Life & works of local literary icon on exhibit






SINGAPORE: An exhibition that features the life and works of local literary icon Dr Muhammad Ariff Ahmad was launched at the National Library Building on Saturday.

"Sumbangsih MAS: Muhammad Ariff Ahmad" also showcases his writings that are displayed for the first time, including an unpublished manuscript.

The well-respected Malay language and cultural luminary turned 88 two days ago.

This exhibition - which recognises his efforts and contributions towards Singapore's literary scene, comes as a timely birthday gift.

Jointly organised by National Library Board, ASAS 50 and the Malay Language Council, the exhibition is in English and Malay to reach out to a wider community.

In conjunction with the exhibition, NLB published a bibliography on Dr Ariff's works, in the hope that it becomes a source of reference for researchers of Malay literature in Singapore.

The National Library Board also produced a collection of 25 of Dr Ariff's poems that were penned since 1947.

"What can be expected in this exhibition is the life and contributions of Cikgu Muhammad Ariff, mainly in the areas of language, literature and in the education field," said Juffri Supa'at, curator for the exhibition and senior librarian of the National Library.

The exhibition is part of NLB's Literary Pioneer Series in honour of Singapore's literary figures.

The exhibition runs at Level 9 of the National Library Building until 3 February 2013. It is open to public and admission is free.

- CNA/xq



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India misguided, paranoid over China: Guha

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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Australian DJs Behind Prank Call Under Fire













An outpouring of anger is being directed today at the two Australian radio hosts after the death of a nurse who was caught in the DJs' prank call to hospital where Kate Middleton was treated earlier this week.


Lord Glenarthur, the chairman of King Edward VII's Hospital - the U.K. hospital where the Duchess of Cambridge was receiving treatment, condemned the prank in a letter to the Max Moore-Wilton, chairman of Southern Cross Austereo, the Australian radio station's parent company.


Glenarthur said the prank humiliated "two dedicated and caring nurses," and the consequences were "tragic beyond words," The Associated Press reported.


DJs Mel Greig and Michael Christian, radio shock jocks at Sydney's 2Day FM have been taken off the air, but the company they work for did not fire them or condemn them.


"I think that it's a bit early to be drawing conclusions from what is really a deeply tragic matter," Rhys Holleran, CEO of Southern Cross Austereo told a news conference in Sydney. "I mean, our main concern is for the family. I don't think anyone could have reasonably foreseen that this was going to be a result."


Nurse Jacintha 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.


Circumstances of her death are still being investigated, but are not suspicious at this stage, authorities said Friday.


Following news of Saldanha's death, commentary on social media included posts expressing shock, sadness and anger.








Jacintha Saldanha, Nurse at Kate Middleton's Hospital, Found Dead Watch Video









A sampling of some of the twitter posts directed at the DJs included: "you scumbag, hope you get what's coming to you" and "I hope you're happy now."


The hospital said that Saldanha worked at the hospital for more than four years. They called her a "first-class nurse" and "a well-respected and popular member of the staff."


The hospital extended their "deepest sympathies" to family and friends, saying that "everyone is shocked" at this "tragic event."


"I am devastated with the tragic loss of my beloved wife Jacintha in tragic circumstances, she will be laid to rest in Shirva, India," Saldanha's husband posted on Facebook.


The duchess spent three days at the hospital undergoing treatment for hyperemesis gravidarum, severe or debilitating nausea and vomiting. She was released from the hospital on Thursday morning.


"The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are deeply saddened to learn of the death of Jacintha Saldanha," a spokesman from St. James Palace said in a statement.


On Friday, Greig and Christian had been gloating about their successful call to the hospital, in which they pretended to be Queen Elizabeth and Prince Charles and were able to obtain personal information about the Duchess's serious condition.


"You know what they were the worst accents ever and when we made that phone call we were sure a hundred people at least before us would have tried the same thing," said Grieg on air. She added with a laugh, "we were expecting to be hung up on we didn't even know what to say [when] we got through."


"We got through and now the entire world is talking, of course," said her co-host Christian.


When the royal impersonators called the hospital, Saldanha put through to a second nurse who told the royal impersonators that Kate was "quite stable" and hadn't "had any retching."


