New tests could hamper food outbreak detection

WASHINGTON (AP) — It's about to get faster and easier to diagnose food poisoning, but that progress for individual patients comes with a downside: It could hurt the nation's ability to spot and solve dangerous outbreaks.

Next-generation tests that promise to shave a few days off the time needed to tell whether E. coli, salmonella or other foodborne bacteria caused a patient's illness could reach medical laboratories as early as next year. That could allow doctors to treat sometimes deadly diseases much more quickly — an exciting development.

The problem: These new tests can't detect crucial differences between different subtypes of bacteria, as current tests can. And that fingerprint is what states and the federal government use to match sick people to a contaminated food. The older tests might be replaced by the new, more efficient ones.

"It's like a forensics lab. If somebody says a shot was fired, without the bullet you don't know where it came from," explained E. coli expert Dr. Phillip Tarr of Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warns that losing the ability to literally take a germ's fingerprint could hamper efforts to keep food safe, and the agency is searching for solutions. According to CDC estimates, 1 in 6 Americans gets sick from foodborne illnesses each year, and 3,000 die.

"These improved tests for diagnosing patients could have the unintended consequence of reducing our ability to detect and investigate outbreaks, ultimately causing more people to become sick," said Dr. John Besser of the CDC.

That means outbreaks like the salmonella illnesses linked this fall to a variety of Trader Joe's peanut butter might not be identified that quickly — or at all.

It all comes down to what's called a bacterial culture — whether labs grow a sample of a patient's bacteria in an old-fashioned petri dish, or skip that step because the new tests don't require it.

Here's the way it works now: Someone with serious diarrhea visits the doctor, who gets a stool sample and sends it to a private testing laboratory. The lab cultures the sample, growing larger batches of any lurking bacteria to identify what's there. If disease-causing germs such as E. coli O157 or salmonella are found, they may be sent on to a public health laboratory for more sophisticated analysis to uncover their unique DNA patterns — their fingerprints.

Those fingerprints are posted to a national database, called PulseNet, that the CDC and state health officials use to look for food poisoning trends.

There are lots of garden-variety cases of salmonella every year, from runny eggs to a picnic lunch that sat out too long. But if a few people in, say, Baltimore have salmonella with the same molecular signature as some sick people in Cleveland, it's time to investigate, because scientists might be able narrow the outbreak to a particular food or company.

But culture-based testing takes time — as long as two to four days after the sample reaches the lab, which makes for a long wait if you're a sick patient.

What's in the pipeline? Tests that could detect many kinds of germs simultaneously instead of hunting one at a time — and within hours of reaching the lab — without first having to grow a culture. Those tests are expected to be approved as early as next year.

This isn't just a science debate, said Shari Shea, food safety director at the Association of Public Health Laboratories.

If you were the patient, "you'd want to know how you got sick," she said.

PulseNet has greatly improved the ability of regulators and the food industry to solve those mysteries since it was launched in the mid-1990s, helping to spot major outbreaks in ground beef, spinach, eggs and cantaloupe in recent years. Just this fall, PulseNet matched 42 different salmonella illnesses in 20 different states that were eventually traced to a variety of Trader Joe's peanut butter.

Food and Drug Administration officials who visited the plant where the peanut butter was made found salmonella contamination all over the facility, with several of the plant samples matching the fingerprint of the salmonella that made people sick. A New Mexico-based company, Sunland Inc., recalled hundreds of products that were shipped to large retailers all over the country, including Target, Safeway and other large grocery chains.

The source of those illnesses probably would have remained a mystery without the national database, since there weren't very many illnesses in any individual state.

To ensure that kind of crucial detective work isn't lost, the CDC is asking the medical community to send samples to labs to be cultured even when they perform a new, non-culture test.

But it's not clear who would pay for that extra step. Private labs only can perform the tests that a doctor orders, noted Dr. Jay M. Lieberman of Quest Diagnostics, one of the country's largest testing labs.

