As Rebels Gain, Congo Again Slips Into Chaos

GOMA, Democratic Republic of Congo — The lights are out in most of Goma. There is little water. The prison is an empty, garbage-strewn wasteland with its rusty front gate swinging wide open and a three-foot hole punched through the back wall, letting loose 1,200 killers, rapists, rogue soldiers and other criminals.

Now, rebel fighters are going house to house arresting people, many of whom have not been seen again by their families.

“You say the littlest thing and they disappear you,” said an unemployed man named Luke.

In the past week, the rebels have been unstoppable, steamrolling through one town after another, seizing this provincial capital, and eviscerating a dysfunctional Congolese Army whose drunken soldiers stumble around with rocket-propelled grenades and whose chief of staff was suspended for selling crates of ammunition to elephant poachers.

Riots are exploding across the country — in Bukavu, Butembo, Bunia, Kisangani and Kinshasa, the capital, a thousand miles away. Mobs are pouring into streets, burning down government buildings and demanding the ouster of Congo’s weak and widely despised president, Joseph Kabila.

Once again, chaos is courting Congo. And one pressing question is, why — after all the billions of dollars spent on peacekeepers, the recent legislation passed on Capitol Hill to cut the link between the illicit mineral trade and insurrection, and all the aid money and diplomatic capital — is this vast nation in the heart of Africa descending to where it was more than 10 years ago when foreign armies and marauding rebels carved it into fiefs?

“We haven’t really touched the root cause,” said Aloys Tegera, a director for the Pole Institute, a research institute in Goma.

He said Congo’s chronic instability is rooted in very local tensions over land, power and identity, especially along the Rwandan and Ugandan borders. “But no one wants to touch this because it’s too complicated,” he added.

The most realistic solution, said another Congo analyst, is not a formal peace process driven by diplomats but “a peace among all the dons, like Don Corleone imposed in New York.”

Congo’s problems have been festering for years, wounds that never quite scabbed over.

But last week there was new urgency after hundreds of rebel fighters, wearing rubber swamp boots and with belt-fed machine guns slung across their backs, marched into Goma, the capital of North Kivu Province and one of the country’s most important cities.

The rebels, called the M23, are a heavily armed paradox. On one hand, they are ruthless. Human rights groups have documented how they have slaughtered civilians, pulling confused villagers out of their huts in the middle of the night and shooting them in the head.

On the other hand, the M23 are able administrators — seemingly far better than the Congolese government, evidenced by a visit in recent days to their stronghold, Rutshuru, a small town about 45 miles from Goma.

In Rutshuru, there are none of those ubiquitous plastic bags twisted in the trees, like in so many other parts of Congo. The gravel roads have been swept clean and the government offices are spotless. Hand-painted signs read: “M23 Stop Corruption.” The rebels even have green thumbs, planting thousands of trees in recent months to fight soil erosion.

“We are not a rebellion,” said Benjamin Mbonimpa, an electrical engineer, a bush fighter and now a top rebel administrator. “We are a revolution.”

Their aims, he said, were to overthrow the government and set up a more equitable, decentralized political system. This is why the rebels have balked at negotiating with Mr. Kabila, though this weekend several rebels said that the pressure was increasing on them to compromise, especially coming from Western countries.

On Sunday, rebel forces and government troops were still squared off, just a few miles apart, down the road from Goma.

The M23 rebels are widely believed to be covertly supported by Rwanda, which has a long history of meddling in Congo, its neighbor blessed with gold, diamonds and other glittering mineral riches. The Rwandan government strenuously denies supplying weapons to the M23 or trying to annex eastern Congo. Rwanda has often denied any clandestine involvement in this country, only to have the denials later exposed as lies.

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Prince Charles Is Impatient to Be King - Or Is He Joking?

By Andrea Billups

11/26/2012 at 08:45 AM EST

Prince Charles and Queen Elizabeth

Indigo/Getty; Abaca

Is the man who would be king tired of waiting his turn?

Speculation reigned in Great Britain this weekend after Prince Charles spoke of his "impatience" at an event to promote his 64th birthday at Dumfries House, a once-stately residence that the royal has worked to rehabilitate and save for his country.

"Impatient? Me? What a thing to suggest! Yes, of course I am," joked the Prince who passed his great-great grandfather Edward VII as the longest-waiting heir in his nation's history. "I'll run out of time soon. I shall have snuffed it if I'm not careful."

