Apple to return some Mac production to U.S. in 2013: report

(Reuters) – Apple Inc is planning to bring back some of its production of Mac computers to the United States from China next year, Chief Executive Tim Cook said, according to a report published Thursday.

The company will spend more than $ 100 million to build the computers in the United States, Cook was cited as saying in an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek.

“This doesn’t mean that Apple will do it ourselves, but we’ll be working with people and we’ll be investing our money,” Cook said.

He told NBC in an interview to be aired late Thursday that only one of the existing Mac lines would be manufactured exclusively in the United States.

Higher-tech products are largely made overseas, often in subcontracted factories not owned by the brands whose products they are making.

Cheaper labor costs have been key in encouraging U.S. manufacturers to have move production to China, but with Chinese wage and transport costs increasing, the advantage against the U.S. has narrowed in recent years.

(Reporting by Nicola Leske; Editing by Bernadette Baum)

Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Brooke Burke-Charvet Recovering After Successful Thyroid Surgery

TV Watch

Dancing With the Stars

By Julia Haskins

12/06/2012 at 11:35 AM EST

Brooke Burke-Charvet is happy to report that she's doing well after undergoing thyroid surgery on Wednesday.

The Dancing with the Stars co-host stayed optimistic when faced with the threat thyroid cancer and preparing for the surgery. Now Brooke-Charvet is taking it easy after the successful thyroidectomy.

"I'm resting, recovering," she Tweeted Thursday, a day after her operation. "Surgery went well. Dr Adashek is a genius. Thx Dr! Feels like I got hit [by] a car :("

But the 41-year-old wife and mother is also thankful.

"Thank God it's over," she continued. "I'm clean, surgery went well & I can talk. Losing My voice was my biggest fear. Thx for all your prayers & light."

She later posted a photo of herself on her WhoSay page giving cancer an obscene gesture with a ringed middle finger, along with the caption, "Made it through my surgery, Thank God! so far so good F#@k Cancer! I'm recovering, I'm strong, I'm grateful for my brilliant Doctors."

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Celebrations planned as Wash. legalizes marijuana

SEATTLE (AP) — Legal marijuana possession becomes a reality under Washington state law on Thursday, and some people planned to celebrate the new law by breaking it.

Voters in Washington and Colorado last month made those the first states to decriminalize and regulate the recreational use of marijuana. Washington's law takes effect Thursday and allows adults to have up to an ounce of pot — but it bans public use of marijuana, which is punishable by a fine, just like drinking in public.

Nevertheless, some people planned to gather at 12:01 a.m. PST Thursday to smoke in public beneath Seattle's Space Needle. Others planned a midnight party outside the Seattle headquarters of Hempfest, the 21-year-old festival that attracts tens of thousands of pot fans every summer.

"This is a big day because all our lives we've been living under the iron curtain of prohibition," said Hempfest director Vivian McPeak. "The whole world sees that prohibition just took a body blow."

In another sweeping change for Washington, Gov. Chris Gregoire on Wednesday signed into law a measure that legalizes same-sex marriage. The state joins several others that allow gay and lesbian couples to wed.

That law also takes effect Thursday, when gay and lesbian couples can start picking up their wedding certificates and licenses at county auditors' offices. Those offices in King County, the state's largest and home to Seattle, and Thurston County, home to the state capital of Olympia, planned to open the earliest, at 12:01 a.m. Thursday, to start issuing marriage licenses. Because the state has a three-day waiting period, the earliest that weddings can take place is Sunday.

The Seattle Police Department provided this public marijuana use enforcement guidance to its officers via email Wednesday night: "Until further notice, officers shall not take any enforcement action — other than to issue a verbal warning — for a violation of Initiative 502."

Thanks to a 2003 law, marijuana enforcement remains the department's lowest priority. Even before I-502 passed on Nov. 6, police rarely busted people at Hempfest, despite widespread pot use, and the city attorney here doesn't prosecute people for having small amounts of marijuana.

Officers will be advising people to take their weed inside, police spokesman Jonah Spangenthal-Lee wrote on the SPD Blotter. "The police department believes that, under state law, you may responsibly get baked, order some pizzas and enjoy a 'Lord of the Rings' marathon in the privacy of your own home, if you want to."

Washington's new law decriminalizes possession of up to an ounce for those over 21, but for now selling marijuana remains illegal. I-502 gives the state a year to come up with a system of state-licensed growers, processors and retail stores, with the marijuana taxed 25 percent at each stage. Analysts have estimated that a legal pot market could bring Washington hundreds of millions of dollars a year in new tax revenue for schools, health care and basic government functions.

