Pregnant Kate 'feeling better' after second day in hospital

LONDON: Prince William's pregnant wife Kate was feeling better on Tuesday after a second day of hospital treatment for acute morning sickness, palace officials said.

William spent most of the day at his wife's bedside as congratulations poured in from around the world after Monday's announcement that the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, both 30, are expecting their first child -- a new royal heir.

"The Duchess of Cambridge is continuing to feel better," a spokesman for the couple's office at St James' Palace said.

"She and the Duke are immensely grateful for the good wishes they have received."

He added that Kate would remain at the private King Edward VII Hospital in central London and continue with treatment for hyperemesis gravidarum, a severe form of morning sickness that affects about one in 200 pregnant women.

News of the pregnancy has ended feverish speculation about a new heir that began immediately after their lavish wedding in April 2011.

The baby will be third in line to the throne regardless of whether it is a girl or a boy, after a historic agreement among the 16 Commonwealth realms last year to end the centuries-old practice of male primogeniture.

Britain said on Tuesday that it received formal consent for the new laws from the other realms on the very day the pregnancy was announced, in what Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg called a "wonderful coincidence".

William, the second in line to the throne after his father Prince Charles, visited his wife in hospital following her admission on Monday afternoon and spent more than six hours with her on Tuesday.

Wearing a purple jumper over a shirt and jeans, he emerged from the hospital at 5:45pm (1745 GMT) and smiled at the waiting media before being driven away.

St James's Palace has said Kate is still at the "very early stages" of pregnancy -- likely less than 12 weeks -- and it is thought the news was released because her admission to hospital would have made her condition public.

Hospitalisation is needed in severe cases of hyperemesis gravidarum to treat dehydration with intravenous fluids for a few days, as it is impossible to keep fluids down.

Kate is expected to stay in hospital for several days and will then require a period of rest, a palace spokeswoman said, adding that her public engagements have been cancelled for the next week.

The diagnosis has meanwhile sparked speculation that Kate may be expecting twins, as experts say the condition is more common with a multiple pregnancy.

Palace officials said the royal couple only "recently" became aware that Kate was pregnant although there has been speculation for months, fuelled by images of the duchess sipping water instead of wine at official dinners.

She showed no sign of being ill at her most recent public engagement on Friday, when she displayed her hockey skills at her old primary school, wearing high-heeled boots and an Alexander McQueen tartan coat.

There was reportedly a rush to inform members of the royal family of the news before the public announcement.

Queen Elizabeth II, her husband Prince Philip, Charles and his wife Camilla were said by the palace to be "delighted", as were Kate's parents, Carole and Michael Middleton.

William's brother Prince Harry, 28, who will be bumped down to fourth in the line of succession by the new arrival, was reportedly informed by email in Afghanistan, where he is deployed as an Apache attack helicopter pilot.

News of the pregnancy sparked huge excitement in the British press as well as a frenzy of Internet speculation about what the child will be called and what it will look like, with numerous bizarre mock-up photographs being circulated.

Prime Minister David Cameron, who had his fourth child in 2010, led the congratulations by saying the royal couple would make "wonderful parents".

US President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle, who met William and Kate during a state visit to Britain last year, also sent their congratulations.

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard said the news "is going to bring joy to many around the world", while her New Zealand counterpart John Key said it was "fabulous".

New Zealand had led the push for Commonwealth realms to scrap the laws barring first-born daughters from inheriting the throne.

- AFP/fa

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CBI to probe graft charges in road project

NEW DELHI: The CBI has started an investigation into the multi-crore highway development fraud in the World Bank funded Lucknow-Muzaffarpur stretch. The investigation agency on Tuesday sought details from National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) in connection with the case.

Sources said CBI swung into action eight months after the department of economic affairs sent a copy of the report sent by the Institutional Integrity Unit of the World Bank to the highways ministry and asked it to probe the case. The World Bank report says private highway contractors gave bribes and gifts to NHAI officials and consultants, besides "sundry cash payments" amounting to Rs 2.23 crore.

