Crisis over president's powers exposes Egypt divisions

CAIRO (Reuters) - Youths clashed with police in Cairo on Saturday as protests at new powers assumed by President Mohamed Mursi stretched into a second day, confronting Egypt with a crisis that has exposed the split between newly empowered Islamists and their opponents.

A handful of hardcore activists hurling rocks battled riot police in the streets near Tahrir Square, where several thousand protesters massed on Friday to demonstrate against a decree that has rallied opposition ranks against Mursi.

Following a day of violence in Cairo, Alexandria, Port Said and Suez, the smell of teargas hung over the square, the heart of the uprising that swept Hosni Mubarak from power in February 2011.

More than 300 people were injured on Friday. Offices of the Muslim Brotherhood, which propelled Mursi to power, were attacked in at least three cities.

Egypt's highest judicial authority said the decree marked an "unprecedented attack" on the independence of the judiciary, the state news agency reported.

Leftist, liberal and socialist parties have called for an open-ended sit-in with the aim of "toppling" the decree which has also drawn statements of concern from the United States and the European Union. A few dozen activists manning makeshift barricades kept traffic out of the square on Saturday.

Calling the decree "fascist and despotic", Mursi's critics called for a big protest on Tuesday against a move they say has revealed the autocratic impulses of a man jailed by Mubarak, who outlawed Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood.

"We are facing a historic moment in which we either complete our revolution or we abandon it to become prey for a group that has put its narrow party interests above the national interest," the liberal Dustour Party said in a statement.

Issued late on Thursday, the decree marks an effort by the Mursi administration to consolidate its influence after it successfully sidelined Mubarak-era generals in August.

The decree reflects the Muslim Brotherhood's suspicion towards sections of a judiciary unreformed from Mubarak's days: it guards from judicial review decisions taken by Mursi until a new parliament is elected in a vote expected early next year.

It also shields the assembly writing Egypt's new constitution from a raft of legal challenges that have threatened the Islamist-dominated assembly with dissolution.

The Mursi administration has defended the decree on the grounds that it aims to speed up a protracted transition from Mubarak's rule to a new system of democratic government.

"It aims to sideline Mursi's enemies in the judiciary and ultimately to impose and head off any legal challenges to the constitution," said Elijah Zarwan, a fellow with The European Council on Foreign Relations.

"We are in a situation now where both sides are escalating and its getting harder and harder to see how either side can gracefully climb down," Zarwan said.

"INTIFADA"

A central element of Egypt's transition, the drafting of the constitution has been plagued by divisions between Islamists and their more secular-minded opponents, nearly all of whom have withdrawn from the body writing the document.

Mursi's new powers allowed him to replace the prosecutor general - a Mubarak holdover who the new president had tried to replace in October only to kick up a storm of protest from the judiciary, which said he had exceeded his authorities.

At an emergency meeting called to discuss the decree, the Supreme Judicial Council, Egypt's highest judicial authority, urged "the president of the republic to distance this decree from everything that violates the judicial authority".

Al-Masry Al-Youm, one of Egypt's most widely read dailies, hailed Friday's protest as "The November 23 Intifada", invoking the Arabic word for uprising. "The people support the president's decisions," declared Freedom and Justice, the newspaper run by the Brotherhood's political party.

The ultraorthodox Salafi Islamist groups that have been pushing for tighter application of Islamic law in the new constitution have rallied behind the decree.

The Nour Party, one such group, stated its support for the Mursi decree. Al-Gama'a al-Islamiya, which carried arms against the state in the 1990s, said it would save the revolution from what it described as remnants of the Mubarak regime.

Facing the biggest storm of criticism since he won the presidential election in June, Mursi addressed his supporters outside the presidential palace on Friday. He said opposition did not worry him, but it had to be "real and strong".

Candidates defeated by Mursi in the presidential vote joined the protests against his decision on Friday. Former Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa was photographed linking arms with leftist Hamdeen Sabahi, liberal Mohamed ElBaradei and others.

Mursi is now confronted with a domestic crisis just as his administration won international praise for mediating an end to the eight-day war between Israel and Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

"The decisions and declarations announced on November 22 raise concerns for many Egyptians and for the international community," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said in a statement.

The European Union urged Mursi to respect the democratic process, while the United Nations expressed fears about human rights.

