In brief: U.N. may approve full Syria mission

Beirut – The United Nations Security Council is expected to authorize deploying a full mission of 250 monitors to Syria after it takes up the issue today, but Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon questioned whether even that number would be sufficient.

“I think this is not enough, considering the current situation and considering the vastness of the country, and that is why we need very efficient mobility of our observer mission,” he said Tuesday.

He said he had discussed with European Union leaders whether the EU could provide helicopters and airplanes for that mobility.

Six members of a U.N. mission to monitor implementation of a peace plan began setting up headquarters in Syria on Monday, and 25 additional observers are expected to arrive in Damascus, the capital, in coming days.

Ban said U.N. military action was not under consideration.

Volcano alert level raised to fifth stage

Mexico City – Authorities in Mexico have raised the alert level for the Popocatepetl volcano southeast of Mexico City due to increasing activity. It’s now at the fifth step on a seven-level warning scale.

A lava dome is growing in the volcano’s crater, the National Disaster Prevention Center said Tuesday. The 17,886-foot volcano also has been spewing fragments of incandescent rock recently, as well as water vapor and ash.

The agency said the area has been closed to visitors and urged people to stay at least seven miles from the crater, which is about 40 miles southeast of Mexico’s capital.

The alert is now at the highest level of the yellow stage; the next stage is a red alert, which presumably would prompt evacuations to begin.

Panel upholds candidate ban

Cairo – Egypt’s election commission on Tuesday upheld a ban on the country’s three leading presidential candidates – a former spy chief, a Muslim Brotherhood stalwart and a right-wing cleric – in a decision that immediately triggered demonstrations by some furious supporters.

The dramatic winnowing of the presidential race has stunned Egyptians, deepened concern over security at the polls next month, and fueled nonstop jokes and cartoons. A headline that appeared in The Economist magazine summed up Egypt’s candidate crisis: “And then there were none.”

Omar Suleiman, who served for 18 years as Hosni Mubarak’s spy chief and worked closely with the CIA, was disqualified because of problems with his required endorsement signatures.

Muslim Brotherhood financier Khairat el-Shater was snagged by a Mubarak-era conviction that strips him of political rights even though he’s been pardoned.

And ultraconservative Islamist Hazem Salah Abu Ismail was cut because his mother was found to be a naturalized U.S. citizen, in violation of a law that says a candidate must have two Egyptian parents.

The remaining candidates – among them former Arab League chief Amr Moussa and the pro-reform Islamist Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh – had been viewed as weak and all but finished until the commission’s ruling.