Egypt's President Morsi takes sweeping new powers CAIRO - Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi declared extensive political powers for himself Thursday, taking broad and sweeping control of his country a day after he won international praise for fostering a cease-fire in Gaza. Under the terms of Thursday's decree, Morsi said that all of the decisions he has made since he took office - and until a new constitution is adopted - were final and not subject to appeal or review. He declared the retrial of high officials accused of the deaths of protesters during the country's 2011 revolution, a measure that appeared targeted at former leader Hosni Mubarak. And he dismissed Egypt's Mubarak-era prosecutor general, immediately swearing in a new one. The announcement, which was read on state television by Morsi's spokesman, Yasser Ali, late Thursday afternoon and broadcast repeatedly, appears to leave few if any checks on the president's power. The military, not long ago a powerful weight against the executive branch, was sidelined in August in a similarly sudden decision when Morsi fired the top ranks in a single sweep. And Egypt's short-lived parliament was dissolved by the country's top court shortly before Morsi, a political Islamist, took office. Some commentators on Egyptian television quickly began bandying about words like "dictatorship." Protesters were massing in Tahrir Square, some with posters containing split images of the faces of Mubarak and Morsi. Meanwhile, a group of Morsi supporters from his Muslim Brotherhood movement gathered elsewhere in central Cairo to show their support for the decision. "If a danger arises that threatens the January 25 revolution," the proclamation read, the president "can take any procedures and preparations that he sees necessary to face this danger."