(Additional reporting by Omar Fahmy and Reuters TV; Editing by Alison Williams)

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Jessica Simpson Made You Say 'Wow' - And You're Laughing at the President

11/24/2012 at 09:15 AM EST

McKayla Maroney and President Barack Obama

Pete Souza/The White House/Getty

From baby news, to post baby-bodies and a scowl on President Obama, it's been an eclectic week on PEOPLE.com

As always, you've been reacting in droves, telling us what you love, what makes you mad, and what's making you LOL.

Check out the stories with top reactions on the site this week, and keep clicking on the emoticons at the bottom of each story to tell us what you think!

Nothing like a newborn baby to make you smile! Readers loved meeting Tamera Mowry-Housley's brand new baby boy, Aden.

Jaws likely dropped over Jessica Simpson's dramatic 60-pound weight loss, which she showed off at an event for her fashion line, the Jessica Simpson Collection. The hot mama worked her post-baby body in jeans and a hot pink blazer, drawing raves from fans.

Guess Taylor Swift fans aren't too fond of One Direction … or vice versa. Amid speculation that Swift is dating Harry Styles, readers clicked their displeasure.

Three teenagers at the same high school who committed suicide in the last two months saddened readers this week. Few details about the students have been released, but school superintendant Dr. Michael Murphy said, "Each incident seems to be in isolation of each other."

On a lighter note, Fab Five gymnast McKayla Maroney perfected her "not impressed" expression at the Olympic Games … and she's brought it all the way to the White House. President Obama mimicked the vault silver medalist's scowl, and regardless of where you stand on the political spectrum, everyone agreed the pic was laugh-out-loud funny.

Check back next week for another must-read roundup, and see what readers are reacting to every day here.

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AP PHOTOS: Simple surgery heals blind Indonesians

PADANG SIDEMPUAN, Indonesia (AP) — They came from the remotest parts of Indonesia, taking crowded overnight ferries and riding for hours in cars or buses — all in the hope that a simple, and free, surgical procedure would restore their eyesight.

Many patients were elderly and needed help to reach two hospitals in Sumatra where mass eye camps were held earlier this month by Nepalese surgeon Dr. Sanduk Ruit. During eight days, more than 1,400 cataracts were removed.

The patients camped out, sleeping side-by-side on military cots, eating donated food while fire trucks supplied water for showers and toilets. Many who had given up hope of seeing again left smiling after their bandages were removed.

"I've been blind for three years, and it's really bad," said Arlita Tobing, 65, whose sight was restored after the surgery. "I worked on someone's farm, but I couldn't work anymore."

Indonesia has one of the highest rates of blindness in the world, making it a target country for Ruit who travels throughout the developing world holding free mass eye camps while training doctors to perform the simple, stitch-free procedure he pioneered. He often visits hard-to-reach remote areas where health care is scarce and patients are poor. He believes that by teaching doctors how to perform his method of cataract removal, the rate of blindness can be reduced worldwide.

Cataracts are the leading cause of blindness globally, affecting about 20 million people who mostly live in poor countries, according to the World Health Organization.

"We get only one life, and that life is very short. I am blessed by God to have this opportunity," said Ruit, who runs the Tilganga Eye Center in Katmandu, Nepal. "The most important of that is training, taking the idea to other people."

During the recent camps, Ruit trained six doctors from Indonesia, Thailand and Singapore.

Here, in images, are scenes from the mobile eye camps:

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Wall Street Week Ahead: Political wrangling to pinch market's nerves

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Volatility is the name of this game.

With the S&P 500 above 1,400 following five days of gains, traders will be hard pressed not to cash in on the advance at the first sign of trouble during negotiations over tax hikes and spending cuts that resume next week in Washington.

President Barack Obama and U.S. congressional leaders are expected to discuss ways to reduce the budget deficit and avoid the "fiscal cliff" of automatic tax increases and spending cuts in 2013 that could tip the economy into recession.

As politicians make their case, markets could react with wild swings.

The CBOE Volatility Index <.vix>, known as the VIX, Wall Street's favorite barometer of market anxiety that usually moves in an inverse relationship with the S&P 500, is in a long-term decline with its 200-day moving average at its lowest in five years. The VIX could spike if dealings in Washington begin to stall.

