Egypt fears a diminished flow from Africa's largest dam and hydropower station but Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi said Egypt respects Ethiopia and will not engage in any aggressive acts against the East African nation. Egyptian politicians had suggested the country should sabotage the project in a meeting with the president Monday.

Getachew Reda, a spokesman for Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, said late Tuesday that Egyptian leaders in the past have unsuccessfully tried to destabilize Ethiopia.

Ethiopia a week ago started diverting the flow of the Nile toward the $4.2 billion hydroelectric plant dubbed the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam. The project is about 20 percent complete.

"The Renaissance Dam is here to stay. It is advisable for all actors of the political establishment in Egypt to come to terms with this reality," Getachew said in an interview.

Since Ethiopia announced it was going to build the dam in March 2011, it has insisted the water flow to Sudan and Egypt will not be affected. It has initiated a tripartite Egypt-Sudan-Ethiopia experts panel to study the impact of the dam.

The 10-man panel, which includes four international experts, submitted its report to the countries last weekend. Ethiopia's Ministry of Water and Energy said the report concluded the dam "will not significantly affect" either Sudan or Egypt.

Egyptian political leaders on Monday met Morsi to discuss the report. Apparently unaware their discussion was being televised live, some of them proposed hostile acts including aiding rebels inside Ethiopia and destroying the dam itself. Ethiopian officials long have accused Egypt of backing anti-government rebels in Ethiopia. More than a dozen rebel groups exist in the East African nation, some wanting more autonomy, others a separate state.

"There are on the one hand people who still think that they can turn the clock back on Ethiopia's development endeavors including of course the construction of the Renaissance Dam," said Getachew. "Second you have people like President Mohammed Morsi, who according to the reports, said to have stressed that there is no point in trying to force Ethiopians, but the best solution would be to engage to Ethiopians."

Experts estimate that already water-starved Egypt could lose as much as 20 percent of its water in the three to five years that it would take to fill the massive reservoir. Ethiopia diverted the course of the Blue Nile to make way for ongoing dam construction. The Blue Nile has its source in the Ethiopian mountains and is responsible for 85 percent of the water that reaches Egypt.

The live transmission of the politicians' comments has kicked off an uproar in Egypt's independent media, with many government critics saying that carrying the meeting live on TV has shown the extent of Morsi's mismanagement of a national security issue.

Egypt's top reform campaigner, Nobel Peace Laureate Mohamed ElBaradei, has called on Morsi on his Twitter account to apologize to Ethiopia and Sudan on behalf of the Egyptian people for what was said during the Monday meeting.

Morsi's top political aide, Pakinam El-Sharkawy, has apologized on Twitter about not informing participants in advance that the meeting would be carried live.

"I apologize for the unintended embarrassment caused to any of the political leaders for not mentioning the live transmission of the meeting," she wrote. El-Sharkawy moderated Monday's meeting.

A Cabinet statement on Wednesday attempted damage control, saying Egypt was looking forward to cement relations with Ethiopia on the basis of "good neighborliness, mutual respect and the pursuit of joint interests without either party harming the other."

The statement, which followed a Cabinet meeting, said Egypt recognized Ethiopia's development needs and acknowledged Ethiopia's repeated assurances that it would not harm Egypt's water interests. Egypt, it added, wanted to quickly start a "political and technical" dialogue with Ethiopia.

Getachew said that Egypt's president told Hailemariam on the margins of the African Union meeting late last month that Egypt will cooperate in the construction of the dam.

Ethiopia's late leader Meles Zenawi in 2010 accused Egypt's ousted leader Hosni Mubarak of aiding rebels against his government. Cairo strongly denied the accusations. Getachew said the charges were "hard facts."

"If there are still people who still think they can do the kind of things which leaders in the past such as (Egyptian President Hosni) Mubarak were not able to successfully launch, then they are entitled to day dreaming," said Getachew.

Getachew said the Ethiopian government has no intention of harming Egypt.

"We are not in the business of starving Egyptians to death. We are rather interested in the generation of hydro-electric power and there is nothing that will create any significant harm on the Egyptians as far the building of the dam is concerned,"Getachew said.

Ethiopia is currently spearheading a group of six nations that have signed a new Nile cooperation agreement opposed by Egypt and Sudan. The new agreement strips Egypt of its veto power over upstream countries' projects on the Nile.