But marijuana remains illegal under federal law. That means federal agents can still arrest people for it, and it's banned from federal properties, including military bases and national parks.

The Justice Department has not said whether it will sue to try to block the regulatory schemes in Washington and Colorado from taking effect.

"The department's responsibility to enforce the Controlled Substances Act remains unchanged," said a statement issued Wednesday by the Seattle U.S. attorney's office. "Neither states nor the executive branch can nullify a statute passed by Congress" — a non-issue, since the measures passed in Washington and Colorado don't "nullify" federal law, which federal agents remain free to enforce.

The legal question is whether the establishment of a regulated marijuana market would "frustrate the purpose" of the federal pot prohibition, and many constitutional law scholars say it very likely would.

That leaves the political question of whether the administration wants to try to block the regulatory system, even though it would remain legal to possess up to an ounce of marijuana.

Colorado's measure, as far as decriminalizing possession goes, is set to take effect by Jan. 5. That state's regulatory scheme is due to be up and running by October 2013.

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Johnson can be reached at https://twitter.com/GeneAPseattle

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Wall Street flat, volatile; fiscal talks, Apple in focus

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks were little changed in choppy morning trading on Thursday as upbeat guidance from Broadcom partially offset weakness in Apple shares, while traders kept an eye on fiscal negotiations in Washington.

Extending Wednesday's 6.4 percent decline, Apple was trading down 0.7 percent at $535 early on Thursday, after falling as much as 3.7 percent at the open, which brought the market capitalization of the world's largest publicly traded company down to below $500 billion briefly. In September, it was capitalized at a record $663 billion.

Broadcom shares led the advance in chip makers with a 2.1 percent gain, one day after it forecast for fourth-quarter revenue at the high end of its target range, citing slightly better-than-expected sales in its mobile business.

The PHLX semiconductor index <.sox> rose 0.4 percent.

Budget discussions continued to be a key focus for investors. President Barack Obama said there could be a quick deal to avert the "fiscal cliff" - tax hikes and spending cuts set to begin next year, possibly driving the U.S. economy back into recession - if Republican leaders agree to raise tax rates for those making more than $250,000 a year.

While Republican leaders in the House of Representatives insist that raising tax rates on the rich is a no-go, some GOP lawmakers now see it as inevitable to avoid the fiscal cliff.

"There are no real triggers here. It is just positioning going on for year-end, and this big decision" on the fiscal cliff, said Rick Meckler, president of hedge fund LibertyView Capital Management LLC in Jersey City, New Jersey.

He said Apple's weakness was taking a toll on the market and expects equities to continue trading choppily through the day.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> fell 17.89 points, or 0.14 percent, to 13,016.60. The S&P 500 <.spx> dropped 1.78 points, or 0.13 percent, to 1,407.50. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> gained 2.89 points, or 0.10 percent, to 2,976.59.

Apple Inc's rank in China's smartphone market fell to No.6 in the third quarter as it faces tougher competition from Chinese brands, research firm IDC said Thursday. Apple's 6.4 percent drop on Wednesday was its worst daily performance since December 2008 and dragged down the Nasdaq Composite.

Shares of Apple were down 0.7 percent at $535, after earlier falling more than 3 percent.

Sirius XM Radio shares rose 2.2 percent to $2.83 after its board approved a $2 billion stock repurchase and issued a special dividend, giving a big payout to its largest shareholder, Liberty Media .

Without action from Congress in coming weeks, tax cuts on capital gains and dividends will expire at the end of 2012.

Garmin shares rose 5 percent to $41.71 after Standard & Poor's said it would add the navigation device maker to its S&P 500 index. Garmin will replace R.R. Donnelley & Sons after the close of trading on December 11.

Several European equity benchmark indexes hit 2012 highs, boosted by hopes a U.S. budget deal will be reached before the year-end, and that the worst of Europe's debt crisis might be over. <.eu/>

(Additional reporting by Herbert Lash; Editing by Bernadette Baum)

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Military halts clashes as political crisis grips Egypt

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt's Republican Guard restored order around the presidential palace on Thursday after fierce overnight clashes killed seven people, but passions ran high in a struggle over the country's future.

The Islamist president, Mohamed Mursi, criticized by his opponents for his silence in the last few days, was due to address the nation later in the day, state television said.

