ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – Pakistan's powerful military pledged on Friday to continue supporting democracy, reiterating it was not planning a takeover as tensions grew over a controversial memo alleging an army plot to seize power.

At the same time, President Asif Ali Zardari's spokesman said he had resumed duties after returning from medical treatment in Dubai and has no intention of leaving over the scandal, which has undermined the already deeply unpopular president.

An army statement quoted military chief General Ashfaq Kayani as telling troops the military will continue to support democracy in Pakistan and that any talk the army was planning to take over was "speculation".

Many Pakistanis wonder whether Zardari can survive the crisis, and speculation has been growing that the powerful generals will try to oust him somehow. The tension is a worrying sign for the region and for Pakistan's uneasy relationship with its key ally, the United States.

There are several scenarios under which Zardari could be forced out. The military does not want to be seen interfering in politics.

But it could use its vast influence to isolate Zardari, or offer him an honorable exit by guaranteeing he won't face prosecution on long-standing corruption charges.

Alternatively, Supreme Court justices, seen by some as anti-Zardari, could move against him in the memo case.

The United States wants political stability in Pakistan so that Islamabad can help fight militancy and aid Western efforts to stabilize Afghanistan.

Zardari, known for his resilience in the face of pressure, plans to stay in Pakistan, said his spokesman.

"He is performing his usual work. There is no truth in the reports that the president will leave the country after the 27th of December. He is here in Pakistan and he has come to stay," Farhatullah Babar told Reuters.

Zardari is expected to address a rally on December 27 on the fourth anniversary of the assassination of his wife, former prime minister Benazir Bhutto.

On Friday, Zardari chaired a meeting with senior leaders of his Pakistan People's Party, and also met coalition partners.

Pakistan's top judge earlier moved to allay fears of a possible military coup as tensions rose.

"There is no question of a takeover. Gone are the days when people used to get validation for unconstitutional steps from the courts," Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry said.

The Supreme Court is looking into a petition demanding an inquiry into what has become known as "memogate". Kayani, arguably the most powerful man in the country, has called for an investigation into who may have been behind the memo.

"SPECTRE HAUNTS PAKISTAN"

Newspaper editorials on Friday highlighted unease in the nuclear-armed South Asian nation, predicting a showdown between Zardari and his allies and the military, which is so influential it has been described as a state within a state.

"A specter is haunting Pakistan -- the specter of a clash between the army and the government that threatens to turn fatal," said an editorial in the News.


Businessman Mansoor Ijaz, writing in a column in the Financial Times on October 10, said a senior Pakistani diplomat had asked that a memo be delivered to the Pentagon with a plea for U.S. help to stave off a military coup in the days after the raid that killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in May.


Ijaz later identified the diplomat as Pakistan's ambassador to Washington, Husain Haqqani, a Zardari ally who denied involvement but resigned over the controversy.


The military faced unprecedented public criticism over the bin Laden raid, widely seen as a violation of sovereignty.

But many Pakistanis rallied around the army after a November 26 air attack by U.S. forces in Afghanistan mistakenly killed 24 Pakistani soldiers on the border. The memo has also helped boost the army's image at the expense of the government.


Later on Friday, a Pakistani official said a planned briefing by the head of U.S. Central Command, General James N. Mattis, to explain the incident to Pakistani leaders had been cancelled.


Zardari's government has become increasingly unpopular since he took office in 2008. It has failed to tackle myriad problems, from crippling power cuts to suicide bombings and a struggling economy.


The army is fed up with Zardari and wants him out of office, although through legal means and without a repeat of the coups that are a hallmark of the country's 64 years of independence, military sources told Reuters on Thursday.


TEMPERS FLARE


Another military source said tensions must be defused.


"Tempers are flaring, there is no doubt about that. However, there are efforts to pacify the situation as well. And I hope they work, as under the current scenario, it is fast becoming a recipe for a head-on collision," he told Reuters on Friday.


Dawn, one of the country's most respected newspapers, said talk that a coup was being planned was premature, but also noted the army has seized power before.


The army remains the arbiter of power and analysts say it has plenty of ways to pressure Zardari to step down, especially if a link is established between him and the memo, which sought the Pentagon's help in averting a feared coup.


In the past the army has asked Pakistani civilian leaders to resign and influenced judicial proceedings against them.


On Thursday, Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani told parliament that any institution acting as a "state within a state" was unacceptable, a clear reference to the military.