The World Bank loan for the project is $620 million. The CBI started the probe on the day MoS for road transport and highways Sarvey Sathyanarayana told Rajya Sabha the ministry had asked NHAI "to verify consequences occurred on the outcome of projects in terms of quality or project completion and take appropriate action as per provisions of agreements with contractors /supervision consultants".

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CDC says US flu season starts early, could be bad

NEW YORK (AP) — Flu season in the U.S. is off to its earliest start in nearly a decade — and it could be a bad one.

Health officials on Monday said suspected flu cases have jumped in five Southern states, and the primary strain circulating tends to make people sicker than other types. It is particularly hard on the elderly.

"It looks like it's shaping up to be a bad flu season, but only time will tell," said Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The good news is that the nation seems fairly well prepared, Frieden said. More than a third of Americans have been vaccinated, and the vaccine formulated for this year is well-matched to the strains of the virus seen so far, CDC officials said.

Higher-than-normal reports of flu have come in from Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee and Texas. An uptick like this usually doesn't happen until after Christmas. Flu-related hospitalizations are also rising earlier than usual, and there have already been two deaths in children.

Hospitals and urgent care centers in northern Alabama have been bustling. "Fortunately, the cases have been relatively mild," said Dr. Henry Wang, an emergency medicine physician at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Parts of Georgia have seen a boom in traffic, too. It's not clear why the flu is showing up so early, or how long it will stay.

"My advice is: Get the vaccine now," said Dr. James Steinberg, an Emory University infectious diseases specialist in Atlanta.

The last time a conventional flu season started this early was the winter of 2003-04, which proved to be one of the most lethal seasons in the past 35 years, with more than 48,000 deaths. The dominant type of flu back then was the same one seen this year.

One key difference between then and now: In 2003-04, the vaccine was poorly matched to the predominant flu strain. Also, there's more vaccine now, and vaccination rates have risen for the general public and for key groups such as pregnant women and health care workers.

An estimated 112 million Americans have been vaccinated so far, the CDC said. Flu vaccinations are recommended for everyone 6 months or older.

On average, about 24,000 Americans die each flu season, according to the CDC.

Flu usually peaks in midwinter. Symptoms can include fever, cough, runny nose, head and body aches and fatigue. Some people also suffer vomiting and diarrhea, and some develop pneumonia or other severe complications.

A strain of swine flu that hit in 2009 caused a wave of cases in the spring and then again in the early fall. But that was considered a unique type of flu, distinct from the conventional strains that circulate every year.

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Online:

CDC: http://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly

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Boehner Makes Fiscal Cliff Counter-Offer

Dec 3, 2012 3:19pm

House Speaker John Boehner today sent President Obama a counter-proposal on how to cut the deficit that he called a “credible plan” to break the stalemate in negotiations to keep the country from going off the “fiscal cliff.”

In the plan, Republicans offer a total of $2.2 trillion in deficit reduction over the next decade. That would give lawmakers enough savings to off-set $1.2 trillion in automatic cuts set to begin to take effect Jan. 2, 2013, but senior Republican aides said it does not explicitly include an offer to address the standoff over whether the president or Congress should have power over debt limit increases.

The GOP deal offers $800 billion in new revenue through tax reform, but Boehner insist that tax rates should not go up on the top 2 percent of taxpayers.

The offer also proposes $600 billion in health savings, $300 billion in additional mandatory savings, $300 billion in discretionary spending cuts, and $200 billion through revisions to the way the Consumer Price Index is calculated across federal pensions and programs like Social Security.

“What we’re putting forth is a credible plan that deserves serious consideration by the White House, and I would hope that they would respond in a timely and responsible way,” Boehner, R-Ohio, told reporters today when he dropped into a staff briefing on the counteroffer. “We could have responded in kind, but decided not to do that.”

“Going over the cliff will hurt our economy and hurt job creation in our country. It’s one of the reasons why the day after the election, I offered a concession to try to speed this process up by putting revenue on the table,” Boehner said.

“Unfortunately the White House responded with the La-la-land offer that couldn’t pass the House, couldn’t pass the Senate.”

Boehner said the president’s offer last week was “basically the president’s budget from last February,” which he noted received no votes in the House and no votes in the Senate.

