Live updates from the Middle East

. the Syrian security forces and opposition battle with RPG

Preferred . former senior Assad says he wants to defect

. Voting begins in the second round of elections in Egypt

. Egyptian blogger sentenced to two years in prison

. Read the latest summary

4:55 p.m.

This video, presented on the website of the local coordination of the Commission, aims to show the tanks in the streets of Hama .

Its authenticity could not be verified.

4:39 p.m.

Syrian troops, backed by tanks stormed the city of Hama, killing at least 10 people, Reuters reports .

In the first tank raid armor Hama from an offensive in August over major events in the center of the city, the troops entered the neighborhoods north and east of the river Orontes, which through the town, 240 km (150 miles) north of Damascus, machine guns shooting and looting and burning shops closed, the activists said.

civilian casualties occurred in the district of Hamidiya. The insurgents tried to stop the advancing forces on the bridge of Zaha Hadid and two armored vehicles were destroyed militants have contact with residents, he said.

@ CFKlebergTT

Swedish journalist has published this Tweet:

heavy gunfire and "many wounded" that the Syrian regime is intensifying # # the violent repression of Hama, I say the activists. They broke into several neighborhoods.

4:26 p.m.

A group of women held a judge hostage Giza after accusing him of fraud votes, according to a lively, but not confirmed the almasryalyoum. com.

5:00 p.m. An update on the site of election day live blog says:

A group of women voters in the polls keep al-Dur Shagaret Giza school counselor Abdel Fattah al-Gazzar, a supervisor in charge of election committees 195 and 160 of the school, accusing him of fraud votes for an independent candidate.

voters get the police and armed forces to show evidence, and demand that the judge in charge of the election committee will be convened.

Gazzar voters hostage for nearly an hour until the general chairman of the committee closes the electoral commission. Gazzar and the commission staff were interviewed. Voters say they have found a number of ballots pre-marked for an independent candidate.

15:50:

Six Jewish extremists were arrested following a series of attacks against mosques and Israeli military bases, the AP reports.

police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said they were arrested today in a raid on an apartment in a religious neighborhood of Jerusalem. The raid came hours after an arson damaged a mosque in Jerusalem night.

Rosenfeld said the suspects appeared to be teens and 20, were arrested in connection with "recent events", but is not suspected of involvement in the attack the mosque.

Barrio residents taunted police, Slashing tires a police car and smashed the windshield that the suspects were taken.

3:31 p.m.

polling stations in several Egyptian governorates

voices of today we are witnessing a heavy police presence, with the soldiers tear campaign posters and patrols queues.

This picture, taken by journalist @ heba_afahmy, showing two trucks parked outside the school Samy El Barooder Suez.

Fahmy reports that the army was trying to restrict media access to polling booths. This type of effort has also been reported by other journalists who say that their time inside the stations was very limited.

The media, however, give an interesting insight into the diversity of the vote of opinion and the polls showed today. Here is a selection of tweets.

FarahSaafan

speaks of two to a man who uses two votes for the National Development Plan and is now boycotting ELEX becuz all new candidates the "boiled eggs" - useless! # Egyelections

heba_afahmy

Two Copts @ Ahmed Shawki school woman told me they were called atheist and encourages other Muslim women In 2 vote 4 # Suez Nour

SafaaAbdoun

you can not imagine how many women told me that this is the first time that two votes, the oldest interviewee # 45 egyelections

Omniaaldesoukie

My driver Toktok

Islamist attacks and say they do not know how to talk about their religion do not necessarily know how to talk about politics.

15:13:

This attack against an army of near Hama in Syria was in retaliation for the deaths of five men Khattab, according to the New York Times.

At least eight soldiers were killed said.

Meanwhile, the state news agency Sana said that seven soldiers.

say. "The martyrs were targeted by terrorist groups armed on duty in Homs, Hama and Dara"

2:58 p.m.:.

Reuters has more time editor Rick Stengel on the choice of the demonstrator as a person the magazine of the year

there a turning point for global frustration? Everywhere, it seems, people said they were tired. Disagreement requires, but do not despair, even when the answers came back in a cloud of tear gas or a hail of bullets. They literally embodied the idea that individual action can have a collective change, colossal.

14:30:

Time magazine called "protesters" as Person of the Year.

uprisings in the Middle East appear to have greatly influenced their choice, but also cites the squat movement, austerity protests in Europe and even riots in England after reading the Guardians of the riots of research .

In early August, after the London police killed a young black man who was arrested, riots broke out in England. Naturally, the rioters' resort to violence attracts instant little sympathy. However, a new three-month study by The Guardian and The London School of Economics found that these demonstrators demonstrators were also motivated by the anger of poverty, unemployment and inequality as well as overly aggressive police.

Kurt Anderson explains the choice of this video.

finalists included Kate Middleton and Ai Weiwei.

1:57 p.m.

unknown arsonists set fire to a mosque in Jerusalem

, inactive, prompting calls for Israel to a more effective suppression of Jewish extremists suspected a series of violent acts increasingly brazen, reports the AP.

The Israeli government has promised to find and punish the perpetrators, which in recent months have expanded their activities from the West Bank into Israel. His actions now include arson and vandalism against the Israeli military bases, as well as mosques, cemeteries, fields and cars, and occasional attacks on Palestinian civilians.

An attack on a Muslim site in Jerusalem, the disputed holy city in the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict raises issues even more.

The mosque was used as a place of worship for some time, police said, and is outside the borough Old particularly sensitive. However, any attack against a Muslim place of worship is seen as a unique challenge.

The words "price" were painted in the mosque for a handy reference on Jewish extremists "of government action against the colonies demanding retribution. Against Muslims in the graffiti as" Mohammed is dead "and" An Arab is a good dead Arab "was also scrawled on the site.

