Japan new foreign minister vows China patch-up

TOKYO: Japan's new foreign minister said on Friday he would work to patch up ties with China, soured over a bitter territorial row that has blighted relations for months.

"I believe it is very important to have good communication between the two governments, as well as between two foreign ministers," Fumio Kishida said in an interview with journalists.

"It is primarily important that I, as foreign minister, make the effort to deepen communications between the two countries," he said.

Kishida, seen as a relative dove in the government of hawkish new Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, begins the top diplomatic job as ties with China show few signs of improving following an ill-tempered territorial stand-off.

Abe won conservative support in national polls earlier this month with his forthright pronouncements on a group of East China Sea islands that Tokyo controls, vowing not to budge on Japan's claim to the Senkaku chain.

China also lays claim to the islands, which it calls the Diaoyu.

Additionally, Abe has said he would consider revising Japan's post-war pacifist constitution, alarming officials in Beijing and Seoul.

But he has quickly toned down the campaign rhetoric and has said he wants improved ties with China, Japan's biggest trading partner. He called for a solution through what he described as "patient exchanges".

"I am aware that some view the new Cabinet as right-leaning," Kishida said. "As a state, we need to do whatever we need to do to construct firm national security."

Kishida, 55, a former banker who leads a liberal faction in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, was an unexpected pick by Abe.

However, his experience as a state minister in Abe's cabinet during his first prime ministerial incarnation, dealing with territorial disputes with Russia and in Okinawan affairs, proved a plus.

Japan and Russia have never signed a post-Second World War peace treaty because of an unresolved spat over the ownership of islands to the north of the archipelago.

In Okinawa, the presence of a large number of US military personnel is a major source of contention for the local population, but a vital strand of Tokyo's defence pact with Washington.

- AFP/xq

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Campaigns against gender-based violence have kids as primary target

NEW DELHI: The roots of gender-based violence go so deep-seated that organizations battling it have practically written the adults off. Nearly every campaign pushing for gender equality has kids and youths as their primary target.

Breakthrough involved youths for community mobilization and training in schools and colleges; Must Bol, run by the Youth Collective, works mainly with college students. After Sunday's gang rape, child rights NGO, Butterflies held a "consultation with children" on the issue of sexual violence against women.

"Children are as much part of the value-system and being indoctrinated from day one but they are also the most receptive," says Sonal Khan, vice president, Breakthrough. With adults, it's always a battle. "It was such hard work moving the issue (domestic violence) as these attitudes are part of the psyche," she says.

Umang Sabarwal, who, in 2011, had tried to engage adults in a discussion on women's safety and freedom, learnt more from the opposition to the Slut Walk than the walk itself.

"There was an entire movement by the media dismissing it as an attention-seeking attempt. But in the media too, women are objectified and sexualized," she says. She'd only hoped to "get a thought in people's heads" she says and "never expected [the walk] to revolutionize things" but found that the roots of this "mindset" go too deep.

Activists find even language against them. "You can't deal with it, if you don't have words for it," says Khan. The expression "eve-teasing" trivializes sexual harassment; and family members of women who were attacked are more likely to say, " kuchch kharab hua ladki ke saath" than say they were sexually assaulted.

"Many young people have had little access to spaces for interactions between the genders and these boys feel it's okay to tease girls. They may consider rape violence but not harassment. That recognition is missing," says Manak Matiyani of Youth Collective. Plus gender stereotypes work against both the sexes - women have to be fair and "homely" (meaning, good around the house) and men, masculine and tall. "People don't take harassment on the road seriously. A woman complains and there are the neighbours and elders who'll ask questions about what she was doing," says Khan. She insists that all initiatives should seek equal participation from men and women. "Otherwise we'll fall back into the same dialectic and make this a "women's issue"."

Because the youth are net savvy, these organizations have used social media extensively. Those involved in Must Bol use short films. Blank Noise started as a blog in Bangalore in 2003, to address issues of harassment on the streets. The blog lists 29 forms of it and posts photographs of garments worn by women when they were harassed. Their initiative, Action Heroes Special, a "blogathon" inviting women to share stories harassment conducted over July-August 2012, has eight-pages worth of stories from Delhi alone.

