Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images(CAIRO) -- For the most part, things went very smoothly during the first day of Egypt's presidential elections as voters made their picks for the person they want to run their country after Hosni Mubarak's 30 years of authoritarian rule ended with his resignation in February 2011.

Those who didn't get around to casting their ballots will be back on Thursday for round two of the voting.

Amr Moussa, a one-time Arab League chief, and Abdel Moneim Abol Fotouh, a former member of the Muslim Brotherhood, are considered frontrunners in the election.

If no candidate wins more than 50 percent, a runoff vote will be held on June 16 and 17, with Egypt's next president formally named four days later.

Meanwhile, at least one presidential hopeful got an idea Wednesday that he might have a hard time wining after being pelted with rocks and shoes when he went to vote at a Cairo polling station.

Former Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq, who served under Mubarak, is a polarizing figure in Egypt, to say the least, with supporters of the old guard behind him.  Many Egyptians blame Shafiq for being partially responsible for the hundreds who lost their lives during the three weeks of demonstrations that led to Mubarak's ouster.

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iStockphoto/Thinkstock(ISLAMABAD) -- At least 10 alleged militants were killed Thursday in a drone strike in northwest Pakistan, according to local officials.

Two missiles were fired on a compound in the Mir Ali area of North Waziristan.

Thursday's attack comes one day after Pakistan sentenced Dr. Shakil Afridi to 33 years in prison for helping the CIA gather information on Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad.

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Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- The commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan issued a strong recommendation Wednesday that in order for coalition troops to be on schedule for their 2014 withdrawal, "significant firepower" will be needed to combat enemy fighters starting next year.

Gen. John Allen, who is rumored to be leaving his post sometime in 2013, stressed, "We're going to need combat power.  I don't think anyone questions that.  I owe the president some real analysis on this."

Allen will have plenty to analyze as he completes the planned drawdown of surge troops that President Obama ordered two years ago.  By the end of this summer, the goal is to reduce American boots on the ground in Afghanistan by 33,000 to a level of around 68,000.

Once that's finished, Allen will start figuring out how to remove the rest of U.S. soldiers over the following two years without compromising the mission in Afghanistan, which is to train Afghan forces to assume all security responsibilities while keeping the gains made against the Taliban.

Allen asserted, "It is not our intention to cede the ground, ultimately, to the Taliban.  And, in fact, it's not even clear that the Taliban have the capacity to flow in" to regions that coalition and forces now control.

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SAUL LOEB/AFP/GettyImages(WASHINGTON) -- The Obama administration’s making a big push this year for the Senate to ratify the Law of the Sea Convention, which was agreed to in 1994 signed by 160 countries.  The U.S. took a leadership role in crafting the treaty that guarantees maritime passage and clarifies territorial boundaries off the world’s coastlines.  But the Senate’s never ratified the treaty thanks to the concerns from some conservatives that the treaty will restrict American sovereignty.
 
That’s why the administration’s big three national security officials (Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey) testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Wednesday to lobby for the Senate to ratify the bill this year.  The administration’s efforts have everything to do with the strategic pivot to Asia that it’s undertaken.  Panetta and Clinton argued that the U.S. is at a disadvantage when it comes to trying to have China ease up on its territorial ambitions in the waters of the South China Sea, that their arguments are weakened by the fact that the U.S. is not a signatory to the treaty.  
 
Though there’s a lot of support in the Senate to finally ratify the treaty, there are still some conservative holdouts, some of whom made their case at Wednesday’s hearing.   
 
Committee chairman Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., said Wednesday that he was going to take the politics out of ratifying the treaty by saying he would not bring the treaty to a vote in the full Senate until after the presidential election in November.
 
The Big Three all made arguments Wednesday about how the treaty would have great economic benefits for big oil companies and would not weaken America’s national security interests.  It was a very well coordinated series of remarks with Clinton and Panetta trying to shoot down opponents of the treaty whom they said were relying on incorrect information and “mythology."
 
