Sony sells over half a million PlayStation 3 consoles over Black Friday week












Both Microsoft (MSFT) and Nintendo (NTDOY) had a big week of console sales during Black Friday’s week of shopping madness in the U.S. So how did Sony (SNE) do in comparison? Sony Computer Entertainment of America president and CEO Jack Tretton announced on Thursday that the company sold 525,000 PlayStation 3 consoles and 160,000 PS Vita handhelds during the Black Friday week. Overall PlayStation sales of hardware, software and accessories are up 9% over the same period last year. Tretton was also happy to reveal that subscriptions to its PlayStation Plus grew 259% since last year with customer satisfaction flying high at 95% after Sony added the Instant Game Collection to the service earlier this year.


Sony’s PlayStation 3 and PS Vita sales were largely bolstered by $ 199.99 bundles packaged with free games that the company pushed to retails on Black Friday. The sell-out of the bundles within minutes at retailers such as Amazon (AMZN) is a good indicator that there is huge demand for a sub-$ 200 PlayStation 3. Currently, the lowest-priced PS3 is a second-gen 160GB slim model with an MSRP of $ 249.99. The redesigned third-gen PS3s start at $ 269.99 with a 250GB hard drive.












In terms of which home console did the best over Black Friday, it looks like the Xbox 360′s 750,000 consoles took first place, while Sony came in second with 525,000 PS3s and Nintendo came in third with 400,000 Wii U systems.


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What Had Meryl Streep Rocking Out?















11/29/2012 at 05:30 PM EST







Meryl Streep and Jordin Sparks


Charles Eshelman/FilmMagic, Mike Coppola/Getty


Someone's a pop music fan! Meryl Streep was "rockin' out" on Wednesday night at the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation's annual gala at Cipriani New York, an onlooker tells PEOPLE. The Oscar winner was dancing in the aisles as Jason Derulo sang his hit, "In My Head."

Also rocking out? Derulo's girlfriend, Jordin Sparks, who performed later on, too, as Derulo proudly filmed.

Guests, who turned out to support the Reeve Foundation's work to find a cure for spinal injury and improve the lives of those living with paralysis, dined on baked tagliolini with mushrooms, prime roast filet with fresh herb melange sauce,f resh seasonal ratatouille and Yukon gold sauté and a specialty cake compliments of Cake Boss star Buddy Valastro and la famiglia of Carlo's Bakery.

Meanwhile, Streep, a close friend of the late Dana Reeve, presented the Dana Reeve Hope Award to her good friend, producer Harvey Weinstein, and the directors of The Intouchables, an inspiring film about a friendship between a quadriplegic aristocrat and the young convict who becomes his caretaker.

One of the film's stars, Omar Sy, said he was honored to share the stage with Streep and joked that Streep could play him, though "we don't look alike." – Sharon Cotliar


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Simple measures cut infections caught in hospitals

CHICAGO (AP) — Preventing surgery-linked infections is a major concern for hospitals and it turns out some simple measures can make a big difference.

A project at seven big hospitals reduced infections after colorectal surgeries by nearly one-third. It prevented an estimated 135 infections, saving almost $4 million, the Joint Commission hospital regulating group and the American College of Surgeons announced Wednesday. The two groups directed the 2 1/2-year project.

Solutions included having patients shower with special germ-fighting soap before surgery, and having surgery teams change gowns, gloves and instruments during operations to prevent spreading germs picked up during the procedures.

Some hospitals used special wound-protecting devices on surgery openings to keep intestine germs from reaching the skin.

The average rate of infections linked with colorectal operations at the seven hospitals dropped from about 16 percent of patients during a 10-month phase when hospitals started adopting changes to almost 11 percent once all the changes had been made.

Hospital stays for patients who got infections dropped from an average of 15 days to 13 days, which helped cut costs.

"The improvements translate into safer patient care," said Dr. Mark Chassin, president of the Joint Commission. "Now it's our job to spread these effective interventions to all hospitals."

Almost 2 million health care-related infections occur each year nationwide; more than 90,000 of these are fatal.

Besides wanting to keep patients healthy, hospitals have a monetary incentive to prevent these infections. Medicare cuts payments to hospitals that have lots of certain health care-related infections, and those cuts are expected to increase under the new health care law.

The project involved surgeries for cancer and other colorectal problems. Infections linked with colorectal surgery are particularly common because intestinal tract bacteria are so abundant.

