Mursi calls December 15 referendum, Islamists rally

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt's President Mohamed Mursi called a December 15 referendum on a new constitution, hoping to end protests over a decree expanding his powers, as at least 200,000 of his Islamist supporters rallied in Cairo on Saturday.

Approval of the constitution drafted by an assembly stacked with Mursi's Islamist allies will override the November 22 decree that temporarily shielded Mursi from judicial oversight and triggered statements of concern from Western governments.

The decree plunged Egypt into its worst crisis since Mursi won office in a June election and sparked countrywide protests and violence in which two people have been killed and hundreds injured. This hit an economy just showing signs of recovery.

"I renew my call for opening a serious national dialogue over the concerns of the nation, with all honesty and impartiality," said Mursi after receiving the final draft from the constituent assembly. "We must move beyond the period of confrontation and differences, and get on to productive work."

The constitution is meant to be the cornerstone of democracy after three decades of army-backed autocracy under President Hosni Mubarak. Yet drafting it has been divisive, exposing splits between newly empowered Islamists and their opponents.

Protesters in an open-ended sit-in in Cairo's Tahrir Square, which was also the focus of demonstrations against Mubarak, accuse Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood of trying to impose a flawed constitution.

Leading opposition figure Mohamed ElBaradei said on Twitter that "struggle will continue" despite the referendum and that the draft constitution "undermines basic freedoms."

Liberal figures including former Arab League chief Amr Moussa pulled out of the constituent assembly last month, as did representatives of Egypt's Christian minority.

The draft constitution contains Islamist-flavored language which opponents say could be used to whittle away human rights and stifle criticism. It forbids blasphemy and "insults to any person", does not explicitly uphold women's rights and demands respect for "religion, traditions and family values".

The text also limits presidents to two four-year terms, requires parliamentary approval for their choice of prime minister, and introduces some civilian oversight of the military - although not enough for critics.

Mursi described it as a constitution that fulfilled the goals of the January 25, 2011 revolution that brought an end to Mubarak's rule. "Let everyone - those who agree and those who disagree - go to the referendum to have their say," he said.

JUDGES TO SUPERVISE VOTE

To hold the referendum, Mursi will depend on a judiciary which has been on partial strike over the November 22 decree, and which he and the Brotherhood suspect of links to the Mubarak regime. Judges oversee elections in Egypt.

Vice President Mahmoud Mekky said he trusted the judiciary would supervise the vote, state news agency MENA reported.

Mursi is betting the Islamists' core supporters and ordinary Egyptians fed up with instability will pass the constitution.

While Mursi only secured the presidency by a slim margin, the Islamists have won all elections since Mubarak was toppled.

The opposition must decide whether to urge a boycott or a "No" vote in the referendum. If they secure a "No", the president could retain the powers he has unilaterally assumed.

The referendum call met with cheers from the pro-Mursi rally at Cairo University. Streets were clogged with those sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood and more hardline Salafi parties.

The rally was a show of strength by Islamists who feel under attack from leftist, liberal and socialist parties. By early evening, the crowd peaked at at least 200,000, said Reuters witnesses, basing estimates on previous Cairo rallies. Authorities declined to give an estimate for the crowd's size.

"The people want the implementation of God's law," chanted flag-waving demonstrators, many bussed in from the countryside.

Tens of thousands of Egyptians protested against Mursi on Friday, chanting: "The people want to bring down the regime," echoing a trademark slogan of the revolts against Arab leaders.

Rival demonstrators threw stones after dark in the northern city of Alexandria and a town in the Nile Delta. Similar clashes erupted again briefly in Alexandria on Saturday, state TV said.

Mohamed Noshi, 23, a pharmacist from Mansoura, said he had joined the rally in Cairo to support Mursi and his decree. "Those in Tahrir don't represent everyone. Most people support Mursi and aren't against the decree," he said.

Egypt cannot hold a new parliamentary election until a new constitution is passed. The country has been without an elected legislature since the Supreme Constitutional Court ordered the dissolution of the Islamist-dominated lower house in June.

The court is due to meet on Sunday to discuss the legality of parliament's upper house.

"We want stability. Every time, the constitutional court tears down institutions we elect," said Yasser Taha, a 30-year-old demonstrator at the Islamist rally in Cairo.

(Additional reporting by Marwa Awad, Yasmine Saleh and Tamim Elyan; Writing by Alistair Lyon and Tom Perry; Editing by Myra MacDonald and Jason Webb)

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India's "dancing bears" retire in animal rights victory

NEW DELHI: The sight of poorly-fed and badly-treated bears being forced to dance on the streets of India is a thing of the past as a campaign to wipe out the practice has finally borne fruit, activists say.

The tradition of forcing sloth bears to dance for entertainment dates back to the 13th century, when trainers belonging to the Muslim Kalandar tribe enjoyed royal patronage and performed before the rich and powerful.

Descendants of the tribe from central India had kept the tradition alive, buying bear cubs from poachers for about 1,200 rupees (US$22) and then hammering a heated iron rod through their sensitive snouts.

After removing the animal's teeth and claws, the bear trainer threaded a rope through its snout and then headed for the streets where onlookers would pay a few rupees for a show in which the bear would sway and jump around.

"It's taken us many years but all the tribesmen we keep track of have moved on to different livelihoods," Vivek Menon from the non-profit Wildlife Trust of India (WTI), told AFP on the sidelines of a bear conference in New Delhi last week.

"The tradition might still be present in people's minds, of course, but we don't know of any cases where Kalandars are still practising it."

The World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA) and India-based Wildlife SOS, which runs sanctuaries for bears, have also declared an end to the practice in the last few months -- 40 years after a government ban in 1972.

The key, say the donation-funded groups, has been bringing the Kalandars on board, providing them with money and incentives to re-train in other professions.

The success points the way for other campaigns, such as the one to rid India of its snake charmers who can still be spotted illegally plying their trade, often with the snakes' mouths sewn shut.

"It was very difficult to convince the bear trainers to give up their work. Most of them were very scared, they have never known any other way of life but this," WSPA campaign coordinator Aniruddha Mookerjee told AFP.

One of the owners to give up was Mohammed Afsar Khan, a 30-year-old father of three girls who used to work with his father and brother, travelling across central India with three bears in tow.

He says he used to earn about 300 rupees a day until he gave up the job six years ago.

"It's a hard life. You can never settle in one place, your children can't go to school, you end up feeling trapped. Then you are always worried about police harassing you for bribes," he said.

He handed over his bears to Wildlife Trust of India officers, who offered his family financial assistance and helped him and his younger brother learn driving skills.

He used the funds to rent a tractor and ferry bricks from kilns to construction sites in Chhattisgarh state. Today, he owns his tractor and earns about 500 rupees a day.

Declining bear populations

The bears recovered by the animal groups were often in a wretched state, suffering from infected snouts, root canal problems, even diseases such as tuberculosis which they contracted from humans.

The sloth bears also suffer from malnutrition after being fed bread, lentils and milk for years, leading to an extremely reduced life span.

Menon from WTI say that the dancing bear industry was also "a dominant cause behind the disappearance of the sloth bear" -- a focus at the conference on conservation and welfare of bears.

In the last three decades, the number of sloth bears -- a species native to South Asia -- has fallen by at least 30 per cent, according to the IUCN-SSC Bear Specialist Group (BSG). There are now less than 20,000 of them.

"The widespread poaching of bear cubs and the killing of mother bears clearly affects the population of the species," Menon told AFP.

"India is changing rapidly and this is an outmoded, inhumane tradition. The trainers themselves realise now that it is far easier for them to earn a living doing other jobs," Menon said.

Aziz Khan is another former bear-owner who never expected to leave his ancestral trade but was happy for the way out offered by WTI when officers approached him and his friends more than a decade ago.

"I didn't earn much, but I was afraid to leave it. I didn't know how else I would be able to feed my three kids," the 45-year-old told AFP.

WTI helped retrain Aziz Khan and his friends as bakers. They now run their own bakery, producing 350 loaves of bread each day.

"I have no regrets today, it was a dead-end job and I am glad I was able to move on," he said.

- AFP/xq

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FDI in retail to safeguard international market mafias' interest: BJP

NEW DELHI: India's main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) today said retail reform is a step taken by the Congress led-federal government to safeguard the interests of the international market mafias at the cost of national interest.

BJP vice president Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said on Saturday that voting inside the parliament would decide as to who is in favour of national interest and who is working for international interests.

"The government feels that their responsibility is to safeguard the interest of international market mafias instead of national interest and for saving the interest of international market mafias, the government is ready to compromise with national interests. Now, the parliament will decide as to who is in support of international market mafias and who are supporting national interests," said Naqvi.

The government's decision to allow foreign supermarket chains such as Wal-Mart had triggered protest not only from opposition parties but also from some of its allies.

BJP had sought debate on the issue of allowing Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the retail sector, under the rule that entails voting after discussions.