Treaty opponent Sen. Jim Risch, R-Idaho, noted how the economic arguments in favor of the treaty used by Clinton and Panetta relied heavily on oil exploration of America’s continental shelf.  He called the comments ironic given what he perceived as the administration’s lack of support for drilling by big oil companies.
 
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SAUL LOEB/AFP/GettyImages(TAMPA, Fla.) -- In a rare glimpse into cyber warfare tactics, a top U.S. official has explicitly acknowledged that the U.S. government hacked into websites run by al Qaeda’s affiliate in Yemen, changing advertisements that boasted about killing Americans into advertisements that underscored the deaths of Muslim civilians in al Qaeda terror attacks.

During her keynote speech at the Special Operations Command gala dinner in Tampa, Fla., Wednesday night, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that State Deptartment specialists attacked sites tied to al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) that were trying to recruit new members by “bragging about killing Americans.”

“Within 48 hours, our team plastered the same sites with altered versions of the ads that showed the toll al Qaeda attacks have taken on the Yemeni people,” said Clinton. “We can tell our efforts are starting to have an impact because extremists are publicly venting their frustration and asking supporters not to believe everything they read on the Internet.”

It had been suspected that the U.S. government played some role in shutting down several jihadi Web forums earlier this year, but officials from the CIA and counterterrorism community had previously denied any involvement.

Highlighting the government’s use of “smart power” to fight extremists, Clinton said that military and civilian specialists around the world are focused on pre-empting, discrediting, and outmaneuvering extremist propaganda. Calling them “a digital outreach team,” Clinton said the specialists are fluent in Urdu, Arabic and Somali. The group is “already patrolling the Web and using social media and other tools to expose al Qaeda’s contradictions and abuses, including its continuing brutal attacks on Muslim civilians.”

Secretary Clinton also said that under her tenure the State Department has become more active in working with the Defense Department and the intelligence community to use diplomacy as a tool to fight terrorism of all forms and extremist propaganda.

The Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations, according to Clinton, was created to find ways for civilian diplomats and experts to better aid military operations in hot spots. Clinton said the bureau sent a team of experts ahead of the Special Operations mission in Central Africa to talk to village leaders and rebels who would be open to defecting or helping the U.S. find the warlord Joseph Kony.

Clinton said the State Department’s Counterterrorism Bureau is currently spearheading a diplomatic campaign around the world working with local governments and leaders to squeeze any funding venues for al Qaeda and its affiliates.  She said the State Department trains nearly 7,000 police, prosecutors and counterterrorism officials from more than 60 countries.

“We’re expanding our work with civil society organizations in specific terrorist recruiting hot spots -- particular villages, prisons, and schools -- to disrupt the process of radicalization by creating jobs, promoting religious tolerance, and amplifying the voices of victims of terrorism,” said Clinton.
 
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iStockphoto/Thinkstock(LONDON) -- Iranian dissidents have long suspected that the country's Islamist regime has used the cover of its not-so-covert war with Israel to crack down on internal opponents, and that a leading Iranian nuclear scientist whose death was blamed on Mossad might really have been killed by his own government.

Now a prominent opposition blogger based in London says that discrepancies in the recent trial and execution of the "Israeli spy" officially charged with killing scientist Masoud Ali Mohammadi are yet more evidence that Iranian intelligence agents may have been the real assassins.

Mohammadi, a nuclear physicist, died in January 2010 when a motorcycle parked outside his house was detonated by remote control when he walked past.

A half-dozen scientists and officials linked to the nation's nuclear and long-range missile programs have died under suspicious circumstances since 2010, deaths the Iranian regime usually blames on Israel, the U.S., and the U.K. When Mohammadi died, the regime immediately blamed his murder on a "triangle of wickedness," meaning the U.S., Israel and their "hired agents."