Now, in a letter to the president, House Republicans devised an offer based on Erskine Bowles’ proposal to the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, the so-called super committee.

The president had asked for about $1.6 trillion in new revenue, including about $800 billion from allowing tax cuts on income over $250,000 a year expire. Obama also asked for about $400 billion in new stimulus spending.

The letter with the proposal was sent to the president around 2 p.m. today.

The speaker said he did not intend to speak with the president personally about the offer, but he “might run into him” tonight at a holiday reception at the White House.

Get more pure politics at ABC News.com/Politics and a lighter take on the news at OTUSNews.com

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Israel says will stick with settlement plan despite condemnation

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel rejected concerted criticism from the United States and Europe on Monday over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's decision to expand settlement building after the United Nations' de facto recognition of Palestinian statehood.

Washington urged Israel to reconsider its plan to erect 3,000 more homes in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, saying the move hindered peace efforts with the Palestinians.

Britain, France, Spain, Sweden and Denmark summoned the Israeli ambassadors in their capitals to give similar messages.

An official in Netanyahu's office said Israel would not bend. "Israel will continue to stand by its vital interests, even in the face of international pressure, and there will be no change in the decision that was made," the official said.

Angered by the U.N. General Assembly's upgrading on Thursday of the Palestinians' status in the world body from "observer entity" to "non-member state", Israel said the next day it would build the new dwellings for settlers.

Such projects, on land Israel captured in a 1967 war, are considered illegal by most world powers and have routinely drawn condemnation from them. Approximately 500,000 Israelis and 2.5 million Palestinians live in the two areas.

In a shift that raised the alarm among Palestinians and in world capitals, Netanyahu's pro-settler government also ordered "preliminary zoning and planning work" for thousands of housing units in areas including the "E1" zone east of Jerusalem.

Such construction in the barren hills of E1 has never been put into motion in the face of opposition from Israel's main ally, the United States. Building in the area could bisect the West Bank, cut off Palestinians from Jerusalem and further dim their hopes for a contiguous state.

Israeli television stations reported Jerusalem's district planning commission would soon approve plans for several thousand more housing units, including more than 1,000 Israel had shelved two years ago after angering Washington by publishing the plans before a visit by Vice President Joe Biden.

The settlement plan, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said, would deal "an almost fatal blow" to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

French President Francois Hollande said he was "extremely concerned" and Washington made clear it would not back such Israeli retaliation over the U.N. vote, sought by Palestinians after peace talks collapsed in 2010 over settlement building.

"We urge Israeli leaders to reconsider these unilateral decisions and exercise restraint as these actions are counterproductive and make it harder to resume direct negotiations to achieve a two state solution," White House spokesman Jay Carney told a briefing.

Ahead of a Netanyahu visit this week, Germany, considered Israel's closest ally in Europe, urged it to refrain from expanding settlements, and Russia said it viewed the Israeli moves with serious concern.

RETALIATION

Israeli Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz said Israel could not have remained indifferent to the Palestinians' unilateral move at the United Nations.

"I want to tell you that those same Europeans and Americans who are now telling us 'naughty, naughty' over our response, understand full-well that we have to respond, and they themselves warned the Palestinian Authority," he said.

Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat said building in E1 "destroys the two-state solution, (establishing) East Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine and practically ends the peace process and any opportunity to talk about negotiations in the future".

The United States, one of the eight countries to vote alongside Israel against the Palestinian resolution at the General Assembly, has said both were counterproductive to the resumption of direct peace talks.

In Europe, only the Czech Republic voted against the status upgrade while many countries, including France, backed it. Netanyahu plans to visit Prague this week to express his thanks.

In the Gaza Strip, Sami Abu Zuhri, spokesman for the governing Hamas Islamist movement, called the settlements "an insult to the international community, which should bear responsibility for Israeli violations and attacks on Palestinians".

Israeli police arrested three Jewish settlers on Monday whom they suspect of arson and other crimes against Palestinian property in the West Bank, including the torching of a car.

Attackers have often proclaimed they are exacting a "price tag" for steps taken against the settler movement by Palestinians, or by the Israeli government.