Although his position is largely ceremonial, Zardari wields considerable influence as leader of the ruling party and his forced departure would be a humiliation for the civilian leadership and could throw the country into turmoil.


Zardari is the widower of former premier Benazir Bhutto, who spent years opposing military rule before she was assassinated in 2007.


Pakistan's next parliamentary elections are not due until 2013, although some opposition parties have been calling for early polls. Presidents are elected by legislators.


(Writing by Michael Georgy; Editing by Paul Tait and Ed Lane)

NEWARK, N.J. – Twelve nurses who sued one of the state's largest hospitals after claiming they were forced to assist in abortions over their religious and moral objections reached a deal Thursday with their employer in federal court.
Under the agreement, 12 nurses in the same-day surgery unit of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey can remain in their current positions and not be compelled to assist in any part of an abortion procedure. The nurses must only help in a life-threatening emergency if no other non-objecting staff members are available and only until which time one can be brought in to relieve them, according to the agreement.
Fe Esperanza Racpan Vinoya, one of the plaintiffs who said she opposes abortion on religious grounds, said she was happy that the agreement meant she and her colleagues would not have to assist in any aspect of an abortion procedure. Despite the ruling specifying that the nurses wouldn't be discriminated against, Racpan Vinoya said she was still nervous they would be transferred, have their hours cut or otherwise be punished for having sued.
"I'm still scared about the part of them having four nurses brought in and we might become the surpluses," Racpan Vinoya said, referring to the hospital hiring four nurses who do not object to assisting with the procedure.
Matt Bowman, an attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund, a coalition of Christian lawyers and organizations that represented the nurses, said they were satisfied with the agreement.
An attorney representing the hospital, Edward Deutsch, said his client was pleased the case was resolved.
"I think it's an appropriate resolution, and the hospital has been very accommodating," he said.
The hospital issued a statement saying the agreement addresses the best interests of the patients it serves, while respecting the beliefs of its nurses.
Attorney John Peirano, who also represented the hospital in the suit, said the hospital had a mission to treat all patients who come in, regardless of whether they share the nurses' views.
The ACLU, which was not party to the suit, said it was concerned about a growing number of similar cases around the country as what the organization sees as an effort to use religion to discriminate in a health care context.
"No one should ever have to worry about facing discrimination when they check into the hospital," said Brigitte Amiri, an attorney with the ACLU's Reproductive Freedom Project. "No woman should have to fear that medical staff will place ideology over duty or deny her care."
Bowman said his clients would never compromise their duty as nurses to care for patients or their oath to respond to medical emergencies.
The agreement was mediated by U.S. District Judge Jose Linares in Newark federal court. Linares said his understanding of the agreement was that the nurses would be allowed to remain in the unit and wouldn't be discriminated against because of their position on abortion, but he declined to rule on how the hospital had to staff its shifts, saying that was an issue governed by contract rules and subject to collective bargaining. Linares said he would retain jurisdiction over the case to rule on enforcement or any disputes that might arise.
Racpan Vinoya and two other nurse plaintiffs attended court Thursday. All but four nurses in their unit had signed on to the lawsuit filed Oct. 31 after they said they were notified in writing the previous month that the hospital's new policy would require same-day surgery unit nurses to assist in abortions.
The nurses claimed in the suit that the hospital was compelling them to undergo training that involved assisting in abortions and had indicated they could be subject to termination if they didn't comply. Racpan Vinoya and others said they had made their objections known to their supervisor and to hospital officials and their concerns were dismissed or ignored.
The hospital denied those claims, saying nurses were not compelled to participate, or even be in the room, during a procedure to which they objected on cultural, religious or ethical grounds.
Linares complimented both sides for reaching an agreement after several hours of discussions. He said it wasn't an easy case to resolve considering it revolved around a highly emotional issue and involved the complexities of the hospital's obligations to its patients.
___

Follow Samantha Henry at http://www.twitter.com/SamanthaHenry.

LAGOS/LONDON (Reuters) – Nigerian authorities were putting emergency measures in place on Thursday to prevent an oil spill from a Royal Dutch Shell facility, the biggest leak in Nigeria for more than 13 years, washing up on its densely populated coast.

Tuesday's spill, which Shell said happened while a tanker was loading oil, has led to the complete shutdown of the company's 200,000 barrel per day (bpd) Bonga facility, about 120 kilometers off the coast of the West African nation.