"Zionists did it," said President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. "They hate us and they don't want us to progress." Ali Larjani, chairman of the Iranian parliament, said the government had "clear information that the intelligence regime of the Zionist regime and the CIA wanted to implement terrorist acts."

But Western intelligence agencies had conflicting information about whether Mohammadi, a particle physicist, was really contributing to the nuclear program. Iranian dissidents, meanwhile, said Mohammadi had been killed by the regime because he was a supporter of reformist candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, whom many believe actually won the 2009 Iranian presidential election before vote-tampering handed the victory to Ahmadinejad. A German-based opposition group released a photo of an alleged Arab hitman who had supposedly carried out Mohammadi's assassination on regime orders.

At Mohammadi's funeral, hundreds of regime loyalists waving anti-Israel banners packed the procession, where they clashed with supporters of Mousavi's Green Movement.

More than two years later, on May 15, 2012, the Iranian government executed 24-year-old Majid Jamali Fashi, who had been convicted of assassinating Mohammadi.

Iranian authorities claimed that Fashi, 24, was recruited and trained by Mossad and was paid $120,000 to kill Mohammadi. In January 2011, Iranian media had broadcast Fashi's confession, in which he said he "received different training including chasing, running, counter-chasing and techniques for planting bombs in a car" while in Tel Aviv. Fashi also confessed to receiving forged travel documents in Azerbaijan to travel to Israel, Iran's Press TV reported.

In a blog post Monday, however, London-based dissident Potkin Azarmehr pointed out that the Israeli passport displayed by Iranian television was stamped 2003, when Fashi was 15 years old, but bore the photo of a hirsute man in his 20s who is not looking directly into the camera. "No passport will be issued with such a picture, anywhere in the world," wrote Azarmehr. "You need a headshot where you are open-eyed AND looking into the camera."

Azarmehr believes that Fashi is not a Mossad agent and may never have been executed. In earlier posts, Azarmehr noted that Fashi showed no fear in a video allegedly recorded right before his execution, and that the only official photo taken of him after his hanging shows him from far away. The Iranian regime is not squeamish about showing clear pictures of convicts after their executions.

Other news outlets that have reported Azarmehr's suspicions, however, have focused on the alleged forgery of the passport. The Dubai-based news channel al-Arabiya claims that the passport displayed on Iranian television has a misplaced passport number and design features that indicate it dates from the 1990s. One blogger found a facsimile of an Israeli passport with the same dates and city of origin on Wikipedia and alleges that Fashi's passport is simply a crude copy. All the blacked-out areas on the Wikipedia image appear as blanks on Fashi's alleged passport.

The U.S. and the U.K. have denied any involvement in the deaths of Iranian nuclear scientists, while the Israeli government has declined to comment.

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AFP/AFP/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- The Pakistani doctor who aided American intelligence in its mission to kill Osama bin Laden has been convicted of high treason in his home country and sentenced to 33 years in prison plus a fine, Pakistani officials said Wednesday.

Shakil Afridi ran a vaccination program on behalf of the CIA near the al Qaeda leader's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in an attempt to collect DNA from bin Laden's relatives and verify that America's most wanted terrorist was indeed in the compound. On May 2, 2011, a team of U.S. Navy SEALs raided the compound and killed bin Laden.

Afridi's role, first reported by the New York Times in July 2011, was publicly confirmed by U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta in January when he told CBS News' 60 Minutes he was "very concerned" for Afridi.

"This was an individual who in fact helped provide intelligence that was very helpful with regards to this operation," Panetta, who was head of the CIA at the time of the operation, said then. "He was not in any way treasonous towards Pakistan, he was not doing anything that would in any way undermine Pakistan... Pakistan and the United States have a common cause against terrorism."

"For them to take this kind of action against someone who was helping to go after terrorism I just think is a real mistake on their part," he added.

One nurse who worked with Afridi but was unaware of the CIA plot and lost her job after the incident told ABC News that she considered him a traitor to Pakistan.