Meanwhile, Minister in the Prime Minister Office (PMO), V Narayanaswamy said the government would answer all the queries raised by the opposition parties in the parliament and will explain the benefits of allowing FDI in retail sector.

The lower house of parliament has set December 04 and 05 as the date to vote and debate on FDI. The dates for the upper house are yet to be decided.

Narayanaswamy said the government is confident of becoming victorious in the debate.

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Asperger's dropped from revised diagnosis manual

CHICAGO (AP) — The now familiar term "Asperger's disorder" is being dropped. And abnormally bad and frequent temper tantrums will be given a scientific-sounding diagnosis called DMDD. But "dyslexia" and other learning disorders remain.

The revisions come in the first major rewrite in nearly 20 years of the diagnostic guide used by the nation's psychiatrists. Changes were approved Saturday.

Full details of all the revisions will come next May when the American Psychiatric Association's new diagnostic manual is published, but the impact will be huge, affecting millions of children and adults worldwide. The manual also is important for the insurance industry in deciding what treatment to pay for, and it helps schools decide how to allot special education.

This diagnostic guide "defines what constellations of symptoms" doctors recognize as mental disorders, said Dr. Mark Olfson, a Columbia University psychiatry professor. More important, he said, it "shapes who will receive what treatment. Even seemingly subtle changes to the criteria can have substantial effects on patterns of care."

Olfson was not involved in the revision process. The changes were approved Saturday in suburban Washington, D.C., by the psychiatric association's board of trustees.

The aim is not to expand the number of people diagnosed with mental illness, but to ensure that affected children and adults are more accurately diagnosed so they can get the most appropriate treatment, said Dr. David Kupfer. He chaired the task force in charge of revising the manual and is a psychiatry professor at the University of Pittsburgh.

One of the most hotly argued changes was how to define the various ranges of autism. Some advocates opposed the idea of dropping the specific diagnosis for Asperger's disorder. People with that disorder often have high intelligence and vast knowledge on narrow subjects but lack social skills. Some who have the condition embrace their quirkiness and vow to continue to use the label.

And some Asperger's families opposed any change, fearing their kids would lose a diagnosis and no longer be eligible for special services.

But the revision will not affect their education services, experts say.

The new manual adds the term "autism spectrum disorder," which already is used by many experts in the field. Asperger's disorder will be dropped and incorporated under that umbrella diagnosis. The new category will include kids with severe autism, who often don't talk or interact, as well as those with milder forms.

Kelli Gibson of Battle Creek, Mich., who has four sons with various forms of autism, said Saturday she welcomes the change. Her boys all had different labels in the old diagnostic manual, including a 14-year-old with Asperger's.

"To give it separate names never made sense to me," Gibson said. "To me, my children all had autism."

Three of her boys receive special education services in public school; the fourth is enrolled in a school for disabled children. The new autism diagnosis won't affect those services, Gibson said. She also has a 3-year-old daughter without autism.

People with dyslexia also were closely watching for the new updated doctors' guide. Many with the reading disorder did not want their diagnosis to be dropped. And it won't be. Instead, the new manual will have a broader learning disorder category to cover several conditions including dyslexia, which causes difficulty understanding letters and recognizing written words.

The trustees on Saturday made the final decision on what proposals made the cut; recommendations came from experts in several work groups assigned to evaluate different mental illnesses.

The revised guidebook "represents a significant step forward for the field. It will improve our ability to accurately diagnose psychiatric disorders," Dr. David Fassler, the group's treasurer and a University of Vermont psychiatry professor, said after the vote.

The shorthand name for the new edition, the organization's fifth revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, is DSM-5. Group leaders said specifics won't be disclosed until the manual is published but they confirmed some changes. A 2000 edition of the manual made minor changes but the last major edition was published in 1994.

Olfson said the manual "seeks to capture the current state of knowledge of psychiatric disorders. Since 2000 ... there have been important advances in our understanding of the nature of psychiatric disorders."

Catherine Lord, an autism expert at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York who was on the psychiatric group's autism task force, said anyone who met criteria for Asperger's in the old manual would be included in the new diagnosis.

One reason for the change is that some states and school systems don't provide services for children and adults with Asperger's, or provide fewer services than those given an autism diagnosis, she said.

Autism researcher Geraldine Dawson, chief science officer for the advocacy group Autism Speaks, said small studies have suggested the new criteria will be effective. But she said it will be crucial to monitor so that children don't lose services.

Other changes include:

—A new diagnosis for severe recurrent temper tantrums — disruptive mood dysregulation disorder. Critics say it will medicalize kids' who have normal tantrums. Supporters say it will address concerns about too many kids being misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder and treated with powerful psychiatric drugs. Bipolar disorder involves sharp mood swings and affected children are sometimes very irritable or have explosive tantrums.

—Eliminating the term "gender identity disorder." It has been used for children or adults who strongly believe that they were born the wrong gender. But many activists believe the condition isn't a disorder and say calling it one is stigmatizing. The term would be replaced with "gender dysphoria," which means emotional distress over one's gender. Supporters equated the change with removing homosexuality as a mental illness in the diagnostic manual, which happened decades ago.

___

AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTanner .

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Wikileaks Case: Guards Deny Intimidating Manning

(Brendan Smialkowski/AFP/Getty Images)

Bradley Manning’s former guards testified today that they did not intimidate the man accused of leaking hundreds of thousands of classified cables to the anti-secrets website Wikileaks during  a Jan. 18, 2011 incident that resulted in Manning being placed on a temporary suicide risk watch.

Manning’s attorneys cite the event as a key reason why his pre-trial confinement at the Marine brig in Quantico, Va., was unlawful and warrants the dismissal of the charges against him.

Manning faces life imprisonment on charges that he leaked the classified military and diplomatic cables to Wikileaks.  Details of those charges will come at a trial scheduled for February and are not being discussed at this week’s hearing, which is focused on his nine-month confinement at Quantico from July 2010 to April 2011.

On Jan. 18, 2011 Manning was being moved to his daily “recreation call” in a room at the brig when he experienced an apparent anxiety attack.  Manning said Thursday the guards escorting him seemed to have an aggressive attitude that made him feel nervous and ultimately feel faint.

Manning testified Thursday that he “lost my demeanor” during a later discussion with brig officials about the incident that led them to place him on temporary suicide risk watch.

Former Marine guards Lance Corporal Joshua Tankersly and Lance Corporal Jonathan Cline testified today that Manning had been moving around while his hand and leg restraints were placed on him for the escort to the exercise room.  They said they reminded Manning that he should respond properly to their orders by referring to their ranks when he answered them.

When Manning entered the recreation room they described a situation in which Manning fell backwards and landed on his backside.

They then said that when out of his leg restraints Manning ran to a weightlifting machine, hid behind it and began to cry.  Both Cline and Tankersly said they could not explain Manning’s behavior.  Both guards were ordered to leave the room and were replaced by two other guards who escorted Manning back to his cell.

Cline said he was puzzled when a supervisor later told him “we intimidated him or something like that.”

Each guard said he could not recall if they sounded harsh when they talked to Manning on the way to the exercise room.

They both said that aside from the January incident, Manning was courteous and professional in his interactions with them.  Both described him as an average prisoner, though Tankersly acknowledged that Manning was a high profile detainee who had the attention of high-ranking officials at the base.

“It’s hard to put ‘average’ on such a high profile, when you have higher ups on base come and check through to that see all was OK,” Tankersly said.

Gunnery Sgt. William Fuller, one of the senior officers at the brig, also testified today about his participation in a Classification and Assessment board that routinely assessed whether Manning’s Maximum Custody and Prevention of Injury status should be downgraded. The board never reduced Manning’s status during his stay.

Fuller acknowledged that before the January incident he and another brig official had considered a downgrade because Manning was “doing pretty good.”

He said the Jan. 18incident “kind of reset things … we had to keep him on Prevention of Injury.”

Fuller also cited Manning’s quiet interactions with him as a reason for keeping Manning on that status.

According to Fuller “he wouldn’t communicate … it seemed like he didn’t really want to talk” and that concerned him, given training he had received that being withdrawn could be an indicator of suicidal behavior.

Fuller admitted that the conversations were really just quick interactions to see how Manning was doing..  When asked to provide examples of longer exchanges he had with other prisoners, Fuller provided brief sentences.  That led David Coombs, Manning’s defense attorney to say sarcastically, “so if he’d thrown in more words then he would have classified as a Chatty Patty?”

Manning’s attorneys claim that a protest on Jan. 17 by Manning supporters, at the entrance to the base, may have motivated an aggressive attitude towards the detainee.

Cline recalled other guards “were annoyed” by the protest” because it would close parts of the base and hinder or interrupt how they got home.”  But Tankersly said the protest had no impact on Manning’s treatment.

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Egyptians protest after draft constitution raced through

CAIRO (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of Egyptians protested against President Mohamed Mursi on Friday after an Islamist-led assembly raced through approval of a new constitution in a bid to end a crisis over the Islamist leader's newly expanded powers.