A few first-generation non-culture tests are already available. When private labs in Wisconsin use them, they frequently ship leftover samples to the state lab, which grows the bacteria itself. But as more private labs switch over after the next-generation rapid tests arrive, the Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene will be hard-pressed to keep up with that extra work before it can do its main job — fingerprinting the bugs, said deputy director Dr. Dave Warshauer.

Stay tuned: Research is beginning to look for solutions that one day might allow rapid and in-depth looks at food poisoning causes in the same test.

"As molecular techniques evolve, you may be able to get the information you want from non-culture techniques," Lieberman said.

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Follow Mary Clare Jalonick on Twitter at http://twitter.com/mcjalonick

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Royal Hoax: Station to Give $500K to Nurse's Family

The Australian radio station that employed the DJs who prank-called the London hospital where Kate Middleton was being treated has cancelled their show and will donate at least $500,000 to the grieving husband and children of the nurse who took the call and later apparently killed herself.

Australia's 2Day FM released a statement today saying it hopes to "help [Jacintha] Saldanha's family with the support they need at this very difficult time."

After days of suspended advertising, the radio station at the center of a global firestorm announced it will resume airing commercials Thursday. All its profits for the rest of the year will go directly to the family of the unsuspecting nurse at the center of that joke.

The Sydney-based station also issued a company-wide suspension of prank calls after the nurse who initially answered the hospital call was found dead.

Saldanha's husband and two teenage children met with officials at the hospital Monday, and spoke publicly for the first time, although via a member of the British Parliament.

Royal Hospital Hoax: End to Shock-Jock Pranks? Watch Video

Australian DJs Apologize in Wake of Nurse's Suicide Watch Video

"This is a close family," Keith Vaz said. "They are devastated by what has happened. They miss her every moment of every day.

Although radio pranks have been a staple of shock DJs for years, DJs Mel Greig and Michael Christian of Australia's 2Day FM might have crossed the line last week when they pranked the hospital, prompting the question of whether this is the end for radio pranking.

"Entertainers try to use real-life everyday circumstances and try to find humor in them," Radio DJ J Niice of B96 in Chicago, who does regular pranks on his show, told ABC News.

DJ Niice says his station has no intentions of pulling the plug on prank calls because it doesn't need to.

Based on U.S. law, such calls only become problematic when any resulting damage or injury could have been foreseen.

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin was famously pranked while running for vice president by a notorious Montreal-based comedy duo, who pretended to be then-French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

"You know, I see you as a president one day," one of them told Palin, to which she replied with a giggle, "Maybe in eight years.'"

A prank caller even managed to make his way through security to speak to Tony Blair while he was still British prime minister. But it was no laughing matter in 1998 when Opie and Anthony, DJs from a Boston radio station, were fired for telling listeners on April Fools' Day that the city's mayor had died in a car accident.

While the Australian DJs' show has been terminated, it's still unclear whether they will be.

They could face criminal charges if police determine their call was illegally recorded. And the same joke at which they initially laughed is now the reason for their tears.

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Egypt army gets temporary power to arrest civilians

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt's government has temporarily given the military the authority to arrest civilians to help safeguard a constitutional referendum planned for Saturday, the official gazette said.

The order, gazetted late on Sunday, said the military would support police and liaise with them to protect "vital institutions" until the referendum result is declared.

The decree gave army officers the right to make arrests and transfer detainees to prosecutors.

Despite its limited nature, the edict will revive memories of Hosni Mubarak's emergency law, also introduced as a temporary expedient, under which military or state security courts tried thousands of political dissidents and Islamist militants.

But a military source stressed that the measure, introduced by a civilian government, would have a short shelf-life.

"The latest law giving the armed forces the right to arrest anyone involved in illegal actions such as burning buildings or damaging public sites is to ensure security during the referendum only," the military source said.

"The armed forces secured polling stations during previous elections when it was in charge of the country," the source said, referring to 16 months of army rule after Mubarak fell.

"Now the president is in charge. In order for the armed forces to be involved in securing the referendum, a law had to be issued saying so," the source added.