"It's good. He should be publicly hanged," the nurse said. "We do not consider him a hero. He is a traitor, a liar and a fraud. He deceived everyone."

Sources at the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad said Wednesday the State Department considers Afridi's case "an intelligence-related matter," and as such declined to comment. In the past, senior officials there have said they raise Afridi's case with the Pakistani's "all the time."

Wednesday, one diplomatic official admitted the verdict didn't come as a total surprise, saying "we knew they were going to hammer this guy for quite some time."

The conviction follows an October 2011 recommendation by the Pakistani commission set up to investigate the bin Laden raid that a case of "conspiracy against the state of Pakistan and high treason" be built against Afridi.

The doctor was convicted under Frontier Crimes Regulations, a separate set of laws from common Pakistani law that are enforced in Pakistan's semiautonomous tribal region. Though the FCR has reportedly come under fire from rights groups for alleged deficiencies in its legal process, a local lawyer told Pakistan's Dawn newspaper that had Afridi been convicted under Pakistani legal code, he would likely have been sentenced to death.

Afridi was taken to a prison in the central Peshawar region, but has the right to appeal the verdict, Dawn reported.

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Sampson, a 9-year-old fox terrier, died of kidney failure in January. His owners blame his death on Chinese jerky treats. (Courtesy Terry Safranek)(NEW YORK) -- Just six months after issuing its latest warning about chicken jerky dog treats made in China, the Food and Drug Administration confirms it has logged more than 900 complaints from pet owners who say their dogs either were sickened or died after eating the treats.

The number of complaints has nearly doubled since the story was first reported by ABC News in March. The FDA says its investigation is ongoing and that it continues to test samples of the popular treats, which dog owners across the country say have caused kidney failure in their pets, resulting in severe illness or death.

Consumers have largely blamed two brands for the reported illnesses. Waggin' Train and Canyon Creek Ranch, both produced by Nestle Purina and made in China, are reportedly included in the samples being tested by the FDA. The agency told ABC News it has solicited samples of treats from the owners of the pets allegedly affected, but will not say whether it is tested those samples. To date, the FDA has not been able to determine a cause for the reported illnesses.

The FDA issued its first warning about chicken jerky treats from China in 2007 and again in 2008, both times based on consumer complaints. But it wasn't until a third warning -- in late 2011 -- that the momentum of complaints accelerated as an angry population of pet owners demanded to know what in the Chinese treats might be sickening their dogs.

"It's hard to believe that we're still fighting the same battle," said Terry Safranek, whose 9-year old Fox Terrier named Sampson died of kidney failure in January.

"The last thing that he ate and then threw up was the chicken jerky," said Safranek. "It kills me that the treats I fed him killed him."

Safranek is a member of a Facebook group called "Animal Parents Against Pet Treats Made In China," which has grown to 4,500 members and includes hundreds of photos of dogs whose owners claim were sickened or died from chicken jerky treats.

"We're just the ones who are online. There literally could be tens of thousands of people whose dogs were affected," said Safranek.

The group also keeps its own spreadsheet of victims, ranging from a 1-year old, five-pound Chihuahua named Kiarra to a 111-pound German Shepherd named Floyd.

"The problem with the issue is getting the word out," said Dr. Richard Goldstein, Chief of Medicine at The Animal Medical Center in New York City. Goldstein has been studying the connection between pet illnesses and chicken jerky treats made in China since 2007 and says although deaths have been rare in his experience, it's still crucial to seek veterinary care if a dog shows symptoms such as vomiting or lethargy.

"These are still on the shelves and cases are still popping up," said Goldstein, urging pet owners to be vigilant.

The issue has gained attention in Washington, and Sen. Sherrod Brown, D.-Ohio, who has been urging Congress to look closely at products coming from China, recently blasted the head of the FDA over the issue. At a Senate Appropriations hearing in April, Brown told Dr. Margaret Hamburg he was concerned that pet owners were still buying the treats, unaware they may possibly be tainted. "The FDA must be as aggressive as possible to find the source of this contamination," he said later in a press release.