"The people want to bring down the regime," they chanted in Tahrir Square, echoing the chants that rang out in the same place less than two years ago and brought down Hosni Mubarak.

Mursi said a decree halting court challenges to his decisions, which sparked eight days of protests and violence by Egyptians calling him a new dictator, was "for an exceptional stage" and aimed to speed up the democratic transition.

"It will end as soon as the people vote on a constitution," he told state television while the constituent assembly was still voting on a draft, which the Islamists say reflects Egypt's new freedoms. "There is no place for dictatorship."

But the opposition cried foul. Liberals, leftists, Christians, more moderate Muslims and others had withdrawn from the assembly, saying their voices were not being heard.

Even in the mosque where Mursi said Friday prayers some opponents chanted "Mursi: void" before sympathizers surrounded him shouting in support, journalists and a security source said.

Tens of thousands gathered across the country, filling Tahrir Square and hitting the streets in Alexandria and other cities, responding to opposition calls for a big turnout. Rival demonstrators clashed after dark in Alexandria and the Nile Delta town of Al-Mahala Al-Kobra, some hurling rocks in anger.

An opposition leaflet distributed on Tahrir urged protesters in Cairo to stay overnight before Saturday's rallies by Islamists; the Muslim Brotherhood and its allies said they would avoid the square during their demonstrations backing Mursi.

The disparate opposition, which has struggled to compete with well-organized Islamists, has been drawn together and reinvigorated by the crisis. Tens of thousands had also protested on Tuesday, showing the breadth of public anger.

POTENT MACHINE

But Islamists have a potent political machine and the United States has looked on warily at the rising power of a group it once kept at arms length now ruling a nation that has a peace treaty with Israel and is at the heart of the Arab Spring.

Protesters said they would push for a 'no' vote in a constitutional referendum, which could happen as early as mid-December. If the new basic law were approved, it would immediately cancel the president's decree.

"We fundamentally reject the referendum and constituent assembly because the assembly does not represent all sections of society," said Sayed el-Erian, 43, a protester in Tahrir and member of a party set up by opposition figure Mohamed ElBaradei.

ElBaradei said in a statement the constitution had "lost legitimacy" and called for ending the polarization of Egypt.

The plebiscite on the constitution is a gamble based on the Islamists' belief they can mobilize voters again after winning every election held since Mubarak was toppled in February 2011.

Despite the big numbers opposed to him, Mursi can count on backing from the disciplined Brotherhood and Islamist allies, as well as many Egyptians who are simply exhausted by the turmoil.

"He just wants us to move on and not waste time in conflicts," said 33-year-old Cairo shopkeeper Abdel Nasser Marie. "Give the man a chance and Egypt a break."

But Mursi needs the cooperation of judges to oversee the vote, and many have been angered by a decree from Mursi they said undermined the judiciary. Some judges are on strike.

The assembly concluded the vote after a 19-hour session, faster than many expected, approving all 234 articles of the draft, covering presidential powers, the status of Islam, the military's role and human rights.

It introduces a presidential term limit of eight years - Mubarak served for 30. It also bring in a degree of civilian oversight over the military - though not enough for critics.

An Egyptian official said Mursi was expected to approve the document on Saturday and then has 15 days to hold a referendum.

"This is a revolutionary constitution," said Hossam el-Gheriyani, head of the assembly, urging members to campaign for the new constitution across Egypt, after the all-night session.

DEEPENING DIVISIONS

Critics argue it is an attempt to rush through a draft they say has been hijacked by the Muslim Brotherhood, which backed Mursi for president in a June election, and its Islamist allies.

Two people have been killed and hundreds injured in protests since the decree was announced on November 22, deepening the divide between the newly empowered Islamists and their critics.

Seeking to placate opponents, Mursi welcomed criticism but said there was no place for violence. "I am very happy that Egypt has real political opposition," he told state television.

He said Egypt needed to attract investors and tourists. The crisis threatens to derail a fragile economic recovery after two years of turmoil. Egypt is waiting for the International Monetary Fund to finalize a $4.8 billion loan to help it out.

An alliance of opposition groups pledged to keep up protests and said broader civil disobedience was possible to fight what it described as an attempt to "kidnap Egypt from its people".

Several independent newspapers said they would not publish on Tuesday in protest. One of the papers also said three private satellite channels would halt broadcasts on Wednesday.

The draft injects new Islamic references into Egypt's system of government but keeps in place an article defining "the principles of sharia" as the main source of legislation - the same phrase found in the previous constitution.

The president can declare war with parliament's approval, but only after consulting a national defense council with a heavy military and security membership. That was not in the old constitution, used when Egypt was ruled by ex-military men.

Critics highlighted other flaws, such as articles pertaining to the rights of women and freedom of speech.

A new parliamentary election cannot be held until a new constitution is passed. Egypt has been without an elected legislature since a court ordered the dissolution of the Islamist-dominated lower house in June.

(Additional reporting by Yasmine Saleh and Marwa Awad; Writing by Edmund Blair; Editing by Philippa Fletcher and Alastair Macdonald)

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British coalition divided over future of the press

LONDON: Work started on Friday on a draft law to regulate Britain's newspapers, despite Prime Minister David Cameron's strong objection to legislation proposed by a major inquiry into press ethics.

Cameron's government is divided on the future of the press after the Liberal Democrats, the junior partners in his Conservative-led coalition, said they would join forces with the opposition Labour party and support a new law.

The rift was sparked by Thursday's publication of a report by judge Brian Leveson which, in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal at Rupert Murdoch's News of the World, proposed a new independent self-regulatory body backed by law.

Cameron immediately warned legislation could threaten press freedom, but his deputy Nick Clegg, the Lib Dem leader, insisted statutory oversight was essential to guarantee the independence of the new watchdog.

The prime minister said he accepted the vast majority of Leveson's proposals, which follow a year-long inquiry that heard from journalists, politicians and victims of press intrusion, but said a new law would put Britain on a slippery slope.

Lawmakers will go ahead with drafting a law, although culture minister Maria Miller suggested the Conservatives would use the process to attempt to persuade the Lib Dems and Labour that the new law would be unworkable.

"Our concern is that we simply don't need to have that legislation to achieve the end objectives," she told BBC television.

But actor Hugh Grant joined other victims of media intrusion in blasting Cameron for rejecting a state-backed watchdog despite his earlier pledge to follow Leveson's recommendations as long as they were not "bonkers".

"It wasn't and he didn't," Grant tweeted.

The British press currently regulates itself through the Press Complaints Commission, a body staffed by editors.

Its critics say it is toothless and partly responsible for Britain's failure to punish journalists for harassment, invasion of privacy and the hacking of voicemail messages.

Leveson proposed a beefed-up watchdog staffed by independent members, with the power to fine newspapers up to US$1.6 million.

It would be "essential" for the new body to be backed up by legislation, the judge concluded in his 2,000-page report.

The junior coalition partners insist they will not let the Conservatives drag their feet on the legislation.

"The Liberal Democrats in government will ensure that the bill is drafted in good faith," a spokesman for Clegg said.

"We owe that to the public and the victims."

"Gauntlet thrown down"

Miller said the "gauntlet has been thrown down" to newspapers to demonstrate how they intend to regulate themselves without the need for legislation -- and many of Friday's newspaper editorials agreed with her.

The press has broadly accepted the need for a tougher watchdog but is united in its opposition to the regulation being enshrined in law.

"What is to stop MPs amending it now and in the future so that it no longer resembles the benign legislative vehicle envisaged by the judge?" asked the right-leaning Daily Telegraph.

Alan Rusbridger, editor of the left-leaning Guardian, accepted that members of any new watchdog must not be "picked from amongst the old cosy club".

"There are lots of things that are much better about the Leveson regulator than the one that existed before or the one that the press proposed," he told BBC radio.

"It is right that is is open, that it is fair, that it's got sanctions, that it can investigate."

Meanwhile, an online petition calling for full implementation of Leveson's proposals was launched by campaign group "Hacked Off", and had been signed by 41,335 people by 0130 GMT Saturday.

"Leveson has announced his recommendations. The victims of press abuses want them implemented. Let the government know that you support the victims," the petition read.

Cameron commissioned the Leveson Inquiry in July 2011 in the wake of revelations that the News of the World hacked the voicemails of a murdered schoolgirl and dozens of public figures.

Murdoch was forced to shut down the 168-year-old tabloid, and police have arrested dozens of people under three investigations spawned by the scandal.

Leveson, who heard from celebrities including actress Sienna Miller and Harry Potter author JK Rowling on their treatment by the media, said the press had "wreaked havoc with the lives of innocent people" for decades.

- AFP/xq

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US asks India to consult IAEA on nuclear liability law

WASHINGTON: To enter the international mainstream civil nuclear commerce, a top US official has said India should consult International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on its nuclear liability law as a means to ensure the objective.