Presidential spokesman Yasser Ali said the committee overseeing the vote had requested the army's assistance.

"The armed forces will work within a legal framework to secure the referendum and will return (to barracks) as soon as the referendum is over," Ali said.

On Saturday, the military urged rival political forces to solve their disputes via dialogue and said the opposite would drag the country into a "dark tunnel", which it would not allow.

A statement issued by the military spokesman and read on state radio and television made no mention of President Mohamed Mursi, but said a solution to the political crisis should not contradict "legitimacy and the rules of democracy".

A military source close to top officers said the statement "does not indicate any future intervention in politics".

A military council took over after a popular revolt ended Mubarak's 30 years of army-backed rule last year. It then handed power to Mursi, who became Egypt's first freely elected leader in June. The military has not intervened in the latest crisis.

The army statement said the military's duty was to protect national interests and secure vital state institutions.

"The armed forces affirm that dialogue is the best and only way to reach consensus," it added. "The opposite of that will bring us to a dark tunnel that will result in catastrophe and that is something we will not allow."

Hassan Abu Taleb of the Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies said Saturday's army statement suggested the military wanted both sides to talk out their differences, but discounted the chance of direct military intervention.

"They realize that interfering again in a situation of civil combat will squeeze them between two rocks," he said.

(Additional reporting by Yasmine Saleh; Writing by Alistair Lyon; editing by Philippa Fletcher)

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US, UK shareholders 'now to pay if bank fails'

LONDON: British and US banking regulators proposed on Monday a joint strategy to ensure that the bankruptcy of big banks won't spark a chain reaction of contagion throughout markets.

The two bodies, acting on behalf of the two largest financial centres in the world, stressed that under the proposals, shareholders and not taxpayers would bear the full costs, and top managers would be sacked.

At the Bank of England, the deputy governor for financial stability Paul Tucker said: "The 'too big to fail' problem simply must be cured. We believe it can be and that this joint paper provides evidence of the serious progress that is being made."

The British and US authorities said in a joint statement that the financial crisis had "driven home the importance of an orderly resolution process for globally active, systemically important, financial institutions" which have foundered.

They said that their solutions, which would target the parent of any finance house in trouble, "have been designed to enable large and complex cross-border firms to be resolved without threatening financial stability and without putting public funds at risk."

They said they had borne in mind work by the G20-backed Financial Stability Board on principles for dealing with failed financial institutions.

There has been widespread criticism of the way in which Lehman Brothers investment bank was closed down, triggering a massive crisis of confidence, and that in the disruption that followed some shareholders did not carry the full brunt of the costs and some managers held on to their boardroom jobs.

In the United States and in Europe, governments had to use taxpayers' funds to provide guarantees or new capital to financial institutions in trouble. Creditors lost money but most depositors were protected.

The objective is to minimise the dangers of so-called "systemic risk", when a sudden loss of confidence threatens to trigger chaos throughout the financial system as nearly occurred in 2007.

The strategy by the Bank of England and the US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation is a response to the traumas and lessons of the financial crisis which followed.

The statement said that the British part of the strategy was intended to fit with the powers provided by the UK Banking Act of 2009 "and in anticipation of the further powers that will be provided by the European Union Recovery and Resolution Directive."

Britain, a member of the European Union but not of the eurozone, is campaigning hard on another front which has a bearing on bank resolution: this is progress towards an EU banking union, built initially around the 17 eurozone members with banking supervision vested in the European Central Bank.

Britain is concerned that this could become a back door way for eurozone and EU authorities to interfere in regulation of the financial sector in Britain in a way which would damage British interests.

The statement said that the proposals were based on a "top-down" strategy for dealing with financial firms in severe difficulty, whereby a single authority would apply its powers "to the top of a financial group, that is, at the parent company level" and across borders.

In the United States the measures would work in the context of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010.

"Such a strategy would apply a single receivership at the top-tier holding company, assign losses to shareholders and unsecured creditors of the holding company, and transfer sound operating subsidiaries to a new solvent entity or entities," said the statement.

