Mongolia finds China can be too close for comfort

TSOGTTSETSII, Mongolia (AP) ? After years of testy debate, Mongolia broke ground this spring for a railroad that will haul coal across the pebbled Gobi desert to China, but with one costly condition.

Citing national security, the government ordered the rails be laid 1,520 millimeters apart, Mongolia's standard gauge inherited from the Soviets. The width ensures that the rails cannot connect to China's, which are 85 millimeters (about 3 1/2 inches) closer together. So at the border, either the train undercarriages will need to be changed or the coal transferred to trucks, adding costs in delivering the fuel to Mongolia's biggest customer.

When it comes to China, Mongolia will only go so far and no further.

___

EDITOR'S NOTE ? This story is part of "China's Reach," a project tracking China's influence on its trading partners over three decades and exploring how that is changing business, politics and daily life. Keep up with AP's reporting on China's Reach, and join the conversation about it, using (hash)APChinaReach on Twitter.

___

"This is a political decision," shrugs Battsengel Gotov, the tall, boyish-looking chief executive of Mongolian Mining Corporation, which is building the railway from its prized coal mine, a few hours' grinding truck drive north of the Chinese border.

In the world's rush to get rich off China, Mongolia works mightily to ensure that Chinese investment does not become Chinese dominance. It's a balancing act shared by many countries, especially on China's periphery. Mongolia, though, stands out for its vulnerability and determined deflection of Beijing's embrace.

Landlocked with 2.8 million people spread over an area twice the size of Texas, Mongolia is dwarfed by China, with its 1.3 billion people and the world's second-largest economy. Fully 90 percent of Mongolia's exports ? coal, copper, cashmere and livestock ? go to China, which in turn sends machinery, appliances and other consumer goods that account for a third of Mongolian imports. The rising trade with China now amounts to three-fourths of Mongolia's economy, one of the highest ratios in the world, according to an Associated Press analysis of IMF trade data.

Mongolia's one other neighbor, Russia, remains important, supplying fuel and owning half a mammoth copper mine and half the national railway system, legacies of the 70 years Mongolia spent as a Soviet client state. But China, with its huge population and voracious demand, looms larger than resource-rich, thinly populated Russia.

Mongolia has sought to minimize both Moscow's and Beijing's influence by forging links with other world powers. The fledgling democratic government has contributed troops to U.N. peacekeeping missions in Sierra Leone and other countries, and to the American war in Iraq. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, on a visit in July, praised Mongolia as "an inspiration and a model."

In measures that politicians here say are aimed at China without naming it, Mongolia also caps immigrants from any one country to a third of one percent of the population, or less than 10,000 people, and restricts the numbers of foreign workers and types of investment.

"We will not be another Africa," said Ganhuyag Ch. Hutagt, a banker and former vice finance minister who wants to turn Mongolia into an international center of finance. "We cannot afford to have one particular nation control our businesses."

From the steppe to the streets of the capital Ulan Bator, Mongolians evince a distrust of Chinese. The sentiment goes beyond a neo-Nazi fringe that shaves the head of Mongolian women who sleep with Chinese. Almost everyone says China is stealing Mongolia's coal.

When NBA star Dwight Howard appeared at an outdoor promotion for leading mobile phone operator Mobicom Corp. in Ulan Bator last November, the popular Mongolian rapper Gee warmed up the crowd with his hit "Hujaa" ? a pejorative term for Chinese.

Unlike neighboring countries from Japan to India, Mongolia has no Chinatowns. The tens of thousands of Chinese workers drawn to Mongolia's mineral boom are rarely seen, living in fenced-off mining camps hidden in the vastness of the Gobi or behind high construction walls at building sites in the capital Ulan Bator. They are told to stay off the streets to avoid being beaten up by youth gangs. The few Chinese restaurants advertise "Asian" food, not Chinese.