"While we understand that India's law is currently being examined by the courts, we believe that consultations with the IAEA would be useful as a means to ensure that the liability law accomplishes our shared objective of moving India into the international mainstream of civil nuclear commerce," principal deputy assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian Affairs Geoffrey Pyatt has said.

In his remarks to the Pillsbury NEI Nuclear Export Controls Seminar in Washington, Pyatt identified the nuclear liability law as a major challenge in implementing the historic India-US civilian nuclear deal.

A copy of his remarks was released by the State Department on Friday.

"India's nuclear liability law is not in line with the international nuclear liability principles reflected in the Convention on Supplementary Compensation for Nuclear Damage," he said.

"Current liability law and regulations impose the risk of a heavy financial burden on equipment suppliers seeking to enter the Indian market and expose such companies to the risk of significant financial penalty in the event of a nuclear accident, neither of which is consistent with international standards," Pyatt observed.

"Without a law consistent with this convention in place, companies from the United States as well as other nations will find it difficult to participate in India's nuclear power expansion plans," he said.

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Kenya village pairs AIDS orphans with grandparents

NYUMBANI, Kenya (AP) — There are no middle-aged people in Nyumbani. They all died years ago, before this village of hope in Kenya began. Only the young and old live here.

Nyumbani was born of the AIDS crisis. The 938 children here all saw their parents die. The 97 grandparents — eight grandfathers among them — saw their middle-aged children die. But put together, the bookend generations take care of one another.

Saturday is World AIDS Day, but the executive director of the aid group Nyumbani, which oversees the village of the same name, hates the name which is given to the day because for her the word AIDS is so freighted with doom and death. These days, it doesn't necessarily mean a death sentence. Millions live with the virus with the help of anti-retroviral drugs, or ARVs. And the village she runs is an example of that.

"AIDS is not a word that we should be using. At the beginning when we came up against HIV, it was a terminal disease and people were presenting at the last phase, which we call AIDS," said Sister Mary Owens. "There is no known limit to the lifespan now so that word AIDS should not be used. So I hate World AIDS Day, follow? Because we have moved beyond talking about AIDS, the terminal stage. None of our children are in the terminal stage."

In the village, each grandparent is charged with caring for about a dozen "grandchildren," one or two of whom will be biological family. That responsibility has been a life-changer for Janet Kitheka, who lost one daughter to AIDS in 2003. Another daughter died from cancer in 2004. A son died in a tree-cutting accident in 2006 and the 63-year-old lost two grandchildren in 2007, including one from AIDS.

"When I came here I was released from the grief because I am always busy instead of thinking about the dead," said Kitheka. "Now I am thinking about building a new house with 12 children. They are orphans. I said to myself, 'Think about the living ones now.' I'm very happy because of the children."

As she walks around Nyumbani, which is three hours' drive east of Nairobi, 73-year-old Sister Mary is greeted like a rock star by little girls in matching colorful school uniforms. Children run and play, and sleep in bunk beds inside mud-brick homes. High schoolers study carpentry or tailoring. But before 2006, this village did not exist, not until a Catholic charity petitioned the Kenyan government for land on which to house orphans.

Everyone here has been touched by HIV or AIDS. But only 80 children have HIV and thanks to anti-retroviral drugs, none of them has AIDS.

"They can dream their dreams and live a long life," Owens said.

Nyumbani relies heavily on U.S. funds but it is aiming to be self-sustaining.

The kids' bunk beds are made in the technical school's shop. A small aquaponics project is trying to grow edible fish. The mud bricks are made on site. Each grandparent has a plot of land for farming.

The biggest chunk of aid comes from the United States President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which has given the village $2.5 million since 2006. A British couple gives $50,000 a year. A tree-growing project in the village begun by an American, John Noel, now stands six years from its first harvest. Some 120,000 trees have already been planted and thousands more were being planted last week.

"My wife and I got married as teenagers and started out being very poor. Lived in a trailer. And we found out what it was like to be in a situation where you can't support yourself," he said. "As an entrepreneur I looked to my enterprise skills to see what we could do to sustain the village forever, because we are in our 60s and we wanted to make sure that the thousand babies and children, all the little ones, were taken care of."

He hopes that after a decade the timber profits from the trees will make the village totally self-sustaining.

But while the future is looking brighter, the losses the orphans' suffered can resurface, particularly when class lessons are about family or medicine, said Winnie Joseph, the deputy headmaster at the village's elementary school. Kitheka says she tries to teach the kids how to love one another and how to cook and clean. But older kids sometimes will threaten to hit her after accusing her of favoring her biological grandchildren, she said.

For the most part, though, the children in Nyumbani appear to know how lucky they are, having landed in a village where they are cared for. An estimated 23.5 million people in sub-Saharan Africa have HIV as of 2011, representing 69 percent of the global HIV population, according to UNAIDS. Eastern and southern Africa are the hardest-hit regions. Millions of people — many of them parents — have died.

Kitheka noted that children just outside the village frequently go to bed hungry. And ARVs are harder to come by outside the village. The World Health Organization says about 61 percent of Kenyans with HIV are covered by ARVs across the country.

Paul Lgina, 14, contrasted the difference between life in Nyumbani, which in Swahili means simply "home," and his earlier life.

"In the village I get support. At my mother's home I did not have enough food, and I had to go to the river to fetch water," said Lina, who, like all the children in the village, has neither a mother or a father.

When Sister Mary first began caring for AIDS orphans in the early 1990s, she said her group was often told not to bother.

"At the beginning nobody knew what to do with them. In 1992 we were told these children are going to die anyway," she said. "But that wasn't our spirit. Today, kids we were told would die have graduated from high school."

___

On the Internet:

http://www.trees4children.org/

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Palestinians win de facto U.N. recognition of sovereign state

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The 193-nation U.N. General Assembly on Thursday overwhelmingly approved the de facto recognition of the sovereign state of Palestine after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called on the world body to issue its long overdue "birth certificate."

The U.N. victory for the Palestinians was a diplomatic setback for the United States and Israel, which were joined by only a handful of countries in voting against the move to upgrade the Palestinian Authority's observer status at the United Nations to "non-member state" from "entity," like the Vatican.

Britain called on the United States to use its influence to help break the long impasse in Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. Washington also called for a revival of direct negotiations.

There were 138 votes in favor, nine against and 41 abstentions. Three countries did not take part in the vote, held on the 65th anniversary of the adoption of U.N. resolution 181 that partitioned Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab states.

Thousands of flag-waving Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip set off fireworks and danced in the streets to celebrate the vote.

The assembly approved the upgrade despite threats by the United States and Israel to punish the Palestinians by withholding funds for the West Bank government. U.N. envoys said Israel might not retaliate harshly against the Palestinians over the vote as long as they do not seek to join the International Criminal Court.

If the Palestinians were to join the ICC, they could file complaints with the court accusing Israel of war crimes, crimes against humanity and other serious crimes.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called the vote "unfortunate and counterproductive," while the Vatican praised the move and called for an internationally guaranteed special status for Jerusalem, something bound to irritate Israel.

The much-anticipated vote came after Abbas denounced Israel from the U.N. podium for its "aggressive policies and the perpetration of war crimes," remarks that elicited a furious response from the Jewish state.

"Sixty-five years ago on this day, the United Nations General Assembly adopted resolution 181, which partitioned the land of historic Palestine into two states and became the birth certificate for Israel," Abbas told the assembly after receiving a standing ovation.

"The General Assembly is called upon today to issue a birth certificate of the reality of the State of Palestine," he said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded quickly, condemning Abbas' critique of Israel as "hostile and poisonous," and full of "false propaganda.

"These are not the words of a man who wants peace," Netanyahu said in a statement released by his office. He reiterated Israeli calls for direct talks with the Palestinians, dismissing Thursday's resolution as "meaningless."

ICC THREAT

A number of Western delegations noted that Thursday's vote should not be interpreted as formal legal recognition of a Palestinian state. Formal recognition of statehood is something that is done bilaterally, not by the United Nations.

Granting Palestinians the title of "non-member observer state" falls short of full U.N. membership - something the Palestinians failed to achieve last year. But it does have important legal implications - it would allow them access to the ICC and other international bodies, should they choose to join.

Abbas did not mention the ICC in his speech. But Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki told reporters after the vote that if Israel continued to build illegal settlements, the Palestinians might pursue the ICC route.

"As long as the Israelis are not committing atrocities, are not building settlements, are not violating international law, then we don't see any reason to go anywhere," he said.

"If the Israelis continue with such policy - aggression, settlements, assassinations, attacks, confiscations, building walls - violating international law, then we have no other remedy but really to knock those to other places," Maliki said.

In Washington, a group of four Republican and Democratic senators announced legislation that would close the Palestinian office in Washington unless the Palestinians enter "meaningful negotiations" with Israel, and eliminate all U.S. assistance to the Palestinian Authority if it turns to the ICC.