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Associated Press reporter Hamza Hendawi in Cairo contributed to this report.

The ECB cut interest rates to a new record low in May and said it would act again if necessary but its hand may in part be stayed this month and going forward by a rebound in inflation, which rose back to 1.4 percent in May from 1.2 percent in April.

That is still way below the bank's roughly 2 percent target and unemployment in the euro zone reached a fresh high in April at 12.2 percent, fuelling further calls for policymakers to do more to help the economy.

"The economic situation in the euro area remains challenging but there are a few signs of a possible stabilization, and our baseline scenario continues to be one of a very gradual recovery starting in the latter part of this year," Draghi said in the text of a speech prepared for the International Monetary Conference in Shanghai.

After the ECB's last policy meeting a month ago, the bank said economic activity should stabilize and recover gradually. The bank meets again on rates next Thursday.

Ahead of a court hearing in Germany later this month on complaints about the ECB's new government bond purchase program, dubbed Outright Monetary Transactions (OMT), Draghi spent much of the speech defending the initiative.

He said the threat of the ECB buying bonds had played a key role in calming financial markets, from which "virtually all economic agents, including corporations, banks and households" were benefiting.

"Nevertheless, vulnerabilities remain," Draghi said.

Calmer markets have given governments more breathing space to adjust and last week, the European Commission announced that several countries would have more time to meet deficit targets.

But Draghi urged governments to stick to their reform paths.

"To inspire confidence, policy-makers must follow-through with their fiscal reform agenda," Draghi said.

"In fact, little would be gained from a loosening of fiscal adjustment today if it creates market expectations that additional tightening will become necessary tomorrow."

In the medium term, he said, it had to be ensured that the adjustment was based on increasing productivity.

"Only through steadfast pursuit of such structural reforms can the competitiveness of euro area economies in the global marketplace be restored," Draghi said.

The ECB can only start buying a government's bonds once the country has signed up to strict reforms under a bailout program and even then, Draghi said, the OMT was "designed to keep government bond yields just below panic' levels".

"Not to bring them down to levels that would somehow help government solvency," he said. "ECB intervention under OMTs would not address those parts of sovereign bond yield spreads that are fundamentally justified."

Draghi said it was important to recall that always and especially in the present situation, the need for governments and parliaments to reform did not stem so much from the bond market but from the dramatic conditions in the labor market.

(Reporting by Gabriel Wildau, writing by Eva Kuehnen)

Paul, who is considering a presidential campaign in 2016, said the path to victory needs both principle and pragmatism, noting that the GOP is consistently losing campaigns on the West Coast, in New England and in Midwest states like Illinois. Invoking President Ronald Reagan during his speech, Paul said Republicans need to become a "bigger, more inclusive party" to restore their fortunes.

"I think the party can be big enough to allow people who don't all agree on every issue. It's not going to change who I am or what I talk about but I think we can be a big enough party to include people," Paul said at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif. "It's like when you talk to your family do you agree on every issue?"

Paul, the son of former Texas Rep. Ron Paul, said the party should not "dilute" its message of limiting government's reach and curtailing spending but said it needs to put together a broader coalition that includes Hispanic and black voters. He urged Republicans to appeal to voters on issues like the environment and education that have been more associated with Democrats.

"If we want to win in bluish-getting-bluer states like California, we have to change the current perceptions of who we are," he said.

The libertarian senator has challenged Republicans to confront the results of the 2012 election, saying it requires outreach to new voters and a willingness to reform government. He won applause at the California speech when he pointed to a bill he has introduced that would require the Senate to hold off voting on a measure for one day for every 20 pages of legislation it considers. He quipped that President Barack Obama's health care reform law would have required a long wait.

The speech honoring Reagan, who remains revered within the party, capped a month that took Paul to the early voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire. He held fundraisers in Silicon Valley earlier in the week and met with executives and employees representing technology companies such as Google, Facebook and eBay.

In June, Paul is scheduled to headline fundraisers in South Carolina and make another trip to Iowa, giving him more visibility among Republicans searching for someone to help it rebound from two terms under Obama.

"When the Republican Party looks like the rest of America, we'll win again," Paul said.

