supporters and on Egyptians desperate for an end to turmoil that has hammered the economy and sent Egypt’s pound to eight-year lows against the dollar.

The army deployed about 120,000 troops and 6,000 tanks and armored vehicles to protect polling stations and other government buildings. While the military backed Mubarak and his predecessors, it has not intervened in the present crisis.

(Additional reporting Yasmin Saleh and Marwa Awad; Writing by Edmund Blair and Giles Elgood; Editing by Tom Pfeiffer)

World News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Title Post: Egyptians hand Islamists narrow win in constitution vote
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