Scud Missile Attack Reported in Aleppo

Muzaffar Salman/Reuters

People gathered to search for survivors under rubble after what activists said was a Scud missile hit in Aleppo's Tariq al Bab neighborhood on Friday.

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Antigovernment activists in Syria said Scud missiles fired by the Syrian military slammed into at least three rebel-held districts of Aleppo on Friday, flattening dozens of houses, leaving at least 12 civilians dead and burying an undetermined number of others, perhaps dozens, under piles of rubble.

The assertion, corroborated by videos posted on the Internet, came one day after Syrian government targets in central Damascus were hit by multiple car bombings that were among the deadliest and most destructive so far in the nearly two-year-old conflict.

The reported attack on Aleppo’s Hamra, Tariq al Bab and Hanano areas with Scuds, which are not known for their accuracy, was the second time this week that the Syrian opposition has accused the military of using such missiles on Aleppo’s rebel-held areas.

Aleppo, the embattled northern city that was once Syria’s commercial capital during more peaceful times, has become one of the focal points of rebellion in the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad. On Tuesday, according to activists in Aleppo, a Syrian missile leveled part of Jabal Badro, another neighborhood controlled by the rebels, killing at least 19 people.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based group with contacts inside Syria, said in a statement that the victims of missile explosions in Aleppo on Friday included children and that the number of victims “is expected to rise significantly because there are dozens of wounded under the rubble.”

There was no immediate mention of the Aleppo attacks by Syria’s state-run media. The Web site of Syria’s official SANA news agency was dominated by the aftermath of the car bombings that had hit central Damascus on Thursday and had left more than 70 people dead. The ferocity and scope of those bombings were unusual for central Damascus, which up until now has been largely insulated from much of the carnage and destruction wrought by the conflict in the outer Damascus suburbs and other parts of the country.

Most of the casualties in Damascus were caused by an especially powerful bomb near the headquarters of President Assad’s Baath Party and the Embassy of Russia, which were both damaged, according to witnesses contacted inside Damascus and Russian news reports. SANA said a hospital and neighboring schools also were damaged.

No group has taken responsibility for the Damascus bombings but the government has said they were carried out by terrorists, its generic description of the alliance of armed rebels seeking to depose Mr. Assad. The National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, the main Syrian group for the opposition which was meeting in Cairo at the time, condemned the bombings, as did its Western supporters, including the United States.

Victoria Nuland, a State Department spokeswoman, told reporters on Thursday that the United States denounces such bombings as “indiscriminate acts of violence against civilians or against diplomatic facilities, which violate international law, and we continue to emphasize that perpetrators on all sides have to be held accountable.”

Nonetheless, the bombings appeared to create a new source of diplomatic friction between the United States and Russia, which has consistently supported the Syrian government during the conflict and has rejected any proposed solution that would force Mr. Assad to relinquish power.

Russia’s mission to the United Nations accused the United States of blocking its attempt to seek approval of a Security Council statement that would have condemned the Damascus bombings as terrorism. The United States mission denied the Russian accusation, saying it had only requested that the Russian statement include a paragraph that also condemned the Syrian government’s “continued, indiscriminate use of heavy weaponry against civilians.”

Erin Pelton, a spokeswoman for the United States mission, said in news release posted Friday on its Web site that “Unfortunately, if predictably, Russia rejected the U.S. suggested language as ‘totally unacceptable’ and withdrew its draft statement.”

Other insurgency-related violence was reported by the Syrian Observatory and other activists elsewhere in Syria on Friday, including random sniping attacks in the north-central city of Raqqa that killed four people during an antigovernment demonstration, and seven people killed around a mosque in Dara’a, the southern city where the anti-Assad uprising first began in March 2011.

The Local Coordination Committees, an anti-Assad network of activists, reported that fighters from the Free Syrian Army and other groups had taken control of at least two military facilities in the suburbs of Deir al-Zour, the eastern city that has been a battleground for many months. The report, which could not be corroborated, also claimed that rebels had gained control of a missile facility in Deir al-Zour that was formerly the site of a partly built nuclear reactor bombed by Israeli warplanes in 2007. Syria disclosed the existence of the missile facility four years ago at a technical meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Hwaida Saad reported from Beirut, and Rick Gladstone from New York. David D. Kirkpatrick contributed reporting from Cairo.

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Question Mark: Acne Common in Baby Boomers Too

Pimples are no surprise on babies and teenagers, but boomers?

You no longer have to gaze over a school lunchroom, hoping to find a seat at a socially acceptable table. You don’t rush to get home at night before your junior license driving restrictions kick in. And you men no longer have to worry that your voice will skip an octave without warning.