A spokesperson for Nestle Purina told ABC News in March that the safety of pets is the company's utmost priority and that production of the treats in China is held to the highest quality and safety standards. Nestle Purina has not been named in any of the FDA warnings and the company points out that reported illnesses may be the result of eating things other than the chicken treats. "We've looked at this, and we continue to look at this," Keith Schopp told ABC News.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

Karen Sutton - Limelight Marketing/Getty Images(LONDON) -- Stuntman Gary Connery plummeted from 2,400 feet — without a parachute — and landed completely unscathed in the middle of more than 18,000 cardboard boxes in Buckinghamshire, England, Wednesday.

Connery became the first person to jump out of an aircraft wearing only a wingsuit and land without a parachute, the jump organizers said.

After exiting the helicopter, Connery, 42, reached speeds of 80 mph and then slowed to 50 mph before hitting the boxes. The jump lasted about 50 seconds.

“I feel incredible, just completely elated,” said Connery. “I have been training and planning for this record attempt for many years now, and I am so proud to have achieved a world first.”

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John Moore/Getty Images(CAIRO) -- Long lines snaked out of polling stations across Egypt Wednesday morning as Egyptians went to cast their ballots in the country's first presidential election since President Hosni Mubarak was ousted last February. 

The sunny day was reflected in the attitudes of the voters who waited happily and calmly, often for hours, to cast their ballots for the 13 candidates running.

"I think everyone's upbeat, everyone's looking forward to the future," said Mohammed Kamel, the CEO of real estate development firm who was waiting to vote at a school in Giza.  "The country's sort of been on hold for the past 15 months, everyone's looking for stability."

The faces of the candidates stared out from campaign posters lining Cairo's congested streets.  Voters studied registration lists on walls to figure out where to go as soldiers and police kept the lines at polling stations moving as swiftly as they could.  Turnout was expected to top 60 percent among Egypt's 50 million voters.

Polling in the country has been inconsistent and is generally unreliable, but at least four frontrunners have emerged in the race to replace Mubarak and send the military, which has been ruling the country, back to their barracks.  They include Mubarak's former foreign minister, Amr Moussa; a former Muslim Brotherhood official, Abdel Moneim Abul Fotouh; Mubarak's last prime minister, Ahmed Shafiq; and the Muslim Brotherhood candidate, Mohammed Morsi.

Many Cairo voters on Wednesday also expressed support for liberal candidate Hamdeen Sabbahi.  If no candidate gets 50 percent in the first round, the top two candidates will face each other in a run-off in mid-June.

Aside from the big question of who will be president, equally pressing are the questions of what his powers will be -- given that a new constitution has not yet been written -- and how prominent the role of the military will be.

But those concerns seemed to take a back seat to the significance of the day as the voters, most reticent to reveal who they were voting for, expressed hope for this new chapter in Egyptian history.

"I'm very happy, I feel freedom," said a female voter.  "Of course I'm optimistic, a new Egypt and a new era."

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Anwar Hussein/WireImage(TORONTO) -- During a visit to a Toronto youth center this week, Prince Charles proved once again that it’s never too late to experiment with a new career.

The next king of England and his wife, Camilla, duchess of Cornwall, appeared at the Yonge Street Mission Tuesday, according to media reports, as part of a four-day trip to Canada for the Diamond Jubilee, celebrations surrounding Queen Elizabeth’s 60-year reign.

Charles successfully learned to scratch and fade a record as a deejay instructor let him try his hand at the turntables, according to the Telegraph.

It wasn’t the first time the royal showed his lighter, more fun side though. Earlier this month, the 63-year-old prince gave TV weather forecasters across the world a run for their money when he presented the weather forecast in Scotland during a visit to BBC headquarters in Glasgow.

In the past, Charles has also shown an appreciation for music — as well as a love for dancing.

