Ahad, 8 September 2013

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Ringgit rebounds against US dollar

Posted: 08 Sep 2013 07:01 PM PDT

The ringgit rebounded against the US dollar in early trading today after recent decline in tandem with the weakening of the greenback after the release of weaker-than-expected US employment data on Friday, currency dealers said.

The ringgit was quoted against the US dollar at 3.3130/3155 from 3.3270/3300 on Friday.

The local currency was traded higher against the Singapore dollar at 2.5986/6022 from 2.6008/6036 on Friday and rose against the yen to 3.3236/3271 from 3.3377/3414 last week.

The ringgit was also higher against the British pound to 5.1792/1838 from 5.1808/1868 on Friday and strengthened against the euro to 4.3636/3682 from 4.3680/3730 last week.-- Bernama

KL bourse rises in early trade

Posted: 08 Sep 2013 07:11 PM PDT

Malaysia's benchmark stock index rose in early trade, taking cues from mildly upbeat Chinese trade data that underscored signs of stability in the world's second-biggest economy and one of the country's largest export destinations.

The index, led by gains in hospital operator IHH Healthcare Bhd and Malaysia's second largest bank CIMB Group Holdings Bhd, rose 0.41 per cent to 1,730.98 points at 9.09am in Kuala Lumpur.

It outperformed MSCI's broadest index of Asia Pacific shares outside Japan that rose 0.26 per cent while it underperformed Tokyo's Nikkei share average that climbed 2.16 per cent.

Shares of IHH rose 1.46 per cent while CIMB climbed 0.83 per cent.

"As bargain hunters continue to slog it out with profit takers, our Malaysian bourse could be locked in a sideways trading pattern for now," HwangDBS Vickers Research said in a research note to clients on Monday.

"On the chart, the benchmark index will probably oscillate around its intermediate support line of 1,720," it added.

HwangDBS also said investors will watch Kimlun Corporation Bhd after it said it won construction contracts valued at RM323 million in Johor.

Kimlun's shares were up 1.65 per cent to RM1.85 per share at 9.10am.-- Reuters

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White House, Under Pressure, Pushes on Syria - Wall Street Journal

Posted: 08 Sep 2013 08:11 AM PDT

WASHINGTON—An aggressive White House campaign to win congressional approval for military action against Syria intensified Sunday as Chief of Staff Denis McDonough vigorously reasserted the administration's arguments in a blitz of television appearances.

Entering a crucial week for winning the support of lawmakers, Mr. McDonough argued there is widespread acceptance that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad used chemical weapons in a late August attack, leaving only the question of how to respond.

"There's not a single member of Congress debating the intelligence position," Mr. McDonough said on CNN's "State of the Union" show. "We are no longer debating whether it did happen or didn't happen and that's important."

Some lawmakers, however, including Rep. Rick Nolan (D., Minn.), have said they aren't yet convinced that direct evidence ties Mr. Assad to the alleged attacks.

"Congress has an opportunity this week to answer a simple question: should there be consequences for him for having used that material?" Mr. McDonough said.

In the week after President Barack Obama unexpectedly announced he would ask Congress to back his plan to unleash a limited strike against Syria, White House officials have blanketed Capitol Hill to brief lawmakers in private briefings, conference calls and hearings.

In classified briefings, lawmakers have been shown graphic videos detailing the effects of the chemical attack on victims. Some of the footage was aired this weekend by CNN.

Administration officials also are trying to show they have international support. Secretary of State John Kerry met with members of the European Union and Arab League over the weekend, saying those bodies have supported parts of the U.S. position. Neither, however, has explicitly endorsed U.S. military strikes.

Mr. Obama plans an address on the issue Tuesday, and will appear in a battery of television interviews before then.

The Senate is expected to vote this week on a resolution authorizing the president to use force in Syria to change the momentum on the battlefield and set the stage for Mr. Assad's departure. But it isn't clear whether Congress will lend its support to the measure, which many lawmakers have already said they oppose.

Administration officials have avoided directly answering what the president would do if the resolution fails in Congress. Mr. McDonough suggested Mr. Obama wouldn't wait for a report from United Nations inspectors.