But if adolescence is over, what is that horrid protuberance staring at you in the mirror from the middle of your forehead? Some speak of papules, pustules and nodules, but we will use the technical term: zit. That thing on your forehead now is the same thing that was there back in high school, or at least a close relative. Same as it ever was (cue “Once in a Lifetime”).

We get more than the occasional complaint here from baby boomers who want to know about this aging body part or that. So you would think people would be happy with any emblem of youth — even if it is sore and angry-looking and threatening to erupt at any second. But oddly, there are those who are not happy to see pimples again, and some have asked for an explanation.

Acne occurs when the follicles that connect the pores of the skin to oil glands become clogged with a mixture of hair, oils and skin cells, and bacteria in the plug causes swelling, experts say. A pimple grows as the plug breaks down.

According to the American Academy of Dermatology, a growing number of women in their 30s, 40s, 50s and even beyond are seeking treatment for acne. Middle-age men are also susceptible to breakouts, but less so, experts say.

In some cases, people suffer from acne that began in their teenage years and never really went away. Others had problems when they were younger and then enjoyed decades of mostly clear skin. Still others never had much of the way of pimples until they were older.

Whichever the case, the explanation for adult acne is likely to be the same as it is for acne found in teenagers and, for that matter, newborns: hormonal changes. “We know that all acne is hormonally driven and hormonally sensitive,” said Dr. Bethanee J. Schlosser, an assistant professor of dermatology at Northwestern.

Among baby boomers, the approach of menopause may result in a drop in estrogen, a hormone that can help keep pimples from forming, and increased levels of androgens, the male hormone. Women who stop taking birth control pills may also see a drop in their estrogen levels.

Debate remains over what role diet plays in acne. Some experts say that foods once thought to cause pimples, like chocolate, are probably not a problem. Still, while sugar itself is no longer believed to contribute to acne, some doctors think that foods with a high glycemic index – meaning they quickly elevate glucose in the body — might. White bread and sweetened cereals are examples. And for all ages, stress has also been found to play a role.

One message to acne sufferers has not changed over the years. Your mother was right: don’t pop it! It can cause scarring.

Questions about aging? E-mail boomerwhy@nytimes.com

Booming: Living Through the Middle Ages offers news and commentary about baby boomers, anchored by Michael Winerip. You can follow Booming via RSS here or visit nytimes.com/booming. You can reach us by e-mail at booming@nytimes.com.

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Shortcuts: Why It’s Not Always Good to Forgive

IT seems, these days, that we can barely keep pace with the tales of the famous and near famous who climb to great heights, plummet to great depths and then try to work their way back into the public’s affection.

Robyn Beck/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

A man in Los Angeles watched Lance Armstrong acknowledge his use of performance-enhancing drugs.

Since the beginning of this year alone, we’ve had Lance Armstrong’s sort-of apology interview with Oprah Winfrey acknowledging his use of a variety of performance-enhancing drugs, the efforts by the fashion designer John Galliano to put an anti-Semitic tirade behind him and the seemingly ill-fated, public (and lucrative) mea culpa by the best-selling author Jonah Lehrer for plagiarism and fabrication.

Even as I was writing this column, news broke about another fallen celebrity: Oscar Pistorius, the South African double-amputee Olympic runner, was charged with murder in the shooting death of his girlfriend.

These never-ending stories may not affect our lives — except, perhaps, to make us more cynical when the mighty fall. But they do raise questions about forgiveness and atonement that are important outside the world of the celebrity.

“Stories of trust violations abound in the media and business press,” Kurt T. Dirks, a professor of managerial leadership at Washington University in St. Louis, and colleagues wrote in a recent journal article. “However, these high-profile incidents are vastly outnumbered by the many trust violations that occur in the offices and hallways and other arenas of virtually all work organizations.”

And with our friends, partners, children, parents and, of course, the companies we do business with.

I’ve written quite a bit about the need for our society to be more open to mistakes and failure. But what happens after that? Is forgiveness automatic? And how difficult is it — or should it be — to get redemption after a serious misstep?

First, what is forgiveness? Jeffrie Murphy, a professor of law, philosophy and religious studies at Arizona State University, who has written about the issue for years, says it is “a change of heart toward someone — overcoming the feelings of anger and resentment that typically come from being wronged by another.”

But it is important to differentiate between forgiveness and trusting someone again, Professor Dirks said. So you may be willing to forgive a business that messed up a deal but nevertheless decide not to work with that business again. Or forgive an abusive partner, but never be in a relationship with that person again. Or even forgive those who committed a crime against you, but still believe they should be punished.

“The question is how much you’ve been personally harmed and what’s at stake for you in the future,” he said. “It depends, also, if we have something to gain by interacting” with the person or business again.