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Follow Ken Thomas on Twitter: http://twitter.com/AP_Ken_Thomas

That verdict from the first randomized clinical trial to study the issue has implications for global guidelines on stockpiling drugs for a potential flu pandemic, researchers said on Friday.

"Our findings do not support routine use of double doses to treat severe flu infections, which could help to conserve drug stocks in the event of a pandemic," said Jeremy Farrar, director of the South East Asia Infectious Disease Clinical Research Network.

Flu experts are on alert for a potential pandemic, with concerns centered on the new H7N9 strain of bird flu that has killed 36 people in China.

So far H7N9 has not been able to spread easily from person to person and cases of the disease are receding, although experts are concerned that H7N9 may be able to develop resistance to Tamiflu rapidly.

Previous studies have shown that early treatment with Tamiflu, known generically as oseltamivir, helps speed recovery in seasonal and pandemic flu. It also improves survival in patients hospitalized by the virus, leading some health authorities to recommend double doses in bad cases.

Results of the latest Tamiflu study were published in the British Medical Journal, following a study of 326 patients with severe flu infection in Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam who were given either a standard dose or double dose of the drug for five days.

The researchers found no difference in virus levels or clinical outcomes between the treatment groups.

The study, which took place between April 2007 and February 2010, was funded by the Wellcome Trust, U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and the Singapore National Medical Research Council.

(Reporting by Ben Hirschler; Editing by Greg Mahlich)

Leading Group B with 13 points, Asian champions Japan need just one more point to secure automatic qualification for the 2014 Brazil World Cup. Australia are third with six points.

"With Japan, they're in a good position at the moment. They only need a point and more than likely they will get it and be going to the World Cup," the Melbourne Victory player was quoted as saying by Kyodo news agency.

"A draw would be fantastic ... For us to come here and play a world-class Japanese team and get a result, that would be huge for us to go back to Australia. Anything we get here would be a bonus."

Australia round off their qualifiers with matches against Jordan, second in the group on seven points, and Iraq on June 11 and 18 respectively. Both group runners-up in the Asian zone qualify for the World Cup finals.

"We want to get a good result against Japan because we're at a stage now where it's do or die," said Thompson who scored a record 13 goals in a World Cup qualifier in 2001.

"I think at the moment we're in a transition phase. We've had a lot of players retire who were part of the Socceroos setup for a long time. And it's been those players who we could turn to whenever we were in trouble or the results weren't going our way.

"There are a lot of young players coming through and it's just a matter of time of finding the right mix and blend to get that fear back into the teams we play against," said Thompson. (Reporting by Amlan Chakraborty in New Delhi, editing by Robert Woodward)

NEW YORK (TheWrap.com) - If you're looking for a show where politicians occasionally do some good, you might want to check out Netflix's "House of Cards." At least Kevin Spacey's conniving congressman does the occasional favor as he tries to slash his way to the vice presidency.

On "Veep," Julia Louis-Dreyfus' Selina Meyer already has the job - and it sucks. As the show returns to HBO Sunday for its second season, she's still abusive to her underlings, ravenously ambitious, and desperate for the POTUS to call. But she's also sleep-deprived after traveling the highways and byways of a country she doesn't seem to like, stumping for candidates she hates, trying to help the party she's ambiguous about win midterm elections.

The premiere takes place as those self-serving dreams are dashed, on election night and the harsh morning after. The stench of death is in the air.

"Apparently POTUS' chief of staff is telling everyone to write their will," one character says. Another fantasizes about being cryogenically frozen. Then comes this pronouncement: "Put everything in the wagons and shoot the dogs, because we have lost the House."

Have I mentioned "Veep" is one of the funniest shows on television? It is, because of the deadpan frankness with which it stares into a pit of petty avarice. There's nothing to do but laugh at the prospect of someone like Meyer in a position of such power and responsibility. But you're laughing through your tears, because, well.

Louis-Dreyfus won and Emmy for the role last season, and would be a safe bet for this one, too. Selina was a knife of a character from the first episode because Louis-Dreyfus and creator Armando Iannucci have made no effort to soften her with likability - or even good intentions.

Like so many of our leaders, Selina cared about issues once, probably. But now it's all about power and access. She competes with similarly insecure narcissists.

