curlmh_ = curl_multi_init();
  int min_req = MIN(n_req_, urls_.size());
  CURL** curleh = new CURL*[min_req];
  
  // create min_req easy handles, to be added to a single multi handle
  for (int i=0; i<min_req; i++) {
    curleh[i] = curl_easy_init();
    curl_easy_setopt (curleh[i], CURLOPT_URL, urls_[i].c_str());
    curl_easy_setopt (curleh[i], CURLOPT_WRITEFUNCTION, fetcher_thread::write_data);
    curl_multi_add_handle (curlmh_, curleh[i]);
  }

  int active, curl_res, fd_res, max_fd;
  fd_set fds, fdsw, fdse;
  struct timeval timeout;
  timeout.tv_sec = 5;
  timeout.tv_usec = 0;

  do {
    do {
      curl_res = curl_multi_perform (curlmh_, &active);
    }
    while ( curl_res == CURLM_CALL_MULTI_PERFORM );

    FD_ZERO (&fds);  FD_ZERO (&fdsw);  FD_ZERO (&fdse);

    max_fd = 0;
    fd_res = curl_multi_fdset (curlmh_, &fds, &fdsw, &fdse, &max_fd);
    if ( max_fd == -1 ) {
      continue;
    }

    do {      
      fd_res = select (max_fd+1, &fds, &fdsw, &fdse, (struct timeval*)NULL);
    }
    while ( fd_res == -1  &&  errno == EINTR );      

    msleep(100);		// I'd like to do other useful stuff meanwhile...
  }
  while ( curl_res == CURLM_OK  &&  active > 0 );

  // operations finished, doing the cleanup
  for (int i=0; i<min_req; i++) {
    curl_multi_remove_handle (curlmh_, curleh[i]);
    curl_easy_cleanup (curleh[i]);
  }
  curl_multi_cleanup(curlmh_);