The hospital apologized for the mistake.


"The call was transferred through to a ward, and a short conversation was held with one of the nursing staff," the hospital said in a statement. "King Edward VII's Hospital deeply regrets this incident."


"This was a foolish prank call that we all deplore," John Lofthouse, the hospital's chief executive, said in the statement. "We take patient confidentiality extremely seriously, and we are now reviewing our telephone protocols."


The radio station also apologized for the prank call.






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Egypt struggle seen costing Mursi, even if he wins


CAIRO (Reuters) - The crisis unleashed by President Mohamed Mursi's bid to wrap up Egypt's transition on his own terms has eroded his nation's faith in their nascent democracy and will complicate the already unenviable task of government.


His effort to drive through a constitution against the wishes of major sections of society, including a Christian minority, has damaged prospects for building consensus needed to tackle challenges ahead, such as fixing a broken economy.


Having promised to be a president for all, Mursi stands accused of putting the interests of his group, the Muslim Brotherhood, ahead of others who say their aspirations are not reflected in the draft to be put to a December 15 referendum.


On the other side, suspicions harbored by Islamists towards their secular-minded opponents have only deepened as a result of the turmoil ignited by Mursi's effort to fast-track the final stage of the transition from Hosni Mubarak's rule.


With the more extreme among them opposed to the very notion of democracy, the Islamists say their rivals are not respecting the rules of the game that put them in the driving seat by winning free and fair elections.


People anxious to see Egypt recover from two years of turbulence fear bad blood could persist and squash hopes for cooperation needed to help Mursi rule smoothly and deliver much-needed reforms.


"If they succeed in the referendum, they will see that as a step forward, but not without cost," said a Western diplomat.


Though Mursi won international praise for mediating a truce in Gaza, the violence on his own streets worries the West and particularly the United States, which has given Cairo billions of dollars in military and other aid since Egypt made peace with Israel in 1979. U.S. President Barack Obama told Mursi on Thursday of his "deep concern" about casualties during protests.


A victim of the polarization could be the Brotherhood's plans to forge electoral alliances with liberals in forthcoming parliamentary polls. The head of the Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party told Reuters this week he saw such alliances as preferable to an ideological tie-up with other Islamists.


The divisions are now playing out in the streets. Seven people were killed and hundreds wounded this week in clashes between Islamists and their rivals. A call by Mursi for dialogue was rebuffed by activists who are to protest again on Friday.


"We said that this state of polarization, if it was not dealt with properly, would reach this point, and it has," said Ayman Al-Sayyad, who quit his post as a Mursi adviser on Wednesday following an eruption of violence.


"This was the scene that we were trying to avoid," he added in an interview with al-Hayat television.


The inclusive image Mursi had tried to build around his administration was one of the first victims of the crisis that mushroomed following a November 22 decree that expanded his powers and protected his decisions from judicial review.


RESIGNATIONS


A Christian and a woman were among the first to resign from his staff, as surprised by the decree as most Egyptians. Despite an early bout of violence, Mursi showed no sign of wavering and appeared to brush off his critics.


"I see things more than they do," he told Time.


With speculation swirling around how he took the decision, Egyptians long suspicious of the Brotherhood have concluded Mursi is running the country at the group's command.


In response, the Islamists complain that many of Mursi's attempts at outreach were rebuffed early on. Their view of the opposition has grown dimmer through the crisis. Brotherhood members have started to dismiss opponents as "feloul", meaning "remnants" - a pejorative implying loyalty to Mubarak.


"The really unfortunate side effect of the last two weeks is the political atmosphere has become really toxic. I fear that could endure long past the current crisis," said Elijah Zarwan, a fellow with the European Council on Foreign Relations.


"The next government is going to have to move very quickly to address many problems and it will need cooperation. In the current atmosphere, it is hard to imagine others cooperating."


Such cooperation will be at a premium for introducing policies aimed at reining in a crushing budget deficit and staving off a balance of payments crisis. Egypt's economy has lost $70 billion to $80 billion of economic output since Mubarak was ousted, in one economist's estimate.


Top of the economic to-do list are measures to cut back on fuel subsidies - one of the biggest drains on state finances. Tweaks to such support are bound to be unpopular in a nation where both rich and poor have grown used to cheap petrol.