Of course, it is often easier to avoid interacting with a person who has harmed you than a business, because often no good alternatives are available.

But we can feel that we have some control by refusing to buy from a company that has sold us a lemon or provided terrible service. And, on occasion, enough consumers have pulled together to force a company to back down, as they did in 2011, when Bank of America bowed to customer pressure and dropped plans to impose a $5 monthly fee on debit cards.

Research has also shown that we seem to be more willing to forgive — and trust again — those who make errors of competence rather than of character, Professor Dirks said.

“We believe issues of competence are changeable over time, but not issues of character or integrity,” he said. “And the truth is that probably you can change certain skills, but the underlying value system is probably harder to change.”

It has become somewhat common wisdom to believe that forgiving a person who did you wrong is not just the right thing to do, but will make you emotionally, and even physically, healthier in the long run by alleviating the anger and stress you feel.

But Professor Murphy warned against assuming that forgiveness was always the right answer and that someone who failed to offer forgiveness was “not a good person or a mentally healthy person.”

E-mail: shortcuts@nytimes.com

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: February 22, 2013

An earlier version of this article misspelled the given name of a professor at Arizona State University. He is Jeffrie Murphy, not Jefffrie.

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The Lede: Syrian Television's Most Outraged Bystander

Last Update, 4:47 p.m. In the aftermath of a deadly bombing in Damascus on Thursday, a man emerged from a small knot of bystanders crowded around a camera crew from Syrian state television to vent his anger at the foreign Islamist fighters he held responsible. “We the Syrian people,” he said, “place the blame on the Nusra Front, the Takfiri oppressors and armed Wahhabi terrorists from Saudi Arabia that are armed and trained in Turkey.”

A report on Thursday’s bombing in Damascus from Syrian state television’s YouTube channel.

Pointing at the ruined street near the headquarters of President Bashar al-Assad’s ruling Baath Party, the man described the location as “a civilian place — a mosque, an elementary school, the homes of local families.”

Watching a copy of the report online, Rime Allaf, a Syrian writer monitoring the conflict from Vienna, noticed that this man on the street, whose views so closely echoed those of the Syrian government, had a very familiar face. That is because, as opposition activists demonstrated last June, the same man had already appeared at least 18 times in the forefront or background of such reports since the start of the uprising.

Man who appears on #Syria TV as “innocent bystander” with every Damascus car bomb has again appeared today. http://t.co/PmPRhzUUBN

— Rime Allaf (@rallaf) 21 Feb 13

After she posted a screenshot of the man’s latest appearance, Ms. Allaf observed on Twitter that “it would be funny if there weren’t so many victims of Syria regime terrorism!”

As The Lede noted last year, the man was even featured in two reports the same day during a small pro-Assad rally in Damascus.

Two pro-Assad television channels in Syria interviewed the same man on the street at a rally in July 2012.

Mocking the dark comedy of government-run channels recycling the same die-hard Assad supporter in so many reports, activists put together several video compilations of his appearances in the state media. The most comprehensive, posted online last June, featured excerpts from 18 reports.

A compilation of Syrian state media reports featuring the same Assad supporter again and again.

Another highlight reel, uploaded to YouTube 13 months ago by a government critic, showed that after the man had spoken at least five times on state-run television, he appeared in the background of a BBC report wearing a military uniform.

A man who is frequently interviewed on Syrian state television in civilian dress appeared in the background of a BBC report wearing a military uniform.

As longtime readers of The Lede may recall, during the dispute over Iran’s 2009 presidential election, opposition bloggers noticed that one particularly die-hard supporter of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also appeared again and again and again in photographs of pro-government rallies.

While there is no way to determine just who is responsible for Syrian television’s frequent interviews with this same man on the street, there is some evidence that Iran has advised Syria on how to report bombings on state television.

Last year, when The Guardian published a trove of hacked e-mails taken from the in-boxes of Syrian officials, one message forwarded to the president appeared to include advice from Iranian state television’s bureau chief in Damascus on what his Syrian counterparts should report after bombings. That e-mail, from Hussein Mortada, a Lebanese journalist who runs coverage of Syria for the Iranian government’s satellite news channels, complained that the government was not heeding directions he had received “from Iran and Hezbollah,” the Lebanese militant group, about who Syria should blame for bomb attacks. “It is not in our interest to say that Al Qaeda is behind” every bombing, Mr. Mortada wrote, “because such statements clear the U.S. administration and the Syrian opposition of any responsibility.”

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SAfrica police replace top Pistorius investigator

PRETORIA, South Africa (AP) — South African police appointed a new chief investigator Thursday in the Oscar Pistorius murder case, replacing a veteran detective after unsettling revelations that the officer was charged with seven counts of attempted murder.