In April 2011, the London Evening Standard reported that he and Kate Middleton, the wife of his eldest son, Prince William, had collaborated on the music for the upcoming nuptials by swapping iPods.

Also that month, a video of Charles break-dancing with young people in the 1980s made waves after it popped up on YouTube.

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iStockphoto/Thinkstock(KABUL, Afghanistan) -- Five aid workers have been kidnapped by armed gunmen in Afghanistan’s Badakhshan province, according to local officials.

The workers, which include two Western female doctors, are part of a non-governmental organization (NGO) called Medair that specializes in providing humanitarian assistance to regions that are difficult to access.

They were riding on horseback between villages, about 56 miles away from the provincial capital Faizabad, when they were abducted.  The area is not known for heavy insurgent activity. 

This is the same region where 10 aid workers, including six Americans, were killed by a Taliban ambush in 2010.

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IIPA via Getty Images(BAGHDAD) -- The White House warily welcomed news Tuesday of Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency coming to an agreement to allow U.N. inspectors access to key nuclear scientists and research facilities that have been barred to them up to now.

Tehran is hoping that this move ahead of Wednesday's summit in Bahgdad with the U.S. and five other nations will give it the upper hand in talks to greatly reduce Iran's nuclear activities.

Obama administration press secretary Jay Carney suggested to reporters that the world has been down this road before with Iran.

While acknowledging that it was a step forward in the long dispute with Iran, Carney stressed, "Promises are one thing, actions and fulfillment of obligations are another."

Despite the prospects of open access to IAEA monitors, the so-called "5+1" bloc made up of the United States, Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia will press Iran to lower its uranium enrichment levels, making it impossible to create atomic bombs.

The Iranian government maintains that its program is purely for peaceful purposes, a claim doubted by virtually all of America's allies.

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iStockphoto/Thinkstock(BEIRUT) -- Many in Lebanon now fear their country is being pulled into the ongoing conflict in neighboring Syria after reports that 13 Lebanese Shiite pilgrims were kidnapped by members of a rebel group.

News of the abduction sparked violent protests in Beirut, compelling Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah to appeal for calm.

Hezbollah supports Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who initiated a crackdown on political opponents in March 2011.  There are estimates of between 9,000 and 12,000 deaths since then.

According to state media in Lebanon, the pilgrims were returning from visiting sacred Shiite sites in Iran when their bus was confronted by gunmen from the Free Syria Army.

The women were released and brought to the Syrian city of Aleppo.  The kidnappers said they will free the men once the Syrian government releases their own prisoners, who are being jailed in Aleppo.

Meanwhile, forces loyal to al-Assad are believed to be undertaking a major operation in the area, presumably to get back the hostages.

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Lewis Whyld/WPA Pool/Getty Images(LONDON) -- ABC News’ Katie Couric described her presentation to Queen Elizabeth II Tuesday on World News, saying her majesty was quiet, lovely and charming.

“She was really shmoozing with her guests -- although I don’t think she would use the word ‘shmoozing’ -- but she was chatting with her guests for nearly two hours this afternoon,” said Couric, who met the queen during a garden party at Buckingham Palace. “I had no idea what to expect. She looked beautiful.”

On May 29, Couric will anchor a two-hour show to mark the queen’s 60-year reign -- a celebration called the Diamond Jubilee.

The special will feature interviews with TRH, The Duke of Cambridge Prince William, Prince Harry, The Duke of York Prince Andrew, and Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie.  The broadcast will also give viewers special access inside Buckingham Palace.

Couric said Tuesday that Queen Elizabeth had expressed interest in watching the special next week.

“She approves everything that’s being done so I think she was well aware of our efforts and when she says she’d like to watch, I think she really means it and I hope she’ll watch the special when we send it to her,” Couric said.

“I’ve interviewed a lot of people...but interviewing royalty, you do get a bit nervous -- but they could not have been nicer,” she said.

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