Partial presidential vote recount starts

Elections officials on Wednesday began recounting nearly 12,000 disputed ballots from July’s presidential election while supporters of second-place finisher Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador expanded their civil disobedience campaign to a blockade of three bank buildings.

The recount was ordered last week by a seven-judge tribunal that has the final say over election matters. They must declare a new president within a month, or throw out the results of the July 2 election.

Lopez Obrador and his lawyers filed appeals to the Federal Electoral Tribunal shortly after the election, claiming errors and fraud steered the election to Felipe Calderon, who won by less than a percentage point. Lopez Obrador has since waged a campaign of civil disobedience to support his demand for a national recount.

The tribunal appeared to close the door on a full recount Saturday, after justices said the law allows the recounting of ballots only at polling stations that appeared to have made arithmetic errors or show other irregularities.

Lopez Obrador so far has offered no proof of fraud.

Geneva

$500 million gift to battle AIDS

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation took its support of AIDS-related research and care to a new level Wednesday, announcing a $500 million grant to an international fund that provides AIDS assistance in poor countries.

The Geneva-based Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria will receive the grant over five years.

The gift follows the $150 million that the charity already has given since the Global Fund was created four years ago, and the additional $287 million the foundation announced last month to speed development of an AIDS vaccine.

The announcement comes as nearly 25,000 scientists, advocates and policymakers prepare to meet in Toronto this weekend for the 16th International AIDS Conference.

Moscow

Russian convicted as spy for Britain

A military court on Wednesday gave a 13-year prison sentence to a retired Russian colonel who reportedly helped British intelligence unmask dozens of Russian agents.

Sergei Skripal was found guilty of passing along state secrets to Britain, said Anton Yeliseyev, an official at the Moscow District Military Court.

The 55-year-old Skripal was ordered to spend his prison term in a high-security penal camp. His case was this year’s second espionage case in Russia involving Britain.

The newspaper Izvestia reported Wednesday that Skripal was charged with spying for Britain’s MI6 foreign intelligence agency.

Skripal was accused of working over a period of several years for MI6 and of revealing the names of several dozen Russian agents working in Europe, Izvestia reported.

Officials said Skripal’s spying had seriously disrupted Russian espionage activities.

In Britain, a Foreign Office spokesman said the office did not comment on intelligence matters.