Both the US and British approaches would "ensure continuity of all critical services performed by the operating firm(s), thereby reducing risks to financial stability."

The joint statement said: "The unsecured debt holders can expect that their claims would be written down to reflect any losses that shareholders cannot cover, with some converted partly into equity in order to provide sufficient capital."

Subsidiaries which were viable would be kept open and operating, "thereby limiting contagion effects and crossborder complications."

The statement also made clear that action to deal with financial firms in trouble "would be accompanied by the replacement of culpable senior management."

- AFP/ir

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CAPF men will now get more time with family

NEW DELHI: Faced with high attrition rate and suicides in paramilitary forces arising out of work-related stress and alienation from family, the home ministry has given its nod to a proposal to have more camps off the border and troubled areas so that personnel can have regular peace postings and be closer to their families.

The proposal sent by the Border Security Force(BSF), has not only asked for new camps at places such as Dehradun, Shimla, Ambala, Pune, Bhubaneswar and Latur, but also asked for the accommodation of families in the border areas.

Addressing the BSF personnel on its 47th Raising Day function, home minister, Sushil Kumar Shinde, said he was seriously looking into the matter given the tough conditions that BSF men work in.

"I am aware of the fact that BSF personnel work in extremely difficult conditions and away from their families. The personnel deployed in anti-terrorist, anti-Naxal, disaster management, border management operations and United National Peace Keeping Missions. We have seen good results from all the fronts. With a view to making force personnel work near their native places there has been a proposal to set up battalion headquarters at various locations like Dehradun, Shimla, Ambala, Pune, Bhubaneswar and Latur. MHA has given its nod for the purpose and the lands have been acquired. The proposal to construct separate family accommodations is also being considered. It will help the personnel," Shinde said.

The ceremonial parade on the occasion of force's 47th raising day had to be postponed from December 1 to Monday following the demise of former Prime Minister IK Gujral on November 30.

The home minister decorated four BSF personnel with President's Police Medal for Gallantry and eight personnel with President's Police Medal for Distinguished Services.

A colourful parade of BSF's camel contingent and its dog squad along with daredevil feats by motor-cycle borne personnel were special attractions of the programme.

The force is at present without its regular chief following superannuation of UK Bansal late last month.

Special DG BSF, Arvind Ranjan, currently in-charge of the force, highlighted the tough challenges being faced by the personnel during the course of their duty.

"Since the raising of the force, over 1,600 bordermen have laid down their lives in the service of the nation. Over 6,300 personnel have suffered grievous injuries or have been disabled in the line of duty. These sacrifices remain a perennial source of inspiration for all the bordermen," Ranjan said.

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Smokers celebrate as Wash. legalizes marijuana

SEATTLE (AP) — The crowds of happy people lighting joints under Seattle's Space Needle early Thursday morning with nary a police officer in sight bespoke the new reality: Marijuana is legal under Washington state law.

Hundreds gathered at Seattle Center for a New Year's Eve-style countdown to 12 a.m., when the legalization measure passed by voters last month took effect. When the clock struck, they cheered and sparked up in unison.

A few dozen people gathered on a sidewalk outside the north Seattle headquarters of the annual Hempfest celebration and did the same, offering joints to reporters and blowing smoke into television news cameras.

"I feel like a kid in a candy store!" shouted Hempfest volunteer Darby Hageman. "It's all becoming real now!"

Washington and Colorado became the first states to vote to decriminalize and regulate the possession of an ounce or less of marijuana by adults over 21. Both measures call for setting up state licensing schemes for pot growers, processors and retail stores. Colorado's law is set to take effect by Jan. 5.

Technically, Washington's new marijuana law still forbids smoking pot in public, which remains punishable by a fine, like drinking in public. But pot fans wanted a party, and Seattle police weren't about to write them any tickets.

In another sweeping change for Washington, Gov. Chris Gregoire on Wednesday signed into law a measure that legalizes same-sex marriage. The state joins several others that allow gay and lesbian couples to wed.