"I fear the Palestinian Authority will now be able to use the United Nations as a political club against Israel," said Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, one of the sponsors.

Abbas led the campaign to win support for the resolution, which followed an eight-day conflict this month between Israel and Islamists in the Gaza Strip, who are pledged to Israel's destruction and oppose a negotiated peace.

The vote highlighted how deeply divided Europe is on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

At least 17 European nations voted in favor of the Palestinian resolution, including Austria, France, Italy, Norway and Spain. Abbas had focused his lobbying efforts on Europe, which supplies much of the aid the Palestinian Authority relies on. Britain, Germany and many others chose to abstain.

The traditionally pro-Israel Czech Republic was unique in Europe, joining the United States, Israel, Canada, Panama and the tiny Pacific Island states Nauru, Palau, Marshall Islands and Micronesia in voting against the move.

'HOPE SOME REASON WILL PREVAIL'

Peace talks have been stalled for two years, mainly over Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which have expanded despite being deemed illegal by most of the world. There are 4.3 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.

After the vote, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice called for the immediate resumption of peace talks.

"The Palestinian people will wake up tomorrow and find that little about their lives has changed save that the prospects of a durable peace have only receded," she said.

She added that both parties should "avoid any further provocative actions in the region, in New York or elsewhere."

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said he hoped all sides would use the vote to push for new breakthroughs in the peace process.

"I hope there will be no punitive measures," Fayyad told Reuters in Washington, where he was attending a conference.

"I hope that some reason will prevail and the opportunity will be taken to take advantage of what happened today in favor of getting a political process moving," he said.

Britain's U.N. ambassador, Mark Lyall Grant, told reporters it was time for recently re-elected U.S. President Barack Obama to make a new push for peace.

"We believe the window for the two-state solution is closing," he said. "That is why we are encouraging the United States and other key international actors to grasp this opportunity and use the next 12 months as a way to really break through this impasse."

(Additional reporting by Andrew Quinn in Washington, Noah Browning in Ramallah, Jeffrey Heller in Jerusalem, Robert Mueller in Prague, Gabriela Baczynska and Reuters bureaux in Europe and elsewhere; Editing by Eric Beech and Peter Cooney)

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Hong Kong Disneyland turns profitable

HONG KONG: Hong Kong's struggling Disneyland has posted its first profit since opening seven years ago thanks to an increase in mainland Chinese visitors, a report said on Friday, as it considers opening new hotels.

The news will come as a welcome relief for the resort, which has battled below-forecast visitor numbers since opening in 2005, while doubts about its future have swirled since China gave permission for a park in Shanghai.

The Wall Street Journal report, which cited an unnamed person familiar with the park's financial situation, gave no details.

A Disney spokesman declined to confirm the report when contacted by AFP, saying the park's financial report will be released early next year.

A deal to open Hong Kong Disneyland, which is majority owned by the Hong Kong government, was signed in 1999 as part of a plan to boost the city's economy as it reeled from the Asian financial crisis.

However, it has been desperate to ramp up the number and quality of its attractions as it tries to lure more big-spending visitors from the mainland, while it has also embarked on a huge public-relations campaign.

Walt Disney Co has also boosted distribution of its television shows across the country, while it also runs nearly 24 hours of weekly programming, the Journal said.

It seems there has been some success. The report said attendance jumped to 5.94 million visitors in the year to September 2011 from 4.5 million in 2008.

It also said the proportion of mainland visitors reached 45 per cent in fiscal 2011, compared with 34 in 2006, while Hong Kong residents made up just 31 per cent, down from 41 per cent.

The park in January said it posted its smallest annual loss for the fiscal year ending October 1, 2011, after enjoying a 13 per cent rise in visitors and a surge in hotel occupancy.

Net loss fell to HK$237 million (US$30.5 million), less than half its net loss of HK$718 million in 2010.

Critics have attributed much of the park's struggles to its size -- it is the smallest of all Disney's theme parks -- and a lack of attractions.

The resort, including two hotels, covers about 310 acres (125 hectares).

However, the report said the park's investors are discussing plans to add new hotels to the resort to increase overseas arrivals.

Adding to the resort's problems was news that the Chinese government had given permission for the building of a US$3.7 billion Shanghai Disneyland, which is expected to open in 2016 and could provide stiff competition.

- AFP/xq

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Gujarat polls: Anti-Modi cop Sanjiv Bhatt's wife Shweta Bhatt to contest against Narendra Modi

AHMEDABAD: Suspended IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt's wife Shweta to contest Gujarat election against CM Narendra Modi on Congress ticket from Maninagar.

A Gujarat court had filed charges against Bhatt and six policemen who are accused in the 1990 Khambalia custodial death case on November 9. Sanjiv Bhatt had said that he had been targeted by Chief Minister Narendra Modi and alleged that evidence related to the 2002 Gujarat riots has been selectively destroyed and hence an inquiry should be ordered into the same.

"These are state control room records, state intelligence bureau control room records which reflect as to how the situation developed, what information came in, what instructions were given. These are the very documents which can create a picture where an inquisition is ordered. Those very documents are either destroyed or they are not available. This is a clear cut attempt by the state to conceal and withhold information and a failure on the part of SIT to get hold of those records or at least get them preserved. And even these raises questions as to why the commission did not requisition those records," Bhatt had said.

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Clinton releases road map for AIDS-free generation

WASHINGTON (AP) — In an ambitious road map for slashing the global spread of AIDS, the Obama administration says treating people sooner and more rapid expansion of other proven tools could help even the hardest-hit countries begin turning the tide of the epidemic over the next three to five years.

"An AIDS-free generation is not just a rallying cry — it is a goal that is within our reach," Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who ordered the blueprint, said in the report.

"Make no mistake about it, HIV may well be with us into the future but the disease that it causes need not be," she said at the State Department Thursday.

President Barack Obama echoed that promise.

"We stand at a tipping point in the fight against HIV/AIDS, and working together, we can realize our historic opportunity to bring that fight to an end," Obama said in a proclamation to mark World AIDS Day on Saturday.

Some 34 million people worldwide are living with HIV, and despite a decline in new infections over the last decade, 2.5 million people were infected last year.

Given those staggering figures, what does an AIDS-free generation mean? That virtually no babies are born infected, young people have a much lower risk than today of becoming infected, and that people who already have HIV would receive life-saving treatment.

That last step is key: Treating people early in their infection, before they get sick, not only helps them survive but also dramatically cuts the chances that they'll infect others. Yet only about 8 million HIV patients in developing countries are getting treatment. The United Nations aims to have 15 million treated by 2015.

Other important steps include: Treating more pregnant women, and keeping them on treatment after their babies are born; increasing male circumcision to lower men's risk of heterosexual infection; increasing access to both male and female condoms; and more HIV testing.

The world spent $16.8 billion fighting AIDS in poor countries last year. The U.S. government is the leading donor, spending about $5.6 billion.

Thursday's report from PEPFAR, the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, outlines how progress could continue at current spending levels — something far from certain as Congress and Obama struggle to avert looming budget cuts at year's end — or how faster progress is possible with stepped-up commitments from hard-hit countries themselves.

Clinton warned Thursday that the U.S. must continue doing its share: "In the fight against HIV/AIDS, failure to live up to our commitments isn't just disappointing, it's deadly."

The report highlighted Zambia, which already is seeing some declines in new cases of HIV. It will have to treat only about 145,000 more patients over the next four years to meet its share of the U.N. goal, a move that could prevent more than 126,000 new infections in that same time period. But if Zambia could go further and treat nearly 198,000 more people, the benefit would be even greater — 179,000 new infections prevented, the report estimates.

In contrast, if Zambia had to stick with 2011 levels of HIV prevention, new infections could level off or even rise again over the next four years, the report found.

Advocacy groups said the blueprint offers a much-needed set of practical steps to achieve an AIDS-free generation — and makes clear that maintaining momentum is crucial despite economic difficulties here and abroad.

"The blueprint lays out the stark choices we have: To stick with the baseline and see an epidemic flatline or grow, or ramp up" to continue progress, said Chris Collins of amFAR, the Foundation for AIDS Research.

His group has estimated that more than 276,000 people would miss out on HIV treatment if U.S. dollars for the global AIDS fight are part of across-the-board spending cuts set to begin in January.

Thursday's report also urges targeting the populations at highest risk, including gay men, injecting drug users and sex workers, especially in countries where stigma and discrimination has denied them access to HIV prevention services.

"We have to go where the virus is," Clinton said.

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Man Arrested in Fla. Girl's 1993 Disappearance

Police have arrested a 42-year-old man and charged him with murder in the case of a Florida girl who vanished almost 20 years ago.

Andrea Gail Parsons, 10, of Port Salerno, Fla., was last seen on July 11, 1993, shortly after 6 p.m. She had just purchased candy and soda at a grocery store when she waved to a local couple as they drove by on an area street and honked, police said.