His mother, Queen Elizabeth, has served her country for 60 years and remains in good health at 86. Her own mother lived in be 101 in a genetic predisposition for longevity that could see Prince Charles cooling his heels for years longer as his sons, Princes William and Harry, grab the spotlight.

Although the Prince made his remarks as he was commenting at the Dumfries House gathering, royal observers say while he has praised his mother's longevity, it isn't the first time the prince has quipped about ascending the throne while he's still youthful.

British newspapers, in reporting his Dumfries House comments, noted that in 1992, when Prince Charles attended a funeral for his then father-in-law Earl Spencer, he confided to his brother-in-law Charles Spencer: "You are fortunate enough to have succeeded to the title when still young."

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Bounce houses a party hit but kids' injuries soar

CHICAGO (AP) — They may be a big hit at kids' birthday parties, but inflatable bounce houses can be dangerous, with the number of injuries soaring in recent years, a nationwide study found.

Kids often crowd into bounce houses, and jumping up and down can send other children flying into the air, too.

The numbers suggest 30 U.S. children a day are treated in emergency rooms for broken bones, sprains, cuts and concussions from bounce house accidents. Most involve children falling inside or out of the inflated playthings, and many children get hurt when they collide with other bouncing kids.

The number of children aged 17 and younger who got emergency-room treatment for bounce house injuries has climbed along with the popularity of bounce houses — from fewer than 1,000 in 1995 to nearly 11,000 in 2010. That's a 15-fold increase, and a doubling just since 2008.

"I was surprised by the number, especially by the rapid increase in the number of injuries," said lead author Dr. Gary Smith, director of the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio.

Amusement parks and fairs have bounce houses, and the playthings can also be rented or purchased for home use.

Smith and colleagues analyzed national surveillance data on ER treatment for nonfatal injuries linked with bounce houses, maintained by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. Their study was published online Monday in the journal Pediatrics.

Only about 3 percent of children were hospitalized, mostly for broken bones.

More than one-third of the injuries were in children aged 5 and younger. The safety commission recommends against letting children younger than 6 use full-size trampolines, and Smith said barring kids that young from even smaller, home-use bounce houses would make sense.

"There is no evidence that the size or location of an inflatable bouncer affects the injury risk," he said.

Other recommendations, often listed in manufacturers' instruction pamphlets, include not overloading bounce houses with too many kids and not allowing young children to bounce with much older, heavier kids or adults, said Laura Woodburn, a spokeswoman for the National Association of Amusement Ride Safety Officials.

The study didn't include deaths, but some accidents are fatal. Separate data from the product safety commission show four bounce house deaths from 2003 to 2007, all involving children striking their heads on a hard surface.

Several nonfatal accidents occurred last year when bounce houses collapsed or were lifted by high winds.

A group that issues voluntary industry standards says bounce houses should be supervised by trained operators and recommends that bouncers be prohibited from doing flips and purposefully colliding with others, the study authors noted.

Bounce house injuries are similar to those linked with trampolines, and the American Academy of Pediatrics has recommended against using trampolines at home. Policymakers should consider whether bounce houses warrant similar precautions, the authors said.

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

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Review of Burbank Police Department finds deficiencies

A recent report on the Burbank Police Department's internal investigations and its responses to officers' use of force found deficiencies in timeliness, evidence gathering and problem spotting.

The report by the Los Angeles County Office of Independent Review, which the city hired last year for department oversight, comes at a time when the law enforcement agency is reeling from excessive-force allegations, officer-involved lawsuits and a federal investigation into alleged officer misconduct.

The report did note some improvements compared with "below baseline" cases from previous years.

"The consensus we found, generally speaking, was that the [investigative] efforts by your Police Department were really an objective search for truth," said Michael Gennaco, chief attorney on the review board. "That doesn't mean every investigation was perfect."

The team of attorneys reviewed six internal investigations and 11 use-of-force incidents that were closed this year.

Gennaco's biggest concern was the time it took to complete the investigations. Of the six internal investigations reviewed, one had expired. The officer was never disciplined for failing to document a sexual battery allegation because the investigation wasn't finished on time.

State law gives officials one year to complete internal investigations.

"The worst thing you want to do is have an officer who should have been held accountable not be held accountable because of a technicality," Gennaco said.

In another case, an officer was interviewed eight months after the incident in question and couldn't recall the details, making it difficult "to challenge the officer," he said.

