Clinton releases road map for AIDS-free generation

WASHINGTON (AP) — In an ambitious road map for slashing the global spread of AIDS, the Obama administration says treating people sooner and more rapid expansion of other proven tools could help even the hardest-hit countries begin turning the tide of the epidemic over the next three to five years.

"An AIDS-free generation is not just a rallying cry — it is a goal that is within our reach," Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who ordered the blueprint, said in the report.

"Make no mistake about it, HIV may well be with us into the future but the disease that it causes need not be," she said at the State Department Thursday.

President Barack Obama echoed that promise.

"We stand at a tipping point in the fight against HIV/AIDS, and working together, we can realize our historic opportunity to bring that fight to an end," Obama said in a proclamation to mark World AIDS Day on Saturday.

Some 34 million people worldwide are living with HIV, and despite a decline in new infections over the last decade, 2.5 million people were infected last year.

Given those staggering figures, what does an AIDS-free generation mean? That virtually no babies are born infected, young people have a much lower risk than today of becoming infected, and that people who already have HIV would receive life-saving treatment.

That last step is key: Treating people early in their infection, before they get sick, not only helps them survive but also dramatically cuts the chances that they'll infect others. Yet only about 8 million HIV patients in developing countries are getting treatment. The United Nations aims to have 15 million treated by 2015.

Other important steps include: Treating more pregnant women, and keeping them on treatment after their babies are born; increasing male circumcision to lower men's risk of heterosexual infection; increasing access to both male and female condoms; and more HIV testing.

The world spent $16.8 billion fighting AIDS in poor countries last year. The U.S. government is the leading donor, spending about $5.6 billion.

Thursday's report from PEPFAR, the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, outlines how progress could continue at current spending levels — something far from certain as Congress and Obama struggle to avert looming budget cuts at year's end — or how faster progress is possible with stepped-up commitments from hard-hit countries themselves.

Clinton warned Thursday that the U.S. must continue doing its share: "In the fight against HIV/AIDS, failure to live up to our commitments isn't just disappointing, it's deadly."

The report highlighted Zambia, which already is seeing some declines in new cases of HIV. It will have to treat only about 145,000 more patients over the next four years to meet its share of the U.N. goal, a move that could prevent more than 126,000 new infections in that same time period. But if Zambia could go further and treat nearly 198,000 more people, the benefit would be even greater — 179,000 new infections prevented, the report estimates.

In contrast, if Zambia had to stick with 2011 levels of HIV prevention, new infections could level off or even rise again over the next four years, the report found.

Advocacy groups said the blueprint offers a much-needed set of practical steps to achieve an AIDS-free generation — and makes clear that maintaining momentum is crucial despite economic difficulties here and abroad.

"The blueprint lays out the stark choices we have: To stick with the baseline and see an epidemic flatline or grow, or ramp up" to continue progress, said Chris Collins of amFAR, the Foundation for AIDS Research.

His group has estimated that more than 276,000 people would miss out on HIV treatment if U.S. dollars for the global AIDS fight are part of across-the-board spending cuts set to begin in January.

Thursday's report also urges targeting the populations at highest risk, including gay men, injecting drug users and sex workers, especially in countries where stigma and discrimination has denied them access to HIV prevention services.

"We have to go where the virus is," Clinton said.

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Wall Street ends higher as investors buy dips

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks finished higher on Thursday as investors bought on sporadic dips in a market roiled by conflicting comments from Washington about negotiations on an agreement to avoid the "fiscal cliff."

Tech shares, including Research In Motion and Advanced Micro Devices , helped the Nasdaq outperform the broader market. Telecommunications and health-care stocks were the day's best-performing sectors.

Reflecting the uncertainty surrounding U.S. budget talks, trading was choppy. Wall Street reversed early gains and fell shortly after House Speaker John Boehner, the top Republican in Congress, dashed hopes that lawmakers were getting closer to a budget deal that would avert automatic tax increases and spending cuts set for early 2013 - the fiscal cliff - that could push the U.S. economy into a recession next year. But the market rebounded by afternoon and the three major U.S. stock indexes rebounded to near their session highs.