Coal country is where Mongolia's balancing act is put to the test. Chinese demand for copper and especially coal has propelled the Mongolian economy to one of the world's fastest growing, making some wealthy and driving down poverty in a still poor country, and China wants a larger share of the resources.

Tsogttsetsii, the county seat closest to Mongolia Mining Corporation's coal mine and the planned railroad, bursts with activity. A new airport and apartment complexes rise out of the empty, tawny Gobi. Trucks full of coking coal veer off a company-built paved road to the Chinese border to avoid potholes, crushing tufts of grasses herds of camel and goats feed on.

On the Mongolian side of the border squat a few blocky concrete buildings for guards. Across the fence, the Chinese city sprawls and gleams, tangible reminders of how much richer Mongolia might be if fully open to China. "There are more buildings. There's more construction. It's more developed. The landscape is nicer," said Dizaibadiin Luvsandorj, a gaunt former Buddhist monk-turned-coal hauler who makes the trip every week or so. Still, he doesn't like to stay on the Chinese side, he said, because "food is expensive."

Nowhere else does China's footprint loom so large yet seem so faint. Even in totalitarian, hermetic North Korea, Chinese road-building crews string banners of Chinese characters along the construction sites.

In Cambodia, where trade with China has nearly doubled from 10 percent of GDP in 2006 to 19 percent in 2011, and Chinese investments run from rubber plantations to telecommunications, the government has done Beijing's bidding. It sent back ethnic Uighurs seeking asylum. This July, it squelched an attempt by Southeast Asian allies to use an annual forum to pillory Beijing for its expansive claims to disputed South China Sea islands.

China's presence became so intrusive in Myanmar, also known as Burma, that it incited a backlash. A military-led government counted on China for investment and diplomatic protection during two decades of Western sanctions. Trade with China hovered around 10 percent of GDP, not including widespread smuggling. Chinese companies have been so busily extracting timber, gems, oil and gas that locals complain "China is using Burma as a supermarket." In the city of Mandalay, a real estate rush by Chinese has priced locals out of the market. Alarmed by the onslaught and the outcry, the government moved away from Beijing last year, taking steps toward democracy.

Mongolians have worried about being swallowed by China at least since Genghis Khan's Mongol conquerors swept across much of Asia in the 13th century. Wanting a written language to unite Mongol tribes, he turned to a Turkic people, the Uighurs, to develop a script and not to China, whose character-based language was used in Korea, Japan and Vietnam.

Chinese came to dominate commerce and comprised about 10 percent of Mongolia's 1 million population after it was absorbed into the last Chinese dynasty, the Qing, set up by another group of horseback warriors, the Manchus. Purges, first by a murderous White Russian general and his motley army and then in the 1960s and '70s by Mongolia's Soviet-backed government, killed or drove off the remaining Chinese.

After peacefully shedding communist rule, Mongolia searched for ways to shake off its dependence on Moscow and keep Beijing at bay.

"It's an identity problem we Mongolians have not to be drawn into that big melting pot" of China, said Col. Munkh-Ochir Dorjjugder, director of defense studies at National Defense University and a former head of analysis for Mongolia's intelligence agency. "This tiny tribe, this tiny group that has survived all this time now wants to preserve what we have."

To do so, they crafted a plan for outreach to major global players; they called it the "third neighbor" policy, taking a throwaway phrase U.S. Secretary of State James Baker used on an early bridge-building trip in 1990. Beyond sending troops to Iraq and Afghanistan and offering an air base after September 11 to court the U.S., Mongolia has drawn in Japan as a key investor, the European Union for guidance on development and even faraway NATO as a security partner. The approach has been enshrined in a national security strategy.

Amid the current China-fueled rush for resources, the strategy identifies Mongolia's mineral wealth as a security Achilles heel, citing the risk of "turning into a raw materials appendage to other countries." As part of that, China and Russia are each limited to a third of Mongolia's total foreign investment.