"He has inherited an economy that is weak and needs serious surgery, so he is going to have to make controversial decisions over the next year or so," said Simon Kitchen, strategist at EFG-Hermes, an Egyptian investment bank.


"Ideally you want to do that in an environment where you have some sort of political consensus," he said.


"THEY BURNED THEIR BRIDGES"


Some subsidy reform and other steps to cut waste are part of a program agreed in principle with the International Monetary Fund for $4.8 billion loan designed to support the budget.


The IMF board meets on December 19 to discuss approval of the loan, which would be seen by investors as a seal of approval for the government's reform program.


Besides the economy, Mursi needs wider backing to tackle other problems including a judiciary which his opponents agree needs overhaul. But even when he sacked the unpopular, Mubarak-era prosecutor general, Mursi was criticized for showing an autocratic streak in the way he went about it.


In the new system of government outlined in the draft constitution, Egypt's next parliament will have a say over the shape of government. A parliamentary election would go ahead some two months later if the constitution is approved in the referendum.


With that in mind, the Freedom and Justice Party is already eyeing alliances to fight the parliamentary election.


FJP leader Saad al-Katatni said in an interview his preference was for an alliance with liberals, not the hardline Islamists whose backing has helped Mursi through the crisis. "Our preferred option is that the alliance not be ideological so that we don't have a split in the nation," he said.


The Brotherhood had kept the nascent hardline Salafi parties at arm's length as they emerged after Mubarak's political demise. That trend has gradually been reversed as the Brotherhood has looked to fellow Islamists for support.


"They burned their bridges with the secular camp and relied heavily on the Salafi camp. We don't feel that is where they naturally want to be right now," said the Western diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity.


Sentiment from liberal parties suggests the Brotherhood will struggle to convince liberals that it is a trustworthy partner.


"I don't think the man realizes the degree of rebellion and rage the people have," said Ahmed Said, head of the liberal Free Egyptians Party, referring to Mursi. "The country is totally divided and polarized. You have two nations now."


(Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Peter Graff)



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Yachting: Stamm takes lead in Vendee Globe






PARIS: Switzerland's Bernard Stamm has taken the lead for the first time in the solo, round-the-world Vendee Globe race ahead of France's Francois Gabart, Jean-Pierre Dick and Armel Le Cleac'h, organisers said on Friday.

Stamm took pole position in the southern Indian Ocean after Le Cleac'h, who had held the lead for much of the last 18 days, paid the price for trying to cut off an anticyclone near the Crozet "ice gate".

The Swiss skipper was the first to pass the virtual marker post on Thursday morning and the first to meet gentle winds - those slower than 10 knots.

At 0400 GMT on Friday, he was sailing at no more than 4.6 knots while Stamm (15.5 knots), Gabart (14.3 knots) and Dick (13.4 knots) were travelling nearly three times faster and more southward, buoyed by more sustained wind.

Le Cleac'h dropped to fourth overall and those in his wake chose to delay heading through the gentle wind zone, crossing their fingers that it will disappear when they head northward to pass Crozet.

Stamm's performance in his third Vendee Globe is remarkable given that his boat "Cheminees Poujoulat" is the most powerful of the fleet but also the most demanding physically.

The 49-year-old, who is based in the Brittany region of northwest France, has a glittering record in world sailing, having twice won the Velux 5 Oceans in 2002/3 and 2006/7 and is experienced in the Southern Ocean.

Standings at 0400 GMT:

1. Bernard Stamm (SUI/Cheminees Poujoulat) 16,641 nautical miles (19,150 miles, 30,819 kilometres) from the finish

2. Francois Gabart (FRA/Macif) at 11.5 miles

3. Jean-Pierre Dick (FRA/Virbac Paprec 3) at 59.5 miles

4. Armel Le Cleac'h (FRA/Banque Populaire) at 106.2 miles

5. Alex Thomson (GBR/Hugo Boss) at 145.3 miles

6. Mike Golding (GBR/Gamesa) at 653.7 miles

7. Dominique Wavre (SUI/Mirabaud) at 677.6 miles

8. Jean Le Cam (FRA/SynerCiel) at 678.1 miles

9. Javier Sanso (ESP/Acciona) at 1,295 miles

10. Arnaud Boissieres (FRA/Akena Verandas) at 1,515 miles

- AFP/de



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Cauvery water dispute tribunal award to be notified by December-end

NEW DELHI: After nearly six years, the final award of the Cauvery water dispute tribunal will be notified by the end of this month, states sharing the disputed Cauvery river waters were informed today.