"There is an emotional part in buying on the small dips here. Investors are more worried about missing the rally than losing money as they believe that the 'fiscal cliff' will be solved eventually," said James Dailey, portfolio manager at TEAM Asset Strategy Fund in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

"Until the fiscal cliff is solved, the madness of the crowd will not subside."

Discussions on Capitol Hill are aimed at avoiding big automatic spending cuts and tax hikes, known as the fiscal cliff, that will start taking effect beginning in January.

Boehner's comment about a lack of progress in talks with the White House was one of a series of contrary pronouncements by lawmakers and the Obama administration over whether Washington will finally cut a deal.

There have been some signs that leaders are moving closer to a fiscal agreement. The S&P 500 has gained about 5 percent recently after a sell-off that took it down almost 8 percent following the U.S. election on November 6. But investors remain wary that politicians' ad hoc statements can spark quick reversals in the market.

U.S.-listed shares of BlackBerry maker Research In Motion rose 4 percent to $11.54 after Goldman Sachs upgraded the stock to "buy" from "neutral" on optimism ahead of the launch of the BlackBerry 10 smartphone.

Advanced Micro Devices Inc shares gained 4.1 percent to $2.04 on plans to sell and lease back its campus in Austin, Texas. The sale and lease-back will raise cash and fund its chipmaking business as Advanced Micro Devices diversifies beyond the struggling PC industry into new markets.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> rose 36.71 points, or 0.28 percent, to 13,021.82 at the close. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> gained 6.02 points, or 0.43 percent, to 1,415.95. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> advanced 20.25 points, or 0.68 percent, to close at 3,012.03.

So far this week, the Dow is up 0.1 percent, the S&P 500 is up 0.5 percent and the Nasdaq is up 1.5 percent.

But shares of top retailers retreated in the wake of data showing a weak start to November sales after Superstorm Sandy. Kohl's Corp fell 12 percent to $45.02.

Tiffany shares dropped 6.2 percent to $59.80 after the upscale jeweler reported quarterly results and cut its full-year sales and profit forecasts.

Supervalu shares sank 18.6 percent to $2.28 after a report that Cerberus Capital Management was having difficulty obtaining financing to buy out the troubled grocery chain.

Data showed the U.S. economy grew faster than initially thought in the third quarter as businesses restocked, but consumer and business spending were revised lower in a sobering reminder of the economic recovery's underlying weakness.

Contracts to buy previously owned U.S. homes rose more than expected in October, a sign the housing market recovery advanced into the fourth quarter despite a mammoth storm and concerns over looming tax hikes. Homebuilders' shares rose. The PHLX housing index <.hgx> rose 0.8 percent.

About 6.15 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 both the NYSE and the Nasdaq, roughly three stocks rose for every one that fell.

(Editing by Kenneth Barry and Jan Paschal)

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Abbas urges U.N. to issue 'birth certificate' for Palestine

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday urged the U.N. General Assembly to grant de facto recognition to a sovereign state of Palestine by upgrading the U.N. observer status of the Palestinian Authority from "entity" to "non-member state."

"Sixty-five years ago on this day, the United Nations General Assembly adopted resolution 181, which partitioned the land of historic Palestine into two states and became the birth certificate for Israel," Abbas told the 193-nation assembly after receiving a standing ovation.

"The General Assembly is called upon today to issue a birth certificate of the reality of the State of Palestine," he said.

The assembly is expected to approve a resolution shortly that implicitly recognizes Palestinian statehood, despite threats by the United States and Israel to punish the Palestinians by withholding funds for the West Bank government.

The move would lift the Palestinian Authority's U.N. observer status from "entity" to "non-member state," like the Vatican. It is expected to pass easily in the 193-nation General Assembly. At least 15 European states plan to vote for it.

Israel, the United States and a handful of other members are set to vote against what they see as a largely symbolic and counterproductive move by the Palestinians, which takes place on the anniversary of the assembly's adoption of resolution 181 on the partition of Palestine into Jewish and Arab states.

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman is in New York, but did not address the assembly. Israeli U.N. Ambassador Ron Prosor spoke after Abbas, reiterating the Jewish state's desire for peace with Palestinians, but opposing the resolution.