"The president ultimately is going to make this decision, in consultation with Congress, on our timeline," Mr. McDonough said.

One liberal Democrat said Sunday that the president should withdraw his request from Congress, given the opposition among lawmakers and many of their constituents.

"I don't believe support is there in Congress," said Rep. Jim McGovern (D., Mass.), who said he didn't think a strike would be an effective response to the situation in Syria. "We're being told there are two choices: do nothing or bomb Syria," he said on CNN. "There have to be other alternatives out there."

Many Republican lawmakers have also said they are leaning toward opposing military action in Syria.

"The president has not made his case," Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R., Tenn.) said on CNN.

Kerry meets Arab leaders to seek Syria strike support - BBC News

Posted: 08 Sep 2013 09:16 AM PDT

The US Secretary of State John Kerry: "There is no military solution. but to enforce the standard with respect to the use of chemical weapons"

US Secretary of State John Kerry is meeting Arab League foreign ministers as part of a European tour to gather support for intervention in Syria.

Earlier Mr Kerry said the number of nations prepared to take military action was now in "double digits", but the list has not been made public.

France strongly supports intervention in response to the use of chemical weapons in Damascus last month.

But it wants to wait for a report by UN weapons experts before taking action.

Mr Kerry is currently in Paris, but he will travel to London later on Sunday, where he will meet the Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas and British Foreign Secretary William Hague.

Meanwhile, inside Syria, there are reports that rebel forces have taken control of the historic Christian town of Maalula, north of Damascus.

Abdel Rahman, the director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based activist group, told the AFP news agency that troops loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had withdrawn from the area.

'Silent spectators'

During a news conference with his French counterpart Laurent Fabius on Saturday, Mr Kerry said the world could not be "silent spectators to slaughter" after Syria's alleged use of chemical weapons against its civilians.

The US accuses Mr Assad's forces of killing 1,429 people in a sarin gas attack on 21 August.

Repeating a phrase he used earlier in the week, Mr Kerry said the international community was facing a "Munich moment" - a reference to the policy of appeasement that failed to stop Nazi Germany in the 1930s.

"We in the United States know, and our French partners know, that this is not the time to be silent spectators to slaughter," he said.

He insisted there was growing support for Washington's call for intervention in Syria, saying: "There are a number of countries, in the double digits, who are prepared to take military action."

This was more countries than could actually be used "in the kind of military action being contemplated", Mr Kerry added.

John Kerry: "This is our Munich moment... this is not the time to be silent spectators to slaughter"

Mr Fabius - who staunchly backs Mr Kerry on this issue - added that there was "wide and growing support" for action.

Earlier on Saturday, in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius, Mr Kerry welcomed a statement on Syria by EU foreign ministers who were meeting there.

The EU ministers urged a "clear and strong response" to the alleged chemical attack.

But the EU also welcomed French President Francois Hollande's call to wait for the UN weapons inspectors' report before taking any further action.

Mr Hollande said he expected the report to be ready by next weekend.

Meanwhile the BBC has learnt that the UK government has sent chemical protection suits to some members of the opposition forces in Syria this week, as it continues to give technical and non-lethal aid to members of the Syrian national coalition.

'Defeat for humanity'

Mr Kerry's visit to Europe comes amid deep divisions over whether to take military action in Syria.

The G20 summit in Russia last week failed to produce international agreement, with US President Barack Obama at odds with Russia's President Vladimir Putin, who blames the gas attack on rebels.

Both Russia and China, which have refused to agree to a UN Security Council resolution against Syria, insist any military action without the UN would be illegal.

President Obama now faces a tough week of trying to persuade Congress to authorise military action.

Anti-intervention protesters across from the US Capitol building in Washington DCAmerica is divided over whether to intervene in Syria

He has only a few days to convince Congress, which returns from its summer recess on Monday. Both the Senate and House of Representatives could vote on the Syrian issue later this week.

A poll commissioned by the BBC and ABC News suggested more than a third of Congress members were undecided whether or not to back military action - and a majority of those who had made a decision said they would vote against the president.

Many remain concerned that military action could draw the US into a prolonged war and spark broader hostilities in the region.

Some 100,000 people have already been killed in the two-and-a-half-year-old Syrian conflict, according to the UN.

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