Egypt reels from 'judicial coup' A protester shouts as he stands on top of a barricade in front of soldiers outside the Supreme Constitutional Court in Cairo Photograph: Suhaib Salem/Reuters 9.22am: Egypt: The court's rulings do not necessarily amount to a restoration of the ancien regime, according to Middle East analyst Juan Cole. He also sees some validity in the judges decision that the election of a third of MPs was unconstitutional because of the tactics of the Muslim Brotherhood. The electoral law had set aside a third of seats for independents, in an effort to avoid dominance of that body by well-organized remnants of the regime of deposed president Hosni Mubarak and by the even better-organized Muslim Brotherhood. In fact, many "independents" who ran and won had the backing of the parties, especially the Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party and the Salafi Nur Party. The court found that the parties had subverted the intent of the law, and in so doing had invalidated the entire elected parliament. It ordered that parliament be dissolved and new elections held. About 46% of seats in the parliament were held by the Muslim Brotherhood party, and another 24% were captured by the hard line fundamentalist Salafis. This outcome may well have been a fluke. Voters appear to have been trying to ensure that the Mubarak regime did not reestablish itself, so they put the fundamentalists in the parliament. But when the parliament predictably began making noises about banning alcohol and swimming suits, the public reaction was negative. While the fundamentalists will do well in any free and fair election, it is not clear that they can repeat their dominance of parliament so handily. There is certainly a case to be made that the Muslim Brotherhood behaved badly. Its leaders knew what they were doing when they ran candidates as "independents." Once it got a working majority in parliament, the Brotherhood gave every evidence of seeking to make itself the one party in a new one-party state. 9.10am: Syria: Government forces have used sexual violence to torture men, women, and children during the current conflict, witnesses and victims told Human Rights Watch. It documented over 20 specific incidents of sexual assault, five of which involved more than one victim. Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch, said: Sexual violence in detention is one of many horrific weapons in the Syrian government's torture arsenal and Syrian security forces regularly use it to humiliate and degrade detainees with complete impunity. The assaults are not limited to detention facilities - government forces and pro-government shabiha militia members have also sexually assaulted women and girls during home raids and residential sweeps. 9.00am: Syria: The UN monitors are the keepers of truth on the conflict in Syria, the head of UN's monitoring mission, Robert Mood, has claimed in a new video. He said the key to troubled mission was "building confidence and trust." Mood added: We are the owners of the factual picture from the ground. This factual voice from the ground with the Syrian people serves both the opposition and other elements in society. I'm still convinced this can pull Syria back from the brink. 8.26am: (all times BST) Welcome to Middle East Live. On the eve of the presidential election runoff the dust is yet to settle on Thursday's momentous court verdict. The highest court's decision to dissolve parliament and allow the army-backed candidate Ahmed Shafiq to stay in the presidential race has been denounced as a coup by opposition leaders. Mohamed ElBaradei, a former head of the United Nations nuclear agency, tweeted: The court's rulings pile confusion upon chaos, writes Ian Black. Just two days before the runoff round of an already polarised presidential election, an extraordinary twist has created profound new uncertainties. The most dramatic interpretation is that it spells a decisive victory for the forces of counter-revolution ... Shafiq's battle against Mohamed Morsi, the candidate of the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice party, has been dubbed a "nightmare scenario" by Egyptian commentators who see it as a throwback to the bad old days when the military-backed presidency was ranged against the world's oldest Islamist movement, with little else in the way of independent political forces between them. But the court's second ruling is far more volatile in its implications. The dissolution of the entire parliament - not just byelections for the third of MPs deemed to have been improperly elected - means that the Islamists who dominate it, from the Brotherhood and the hardline Salafi Nur party, will feel disenfranchised and cry foul. What was beginning to look like a coup in slow motion is no longer moving in slow motion, writes Egypt analyst Nathan Brown in Foreign Policy. The dispersal of parliament, the sudden constitutional vacuum, the Shafiq surge, the reversion of state-owned media, the revival of a key element of the state of emergency by a decree from an unaccountable justice minister - all these things point in one direction ... Democracy - in the sense of majority rule with minority rights - is now losing badly. A military coup has been in operation since February 2011, claims the high-profile activist Hossam El-Hamalawy in Jadaliyya. He calls on the revolutionary forces to organise, resolve their differences and fight back. This coming wave of repression will not finish off the revolution. Again, it will take several years for the dust to settle. The revolutionary camp lacks the essential tools to fight back, in other words, a national organization for the most advanced sections of the labour and youth movements, and a coherent united front that coordinates between the different revolutionary groups in the capital and the provinces. And in such tough times, when the counterrevolution is in full steam, the need for such an organization becomes more urgent. The Muslim Brotherhood's presidential candidate, Mohamed Morsi, claims he will serve the revolution if he is elected in this weekend's runoff. Writing in the Guardian he says: Egypt's constitutional court has invalidated the recent parliamentary election but has allowed Hosni Mubarak's former PM, Ahmed Shafiq, to continue to stand for president . As the only other remaining candidate, I alone represent an unequivocal departure from the old regime that was toppled by the revolution of 2011. I was nominated and elected by constituents - parties, groups, and individuals - who marched the streets of Egypt calling for change. I was jailed by the old regime. I belong to the middle classes that were sold out by the old establishment. I hold political and social views that are shared by many in our society but were suppressed or criminalised by the old regime. I understand the ambitions, values and standards held by many mainstream Egyptians. A Russian-made helicopter attacked a hospital in near Aleppo, according to an eyewitness account by the Times. As we witnessed for ourselves over three days this week, the regime's helicopters, artillery and tanks can still kill and terrify at will. Any doubt that the hospital - the best-equipped of its kind in the rebel-held areas of northern Syria, complete with four incubators for newborn babies, 25 beds and a surgical ward - had been the helicopter's intended target was dispelled 24 hours after the first attack. The US has acknowledged that Russian helicopters that Hillary Clinton claimed had been sent recently to the Syrian regime were, in fact, refurbished ones already owned by Damascus. State department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said: "Whether they are new or they are refurbished, the concern remains that they will be used for the exact same purpose that the current helicopters in Syria are being used, and that is to kill civilians." UN monitors reported the town of al-Haffeh deserted after the Syrian government claimed it had been cleansed of terrorists, the LA Times reports. The scene was darkly reminiscent of other former rebel enclaves that Syrian forces had managed to overrun after protracted shelling and clashes, from battered urban neighborhoods such as Homs' Bab Amro district to rubble-strewn hamlets such as Mazraat al Kabir, west of the city of Hama. Al-Haffeh has become the latest Syrian district transformed into a bleak and charred ghost. One of the nine doctors whose conviction for taking part in last year's protest was quashed on Thursday, has highlighted the plight of Ali al-Akri, a senior orthopedic surgeon, who along with eight others medics was not freed. Writing in Comment is Free, Nada Dhaif says: Far from the terror cell leader he has been branded, he was a passionate man. Always vocal, always the first to express disgust at the neglect inflicted upon those at the Pearl roundabout - to remonstrate with the authorities over a lack of ambulances. A natural leader. Clearly they wanted to single him out, he the troublemaker. The authorities have banned protests planned today by rival Islamist groups, in order to control some of the worst violence seen since last year's revolution, the BBC reports. The Ministry of Interior announced the ban in a statement.