Delhi-based WhyPoll Trust runs a similar initiative - Voices from the Dark -telling harassment stories in Q&A format. In 2012, they had launched the "Fight Back" application for smartphones using which women in distress could send out SOS emails, text messages and social network posts - one of the founders, Hindol Sengupta, says it was downloaded over a hundred times. In 2011, WhyPoll had also drawn up a list of the 100 spots or roads in Delhi the women found most dangerous after a survey - Nelson Mandela Marg, Dhaula Kuan, Benito Zuarez Marg, Paharganj and Mehrauli-Gurgaon road were the top five.

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Kenya hospital imprisons new mothers with no money

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The director of the Pumwani Maternity Hospital, located in a hardscrabble neighborhood of downtown Nairobi, freely acknowledges what he's accused of: detaining mothers who can't pay their bills. Lazarus Omondi says it's the only way he can keep his medical center running.

Two mothers who live in a mud-wall and tin-roof slum a short walk from the maternity hospital, which is affiliated with the Nairobi City Council, told The Associated Press that Pumwani wouldn't let them leave after delivering their babies. The bills the mothers couldn't afford were $60 and $160. Guards would beat mothers with sticks who tried to leave without paying, one of the women said.

Now, a New York-based group has filed a lawsuit on the women's behalf in hopes of forcing Pumwani to stop the practice, a practice Omondi is candid about.

"We hold you and squeeze you until we get what we can get. We must be self-sufficient," Omondi said in an interview in his hospital office. "The hospital must get money to pay electricity, to pay water. We must pay our doctors and our workers."

"They stay there until they pay. They must pay," he said of the 350 mothers who give birth each week on average. "If you don't pay the hospital will collapse."

The Center for Reproductive Rights, which filed the suit this month in the High Court of Kenya, says detaining women for not paying is illegal. Pumwani is associated with the Nairobi City Council, one reason it might be able to get away with such practices, and the patients are among Nairobi's poorest with hardly anyone to stand up for them.

Maimouna Awuor was an impoverished mother of four when she was to give birth to her fifth in October 2010. Like many who live in Nairobi's slums, Awuor performs odd jobs in the hopes of earning enough money to feed her kids that day. Awuor, who is named in the lawsuit, says she had saved $12 and hoped to go to a lower-cost clinic but was turned away and sent to Pumwani. After giving birth, she couldn't pay the $60 bill, and was held with what she believes was about 60 other women and their infants.

"We were sleeping three to a bed, sometimes four," she said. "They abuse you, they call you names," she said of the hospital staff.

She said saw some women tried to flee but they were beaten by the guards and turned back. While her husband worked at a faraway refugee camp, Awuor's 9-year-old daughter took care of her siblings. A friend helped feed them, she said, while the children stayed in the family's 50-square-foot shack, where rent is $18 a month. She says she was released after 20 days after Nairobi's mayor paid her bill. Politicians in Kenya in general are expected to give out money and get a budget to do so.

A second mother named in the lawsuit, Margaret Anyoso, says she was locked up in Pumwani for six days in 2010 because she could not pay her $160 bill. Her pregnancy was complicated by a punctured bladder and heavy bleeding.

"I did not see my child until the sixth day after the surgery. The hospital staff were keeping her away from me and it was only when I caused a scene that they brought her to me," said Anyoso, a vegetable seller and a single mother with five children who makes $5 on a good day.

Anyoso said she didn't have clothes for her child so she wrapped her in a blood-stained blouse. She was released after relatives paid the bill.

One woman says she was detained for nine months and was released only after going on a hunger strike. The Center for Reproductive Rights says other hospitals also detain non-paying patients.

Judy Okal, the acting Africa director for the Center for Reproductive Rights, said her group filed the lawsuit so all Kenyan women, regardless of socio-economic status, are able to receive health care without fear of imprisonment. The hospital, the attorney general, the City Council of Nairobi and two government ministries are named in the suit.

___

Associated Press reporter Tom Odula contributed to this report.

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Newtown Shooter's DNA to Be Studied

Geneticists have been asked to study the DNA of Adam Lanza, the Connecticut man whose shooting rampage killed 27 people, including an entire first grade class.

The study, which experts believe may be the first of its kind, is expected to be looking for abnormalities or mutations in Lanza's DNA.

Connecticut Medical Examiner H. Wayne Carver has reached out to University of Connecticut's geneticists to conduct the study.

University of Connecticut spokesperson Tom Green says Carver "has asked for help from our department of genetics" and they are "willing to give any assistance they can."

Green said he could not provide details on the project, but said it has not begun and they are "standing by waiting to assist in any way we can."

Lanza, 20, carried out the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., just days before Christmas. His motives for the slaughter remain a mystery.