Today, Martin County Sheriff's Department officials arrested Chester Duane Price, 42, who recently lived in Haleyville, Ala., and charged him with first-degree murder and kidnapping of a child under the age of 13, after he was indicted by a grand jury.

Price was acquainted with Andrea at the time of her disappearance, and also knew another man police once eyed as a potential suspect, officials told ABC News affiliate WPBF in West Palm Beach, Fla.

Handout/Martin County Sheriff's Office

"The investigation has concluded that Price abducted and killed Andrea Gail Parsons," read a sheriff's department news release. "Tragically, at this time, her body has not been recovered."

The sheriff's department declined to specify what evidence led to Price's arrest for the crime after 19 years or to provide details to ABCNews.com beyond the prepared news release.

Reached by phone, a sheriff's department spokeswoman said she did not know whether Price was yet represented by a lawyer.

Price was being held at the Martin County Jail without bond and was scheduled to make his first court appearance via video link at 10:30 a.m. Friday.

In its news release, the sheriff's department cited Price's "extensive criminal history with arrests dating back to 1991" that included arrests for cocaine possession, assault, sale of controlled substance, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and violation of domestic violence injunction.

"The resolve to find Andrea and get answers surrounding the circumstances of her disappearance has never wavered as detectives and others assigned have dedicated their careers to piecing this puzzle together," Martin County Sheriff Robert L. Crowder said in a prepared statement. "In 2011, I assigned a team of detectives, several 'fresh sets of eyes,' to begin another review of the high-volume of evidence that had been previously collected in this case."

A flyer dating from the time of Andrea's disappearance, and redistributed by the sheriff's office after the arrest, described her as 4-foot-11 with hazel eyes and brown hair. She was last seen wearing blue jean shorts, a dark shirt and clear plastic sandals, according to the flyer.

The sheriff's department became involved in the case after Andrea's mother, Linda Parsons, returned home from work around 10 p.m. on July 11, 1993, to find her daughter missing and called police, according to the initial sheriff's report.

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Egypt assembly seeks to wrap up constitution

CAIRO (Reuters) - The assembly writing Egypt's constitution said it could wrap up a final draft later on Wednesday, a move the Muslim Brotherhood sees as a way out of a crisis over a decree by President Mohamed Mursi that protesters say gives him dictatorial powers.

But as Mursi's opponents staged a sixth day of protests in Tahrir Square, critics said the Islamist-dominated assembly's bid to finish the constitution quickly could make matters worse.

Two people have been killed and hundreds injured in countrywide protest set off by Mursi's decree.

The Brotherhood hopes to end the crisis by replacing Mursi's controversial decree with an entirely new constitution that would need to be approved in a popular referendum, a Brotherhood official told Reuters.

It is a gamble based on the Islamists' belief that they can mobilize enough voters to win the referendum: they have won all elections held since Hosni Mubarak was toppled from power.

But the move seemed likely to deepen divisions that are being exposed in the street.

The Muslim Brotherhood and its Islamist allies called for protests on Saturday in Tahrir Square, setting the stage for more confrontation with their opponents, who staged a mass rally there on Tuesday.

The constitution is one of the main reasons Mursi is at loggerheads with non-Islamist opponents. They are boycotting the 100-member constitutional assembly, saying the Islamists have tried to impose their vision for Egypt's future.

The assembly's legal legitimacy has been called into question by a series of court cases demanding its dissolution. Its popular legitimacy has been hit by the withdrawal of members including church representatives and liberals.

"We will start now and finish today, God willing," Hossam el-Gheriyani, the assembly speaker, said at the start of its latest session in Cairo, saying Thursday would be "a great day".

"If you are upset by the decree, nothing will stop it except a new constitution issued immediately," he said. Three other members of the assembly told Reuters there were plans to put the document to a vote on Thursday.

ENTRENCHING AUTHORITARIANISM

Just down the road from the meeting convened at the Shura Council, protesters were again clashing with riot police in Tahrir Square. Members of the assembly watched on television as they waited to go into session.

"The constitution is in its last phases and will be put to a referendum soon and God willing it will solve a lot of the problems in the street," said Talaat Marzouk, an assembly member from the Salafi Nour Party, as he watched the images.

But Wael Ghonim, a prominent activist whose online blogging helped ignite the anti-Mubarak uprising, said a constitution passed in such circumstances would "entrench authoritarianism".

The constitution is supposed to be the cornerstone of a new, democratic Egypt following Mubarak's three decades of autocratic rule. The assembly has been at work for six months. Mursi had extended its December 12 deadline by two months - extra time that Gheriyani said was not needed.

The constitution will determine the powers of the president and parliament and define the roles of the judiciary and a military establishment that had been at the heart of power for decades until Mubarak was toppled. It will also set out the role of Islamic law, or sharia.

The effort to conclude the text quickly marked an escalation, said Nathan Brown, a professor of political science at George Washington University in the United States.

"It may be regarded with hostility by a lot of state actors too, including the judiciary," he said.

Leading opposition and former Arab League chief figure Amr Moussa slammed the move. He walked out of the assembly earlier this month. "This is nonsensical and one of the steps that shouldn't be taken, given the background of anger and resentment to the current constitutional assembly," he told Reuters.

Once drafted, the constitution will go to Mursi for approval, and he must then put it to a referendum within 15 days, which could mean the vote would be held by mid-December.

COURTS DECLARE STRIKE

Deepening the crisis further on Wednesday, Egypt's Cassation and Appeals courts said they would suspend their work until the constitutional court rules on the decree.

The judiciary, largely unreformed since the popular uprising that unseated Mubarak, was seen as a major target in the decree issued last Thursday, which extended his powers and put his decisions temporarily beyond legal challenge.

"The president wants to create a new dictatorship," said 38-year-old Mohamed Sayyed Ahmed, an unemployed man, in Tahrir.

Showing the depth of distrust of Mursi in parts of the judiciary, a spokesman for the Supreme Constitutional Court, which earlier this year declared void the Islamist-led parliament, said it felt under attack by the president.

In a speech on Friday, Mursi praised the judiciary as a whole but referred to corrupt elements he aimed to weed out.

"The really sad thing that has pained the members of this court is when the president of the republic joined, in a painful surprise, the campaign of continuous attack on the Constitutional Court," said the spokesman Maher Samy.

Senior judges have been negotiating with Mursi about how to restrict his new powers.

Mursi's administration insists that his actions were aimed at breaking a political logjam to push Egypt more swiftly towards democracy, an assertion his opponents dismiss.

The West worries about turbulence in a nation that has a peace treaty with Israel and is now ruled by Islamists they long kept at arms length.

Trying to ease tensions with judges, Mursi said elements of his decree giving his decisions immunity applied only to matters of "sovereign" importance, a compromise suggested by the judges.

A constitution must be in place before a new parliament can be elected, and until that time Mursi holds both executive and legislative powers. An election could take place in early 2013.

(Additional reporting by Tom Perry and Marwa Awad; Writing by Edmund Blair and Tom Perry; Editing by Will Waterman and Giles Elgood)

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New Chinese passports "counterproductive": Indonesia

JAKARTA: Indonesia's foreign minister said in an interview published on Thursday that new Chinese passports featuring a map laying claim to disputed islands were "counterproductive".

Although it is not a claimant itself, Indonesia has mediated in the dispute between China and several members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

It is also a major supplier of commodities to China, which is increasingly exploring mines and constructing smelters in Indonesia to fuel its economy.

Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa, who has hopped between claimant nations this year over the issue, warned that the passports would worsen the already-tense dispute and said Jakarta would convey its position to Beijing.

"These actions are counterproductive and will not help settle the disputes," he said in an interview with the Jakarta Post daily.

"We perceive the Chinese move as disingenuous, like testing the water, to see its neighbours' reactions," he said.

He said ASEAN should concentrate on finalising a code of conduct as a first step to alleviate tensions over the issue.

"I hope that we, ASEAN and China can focus on dialogue," he said.

Beijing has infuriated its southern neighbours with its increasingly vocal claim to vast swathes of the South China Sea, with Chinese maps showing a dotted line that runs almost to the Philippine and Malaysian coasts.

The new passports have angered claimants Vietnam and the Philippines, which have refused to stamp the new passports.

India has started stamping its own map onto visas for Chinese visitors as the passports also show the disputed border areas of Arunachal Pradesh and Aksai Chin as Chinese territory.

Beijing has attempted to downplay the diplomatic fallout from the recently introduced passports, with the foreign ministry arguing the maps were "not made to target any specific country".

- AFP/xq

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US budget crisis fears push down Brent Oil futures

PUNE: Brent crude oil futures fell on Wednesday on fears of a looming budget crisis in the United States, the world's top oil consumer. Brent crude fell 29 cents to $109.58 per barrel by 0940 GMT, after dropping to $109.31 on Tuesday - its lowest since November 20.

US crude shed 27 cents to trade at $86.91 per barrel. Oil traded near the lowest price in a week in New York amid signs of rising supplies in the US and concern that lawmakers are struggling to reach agreement on how to address the nation's deficit.