"It doesn't enhance peace," Prosor said ahead of the vote on the resolution. "It pushes it backwards."

"No decision by the U.N. can break the 4,000-year-old bond between the people of Israel and the land of Israel," he said.

Granting Palestinians the title of "non-member observer state" falls short of full U.N. membership - something the Palestinians failed to achieve last year. But it would allow them access to the International Criminal Court and other international bodies, should they choose to join them.

"The ICC issue is what the Israelis are really worried about," a U.N. official said on condition of anonymity. "They know this whole process isn't really symbolic, except for that."

ISRAEL TONES DOWN THREATS

Abbas has been leading the campaign to win support for the resolution, which follows an eight-day conflict this month between Israel and Islamists in the Gaza Strip, who are pledged to Israel's destruction and oppose a negotiated peace.

The U.S. State Department made a last-ditch effort to get Abbas to reconsider, but the Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited self-rule in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, refused to turn back.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton repeated to reporters in Washington on Wednesday the U.S. view that "the path to a two-state solution that fulfills the aspirations of the Palestinian people is through Jerusalem and Ramallah, not New York."

The U.S. State Department has repeatedly warned that the U.N. status change could lead to a reduction of U.S. economic support for the Palestinians. The Israelis have also warned they might take significant deductions out of monthly transfers of duties that Israel collects on the Palestinians' behalf.

Despite its fierce opposition, Israel seems concerned not to find itself diplomatically isolated. It has recently toned down threats of retaliation in the face of wide international support for the initiative, notably among its European allies.

But U.N. diplomats say Israel's reaction might not be so measured if the Palestinians seek ICC action against Israel on charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity or other crimes the court would have jurisdiction over.

The European Union, a key donor for the Palestinians, has made clear it will not curtail aid after Thursday's vote.

Flag-waving Palestinians thronged the squares of the West Bank and Gaza Strip before Thursday's vote. In a rare show of unity, Abbas's Islamist rivals, Hamas, who have ruled Gaza since a brief civil war in 2007, let backers of the president's Fatah movement hold demonstrations.

Peace talks have been stalled for two years, mainly over Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which have expanded despite being deemed illegal by most of the world. There are 4.3 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.

In the draft resolution, the Palestinians have pledged to relaunch the peace process immediately following the U.N. vote.

With strong support from the developing world that makes up the majority of U.N. members, it is virtually assured of securing more than the requisite simple majority. Palestinian officials hope for more than 130 yes votes.

Abbas has focused on securing as many votes as possible from Europe, and his efforts appear to have paid off.

Austria, Denmark, Norway, Finland, France, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland all pledged to support the resolution. Britain said it was prepared to vote yes, but only if the Palestinians fulfilled certain conditions.

The fiercely pro-Israel Czech Republic was planning to vote against the move, dashing European hopes of avoiding any no votes that would create a three-way split on the continent into supporters, abstainers and opponents.

It was unclear whether some of the many undecided Europeans would join the Czechs. Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands, Estonia and Lithuania plan to abstain.

(Andrew Quinn in Washington, Noah Browning in Ramallah, Jeffrey Heller in Jerusalem, Michelle Nichols in New York, Robert Mueller in Prague, Gabriela Baczynska and Reuters bureau in Europe and elsewhere; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

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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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Larry Hagman's Son: 'Dallas' Kept Him Alive

TV legend Larry Hagman passed away last Friday from complications related to chemotherapy, and his only son Preston Hagman exclusively tells ET that his beloved father lived to perform as an actor and "didn't do it for the fame or the fortune."

Video: Larry Hagman Charms in Final ET Interview

"Doing Dallas is what kept him alive as long as he did," says the grieving Preston. "He just loved coming to work every single day. ... It wasn't about the money, it wasn't about the fame, it was about him acting. That's what he did."

Preston says that his father was surrounded by large family in his final days and hours, and his Dallas co-stars Patrick Duffy and Linda Gray even came to visit him. Although his death seemed sudden to some, Hagman began battling throat cancer last year, and in July he was diagnosed with MDS, a complication related to chemotherapy.