The mood was festive in Seattle as dozens of gay and lesbian couples got in line to pick up marriage licenses at the King County auditor's office early Thursday.

King County and Thurston County announced they would open their auditors' offices shortly after midnight Wednesday to accommodate those who wanted to be among the first to get their licenses.

Kelly Middleton and her partner Amanda Dollente got in line at 4 p.m. Wednesday.

Hours later, as the line grew, volunteers distributed roses and a group of men and women serenaded the waiting line to the tune of "Chapel of Love."

Because the state has a three-day waiting period, the earliest that weddings can take place is Sunday.

In dealing with marijuana, the Seattle Police Department told its 1,300 officers on Wednesday, just before legalization took hold, that until further notice they shall not issue citations for public marijuana use.

Officers will be advising people not to smoke in public, police spokesman Jonah Spangenthal-Lee wrote on the SPD Blotter. "The police department believes that, under state law, you may responsibly get baked, order some pizzas and enjoy a 'Lord of the Rings' marathon in the privacy of your own home, if you want to."

He offered a catchy new directive referring to the film "The Big Lebowski," popular with many marijuana fans: "The Dude abides, and says 'take it inside!'"

"This is a big day because all our lives we've been living under the iron curtain of prohibition," said Hempfest director Vivian McPeak. "The whole world sees that prohibition just took a body blow."

Washington's new law decriminalizes possession of up to an ounce for those over 21, but for now selling marijuana remains illegal. I-502 gives the state a year to come up with a system of state-licensed growers, processors and retail stores, with the marijuana taxed 25 percent at each stage. Analysts have estimated that a legal pot market could bring Washington hundreds of millions of dollars a year in new tax revenue for schools, health care and basic government functions.

But marijuana remains illegal under federal law. That means federal agents can still arrest people for it, and it's banned from federal properties, including military bases and national parks.

The Justice Department has not said whether it will sue to try to block the regulatory schemes in Washington and Colorado from taking effect.

"The department's responsibility to enforce the Controlled Substances Act remains unchanged," said a statement issued Wednesday by the Seattle U.S. attorney's office. "Neither states nor the executive branch can nullify a statute passed by Congress."

The legal question is whether the establishment of a regulated marijuana market would "frustrate the purpose" of the federal pot prohibition, and many constitutional law scholars say it very likely would.

That leaves the political question of whether the administration wants to try to block the regulatory system, even though it would remain legal to possess up to an ounce of marijuana.

Alison Holcomb is the drug policy director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington and served as the campaign manager for New Approach Washington, which led the legalization drive. She said the voters clearly showed they're done with marijuana prohibition.

"New Approach Washington sponsors and the ACLU look forward to working with state and federal officials and to ensure the law is fully and fairly implemented," she said.

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Johnson can be reached at https://twitter.com/GeneAPseattle

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Royal Hoax: DJs 'Shattered' After Nurse's Suicide

The two Australian radio DJs who prank-called the London hospital where Kate Middleton was being treated last week said they were "shattered" and "gutted" after the nurse who answered their call apparently killed herself.

Shock jocks Mel Greig, 30, and Michael Christian, 25, cried as they spoke to Australia's Channel 9 overnight in their first public interview since Jacintha Saldanha, 46, the nurse who last week connected the pair to the duchess' room, was found dead Friday morning.

"I'm shattered, gutted, heartbroken," Christian said. "Mel and myself are incredibly sorry for the situation and what's happened. I had the idea. … It was just a simple harmless phone call. It was going to go on for 30 seconds. We were going to get hung up on."

FULL COVERAGE: Royal Baby

The host of the "2Day" FM radio show pretended to be Queen Elizabeth and Prince Charles, asking for an update on Middleton's condition when they called up King Edward VII Hospital in central London. With no receptionist on duty overnight, Saldanha answered the prank call and put it through.

"It was just something that was fun and light-hearted and a tragic turn of events that I don't think anyone had expected," Christian said.