"If the fiscal cliff happens, a lot of major assets will be down on a short-term basis because of the fear factor and the chaos factor," said Yu-Dee Chang, chief trader and sole principal of ACE Investments in Virginia.

"So whatever you are in, you're going to lose some money unless you go long the VIX and short the market. The 'upside risk' there is some kind of grand bargain, and then the market goes crazy."

He set the chances of the economy going over the cliff at only about 5 percent.

Many in the market agree there will be some sort of agreement that will fuel a rally, but the road there will be full of political landmines as Democrats and Republicans dig in on positions defended during the recent election.

Liberals want tax increases on the wealthiest Americans while protecting progressive advances in healthcare, while conservatives make a case for deep cuts in programs for the poor and a widening of the tax base to raise revenues without lifting tax rates.

"Both parties will raise the stakes and the pressure on the opposing side, so the market is going to feel much more concerned," said Tim Leach, chief investment officer of U.S. Bank Wealth Management in San Francisco.

"The administration feels really confident at this point, or a little more than the Republican side of Congress may feel," he said. "But it's still a balanced-power Congress so neither side can feel that they can act with impunity."

THE MIDDLE EAST AND EUROPE

Tension in the Middle East and unresolved talks in Europe over aid for Greece could add to the uncertainty and volatility on Wall Street could surge, analysts say.

An Egypt-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas came into force late on Wednesday after a week of conflict, but it was broken with the shooting of a Palestinian man by Israeli soldiers, according to Palestine's foreign minister.

Buoyed by accolades from around the world for mediating the truce, Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi assumed sweeping powers, angering his opponents and prompting violent clashes in central Cairo and other cities on Friday.

"Those kinds of potential large-scale conflicts can certainly overwhelm some of the fundamental data here at home," said U.S. Bank's Leach.

"We are trying to keep in mind the idea that there are a lot of factors that are probably going to contribute to higher volatility."

On a brighter note for markets, Greece's finance minister said the International Monetary Fund has relaxed its debt-cutting target for Greece and a gap of only $13 billion remains to be filled for a vital aid installment to be paid.

Still, a deal has not been struck, and Greece is increasingly frustrated at its lenders, still squabbling over a deal to unlock fresh aid even though Athens has pushed through unpopular austerity cuts.

HOUSING DATA COULD CONFIRM RECOVERY

Next week is heavy on economic data, especially on the housing front. Some of the numbers have been affected by Superstorm Sandy, which hit the U.S. East Coast more than three weeks ago, killing more than 100 people in the United States alone and leaving billions of dollars in damages.

The housing data, though, could continue to confirm a rebound in the sector that is seen as a necessary step to unlock spending and lower the stubbornly high unemployment rate.

Tuesday's S&P/Case-Shiller home price index for September is expected to show the eighth straight month of increases, extending the longest continuous string of gains since prices were boosted by a homebuyer tax credit in 2009 and 2010.

New home sales for October, due on Wednesday, and October pending home sales data, due on Thursday, are also expected to show a stronger housing market.

Other data highlights next week include durable goods orders for October and consumer confidence for November on Tuesday and the Chicago Purchasing Managers Index on Friday.

At Friday's close, the S&P 500 wrapped up its second-best week of the year with a 3.6 percent gain. Encouraging economic data next week could confirm that regardless of the ups and downs that the fiscal cliff could bring, the market's fundamentals are solid.

Jeff Morris, head of U.S. equities at Standard Life Investments in Boston, said that "it's kind of noise here" in terms of whether the market has spent "a few days up or down. It has made some solid gains over the course of the year as the housing recovery has come into view, and that's what's underpinning the market at these levels.

"I would caution against reading too much into the next few days."

(Wall St Week Ahead runs every Friday. Questions or comments on this column can be emailed to: rodrigo.campos(at)thomsonreuters.com)

(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos; Editing by Tim Dobbyn and Jan Paschal)

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Gaza ceasefire holds but mistrust runs deep

GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A ceasefire between Israel and Hamas held firm on Thursday with scenes of joy among the ruins in Gaza over what Palestinians hailed as a victory, and both sides saying their fingers were still on the trigger.