Shell's pipelines in Nigeria's onshore Niger delta have spilled several times, which it usually blames on sabotage attacks and oil theft, though it did not in this case.

"It's comparable to what happened in 1998 with the Exxon Mobil spill, in terms of the quantity that has been spilled, it's the biggest since then," Peter Idabor, director of Nigeria's National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA), told Reuters by telephone from the capital Abuja.

In 1998, some 40,000 barrels leaked from a ruptured Mobil pipeline off the coast of Nigeria.

"We have in the region of 20,000 barrels that has been spilled into the environment ... and is clearly moving to our coastline," Idabor added.

He said 210 tons of dispersants were on the way to deal with the spill and that oil booms - containers made from sheets of plastic that trap the oil to stop it reaching the shore - had been deployed.

"We are a lot more prepared than we were in 1998," he said.

But he added that local fishermen living along the coast had been advised to move away.

"For the fishermen who are there, there is a lot of wave action. Of course, our advice would be for them to move away up to areas of water less affected."

CLEAN UP

The Anglo-Dutch oil major said "less than 40,000 barrels of oil" had leaked into the ocean in this latest spill. The flow of oil had now halted, a company spokesman said on Wednesday.

Around half of the spilled oil had now dissipated due to natural dispersion and evaporation, Shell said in a statement on Thursday.

Bonga accounts for around 10 percent of monthly oil flows from OPEC member Nigeria, the continent's largest exporter of crude oil, according to Reuters data.

A Shell spokesman said on Thursday there is not yet any restart date for the field and that it will not resume production until after both an investigation and any necessary repairs have been completed.

"To accelerate the clean-up at sea, we are deploying vessels with dispersants to break up the oil sheen at sea. We are mobilizing airplanes that will support the vessels in this operation," Shell's country chairman in Nigeria, Mutiu Sunmonu said, after apologizing for the leak the previous day.

The oil major's website has a series of photographs taken at the site, showing a rainbow-colored oil sheen on the ocean's surface.

BP's Macondo well ruptured in April last year, causing nearly 5 million barrels of oil to spew into the sea in what was the worst U.S. marine oil spill.


Bonga was due to load around 161,000 bpd on five tankers in January, according to oil loading programs and its closure has boosted prices for other Nigerian crude grades.


A U.N. report in August criticized Shell and the Nigerian government for contributing to 50 years of pollution in a region of the Niger Delta which it says needs the world's largest ever oil clean-up, costing an initial $1 billion and taking up to 30 years.


(Editing by James Jukwey)

LEBANON, Mo. – Wal-Mart has pulled a batch of powdered infant formula from more than 3,000 of its stores nationwide after a newborn Missouri boy who was fed the formula died from what preliminary tests indicate was a rare bacterial infection, the retailer said.
The government has not ordered a recall of the 12.5-ounce cans of Enfamil Newborn powder with the lot number ZP1K7G. Manufacturer Mead Johnson Nutrition said its records showed the lot tested negative for the bacterium before it was shipped.
Wal-Mart spokeswoman Dianna Gee said Wednesday that the company decided to pull the lot "out of an abundance of caution" while health officials investigate Sunday's death of 10-day-old Avery Cornett. The product could go back on shelves depending on the outcome of the investigation, but customers who bought the cans have the option of returning them for a refund or exchange, Gee said.
Gena Terlizzi, spokeswoman for the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, said Wednesday that samples of the formula given to Avery were sent to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for testing.
"At this point it has not been determined whether the illness is linked to the formula or an outside source," Terlizzi said in a statement.
The CDC and FDA did not respond to calls from The Associated Press seeking comment early Thursday.
The Lebanon Daily Record reported ( http://bit.ly/vwyAs5) that Avery was taken to St. John's Hospital-Lebanon late last week after appearing lethargic and displaying what his family said were signs of a stomach ache. He was later moved to St. John's Hospital-Springfield, and preliminary tests showed that he had contracted a rare bacterial infection, Cronobacter sakazakii, the newspaper reported. He died Sunday after being removed from life support.
Avery had been fed Enfamil Newborn powder bought at a Walmart store in Lebanon. The store stopped selling the product after learning of his death.
Christopher Perille, a spokesman for Glenview, Ill.-based Mead Johnson Nutrition, said Enfamil Newborn powder is sold at a variety of retailers, but he didn't have information about whether other companies received units from the lot now being investigated.
Perille said all of the company's infant formula products are put through a battery of tests as they are produced, packaged and sealed.
"One of the things every batch of product is tested for is Cronobacter," Perille said. "We went back and checked on the batch in question, and it had tested negative for Cronobacter."
Public health investigators seeking the source of Avery's infection will also look at environmental factors, such as the water used in preparing the powdered formula, and at anything else the baby might have ingested, Perille said.
The Missouri Department of Health advises parents to follow World Health Organization guidelines for safely preparing powdered infant formula, Terlizzi said.
"This includes washing your hands with soap and water, thoroughly sterilizing all feeding equipment in hot, soapy water and preparing enough formula for only one feeding at a time," she said.
Funeral services for Avery are planned for Thursday evening, according to Jack Parscale of Holman Howe Funeral Home in Lebanon.