Geneticists not directly involved in the study said they are likely looking at Lanza's DNA to detect a mutation or abnormality that could increase the risk of aggressive or violent behavior. They could analyze Lanza's entire genome in great detail and try to find unexpected mutations.

This seems to be the first time a study of this nature has been conducted, but it raises concerns in some geneticists and others in the field that there could be a stigma attached to people with these genetic characteristics if they are able to be narrowed down.

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Arthur Beaudet, a professor at Baylor College of Medicine, said the University of Connecticut geneticists are most likely trying to "detect clear abnormalities of what we would call a mutation in a gene…or gene abnormalities and there are some abnormalities that are related to aggressive behavior."

"They might look for mutations that might be associated with mental illnesses and ones that might also increase the risk for violence," said Beaudet, who is also the chairman of Baylor College of Medicine's department of molecular and human genetics.

Beaudet believes geneticists should be doing this type of research because there are "some mutations that are known to be associated with at least aggressive behavior if not violent behavior."

"I don't think any one of these mutations would explain all of (the mass shooters), but some of them would have mutations that might be causing both schizophrenia and related schizophrenia violent behavior," Beaudet said. "I think we could learn more about it and we should learn more about it."

Beaudet noted that studying the genes of murderers is controversial because there is a risk that those with similar genetic characteristics could possibly be discriminated against or stigmatized, but he still thinks the research would be helpful even if only a "fraction" may have the abnormality or mutation.

"Not all of these people will have identifiable genetic abnormalities," Beaudet said, adding that even if a genetic abnormality is found it may not be related to a "specific risk."

"By studying genetic abnormalities we can learn more about conditions better and who is at risk and what might be dramatic treatments," Beaudet said, adding if the gene abnormality is defined the "treatment to stop" other mass shootings or "decrease the risk is much approved."

Others in the field aren't so sure.

Dr. Harold Bursztajn, a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, is a leader in his field on this issue writing extensively on genetic discrimination. He questions what the University of Connecticut researchers could "even be looking for at this point."

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Peace envoy Brahimi, Syria diplomats in Moscow talks

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia will host Syria peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi this week after Syrian officials held talks in Moscow on Thursday as part of a diplomatic drive to try to agree a plan to end the 21-month-old conflict, Russia's foreign ministry said.

Talks have moved to Moscow, a long-time Syria ally, after a flurry of meetings Brahimi held in Damascus this week, but the international envoy has disclosed little about his negotiations.

Brahimi, who saw Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Monday and is planning to hold a series of meetings with Syrian officials and dissidents this week, is trying to broker a peaceful transfer of power.

More than 44,000 Syrians have been killed in a revolt against four decades of Assad family rule, a conflict that began with peaceful protests in March last year, but which has descended into civil war.

Past peace efforts have floundered, with world powers divided over what has become an increasingly sectarian struggle between mostly Sunni Muslim rebels and Assad's security forces, drawn primarily from his Shi'ite-rooted Alawite minority.

Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Makdad and an aide held talks for less than two hours on Thursday with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Mikhail Bogdanov, the Kremlin's envoy for Middle East affairs, but declined to disclose details of their visit.

Syrian and Lebanese sources said Makdad had been sent to Moscow to discuss the details of a peace plan proposed by Brahimi.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich played down the idea that a specific new proposal was on the table in Moscow talks, at least one agreed by Moscow and Washington.

Asked about rumors of a Russian-American plan to resolve the conflict, he said: "There has not been and is no such plan."

'TRYING TO FEEL A WAY OUT'

"In our talks with Mr. Brahimi and with our American colleagues, we are trying to feel a way out of this situation on the basis of our common plan of action that was agreed in Geneva in June," Lukashevich told reporters at a weekly briefing.

Setting the scene for a planned Russian meeting with Brahimi on Saturday, he said, "We plan to discuss a range of issues linked to a political and diplomatic settlement in Syria, including Brahimi's efforts aimed at ending the violence and the launch of a comprehensive national dialogue."

World powers believe Russia, which has given Assad military and diplomatic aid to help him weather the uprising, has the ear of Syria's government and must be a key player in peace talks.

Moscow has tried to distance itself from Assad in recent months and has said it is not propping him up, but Lukashevich reiterated its stance that Assad's exit from power could not be a precondition for negotiations.

Setting such a condition, he said, would violate the terms of an agreement reached by world powers in Geneva on June 30 that called for a transitional government in Syria.

