AMERICAS

VENEZUELA

| Caracas — Venezuela’s Electoral Council has completed an audit of results from April’s bitterly contested presidential election, and as expected it confirmed Nicolas Maduro’s 1.5 percentage-point victory. No government official appeared publicly to comment on the outcome, but an official at the council confirmed on Sunday a report by the state-run AVN news agency that the audit supported the official vote count. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to divulge the information. The opposition has complained that the council ignored its demand for a full recount.

Mexico City “Eager Lion” exercises have brought together 8,000 personnel from 19 mainly Arab and European countries to bolster defense capabilities in the face of a possible flare-up from neighboring Syria. “We don’t intend to attack anybody,” Jordanian Maj. Gen. Awni el-Edwan told reporters, while commenting on the deployment of U.S. Patriot missiles. He said the exercises would focus on border security, irregular warfare, terrorism and counterinsurgency.

LIBYA

| Tripoli — One of Libya’s highest military officers resigned Sunday after clashes between protesters and a government-aligned militia he was in charge of left 31 people dead in the eastern city of Benghazi, the deadliest such violence in a country where armed factions hold sway. The bloodshed underscored the growing public anger over the government’s failure to build an army capable of reining in the militias that dominate parts of the country nearly two years after the fall of Moammar Gadhafi. The militias have become bolder in trying to shape Libya’s politics.

more than a year.

ISRAEL

| Jerusalem — Prayers by a liberal Jewish women’s group at a key Jerusalem holy site passed without incident Sunday, in contrast to violent scuffles with ultraOrthodox protesters a month ago. The women wear prayer shawls and other religious articles that ultra-Orthodox tradition holds are strictly for men. Police escorted the women to and from the site Sunday morning. Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said some ultraOrthodox men shouted insults, but police made no arrests.