Alongside the settlement plans, Israel announced it would withhold about $100 million in Palestinian tax revenues from the Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited self-rule in the West Bank, saying Palestinians owed $200 million to Israeli firms.

"These are not steps towards peace, these are steps towards the extension of the conflict," Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo said.

Only three weeks ago, Netanyahu won strong European and U.S. support for a Gaza offensive that Israel said was aimed at curbing persistent cross-border rocket fire.

Favored by opinion polls to win a January 22 national election, he brushed off the condemnation and complaints at home that he is deepening Israel's diplomatic isolation.

Netanyahu told his cabinet on Sunday that his government "will carry on building in Jerusalem and in all the places on the map of Israel's strategic interests".

But while his housing minister has said the government would soon invite bids from contractors to build 1,000 homes for Israelis in East Jerusalem and more than 1,000 in West Bank settlement blocs, the E1 plan is still in its planning stages.

"No one will build until it is clear what will be done there," the minister, Ariel Attias, said on Sunday.

Israel froze much of its activities in E1 under pressure from former U.S. President George W. Bush, and the area has been under the scrutiny of his successor, Barack Obama.

Israel cites historical and Biblical links to the West Bank and Jerusalem and regards all of the holy city as its capital, a claim that is not recognized internationally.

(Additional reporting by Crispian Balmer, Dan Williams, Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza, Jihan Abdalla in Ramallah, Steve Gutterman in Moscow, Gareth Jones in Berlin, John Irish and Elizabeth Pineau in Paris and Tim Castle in London; writing by Jeffrey Heller; editing by Philippa Fletcher)

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Syria mixing chemicals for sarin gas: US official

WASHINGTON: Syria has begun mixing chemicals that can be used to make deadly sarin gas, a US official told AFP Monday, amid fears that President Bashar al-Assad's forces could attack rebels with chemical weapons.

"We've picked up several indications which lead us to believe that they're combining chemical precursors," the official said, on condition of anonymity, adding that the operation was apparently aimed at making sarin.

Earlier, CNN said that Washington believed that Assad's regime was considering the feasibility of putting sarin into artillery shells for use in a limited chemical strike against opposition soldiers, the report said.

US officials stressed to the news channel that they did not believe that Assad had made a final decision on mounting such a strike.

Sarin, used in two terror attacks in Japan in the 1990s, is a man-made nerve agent which can cause convulsions, respiratory failure and death.

The intelligence appeared to explain a series of fresh warnings issued by Washington that the use of chemical weapons by the Assad government would cross a "red line" and invite unspecified US action.

- AFP/fa

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Unitech MD: Not sold our stock to Telenor

NEW DELHI: Ajay Chandra, brother of Unitech Ltd MD Sanjay Chandra who is himself an MD with the firm, on Monday told a special CBI court that Unitech had not sold a "single share" to Norwegian firm Telenor after the foreign company invested in it. Sanjay is facing trial in the 2G scam case.

Deposing as a CBI witness in the 2G scam case, Ajay said that after getting 2G licences in 2008, eight subsidiaries of Unitech Ltd came together and Telenor Asia (P) Limited was made an investor. "It is correct that Unitech did not sell a single share held by it to Telenor Asia (P) Limited. Equity was given to Telenor Asia (P) Limited by way of fresh issuance of shares," he said.

CBI had alleged that Unitech Wireless (Tamil Nadu) Pvt Ltd had off-loaded 60% of its shares to Telenor for Rs 6,200 crore iafter getting 2G licences and had earned windfall profit. The agency alleged that eight group companies were renamed after getting unified access services (UAS) licences from the DoT and they later merged into Unitech Wireless (Tamil Nadu) Pvt Ltd. Ajay told the court that equity of Telenor Asia (P) Limited was 67.25%, while that of Unitech, through its affiliates, was 32.75%.

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Fossil fuel subsidies in focus at climate talks

DOHA, Qatar (AP) — Hassan al-Kubaisi considers it a gift from above that drivers in oil- and gas-rich Qatar only have to pay $1 per gallon at the pump.