At a meeting of the Cauvery monitoring committee (CMC) , secretary water resources D V Singh — who chairs the panel — told representatives of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala and Puducherry that steps "shall" be taken to notify the final award of the tribunal at the earliest, "but not later than the end of this month."

The meeting of the CMC was convened today to give an interim order on water sharing between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.

Once a gazette notification is issued, institutions like the Cauvery River Authority (CRA) chaired by the Prime Minister and the CMC will cease to exist.

The Tribunal, comprising chairman Justice N P Singh and members N S Rao and Sudhir Narain, in a unanimous award in February, 2007 had determined the total availability of water in the Cauvery basin at 740 thousand million cubic (TMC) feet at the Lower Coleroon Anicut site.

The proceedings of the Tribunal, set up in June, 1990, went on for more than 16 years.

In, what was then described as a balancing act, the Tribunal gave Tamil Nadu 419 TMC of water(as against the demand of 562 TMC); Karnataka 270 TMC (as against its demand of 465 TMC); Kerala 30 TMC and Puducherry 7 TMC.

For environmental protection, it had reserved 10 TMC. The Tribunal's award will come into effect within 90 days of its notification by the Centre. As per law, the award comes into being after being notified by the Centre through its publication in a gazette.

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Celebrations planned as Wash. legalizes marijuana


SEATTLE (AP) — Legal marijuana possession becomes a reality under Washington state law on Thursday, and some people planned to celebrate the new law by breaking it.


Voters in Washington and Colorado last month made those the first states to decriminalize and regulate the recreational use of marijuana. Washington's law takes effect Thursday and allows adults to have up to an ounce of pot — but it bans public use of marijuana, which is punishable by a fine, just like drinking in public.


Nevertheless, some people planned to gather at 12:01 a.m. PST Thursday to smoke in public beneath Seattle's Space Needle. Others planned a midnight party outside the Seattle headquarters of Hempfest, the 21-year-old festival that attracts tens of thousands of pot fans every summer.


"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."


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.


That law also takes effect Thursday, when gay and lesbian couples can start picking up their wedding certificates and licenses at county auditors' offices. Those offices in King County, the state's largest and home to Seattle, and Thurston County, home to the state capital of Olympia, planned to open the earliest, at 12:01 a.m. Thursday, to start issuing marriage licenses. Because the state has a three-day waiting period, the earliest that weddings can take place is Sunday.


The Seattle Police Department provided this public marijuana use enforcement guidance to its officers via email Wednesday night: "Until further notice, officers shall not take any enforcement action — other than to issue a verbal warning — for a violation of Initiative 502."


Thanks to a 2003 law, marijuana enforcement remains the department's lowest priority. Even before I-502 passed on Nov. 6, police rarely busted people at Hempfest, despite widespread pot use, and the city attorney here doesn't prosecute people for having small amounts of marijuana.


Officers will be advising people to take their weed inside, 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."


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" — a non-issue, since the measures passed in Washington and Colorado don't "nullify" federal law, which federal agents remain free to enforce.


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.


Colorado's measure, as far as decriminalizing possession goes, is set to take effect by Jan. 5. That state's regulatory scheme is due to be up and running by October 2013.


___(equals)


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


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November Unemployment Falls to 7.7 Percent












The economy generated 146,000 new jobs in November and unemployment fell to 7.7 percent, better than economists expected, despite worries that superstorm Sandy and the looming fiscal cliff would dampen hiring.


There are still 12 million people unemployed in the country, but the Labor Department said Sandy did not "substantively impact" employment.


The Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics dialed back job gains for the previous two months. In October, the U.S. economy added 138,000 jobs, not the 171,000 reported before the election. The jobs added in September were also revised downward to 132,000 from 148,000.