Most investigations, however, were completed within a few months of the incidents.

The report found that the department's use-of-force response protocols were thoughtful and thorough, although they were not always fully implemented.

Pointing out shortcomings in witness interviews, the report cited a case involving use of force against a juvenile: The suspect's story differed from the officer's, but other officers who had been there were not interviewed.

The review board also discovered instances in which suspects' injuries weren't prioritized. A suspect who had been kicked by an officer — in the same spot where he'd been shot years earlier — complained of stomach pain three times before he was sent to a medical facility.

Another suspect, who was said to be intoxicated and uncooperative when arrested, complained of pain for two days while in custody. It was discovered later that his finger was broken.

Interim Police Chief Scott LaChasse said the department has been implementing changes to address the review board's concerns.

"Today, there's probably more strict instruction in terms of taking complaints and doing a full, complete investigation," LaChasse said.

Gennaco commended the city for its transparency.

"It's going to be uncomfortable for some — change always is, transparency always is," he said. "The curtain's been thrown open. Light has been allowed in."

alene.tchekmedyian@latimes.com

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White House Presses for Drone Rule Book

WASHINGTON — Facing the possibility that President Obama might not win a second term, his administration accelerated work in the weeks before the election to develop explicit rules for the targeted killing of terrorists by unmanned drones, so that a new president would inherit clear standards and procedures, according to two administration officials.

The matter may have lost some urgency after Nov. 6. But with more than 300 drone strikes and some 2,500 people killed by the Central Intelligence Agency and the military since Mr. Obama first took office, the administration is still pushing to make the rules formal and resolve internal uncertainty and disagreement about exactly when lethal action is justified.

Mr. Obama and his advisers are still debating whether remote-control killing should be a measure of last resort against imminent threats to the United States, or a more flexible tool, available to help allied governments attack their enemies or to prevent militants from controlling territory.

Though publicly the administration presents a united front on the use of drones, behind the scenes there is longstanding tension. The Defense Department and the C.I.A. continue to press for greater latitude to carry out strikes; Justice Department and State Department officials, and the president’s counterterrorism adviser, John O. Brennan, have argued for restraint, officials involved in the discussions say.

More broadly, the administration’s legal reasoning has not persuaded many other countries that the strikes are acceptable under international law. For years before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the United States routinely condemned targeted killings of suspected terrorists by Israel, and most countries still object to such measures.

But since the first targeted killing by the United States in 2002, two administrations have taken the position that the United States is at war with Al Qaeda and its allies and can legally defend itself by striking its enemies wherever they are found.

Partly because United Nations officials know that the United States is setting a legal and ethical precedent for other countries developing armed drones, the U.N. plans to open a unit in Geneva early next year to investigate American drone strikes.

The attempt to write a formal rule book for targeted killing began last summer after news reports on the drone program, started under President George W. Bush and expanded by Mr. Obama, revealed some details of the president’s role in the shifting procedures for compiling “kill lists” and approving strikes. Though national security officials insist that the process is meticulous and lawful, the president and top aides believe it should be institutionalized, a course of action that seemed particularly urgent when it appeared that Mitt Romney might win the presidency.

“There was concern that the levers might no longer be in our hands,” said one official, speaking on condition of anonymity. With a continuing debate about the proper limits of drone strikes, Mr. Obama did not want to leave an “amorphous” program to his successor, the official said. The effort, which would have been rushed to completion by January had Mr. Romney won, will now be finished at a more leisurely pace, the official said.

Mr. Obama himself, in little-noticed remarks, has acknowledged that the legal governance of drone strikes is still a work in progress.

“One of the things we’ve got to do is put a legal architecture in place, and we need Congressional help in order to do that, to make sure that not only am I reined in but any president’s reined in terms of some of the decisions that we’re making,” Mr. Obama told Jon Stewart in an appearance on “The Daily Show” on Oct. 18.

In an interview with Mark Bowden for a new book on the killing of Osama bin Laden, “The Finish,” Mr. Obama said that “creating a legal structure, processes, with oversight checks on how we use unmanned weapons, is going to be a challenge for me and my successors for some time to come.”

The president expressed wariness of the powerful temptation drones pose to policy makers. “There’s a remoteness to it that makes it tempting to think that somehow we can, without any mess on our hands, solve vexing security problems,” he said.