To succeed at reducing infection rates requires hospitals to commit to changing habits, "to really look in the mirror and identify these things," said Dr. Clifford Ko of the American College of Surgeons.

The hospitals involved were Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles; Cleveland Clinic in Ohio; Mayo Clinic-Rochester Methodist Hospital in Rochester, Minn.; North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System in Great Neck, NY; Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago; OSF Saint Francis Medical Center in Peoria, Ill.; and Stanford Hospital & Clinics in Palo Alto, Calif.

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Online:

Joint Commission: http://www.jointcommission.org

American College of Surgeons: http://www.facs.org

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AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTanner

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Wall Street jumps in another "fiscal cliff" swing

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks rallied on Wednesday after comments from House Speaker John Boehner, the top Republican in Congress, on a possible compromise to avoid the "fiscal cliff" turned the market around.


The S&P 500 rebounded from a 1 percent decline, gaining more than 20 points from its low after Boehner, an Ohio Republican, said he was optimistic that a budget deal to avoid big spending cuts and tax hikes can be worked out. President Barack Obama added to the good feelings, saying he hoped to get a deal done in the next four weeks.


Whether or not those remarks reflect the reality of negotiations is another story.


"The fiscal cliff is dominating the discussion, and short term, we're a little bit too optimistic on it being fixed right away," said John Manley, chief equity strategist for Wells Fargo Advantage Funds in New York.


In expectation of higher dividend tax rates in 2013, companies have been shifting dividends or announcing special payouts to shareholders.


Costco Wholesale Corp , up 6.3 percent at $102.58, was the S&P 500's biggest percentage gainer after it became the latest company to announce a special dividend.


The market's move marked the second straight day where a leading legislator dictated trading action. On Tuesday, stocks fell on pessimistic remarks from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat from Nevada.


The market has been swinging for weeks now on headlines from Washington, with Wednesday's gyrations once again highlighting the importance that Wall Street is giving to finding a solution to avoid the series of tax increases and spending cuts that could push the U.S. economy into recession.


The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> rose 106.98 points, or 0.83 percent, to 12,985.11 at the close. The S&P 500 <.spx> gained 10.99 points, or 0.79 percent, to 1,409.93. The Nasdaq Composite <.ixic> added 23.99 points, or 0.81 percent, to close at 2,991.78.


The S&P 500 bounced off a strong support area near 1,385 that includes both its 200- and 14-day moving averages. It closed above 1,400 for the third session in four - an optimistic sign for stock bulls.


Knight Capital Group Inc shares jumped 15.2 percent to $3.42 on news that Getco Holding proposed a $1.4 billion merger with Knight, while Virtu Financial offered to buy Knight for at least $1.1 billion.


Apparel retailer Express Inc rose 8.9 percent to $14.15 after it forecast strong earnings for the current quarter as lower prices and easy-to-understand discounts led to robust Black Friday sales.


The S&P retail index <.spxrt> gained 1.4 percent.


Green Mountain Coffee Roasters surged 27.3 percent to $36.86 a day after it forecast quarterly and full-year earnings well ahead of analysts' expectations.


Nearly 6.1 billion shares changed hands on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and NYSE MKT, below the daily average so far this year of about 6.48 billion shares.


On the NYSE, roughly seven stocks rose for every three that fell, and on Nasdaq, five issues rose for every three that fell.


(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos; Editing by Jan Paschal)


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Egypt assembly seeks to wrap up constitution

CAIRO (Reuters) - The assembly writing Egypt's constitution said it could wrap up a final draft later on Wednesday, a move the Muslim Brotherhood sees as a way out of a crisis over a decree by President Mohamed Mursi that protesters say gives him dictatorial powers.


But as Mursi's opponents staged a sixth day of protests in Tahrir Square, critics said the Islamist-dominated assembly's bid to finish the constitution quickly could make matters worse.


Two people have been killed and hundreds injured in countrywide protest set off by Mursi's decree.


The Brotherhood hopes to end the crisis by replacing Mursi's controversial decree with an entirely new constitution that would need to be approved in a popular referendum, a Brotherhood official told Reuters.


It is a gamble based on the Islamists' belief that they can mobilize enough voters to win the referendum: they have won all elections held since Hosni Mubarak was toppled from power.


But the move seemed likely to deepen divisions that are being exposed in the street.


The Muslim Brotherhood and its Islamist allies called for protests on Saturday in Tahrir Square, setting the stage for more confrontation with their opponents, who staged a mass rally there on Tuesday.