The government has kept foreign companies bidding to mine off-balance, drawing in U.S., Japanese, British as well as Chinese and other firms so that no one dominates. A $500 million low-interest loan from China for development projects sits untouched, because the government worries Beijing wants to use it to force mining concessions.

When the government-run Aluminum Corporation of China Ltd., known as Chalco, tried to take a controlling stake in a South Gobi coal mine near the Chinese border by buying shares from other foreign investors, parliament hurriedly passed a law this summer to stop it. Chalco dropped its bid.

By requiring Mongolia Mining, a private company listed in Hong Kong, to use a different railway gauge than China, the government is adding $2 to $4 in costs to every ton of coal, or about $120 million each year.

The railroad was debated for more than two years in parliament. A transport minister and other powerful politicians argued the railway should first connect with existing tracks to Russia.

In a compromise both are being built, though Russia doesn't need the coal and its nearest port is 4,000 kilometers (2,500 miles) away. The coal could be shipped via the port to Japan or South Korea, but the trip would add $100 to every ton.

"Mongolia's mining fever is driven by Chinese consumption," said mining company CEO Battsengel. On the wall of his 16th story corner office in the center of Mongolia's capital hangs a map of the northeastern China cities, railways and ports his company wants to tap into. "We have two big superpowers as neighbors. Virtually, we have one customer."

Even in the coal belt where the prosperity of the China boom is most evident, the China trade is unpopular.

Myadagmaagiin Zolzaya, a retired carpenter and herder, left the pasturelands to live in a traditional round tent known as a "ger" in one of the neighborhoods springing up on the fringes of Dalanzadgad.

The city, near where American explorer Roy Chapman Andrews made his much-heralded discovery of dinosaur eggs in the 1920s, is now Mongolia's richest because it's a staging ground for Tavan Tolgoi, a prized deposit estimated to hold 6.4 billion tons of coal, enough to meet Chinese demand for centuries.

Myadagmaagiin left his goats and sheep to his eldest son and followed his other children to the fast-growing city, where they found work: three sons in construction and his daughter as a cook.

Now, while looking after his grandchildren, the balding 58-year-old Myadagmaagiin fumes about the mines, the environmental damage and the throngs of Chinese workers they have attracted. Like many across Mongolia, he knows that a state-owned mining company is selling China coal at below international market prices ? a fact repeated endlessly on the country's independent but highly partisan TV stations.

The mining company agreed to a relatively low price of $70 a ton in return for an upfront payment of $250 million that it used to develop the mine.

"Mongolians should get the jobs in Mongolia, and the benefits should go to Mongolia, not the Chinese. They will take the wealth and leave a big hole," he said.

Money is spilling out of the South Gobi, funding businesses and creating jobs elsewhere in the country. If growth holds, economists project that in a few years every able-bodied Mongolian capable of holding a job will likely be able to find one. Full employment means that Mongolia must import labor to keep growing. China is the handiest source.

In its desire for coal, Beijing has treaded carefully against Mongolia's push-back. In the pre-boom days of 2002, Beijing blocked freight trains from entering China for two days when the Dalai Lama ? the exiled Tibetan leader reviled by the communist government ? came to preach to Mongolian Buddhists. Last November, the Dalai Lama returned, and Beijing protested in words only. It did not cancel long scheduled Cabinet-level meetings.

The Dalai Lama preached in a new 4,000-seat sports arena in Ulan Bator. It was built and donated by China.

___

Associated Press writer Denis Gray in Yangon, Myanmar, contributed to this report.

EDITOR'S NOTE _ This story is part of "China's Reach," a project tracking China's influence on its trading partners over three decades and exploring how that is changing business, politics and daily life. Keep up with AP's reporting on China's Reach, and join the conversation about it, using the hashtag #APChinaReach on Twitter.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/mongolia-finds-china-too-close-comfort-011154231--finance.html

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South Africa signs $5B deal for Alstom SA trains

JOHANNESBURG (AP) ? South Africa has accepted a $5.8 billion deal with French company Alstom SA to refurbish the nation's passenger trains.