Most pathetic of all are the supplicants who try to win her favor. These are the characters we relate to the most, because some of them seem to have some idealism, or at least a willingness to pretend Selina's self-centeredness is a means to and end.

In order from most to least ruthless, they are Dan Egan (Reid Scott), Mike McClintock (Matt Walsh), Sue (Sufe Bradshaw), Amy (Anna Chlumsky), and Gary (Tony Hale). Presidential aide Jonah (Timothy C. Simons) is arguably more powerful than any of them, despite looking like a giant kindergartner.

Every one of them is excellent, with similar but uniquely formulated concoctions of fear, jealousy, and resentment that make any interaction potentially disastrous. In the premiere, we're treated to the spectacle of "My Girl" star Chlumsky and the most arrested of the "Arrested Development" clan, Hale, becoming desperate allies. But everyone gets their moment to shine, or at least have a public meltdown. The premiere finds Mike lamenting a foolish purchase as the ever-efficient Sue gets to turn her cold, barely-hidden contempt on the press.

The show manages to add to and improve on the mix with the addition this season of Gary Cole as number-crunching strategist Kent Davidson and Kevin Dunn as breakdown-prone presidential chief of staff Ben Caffrey.

Cole, of "Office Space" and "Brady Bunch" fame, tends to steal whatever he does, and poses the usual threat here as he exhaustedly outwits Selina at every turn.

Caffrey, meanwhile, gets to hide in a closet - his de facto bunker - and wait for the horrors to pass. Fortunately for us, they never do.

"This needs to end," Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and a member of the Armed Services Committee, said Sunday. "When a victim comes forward, they should have an advocate to walk them through the military justice system, and commanders who allow this to continue to allow this to flourish quite frankly should be fired."

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said the military's future includes both men and women in leadership, and cultural changes are needed "when it comes to the command structure" to make sexual assault and harassment "unacceptable, intolerable; and those who engage in it should pay a price."

But the U.S. military's top officer, Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, is urging Congress to exercise caution as it crafts legislation to combat the growing epidemic of sexual assaults in the armed forces.

The extent of the assaults came to light when the Pentagon released a report earlier this month estimating that as many as 26,000 military members may have been sexually assaulted last year and that thousands of victims are unwilling to come forward despite new oversight and assistance programs. That figure is an increase over the 19,000 estimated assaults in 2011.

Retired Gen. John Allen, who left the Marines in February after 19 months commanding allied forces in Afghanistan, encouraged commanders to address the issue and tell subordinates exactly what was expected.

"Commanders can't be ambiguous about this. We can't not talk about that," Allen said Sunday. "Commanders (have) got to stand in front of their units and tell the people what they expect. Because silence isn't good enough. This is an opportunity to lead, and we should be seizing it."

Several recent arrests have added to the military's embarrassment. A soldier at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point was charged with secretly photographing women, including in a bathroom. The Air Force officer who led the service's Sexual Assault Prevention and Response unit was arrested on charges of groping a woman. And the manager of the Army's sexual assault response program at Fort Campbell, Ky., was relieved of his post after his arrest in a domestic dispute with his ex-wife.

The comments from Durbin, Graham and Allen capped a week of attempts to address the Pentagon's findings. President Barack Obama and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel raised the issue separately in graduation speeches at the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis and the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

"Those who commit sexual assault are not only committing a crime; they threaten the trust and discipline that makes our military strong," Obama said Friday. "That's why we have to be determined to stop these crimes, because they've got no place in the greatest military on Earth."

Hagel called on the graduating West Point cadets Saturday to use their leadership to address the epidemic.

"This scourge must be stamped out," Hagel said. "We are all accountable and responsible for ensuring that this happens. We cannot fail the Army or America. We cannot fail each other, and we cannot fail the men and women that we lead."

Members of a House panel on Wednesday approved legislation that would strip commanding officers of their longstanding authority to unilaterally change or dismiss court-martial convictions in rape and assault cases. The bill would also require that service members found guilty of sexual offenses be dismissed or dishonorably discharged. The legislation will be folded into a broader defense policy bill that the full House will consider in the coming weeks.

Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has acknowledged the severity of the problem. He said recently that military leaders are losing the confidence of the women who serve that they can come up with solutions.