In the sudden calm, Palestinians who had been under Israeli bombs for eight days poured into Gaza streets for a celebratory rally, walking past wrecked houses and government buildings.

But as a precaution, schools stayed closed in southern Israel, where nerves were jangled by warning sirens - a false alarm, the army said - after a constant rain of rockets during the most serious Israeli-Palestinian fighting in four years.

Israel had launched its strikes last week with a declared aim of ending rocket attacks on its territory from Gaza, ruled by the Islamist militant group Hamas, which denies Israel's right to exist. Hamas had responded with more rockets.

The truce brokered by Egypt's new Islamist leaders, working with the United States, headed off an Israeli invasion of Gaza.

It was the fruit of intensive diplomacy spurred by U.S. President Barack Obama, who sent his secretary of state to Cairo and backed her up with phone calls to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi.

Mursi's role in cajoling his Islamist soulmates in Gaza into the U.S.-backed deal with Israel suggested that Washington can find ways to cooperate with the Muslim Brotherhood leader whom Egyptians elected after toppling former U.S. ally Hosni Mubarak, a bulwark of American policy in the Middle East for 30 years.

Mursi, preoccupied with Egypt's economic crisis, cannot afford to tamper with a 1979 peace treaty with Israel, despite its unpopularity with Egyptians, and needs U.S. financial aid.

MORE DEATHS

Despite the quiet on the battlefield, the death toll from the Gaza conflict crept up on both sides.

The body of Mohammed al-Dalu, 25, was recovered from the rubble of a house where nine of his relatives - four children and five women - were killed by an Israeli bomb this week.

That raised to 163 the number of Palestinians killed, more than half of them civilians, including 37 children, during the Israeli onslaught, according to Gaza medical officials.

Nearly 1,400 rockets struck Israel, killing four civilians and two soldiers, including an officer who died on Thursday of wounds sustained the day before, the Israeli army said.

Israel dropped 1,000 times as much explosive on the Gaza Strip as landed on its soil, Defense Minister Ehud Barak said.

Municipal workers in Gaza began cleaning streets and removing the rubble of bombed buildings. Stores opened and people flocked to markets to buy food.

Jubilant crowds celebrated, with most people waving green Hamas flags but some carrying the yellow emblems of the rival Fatah group, led by Western-backed President Mahmoud Abbas.

That marked a rare show of unity five years after Hamas, which won a Palestinian poll in 2006, forcibly wrested Gaza from Fatah, still dominant in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Israel began ferrying tanks northwards, away from the border, on transporters. It plans to discharge gradually tens of thousands of reservists called up for a possible Gaza invasion.

But trust between Israel and Hamas remains in short supply and both said they might well have to fight again.

"The battle with the enemy has not ended yet," Abu Ubaida, spokesman of Hamas's armed wing Izz el-Deen Al-Qassam Brigades, said at an event to mourn its acting military chief Ahmed al-Jaabari, whose killing by Israel on November 14 set off this round.

"HANDS ON TRIGGER"

The exiled leader of Hamas, Khaled Meshaal, said in Cairo his Islamist movement would respect the truce, but warned that if Israel violated it "our hands are on the trigger".

Netanyahu said he had agreed to "exhaust this opportunity for an extended truce", but told Israelis a tougher approach might be required in the future.

Facing a national election in two months, he swiftly came under fire from opposition politicians who had rallied to his side during the fighting but now contend he emerged from the conflict with no real gains for Israel.

"You don't settle with terrorism, you defeat it. And unfortunately, a decisive victory has not been achieved and we did not recharge our deterrence," Shaul Mofaz, leader of the main opposition Kadima party, wrote on his Facebook page.

In a speech, Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas's prime minister in Gaza, urged all Palestinian factions to respect the ceasefire and said his government and security services would monitor compliance.

According to a text of the agreement seen by Reuters, both sides should halt all hostilities, with Israel desisting from incursions and targeting of individuals, while all Palestinian factions should cease rocket fire and cross-border attacks.

The deal also provides for easing Israeli curbs on Gaza's residents, but the two sides disagreed on what this meant.

Israeli sources said Israel would not lift a blockade of the enclave it enforced after Hamas won a Palestinian election in 2006, but Meshaal said the deal covered the opening of all of the territory's border crossings with Israel and Egypt.