Hundreds of his supporters who had camped out near the palace overnight withdrew before a mid-afternoon deadline set by the Republican Guard. Dozens of Mursi's foes remained, but were kept away by a barbed wire barricade guarded by tanks.

The military played a big role in removing President Hosni Mubarak during last year's popular revolt, taking over to manage a transitional period, but had stayed out of the latest crisis.

Mursi's Islamist partisans fought opposition protesters well into the early hours during dueling demonstrations over the president's decree on November 22 to expand his powers to help him push through a mostly Islamist-drafted constitution.

Officials said seven people had been killed and 350 wounded in the violence, for which each side blamed the other. Six of the dead were Mursi supporters, the Muslim Brotherhood said.

The street clashes reflected a deep political divide in the most populous Arab nation, where contrasting visions of Islamists and their liberal rivals have complicated a struggle to embed democracy after Mubarak's 30-year autocracy.

The United States, worried about the stability of an Arab partner which has a peace deal with Israel and which receives $1.3 billion a year in U.S. military aid, has urged dialogue.

The commander of the Republican Guard said deployment of tanks and troop carriers around the presidential palace was intended to separate the adversaries, not to repress them.

"The armed forces, and at the forefront of them the Republican Guard, will not be used as a tool to oppress the demonstrators," General Mohamed Zaki told the state news agency.

Hussein Abdel Ghani, spokesman of the opposition National Salvation Front, said more protests were planned, but not necessarily at the palace in Cairo's Heliopolis district.

"Our youth are leading us today and we decided to agree to whatever they want to do," he told Reuters.

UNITY APPEAL

Egypt plunged into renewed turmoil after Mursi issued his November 22 decree and an Islamist-dominated assembly hastily approved a new constitution to go to a referendum on December 15.

The Supreme Guide of the Brotherhood, to which Mursi belonged before he was narrowly elected president in June, appealed for unity. Divisions among Egyptians "only serve the nation's enemies", Mohamed Badie said in a statement.

Rival factions used rocks, petrol bombs and guns in the clashes around the presidential palace.

"We came here to support President Mursi and his decisions. He is the elected president of Egypt," said demonstrator Emad Abou Salem, 40. "He has legitimacy and nobody else does."

Opposition protester Ehab Nasser el-Din, 21, his head bandaged after being hit by a rock the day before, decried the Muslim Brotherhood's "grip on the country", which he said would only tighten if the new constitution is passed.

Another protester, Ahmed Abdel-Hakim, 23, accused the Brotherhood of "igniting the country in the name of religion".

Mursi's opponents accuse him of seeking to create a new "dictatorship". The president says his actions were necessary to prevent courts still full of judges appointed by Mubarak from derailing a constitution vital for Egypt's political transition.

Mursi has shown no sign of buckling under pressure from protesters, confident that the Islamists, who have dominated both elections since Mubarak was overthrown, can win the referendum and the parliamentary election to follow.

Mahmoud Hussein, the Brotherhood's secretary-general, said holding the plebiscite was the only way out of the crisis, dismissing the opposition as "remnants of the (Mubarak) regime, thugs and people working for foreign agendas".

As well as relying on his Brotherhood power base, Mursi may also tap into a popular yearning for stability and economic revival after almost two years of political turmoil.

The Egyptian pound sank on Thursday to its lowest level in eight years, after previously firming on hopes that a $4.8 billion IMF loan would stabilize the economy. The Egyptian stock market fell 4.4 percent after it opened.

Foreign exchange reserves fell by nearly $450 million to $15 billion in November, indicating that the Central Bank was still spending heavily to bolster the pound. The reserves stood at about $36 billion before the anti-Mubarak uprising.

(Additional reporting by Tom Perry and Yasmine Saleh; Writing by Alistair Lyon; Editing by Giles Elgood)

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Austrian farmers dip into Internet “milking” craze

VIENNA (Reuters) – Dumping a bottle of milk over your head and filming it for a video post on the Internet has become a popular youth craze, but Austrian farmers say the spillage is a crying shame.

“Milking”, as the trend is known, is among a variety of tongue-in-cheek stunts in which young people shoot pictures or videos of themselves posing as owls, planks of wood, or famous people and then share them on YouTube and other social media.

Austria’s AMA farm lobby on Wednesday launched its own “true milking” campaign to decry the wanton waste of dairy resources and to encourage consumers to drink it instead.

“At a time when too much food already lands in the trash, it is worth questioning dumping milk. This is a valuable product of nature that our farmers provide daily with lots of love and labor,” AMA milk marketing manager Peter Hamedinger said.