The constitution is one of the main reasons Mursi is at loggerheads with non-Islamist opponents. They are boycotting the 100-member constitutional assembly, saying the Islamists have tried to impose their vision for Egypt's future.


The assembly's legal legitimacy has been called into question by a series of court cases demanding its dissolution. Its popular legitimacy has been hit by the withdrawal of members including church representatives and liberals.


"We will start now and finish today, God willing," Hossam el-Gheriyani, the assembly speaker, said at the start of its latest session in Cairo, saying Thursday would be "a great day".


"If you are upset by the decree, nothing will stop it except a new constitution issued immediately," he said. Three other members of the assembly told Reuters there were plans to put the document to a vote on Thursday.


ENTRENCHING AUTHORITARIANISM


Just down the road from the meeting convened at the Shura Council, protesters were again clashing with riot police in Tahrir Square. Members of the assembly watched on television as they waited to go into session.


"The constitution is in its last phases and will be put to a referendum soon and God willing it will solve a lot of the problems in the street," said Talaat Marzouk, an assembly member from the Salafi Nour Party, as he watched the images.


But Wael Ghonim, a prominent activist whose online blogging helped ignite the anti-Mubarak uprising, said a constitution passed in such circumstances would "entrench authoritarianism".


The constitution is supposed to be the cornerstone of a new, democratic Egypt following Mubarak's three decades of autocratic rule. The assembly has been at work for six months. Mursi had extended its December 12 deadline by two months - extra time that Gheriyani said was not needed.


The constitution will determine the powers of the president and parliament and define the roles of the judiciary and a military establishment that had been at the heart of power for decades until Mubarak was toppled. It will also set out the role of Islamic law, or sharia.


The effort to conclude the text quickly marked an escalation, said Nathan Brown, a professor of political science at George Washington University in the United States.


"It may be regarded with hostility by a lot of state actors too, including the judiciary," he said.


Leading opposition and former Arab League chief figure Amr Moussa slammed the move. He walked out of the assembly earlier this month. "This is nonsensical and one of the steps that shouldn't be taken, given the background of anger and resentment to the current constitutional assembly," he told Reuters.


Once drafted, the constitution will go to Mursi for approval, and he must then put it to a referendum within 15 days, which could mean the vote would be held by mid-December.


COURTS DECLARE STRIKE


Deepening the crisis further on Wednesday, Egypt's Cassation and Appeals courts said they would suspend their work until the constitutional court rules on the decree.


The judiciary, largely unreformed since the popular uprising that unseated Mubarak, was seen as a major target in the decree issued last Thursday, which extended his powers and put his decisions temporarily beyond legal challenge.


"The president wants to create a new dictatorship," said 38-year-old Mohamed Sayyed Ahmed, an unemployed man, in Tahrir.


Showing the depth of distrust of Mursi in parts of the judiciary, a spokesman for the Supreme Constitutional Court, which earlier this year declared void the Islamist-led parliament, said it felt under attack by the president.


In a speech on Friday, Mursi praised the judiciary as a whole but referred to corrupt elements he aimed to weed out.


"The really sad thing that has pained the members of this court is when the president of the republic joined, in a painful surprise, the campaign of continuous attack on the Constitutional Court," said the spokesman Maher Samy.


Senior judges have been negotiating with Mursi about how to restrict his new powers.


Mursi's administration insists that his actions were aimed at breaking a political logjam to push Egypt more swiftly towards democracy, an assertion his opponents dismiss.


The West worries about turbulence in a nation that has a peace treaty with Israel and is now ruled by Islamists they long kept at arms length.


Trying to ease tensions with judges, Mursi said elements of his decree giving his decisions immunity applied only to matters of "sovereign" importance, a compromise suggested by the judges.


A constitution must be in place before a new parliament can be elected, and until that time Mursi holds both executive and legislative powers. An election could take place in early 2013.


(Additional reporting by Tom Perry and Marwa Awad; Writing by Edmund Blair and Tom Perry; Editing by Will Waterman and Giles Elgood)


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Microsoft CEO defends its innovation record, financial results












BELLEVUE, Washington (Reuters) – Microsoft Corp Chief Executive Steve Ballmer defended his company’s record on innovation and financial performance at the annual shareholders’ meeting, but conceded that he should have moved faster to get into the booming tablet market dominated by Apple Inc‘s iPad.