The sensational twist in the state's troubled investigation fueled growing public fascination with the case against the double-amputee Olympian, who is charged with premeditated murder in the Valentine's Day slaying of his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp.

Pistorius, a sporting icon and source of inspiration to millions until the shooting last week, is backed by a high-powered team of lawyers and publicists. The abruptness of his fall, and its gruesome circumstances, have gripped a global audience and put South Africa's police and judicial system under the spotlight.

The man at the center of the storm sat in the dock during his bail hearing, mostly keeping his composure in contrast to slumped-over outbursts of weeping on previous days in court. In front of Pistorius, defense lawyer Barry Roux pounced on the apparent disarray in the state's case, laying out arguments that amounted to a test run for the full trial yet to come.

Roux pointed to what he called the "poor quality" of the state's investigation and raised the matter of intent, saying Pistorius and Steenkamp had a "loving relationship" and the athlete had no motive to plan her killing.

Pistorius, 26, says he mistook Steenkamp for an intruder when he shot her through a locked bathroom door in his home. Prosecutors believe the shooting happened after the couple got into an argument, and prosecutor Gerrie Nel painted a picture of a man he said was "willing and ready to fire and kill."

Much of the drama Thursday, however, happened outside the courtroom as South African police scrambled to get their investigation on track.

In a news conference at a training academy, National Police Commissioner Riah Phiyega said a senior detective would gather a team of "highly skilled and experienced" officers to investigate the killing of 29-year-old Steenkamp, a model and budding reality TV contestant.

The decision to put police Lt. Gen. Vinesh Moonoo in charge came soon after word emerged that the initial chief investigator, Hilton Botha, is facing attempted murder charges, and a day after he offered testimony damaging to the prosecution.

Botha acknowledged Wednesday in court that nothing in Pistorius' version of the fatal shooting contradicted what police had discovered, even though there have been some discrepancies. Botha also said that police left a 9 mm slug in the toilet and lost track of allegedly illegal ammunition found in Pistorius' home.

"This matter shall receive attention at the national level," Phiyega told reporters after testimony ended in the third day of Pistorius' bail hearing.

Bulewa Makeke, spokeswoman for South Africa's National Prosecuting Authority, said the attempted murder charges had been reinstated against Botha on Feb. 4. Police say they found out about it after Botha testified in Pistorius' bail hearing Wednesday.

Botha and two other police officers had seven counts of attempted murder reinstated against them in connection with a 2011 shooting incident in which they allegedly fired shots at a minibus they were trying to stop.

Makeke indicated the charges were reinstated because more evidence had been gathered. She said the charge against Botha was initially dropped "because there was not enough evidence at the time."

Pistorius' main sponsor, Nike, meanwhile, suspended its contract with the multiple Paralympic champion, following eyewear manufacturer Oakley's decision to suspend its sponsorship. Nike said in a statement on its website: "We believe Oscar Pistorius should be afforded due process and we will continue to monitor the situation closely."

On Thursday, Chief Magistrate Desmond Nair asked the defense regarding Pistorius' bail application: "Do you think there will be some level of shock if the accused is released?"

Defense lawyer Roux responded: "I think there will be a level of shock in this country if he is not released."

Prosecutor Nel suggested signs of remorse from Pistorius had nothing to do with whether he planned to kill his girlfriend.

"Even if you plan a murder, you plan a murder and shoot. If you fire the shot, you have remorse. Remorse might kick in immediately," Nel said.

As Nel summed up the prosecution's case opposing bail, Pistorius began to weep in the crowded courtroom, leading his brother, Carl Pistorius, to reach out and touch his back.

"He (Pistorius) wants to continue with his life like this never happened," Nel went on, prompting Pistorius, who was crying softly, to shake his head.

"The reason you fire four shots is to kill," Nel persisted.

Earlier Thursday, Nair questioned Botha over delays in processing records from phones found in Pistorius' house following the slaying.

"It seems to me like there was a lack of urgency," the magistrate said.

Botha is to appear in court in May to face seven counts of attempted murder in connection with the minibus shooting incident. He has been quoted in the South African media as denying allegations he was drunk at the time, saying he and the other officers were trying to stop the vehicle and didn't know there were people inside.

While Botha has been dropped from the Pistorius investigation, he has not been suspended from the police force, Phiyega said, and could still be called by defense lawyers at trial.

Pistorius, wearing the same gray suit, blue shirt and gray tie combination he has worn throughout the bail hearing, stood ramrod straight in the dock, then sat calmly looking at his hands.

Roux said an autopsy showed that Steenkamp's bladder was empty, suggesting she had gone to the bathroom to use the toilet, rather than fled there to escape an enraged Pistorius, as prosecutors contend.