Milking has become an Internet hit, with one video from Newcastle in England getting more than half a million clicks on YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtJPAv1UiAE

AMA’s marketing arm said the milking craze seemed to reflect a strange youthful protest against authority. It sought to one-up the video trend with its own clip featuring a young man who holds a carton of milk high above his head and drinks the contents without spilling a drop.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsJ3OsP1Fks&feature=youtu.be

“In line with the nature of the medium, this message is not communicated in a commercial way and absolutely not with finger pointing, but rather with a wink of the eye for the Internet generation,” the farm products board said in a statement.

(Reporting by Michael Shields, editing by Paul Casciato)

Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Frankie Muniz Couldn't See or Speak During Mini-Stroke

Only on People.com

By Monica Rizzo

12/05/2012 at 11:40 AM EST

Nobody was more surprised to learn that former Malcolm in the Middle star Frankie Muniz had a mini-stroke last Friday than the actor and musician himself.

"I consider myself to be very healthy," says Muniz, who spoke to PEOPLE from his Phoenix home Tuesday afternoon. "I'm home and trying to relax and get ready to get back to work. My biggest problem is I always want to be working, going non-stop. So it's a wakeup call to take a little time and relax a bit."

Muniz, 27, says after a morning workout he hopped on his motorcycle to pick up a few things at the home of his fiancée Elycia Marie Turnbow's mother across town. As he was driving, the vision in his right eye began to blur.

"I thought I had something on the visor of my helmet. I couldn't focus out of my right eye," he says. "By the time I got to her mom's house I pretty much had no vision in my right eye."

By the time Muniz got home from the short drive, he felt even worse.

"I was really dizzy and in a lot of pain in my whole body and my head. My hands were numb. I didn't really have good balance and I was almost dropping the bike. I never had this before. I was like 'What's going on?' " he says, baffled at how quickly the symptoms came on and then intensified. "I felt like I was getting stabbed in the head – the worst headache you could ever think of. I couldn't see anything."

Less Invincible

Turnbow was home when he arrived and tried to assess his condition. "But I was saying things and she said, 'You're not speaking English,' " Muniz says. "It was really weird."

Muniz, who plays drums for the band Kingsfoil, went to a Phoenix area hospital, where he was treated and released. He's resting and still under a doctor's care, but plans to head out on an eight-date Northeast tour with the band this weekend.

Though Muniz admits he eats "like a 7 to 10-year-old-kid," he lives a healthy lifestyle.

"I never in my life had a sip of alcohol or even touched a drug," he says. "I take a lot of pride in that."

But the incident did leave him shaken. "They say it is usually a warning of maybe what could happen in the future," says Muniz. "It's changed my mentality when I'm going to eat now. I feel a lot less invincible."

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Longer tamoxifen use cuts breast cancer deaths

Breast cancer patients taking the drug tamoxifen can cut their chances of having the disease come back or kill them if they stay on the pills for 10 years instead of five years as doctors recommend now, a major study finds.

The results could change treatment, especially for younger women. The findings are a surprise because earlier research suggested that taking the hormone-blocking drug for longer than five years didn't help and might even be harmful.

In the new study, researchers found that women who took tamoxifen for 10 years lowered their risk of a recurrence by 25 percent and of dying of breast cancer by 29 percent compared to those who took the pills for just five years.

In absolute terms, continuing on tamoxifen kept three additional women out of every 100 from dying of breast cancer within five to 14 years from when their disease was diagnosed. When added to the benefit from the first five years of use, a decade of tamoxifen can cut breast cancer mortality in half during the second decade after diagnosis, researchers estimate.

Some women balk at taking a preventive drug for so long, but for those at high risk of a recurrence, "this will be a convincer that they should continue," said Dr. Peter Ravdin, director of the breast cancer program at the UT Health Science Center in San Antonio.

He reviewed results of the study, which was being presented Wednesday at a breast cancer conference in San Antonio and published by the British medical journal Lancet.

About 50,000 of the roughly 230,000 new cases of breast cancer in the United States each year occur in women before menopause. Most breast cancers are fueled by estrogen, and hormone blockers are known to cut the risk of recurrence in such cases.

Tamoxifen long was the top choice, but newer drugs called aromatase inhibitors — sold as Arimidex, Femara, Aromasin and in generic form — do the job with less risk of causing uterine cancer and other problems.

But the newer drugs don't work well before menopause. Even some women past menopause choose tamoxifen over the newer drugs, which cost more and have different side effects such as joint pain, bone loss and sexual problems.