"Everybody was prepared for this at some time -- just a lot sooner than we thought," says Preston.

Video: Larry Hagman Reflects on Cancer Struggle

So what does Preston miss most about his dad? "He was a great man. We would talk all the time. Something funny happened in my life, I would call him and tell and laugh. I miss being able to just pick up the phone and call him."

Watch the video for Preston's details about his father's upcoming memorial service plans.

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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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Welcome to the Twisted Age of the Twitter Death Threat

Never believe anyone who tells you that the Internet is all nice or all terrible. Just like real life, there are good people and bad ones here. The majority of people behave badly occasionally and decently most of the time. Yes, there are some truly horrible people lurking and behaving in ways consistent to their form, but the thing is, we’re complicated creatures, online and off. So I don’t buy into theories that the Internet is all nice anymore than I believe all commenters are trolls. Still, there is something worrisome going on online, and if you were the Chicken Little type (which none of us here are, obviously), you might be covering your head and hiding from the Twitterverse. It’s this matter of death threats online. 

RELATED: After His Vulgar Assault on Jenny Johnson, Chris Brown Quits Twitter

The most recent example of this, of course, is the recent Chris Brown/Jenny Johnson nastiness. Brown has his share of on- and offline haters, but he has plenty of adamant supporters, too. This became apparent when Johnson, a comedian who’d been on a Twitter crusade of sorts against Brown since his physical attack on Rihanna, after a stream of tweets intended to shame/provoke the singer, finally hit pay-dirt with a response (other than Brown blocking her at one point). Over the weekend, Chris Brown tweeted: “I look old as fuck! I’m only 23,” to which Johnson tweeted, “I know! Being a worthless piece of shit can really age a person.” (That tweet’s been retweeted by Johnson followers more than 7,000 times.)

RELATED: The Internet–Not All It’s Cracked Up to Be

You probably know what happened next, even if you don’t: After a pretty gross back-and-forth that doesn’t make either side look great, Brown deactivated his account. But his followers started to pile on, threatening Johnson with—what else?—death. There is no irony here about the followers of a guy who beat his girlfriend offering up a stream of brutish death threats; it is only sad. 

RELATED: Is Twitter for Girls?

Enter the age of the online death threat. It’s scary, yeah, because it’s a death threat. Humans rarely like being threatened with an end to their basic essence, no matter the delivery method for that announcement. And yet, on Twitter, this becomes such a weird, surreal concept: It’s deeply impersonal (these people don’t even know each other and probably never will; NONE of them know each other, likely), fueled by a false kind of rage spawned by the way the Internet works (one side gets self-righteously mad, another side self-righteously madder, and repeat). Fortunately, in most cases, the threat is also incredibly unlikely to be fulfilled. That doesn’t make it pleasant. One might be prone to try to laugh away the kind of death threats Johnson received, from people she doesn’t know (people who don’t know Chris Brown either), who might not recognize her on the street, who most likely live nowhere near where she does and probably also don’t plan to actually kill her. Yet a death threat is pretty much the ultimate “I hate you,” and it’s worth wondering, when “I hate you” doesn’t serve to deliver the message strongly enough and we start saying “I’m going to kill you”/”you deserve to die,” how far has humanity gone down some sick drain?

RELATED: Only Six Percent of Americans Use Twitter

As David Knowles writes for The Daily in a piece titled “Twitter Terror,” Johnson is hardly the first person to be threatened on Twitter. President Obama, Mitt Romney, Ellen Page, Tom Daley, and Taylor Swift can claim this dubious badge of fame, too. The list goes on. But before the little bird was the death-threat method of the year, death threats would arrive to famous people, politicians, and those in the public eye, particularly controversial figures, as a matter of course—on paper, perhaps by telephone, and in the movies, via the weird scrawlings or puzzle-piece letter constructions of madmen. Of course, there’s no handwriting to decipher on Twitter, there are only assumptions of power and education based on icons and followers, word choice and spelling, what the person says and has said, as well as their affiliations. But again, probably, the people threatening Jenny Johnson shouldn’t scare her (if you’re really going to try to kill someone and are dumb enough to publicize it on Twitter, that’s a clear benefit to your intended victim). If there’s anything to be afraid of, it’s this idea that death threats are this kind of new online norm. I think part of that fear, the fear that this is just a regular thing nowadays, is what subconsciously creates the need in us to assume a such a horrified shock-and-outraged position about such death threats. Knowles quotes digital media expert Jeanette Castillio as calling “the Twitterverse … a very uncivil place.” Is it any more uncivil than anywhere else, though? The Internet hardly created hate, or hate-speak, or bullying. Further, do we only increase the levels of that incivility by freaking out about what a bunch of random people are raging about behind the protection, and often anonymity, of Twitter?