Stephen Bronars, chief economist with Welch Consulting in Washington, D.C., said many economists believed Superstorm Sandy would have influenced Friday's jobs report after causing devastation especially in the Caribbean and U.S. Northeast. Many expected an addition of 90,000 jobs causing the unemployment rate to tick up slightly.


Though the job numbers seemed strong, Bronars still said the overall report was "mixed" as many people were giving up their job searches. He also said he expects the payroll number for November will also be revised downward in the next two months.


"We need to see a few more months of data to see the full impact of both Sandy and expiring unemployment insurance benefits," Bronars said.






Stan Honda/AFP/Getty Images







Businesses and residents in the tri-state region of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, which produce about one-eighth of U.S. GDP, experienced prolonged power outages and major infrastructure damage.


Bronars said, "Sandy hit the U.S. at a place where it inflicted close to the maximal possible economic damage from a storm that size."


New Jersey and New York were the hardest hit, with at least 120,000 jobs lost, at least temporarily, in those two states, some estimates showed. The Labor Department will release official regional and state unemployment estimates on Dec. 21.


Expiring unemployment insurance benefits for many jobless workers also affected the labor department's household survey as benefits have run out for hundreds of thousands of workers. A condition for receiving unemployment insurance benefits is an active job search.


"It is not surprising that some of the workers that have been out of work for a year and a half would give up job search, for a while, after their benefits ran out," Bronars said.


The labor force dropped by 350,000 in one month and employment fell by 122,000 according to the household survey.


"Those numbers are weak, even given Hurricane Sandy," Bronars said.


In addition, the employment to population ratio and the labor force participation rates fell.


On Wednesday, payroll provider ADP, reported that private companies added 118,000 jobs in November, down from 157,000 in October. However, ADP includes in its figures people as employed if they remain on payroll, whereas the Labor Department's includes workers as employed if they are paid.


Now that election season is over, employers and investors are surrounded by worries from another uncertainty, the fiscal cliff.


Read more: Eliminating Charitable Deduction Would Help Budget, Hurt Charities


Bronars said the November report will not have quite picked up effects of the looming fiscal cliff, as employers prepare for a mix of government spending cuts and tax increases after the end of the year.






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Military halts clashes as political crisis grips Egypt


CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt's Republican Guard restored order around the presidential palace on Thursday after fierce overnight clashes killed seven people, but passions ran high in a struggle over the country's future.


The Islamist president, Mohamed Mursi, criticized by his opponents for his silence in the last few days, was due to address the nation later in the day, state television said.


Hundreds of his supporters who had camped out near the palace overnight withdrew before a mid-afternoon deadline set by the Republican Guard. Dozens of Mursi's foes remained, but were kept away by a barbed wire barricade guarded by tanks.


The military played a big role in removing President Hosni Mubarak during last year's popular revolt, taking over to manage a transitional period, but had stayed out of the latest crisis.


Mursi's Islamist partisans fought opposition protesters well into the early hours during dueling demonstrations over the president's decree on November 22 to expand his powers to help him push through a mostly Islamist-drafted constitution.


Officials said seven people had been killed and 350 wounded in the violence, for which each side blamed the other. Six of the dead were Mursi supporters, the Muslim Brotherhood said.


The street clashes reflected a deep political divide in the most populous Arab nation, where contrasting visions of Islamists and their liberal rivals have complicated a struggle to embed democracy after Mubarak's 30-year autocracy.


The United States, worried about the stability of an Arab partner which has a peace deal with Israel and which receives $1.3 billion a year in U.S. military aid, has urged dialogue.


The commander of the Republican Guard said deployment of tanks and troop carriers around the presidential palace was intended to separate the adversaries, not to repress them.


"The armed forces, and at the forefront of them the Republican Guard, will not be used as a tool to oppress the demonstrators," General Mohamed Zaki told the state news agency.


Hussein Abdel Ghani, spokesman of the opposition National Salvation Front, said more protests were planned, but not necessarily at the palace in Cairo's Heliopolis district.


"Our youth are leading us today and we decided to agree to whatever they want to do," he told Reuters.


UNITY APPEAL


Egypt plunged into renewed turmoil after Mursi issued his November 22 decree and an Islamist-dominated assembly hastily approved a new constitution to go to a referendum on December 15.


