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{{In a decision that could boost President Dilma Rousseff’s chances of re-election next year, Brazil’s electoral court ruled on Thursday that her main potential rival failed to gather enough signatures to register her new party in time.}}

Environmentalist Marina Silva has until Saturday to decide whether to run on the ticket of an existing party to make her second bid for president next October.

The court ruled 6-1 against the creation of her party, called the Sustainability Network, because it fell short of the required 492,000 signatures. Silva blamed electoral notaries across Brazil for failing to validate 95,000 names on time.

After the ruling, Silva said she would announce on Friday whether she would run on another ticket, but added there had been no talks with other parties and she planned to keep building her own party to renew Brazilian politics.

“It’s only a matter of time until it gets approved. We might not be registered, but we have the most important thing: ethics. We will become stronger,” she told reporters at the court.

Silva, 55, a former senator and environment minister, and the daughter of rubber tappers, won 19.6 million votes to place third in the last election in 2010, won by Rousseff.

Silva risks losing that support if she runs with another party because it could undermine her image as a fresh voice whose lack of ties to traditional Brazilian politics and reputation for honesty have appealed to young Brazilians.

“She will lose her political capital because she will look like just another politician,” said Andre César, an analyst with Brasilia-based consultancy Prospectiva Consultoria.

The Superior Electoral Court’s decision is good news for Rousseff, who is widely expected to seek a second term, because it could narrow the field and improve her chances of winning outright with no need for a runoff if Silva does not run on another party’s ticket.

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{{Paris prosecutors opened a preliminary investigation Monday into the assets of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s uncle, whom anti-corruption groups accuse of illegally obtaining a vast fortune and property empire.}}

A judicial source told media the investigation had been opened into Rifaat al-Assad, the brother of Bashar al-Assad’s father Hafez, after a criminal complaint filed on September 13.

The complaint, by anti-corruption groups Sherpa and Transparency International, alleges the 76-year-old illegally acquired “extraordinary wealth” in France through corrupt schemes and embezzlement.

Once a stalwart of the Syrian authorities, Rifaat al-Assad broke with his brother’s government in 1984 and reportedly has no links with the current regime, which is fighting in a civil conflict that has left more than 110,000 dead since it began in March 2011.

Before splitting from the regime, Rifaat al-Assad was accused of being responsible for the deaths of thousands during the crushing of a Sunni Islamist uprising in 1982.

The massacre in the town of Hama, by troops allegedly under Rifaat al-Assad’s command, left between 10,000 and 25,000 dead.

Rifaat al-Assad has denied any involvement and in 2011 dismissed allegations he was behind the killings as “a myth”.

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{{Twitter Inc, racing toward the largest Silicon Valley IPO since Facebook Inc’s 2012 coming-out party, hopes to woo investors with rip-roaring revenue growth despite never having made a profit in the past three years.}}

The eight-year-old microblogging service, the preferred communications tool for celebrities and politicians alike, gave potential investors their first glance at its financials on Thursday when it publicly filed its IPO documents.

Revenue almost tripled to $316.9 million in 2012, driven largely by advertising. In the first half of 2013, it posted revenue of $253.6 million but had a loss of $69.3 million.

Crucially, Twitter managed average revenue per user in the second quarter of 2013 of 64 cents compared to Facebook’s roughly $1.60, according to media calculations.

Losses are “a non-issue,” said Brian Wieser, analyst at Pivotal Research Group. “It would have been a surprise if they had a profit. Here’s the number that really matters. It’s the revenue per customer. The question is how much is the typical commitment they’re getting from advertisers at this time.”

In a typical laundry list of risk factors appended to all company IPO filings, Twitter warned it was heavily reliant on advertising revenue. It said more than 87 percent of its revenue came from advertising in the first half of 2013.

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{{Italy has asked for help from the European Union to deal with refugee arrivals in the wake of the sinking of a boat carrying migrants off the coast of the Sicilian island of Lampedusa on Thursday, in which it is feared 300 or more people could have died.}}

Around 500 people, believed to be mostly Eritreans and Somalis, were aboard the 20-metre boat when it capsized and sank on Thursday morning when the vessel was around half of a mile from the island.

By late evening 104 bodies, including at least three children and two pregnant women, had been recovered.

But with only 150 survivors plucked from the water more than 12 hours after the disaster, there were fears that the final toll could rise significantly higher in what is one of the worst migrant tragedies to strike the Mediterranean in recent years.

“Seeing the bodies of the children was a tragedy. We have run out of coffins,” Pietro Bartolo, a local doctor,told media. “In many years of work here, I have never seen anything like this,” he said.

{{‘A European tragedy’}}

Italy is one of the most common destinations for refugees trying to reach Europe from northern Africa and the Middle East.

According to the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, 8,400 migrants landed in Italy and Malta in the first six months of this year, almost double the 4,500 who arrived during the first half of 2012.

Migrants frequently head for Lampedusa, just 113 km (70 miles) from the coast of Tunisia, and are often found in dangerously overcrowded boats before being taken ashore by the Italian coastguard.