A Current Affair/ABC News

Jacintha Saldanha Dead: Could DJs Face Charges? Watch Video

Jacintha Saldanha Outrage: DJs Responsible for Prank Are in Hiding Watch Video

Saldanha was found dead Friday morning after police were called to an address near the hospital to "reports of a woman found unconscious," according to a statement from Scotland Yard.

Investigators have not said how she might have killed herself.

Greig cried today when asked about the moment she heard of the death of Saldanha, a mother of two.

"It was the worst phone call I've ever had in my life," she said through tears. "There's not a minute that goes by that we don't think about her family and the thought that we may have played a part in that is gut-wrenching."

The DJs said they never expected to get through to Middleton's nurse and assumed "the same phone calls had been made 100 times that morning," Christian said.

Grieg said, "We wanted to be hung up on with our silly voices and wanted a 20-second segment to air of us doing stupid voice. … Not for a second did we expect to even speak to Kate or even have a conversation with anyone at the hospital. We wanted to be hung up on."

The global backlash against the duo has been fierce, from online death threats to calls for prison time. Their radio station has announced it is banning phony phone calls altogether, and suspending advertising indefinitely.

Max Moore-Wilton, the chairman of Southern Cross Austereo, said in a letter Sunday to Lord Glenarthur, chairman of King Edward VII's Hospital, that the company is reviewing the station's broadcast policies, the AP reported.

"I can assure you we are taking immediate action and reviewing the broadcast and processes involved," Moore-Wilton said in the letter. "As we have said in our own statements on the matter, the outcome was unforeseeable and very regrettable."

Greig and Michael have been taken off the air, silenced indefinitely.

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Egypt's Mursi scraps decree, fails to appease opponents

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt's president scrapped a decree that gave him extra powers and ignited violent protests, but irate opponents said on Sunday he had deepened the conflict by pressing on with a vote on a constitution shaped by Islamists.

President Mohamed Mursi and his Islamist partisans have insisted the referendum go ahead on December 15 to seal a democratic transition that began when a popular uprising felled Hosni Mubarak 22 months ago after three decades of one-man rule.

The retraction of Mursi's November 22 decree, announced around midnight after a "national dialogue" boycotted by almost all the president's opponents, has failed to calm a war of words.

Prime Minister Hisham Kandil, a technocrat with Islamist leanings, said the referendum was the best test of opinion.

"The people are the makers of the future as long as they have the freedom to resort to the ballot box in a democratic, free and fair vote," he said in a cabinet statement.

But opposition factions, uncertain of their ability to vote down the constitution against the Islamists' organizational muscle, want the document redrafted before any vote.

Ahmed Said, a liberal leader of the main opposition National Salvation Front, said Mursi's withdrawal of his November 22 decree had not annulled its consequences, describing the race to a referendum as "shocking" and an "act of war" against Egyptians.

The Front has promised a formal response later on Sunday.

Egypt tipped into turmoil after Mursi grabbed powers to stop any court action to hinder the transition. An assembly led by Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists then swiftly approved the constitution it had spent six months drafting.

Liberals, leftists, Christians and others had already quit the assembly in dismay, saying their voices were being ignored.

The April 6 movement, prominent in the anti-Mubarak revolt, derided the result of Saturday's talks as "manipulation and a continuation of deception in the name of law and legitimacy".

A leftist group led by defeated presidential candidate Hamdeen Sabahy demanded the referendum be deferred until a consensus could be reached on a new draft, saying there could be "no dialogue while blood is being spilled in the streets".

But Muslim Brotherhood spokesman Mahmoud Ghozlan said scrapping Mursi's decree had removed any cause for controversy.

"We ask others to announce their acceptance of the referendum result," he said on the group's Facebook page, asking whether the opposition would accept "the basics of democracy".

"NOT LOGICAL"

More protests were planned near Mursi's palace, despite tanks, barbed wire and other barriers installed last week after clashes between Islamists and their rivals killed seven people.

"A constitution without consensus can't go to a referendum," said Hermes Fawzi, 28, a protester outside the palace. "It's not logical that just one part of society makes the constitution."