"The known forensics is consistent" with Pistorius' statement, Roux said, asking that bail restrictions be eased for his client.

But the prosecutor said Pistorius hadn't given guarantees to the court that he wouldn't leave the country if he was facing a life sentence. Nel also stressed that Pistorius shouldn't be given special treatment.

"'I am Oscar Pistorius. I am a world-renowned athlete.' Is that a special circumstance? No," Nel said. "His version (of the killing) is improbable."

Nel said the court should focus on the "murder of the defenseless woman."

Botha testified Thursday that he investigated a 2009 complaint against Pistorius by a woman who said the athlete assaulted her. However, Pistorius did not hurt the woman, who in fact injured herself when she kicked a door at Pistorius' home, Botha said.

___

AP Sports Writer Gerald Imray contributed to this report from Johannesburg

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Living With Cancer: Arrivals and Departures

After being nursed and handed over, the baby’s wails rise to a tremolo, but I am determined to give my exhausted daughter and son-in-law a respite on this wintry evening. Commiserating with the little guy’s discomfort — gas, indigestion, colic, ontological insecurity — I swaddle, burp, bink, then cradle him in my arms. I begin walking around the house, swinging and swaying while cooing in soothing cadences: “Yes, darling boy, another one bites the dust, another one bites the dust.”

I kid you not! How could such grim phrases spring from my lips into the newborn’s ears? Where did they come from?

I blame his mother and her best friend. They sang along as this song was played repeatedly at the skating rink to which I took them every other Saturday in their tweens. Why would an infatuated grandma croon a mordant lullaby, even if the adorable one happily can’t understand a single word? He’s still whimpering, twisting away from me, and understandably so.

Previously that day, I had called a woman in my cancer support group. I believe that she is dying. I do not know her very well. She has attended only two or three of our get-togethers where she described herself as a widow and a Christian.

On the phone, I did not want to violate the sanctity of her end time, but I did want her to know that she need not be alone, that I and other members of our group can “be there” for her. Her dying seems a rehearsal of my own. We have the same disease.

“How are you doing, Kim?” I asked.

“I’m tired. I sleep all the time,” she sighed, “and I can’t keep anything down.”

“Can you drink … water?” I asked.

“A little, but I tried a smoothie and it wouldn’t set right,” she said.

“I hope you are not in pain.”

“Oh no, but I’m sleeping all the time. And I can’t keep anything down.”

“Would you like a visit? Is there something I can do or bring?” I asked.

“Oh, I don’t think so, no thanks.”

“Well,” I paused before saying goodbye, “be well.”

Be well? I didn’t even add something like, “Be as well as you can be.” I was tongue-tied. This was the failure that troubles me tonight.

Why couldn’t I say that we will miss her, that I am sorry she is dying, that she has coped so well for so long, and that I hope she will now find peace? I could inform an infant in my arms of our inexorable mortality, but I could not speak or even intimate the “D” word to someone on her deathbed.

Although I have tried to communicate to my family how I feel about end-of-life care, can we always know what we will want? Perhaps at the end of my life I will not welcome visitors, either. For departing may require as much concentration as arriving. As I look down at the vulnerable bundle I am holding, I marvel that each and every one of us has managed to come in and will also have to manage to go out. The baby nestles, pursing his mouth around the pacifier. He gazes intently at my face with a sly gaze that drifts toward a lamp, turning speculative before lids lower in tremulous increments.

Slowing my jiggling to his faint sucking, I think that the philosopher Jacques Derrida’s meditation on death pertains to birth as well. Each of these events “names the very irreplaceability of absolute singularity.” Just as “no one can die in my place or in the place of the other,” no one can be born in this particular infant’s place. He embodies his irreplaceable and absolute singularity.

Perhaps we should gestate during endings, as we do during beginnings. Like hatchings, the dispatchings caused by cancer give people like Kim and me a final trimester, more or less, in which we can labor to forgive and be forgiven, to speak and hear vows of devotion from our intimates, to visit or not be visited by acquaintances.

Maybe we need a doula for dying, I reflect as melodious words surface, telling me what I have to do with the life left to be lived: “To love that well, which thou must leave ere long.”

“Oh little baby,” I then whisper: “Though I cannot tell who you will become and where I will be — you, dear heart, deliver me.”

---

Susan Gubar is a distinguished emerita professor of English at Indiana University and the author of “Memoir of a Debulked Woman,” which explores her experience with ovarian cancer.

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H.P. Reports Decline in First-Quarter Revenue and Profit

SAN FRANCISCO — Battling a declining demand for personal computers, Hewlett-Packard, the PC maker, reported lower quarterly earnings on Thursday.