Israel let dozens of trucks carry supplies into the Palestinian enclave during the fighting. Residents there have long complained that Israeli restrictions blight their economy.

Barak said Hamas, which declared November 22 a national holiday to mark its "victory", had suffered heavy military blows.

"A large part of the mid-range rockets were destroyed. Hamas managed to hit Israel's built-up areas with around a metric tone of explosives, and Gaza targets got around 1,000 metric tonnes," he said.

He dismissed a ceasefire text published by Hamas, saying: "The right to self-defense trumps any piece of paper."

He appeared to confirm, however, a Hamas claim that the Israelis would no longer enforce a no-go zone on the Gaza side of the frontier that the army says has prevented Hamas raids.

(Additional reporting by Noah Browning in Gaza, Ori Lewis, Crispian Balmer and Dan Williams in Jerusalem; Writing by Jeffrey Heller and Alistair Lyon; Editing by Giles Elgood)

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Jake Owen Welcomes a Daughter

Mom & Babies
Celebrity Baby Blog

11/22/2012 at 08:30 PM ET

Courtesy Jake Owen

It’s a Thanksgiving baby!

Jake Owen and his wife Lacey welcomed their first child, daughter Olive Pearl Owen, on Thursday, Nov. 22 in Nashville, Tenn., his rep confirms to PEOPLE.

Pearl, as she will be called after Owen’s late godmother, weighed in at 6 lbs., 3 oz. and is 19½ inches long.

“Lacey and I are so excited to start our own family,” Owen, 31, tells PEOPLE. “We are looking forward to teaching Pearl everything we learned from our parents and also learning from her.”

Sharing a photo of his newborn daughter on Twitter, the musician wrote, “Today is the greatest day of my life. Turkey baby!!! Happy Thanksgiving.”

It’s been a whirlwind year for Owen and his wife, 22. After getting engaged on stage in April, the couple wed on the beach in May and announced the pregnancy in July.

– Sarah Michaud with reporting by Julie Dam

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AP PHOTOS: Simple surgery heals blind Indonesians

PADANG SIDEMPUAN, Indonesia (AP) — They came from the remotest parts of Indonesia, taking crowded overnight ferries and riding for hours in cars or buses — all in the hope that a simple, and free, surgical procedure would restore their eyesight.

Many patients were elderly and needed help to reach two hospitals in Sumatra where mass eye camps were held earlier this month by Nepalese surgeon Dr. Sanduk Ruit. During eight days, more than 1,400 cataracts were removed.

The patients camped out, sleeping side-by-side on military cots, eating donated food while fire trucks supplied water for showers and toilets. Many who had given up hope of seeing again left smiling after their bandages were removed.

"I've been blind for three years, and it's really bad," said Arlita Tobing, 65, whose sight was restored after the surgery. "I worked on someone's farm, but I couldn't work anymore."

Indonesia has one of the highest rates of blindness in the world, making it a target country for Ruit who travels throughout the developing world holding free mass eye camps while training doctors to perform the simple, stitch-free procedure he pioneered. He often visits hard-to-reach remote areas where health care is scarce and patients are poor. He believes that by teaching doctors how to perform his method of cataract removal, the rate of blindness can be reduced worldwide.

Cataracts are the leading cause of blindness globally, affecting about 20 million people who mostly live in poor countries, according to the World Health Organization.

"We get only one life, and that life is very short. I am blessed by God to have this opportunity," said Ruit, who runs the Tilganga Eye Center in Katmandu, Nepal. "The most important of that is training, taking the idea to other people."

During the recent camps, Ruit trained six doctors from Indonesia, Thailand and Singapore.

Here, in images, are scenes from the mobile eye camps:

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Wall Street up on Greece hopes, retail in focus

Some of the very same Republicans who have spent the last two weeks bashing Mitt Romney were, indeed, sucking up to him at a massive rally the Friday before the election — even angling for jobs in the Romney administration — a Romney adviser complains. At a rally with 100 Romney surrogates in West Chester, Ohio, Romney aide Dan Senor revealed on MSNBC Wednesday, the Romney bashers were Romney fawners. "I’m backstage with some of them, I won’t mention their names, but they’re talking about Romney like he’s Reagan," Senor said. ...