"Thank God that our country is an oil producer and the price of gasoline is one of the lowest," al-Kubaisi said, filling up his Toyota Land Cruiser at a gas station in Doha. "God has given us a blessing."

To those looking for a global response to climate change, it's more like a curse.

Qatar — the host of U.N. climate talks that entered their final week Monday — is among dozens of countries that keep gas prices artificially low through subsidies that exceeded $500 billion globally last year. Renewable energy worldwide received six times less support — an imbalance that is just starting to earn attention in the divisive negotiations on curbing the carbon emissions blamed for heating the planet.

"We need to stop funding the problem, and start funding the solution," said Steve Kretzmann, of Oil Change International, an advocacy group for clean energy.

His group presented research Monday showing that in addition to the fuel subsidies in developing countries, rich nations in 2011 gave more than $58 billion in tax breaks and other production subsidies to the fossil fuel industry. The U.S. figure was $13 billion.

The Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has calculated that removing fossil fuel subsidies could reduce carbon emissions by more than 10 percent by 2050.

Yet the argument is just recently gaining traction in climate negotiations, which in two decades have failed to halt the rising temperatures that are melting Arctic ice, raising sea levels and shifting weather patterns with impacts on droughts and floods.

In Doha, the talks have been slowed by wrangling over financial aid to help poor countries cope with global warming and how to divide carbon emissions rights until 2020 when a new planned climate treaty is supposed to enter force. Calls are now intensifying to include fossil fuel subsidies as a key part of the discussion.

"I think it is manifestly clear ... that this is a massive missing piece of the climate change jigsaw puzzle," said Tim Groser, New Zealand's minister for climate change.

He is spearheading an initiative backed by Scandinavian countries and some developing countries to put fuel subsidies on the agenda in various forums, citing the U.N. talks as a "natural home" for the debate.

The G-20 called for their elimination in 2009, and the issue also came up at the U.N. earth summit in Rio de Janeiro earlier this year. Frustrated that not much has happened since, European Union climate commissioner Connie Hedegaard said Monday she planned to raise the issue with environment ministers on the sidelines of the talks in Doha.

Many developing countries are positive toward phasing out fossil fuel subsidies, not just to protect the climate but to balance budgets. Subsidies introduced as a form of welfare benefit decades ago have become an increasing burden to many countries as oil prices soar.

"We are reviewing the subsidy periodically in the context of the total economy for Qatar," the tiny Persian gulf country's energy minister, Mohammed bin Saleh al-Sada, told reporters Monday.

Qatar's National Development Strategy 2011-2016 states it more bluntly, saying fuel subsides are "at odds with the aspirations" and sustainability objectives of the wealthy emirate.

The problem is that getting rid of them comes with a heavy political price.

When Jordan raised fuel prices last month, angry crowds poured into the streets, torching police cars, government offices and private banks in the most sustained protests to hit the country since the start of the Arab unrest. One person was killed and 75 others were injured in the violence.

Nigeria, Indonesia, India and Sudan have also seen violent protests this year as governments tried to bring fuel prices closer to market rates.

Iran has used a phased approach to lift fuel subsidies over the past several years, but its pump prices remain among the cheapest in the world.

"People perceive it as something that the government is taking away from them," said Kretzmann. "The trick is we need to do it in a way that doesn't harm the poor."

The International Energy Agency found in 2010 that fuel subsidies are not an effective measure against poverty because only 8 percent of such subsidies reached the bottom 20 percent of income earners.

The IEA, which only looked at consumption subsidies, this year said they "remain most prevalent in the Middle East and North Africa, where momentum toward their reform appears to have been lost."

In the U.S., environmental groups say fossil fuel subsidies include tax breaks, the foreign tax credit and the credit for production of nonconventional fuels.

Industry groups, like the Independent Petroleum Association of America, are against removing such support, saying that would harm smaller companies, rather than the big oil giants.

In Doha, Mohammed Adow, a climate activist with Christian Aid, called all fuel subsidies "reckless and dangerous," but described removing subsidies on the production side as "low-hanging fruit" for governments if they are serious about dealing with climate change.

"It's going to oil and coal companies that don't need it in the first place," he said.