The deal is one of the largest ever signed by South Africa's government since the end of the apartheid era.

The Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa announced the deal Wednesday.

Officials with Alstom SA in Paris could not be immediately reached for comment.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/south-africa-signs-5b-deal-alstom-sa-trains-144619030--finance.html

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Russian trade, human rights bill heads to Obama

WASHINGTON (AP) ? A Russian trade and human rights bill cleared Congress and headed for President Barack Obama's signature Thursday, opening new export opportunities for American businesses but antagonizing relations with Russia over its treatment of dissidents.

The Moscow government, while welcoming better trade relations, threatened retaliation over a section of the bill that would punish Russian officials who allegedly commit human rights violations. A Russian parliament official suggested sanctions could be imposed on U.S. officials accused of rights violations in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere while the Foreign Ministry said the legislation "will have a negative impact on bilateral cooperation" and responsibility for that will "completely lie with the United States."

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a main sponsor of the human rights measure with Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., contended it would help the Russian people by "sending a signal to Vladimir Putin and the Russian plutocracy that these kinds of abuses of human rights will not be tolerated."

The 92-4 vote Thursday by the Senate to establish permanent normal trade relations with Russia followed an equally convincing vote in the House last month. The bill eliminates a long-obsolete 1974 provision, called the Jackson-Vanik Amendment, that tied trade relations with the former Soviet Union to the emigration of Jews and other Soviet minorities.

Although Obama and past presidents over the past two decades annually have waived the Jackson-Vanik restrictions, it lingered on the books because of congressional antipathy toward Russia's human rights record and anti-American policies. This year the issues have included Russian support of the Assad government in Syria.

But acting to eliminate the 1974 provision and making normal relations permanent became a necessity when Russia on Aug. 22 entered the World Trade Organization, forcing it to lower tariffs, ease import restrictions, protect intellectual property and participate in the WTO dispute resolution system.

Until the United States normalizes trade, U.S. traders will be alone among the members of the 157-nation WTO unable to enjoy the increased market access.

Obama issued a statement saying the legislation, which also extends permanent normal trade relations to the former Soviet state of Moldova, "will ensure that American businesses and workers are able to take full advantage of the WTO rules and market access commitments that the United States worked so hard to negotiate."

The administration and economists estimate that U.S. exports of goods and services, now about $11 billion a year, could double over the next five years under normalized trade relations with Russia ? and its 140 million consumers.

The Coalition for U.S.-Russia Trade, which represents manufacturing, service and agriculture interests, says the United States now commands only about 4 percent of Russia's import market of $400 billion a year, compared to 40 percent for Europe and 16 percent for China.

It says that over the next 20 years Russian carriers will need about 900 passenger aircraft valued at about $100 billion, that Russia relies on imports for about 50 percent of its $150 billion chemical market and that Russian demand for information technology, agriculture goods, energy technology and medical equipment are growing rapidly.

Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, stressed that the legislation can only be a plus. "We change no U.S. tariffs and no U.S. trade laws. This is a one-sided deal in favor of American exporters."

U.S. Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Thomas J. Donohue called it a "rare bill that will create American jobs without costing the taxpayer a dime." He said bipartisan cooperation on trade matters, including completion of free-trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia and Panama and reauthorization of the U.S. Export-Import Bank, have been among the "top achievements" of the current Congress.

But it could have ramifications on overall U.S.-Russian relations. That's because the bill includes a provision to sanction Russian human rights violators by withholding visas and freezing financial assets. The measure, named for Russian lawyer and whistleblower Sergei Magnitsky who died in a Russian prison three years ago after allegedly being tortured, was included in the trade bill as lawmakers balked at normalizing trade without holding Russia accountable for its poor human rights record.

"Jackson-Vanik served its purpose with respect to Russia and should be revoked, but in its place we should respond to Russia's continued corruption and human rights violations," said Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, the top Republican on Baucus' committee.