The Supreme Guide of the Brotherhood, to which Mursi belonged before he was narrowly elected president in June, appealed for unity. Divisions among Egyptians "only serve the nation's enemies", Mohamed Badie said in a statement.


Rival factions used rocks, petrol bombs and guns in the clashes around the presidential palace.


"We came here to support President Mursi and his decisions. He is the elected president of Egypt," said demonstrator Emad Abou Salem, 40. "He has legitimacy and nobody else does."


Opposition protester Ehab Nasser el-Din, 21, his head bandaged after being hit by a rock the day before, decried the Muslim Brotherhood's "grip on the country", which he said would only tighten if the new constitution is passed.


Another protester, Ahmed Abdel-Hakim, 23, accused the Brotherhood of "igniting the country in the name of religion".


Mursi's opponents accuse him of seeking to create a new "dictatorship". The president says his actions were necessary to prevent courts still full of judges appointed by Mubarak from derailing a constitution vital for Egypt's political transition.


Mursi has shown no sign of buckling under pressure from protesters, confident that the Islamists, who have dominated both elections since Mubarak was overthrown, can win the referendum and the parliamentary election to follow.


Mahmoud Hussein, the Brotherhood's secretary-general, said holding the plebiscite was the only way out of the crisis, dismissing the opposition as "remnants of the (Mubarak) regime, thugs and people working for foreign agendas".


As well as relying on his Brotherhood power base, Mursi may also tap into a popular yearning for stability and economic revival after almost two years of political turmoil.


The Egyptian pound sank on Thursday to its lowest level in eight years, after previously firming on hopes that a $4.8 billion IMF loan would stabilize the economy. The Egyptian stock market fell 4.4 percent after it opened.


Foreign exchange reserves fell by nearly $450 million to $15 billion in November, indicating that the Central Bank was still spending heavily to bolster the pound. The reserves stood at about $36 billion before the anti-Mubarak uprising.


(Additional reporting by Tom Perry and Yasmine Saleh; Writing by Alistair Lyon; Editing by Giles Elgood)



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OUE sets deadline for F&N takeover offer






SINGAPORE: A consortium led by property group Overseas Union Enterprise (OUE) has set a deadline for its takeover offer of conglomerate Fraser and Neave (F&N).

Its S$13.1 billion offer for F&N will close on 3 January.

OUE is controlled by Lippo Group, a major Indonesian conglomerate that was founded by tycoon Mochtar Riady. Mr Mochtar is father of OUE's executive chairman Stephen Riady.

The OUE-led consortium offered to buy out shares of F&N at S$9.08 a piece on 15 November.

It is backed by Japanese brewer Kirin Holdings, which holds a 14.8 per cent stake in F&N. Kirin is also F&N's second largest shareholder.

OUE's offer was 2.25 per cent higher than the S$8.88 per share offered by rival TCC Assets, which is controlled by Thai beverage tycoon Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi.

Through his entities TCC and Thai Beverage, he now owns almost a third of F&N.

TCC's S$8.7 billion bid for F&N will close on 11 December.

Analysts expect both sides to battle it out for F&N given the attractiveness of its property and soft drinks business.

They say TCC, which has extended the deadline on its offer twice, could ask for yet another extension next Tuesday before making their next move.

Liu Jinshu, deputy lead analyst at SIAS Research said: "TCC can't drag this out over a prolonged period, with the OUE bid announced last month, there is pressure for them to raise the stake.

"The premium offered by OUE's offer at S$9.08 a share is not high. TCC might not find it attractive after they have invested so much resources and effort in F&N. There is potential for TCC to rope in a partner and put in a higher bid for F&N."

F&N's share price closed at S$9.39 on Thursday, leading analysts to say that shareholders are holding out for a better offer and that a bidding war could emerge.

"We are seeing steady level being held at around the S$9.40-S$9.50 share mark on the exchange traded share. At the moment we are waiting to see who would move first in terms of putting in a better offer… I think we are likely to see both sides improve before we actually get to the end of any takeover," said Head of Premium Client Management at IG Markets Jason Hughes.

F&N is expected to appoint an independent financial advisor to review OUE's offer.

- CNA/jc



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