Nation cautioned against Mandela panic

SOUTH Africa's former President Nelson Mandela is "doing very, very well" while undergoing unspecified medical tests at a military hospital, the nation's defense minister said Monday.

The office of the presidency said the anti-apartheid icon was being kept in the hospital for a third day for more tests.

Mandela is revered by South Africans, and by many people around the world, for being a leader of the struggle against racist white rule in South Africa and for preaching reconciliation once he emerged from prison in 1990 after 27 years behind bars. He won South Africa's first all-race elections in 1994 that marked the end of apartheid.

South Africans tensely awaited word Monday on Mandela even as authorities tried to offer reassurances, but gave no details.

Defence Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula spoke to journalists outside 1 Military Hospital in the capital, Pretoria, after seeing Mandela, 94. She offered the first government confirmation that Mandela, who has received military medical care since 2011, is at that hospital.

"He's doing very, very well," she said. "And it is important to keep him in our prayers and also to be as calm as possible and not cause a state of panic because I think that is not what all of us need."

A statement issued later Monday by the office of President Jacob Zuma said Mandela "had a good night's rest. The doctors will still conduct further tests today. He is in good hands. "

On Saturday, Zuma's office announced Mandela had been admitted to a Pretoria hospital for medical tests and care that was "consistent for his age". Zuma visited Mandela Sunday and found the former leader to be "comfortable and in good care," presidential spokesman Mac Maharaj said in a statement. Maharaj offered no other details about Mandela, nor what medical tests he had undergone since entering the hospital.

In February, Mandela spent a night in a hospital for a minor diagnostic surgery to determine the cause of an abdominal complaint. In January 2011, Mandela was admitted to a Johannesburg hospital for what officials initially described as tests but what turned out to be an acute respiratory infection.

Mandela contracted tuberculosis during his years in prison and had surgery for an enlarged prostate gland in 1985. In 2001, Mandela underwent seven weeks of radiation therapy for prostate cancer, ultimately beating the disease.

After serving one five-year term, the Nobel laureate retired from public life and later settled in his remote village of Qunu, in the Eastern Cape area. He last made a public appearance when his country hosted the 2010 World Cup soccer tournament. He has grown increasingly frail in recent years.

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Springsteen, Lady Gaga join Stones concert

BRUCE Springsteen, Lady Gaga and The Black Keys will join the Rolling Stones for the final concert marking the band's 50th anniversary.

The Stones have played in London and New York on their 50 and Counting tour.

The band will perform on Wednesday at the 12-12-12 concert in New York City to raise money for victims of Superstorm Sandy.

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Egypt braces for rival protests in Cairo

EGYPT was bracing for rival protests to take place in Cairo on Tuesday over a bitterly divisive referendum on a new constitution, prompting President Mohammed Morsi to order the army to help "preserve security".

The duelling demonstrations, organised by Islamists backing Morsi and the largely secular opposition, raised fears of street clashes like ones last week in which seven people were killed and hundreds injured.

Morsi's decree instructing the military to fully co-operate with police "to preserve security and protect vital state institutions for a temporary period, up to the announcement of the results from the referendum" came into force on Monday.

Army officers "all have powers of legal arrest," it says.

The military, which has urged dialogue and warned it "will not allow" the political crisis to deteriorate, has for several days kept tanks and troops deployed around Morsi's presidential palace.

Late on Monday, soldiers merely watched as more than 100 anti-Morsi demonstrators milled around in front of the palace, an AFP correspondent said.

The rights group Amnesty International called Morsi's security decree "a dangerous loophole which may well lead to the military trial of civilians," recalling the 16 months of army rule that followed the ouster of former president Hosni Mubarak last year, until Morsi's election in June 2012.

The opposition, made up of secular, liberal, left wing and Christian groups, has said it will escalate its protests to scupper the referendum.

It views the new constitution largely drawn up by Morsi's Islamist allies, including some who want to see Sharia law implemented one day, as undermining secular traditions, human and gender rights, and the independence of the judiciary.

Morsi has defiantly pushed on with the draft charter, seeing it as necessary to secure democratic reform in the wake of Mubarak's 30-year autocratic rule.

The main opposition group, the National Salvation Front, has called for huge protests in Cairo to reject the constitutional referendum, which is scheduled for Saturday.

"We do not recognise the draft constitution because it does not represent the Egyptian people," National Salvation Front spokesman Sameh Ashour told a news conference.

The Muslim Brotherhood, from which Morsi hails, said Islamist movements would counter the protests with their own big rallies in the capital in support of the referendum.