The earnings were significantly higher than analysts had expected, however.

“The turnaround is starting to gain traction as a result of the actions we took in 2012 to lay the foundation of H.P.’s future,” Meg Whitman, the chief executive, said in a statement accompanying the earnings. “I feel good about the rest of the year.”

H.P. said net income fell 16 percent to $1.2 billion, or 63 cents a share, from the year-ago quarter.

The company said revenue fell 6 percent, to $28.4 billion.

Wall Street analysts had expected net income of 71 cents a share and revenue of $27.8 billion, according to a survey of analysts by Thomson Reuters.

H.P., based in Palo Alto, Calif., is one of the world’s largest suppliers of both PCs and computer servers. Demand for PCs has been shrinking, because of the popularity of tablets and smartphones, which H.P. doesn’t make. Servers face shrinking profit margins as more companies look beyond brand names and buy low-priced machines in bulk from Asian vendors.

Under Ms. Whitman, H.P. has focused on restructuring its printers and high-end server business to incorporate more data-analysis software that searches for documents and compiles reports like the energy use of the data center. She has warned, however, that the turnaround may take until 2017. In 2012, the company announced it would lay off 29,000 employees.

H.P.’s earnings announcement followed by two days a report of lower revenue and earnings by Dell Computer, H.P.’s main American rival.

Dell said its first-quarter revenue fell 11 percent, to $14.3 billion, while net income was off 31 percent, to $530 million, or 30 cents a share.

Michael Dell, Dell’s founder, has proposed taking his company private, for about $24.4 billion, to focus on restructuring the company away from the eyes of Wall Street.

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IHT Special: Women Face Fight to Keep Their Rights in Tunisia

TUNIS — At the funeral this month of Chokri Belaid, the murdered secular opposition leader in Tunisia, his widow Basma Khalfaoui, a prominent feminist, stood on the ambulance carrying his casket, her head uncovered, raising her arm to wave a defiant victory sign.

“My husband was denouncing Ennahda’s double talk and we will continue his struggle,” Ms. Khalfaoui, 42, said at the funeral, referring to the moderate Islamist party that governs the country. “We will not give up the fight.”

Tunisia, perceived by the West as the most secular country in the Arab world and a staunch promoter of women’s rights, has gone through a rocky transition since the revolution two years ago that ousted President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali. While political pluralism exists for the first time in decades, new freedoms for some are threatening long-cherished ones for others — in particular those for Tunisian women.

After Tunisia gained its independence from France in 1956, the government passed laws to expand women’s rights, including the right to education and gender equality. Over the following decades, Islamists were persecuted and exiled while the government pushed the secularization of society to such an extent that a decree in 1981 banned women from wearing a veil in public buildings and universities.

After the fall of Mr. Ben Ali’s regime, the Ennahda party won elections in October 2011 with a comfortable majority. Since then, worries have grown that one of its aims is to restrict women’s freedoms in a country where, until recently, those rights had been taken for granted for decades.

“I think it’s normal that the Islamists are so vocal — veiled women used to be harassed and the frustration came out all at once,” said Sarah Ben Hamadi, 28, a blogger and journalist. “We are simply paying today for Ben Ali’s mistakes.”

“I don’t think the country is more radical,” she added. “There is more freedom so we see more of the religious people who were hiding in the past.”

Certainly, the religious ultraconservatives known as Salafists are more visible. The University of Manouba, in suburban Tunis, experienced months of tension last year after Salafist students rioted against the ban on the niqab, the face-covering veil.

More worrying are legal overhauls, human rights officials say. As Tunisia’s Constituent Assembly writes a new constitution, there have been repeated confrontations between Islamists, who dominate the assembly and want to roll back some rights acquired by women, and secular liberals, who want an expansion of those rights to include, for example, equal inheritance rights.

“We cannot speak of an obvious rollback since the legal reality is still the same,” said Amna Guellali, the director of Human Rights Watch in Tunis. “But acquired rights are being threatened by repeated attacks by Salafist groups on those they consider infidels or on behavior they deem contrary to Islamic morality.”

When a young woman was allegedly raped by police officers in September, she was charged with indecency and risked six months in prison before the charges were dropped, after a huge uproar. Human rights organizations cite the case as an example of how rights are under threat.

“Under the old regime, there were similar cases,” Ms. Guellali acknowledged. “Now with the new freedoms in the country, the media is paying attention to these kinds of stories.” Still, she said, even allowing for the amplifying effect of the news coverage, something has changed.

Chema Gargouri, the president of the Tunisian Association for Management and Social Stability, a nongovernmental organization that provides training and microloans for women and young people in poor areas, said women were more secure under Mr. Ben Ali.

