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The Dong-a Ilbo newspaper said North Koreans were already learning a new song written specially for Jong-un and referring to him as "the young leader". His father is known as the country's "dear leader" while his grandfather, Kim Il-sung, the country's founder who died in 1994, is referred to as the "great leader".

Writing in the April issue of Foreign Affairs, Ken E Gause, a North Korea specialist, cited sources as saying that Kim – health permitting – could opt for April 2012, the 100th anniversary of Kim Il-sung's birth.

The special representative for North Korea policy, Stephen W. Bosworth, is a well-regarded diplomat and a former ambassador to South Korea. But he divides his time between this assignment and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, where he is dean.

Kurt M. Campbell, an Asia security expert nominated to become the assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, is likely to play a significant role. But he has not yet been confirmed.

Among the other influential players on North Korea policy, officials said, are James B. Steinberg, deputy secretary of state, and Jeffrey A. Bader, senior director for Asian affairs on the National Security Council.

The council conducted a limited recount after the first round of the 2005 election, which put Ahmadinejad into the run-off against Hashemi Rafsanjani. The recount was carried out behind closed doors. The council gave the results a clean bill of health but did not publish its findings.

The situation this time is very different, there is far more pressure on the council and Khamenei from the street and from within the religious establishment, from important figures such as Rafsanjani. But Rafsanjani is not a council member.

The recount poses a dilemma for the opposition: to participate may imply endorsement of a process of which it is highly suspicious. To stand aloof takes away any chance of influencing the process and risks projecting the image of spoilers.

Khamenei and the council also face a dilemma: admission of any rigging would dent the pure image of Iranian democracy they have attempted to project. To deny any shortcomings, on the other hand, could trigger fury on the streets, and discredit the pillars of the Islamic republic.

Votes are being bought with cash or in-kind services. Candidates pay their competitors huge sums to withdraw. The price of favorable TV news coverage is rising, and thousands of expatriate Lebanese are being flown home, free, to vote in contested districts. The payments, according to voters, election monitors and various past and current candidates interviewed for this article, nurture a deep popular cynicism about politics in Lebanon, which is nominally perhaps the most democratic Arab state but in practice is largely governed through patronage and sectarian and clan loyalty.

Despite the vast amounts being spent, many Lebanese see the race — which pits Hezbollah and its allies against a fractious coalition of more West-friendly political groups — as almost irrelevant. Lebanon’s sectarian political structure virtually guarantees a continuation of the current “national unity” government, in which the winning coalition in the 128-seat Parliament grants the loser veto powers to preserve civil peace.

Still, even a narrow win by Hezbollah and its allies, now in the parliamentary opposition, would be seen as a victory for Iran — which has financed Hezbollah for decades — and a blow to American allies in the region, especially Saudi Arabia and Egypt. So the money flows.

“We are putting a lot into this,” said one adviser to the Saudi government, who added that the Saudi contribution was likely to reach hundreds of millions of dollars in a country of only four million people. “We’re supporting candidates running against Hezbollah, and we’re going to make Iran feel the pressure.”

As it happens, Lebanon has campaign spending limits this year for the first time, and the Arab world’s first system to monitor that spending, by the Lebanese chapter of Transparency International. But the limits — which are very loose to begin with — apply only in the last two months of the campaign. And they are laughably easy to circumvent, according to election monitors and Lebanese officials.

Reformers have tried and failed to introduce a uniform national ballot, which could reduce the influence of money and make the system less vulnerable to fraud. Currently, political parties or coalitions usually print up their own distinctive ballots and hand them to voters before they walk into the booth, making it easier to be sure they are getting the votes they have paid for.

Some voters, especially in competitive districts, receive cold calls offering cash for their vote. But mostly the political machines work through local patriarchs known as “electoral keys,” who can deliver the votes of an entire clan in exchange for money or services — scholarships, a hospital, repaved roads and so on.

In fact, many poorer Lebanese look to the elections as a kind of Christmas, when cash, health-care vouchers, meals and other handouts are abundant.

The largess extends across the globe. From Brazil to Australia, thousands of expatriates are being offered free plane trips back home to vote. Saad Hariri, the billionaire leader of the current parliamentary majority and a Saudi ally, is reputed to be the biggest election spender. It may not have helped that he kicked off his campaign with a gaudy televised event that resembled the set of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.” But members of his movement say that the accusation is unfair, and that their own money is outmatched by the hundreds of millions of dollars Iran has given to Hezbollah over the years.

The turmoil in Buner, a district of about 1 million people, does not pose an immediate threat to Islamabad, which lies across a mountain range and the river Indus. But the speed and aggression of the militant advance has stoked a sense of alarm across the country, even among normally conservative forces.