Despite public remarks by Mr. Obama and his aides on the legal basis for targeted killing, the program remains officially classified. In court, fighting lawsuits filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and The New York Times seeking secret legal opinions on targeted killings, the government has refused even to acknowledge the existence of the drone program in Pakistan.

But by many accounts, there has been a significant shift in the nature of the targets. In the early years, most strikes were aimed at ranking leaders of Al Qaeda thought to be plotting to attack the United States. That is the purpose Mr. Obama has emphasized, saying in a CNN interview in September that drones were used to prevent “an operational plot against the United States” and counter “terrorist networks that target the United States.”

But for at least two years in Pakistan, partly because of the C.I.A.’s success in decimating Al Qaeda’s top ranks, most strikes have been directed at militants whose main battle is with the Pakistani authorities or who fight with the Taliban against American troops in Afghanistan.

In Yemen, some strikes apparently launched by the United States killed militants who were preparing to attack Yemeni military forces. Some of those killed were wearing suicide vests, according to Yemeni news reports.

“Unless they were about to get on a flight to New York to conduct an attack, they were not an imminent threat to the United States,” said Micah Zenko, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who is a critic of the strikes. “We don’t say that we’re the counterinsurgency air force of Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, but we are.”

Then there is the matter of strikes against people whose identities are unknown. In an online video chat in January, Mr. Obama spoke of the strikes in Pakistan as “a targeted, focused effort at people who are on a list of active terrorists.” But for several years, first in Pakistan and later in Yemen, in addition to “personality strikes” against named terrorists, the C.I.A. and the military have carried out “signature strikes” against groups of suspected, unknown militants.

Originally that term was used to suggest the specific “signature” of a known high-level terrorist, such as his vehicle parked at a meeting place. But the word evolved to mean the “signature” of militants in general — for instance, young men toting arms in an area controlled by extremist groups. Such strikes have prompted the greatest conflict inside the Obama administration, with some officials questioning whether killing unidentified fighters is legally justified or worth the local backlash.

Many people inside and outside the government have argued for far greater candor about all of the strikes, saying excessive secrecy has prevented public debate in Congress or a full explanation of their rationale. Experts say the strikes are deeply unpopular both in Pakistan and Yemen, in part because of allegations of large numbers of civilian casualties, which American officials say are exaggerated.

Gregory D. Johnsen, author of “The Last Refuge: Yemen, Al Qaeda and America’s War in Arabia,” argues that the strike strategy is backfiring in Yemen. “In Yemen, Al Qaeda is actually expanding,” Mr. Johnsen said in a recent talk at the Brookings Institution, in part because of the backlash against the strikes.

Shuja Nawaz, a Pakistan-born analyst now at the Atlantic Council in Washington, said the United States should start making public a detailed account of the results of each strike, including any collateral deaths, in part to counter propaganda from jihadist groups. “This is a grand opportunity for the Obama administration to take the drones out of the shadows and to be open about their objectives,” he said.

But the administration appears to be a long way from embracing such openness. The draft rule book for drone strikes that has been passed among agencies over the last several months is so highly classified, officials said, that it is hand-carried from office to office rather than sent by e-mail.

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Saudi telco regulator suspends Mobily prepaid sim sales

(Reuters) – Saudi Arabia‘s No.2 telecom operator Etihad Etisalat Co (Mobily) has been suspended from selling pre-paid sim cards by the industry regulator, the firm said in a statement to the kingdom’s bourse on Sunday.

Mobily’s sales of pre-paid, or pay-as-you-go, sim cards will remain halted until the company “fully meets the prepaid service provisioning requirements,” the telco said in the statement.

These requirements include a September order from regulator, Communication and Information Technology Commission (CITC). This states all pre-paid sim users must enter a personal identification number when recharging their accounts and that this number must be the same as the one registered with their mobile operator when the sim card was bought, according to a statement on the CITC website.

This measure is designed to ensure customer account details are kept up to date, the CITC said.

Mobily said the financial impact of the CITC’s decision would be “insignificant”, claiming data, corporate and postpaid revenues would meet its main growth drivers.

The firm, which competes with Saudi Telecom Co (STC) and Zain Saudi, reported a 23 percent rise in third-quarter profit in October, beating forecasts.

Prepaid mobile subscriptions are typically more popular among middle and lower income groups, with telecom operators pushing customers to shift to monthly contracts that include a data allowance.

Customers on monthly, or postpaid, contracts are also less likely to switch provider, but the bulk of customers remain on pre-paid accounts.