After the Senate vote, Alexei Pushkov, head of the foreign affairs committee in the lower house of Russia's parliament, said the State Duma may respond by imposing similar sanctions on U.S. officials accused of violating the rights of Russian citizens abroad. An alternative would be to target U.S. officials accused of rights violations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and other nations, Pushkov was quoted as telling the ITAR-Tass news agency.

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., said he voted against the bill because the Magnitsky provision, as written by the House, applies only to Russian human rights violators. The original Senate proposal would have applied those sanctions worldwide.

"Why would we deny visas only to Russian human rights violators?" Levin asked in a statement. "Why diminish the universality of the values the Magnitsky bill seeks to uphold?"

___

Associated Press writer Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/russian-trade-human-rights-bill-heads-obama-174443696--finance.html

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The Fifth International Conference on Computer Networks - techcfp

http://ccseit.org/2013/coneco/index.html
June 07 ~ 09, 2013,

Venue: KTO Karatay University, Konya,Turkey.

Call for Papers

The Conference looks for significant contributions to the Computer Networks &Communications for wired and wireless networks in theoretical and practical aspects. Original papers are invited on computer Networks, network protocols and wireless networks, Data communication Technologies, and network security. The goal of this Conference is to bring together researchers and practitioners from academia and industry to focus on advanced networking concepts and establishing new collaborations in these areas.

Topics of Interest

Authors are solicited to contribute to the Conference by submitting articles that illustrate research results, projects, surveying works and industrial experiences that describe significant advances in the Computer Networks & Communications.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following
????? Network Protocols & Wireless Networks
??????Network Architectures
??????High speed networks
??????Routing, switching and addressing techniques
??????Next Generation Internet
??????Next Generation Web Architectures
??????Network Operations & management
??????Adhoc and sensor networks
??????Internet and Web applications
??????Ubiquitous networks
??????Mobile networks & Wireless LAN
??????Wireless Multimedia systems
??????Wireless communications
??????Heterogeneous wireless networks
??????Measurement & Performance Analysis
??????Peer to peer and overlay networks
??????QoS and Resource Management
??????Network Based applications
??????Network Security
??????Self-Organizing Networks and Networked Systems
??????Mobile & Broadband Wireless Internet
??????Recent?trends & Developments in Computer Networks

Paper submission

Authors are invited to submit papers through the conference Submission system ( Track:CoNeCo 2013 ) by December 30, 2012. Submissions must be original and should not have been published previously or be under consideration for publication while being evaluated for this conference. The proceedings of the conference will be published by Springer (Confirmed).

Selected papers from CoNeCo-2013, after further revisions, will be published in an International Journal (Approval Pending).

International Journal of Wireless & Mobile Networks (IJWMN)
International Journal of Computer Networks & Communications (IJCNC)
International Journal of Network Security & Its Applications (IJNSA)
International Journal of computer science & information Technology (IJCSIT)
International Journal of Database Management Systems (IJDMS)
Computer Science & Engineering: An International Journal (CSEIJ)

Important Dates

Paper Submission Deadline: ?????December 30, 2012
Paper Status?? Notification :??? ???March 15, 2013
Camera-ready Due:??? ????????????????March 30, 2013

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Source: http://cfptech.wordpress.com/2012/12/06/the-fifth-international-conference-on-computer-networks-communications-coneco-2013/

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Brooke Burke Cancer: Before Surgery, 'Dancing With The Stars ...

As model and "Dancing with the Stars" cohost Brooke Burke prepared to undergo surgery for thyroid cancer Wednesday, she tried to focus on her family and healing.

On Nov. 8, Burke first revealed she had been diagnosed with thyroid cancer and planned to have a thyroidectomy.

"I've booked my surgery," she said in a YouTube video. "It's taken me a couple of months to really wrap my head around this ... Now I'm good. I'm ready to deal with it, and I'm going to be fine. I feel really, really strong. Doctors say this is a 'good' kind of cancer to have ... My doctor did tell me this is a happily ever after ending kind of thing."