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Gaza ceasefire takes hold but mistrust runs deep

GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A ceasefire between Israel and Hamas took hold on Thursday with scenes of joy among the ruins in Gaza over what Palestinians hailed as a victory, and both sides saying their fingers were still on the trigger.

Quiet reigned on both sides of the border and Palestinians who had been under Israeli bombardment for eight days poured into the streets of Gaza for a celebratory rally, walking past wrecked houses and government buildings.

But as a precaution, schools stayed closed in southern Israel, where nerves were jangled by warning sirens - a false alarm, the army said - after a constant rain of rockets during the most serious Israeli-Palestinian fighting in four years.

Israel had launched its strikes last week with a declared aim of ending rocket attacks on its territory from Gaza, ruled by the Islamist militant group Hamas which denies Israel's right to exist. Hamas had responded with more rockets.

The truce brokered by Egypt's new Islamist government, working with the United States, prevented - at least for now - an Israeli invasion of Gaza.

Gaza medical officials said 162 Palestinians, more than half of them civilians including 37 children, were killed in the conflict. Nearly 1,400 rockets were fired into Israel, killing four civilians and two soldiers, including an officer who died on Thursday of wounds sustained on Wednesday, the Israeli army said.

Israel's defense minister, Ehud Barak, said it dropped 1,000 times as much explosive on the Gaza Strip as had landed in Israel.

Municipal workers in Gaza began cleaning streets and removing the rubble of buildings bombed in Israel's air strikes. Stores opened and people flocked to markets to buy food.

"Israel learnt a lesson it will never forget," said 51-year-old Khalil al-Rass from Beach refugee camp in the city of Gaza.

Jubilant crowds celebrated in Gaza, in a rare show of Palestinian unity five years after a brief civil war in which Hamas, elected to govern in a 2006 poll, wrested the territory from the rival Fatah movement that controls the West Bank.

Most of those celebrating on Thursday waved green Hamas flags but there were also hundreds with the yellow emblems of Fatah, led by Western-backed President Mahmoud Abbas.

He phoned Gaza chief and prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, to "congratulate him on the victory and extend condolences to the families of the martyrs", Haniyeh's office said.

In rocket-hit towns in southern Israel, schools remained closed as a precaution. Nerves were jangled when warning sirens sounded, in what the military quickly said was a false alarm.

Trust was in short supply. The exiled leader of Hamas, Khaled Meshaal, said his Islamist movement would respect the truce if Israel did, but would respond to any violations.

"If Israel complies, we are compliant. If it does not comply, our hands are on the trigger," he told a news conference in Cairo.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had agreed to "exhaust this opportunity for an extended truce", but told his people a tougher approach might be required in the future.

Facing a national election in two months, he swiftly came under fire from opposition politicians who had rallied to his side during the fighting but now contend he emerged from the conflict with no real gains for Israel.

"You don't settle with terrorism, you defeat it. And unfortunately, a decisive victory has not been achieved and we did not recharge our deterrence," Shaul Mofaz, leader of the main opposition Kadima party, wrote on his Facebook page.

BLOCKADE

Israel planned to discharge gradually tens of thousands of reservists called up for a possible Gaza invasion. The first tanks were seen being ferried north, away from the border, on transporters on Thursday.

In a speech, Haniyeh appealed to all Palestinian groups in Gaza to respect the ceasefire and cautioned that the "relevant government and security services" would monitor compliance.

Both sides quickly began offering differing interpretations of the ceasefire, which highlighted the many actual or potential areas of discord.

According to a text of the agreement seen by Reuters, both sides should halt all hostilities, with Israel desisting from incursions and targeting of individuals, while all Palestinian factions should cease rocket fire and cross-border attacks.

The deal also provides for easing Israeli restrictions on Gaza's residents, who live in what British Prime Minister David Cameron has called an "open prison".

The text said procedures for implementing this would be "dealt with after 24 hours from the start of the ceasefire".

Israeli sources said Israel would not lift a blockade of the enclave it enforced after Hamas, which preaches the Jewish state's destruction, won a Palestinian election in 2006.

However, Meshaal said the deal covered the opening of all of the territory's border crossings.

Israel let dozens of trucks carry supplies into the Palestinian enclave during the fighting. Residents there have long complained that Israeli restrictions blight their economy.