Bill Gates, co-founder and now chairman of the world’s largest software company, was one of the first to champion tablet-sized devices more than 10 years ago, but Microsoft failed to come up with a product that worked as well as the iPad. Gates was silent throughout the meeting, attended by about 450 shareholders.












“We’re innovating on the seam between software and hardware,” said Ballmer, asked why his company had fallen behind rival Apple. “Maybe we should have done that earlier.”


A month ago, Microsoft launched the Surface tablet – its first own-brand computer – but has not revealed sales figures.


In the tablet market, “we see nothing but a sea of upside,” Ballmer said, an acknowledgement that until now Microsoft has effectively had zero presence in the tablet market.


“I feel pretty good about our level of innovation,” he added.


Ballmer said smartphones running Microsoft’s new Windows software were selling four times as much as they did at this time last year. Microsoft has never given sales numbers of Windows phones, primarily made by Nokia, Samsung and HTC.


Windows currently has 2 to 4 percent of the global smartphone market, according to various independent data providers. Its overall market share will not likely grow in proportion to its own sales, given that sales of other smartphones – mostly running Google’s Android system – are also growing quickly.


Ballmer, flanked by Gates and Chief Financial Officer Peter Klein, was asked by several shareholders to explain Microsoft’s lackluster share price, which has been stuck for a decade, and has been outperformed by Apple and Google Inc stock in recent years.


“I understand your comment,” he told one shareholder. He went on to explain that Microsoft had “done a phenomenal job of driving product volumes” and was focusing on profiting from that growth.


He suggested that whether investors recognized that value at any given time was out of his hands.


“The stock market‘s kind of a funny thing,” he said, adding that Microsoft had handed back $ 10 billion in dividends and share buybacks to investors in the last fiscal year.


Several shareholders at the meeting in Bellevue, an upscale suburb of Seattle, complimented the executives on how they had grown and managed the company.


Microsoft’s shares rose almost 18 percent during fiscal 2012, which ended in June of this year, compared with a 3 percent rise in the Standard & Poor’s 500.


Despite such fluctuations, Microsoft’s shares stand around the same level they did 10 years ago.


To see a graphic on U.S. tech share price performance, 1990 to present, click on http://link.reuters.com/rug53t


(Reporting by Bill Rigby; Editing by Gary Hill)


Wireless News Headlines – Yahoo! News


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PHOTO: White Tiger Cubs Tackle Ball - and Each Other!















11/28/2012 at 05:45 PM EST








Isifa Image Service sro/REX


Big ball, little cub – no problem!

Three adorable white Bengal tiger triplets, new residents at the Liberec Zoo in the Czech Republic, were undeterred by the size of a luscious red ball that was thrown in their enclosure last week.

The snow white felines, which are about 6 months old, took turns tackling the bouncy ball – and each other!

This trio – two boys and a girl – have been quite the tourist attraction since arriving in July. Their WrestleMania antics are adorable now, but when they reach their adult size of approximately 500 lbs. their Mom will definitely have to step in as referee!

PHOTO: White Tiger Cubs Tackle Ball – and Each Other!| Baby Animals, Zoo Animals

Isifa Image Service sro / REX

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CDC: HIV spread high in young gay males

NEW YORK (AP) — Health officials say 1 in 5 new HIV infections occur in a tiny segment of the population — young men who are gay or bisexual.

The government on Tuesday released new numbers that spotlight how the spread of the AIDS virus is heavily concentrated in young males who have sex with other males. Only about a quarter of new infections in the 13-to-24 age group are from injecting drugs or heterosexual sex.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said blacks represented more than half of new infections in youths. The estimates are based on 2010 figures.

Overall, new U.S. HIV infections have held steady at around 50,000 annually. About 12,000 are in teens and young adults, and most youth with HIV haven't been tested.

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Online:

CDC report: http://www.cdc.gov/vitalsigns

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Wall Street falls, hit by Reid's "fiscal cliff" comments

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks slid on Tuesday in a choppy session, losing ground in the last hour before the close after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid expressed disappointment that there has been "little progress" in dealing with the "fiscal cliff."


The market was flat for most of the session but fell sharply after Reid's comments, a signal that investors remain skittish about the wrangling in Washington. The CBOE Volatility Index, or VIX, rose on Reid's words.


"It may be that the market feels the goodwill before (last week's) Thanksgiving is evolving into more political intransigence," said Quincy Krosby, market strategist at Prudential Financial in Newark.