The mother of four has been sharing the personal experience with fans via her Modern Mom blog. On Wednesday, the day of her surgery, Burke revealed how she told her kids she had cancer.

"I decided not to tell my children about my diagnosis for as long as I possibly could because I didn't want them to worry," she wrote in a blog post. "I know that my younger ones still don't have a great concept of time and I didn't want them to be anxious, worried and asking 1,000 questions."

When Burke finally decided it was time to have the conversation, she told her 12-year-old daughter first.

"She was really scared and concerned. She cried, and her biggest fear was if I was going to be ok," Burke explained. "She asked me to promise, promise, promise her that nothing would happen to me, which I did."

Burke has four children -- daughters Neriah, 12, Sierra, 10, and Rain, 5, and son Shaya, 4. Neriah and Sierra are from her previous marriage to plastic surgeon Garth Fisher. Rain and Shaya are from her current marriage to "Baywatch" star David Charvet.

Burke said her family gives her strength.

"I'm not afraid anymore. I think I've been dealing with it so much the past couple months that now I'm ready to just get it done and put this behind me," she told Us Weekly. "My only need is being ok for my husband and my children so they don't have to go through any pain and making this as easy as possible for them."

On Monday, Burke thanked her fans for their support in a Facebook post: "I am touched and appreciative to all of you for sharing your positive wishes for my surgery, and for sharing many of your personal thyroid experiences. I really do read your comments and they all mean a lot to me. I?m getting ready this week for my surgery and am planning on a speedy recovery."

The "Dancing with the Stars" cohost said she was resting following her surgery. On Thursday, she tweeted:


Brooke Burke-Charvet

I'm resting, recovering. Surgery went well. Dr Adashek is a genius. Thx Dr! Feels like I got hit my a car :(



Brooke Burke-Charvet

Thank God it's over. I'm clean, surgery went well & I can talk. Losing My voice was my biggest fear. Thx for all your prayers & light.

Also on HuffPost:

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/06/brooke-burke-cancer-surgery-tells-her-children-dancing-with-the-stars-_n_2249960.html

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Pregnant Kate discharged from London hospital

LONDON (AP) ? The Duchess of Cambridge left a London hospital Thursday after being treated for acute morning sickness related to her pregnancy.

Clutching a small bouquet of yellow roses, the former Kate Middleton smiled and posed briefly for a photograph alongside her husband, Prince William, before leaving King Edward VII Hospital. She stepped delicately into a waiting car.

The couple's office said she would head to Kensington Palace in London for a period of rest. She had been in the hospital since Monday. Officials from St. James's Palace have said the duchess is not yet 12 weeks pregnant with the couple's first child.

William visited his wife at the hospital every day, while media from around the world camped outside, seeking any news on the royal pregnancy.

Royal officials announced Monday that the Duchess was pregnant, their hand forced by her admission into the hospital.

But the stay of one of the world's most recognized women was complicated by a breach of her privacy.

Two Australian radio disc jockeys impersonating Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Charles placed a prank call to the hospital early Tuesday, and persuaded an unwitting nurse to tell them all about the Duchess' condition.

The duchess is married to the queen's grandson, Prince William.

Australian radio personalities Mel Greig and Michael Christian later apologized for the hoax ? sheepishly noting that they were surprised that the call was put through and that their Australian accents were not detected.

The royals have been the target of hoax callers before. Canadian disc jockey Pierre Brassard telephoned the queen in 1995, pretending to be Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien.

In a conversation that lasted 15 minutes, Brassard managed to elicit a promise from the monarch that that she would try to influence Quebec's referendum on proposals to break away from Canada.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/pregnant-kate-discharged-london-hospital-105732137.html

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Tanks surround Egyptian presidential palace

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, criticised 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 duelling 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 stabilise 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.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/tanks-outside-egypt-presidential-palace-streets-calm-074211411.html

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Rihanna will executive produce 'Styled to Rock'

NEW YORK (AP) ? Pop star Rihanna is getting into the TV business.