“What was really striking to me after the revolution was that women started to lose their self-esteem,” Ms. Gargouri said. “The dictatorship was pro-woman. The hatred against the dictatorship is expressed through action against women.”

The rise of social and religious repression and the loss of self-confidence “prevents any entrepreneurial initiative for women,” she added.

Ms. Gargouri, who is in her 40s, said that women of her generation had never previously had to debate or defend their rights. But recent developments had pushed her to work to raise awareness of the challenge now facing them.

“What scares me is that the Tunisian woman seems lost,” she said. “In many places I go to, people ask what the government can do for them. We try to teach them to do it on their own.”

The fact is that Tunisia has an Islamist majority, said Ms. Ben Hamadi, the blogger. “Article 1 of the Tunisian Constitution states that it is an Islamic state,” she said. “If we want real democracy, we must listen to everyone’s voice.”

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Police offer confused testimony in Pistorius case

PRETORIA, South Africa (AP) — The detective leading the police investigation into Oscar Pistorius' fatal shooting of his girlfriend offered confusing testimony Wednesday, at one point agreeing with the athlete's defense that officers had no evidence challenging the runner's claim he accidentally killed her.

Testimony by Detective Warrant Officer Hilton Botha of the South African Police Service left prosecutors rubbing their temples, only able to look down at their notes as he misjudged distances and acknowledged a forensics team left in the toilet bowl one of the bullet slugs fired at Reeva Steenkamp. However, Botha still poked holes in Pistorius' own account that he feared for his life and opened fire on Valentine's Day after mistaking Steenkamp for an intruder.

The second day of the bail hearing in a case that has riveted South Africa and much of the world appeared at first to go against the double-amputee runner, with prosecutors saying a witness can testify to hearing "non-stop talking, like shouting" between 2 a.m. and 3 a.m. before the predawn shooting on Feb. 14. However, Botha later said under cross examination that the person who overheard the argument was in a house 600 meters (yards) away in Pistorius' gated community in the suburbs of South Africa's capital, Pretoria.

Later, prosecutor Gerrie Nel questioned Botha again and the detective acknowledged the distance was much closer. But confusion reigned for much of his testimony, when at one point Botha said officers found syringes and steroids in Pistorius' bedroom. Nel quickly cut the officer off and said the drugs were actually testosterone.

Pistorius' lead defense lawyer, Barry Roux, asserted when questioning the detective — who has 16 years' experience as a detective and 24 years with the police — that it was not a banned substance and that police were trying to give the discovery a "negative connotation."

"It is an herbal remedy," Roux said. "It is not a steroid and it is not a banned substance."

The name of the drug, offered later in court by Roux, could not be immediately found in reference materials by The Associated Press. A spokesman for prosecutors later said it's too early to know what the substance is, as they don't yet have results of forensic testing on the material.

Pistorius, 26, said in an affidavit read in court Tuesday that he and his 29-year-old girlfriend had gone to bed and that when he awoke during the night he detected what he thought was an intruder in the bathroom. He testified that he grabbed his 9 mm pistol and fired into the door of a toilet enclosed in the bathroom, only to discover later to his horror that Steenkamp was there, mortally wounded.

Pistorius, the first Paralympian runner to compete at the Olympics, is charged with premeditated murder in the case.

The prosecution attempted to cement its argument that the couple had a shouting match, that Steenkamp fled and locked herself into the toilet stall of the bathroom and that Pistorius fired four shots through the door, hitting her with three bullets.

Botha said: "I believe that he knew that Reeva was in the bathroom and he shot four shots through the door."

But asked if the police found anything inconsistent with the version of events presented by Pistorius, Botha responded that they had not. He later said nothing contradicted the police's version either.

Nel projected a plan of the bedroom and bathroom in the courtroom and argued that Pistorius had to walk past his bed to get to the bathroom and could not have done so without realizing that Steenkamp was not in the bed.

"There's no other way of getting there," Nel said.

Botha said the trajectory of the bullets showed the gun was fired pointed down and from a height. This seems to conflict with Pistorius' statement Tuesday, because the athlete said that he did not have on his prosthetics and on his stumps and feeling vulnerable because he was in a low position when he opened fired.

Officers also found .38-caliber pistol rounds in a safe, which Botha said Pistorius owned illegally and for which he said the athlete would be charged with a crime. However, Botha also acknowledged investigators didn't take photographs of the ammunition and let Pistorius' supporters at the crime scene take them away.

Botha said the holster for the 9 mm pistol was found under the left side of the bed, the side on which Steenkamp slept. He also implied it would have been impossible for Pistorius to get the gun without checking to see if Steenkamp was there. Roux later argued that Pistorius had suffered an injury to his right shoulder and wore a "medical patch" the night of the killing which forced him to sleep on the left side of the bed.