"If Taliban continue to move at this pace they will soon be knocking at the doors of Islamabad," Maulana Fazlur Rehman, leader of the pro-Taliban Jamiat Ulema e Islam party, told the national assembly yesterday.The Taliban could soon seize control of Tarbela Dam, a strategic reservoir, Rehman warned.

Blame for the turmoil has focused on a controversial peace deal the provincial government signed with militants in February. Hoping to defuse the insurgency, the Awami National party-led government acceded to demands for sharia law in Swat and seven surrounding districts, known collectively as Malakand Division.The changes were ratified by the national parliament last week with cross-party consensus. Since then, the Taliban have moved to establish much more than judicial control.

In Mingora, the commercial hub of Swat, the police retain a low-key presence, reduced to directing traffic. Most politicians have fled, many under death threats. Many residents said it was not clear who was in control of the town.

In Imam Dheri, the Taliban headquarters near Mingora, a Taliban spokesman, Muslim Khan, told the Guardian their goal was the establishment of an Islamic caliphate first in Pakistan and then across the Muslim world."Democracy is a system for European countries. It is not for Muslims," he said. "This is not just about justice. It should be in education, health, economics. Everything should be under sharia."

Despite the apparent differences between the presidencies of Putin and his handpicked successor, there are few signs of any real disagreement between the two men, personally or politically. "Medvedev came from Putin's state apparatus—he is a reformer, not a revolutionary," says Alexei Makarkin, deputy director of the Center for Political Technologies, a Moscow think tank. "Like Russian historical reformers, he is part of the old machine." Some people say the very idea of Medvedev challenging Putin is no more than wishful thinking. "All we see is just a change of style," says Alexei Venediktov, the director of Echo Moskvy, Russia's leading liberal radio station. "The president does not make a single decision without consulting with the prime minister first."

Putin loyalists say much the same. "Russia's state institutions, created by Putin, are stable and powerful," says Mikhail Leontyev, anchor of the prominent political talk show "Odnako." "There are not two branches of power, only one." He points out that Medvedev has replaced only about one sixth of Putin's appointees and holdovers with his own people.

The president has decreed that all senior bureaucrats must publicly disclose their incomes and business interests and those of their immediate families. But his war on corruption in high places is by definition an attack on some of the very men he has relied on as his chief power base. "Russia's bureaucrats just laugh at Medvedev's income-declaration law," says Gennady Gudkov, a former KGB general on the Duma's Security Committee. "This is not a real struggle, but an imitation of struggle. There is no one to check these Potemkin declarations."

The role played by psychologists in adapting SERE methods for interrogation has been described in books and news articles, including some in The Washington Post. Author Jane Mayer and journalist Katherine Eban separately identified as key figures James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, two psychologists in Washington state who worked as CIA contractors after 2001 and had extensive experience in SERE training.

The CIA psychologists had personal experience with SERE and helped convince CIA officials that harsh tactics would coerce confessions from Abu Zubaida without inflicting permanent harm. Waterboarding was touted as particularly useful because it was "reported to be almost 100 percent effective in producing cooperation," the memo said.

The agency then used a psychological assessment of Abu Zubaida to find his vulnerable points. One of them, it turns out, was a severe aversion to bugs. "He appears to have a fear of insects," states the memo, which describes a plan to place a caterpillar or similar creature inside a tiny wooden crate in which Abu Zubaida was confined. CIA officials say the plan was never carried out.

Former intelligence officials contend that Abu Zubaida was found to have played a less important role in al-Qaeda than initially believed and that under harsh interrogation he provided little useful information about the organization's plans.

Mr Obama has pledged substantial economic assistance for Pakistan - more than $1bn annually over the next five years - but the money will depend on the army's performance against the Taleban and al-Qaeda.

The BBC's Barbara Plett in Islamabad says President Zardari has now told the two US envoys that this is not good enough.

Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said: "We can only work together if we respect each other and trust each other."

"Pakistan is fighting a battle of its own survival," his office quoted him as telling Mr Holbrooke.

Our correspondent says his statement revealed the frustration and resentment about the aid conditions - which reflect American distrust of the Pakistani army. The conditions strengthen Pakistani perceptions of its army as a mercenary force doing American bidding, she adds.

His statement after the meeting read: "Pakistan... needs unconditional support by the international community in the fields of education, health, training and provision of equipment for fighting terrorism."

Mr Qureshi admitted there were differences on the issue. "We did talk about drones, and let me be very frank - there is a gap. There is a gap between us and them, and I want to bridge that gap."