Lukashevich said Russia continued to believe there was "no alternative" to the Geneva Declaration and repeated accusations that the United States has reneged on it.

"Our American colleagues and some others ... have turned sharply from this position, by 180 degrees, supporting the opposition and conducting no dialogue with the government - putting the opposition in the mood for no dialogue with the authorities but for overthrowing the authorities," he said.

"The biggest disagreement ... is that one side thinks Assad should leave at the start of the process - that is the U.S. position, and the other thinks his departure should be a result of the process - that would be the Russian position," Dmitry Trenin, an analyst at the Moscow Carnegie Center, told Reuters.

But Trenin said battlefield gains made by the Syrian rebels were narrowing the gap between Moscow and Washington.

On Saturday, Lavrov said that neither side would win Syria's civil war and that Assad would not quit even if Russia or China told him to. Bogdanov had earlier acknowledged that Syrian rebels might win.

Lavrov has said this month that Russia had no intention of offering Assad asylum and would not act as messenger for other nations seeking his exit.

(Additional reporting by Nastassia Astrasheuskaya; Writing by Alissa de Carbonnel; Editing by Andrew Osborn)

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India to name and shame rapists: minister

NEW DELHI: The Indian government said on Thursday it will post the photos, names and addresses of convicted rapists on official websites to publicly shame them, in a new measure to combat growing crime against women.

Ratanjit Pratap Narain Singh, India's junior home minister, said the campaign would begin first in New Delhi, where the brutal gang-rape of a student on December 16 by six drunken men has sparked nationwide protests.

"We are planning to start it (the campaign) in Delhi," Singh told reporters, hours after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said women were being treated unfairly in India.

"Photographs, names and addresses of the rapists will be uploaded on the Delhi Police website (http://www.delhipolice.nic.in)," he said.

"We are very serious about dealing with the problem and taking all possible action as early as possible."

The minister said the government-run National Crime Records Bureau had been told to prepare a directory of convicted rapists and upload their photographs and personal details to its official website (http://ncrb.nic.in) as well.

The announcement came a day after India said it had launched a judicial probe into the attack on the 23-year-old student who was airlifted to Singapore from a hospital in New Delhi late on Wednesday.

Doctors in Singapore were battling on Thursday to save her life following the horrific injuries she sustained.

Her drunken attackers, joyriding in a bus, raped the student and then assaulted her with an iron bar. The savage gang rape sparked some of New Delhi's largest mass protests in decades.

India has also promised to toughen laws against rape, which currently carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.

- AFP/xq

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Pranab's son Abhijit Mukherjee sorry for remarks on anti-rape protesters, daughter Sharmistha 'shocked and anguished'

KOLKATA: President Pranab Mukherjee's son Abhijit stoked a major controversy by describing women participating in Delhi protests against gangrape of a student as 'highly dented and painted', triggering angry backlash.

"Those who are coming in the name of students in the rallies, sundori, sundori mahila (beautiful women), highly dented and painted," Abhijit Mukherjee, an MP from Jangipur seat which the President had vacated before his election, told a vernacular news channel.

"Giving interviews in TV and showing off their children. I wonder whether they are students at all," he said, adding, "what's basically happening in Delhi is something like pink revolution, which has very little connection with ground realities."

As his "insensitive" remarks sparked outrage with even his sister Sharmistha expressing "utter shock and anguish" and apologizing on his behalf, Abhijit "withdrew" his comments and said they were not meant to hurt "any particular section or any particular sentiment".

"I express my utter shock and anguish. I really apologize to every women, man and every sensitive person in this country ... I am utterly shocked and only thing I can say is that I really apologize on his behalf ... I am quite surprised with what my brother said," Sharmistha said.

Asked whether Abhijit should apologize for his words, she said, "I completely agree. He should immediately apologize.

"Not only as a President's son, but as any sensitive man, he should not have made this kind of statement. Forget about being a political leader, it shows a certain degree of insensitivity ... My family is not like that," she said.

On whether her father would be embarrassed with Abhijit's remarks, Sharmistha said, "I am sure he will be. I can say that he also shares my view ... One thing is for sure that he (Pranab) does not agree with his (Abhijit) views. I am sure. He (Pranab) has made a statement and during our personal interactions, he expressed his anguish."

Soon after Abhijit said, "I apologize to all the people whose sentiments who got hurt because of these sentences and these sentences are withdrawn" but the women activists and political leaders were unimpressed.