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Associated Press writers Abdullah Rebhy in Doha, Qatar, and Brian Murphy in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed to this report

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Karl Ritter can be reached at www.twitter.com/karl_ritter

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Chiefs: Jovan Didn't Have 'Long Concussion History'

The death of Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Jovan Belcher, the latest in a string of tragic NFL suicides, has left the player's teammates, coaches, family and friends wondering what could have led a man described as generous and caring to murder his girlfriend -- the mother of his 3-month-old daughter -- and then kill himself.

Kansas City police say Belcher, 25, shot and killed his girlfriend Saturday morning before going to the team stadium and and committing suicide by shooting himself in the head as he was talking to coaches.

"When the officers arrived, when they were pulling up, they actually observed a black male who had a gun to his head and he was talking to a couple of coaches out in the parking lot," Kansas City Police spokesman Darin Snapp told ABC News Radio. "As officers pulled up, and began to park, that's when they heard the gunshot and it appears the individual took his own life."

It's not yet clear what prompted Belcher's actions, but his suicide follows those of former NFL players Junior Seau, 43, and Dave Duerson, 50, both of whom died of self-inflicted gunshot wounds to the chest in the last two years.

The suicides of Seau, Duerson and a number of other NFL players have been blamed on concussions racked up from playing the violent sport, and a condition called chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, but that may not be the case for Belcher.

Kansas City Chiefs Player Jovan Belcher's Murder-Suicide Watch Video

Did Brain Injury Lead to NFL Star's Suicide? Watch Video

Chiefs chairman Clark Hunt said today that Belcher was "a player who had not had a long concussion history," even though he was a three-time all-America wrestler and a star on the football team at his West Babylon, N.Y., high school.

Seau's and Duerson's brains are both being studied at Boston University's Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy, where researchers have already learned that Duerson had CTE, which may have led to his suicide.

CTE is a progressive, degenerative disease found in people who have had brain trauma from repeated blows to the head, according to the Center. It includes brain tissue degeneration and a buildup of an abnormal protein called tao, resulting in symptoms including confusion, aggression, and depression. Ultimately, CTE results in dementia.

In 2006, former Pittsburgh Steelers player Terry Long killed himself by drinking antifreeze, and former Philadelphia Eagles player Andre Waters shot himself in the head. Both of them suffered from CTE.

Researchers at Boston University found evidence of CTE in 12 of the 13 professional football players' brains they received between 2008 and 2010, according to the university. CTE can also be found in hockey players, wrestlers, and boxers.

"Football is entertainment in which the audience is expected to delight in gladiatorial action that a growing portion of the audience knows may cause the players degenerative brain disease," ABC News' George Will wrote in a Washington Post column published Aug. 3 just before he appeared on "This Week with George Stephanopoulos."

Will cited Seau and Duerson in his column, both of whom committed suicide after 2010, adding that 62-year-old former NFL safety Ray Easterling committed suicide in April 2012. Esterling's autopsy revealed that he had dementia and depression brought on by CTE.

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Islamist protest shuts down Egypt's top court

CAIRO (Reuters) - Protests by Islamists allied to President Mohamed Mursi forced Egypt's highest court to adjourn its work indefinitely on Sunday, intensifying a conflict between some of the country's top judges and the head of state.

The Supreme Constitutional Court said it would not convene until its judges could operate without "psychological and material pressure", saying protesters had stopped the judges from reaching the building.

Several hundred Mursi supporters had protested outside the court through the night ahead of a session expected to examine the legality of parliament's upper house and the assembly that drafted a new constitution, both of them Islamist-controlled.

The cases have cast a legal shadow over Mursi's efforts to chart a way out of a crisis ignited by a November 22 decree that temporarily expanded his powers and led to nationwide protests.

The court's decision to suspend its activities appeared unlikely to have any immediate impact on Mursi's drive to get the new constitution passed in a national referendum on December 15.

Judges supervise voting in Egypt, and Mursi will need them to oversee the referendum.

But in a blow to the president, the Judges' Club, an influential society representing the nation's judges, decided on Sunday not to oversee the vote, the state news agency reported. The club's decisions are not binding on members, however.