Mobily shares were trading down 1.4 percent at 0820 GMT on the Saudi bourse.

(Reporting by Matt Smith; Editing by Dinesh Nair)

Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Lindsay Lohan Is a Fascinating (if Terrible) Elizabeth Taylor in Liz & Dick: Review

TV Watch

TV News

By Tom Gliatto

11/25/2012 at 09:20 AM EST

    

Completely miscast as Elizabeth Taylor in Liz & Dick, Lindsay Lohan makes a reckless but brave dive into a pool that anyone can see is empty. And yet she survives.

The Liz showcased in this unrevealing bio is Taylor in the years of her stormy, world-publicized life with Richard Burton (Grant Bowler). By this point in her career, nearing 40, the legendary beauty was giving way to the gauzy celebrity who sailed through decades on a golden barge rowed by paparazzi.

Lohan, 26, suggests this Taylor only in a few carefully lit close-ups: She's gorgeous, full-faced, worn. As the still-later Taylor, the perfume merchandiser with the spiked plumes of hair, she looks more like Joan Collins stapled in half. She captures none of Taylor's generously displayed voluptuousness, none of the sloppy good humor that endeared her to the public – not even that glass-scratching voice.

This is not Julianne Moore as Sarah Palin.

But Lohan, despite all her career troubles, is still a star. And one star playing another makes for a fascinating performance, if not a great or even good one. She has thrown herself into an impossible project, in a grand gamble to reestablish herself, and she attacks the part with a relentless, huffing-and-puffing determination that throws any acting technique under the bus and yet still rivets attention.

It's an approach, really, not much different from Taylor's own performances.

Bowler is a flawless Burton, but Lohan's single-minded fierceness obliterates him. Jack Black could have played Dick, and I wouldn't have noticed.

Liz & Dick airs Nov. 25 (9 p.m. ET) on Lifetime.

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History comes alive in artist's renderings of Southland buildings

Growing up amid the deterioration of Communist-controlled Czechoslovakia, artist Iva Hladis sought out the beauty and craftsmanship of the aged burgher houses along Nerudova Street and the sublime architectural stew of Prague Castle.

When she settled in Los Angeles in the 1980s after a daring escape to freedom over the Alps, she felt surrounded by mini-malls, glitzy high-rises and faux palaces — architecture she found to be "very mundane, boring, almost ugly."

In her meanderings through the city, however, she gradually located buildings of character, charm and, yes, beauty, if not the antiquity of Czech castles.

Some were wedged between contemporary mundanities; others abided only in faded photographs. Putting graphite pencil to fine paper, she began to sketch edifices, spending several days on each intricate work.

A baker's dozen of the architectural renderings are on exhibit through Dec. 5 at District Gallery, a project of the nonprofit Los Angeles Downtown Arts District Space. At the opening reception Nov. 15, crowds jammed the compact space.

Titled "Timeless Treasures," the show features Hladis' layered depictions of such past or present icons as the Pantages Theatre, City Hall, the Eastern Columbia building and Donut Chalet. Each work is set in a historic period and contains embellishments — floating light bulbs, for example, in the 39-by-30-inch drawing of the 1931 Edison building, which took 126 hours to complete.

Hladis, 47, scours library photo archives and the Internet for inspiration. Most of the works are about 10 by 10 inches and take her between 20 and 40 hours to create.

She modeled her drawing of the Pantages on a March 1954 newspaper photo, when the theater marquee touted the 26th Annual Academy Awards Presentation. The foreground of Hladis' version features Gregory Peck on a scooter, an image from the film "Roman Holiday"; behind him is Audrey Hepburn, who won an Oscar at that ceremony for her lead role as an incognito European princess.

City Hall is pictured in January 1949, when a storm dumped snow on downtown Los Angeles. Hladis set the Warner Wiltern Theater in 1932 but put Tom Waits on the marquee. "I was listening to his music at the time," she said.

Such twists, Hladis said, are intended to make the works more personal and intriguing.

"I really feel she's preserving the past and reminding people how beautiful these old buildings are," said Jimmy Hormel, a San Francisco investment manager and venture capitalist who collects Hladis' artworks.

Hladis began drawing as a child and hoped to study art at a university in Czechoslovakia, but the Communists insisted that she concentrate on physics and chemistry.