West Texas Intermediate futures were little changed after slipping 0.6 per cent on Tuesday. Crude for January delivery was at $87.03 a barrel, down 15 cents, in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange at 8:53 am London time.

The contract decreased 56 cents on Tuesday to $87.18, the lowest since November 20. Prices are down 12 per cent this year. Brent for January settlement slid 25 cents to $109.62 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange.

The European benchmark contract was at a premium of $22.60 to WTI, compared with $22.69 on Tuesday. Gold fell for a third consecutive day in London on speculation improving economic data in the US will curb demand for the metal as a protection of wealth.

Reports showed on Tuesday that consumer confidence in the US rose to a four-year high and home prices gained by the most since 2010. Gold for immediate delivery fell 0.1 per cent to $1,739.60 an ounce by 9:35 am in London.

Gold for February delivery was down 0.2 per cent at $1,741.90 on the Comex in New York. Silver for immediate delivery fell 0.5 per cent to $33.895 an ounce, after reaching $34.285 on Tuesday, the highest since October 11.

Platinum was 0.5 per cent lower at $1,603.24 an ounce. Palladium slipped 1 per cent to $660.50 an ounce. It reached $672.75 on Tuesday, the highest since October 5. Malaysian palm oil futures eased on Wednesday , dropping for a second straight session on concerns that US fiscal woes could hamper global economic growth and commodity demand.

The benchmark February contract on the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives Exchange fell 0.7 per cent to close at 2,394 ringgit ($784) per tonne. Prices traded in a range of 2,383 to 2,417 ringgit.

Total traded volumes stood at 31,818 lots of 25 tonne each than the usual 25,000 lots. Inventories reached 2.51 million tonne in October , according to the Malaysian Palm Oil Board. Shipments fell 1.8 per cent to 1.28 million tonne in the first 25 days of November from a month earlier, Intertek said on Monday.

Soya bean oil for delivery in January lost 0.5 per cent to 50.17 cents a pound on the Chicago Board of Trade. Soya beans for January delivery dropped 0.3 per cent to $14.4525 a bushel.

Rubber dropped for a third day as concerns grew that a failure to reach an agreement on the US budget will derail a global recovery, curbing demand for the commodity used in tires. The contract for delivery in May, the most-active by volume, fell 1.4 per cent to settle at 255.4 yen a kilogram ($3,121 a metric ton) on the Tokyo Commodity Exchange.

It was a trading holiday for Indian commodity exchanges due to Gurunanak Jayanti on Wednesday.

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Simple measures cut infections caught in hospitals

CHICAGO (AP) — Preventing surgery-linked infections is a major concern for hospitals and it turns out some simple measures can make a big difference.

A project at seven big hospitals reduced infections after colorectal surgeries by nearly one-third. It prevented an estimated 135 infections, saving almost $4 million, the Joint Commission hospital regulating group and the American College of Surgeons announced Wednesday. The two groups directed the 2 1/2-year project.

Solutions included having patients shower with special germ-fighting soap before surgery, and having surgery teams change gowns, gloves and instruments during operations to prevent spreading germs picked up during the procedures.

Some hospitals used special wound-protecting devices on surgery openings to keep intestine germs from reaching the skin.

The average rate of infections linked with colorectal operations at the seven hospitals dropped from about 16 percent of patients during a 10-month phase when hospitals started adopting changes to almost 11 percent once all the changes had been made.

Hospital stays for patients who got infections dropped from an average of 15 days to 13 days, which helped cut costs.

"The improvements translate into safer patient care," said Dr. Mark Chassin, president of the Joint Commission. "Now it's our job to spread these effective interventions to all hospitals."

Almost 2 million health care-related infections occur each year nationwide; more than 90,000 of these are fatal.

Besides wanting to keep patients healthy, hospitals have a monetary incentive to prevent these infections. Medicare cuts payments to hospitals that have lots of certain health care-related infections, and those cuts are expected to increase under the new health care law.

The project involved surgeries for cancer and other colorectal problems. Infections linked with colorectal surgery are particularly common because intestinal tract bacteria are so abundant.

To succeed at reducing infection rates requires hospitals to commit to changing habits, "to really look in the mirror and identify these things," said Dr. Clifford Ko of the American College of Surgeons.

The hospitals involved were Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles; Cleveland Clinic in Ohio; Mayo Clinic-Rochester Methodist Hospital in Rochester, Minn.; North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System in Great Neck, NY; Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago; OSF Saint Francis Medical Center in Peoria, Ill.; and Stanford Hospital & Clinics in Palo Alto, Calif.

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Online:

Joint Commission: http://www.jointcommission.org

American College of Surgeons: http://www.facs.org

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AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTanner

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Powerball Numbers Drawn for Nearly $580M Jackpot

5-23-16-22-29-Powerball 6: Those are the winning numbers for an estimated $579 million Powerball jackpot -- the biggest in history.

After a feverish day that saw hopeful players buying tickets at the rate of 131,000 every minute, lottery officials in Orlando, Fla., drew the winning sequence shortly after 11 p.m.

The results likely will be announced sometime after 2 a.m. Thursday morning.

Identifying the winner, however, could take days -- if there is a winner.

A prior drawing last Saturday night produced no winner. That fact, plus the doubling in price of a Powerball ticket, accounted for the unprecedented richness of the pot.

"Back in January, we moved Powerball from being a $1 game to $2," said Mary Neubauer, a spokeswoman at the game's headquarters in Iowa. "We thought at the time that this would mean bigger and faster-growing jackpots."

That proved true. The total, she said, began taking "huge jumps -- another $100 million since Saturday." It then jumped another $50 million.

The biggest Powerball pot on record until now -- $365 million -- was won in 2006 by eight Lincoln, Neb., co-workers.

In Photos: Biggest Lotto Jackpot Winners

AP Photo/Patrick Semansky

As the latest pot swelled, lottery officials said they began getting phone calls from all around the world.

"When it gets this big," said Neubauer, "we get inquiries from Canada and Europe from people wanting to know if they can buy a ticket. They ask if they can FedEx us the money."

The answer she has to give them, she said, is: "Sorry, no. You have to buy a ticket in a member state from a licensed retail location."

About 80 percent of players don't choose their own Powerball number, opting instead for a computer-generated one.

Asked if there's anything a player can do to improve his or her odds of winning, Neubauer said there isn't -- apart from buying a ticket, of course.

Lottery officials put the odds of winning the $579 Powerball pot at one in 175 million, meaning you'd have been 25 times more likely to win an Academy Award.

Skip Garibaldi, a professor of mathematics at Emory University in Atlanta, provided additional perspective: You are three times more likely to die from a falling coconut, he said; seven times more likely to die from fireworks, "and way more likely to die from flesh-eating bacteria" (115 fatalities a year) than you are to win the Powerball lottery.

Segueing, then, from death to life, Garibaldi noted that even the best physicians, equipped with the most up-to-date equipment, can't predict the timing of a child's birth with much accuracy.

"But let's suppose," he said, "that your doctor managed to predict the day, the hour, the minute and the second your baby would be born."

The doctor's uncanny prediction would be "at least 100 times" more likely than your winning.

Even though he knows the odds all too well, Garibaldi said he usually plays the lottery.

When it gets this big, I'll buy a couple of tickets," he said. "It's kind of exciting. You get this feeling of anticipation. You get to think about the fantasy."

So, did he buy two tickets this time?

"I couldn't," he told ABC News. "I'm in California" -- one of eight states that doesn't offer Powerball.

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Egyptians challenge Mursi in nationwide protests

CAIRO (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of Egyptians rallied on Tuesday against President Mohamed Mursi in one of the biggest outpourings of protest since Hosni Mubarak's overthrow, accusing the Islamist leader of seeking to impose a new era of autocracy.

Police fired tear gas at stone-throwing youths in streets near the main protest in Cairo's Tahrir Square, heart of the uprising that toppled Mubarak last year. Clashes between Mursi's opponents and supporters erupted in a city north of Cairo.

But violence could not overshadow the show of strength by the normally divided opponents of Islamists in power, posing Mursi with the biggest challenge in his five months in office.

"The people want to bring down the regime," protesters in Tahrir chanted, echoing slogans used in the 2011 revolt.

Protesters also turned out in Alexandria, Suez, Minya and other Nile Delta cities.

Tuesday's unrest by leftists, liberals and other groups deepened the worst crisis since the Muslim Brotherhood politician was elected in June, and exposed the deep divide between the newly empowered Islamists and their opponents.

A 52-year-old protester died after inhaling tear gas in Cairo, the second death since Mursi last week issued a decree that expanded his powers and barred court challenges to his decisions.

Mursi's administration has defended the decree as an effort to speed up reforms and complete a democratic transformation in the Arab world's most populous country.

"Calls for civil disobedience and strikes will be dealt with strictly by law and there is no retreat from the decree," Refa'a Al-Tahtawy, Mursi's presidential chief of staff, told the Al-Hayat private satellite channel.