HAMAS HOLIDAY

Meshaal thanked Egypt for mediating and praised Iran for providing Gazans with financing and arms.

"We have come out of this battle with our heads up high," he said, adding that Israel had been defeated and failed in its "adventure".

Barak said Hamas, which declared November 22 a national holiday, had suffered a heavy military blow, including the death of its top commander, killed in an air strike at the start of the operation on November 14.

"A large part of the mid-range rockets were destroyed. Hamas managed to hit Israel's built-up areas with around a metric tonne of explosives, and Gaza targets got around 1,000 metric tonnes," Barak told Israel Radio.

"So whoever misses what is happening in Gaza does not understand that this entire agreement is a paper bridge for the defeated so that they can explain to their public how they can even show their faces after what they were hit with for a week."

Some Israelis staged protests against the deal, notably in the southern town of Kiryat Malachi, where three civilians were killed by a rocket from Gaza last week, army radio said.

Interviewed on Israel's Army Radio, Barak dismissed a ceasefire text published by Hamas as "a piece of paper which I don't remember anyone going around with - there's no signature on it".

He appeared to confirm, however, a key Hamas claim that the Israelis would no longer enforce a no-go zone on the Gaza side of the frontier that the army says has prevented Hamas raids:

"If there are no attacks along the border ... then I tell you that there is no problem with them working the farmland on the perimeter up to the fence," Barak said.

But should the Palestinians exploit such measures to breach the truce, Israel would be "free to act," he said, adding: "The right to self-defense trumps any piece of paper."

CAIRO

Egypt, an important U.S. ally now under Islamist leadership, took centre stage in diplomacy to halt the bloodshed. Cairo has walked a fine line between sympathies for Hamas, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood that produced President Mohamed Mursi and much of his government, and preserving its 1979 peace treaty with Israel and its ties with Washington, its main aid donor.

Announcing the agreement in Cairo, Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohamed Kamel Amr said mediation had "resulted in understandings to cease fire, restore calm and halt the bloodshed".

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, standing beside Amr, thanked Mursi for peace efforts that showed "responsibility, leadership" in the region.

Gaza erupted in a Middle East already shaken by last year's Arab revolts that toppled several veteran U.S.-backed leaders, including Egypt's Hosni Mubarak, and by a civil war in Syria, where President Bashar al-Assad is fighting for survival.

Israel, the United States and the European Union all classify Hamas as a terrorist organization. But its stance is popular with many Palestinians and has kept the movement competitive with Fatah.

(Additional reporting by Noah Browning in Gaza, Ori Lewis, Allyn Fisher-Ilan, Crispian Balmer and Dan Williams in Jerusalem and Marwa Awad, Yasmine Saleh, Shaimaa Fayed and Tom Perry in Cairo; Writing by Jeffrey Heller; Editing by Peter Graff)

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Miranda Lambert Channels Katniss on a Thanksgiving Hunting Spree

By Andrea Billups and Jessica Herndon

11/22/2012 at 09:00 AM EST

The couple who hunts together stays together?

This might just be the holiday philosophy embraced by country lovebirds Blake Shelton and Miranda Lambert who have Tweeted words of praise for one another as they take to the Oklahoma woods for some pre-Thanksgiving sportsmanship.

Tagging her Twitter photos #katnissforever, Lambert posted a photo of herself in camouflage, a bow and binoculars while toting a pink cup. She lyrically Tweeted to her husband, quoting a Waylon Jennings song: "Baby it's time we got back to the basics of love ... first time in the woods this season. & with BS."

Shelton also told PEOPLE Tuesday night at The Voice that his country star wife can more than rock the outdoors-man vibe.

"I'll tell you, we went huntin' a few nights ago and she actually caught a wild hog with a bow and arrow," Shelton praised. "Miranda is the real deal. She doesn't just sing about guns and things like that. She does it. She's a big bow hunter. People don't know that about her."

Her mad skills, Shelton adds, are also sexy.

"It's so impressive to see this hot girl walking out of the house with this bow and arrow and shooting things with it," he said. "I love it. I hope that's what we do again on Thanksgiving."

In addition to her hunting, Lambert also is ready to get her Black Friday on. She's set to open her own store, The Pink Pistol, in Tishomingo, Okla., on Friday.

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