RELATED: Friday’s Top Tweets

As Knowles writes, also, Twitter does have a rule against this sort of thing; people aren’t supposed to “publish or post direct, specific threats of violence against others.” Still, like everything online, there is too much information, and not enough time for comprehensive monitoring. Knowles adds, “A small percentage of violent tweets are investigated by police, but even then Twitter is reluctant to betray what it believes is a sacred duty to protect a user’s privacy.” 

That’s the other thing about online threats: They manage to be so incredibly cowardly, and an utterly ineffectual form of communication—until, suddenly, the media is paying attention to said threats and in some ways legitimizing them. I’m honestly not sure what the media’s role should be in acknowledging tweets of the sort that Brown and Johnson and Brown’s followers and Johnson exchanged. Sometimes it seems like that old “ignoring” tactic your mom taught you could work out to everyone’s benefit—and yet these things are bound to go viral; badly behaving celebrities are something TMZ taught us people want to know about. These things are also, when discussed calmly and rationally, fodder for good conversations about how we live now.

Like a rude comment, a Twitter death threat is a way of hiding in your comfy-safe basement in your comfy-safe boxers and saying really gross things to someone in the hopes that they will get upset. These people are bullying, or hope to bully. Which means we shouldn’t take the bait, a thing far more difficult to do than say. Turning the other cheek was hard in real life, too, and you never know, better safe than sorry. But more important than preventing “actual Twitter murders” (which I dare say and hope will not become the norm), it’s worth paying attention to this ratcheting up of the hate ante as a new kind of communication norm. A cynical person would say we no longer need to touch people, instead, we reach out to them online. We no longer need to talk on the phone, we simply tweet or email or text. We certainly don’t write letters, and we hardly write on paper. Instead we blog and Tumbl and Instagram and Facebook. And so, when we get angry, irrationally or otherwise, we take to those methods of communication to speak out, retaliate, vow revenge. The most worrisome thing about the Twitter death threat, I think, that if it’s just something people do now. I don’t want to be in the Age of the Twitter Death Threat. It makes me pretty nostalgic for the good old days of the handwritten love letter, actually. 

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Inside Neil Patrick Harris' 'Puppet Dreams'

While it could safely be assumed that Neil Patrick Harris has dreams in vivid colors with comedic themes, his new web series takes that idea even further to show the How I Met Your Mother star actually dreaming "in puppet."

In the first episode of the series -- called Neil's Puppet Dreams -- Neil and his partner David Burtka are first seen towering over a crib where presumably their twins are preparing to sleep. Neil drops several Muppet-like characters into the crib and then says to the camera, "Hi, I'm Neil and I sleep a lot... and when I dream I dream in puppet." He then immediately falls asleep and hits the floor.

VIDEO: Neil Patrick Harris Mimics LL Cool J

The series then continues with Neil falling through the sky surrounded by the puppets from the crib who initially try to assure him that he's actually flying, and they even serenade him to calm his fears. But the web show then takes a dark turn when the puppets begin to cheerfully sing about Neil's inevitable crash to the ground that will result in a violent and bloody death.

In an interview, Neil gives his unique description for Neil's Puppet Dreams. "Each episode revolves around one of my puppet-laden dreams -- as it turns out, I'm a bit of a narcoleptic, and, unfortunately, all of my dreams involve creatures of the felt persuasion, ranging from lullabies to documentaries, from fantasies to music videos."

Video Exclusive: Neil Patrick Harris Gets Tanked

Check out the video on YouTube's Nerdist Channel to see for yourself. 

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