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – Pakistan's powerful army is fed up with unpopular President Asif Ali Zardari and wants him out of office, but through legal means and without a repeat of the coups that are a hallmark of the country's 64 years of independence, military sources said.

Tensions are rising between Pakistan's civilian leaders and its generals over a memo that accused the army of plotting a coup after the U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden in May.

"Who isn't fed up with Zardari? It's not just the opposition and the man on the street but people within the government too," said one military source who asked not to be named.

"But there has to be a proper way. No action is being planned by the army. Even if we tried, it would be very unpopular and not just with the government and the opposition but most Pakistanis too."

The Pakistani military spokesman declined comment.

General Ashfaq Kayani has pledged to keep the military out of Pakistani politics since taking over as army chief in 2007.

Any coup -- Pakistan has had three since independence in 1947 -- could further tarnish the military's public image which has already taken a battering after the bin Laden operation, widely seen in Pakistan as a violation of sovereignty.

But the army remains the arbiter of power and analysts say it has plenty of ways to pressure Zardari to step down, especially if a link is established between him and the memo, which sought the Pentagon's help in averting a feared coup.

Businessman Mansoor Ijaz, writing in a column in the Financial Times on October 10, said a senior Pakistani diplomat had asked that a memo be delivered to the Pentagon with a plea for U.S. help to stave off a military coup in the days after the raid that killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in May.

Ijaz later identified the diplomat as Pakistan's ambassador to Washington, Husain Haqqani, who denied involvement but resigned over the controversy. No evidence has emerged that the military was plotting a coup and the Pentagon at the time dismissed the memo as not credible.

Friction between Pakistan's civilian government and military have bedeviled the nuclear-armed South Asian country for almost its entire existence, with the military ruling for more than half its 64-year history after a series of coups.

In the past the army has asked Pakistani civilian leaders to resign and influenced judicial proceedings against them.

Haqqani's resignation was seen by many analysts as further weakening the civilian government, which is already beset by allegations of corruption and incompetence in the face of many challenges, including a weak economy and a Taliban insurgency.

MEMOGATE

Zardari returned to Pakistan this week from medical treatment in Dubai that raised speculation he would resign under pressure from the military over what has been dubbed "memogate."

Although his position is largely ceremonial, he wields considerable influence as leader of the ruling party and his forced departure would be a humiliation for the civilian leadership and could throw the country into turmoil.

One of the military sources suggested that no direct action would be needed against the government because it had already made so many mistakes.

"If the government is digging its own grave, we are not going to look for spades," the source said.


The military has reasserted itself after a November 26 NATO cross-border air attack killed 24 Pakistani soldiers and the memo has also given it political ammunition.


In a statement submitted to the Supreme Court, which is looking into a petition demanding an inquiry into who may have been behind the memo, Kayani said it was a serious matter which required an investigation.


"We want anyone involved, be they in government or elsewhere, to be punished. But it is not for us to do anything. If the army moves to do anything it would have national as well as international repercussions," said another military source.


"So that is not likely. Anything that has to be done has to be done by the Supreme Court."


Officials from Zardari's ruling party have played down friction with the military and say they don't fear a coup.


But they fear that some judges in the increasingly aggressive Supreme Court dislike Zardari and could move against him.


"I am not bothered about the army. I think they are acting very sensibly and would not derail the system at the moment," a senior ruling party leader told Reuters.


"The worry probably would be what the Supreme Court does. They look in a mood to manipulate things."


The government's anxiety over memogate was highlighted in comments made by Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani on Thursday.


"Let me make clear to you today that there are intrigues, conspiracies afoot to pack up the elected government," he said in a speech at the National Art Gallery.


(Editing by Jonathan Thatcher)