The new study aimed to see whether over a very long time, longer treatment with tamoxifen could help.

Dr. Christina Davies of the University of Oxford in England and other researchers assigned 6,846 women who already had taken tamoxifen for five years to either stay on it or take dummy pills for another five years.

Researchers saw little difference in the groups five to nine years after diagnosis. But beyond that time, 15 percent of women who had stopped taking tamoxifen after five years had died of breast cancer versus 12 percent of those who took it for 10 years. Cancer had returned in 25 percent of women on the shorter treatment versus 21 percent of those treated longer.

Tamoxifen had some troubling side effects: Longer use nearly doubled the risk of endometrial cancer. But it rarely proved fatal, and there was no increased risk among premenopausal women in the study — the very group tamoxifen helps most.

"Overall the benefits of extended tamoxifen seemed to outweigh the risks substantially," Dr. Trevor Powles of the Cancer Centre London wrote in an editorial published with the study.

The study was sponsored by cancer research organizations in Britain and Europe, the United States Army, and AstraZeneca PLC, which makes Nolvadex, a brand of tamoxifen, which also is sold as a generic for 10 to 50 cents a day. Brand-name versions of the newer hormone blockers, aromatase inhibitors, are $300 or more per month, but generics are available for much less.

The results pose a quandary for breast cancer patients past menopause and those who become menopausal because of their treatment — the vast majority of cases. Previous studies found that starting on one of the newer hormone blockers led to fewer relapses than initial treatment with tamoxifen did.

Another study found that switching to one of the new drugs after five years of tamoxifen cut the risk of breast cancer recurrence nearly in half — more than what was seen in the new study of 10 years of tamoxifen.

"For postmenopausal women, the data still remain much stronger at this point for a switch to an aromatase inhibitor," said that study's leader, Dr. Paul Goss of Massachusetts General Hospital. He has been a paid speaker for a company that makes one of those drugs.

Women in his study have not been followed long enough to see whether switching cuts deaths from breast cancer, as 10 years of tamoxifen did. Results are expected in about a year.

The cancer conference is sponsored by the American Association for Cancer Research, Baylor College of Medicine and the UT Health Science Center.

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Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP

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Blue chips lead Wall Street bounce back

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks swung back to positive territory in late morning trading on Wednesday, led by gains in Dow components Caterpillar and The Travelers , while Citigroup's 5 percent gain boosted bank stocks.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> rose 72.71 points, or 0.56 percent, to 13,024.49. The S&P 500 <.spx> edged up 1.49 points, or 0.11 percent, to 1,408.54. The Nasdaq Composite <.ixic> dropped 17.86 points, or 0.60 percent, to 2,978.82.

Apple shares, down more than 4 percent, were the biggest drag on the Nasdaq.

(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos; Editing by Jan Paschal)

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Egypt's vice president suggests way out of crisis

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt's vice president proposed ideas on Wednesday to defuse unrest over a draft constitution that has polarized the most populous Arab nation, with Islamists fighting opposition protesters near the presidential palace.

Vice President Mahmoud Mekky said amendments to disputed articles could be agreed with the opposition. A written agreement could then be submitted to the next parliament, to be elected after a referendum on the constitution on December 15.

"There must be consensus," he told a news conference, saying opposition demands must be respected to overcome the crisis.

Egyptian opposition leader Amr Moussa said President Mohamed Mursi should make a formal offer for dialogue, rather than what Mekky had presented as personal ideas to resolve the row.

A senior Muslim Brotherhood official said Mekky's proposals needed to be crystallized.

"We are ready when there is something formal, something expressed in definite terms, we will not ignore it, especially if there is something useful," Moussa told Reuters during talks with other opposition figures.

The website of Al-Ahram said opposition leaders were discussing Mekky's proposals.

They have previously urged Mursi to retract a decree widening his powers, defer the plebiscite and agree to revise the constitution, but have not echoed calls from street protesters for his overthrow and the "downfall of the regime".

Mursi had returned to work at his compound a day after it came under siege from protesters furious at his assumption of extraordinary powers via an edict on November 22.

Mursi, narrowly elected by popular vote in June, said he acted to stop courts still full of judges appointed by ousted strongman Hosni Mubarak from derailing a constitution meant to complete a political transition in Egypt, long a strategic ally of Washington and signatory to a 1979 peace deal with Israel.

Rival groups threw stones at each other outside the presidential palace in northern Cairo on Wednesday. Islamist supporters of Mursi tore down tents erected by leftist foes, who had begun a sit-in there.