But opponents say Mursi is behaving like a modern-day pharaoh, a jibe once leveled at Mubarak. The United States, a benefactor to Egypt's military, has expressed concern about more turbulence in a country that has a peace treaty with Israel.

"We don't want a dictatorship again. The Mubarak regime was a dictatorship. We had a revolution to have justice and freedom," 32-year-old Ahmed Husseini said in Cairo.

The fractious ranks of Egypt's non-Islamist opposition have been united on the street by crisis, although they have yet to build an electoral machine to challenge the well-organized Islamists, who have beaten their more secular-minded rivals at the ballot box in two elections held since Mubarak was ousted.

MISCALCULATION

"There are signs that over the last couple of days that Mursi and the Brotherhood realized their mistake," said Elijah Zarwan, a fellow with The European Council on Foreign Relations. He said the protests were "a very clear illustration of how much of a political miscalculation this was".

Mursi's move provoked a rebellion by judges and has battered confidence in an economy struggling after two years of turmoil. The president still must implement unpopular measures to rein in Egypt's crushing budget deficit - action needed to finalize a deal for a $4.8 billion International Monetary Fund loan.

Some protesters have been camped out since Friday in Tahrir and violence has flared around the country, including in a town north of Cairo where a Muslim Brotherhood youth was killed in clashes on Sunday. Hundreds have been injured.

Supporters and opponents of Mursi threw stones at each other and some hurled petrol bombs in the Delta city of el-Mahalla el-Kubra. Medical sources said almost 200 people were injured.

"The main demand is to withdraw the constitutional declaration (decree). This is the point," said Amr Moussa, a former Arab League chief and presidential candidate who has joined the new opposition coalition, the National Salvation Front. The group includes several top liberal politicians.

Some scholars from the prestigious al-Azhar mosque and university joined Tuesday's protest, showing that Mursi and his Brotherhood have alienated some more moderate Muslims. Members of Egypt's large Christian minority also joined in.

Mursi formally quit the Brotherhood on taking office, saying he would be a president for all Egyptians, but he is still a member of its Freedom and Justice Party.

The decree issued on Thursday expanded his powers and protected his decisions from judicial review until the election of a new parliament, expected in the first half of 2013.

In Washington, White House spokesman Jay Carney urged demonstrators to behave peacefully.

"The current constitutional impasse is an internal Egyptian situation that can only be resolved by the Egyptian people, through peaceful democratic dialogue," he told reporters.

New York-based Human Rights Watch said the decree gives Mursi more power than the interim military junta from which he took over.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told an Austrian paper he would encourage Mursi to resolve the issue by dialogue.

DECREE'S SCOPE DEBATABLE

Trying to ease tensions with judges, Mursi assured Egypt's highest judicial authority that elements of his decree giving his decisions immunity applied only to matters of "sovereign" importance. That should limit it to issues such as declaring war, but experts said there was room for interpretation.

In another step to avoid more confrontation, the Muslim Brotherhood cancelled plans for a rival mass rally in Cairo on Tuesday to support the decree. Violence has flared in Cairo in the past when both sides have taken to the streets.

But there has been no retreat on other elements of the decree, including a stipulation that the Islamist-dominated body writing a new constitution be protected from legal challenge.

"The decree must be cancelled and the constituent assembly should be reformed. All intellectuals have left it and now it is controlled by Islamists," said 50-year-old Noha Abol Fotouh.

With its popular legitimacy undermined by the withdrawal of most of its non-Islamist members, the assembly faces a series of court cases from plaintiffs who say it was formed illegally.

Mursi issued the decree on November 22, a day after he won U.S. and international praise for brokering an end to eight days of violence between Israel and Hamas around the Gaza Strip.

Mursi's decree was seen as targeting in part a legal establishment still largely unreformed from Mubarak's era, when the Brotherhood was outlawed.

Though both Islamists and their opponents broadly agree that the judiciary needs reform, Mursi's rivals oppose his methods.

Rulings from an array of courts this year have dealt a series of blows to the Brotherhood, leading to the dissolution of the first constitutional assembly and the lower house of parliament elected a year ago. The Brotherhood dominated both.

The judiciary blocked an attempt by Mursi to reconvene the Brotherhood-led parliament after his election victory. It also stood in the way of his attempt to sack the prosecutor general, another Mubarak holdover, in October.

In his decree, Mursi gave himself the power to sack that prosecutor and appoint a new one. In open defiance of Mursi, some judges are refusing to acknowledge that step.

(Additional reporting by Tom Perry, Seham Eloraby, Marwa Awad and Yasmine Saleh in Cairo and Michael Shields in Vienna; Writing by Edmund Blair and Tom Perry; Editing by Giles Elgood/Mark Heinrich)

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US actor sorry for calling hit TV show 'filth'

LOS ANGELES: The US actor on "Two and a Half Men" who called the hit TV series "filth" apologised Tuesday, as he scrambled to keep his job on what its former star Charlie Sheen said was a "cursed" show.

Angus T. Jones voiced remorse a day after a video surfaced on a Christian church's website, in which he urged viewers not to watch the top-rated comedy show.

"I apologize if my remarks reflect me showing indifference to and disrespect of my colleagues and a lack of appreciation of the extraordinary opportunity of which I have been blessed. I never intended that," he said in a statement.

He added, "I have been the subject of much discussion ... over the past 24 hours. While I cannot address everything that has been said or right every misstatement or misunderstanding, there is one thing I want to make clear.

"Without qualification, I am grateful to and have the highest regard and respect for all of the wonderful people on Two and a Half Men with whom I have worked and over the past ten years who have become an extension of my family."

19-year-old Jones, who reportedly earns US$350,000 an episode playing the character Jake in the show now starring Ashton Kutcher, attacked the program after apparently undergoing a religious revelation.

"If you watch 'Two and a Half Men', please stop watching 'Two and a Half Men'. I'm on 'Two and a Half Men', and I don't want to be on it," he said in a video posted by the Forerunner Christian Church on YouTube.

"Please stop watching it; stop filling your head with filth. Please," he said in the video.

Jones signed up for a new one-year contract in May for the show - from which Sheen was sacked last year after he gave a series of increasingly erratic and explosive interviews about the show's producer, Chuck Lorre.

Sheen said shortly before Jones' apology that he thought the series was plagued.

"With Angus's Hale-Bopp-like meltdown, it is radically clear to me that the show is cursed," Sheen told celebrity bible People magazine, referring to the fiery comet.

Sheen - who portrayed hedonistic jingle writer Charlie Harper - was replaced by Kutcher on the top-rated comedy series, which has been a hit since it was launched in 2003.

In his apology Tuesday, Jones added fulsome praise for its producers.

"Chuck Lorre, (executive producer) Peter Roth and many others at Warner Bros. and CBS are responsible for what has been one of the most significant experiences in my life to date.

"I thank them for the opportunity they have given and continue to give me and the help and guidance I have and expect to continue to receive from them," he said.

Warner Bros, which makes the show along with CBS, has remained tight-lipped about Jones' outburst. A Warner Bros spokesman, Paul McGuire, declined to comment when asked by AFP for a reaction to Jones' apology.

-AFP/fl

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India ranks 78th in guaranteeing access to civil justice

WASHINGTON: India ranks 78th among 97 countries in guaranteeing access to all civil justice, a latest report released on Wednesday said, while its neighbouring country Sri Lanka leads the South Asian nations in most dimensions of the rule of law.

The 'Rule of Law Index 2012' report by World Justice Project's provides country-by-country scores and rankings for eight areas of the rule of law.

India, the report said, has a robust system of checks and balances (ranked thirty-seventh worldwide and second among lower middle income countries), an independent judiciary, strong protections for freedom of speech, and a relatively open government (ranking fiftieth globally and fourth among lower-middle income countries).

"Administrative agencies do not perform well (ranking 79th) and the civil court system ranks poorly (ranking 78) mainly because of deficiencies in the areas of court congestion, enforcement, and delays in processing cases," the report said.

"Corruption is a significant problem (ranking 83rd), and police discrimination and abuses are not unusual. Order and security -- including crime, civil conflict, and political violence-- is a serious concern (ranked second lowest in the world)," the report observed.

According to the report, Sri Lanka outperforms its regional peers in all but two dimensions of the rule of law.

"The country also outpaces most lower-middle income countries in several areas, ranking second in criminal justice, and third in the dimensions of open government, effective regulatory enforcement, and absence of corruption," it said.

"On the other hand, violence and human rights violations related to the legacy of a protracted civil conflict are serious problems," the report said.

Pakistan shows weaknesses in most dimensions when compared to its regional and income group peers, the report said.

"Low levels of government accountability are compounded by the prevalence of corruption, a weak justice system, and a poor security situation, particularly related to terrorism and crime," it said, adding that Pakistan scores more strongly on judicial independence and fairness in administrative proceedings.

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