Steenkamp was shot in the head over her right ear and in her right elbow and hip, breaking her arm and hip, Botha said. However, Roux later asked Botha if Steenkamp's body showed "any pattern of defensive wounds." The detective said no.

Botha also said the shots were fired from 1.5 meters (five feet), and that police found three spent cartridges in the bathroom and one in the hallway connecting the bathroom to the bedroom. However, later on cross-examination by the defense, Botha said he wasn't a forensics expert and couldn't answer some questions.

Police also found two iPhones in the bathroom and two BlackBerrys in the bedroom, Botha said, adding that none had been used to phone for help. Roux later suggested that a fifth phone, not collected by the police, was used by Pistorius to make calls for a hospital and help. After the hearing, Roux told journalists that Pistorius' defense team had the phone, but did not elaborate.

Guards at the gated community where Pistorius lives did call the athlete, Botha said. The detective said that all the athlete said was: "I'm all right."

He didn't hang up, Botha said, and the guards heard him uncontrollably weep.

"Was it part of his premeditated plan, not to switch off the phone and cry?" Roux asked sarcastically.

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Gerald Imray reported from Johannesburg. Associated Press writer Michelle Faul in Johannesburg contributed to this report.

___

Jon Gambrell can be reached at www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP. Gerald Imray can be reached at www.twitter.com/geraldimrayAP.

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Well: Effects of Bullying Last Into Adulthood, Study Finds

Victims of bullying at school, and bullies themselves, are more likely to experience psychiatric problems in childhood, studies have shown. Now researchers have found that elevated risk of psychiatric trouble extends into adulthood, sometimes even a decade after the intimidation has ended.

The new study, published in the journal JAMA Psychiatry on Wednesday, is the most comprehensive effort to date to establish the long-term consequences of childhood bullying, experts said.

“It documents the elevated risk across a wide range of mental health outcomes and over a long period of time,” said Catherine Bradshaw, an expert on bullying and a deputy director of the Center for the Prevention of Youth Violence at Johns Hopkins University, which was not involved in the study.

“The experience of bullying in childhood can have profound effects on mental health in adulthood, particularly among youths involved in bullying as both a perpetuator and a victim,” she added.

The study followed 1,420 subjects from Western North Carolina who were assessed four to six times between the ages of 9 and 16. Researchers asked both the children and their primary caregivers if they had been bullied or had bullied others in the three months before each assessment. Participants were divided into four groups: bullies, victims, bullies who also were victims, and children who were not exposed to bullying at all.

Participants were assessed again in young adulthood — at 19, 21 and between 24 and 26 — using structured diagnostic interviews.

Researchers found that victims of bullying in childhood were 4.3 times more likely to have an anxiety disorder as adults, compared to those with no history of bullying or being bullied.

Bullies who were also victims were particularly troubled: they were 14.5 times more likely to develop panic disorder as adults, compared to those who did not experience bullying, and 4.8 times more likely to experience depression. Men who were both bullies and victims were 18.5 times more likely to have had suicidal thoughts in adulthood, compared to the participants who had not been bullied or perpetuators. Their female counterparts were 26.7 times more likely to have developed agoraphobia, compared to children not exposed to bullying.

Bullies who were not victims of bullying were 4.1 times more likely to have antisocial personality disorder as adults than those never exposed to bullying in their youth.

The effects persisted even after the researchers accounted for pre-existing psychiatric problems or other factors that might have contributed to psychiatric disorders, like physical or sexual abuse, poverty and family instability.

“We were actually able to say being a victim of bullying is having an effect a decade later, above and beyond other psychiatric problems in childhood and other adversities,” said William E. Copeland, lead author of the study and an associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Duke University Medical Center.

Bullying is not a harmless rite of passage, but inflicts lasting psychiatric damage on a par with certain family dysfunctions, Dr. Copeland said. “The pattern we are seeing is similar to patterns we see when a child is abused or maltreated or treated very harshly within the family setting,” he said.

One limitation of the study is that bullying was not analyzed for frequency, and the researchers’ assessment did not distinguish between interpersonal and overt bullying. It only addressed bullying at school, not in other settings.

Most of what experts know about the effects of bullying comes from observational studies, not studies of children followed over time.

Previous research from Finland, based on questionnaires completed on a single occasion or on military registries, used a sample of 2,540 boys to see if being a bully or a victim at 8 predicted a psychiatric disorder 10 to 15 years later. The researchers found frequent bully-victims were at particular risk of adverse long-term outcomes, specifically anxiety and antisocial personality disorders. Victims were at greater risk for anxiety disorders, while bullies were at increased risk for antisocial personality disorder.

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