After the dialogue hosted by Mursi, a spokesman announced that the president had issued a new decree whose first article "cancels the constitutional declaration" of November 22. He said the referendum could not be delayed for legal reasons.

Egypt is torn between Islamists, who were suppressed for decades, and their rivals, who fear religious conservatives want to squeeze out other voices and restrict social freedoms. Many Egyptians just crave stability and economic recovery.

Each side has mobilized tens of thousands of supporters in rival rallies in Cairo and other cities. Mursi's foes have chanted for his downfall. Islamists fear a plot to oust the most populous Arab nation's first freely elected president.

Islamists reckon they can win the referendum and, once the new constitution is in place, an election for a new parliament about two months later. The Islamist-led lower house elected this year was dissolved after a few months by a court order.

Investors appeared relieved at Mursi's retraction of his decree, sending Egyptian stocks 4.4 percent higher on Sunday. Markets are awaiting approval of a $4.8 billion IMF loan later this month designed to support the budget and economic reforms.

The new decree removed some parts of the old one that had angered the opposition, including an article that had given Mursi broad powers to confront threats to the revolution or the nation - wording that critics said gave him arbitrary authority.

It also dropped an article that had shielded Mursi's actions from the courts until a new parliament was elected, reflecting his distrust of a judiciary largely unreformed from Mubarak's era. But the new decree said "constitutional declarations including this declaration" remained beyond judicial review.

The new decree also set procedures to form an assembly to write a new constitution if Egyptians vote this draft down.

The military, which led Egypt's transition for 16 turbulent months after Mubarak fell, told feuding factions on Saturday that only dialogue could avert "catastrophe". But a military source said these remarks did not herald an army takeover.

(Additional reporting by Tamim Elyan and Yasmine Saleh; Writing by Alistair Lyon; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

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Mandela "comfortable" after night in hospital

JOHANNESBURG: Nelson Mandela is comfortable, after a restful night in hospital for tests, the South African government said Sunday as the former president spent his second day in hospital.

President Jacob Zuma visited the country's first black president and said he had found him "comfortable, and in good care."

It was the second time the 94-year-old and increasingly frail Mandela had been hospitalised this year. While officials are trying to allay fears over his health, they are not releasing any details of his condition.

"I think he has had a restful night, the doctors are comfortable about it, they are continuing monitoring," Mac Maharaj, Zuma's spokesman and a former fellow prisoner with Mandela, told AFP.

The tests and medical attention were consistent with his age, he added.

Medical experts say there is nothing out of the ordinary for a person of Mandela's age to require in-patient attention from time to time.

"We need to understand that he is 94 years old, and that his state of health is not genuinely of a good quality, and that from time to time he is admitted to hospitals," Mark Sonderup, vice chairman of the South African Medical Association told AFP.

The anti-apartheid hero and Nobel Peace Prize laureate was flown from his home village of Qunu in the southeast of the country to a hospital in the capital Pretoria on Saturday.

The once spry boxer, who stayed fit during his 27 years in prison by doing calisthenics in his cell, has grown increasingly frail. But his stature as one of the world's most famous and loved public figures remains undimmed.

"We wish him as speedy recovery," said Ntanyongwana Mdzeki, an octogenarian neighbour of Mandela in Qunu village. "We still need him to be around because he changed our lives."

Mandela's former political colleague Ahmed Kathrada, another apartheid-era prisoner, also wished Mandela a speedy recovery.

"Even in such mundane times as routine hospital visits, you allow South Africans from across the length and breadth of this country to unite in concern for you," said a statement by the Kathrada foundation.

Keith Khoza spokesman of the ruling ANC party, which Mandela once led, said the party wished him well.

"He is in perfect health," he added. "Everything is well. It's just that he has to undergo these regular check ups."

Officials have refused to give more details about his condition or say in which hospital he is being treated.

Security appeared to have been beefed up however at 1 Military Hospital on the outskirts of Pretoria. Military police were searching the trunks of all the cars entering the hospital complex, according to an AFP photographer.