1:31 p.m.

A specialist in renewable energy and long-suffering former dissident who spent 15 years in prison for Ben Ali, was a appointed the new Chief Minister of Tunisia.

pressure problems

Hamadi Jebali, secretary general of the moderate Islamist party An-Nahda, now has three weeks to form the interim government is to come, but this is provided at the end of the week because of that in the country, according to AP.

The 62, who spent over a decade of isolation in the 1990s, refers to the kind of policy of moderate Islam in an interview in Le Monde before the elections in in October.

whether Tunisia has become "an Islamic country", he said:

If we win the elections, Tunisia is an Islamic country, it will be a democratic country. This means that we will respect the foundations of the rule of law, where all freedoms are respected ...

asked if he believed that men and women are equal and have equal rights in all areas, he said:

Absolutely, and unequivocally. I think the Tunisian society has reached a certain level of culture and society where women occupy a privileged position in Nahda, strengthen and promote the rights of women.

13:25:

Hama

activist fears that the army is preparing to launch a coordinated assault to try to end the insurgency after troop reinforcements to assist in the city.

Speaking via Skype

Hama, Walid, a provider of 31 years said:

recent days began to bring more troops and tanks around and Hama Hama. We do not know exactly what is happening, but there are more forces to come.

heard other militants in Idlib and Homs that more reinforcements and tanks to get to their fields. We expect an attack on three areas of Idlib, Homs and Hama.

Waled

told the Guardian that although he was afraid of what would happen, the opposition was too strong to stop.

Hama attacked before and it did not end the protests and opposition in the city. In Homs and Deraa is the same. I do not think the government is successful. We are in this area, Homs and Hama, that all people are opposed to the government. They can not kill all the people.

we fear these reinforcements, we believe lead to more deaths and more arrests, but we believe that the Arab and Western countries sympathize with us and believe in freedom and democratic rights of the Syrians. I hope you support us more.

Walid said that the Syrian army and more free active around Hama, but not strong enough to take power from the regular army.

Defected

troops tried to store protected by the army attacked after being closed as part of a national strike, he said.

"Sometimes the protection of the city, sometimes to leave the city," he said.

He said that the FSA has been strong in rural areas, but not in the city. They have lots of weapons, including RPG, but not tanks, he said.

Many shops and offices are closed in the city as part of the campaign to strike, says Walid. Even government offices are closed despite the threat by the mayor to take revenge on the "traitors" involved in the strike, he said.

Waled

also confirmed reports that five people were killed in an attack on a car near the town of Khattab. He says all the dead were men between 23 and 40, when a tank fired at their vehicles.

"They were civilians, two of them were employed in Khattab," he said.

said the motive for the attack is unclear.

Sometimes when [security forces] are beginning to lose patience down everything, especially youth groups that seem suspicious. Maybe they were asked to stop and did not.

said he had not heard of reports that the soldiers had deserted the regular army soldiers killed near Hama.

1:17 p.m.

What is the Arabic for "a good day to bury bad news

An Egyptian military court today condemned Maikel Nabil Sanad, a blogger accused of insulting the army, two years in prison, according to Noor Ayman Nour militant advocacy group No military trials for civilians .

Almasryalyoum.com reports:

The verdict pronounced by the Supreme Court of Military Appeals, following a call of a previous decision that sentenced Nabil to three years in prison. Since this is a military trial, the verdict is final once again.

Charges Nabil include insulting the armed forces, the publication of false news and interests of public safety.

Nabil has been on hunger strike for 113 days to protest against his arrest and trial and survived in the water and milk.

Blogger

26 years, has also refused to apologize to Marshal Hussein Tantawi, Chief of the decision of the Supreme Council of Egyptian armed forces.

Sanad, including Amnesty International has declared a prisoner of conscience, was sentenced after writing a blog post in March titled "The army and people has never been a hand 's' questioning the role of the military revolution and condemning his inauguration.

As a journalist Adam Makary observations, the new sentence is unlikely that much turmoil today, as I would have done anywhere else.

MaikelNabil spent 9 months in prison and more than 100 days of hunger strike. # With the elections in Egypt, his prison sentence will not be a news story.

13:00:

time for a summary of the lunch hour.

Syria

The spiral of violence of the conflict showed today in Hama province, in a deadly attack on a civilian vehicle by the troops of the regime was followed by a revenge ambush that killed eight soldiers loyal activists say.

In the first incident, troops killed five passengers in a car when they opened fire on the vehicle in the village of Khattab and blew up "in a ball of fire," said Rami Abdul-Rahman, Director of the Syrian Britain based on human rights. (Other activists reported the death toll equal circumstances, but different, see 24:02).)

• few hours later, gunmen believed to be deserters from the army ambushed a convoy of jeeps on the outskirts of the city of Hama and killed eight soldiers, said Abdul-Rahman. He said it was apparently a retaliatory attack by the car. It was the second consecutive day that the attack by government forces against the civilian population seems to have brought a quick and deadly act of revenge by fighters against the regime, told AP.
• despite the escalating violence, everyone is talking about military intervention in Syria forget
• according to the International Crisis Group. In an opinion piece in Le Figaro today, analyst Peter Harling warns that despite the brutality of this regime in Damascus in the world with a great dilemma, any option that includes the foreign interference in the country, the military action, especially the risk of aggravating the situation by exacerbating regional tensions. (See 11:24.)

former ambassador

U. S.

Syria was published in China, according to press reports quoted by the Xinhua News Agency Syrian China.

was told al-Watan reported that President Bashar al-Assad issued a decree naming Imad Moustapha, former Syrian ambassador to the United States as ambassador to China.

Egypt

The second round of voting began in the parliamentary elections in Egypt that Islamist parties are trying to make more profits at the expense of secular forces in the country.

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