Egypt election result delay fuels coup fears 10.31am: Syria/Lebanon: The new leader of the opposition Syrian National Council, Abdulbaset Sieda, has urged Hezbollah to prepare for life without President Assad, NOW Lebanon reports. The Syrian and Iranian regimes are the Lebanese Shia organisation's main external backers. "[Hezbollah] needs to get ready for the period that follows the departure of this [Syrian] regime," Sieda told Voice of Lebanon radio station. Asked about Hezbollah's alleged involvement in the Syrian events, the SNC chief said: "We do not have [evidence] on this issue and we hope that we will not find any." Hezbollah is the Syrian regime's strongest ally in Lebanon and it spearheads the March 8 [government] coalition. 9.46am: Egypt: Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Right Watch has attacked Catherine Ashton, the EU's high representative for foreign affairs, over a statement she issued yesterday congratulating Egyptians "on a successful second round of the presidential election." On Twitter, Roth says it is "an extraordinarily weak statement" about the "quasi-coup" which doesn't even mention the Egyptian military. Describing the election as "a major step forward in the ongoing transition," Ashton's statement continues: She [Ashton] is, however, concerned about latest institutional developments surrounding the vote, in particular the dissolution of parliament and the constitutional declaration of 17 June, which seriously constrains the powers of the president, and creates uncertainties about the drafting of a new constitution. The high representative stresses the importance of democratic institutions, a representative constitutional process and a speedy handover. The transition must respect the Egyptian people's aspirations and demands for dignity, democracy and freedom. The high representative reiterates the EU's eagerness to engage with Egypt's democratically elected authorities. 9.36am: Syria: Residents in Homs claim the Syrian army is shelling central districts despite accepting a truce to allow the Red Cross to enter the city, Reuters reports. Waleed Fares, a resident of one neighbourhoods the ICRC was trying to enter, said shelling was heaviest at dawn on Thursday but there were signs the violence may be subsiding. Early this morning there was heavy shelling. Now I can hear one or two mortars fall every half an hour. It is quiet today compared to the past few days," he said, adding that two people had died in his neighbourhood of Khalidiya on Thursday. A another video feed on the live streaming site Bambuser showed smoke rising from buildings amid the sound of gunfire. Two people were killed and several injured in Homs today, according to an update from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. 9.07am: Syria: US state department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland confirmed that diplomatic efforts to resolve the crisis are centred on a possible deal to remove Assad from power. At a press briefing on Wednesday she said: We are focused very much on elevating that aspect of the Kofi plan that has not gotten enough attention, and that is the political transition aspect. The plan calls for a political transition. We need, as we've said for many, many weeks here - this can go well or it can go badly. The international community can help the Syrians to manage a transition to a post-Assad Syria that is democratic, that is inclusive, that preserves the best of Syrian society, Syrian institutions, that stops the bleeding, stops the damage, or this will continue to devolve into civil war, proxy war, et cetera. So we are working very intensively with Kofi Annan and his people, in the wake of the President's meeting with President Putin, Premier Hu Jintao, the others in Los Cabos, to try to turn that commitment to supporting a political transition into a real framework that the - that can take us where we need to go ... We are supportive of doing this meeting if it can make progress and specifically if it can make progress in shaping and framing a political transition process that can take us past the Assad regime and give Syrians of all stripes confidence in their future. So we're continuing to talk about what the elements of that might be. 8.28am: (all times BST) Welcome to Middle East Live. The delay in the presidential election results has added renewed uncertainty to Egypt's political crisis ahead of a planned protest against the military council. And as the fighting intensifies in Syria, world leaders haggle over a possible clemency deal for president Bashar al-Assad. Here's a summary of the latest developments: The election commission has delayed an announcement of the presidential election results while it considers appeals from the two candidates, both of whom claim to have won. The Muslim Brotherhood claims its candidate, Mohamed Morsi, won 13.2m votes, compared to Ahmed Shafiq's total 12.3m. A member of Shafiq's campaign, Tamir Wagih, told the Guardian that the Brotherhood's figures were based on incomplete results. The Muslim Brotherhood said the delay was unwarranted and claimed the military council was trying to secure an "alarming" backroom deal. Speaking to the BBC World Service, spokesman Jihad al-Haddad, said: There are efforts by intermediate parties who are trying to negotiate a settlement that the democratic forces in Egypt have to accept the dissolution of parliament in order for them to announce the result of the presidential election. This type of bidding is extremely threatening to the democratic transition. He added that even if Shafiq's complaints were entirely accepted and the Brotherhood's complaints entirely rejected, Morsi would still have won the election. The