CPM leader Brinda Karat said political leaders cannot be allowed to get away with a mere apology after making such "outrageous and highly condemnable" remarks "demeaning women" and there should be a code of conduct for elected representatives.

Jaya Jaitley said the women will not be "cowed down" by such comments and it will only add strength to the movement. She said the comments have revealed the true mindset of the people.

"If it is what he has said, it is truly regrettable. I think that is so far away from reality. As a representative of the people, obviously this is an insensitive statement ... That is why the suffering is increasing," former IPS officer and social activist Kiran Bedi said.

Terming the remarks as unfortunate, Smriti Irani, chief of BJP' women wing, said it was especially distressing as they had come from the President's son and that too at a "challenging time" when not only women but men have come out on streets demanding justice and safer environment for women.

"I think this is exactly the kind of mindset that the youths are fighting against," she said.

Her party said the comments reflect the Congress mindset of not addressing the problem and instead attacking peaceful protesters.

"To criticize the common people who are taking out candle light march peacefully is not fair. Congress leaders should avoid such comments," BJP spokesperson Shahnawaz Hussain told PTI.

"Mukherjee should not have given such a statement. These comments show the Congress mindset of not addressing the crisis and criticising the protesters," he added.

Abhijit had said, "Walking in candlelight processions, going to discotheques, we have also led student life, we have been students. I well know what the character of a student should be."

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Kenya hospital imprisons new mothers with no money

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The director of the Pumwani Maternity Hospital, located in a hardscrabble neighborhood of downtown Nairobi, freely acknowledges that he detains mothers who can't pay their bills.

Lazarus Omondi says it's the only way he can keep his medical center running. Now, a New York-based group filed a lawsuit this month in hopes of forcing Pumwani to stop the practice.

Two mothers who live in a mud-wall and tin-roof slum near the maternity hospital said Pumwani wouldn't let them leave after delivering their babies. The bills the mothers couldn't afford were $60 and $160. Guards with sticks would beat mothers who tried to leave without paying, one of the women said.

Omondi says one solution to the problem would be a national health insurance program.

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Storms Spawn 34 Tornado Reports Across South

Severe Christmas day weather tore across the deep South, spinning off 34 possible tornadoes and killing at least three people in its path, while extreme weather is forecast throughout today for parts of the East Coast.

The storm first pounded Texas, then touched down in Louisiana and blasted through homes in Mississippi. In Mobile, Ala., a wide funnel cloud was barreled across the city as lightning flashed inside like giant Christmas ornaments.

Bill Bunting with the National Weather Service's Severe Storms Prediction Center said that the damage may not yet be done.

"Conditions don't look quite as volatile over a large area as we saw on Christmas day but there will be a risk of tornadoes, some of them could be rather strong, across eastern portions of North Carolina and the northeastern part of South Carolina," he said.

Across the Gulf region, from Texas to Florida, over 280,000 customers are still without power, with 100,000 without power in Little Rock, Ark. alone.

The punishing winds mangled Mobile's graceful ante-bellum homes, and today, dazed residents are picking through debris while rescue crews search for people trapped in the rubble.

"We've got a lot of damage, we've got people hurt," one Mobile resident told ABC News. "We've had homes that are 90 percent destroyed."

Melinda Martinez/The Daily Town Talk/AP Photo

In the Houston area a tree fell onto a pickup truck, killing the driver, ABC affiliate WTRK reported. In Louisiana, a 53-year-old man died when a tree fell on his house, and a 28-year-old woman was killed in a crash on a snowy highway near Fairview, Okla., according to the Associated Press.

At least eight states issued blizzard warnings Tuesday, as the storms made highways dangerously slick heading into one of the busiest travel days of the year.

Tuesday's extreme weather caused an 8-foot deep sinkhole in Vicksburg, Miss. Alma Jackson told ABC News that a concrete tank that was in her backyard fell into the sinkhole.

"It's really very disturbing," she said. "Because it's on Christmas day, and then to see this big hole in the ground and not have any explanation, and not be able to cover it. And the rain is pouring down."

Teresa Mason told ABC News that she and her boyfriend panicked when they saw the tornado heading toward them in Stone County, in southern Mississippi, but she says they were actually saved when a tree fell onto the truck.

"[We] got in the truck and made it out there to the road. And that's when the tornado was over us. And it started jerking us and spinning us, "she said."This tree got us in the truck and kept us from being sucked up into the tornado."