South Africa's military has in the past been responsible for Mandela's health.

The revered statesman has not appeared in public since South Africa hosted the FIFA World Cup final in 2010.

Madiba, as he is affectionately known by South Africans, has all-but retired from public life, choosing to live in his childhood hometown of Qunu in the rural Eastern Cape.

His last hospitalisation was in February when he spent a night in hospital for a minor exploratory procedure to investigate persistent abdominal pain.

In January 2011, Mandela had the country on edge when he was admitted for two nights for an acute respiratory infection. He was discharged in a stable condition for home-based care and intense medical monitoring.

Mandela has also had prostate cancer, for which he was successfully treated in 2001. He had cataract surgery in 1994, just months after he took office as president.

After years fighting white-only rule, he shared the Nobel Peace Prize with the last white president, FW de Klerk, in 1993.

A year later, he crowned his long fight against minority rule by becoming the country's first black president at the end of apartheid.

The last pictures of Mandela published in the media were in August when he received a visit from US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at his home.

- AFP/xq

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India misguided, paranoid over China: Guha

Shreya Roy Chowdhury, TNN Dec 8, 2012, 06.12AM IST

MUMBAI: A good half-hour into the discussion on 'India, China and the World', historian Ramachandra Guha issued a disclaimer—all the three members on the panel had been to China only once. "We should learn their language, promote quality research, and have a panel on China driven by Chinese scholars," he said. And that was the general tenor of the debate—that the Indian attitude to China was influenced by a mix of ignorance, cautious optimism about partnerships and a whole lot of misguided paranoia. "Don't demonise the Chinese, please," Guha finally said in response to a question.

"China has existed in our imaginations," observed Sunil Khilnani, professor of politics and author of The Idea Of India. "There's been very little sustained engagement with the reality of China and very little of our own produced knowledge about China." It was after the events of 1962 ('war' in the popular imagination, 'skirmish' to the scholars participating in the discussion), explained Khilnani, that a miffed India "withdrew". It's the 50th anniversary of that exchange this year, and "what we haven't been able to do is learn from the defeat", observed Khilnani. Both could have benefited from greater engagement. "China has had a very clear focus on primary education and achieved high levels of literacy before its economic rise. It has also addressed the issue of land reform," said Khilnani. Guha added that China could learn from the "religious, cultural and linguistic pluralism" in India.

But China and India weren't always so out of sync with each other. Srinath Raghavan, a scholar of military history, got both Guha and Khilnani to talk about pre-1962 relations between the two when the picture was rosier. Tagore was interested in China and so was Gandhi. Both were very large countries with large populations and shared what Guha calls a "lack of cultural inferiority". "They were both," he continued, "also heavily dependent on peasant communities." Nehru was appreciative of China's will to modernize and industrialize and its adoption of technology to achieve those ends. In turn, Chinese politicians argued for Indian independence.

Things soured more, feel both Khilnani and Guha, after the Dalai Lama fled to India in 1959. "He was welcomed here as a spiritual leader but the intensification of the conflict dates to the Dalai Lama's flight," said Guha. Both Guha and Khilnani argued that Nehru's decision to not react aggressively to China's occupation of Tibet was, in the long run, the right one and prevented further "militarization" of the region. An audience member wondered if that didn't make India "China's puppet". Guha disagreed. "If there's a Tibetan culture alive today," he said, "it's not because of Richard Gere. Don't believe in the hypocrisy of the Western countries. Will they give them land, employment, dignified refuge? The Tibetans is one of the few cases in which our record is honorable."

But the difference in levels of development and the lopsided trade relations between the two countries have only fuelled the suspicions many Indians seem to harbour about China. People were worried, said Guha, even about cricket balls made in China. Audience questions reflected those worries. A member asked about China's "strategy to conquer the world" and its likely impact on India. Guha cautioned against stereotypes; Khilnani explained, "History is littered with the debris of states that have tried to dominate the world. What we're doing may be more long-lasting."

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