The 24-year-old singer will executive produce and star in the new series, "Styled to Rock," for the Style network. Style Media made the announcement Wednesday.

The 10-episode series, to air next year, will give 12 aspiring designers, chosen by Rihanna, an opportunity to style A-list stars. The weekly celeb guest will decide which designer did the best job. One contestant will be sent home, and those remaining will advance to the next week's challenge. At the end, one aspiring designer will be named the winner. Prizes are still being determined.

A casting search is under way on Style's website.

___

Online:

http://www.StyleNetwork.com/

___

Style is a division of NBCUniversal.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/rihanna-executive-produce-styled-rock-204646062.html

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Cavemen Trump Modern Artists at Drawing Animals

Paleolithic people living more than 10,000 years ago had a better artistic eye than modern painters and sculptures ? at least when it came to watching how horses and other four-legged animals move.

A new analysis of 1,000 pieces of prehistoric and modern artwork finds that "cavemen," or people living during the upper Paleolithic period between 10,000 and 50,000 years ago, were more accurate in their depictions of four-legged animals walking than artists are today. While modern artists portray these animals walking incorrectly 57.9 percent of the time, prehistoric cave painters only made mistakes 46.2 percent of the time.

Modern artists are also worse at capturing the gait of horses and other quadrupeds than taxidermists, anatomy textbook writers and toy figurine designers, the researchers report today (Dec. 5) in the open-access journal PLOS ONE.

Four-legged gait

Four-legged animals walk by moving their legs in the same sequence. First, the left-hind foot hits the ground, then the left-front foot, followed by the right-hind foot and finally the right-front foot. Only the speed at which four-legged animals complete this sequence differs.

But this simple gait often escapes the notice of artists. In 2009, biological physicist Gabor Horvath, a researcher at Eotvos University in Hungary, found that 63.6 percent of the animals depicted in anatomy textbooks were drawn in impossible gaits. Half of toy horses, lions, tigers and other quadrupeds were also wrong. Even depictions in natural history museums failed much of the time: Just over 41 percent of those showed errors.

In the new study, Horvath and his colleagues wanted to look at the same question over the history of art. In the 1880s, photographer Eadweard Muybridge used motion pictures to show how horses and other quadrupeds really walked. This knowledge spread, so Horvath and his colleagues split their analysis into three time periods: prehistoric art, historical art made before Muybridge's work, and art made after 1887, when Muybridge's work would have been public. [Gallery: Where Science Meets Art]

Getting animals right

The researchers plucked 1,000 examples of art from online collections, fine art books and Hungarian museums, as well as on stamps and coins. Chance alone would dictate that artists mess up depictions of four-legged gait 73.3 percent of the time, the researchers calculated. But art produced after prehistory but before Muybridge showed more errors than chance would allow. In fact, 83.5 percent of depictions from this time period were wrong.

The erroneous drawings even included one sketch of a horse by Leonardo da Vinci, known for his anatomical sketches. In the sketch, the horse has its right-hind foot and left-front foot down with its other two feet lifted, an unstable position. In fact, four-legged animals keep three legs on the ground at any given time.

It's possible that the high level of pre-Muybridge errors may reflect artists mimicking their peers' un-anatomical work, the researchers wrote. But Paleolithic man seems to have been a keen observer of four-footed fauna. Cave art got its depictions right about 54 percent of the time, far better than chance.

Muybridge's work did improve depictions of four-legged walks, the study suggests, but with a success rate of 42 percent, post-1880s artists still aren't doing as well as cavemen. Taxidermists squeak by with a success rate of about 57 percent, according to Horvath's 2009 work.

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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/cavemen-trump-modern-artists-drawing-animals-220459396.html

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