In brief: Islamist parties win big in Egypt

CAIRO – Islamist parties won more than 60 percent of the vote in the first round of Egypt’s parliamentary elections, according to official results reported Sunday by state media.

The Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party won 36.6 percent and the Salafis of the Al Nour party won 24.4 percent of the 9.7 million votes cast. The Brotherhood’s dominance was expected, but the strong showing by the Salafis was a surprise, suggesting Egyptians were heavily influenced by the religious message and grass-roots organization of the Islamists.

If the trend continues in the second and third rounds, Islamists could control parliament.

But in recent days the Muslim Brotherhood has distanced itself from the puritanical Salafis, attempting to strike a moderate tone that could possibly persuade secular and centrist parties to join it in a coalition government. The secular Egyptian Bloc finished third in the voting with 1.29 million ballots. The Wafd Party and the relatively moderate Islamic party Al Wasat finished with fewer than 1 million voters each.

The official results showed just how thoroughly the young revolutionaries who plugged into social media to ignite a revolution that brought down Hosni Mubarak in February had failed to excite voters. They won no more than 336,000 votes.

The second stage of elections is scheduled for Dec. 14 and 15. The final round will take place Jan. 3 and 4.

Syria wants delay in observer deadline

BEIRUT – Syria on Sunday ignored another Arab League deadline to accept observers, saying it was still negotiating details of the mission to monitor a plan aimed at ending months of bloodshed.

Arab foreign ministers had warned that they would soon tighten sanctions against President Bashar Assad’s increasingly isolated regime unless a protocol for the observer mission was signed Sunday. Syrian officials maintain that they are committed to the league-negotiated plan signed last month but have expressed concerns about the number of monitors that would be deployed and how they would operate.

“Messages are being exchanged between Syria and the Arab League to reach a certain vision that would facilitate the mission of observers in Syria, while preserving Syrian interests and sovereignty,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Jihad Makdissi told reporters in Damascus.

Dominican-Haitian activist dies at 48

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic – Sonia Pierre, a human rights activist who bravely fought discrimination against poor Dominicans of Haitian descent since she was a child, died Sunday, according to colleagues. She was 48.

The renowned activist died outside of the municipality of Villa Altagracia while being rushed to a hospital after suffering a heart attack around noon Sunday, said Genaro Rincon, a lawyer who works with Pierre’s Dominican-Haitian Women’s Movement.

Pierre’s chronic heart troubles were first discovered in 2007 when she was in Washington to receive the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award honoring her work securing citizenship and education for Dominican-born ethnic Haitians.

Through the decades, her activism made her the target of threats in the Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti, but it earned her recognition from overseas as a fierce defender of human rights.