Vice President Mahmoud Mekky said on Sunday he was confident the judges would perform that role, despite calls by Mursi's critics in the judiciary for a boycott.

Three people have been killed and hundreds wounded in protests and counter-demonstrations over Mursi's decree.

At least 200,000 of Mursi's supporters attended a rally at Cairo University on Saturday. His opponents are staging an open-ended sit-in in Cairo's Tahrir Square, the cradle of the uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak in February 2011.

Mursi and the Muslim Brotherhood, which propelled him to power in a June election, hope to end the crisis by pushing through the new constitution hastily adopted by the drafting assembly on Friday. The next day the assembly handed the text to Mursi, who called the referendum and urged Egyptians to vote.

"The Muslim Brotherhood is determined to go ahead with its own plans regardless of everybody else. There is no compromise on the horizon," said Hassan Nafaa, a professor of political science at Cairo University.

Outside the Supreme Constitutional Court, Muslim Brotherhood supporters rallied behind the referendum date. "Yes to the constitution", declared a banner held aloft by one protester. Chants demanded the "purging of the judiciary".

The interior minister told the head of the court that the building was accessible and the protests were peaceful, according a statement from the ministry.

The protest reflected the deep suspicion harbored by Egypt's Islamists towards a court they see as a vestige of the Mubarak era. The same court ruled in June to dissolve the Muslim Brotherhood-led lower house of parliament.

Since then, several legal cases have challenged the legitimacy of the upper house of parliament and the 100-member constituent assembly that wrote the constitution.

Those against the upper house have focused on the legality of the law by which it was elected, while the constitutional assembly has faced a raft of court cases alleging that the way it was picked was illegal.

STOCK MARKET RALLIES

Mursi believes that securing approval for the new constitution in a popular referendum will bury all arguments on the legality of the constituent assembly, as well as controversy over the text it worked through the night to finish on Friday.

It will also override the November 22 decree that drew concern from Western governments and a rebellion by sections of the judiciary. The decree shielded Mursi from judicial oversight.

While the Islamists' critics, including representatives of the Christian minority, have accused the Brotherhood of trying to hijack the constitution, investors appear to have seen Mursi's moves as a harbinger of stability. They were also relieved that Saturday's mass Islamist protest went off calmly.

The main stock market index, which lost a tenth of its value in response to Mursi's November 22 decree, rallied more than 2 percent when the market opened on Sunday.

"The events that took place through the weekend, from the approval of the final draft of the constitution and the president calling a referendum, gave some confidence to investors that political stability is on track," said Mohamed Radwan of Pharos Securities, an Egyptian brokerage.

But the political opposition, made up of leftist, liberal and socialist parties, have been infuriated by what they see as the Brotherhood's attempt to ram through a constitution that does not enjoy national consensus.

Mursi's opponents warn of deeper polarization ahead.

"LET EVERYONE HAVE THEIR SAY"

Leading opposition figure Mohamed ElBaradei said on Twitter that the "struggle will continue" over a draft constitution that "undermines basic freedoms".

Liberal figures, including former Arab League chief Amr Moussa, pulled out of the constituent assembly last month, as did Christian representatives.

The draft constitution contains Islamist-flavored language which opponents say could be used to whittle away human rights and stifle criticism. It forbids blasphemy and "insults to any person", does not explicitly uphold women's rights and demands respect for "religion, traditions and family values".

The New York-based Human Rights Watch said it protected some rights while undermining others.

The text limits presidents to two four-year terms, requires parliamentary approval for their choice of prime minister, and introduces some civilian oversight of the military - although not enough for critics. Mubarak ruled for three decades.

Mursi described it as a constitution that fulfilled the goals of the revolution that ended Mubarak's rule. "Let everyone -- those who agree and those who disagree -- go to the referendum to have their say," he said.

The Islamists are gambling that they will be able to secure a "yes" vote by mobilizing their core support base.

Nafaa of Cairo University said the constitution would likely be approved by a slim majority. "But in this case, how can you run a country with a disputed constitution - a constitution not adopted by consensus?" he asked.

(Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Alistair Lyon and Roger Atwood)

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