results are likely to be declared on Saturday or Sunday as the security services appear to be preparing for Shafiq to be declared the winner, according to Jadaliyya. Security sources say they are working on a 'Plan B,' in which Shafiq would be declared president. "We're bracing for a major wave of rioting and unrest for at least two days, which could be incited by the Muslim Brotherhood after Shafiq is announced president," the security source said. The Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafis Nour Party have warned of a another revolution against the military council's decision to grant itself sweeping new powers, according to the Egypt Independent. They have called on Egyptians to go to Tahrir Square on Friday and take part in the "Return of Legitimacy" demonstration. Egypt's official news agency Mena is facing widespread criticism after reporting that former president Hosni Mubarak was 'clinically dead', the Egypt Independent reports. The BBC network asked Mahmoud al-Shenawy, deputy editor of MENA, to confirm the procedures taken by the agency to verify the news of Mubarak's near-death. Shenawy replied that MENA decided to publish the news at the editor's discretion, without following the usual methods of verifying information via independent sources, and relying on testimony from unverified anonymous sources. Britain and America are willing to offer President Bashar al-Assad, safe passage - and even clemency - as part of a diplomatic push to convene a UN-sponsored conference in Geneva on political transition in Syria. In public Russian president Vladimir Putin has stated that no country has the right to tell Syria who its president should be. But in private talks at the G20 in Mexico, David Cameron and Barack Obama received enough encouragement from Putin to pursue the idea of a negotiated transition in Syria. The proposed deal is a long shot that smacks of desperation, but nothing else is working, writes Ian Black. British officials see some slim possibility that Russia, keen on that Yemeni parallel, will now help pressure Assad - though it has conspicuously failed to do so so far. Moscow, still smarting over Libya, has balked at anything that smacks of "regime change" though it would be hard to attach that label to something that was agreed by Syrians under an international umbrella. The other very obvious snags are that Assad looks unlikely to bite while even the most pragmatic of his opponents - their numbers dwindling as the crisis deepens - would find it hard to believe he will negotiate in good faith. In an increasingly sectarian atmosphere, the president's departure would not solve the problem of his closest advisers and cronies as well as the wider Alawite community which dominates the security forces and fears revenge by the Sunni majority. Kofi Annan will probably back this idea because pronouncing his peace plan dead would be too dangerous. But the bitter truth is almost all parts of it have been ignored. The International Committee of the Red Cross said it had received assurances from the Syrian government and opposition forces on a plan for a temporary truce to evacuate those trapped and injured by the violence in Homs, the LA Times reports. But reports from pro-opposition activists in Homs indicated that the government had continued shelling, clashes were ongoing and there was no sign of a relief operation. Rebels were also reportedly on the offensive, seeking to reoccupy the battered Baba Amr district. David Cameron considered ordering British special forces to board and impound a ship suspected of carrying refurbished Russian helicopter gunships to Syria, according to the Telegraph. Cobra, the government's emergency security committee, met several times as the MV Alaed approached British waters. With the United States placing pressure on Britain to halt the vessel, the prime minister was regularly briefed on the situation. It is understood that he was presented with several options including a military seizure of the ship. Avoiding a confrontation that could have damaged already strained ties with Russia, the government instead took action to ensure that the Alaed's insurance cover was withdrawn. Prosecutors in Bahrain have charged 11-year-old Ali Hasan with taking part in an illegal gathering, which could see him sent to jail. He already spent a nearly a month in a juvenile detention after being accused of helping protesters block a street, before being released last week to await trial. He told the Guardian he was merely playing with friends in the street and had nothing to do with the protests. Britain is being urged to deny entry to the head of Bahrain's Olympic committee - the son of the king - on the grounds of alleged involvement in serious human rights violations. Prince Nasser bin Hamad Al Khalifa is claimed to have been "personally engaged" in beating, flogging and kicking pro-democracy protesters. Kuwait is on the "brink of political meltdown" after the constitution court dissolve the Islamist-dominated parliament elected in February and reinstated the previous national assembly, according to Kristian Coates Ulrichsen research fellow at LSE. Writing in Foreign Policy magazine he said: There is a danger that the opposition will respond to the voiding of the election by urging its supporters to once again take to the streets. Individual (now-ex) MPs threatened to do precisely this even before the brazenly provocative judgement of the Constitutional Court deprived them of their parliamentary success. Having witnessed how the mobilization of tens of thousands of supporters effectively forced the Emir's hand last November, an emboldened opposition may well attempt to repeat the trick this time around.