But Dempsey said in a May 20 letter to the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee that any legislative remedies must maintain the commander's role in the military justice process. Cutting them out or limiting them too severely would undercut their authority to enforce discipline and execute their duties, he wrote.

"Good order and discipline is essential to military efficiency and effectiveness," Dempsey said in the letter to Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich. "Removing commanders from the military justice process sends the message to everyone in the military that there is a lack of faith in the officer corps and the serving commanders. Conveyance of a message that commanders cannot be trusted will only serve to undermine good order and discipline."

Dempsey and the chiefs of the military services are scheduled to testify June 4 before the Senate Armed Services Committee on legislation to prevent sexual assaults.

Sharon Disher graduated from the Naval Academy in 1980 in the first class that included women. She said Friday she's disappointed the military is still grappling with sexual assault issues but applauded the president for raising the subject.

"The more we talk about it, the more we're going to do something about it, and that's the thing we never did," she said. "I guess we've just got to keep the conversation going until we fix the problem."

Durbin and Graham spoke on "Fox News Sunday." Allen appeared on ABC's "This Week."

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Associated Press writer Richard Lardner contributed to this report.

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Follow Michele Salcedo on Twitter: https://twitter.com/michelesalcedo

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - A Philadelphia couple charged with murder after their baby died without medical care must be held in jail whether or not they make bail, a judge ruled on Friday.

The couple, Herbert and Catherine Schaible, believe in faith healing, and those who share their beliefs might be willing to harbor them if they decide to flee, Judge Benjamin Lerner told a court hearing in Philadelphia.

The Schaibles were charged with third-degree murder on Wednesday after the April 18 death of their seven-month-old son Brandon from bacterial pneumonia, dehydration and strep.

The Schaibles were already on probation for involuntary manslaughter stemming from the death of another child, Kent, who died in 2009 at the age of two, also of bacterial pneumonia.

The judge ruled that while Herbert Schaible, 44, and his wife, who is 43, may not be wealthy enough to flee on their own, they might be able to find others around the country who do not think they did anything wrong.

"There is a community around the country that might be willing to harbor them," the judge said.

The Schaibles are members of a Philadelphia church, the First Century Gospel Church, which, according to its website, is committed to relying on God alone for physical healing, with no drugs or human remedies.

Defense attorneys argued that neither Schaible was a flight risk, and attorney Mythri Jayaraman, representing Catherine Schaible, said her client had turned herself in.

The judge said the couple could face up to 50 years in prison if they are convicted.

The Schaibles have seven other children, all older than the two who died. They have been in foster care since Brandon's death.

(Editing by Ellen Wulfhorst and David Brunnstrom)

The archdiocese sent a subpoena to President Barack Obama's administration in February asking for documents from White House staff, including Obama himself, for use in a church lawsuit against the contraception mandate.

Citing the burden involved and calling a subpoena of the president's office inappropriate, the White House asked a federal judge to toss out the subpoena on April 4.

A notice filed in U.S. District Court in Washington late on Monday said the archdiocese agreed to withdraw its subpoena. It did not say why.

A lawyer for the archdiocese declined to comment on Tuesday. A spokeswoman for the U.S. Justice Department, which represented the White House in court, had no immediate comment.

The archdiocese is continuing its lawsuit in Brooklyn federal court challenging the Obama administration's health policy requirement that employers generally include coverage of birth control in health insurance plans they offer workers.

The Catholic Church teaches that artificial birth control is sinful because it violates natural law.

Part of the 2010 healthcare law championed by Obama and congressional Democrats, the birth control mandate has some exceptions for religious employers but the New York archdiocese said it expected to incur nearly $200 million each year in penalties if it refuses to comply.

(Reporting by David Ingram; editing by Andrew Hay)

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) -- Motorists in West Virginia are getting a break from price increases at the pump.

AAA East Central says the average price for a gallon of unleaded gasoline fell 4 cents in the past week to a statewide average of $3.61. That's 10 cents less than the same week a year ago

Ohio is the only other state in which the price of gasoline fell.

Prices in West Virginia range from $3.69 in Huntington to $3.56 in Morgantown.

Nationally, gas prices average $3.58, up 6 cents from a week ago.