"We are calling for a demonstration on Tuesday, under the slogan 'Yes to legitimacy'," the Brotherhood's spokesman, Mahmud Ghozlan, told AFP.

Morsi's camp argues it is up to the people to accept or reject the draft constitution.

Cairo schools informed parents they would be closed as a precaution on Tuesday.

A group of senior judges on Monday said pro-Morsi Islamist protesters would have to lift a week-long sit-in outside the constitutional court before they would consider overseeing the referendum.

If the charter is rejected, Morsi has promised to have a new one drawn up by 100 officials chosen directly by the public rather than appointed by the Islamist-dominated parliament.

But analysts said still-strong public support for Morsi and the Brotherhood's proven ability to mobilise at grassroots level would likely help the draft constitution be adopted.

If that happens, warned Eric Trager, analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, it would "set up the country for prolonged instability."

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Putin slams US 're-Sovietisation' claims

RUSSIAN President Vladimir Putin has denied that he is trying to reinvent the Soviet Union, dismissing as "rubbish" accusations by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Clinton last week called Putin's initiative to unite former Soviet countries into a Eurasian Union and Customs Union "a move to re-Sovietise the region."

While meeting top activists in his presidential campaign on Monday, Putin dismissed such comparisons, saying there are economic rather than political reasons for uniting the former Soviet allies.

"It's very strange to hear when some colleagues abroad say that ... it is a rebirth of Russia's ambitions as the former Soviet Union. What rubbish.

"This is a process which is totally natural.

"We have a common language, to a certain extent a common mentality, a common transport infrastructure, energy infrastructure," he said.

Russian State Duma speaker Sergei Naryshkin was even more abrasive in his comments, comparing Clinton's "intervention and prevention of positive processes" of post-Soviet integration to the "clumsy gait of a lame duck," according to Interfax news agency.

Clinton is due to leave office when President Barack Obama begins his second mandate following his presidential election victory last month.

"Let's make no mistake about it. We know what the goal is and we are trying to figure out effective ways to slow down or prevent it," Clinton said last Friday ahead of meeting Russia's foreign minister in Dublin.

Uniting ex-Soviet countries into the Eurasian Union was first proposed by Putin in a pre-election article last October.

He called the project a "historical breakthrough" that will change the geopolitical configuration of the continent.

Currently Russia is in a customs union with Belarus and Kazakhstan, which is proclaimed as a basis for further integration in the region.

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Life-sized replica of Noah's Ark unveiled

A FULL-SCALE replica of Noah's Ark has opened its doors to the public in The Netherlands.

Stormy weather on Monday could do nothing to dampen the good mood of its creator, Dutchman Johan Huibers. In fact, the rain was appropriate.

In the Biblical story, God orders Noah to build a boat big enough to save animals and Noah's family while Earth is covered in an enormous flood.

Johan interpreted the description given in Genesis to build his ark. It measures in at a whopping 130 metres long, 29 metres across and 23 metres high.

Huibers says he realised a 20-year dream to educate people about history and faith. The ark has received permission to receive up to 3000 visitors a day.

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McDonald's sales rise in November

MCDONALD'S says that a key sales figure rose in November.

The increase follows a decline in October, the first drop in McDonald's key monthly sales gauge in nearly a decade.

The US-based company said global sales at restaurants open at least 13 months rose 2.4 per cent for the month ended November 30. The figure is a key metric because it strips out the impact of newly opened and closed locations.

The figure rose 2.5 per cent in the US It went up 1.4 per cent in Europe, where it gets 40 per cent of its business, as strength in the UK, Russia and other markets were offset by weakness in Germany.

In the region encompassing Asia, the Middle East and Africa, it edged up 0.6 per cent, hurt by results in Japan.

Systemwide sales, which includes sales at all restaurants, rose 3.2 per cent.

After years of outperforming its rivals, McDonald's has seen sales growth slow as the company faces intensifying competition and an uncertain global economy. Its global revenue at restaurants open at least 13 months fell 1.8 per cent in October. The last time it had dropped was in March 2003.

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At least 13 dead after floods in Congo

AT least 13 people have died in the Republic of Congo and two dozen others were injured after torrential rains caused homes to collapse in southern Brazzaville.

A Red Cross official said 13 bodies had been recovered over the weekend, while Laurel Kihounzou, mayor of the southern Brazzaville district of Makelekele, told reporters that at least 26 people were injured.

According to witnesses, dozens of houses collapsed after a river in the Makelekele neighbourhood burst its banks.

Police confirmed the death toll, adding that they had provided shelter to nearly 600 residents affected by the flooding.

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