"They hit us and destroyed our tents. Are you happy, Mursi? Aren't we Egyptians too?" asked protester Haitham Ahmed.

Dozens of opposition supporters streamed away from the palace as hundreds of Islamists arrived, shouting, "God is greatest. The people support the president's decision."

Mohamed Mohy, a pro-Mursi demonstrator who was filming the scene, said: "We are here to support our president and his decisions and save our country from traitors and agents."

Facing the gravest crisis of his six-month-old tenure, Mursi has shown no sign of buckling, confident that Islamists can win the referendum and a parliamentary election to follow.

Many Egyptians yearn for an end to political upheaval that has scared off investors and tourists, damaging the economy.

Mekky said street mobilization by both sides posed a "real danger" to Egypt. "If we do not put a stop to this phenomenon right away ..., where are we headed? We must calm down."

DIALOGUE

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton weighed into Egypt's political debate, saying dialogue was urgently needed on the new constitution, which should "respect the rights of all citizens".

Clinton and Mursi worked together last month to broker a truce between Israel and Hamas Islamists in the Gaza Strip.

"It needs to be a two-way dialogue ... among Egyptians themselves about the constitutional process and the substance of the constitution," Clinton told a news conference in Brussels.

Washington is worried about rising Islamist power in Egypt, a staunch security partner under Mubarak, who preserved Cairo's peace treaty with Israel, a pact still bolstered by billions of dollars of U.S. military and economic assistance.

The Muslim Brotherhood, to which Mursi belonged before he was elected, had summoned supporters to an open-ended demonstration at the presidential palace on Wednesday to respond to "oppressive abuses" by opposition parties.

Brotherhood spokesman Mahmoud Ghozlan was quoted on its Facebook page as saying opposition groups "imagined they could shake legitimacy or impose their views by force".

Essam el-Erian, deputy head of the Brotherhood's political party, said: "The president will not retreat, and if the state apparatus is weakened by the wounds of the previous period, then the people can impose their will and protect legitimacy."

Leftist opposition leader Hamdeen Sabahy promptly urged his supporters to go to the streets as well, heightening the chances of confrontation between Islamists and their opponents.

Responding to the scuffles at the palace, opposition leader Mohamed ElBaradei urged Mursi via Twitter to protect protesters there if he wants to keep "what remains of his legitimacy".

About 10,000 protesters had encircled the palace on Tuesday for what organizers dubbed a "last warning" to Mursi. "The people want the downfall of the regime," they chanted, roaring the signature slogan of last year's uprising against Mubarak.

Officials said 35 protesters and 40 police were wounded.

"LEAVE"

The "last warning" may turn out to be one of the last gasps for a disparate opposition that has little chance of scuttling next week's vote on a constitution drawn up over six months and swiftly approved by an Islamist-dominated assembly.

Protesters have scrawled "leave" over Mursi's palace walls, but the president has made clear he is not going anywhere.

Ahmed Kamel, spokesman for the Congress Party led by former Arab League chief Amr Moussa, said Mursi should meet opposition demands, not call for an Islamist counter-demonstration.

Opposition leaders have urged Mursi to scrap his decree, defer the referendum and agree to revise the constitution, but have not echoed protesters' calls for his overthrow.

"The demands of the street are moving faster than those of the politicians," said Elijah Zarwan, a fellow with the European Council on Foreign Relations.

State institutions, with the partial exception of the judiciary, have mostly fallen in behind Mursi.

The army, the muscle behind all previous Egyptian presidents in the republic's six-decade history, has gone back to barracks, having apparently lost its appetite to intervene in politics.

In a bold move, Mursi sacked Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, the Mubarak-era army commander and defence minister, in August and removed the sweeping powers that the military council, which took over after Mubarak fell, had grabbed two months earlier.

The liberals, leftists, Christians, ex-Mubarak followers and others opposed to Mursi have yet to generate a mass movement or a grassroots political base to challenge the Brotherhood.

Investors have seized on hopes that Egypt's turbulent transition, which has buffeted the economy for two years, may soon head for calmer waters, sending stocks 1.6 percent higher after a 3.5 percent rally on Tuesday.

Egypt has turned to the IMF for a $4.8 billion loan to help it out of a crisis that has depleted its foreign currency reserves. The government said on Wednesday the process was on track and its request would go to the IMF board as expected.

The board is due to review the facility on December 19.

(Additional reporting by Tom Perry, Tamim Elyan and Edmund Blair; Writing by Alistair Lyon; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

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