"The clock is ticking on Wall Street, regarding a framework for (political) consensus," she said.


Markets are focused on whether Congress and the White House can agree on ways to avoid some $600 billion in automatic spending cuts and tax increases that are due to kick in early next year.


As budget talks linger, Las Vegas Sands and Supertex added their names to a growing list of companies announcing special dividends aimed at helping investors avoid a possibly higher tax burden next year.


Higher dividend and capital gains taxes are part of the negotiations in Washington and may rise even if a deal is crafted.


Las Vegas Sands jumped 5.3 percent to $46.36. Supertex rose 6.9 percent to $18.


The S&P 500's modest losses on Tuesday marked its worst day in eight sessions - indicating traders are unwilling to sell aggressively as a deal probably would trigger a rally. The benchmark S&P 500 once again closed below 1,400, a key psychological level that it had reclaimed last week as it rose nearly 4 percent.


The VIX <.vix> shot up 2.7 percent to 15.92 at the close. Between 2 p.m. and 3 p.m. in New York, the VIX was up 3.9 percent.


The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> fell 89.24 points, or 0.69 percent, to 12,878.13 at the close. The S&P 500 <.spx> dropped 7.35 points, or 0.52 percent, to finish at 1,398.94. The Nasdaq Composite <.ixic> lost 8.99 points, or 0.30 percent, to end at 2,967.79.


Dealings in Washington obscured strong economic figures, including an increase in planned business spending and consumer confidence hitting its highest level in more than four years.


Strengthening the case for a sustained rebound in housing, single-family home prices rose for an eighth straight month in September. Shares of M/I Homes gained 2.1 percent to $22.36. KB Home added 1.1 percent to $14.61.


"As long as you have interest rates as low as they are right now, housing is definitely back," said Brian Amidei, managing director at HighTower Advisors in Palm Desert, California.


In another good sign for consumer demand, Corning Inc shares rose 6.9 percent to $12.13 after the specialty glass maker said it expects full-year sales of its Gorilla glass, used in smartphones and tablets, to approach $1 billion.


Food maker Ralcorp Holdings shares jumped 26.4 percent to $88.80 after long-time suitor ConAgra Foods sealed a deal to buy it for $5 billion. ConAgra shares gained 4.7 percent to $29.63.


McMoRan Exploration Co shares tumbled 15.2 percent to $8.18 a day after the oil and gas driller gave a disappointing update on a key gas prospect in a Gulf of Mexico well.


About 5.9 billion shares changed hands on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and NYSE MKT, below the daily average so far this year of about 6.5 billion shares.


On the NYSE, roughly five issues fell for every four that rose. On Nasdaq, six stocks fell for every five that rose.


(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos; Additional reporting by Caroline Valetkevitch; Editing by Jan Paschal)


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Egyptians challenge Mursi in nationwide protests

CAIRO (Reuters) - Tens of thousands Egyptians protested on Tuesday against President Mohamed Mursi in one of the biggest rallies since Hosni Mubarak's overthrow, accusing the Islamist leader of seeking to impose a new era of autocracy.


Police fired tear gas at stone-throwing youths in streets near the main protest in Cairo's Tahrir Square, heart of the uprising that toppled Mubarak last year. Clashes between Mursi's opponents and supporters erupted in a city north of Cairo.


But violence could not overshadow the show of strength by the normally divided opponents of Islamists in power, posing Mursi with the biggest challenge in his five months in office.


"The people want to bring down the regime," protesters in Tahrir chanted, echoing slogans used in the 2011 revolt.


Protesters also turned out in Alexandria, Suez, Minya and other Nile Delta cities.


Tuesday's protest called by leftists, liberals and other groups deepened the worst crisis since the Muslim Brotherhood politician was elected in June, and exposed the deep divide between the newly empowered Islamists and their opponents.


A 52-year-old protester died after inhaling teargas in Cairo, the second death since Mursi last week issued a decree that expanded his powers and barred court challenges to his decisions.


Mursi's administration has defended the decree as an effort to speed up reforms and complete a democratic transformation.


But opponents say Mursi is behaving like a modern-day pharaoh, a jibe leveled at Mubarak. The United States, a benefactor to Egypt's military, has expressed concern about more turbulence in a country that has a peace treaty with Israel.


"We don't want a dictatorship again. The Mubarak regime was a dictatorship. We had a revolution to have justice and freedom," 32-year-old Ahmed Husseini said in Cairo.