Those subjects were not her passions, but without money or influence she had little recourse. While in college, she joined Charter 77, a resistance movement founded by writer-dissidents Vaclav Havel and Pavel Kohout, among others. In July 1985, Hladis, a gymnast, and two mountain climber friends (one with his 9-year-old son in tow) started in what was then Yugoslavia along a trail over the Alps. Eleven hours later, at 3:30 a.m., they arrived in Italy.

A Czech refugee in the United States sponsored her. She studied art at community colleges and taught art, eventually securing a studio and living space in the Brewery Arts Complex. She has created figurative drawings, abstract works and Japanese-inspired floral arrangements on old computer motherboards.

She became a citizen in 1992. Soon after, the Velvet Revolution ended Communist rule and Hladis began to make regular trips back to the Czech Republic, where renaissance, baroque and art nouveau buildings filled her with awe, as they had in her youth. Her father, mother and brother died a few years ago, but the art and architecture draw her back.

Los Angeles remains her home, but "where you come from gives you a base for life," she said.

For information about the exhibit, visit Hladis' website.

martha.groves@latimes.com

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Protests Erupt After Egypt’s Leader Seizes New Power

Tara Todras-Whitehill for The New York Times

Egyptians in central Cairo ran from tear gas during clashes with the police on Friday. Protesters took to the streets in several cities. More Photos »

CAIRO — Protests erupted across Egypt on Friday, as opponents of President Mohamed Morsi clashed with his supporters over a presidential edict that gave him unchecked authority and polarized an already divided nation while raising a specter, the president’s critics charged, of a return to autocracy.  

In an echo of the uprising 22 months ago, thousands of protesters chanted for the downfall of Mr. Morsi’s government in Cairo, while others ransacked the offices of the president’s former party in Suez, Alexandria and other cities.

Mr. Morsi spoke to his supporters in front of the presidential palace here, imploring the public to trust his intentions as he cast himself as a protector of the revolution and a fledgling democracy.

In a speech that was by turns defensive and conciliatory, he ultimately gave no ground to the critics who now were describing him as a pharaoh, in another echo of the insult once reserved for the deposed president, Hosni Mubarak.

“God’s will and elections made me the captain of this ship,” Mr. Morsi said.

The battles that raged on Friday — over power, legitimacy and the mantle of the revolution — posed a sharp challenge not only to Mr. Morsi but also to his opponents, members of secular, leftist and liberal groups whose crippling divisions have stifled their agenda and left them unable to confront the more popular Islamist movement led by the Muslim Brotherhood.

The crisis over his power grab came just days after the Islamist leader won international praise for his pragmatism, including from the United States, for brokering a cease-fire between Hamas and Israel.

On Friday, the State Department expressed muted concern over Mr. Morsi’s decision. “One of the aspirations of the revolution was to ensure that power would not be overly concentrated in the hands of any one person or institution,” said the State Department spokeswoman, Victoria Nuland.

She said, “The current constitutional vacuum in Egypt can only be resolved by the adoption of a constitution that includes checks and balances, and respects fundamental freedoms, individual rights and the rule of law consistent with Egypt’s international commitments.”

But the White House was notably silent after it had earlier this week extolled the emerging relationship between President Obama and Mr. Morsi and credited a series of telephone calls between the two men with helping to mediate the cease-fire in Gaza.

For Mr. Morsi, who seemed to be saying to the nation that it needed to surrender the last checks on his power in order to save democracy from Mubarak-era judges, the challenge was to convince Egyptians that the ends justified his means.

But even as he tried, thousands of protesters marched to condemn his decision. Clashes broke out between the president’s supporters and his critics, and near Tahrir Square, the riot police fired tear gas and bird shot as protesters hurled stones and set fires.

Since Thursday, when Mr. Morsi issued the decree, the president and his supporters have argued that he acted precisely to gain the power to address the complaints of his critics, including the families of protesters killed during the uprising and its aftermath.

By placing his decisions above judicial review, the decree enabled him to replace a public prosecutor who had failed to win convictions against senior officers implicated in the killings of protesters.

The president and his supporters also argued that the decree insulated the Constituent Assembly, which is drafting the constitution, from meddling by Mubarak-era judges.

Since Mr. Mubarak’s ouster, courts have dissolved Parliament, kept a Mubarak loyalist as top prosecutor and disbanded the first Assembly.

But by ending legal appeals, the decree also removed a safety valve for critics who say the Islamist majority is dominating the drafting of the constitution.

Mayy El Sheikh contributed reporting from Cairo, and Helene Cooper from Washington.

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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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