The last time a number of tornadoes hit the Gulf Coast area around Christmas Day was in 2009, when 22 tornadoes struck on Christmas Eve morning, National Weather Service spokesman Chris Vaccaro told ABC News in an email.

The deadliest Christmastime tornado outbreak on record was Dec. 24 to 26, 1982, when 29 tornadoes in Oklahoma, Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee and Mississippi killed three people and injured 32.

The last killer tornado around Christmas, Vaccaro said, was a Christmas Eve EF4 in Tennessee in 1988, which killed one person and injured seven. EF4 tornadoes can produce winds up to 200 mph.

ABC News' Matt Gutman, Max Golembo and ABC News Radio contributed to this report.

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Egypt's leader signs contentious constitution into law

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi signed into law a new constitution shaped by his Islamist allies, which he says will help end political turmoil and allow him to focus on fixing the fragile economy.

Anxiety about a deepening political and economic crisis has gripped Egypt in past weeks, with many people rushing to buy dollars and take out their savings from banks. The government has imposed new restrictions to reduce capital flight.

The new charter, which the secularist opposition says betrays Egypt's 2011 revolution by dangerously mixing religion and politics, has polarized the Arab world's most populous nation and prompted occasionally violent protest on the streets.

Results announced on Tuesday showed Egyptians had approved the text with about 64 percent of the vote, paving the way for a new parliamentary election in about two months.

The win in the referendum is the Islamists' third straight electoral victory since veteran autocrat Hosni Mubarak was toppled in 2011, following parliamentary elections last year and the presidential vote that brought Mursi to power this year.

Mursi's government, which has accused opponents of damaging the economy by prolonging political upheaval, now faces the tough task of building a broad consensus as it prepares to impose unpopular austerity measures to prop up the economy.

The presidency said on Wednesday that Mursi had signed a decree enforcing the charter overnight after the official announcement of the result of the referendum approving the basic law, Egypt's first constitution since Mubarak's overthrow.

The opposition has condemned the new basic law as too Islamist, saying it could allow clerics to intervene in the lawmaking process and leave minority groups without proper legal protection. It also said the referendum was marred by widespread electoral violations.

Nevertheless, major opposition groups have not called for new protests, suggesting that weeks of civil unrest over the constitution may be subsiding now that it has passed.

Mursi, catapulted into power by his Islamist allies this year, believes adopting the text quickly and holding the vote for a permanent new parliament will help end a protracted period of turmoil and uncertainty that has wrecked the economy.

Mursi's government argues the constitution offers enough protection to all groups, and that many Egyptians are fed up with street protests that have prevented a return to normality and distracted the government from focusing on the economy.

The constitution gives Egypt's upper house of parliament, which is dominated by Islamists, full legislative powers until a vote for a new lower house is held. The chamber convened on Wednesday for the first time since the constitution's adoption.

CONCERNS

The government has begun a series of meetings with businessmen, trade unions, non-governmental organizations and other groups to persuade them of the need for tax increases and spending cuts to resolve the country's financial crisis.

Mursi has committed to such austerity measures to receive loans from the International Monetary Fund.

While stressing the importance of political stability to heal the economy, Mursi's government has sought to play down economic woes and appealed for unity in the face of hardship.

"The government calls on the people not to worry about the country's economy," Parliamentary Affairs Minister Mohamed Mahsoub told the upper house in a speech.

"We are not facing an economic problem but a political one and it is affecting the economic situation. We therefore urge all groups, opponents and brothers, to achieve wide reconciliation and consensus."

Mursi is due to address the upper house on Saturday in a speech likely to be dominated by economic policy.

Sharpening people's concerns, the authorities imposed currency controls on Tuesday to prevent capital flight. Leaving or entering Egypt with more than $10,000 cash is now banned.

Al-Mal newspaper quoted Planning Minister Ashraf al-Araby as saying the government would not implement a series of planned tax increases until it completes a dialogue with different parts of society.

Adding to the government's long list of worries, Communications Minister Hany Mahmoud has resigned citing his "inability to adapt to the government's working culture".

The United States, which provides $1.3 billion a year in military aid plus other support to Egypt and sees it as a pillar of security in the Middle East, called on Egyptian politicians to bridge divisions and on all sides to reject violence.

"President Mursi, as the democratically elected leader of Egypt, has a special responsibility to move forward in a way that recognizes the urgent need to bridge divisions," State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell said.

(Additional reporting by Patrick Werr; Writing by Maria Golovnina; Editing by Peter Graff)

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