The fractious ranks of Egypt's non-Islamist opposition have been united on the street by crisis, although they have yet to build an electoral machine to challenge well-organized Islamists, who have beaten their more secular-minded rivals at the ballot box in two elections held since Mubarak was ousted.


MISCALCULATION


"There are signs that over the last couple of days that Mursi and the Brotherhood realized their mistake," said Elijah Zarwan, a fellow with The European Council on Foreign Relations, adding the protests were "a very clear illustration of how much of a political miscalculation this was."


Mursi's move provoked a rebellion by judges and has battered confidence in an economy struggling after two years of turmoil. The president still has to implement unpopular measures to rein in Egypt's crushing budget deficit, action needed to finalize a deal for a $4.8 billion International Monetary Fund loan.


Some protesters have been camped out since Friday in Tahrir, and violence has flared around the country, including in a town north of Cairo where a Muslim Brotherhood youth was killed in clashes on Sunday. Hundreds have been injured.


Supporters and opponents of Mursi threw stones at each other and some hurled petrol bombs in the Delta city of el-Mahalla el-Kubra. Medical sources said almost 200 people were wounded.


"The main demand is to withdraw the constitutional declaration (decree). This is the point," said Amr Moussa, former Arab League chief and presidential candidate who has joined the new opposition coalition, the National Salvation Front. The group includes several top liberal politicians.


Some scholars from the prestigious al-Azhar mosque and university joined Tuesday's protest, showing that Mursi and his Brotherhood have alienated some more moderate Muslims. Members of Egypt's large Christian minority also joined in.


Mursi formally quit the Brotherhood on taking office, saying he would be a president for all Egyptians, but he is still a member of its Freedom and Justice Party.


The decree issued on Thursday expanded his powers and protected his decisions from judicial review until the election of a new parliament expected in the first half of 2013.


In Washington, White House spokesman Jay Carney urged demonstrators to behave peacefully.


"The current constitutional impasse is an internal Egyptian situation that can only be resolved by the Egyptian people, through peaceful democratic dialogue," he told reporters.


New York-based Human Rights Watch said the decree gives Mursi more power than the interim military junta from which he took over.


U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told an Austrian paper he would encourage Mursi to resolve the issue by dialogue.


TENSIONS


Trying to ease tensions with judges, Mursi assured Egypt's highest judicial authority that elements of his decree giving his decisions immunity applied only to matters of "sovereign" importance. That should limit it to issues such as declaring war, but experts said there was room for interpretation.


In another step to avoid more confrontation, the Muslim Brotherhood cancelled plans for a rival mass rally in Cairo on Tuesday to support the decree. Violence has flared in Cairo in the past when both sides have taken to the streets.


But there has been no retreat on other elements of the decree, including a stipulation that the Islamist-dominated body writing a new constitution be protected from legal challenge.


"The decree must be cancelled and the constituent assembly should be reformed. All intellectuals have left it and now it is controlled by Islamists," said 50-year-old Noha Abol Fotouh.


With its popular legitimacy undermined by the withdrawal of most of its non-Islamist members, the assembly faces a series of court cases from plaintiffs who claim it was formed illegally.


Mursi issued the decree on November 22, a day after he won U.S. and international praise for brokering an end to eight days of violence between Israel and Hamas around the Gaza Strip.


Mursi's decree was seen as targeting in part a legal establishment still largely unreformed from Mubarak's era, when the Brotherhood was outlawed.


Though both Islamists and their opponents broadly agree that the judiciary needs reform, Mursi's rivals oppose his methods.


Rulings from an array of courts this year have dealt a series of blows to the Brotherhood, leading to the dissolution of the first constitutional assembly and the lower house of parliament elected a year ago. The Brotherhood dominated both.


The judiciary blocked an attempt by Mursi to reconvene the Brotherhood-led parliament after his election victory. It also stood in the way of his attempt to sack the prosecutor general, another Mubarak holdover, in October.


In his decree, Mursi gave himself the power to sack that prosecutor and appoint a new one. In open defiance of Mursi, some judges are refusing to acknowledge that step.


(Additional reporting by Tom Perry, Seham Eloraby, Marwa Awad and Yasmine Saleh in Cairo and Michael Shields in Vienna; Writing by Edmund Blair and Tom Perry; Editing by Anna Willard, David Stamp, Alastair Macdonald and Giles Elgood)


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