Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption The BBC's Shaimaa Khalil: "Morsi attempting to assert control" 
 
 Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi has ordered the military to maintain security and protect state institutions in the run-up to a controversial referendum on a new constitution. 
 
 The army has also been given the power to arrest civilians. 
 
 Mr Morsi has tried to calm public anger by annulling a decree giving him huge powers, but rejected a call to scrap the 15 December constitutional vote. 
 
 Opposition leaders called for protests on Tuesday against the referendum. 
 
 The opposition was "not aiming at toppling the president" but wanted a better constitution, former Foreign Minister Amr Moussa told the BBC. 
 
 Islamist groups have said they will hold counter demonstrations, raising fears of further bloody clashes on the streets of the Egyptian capital. 
 
 Egypt's crisis 22 Nov: Presidential decree gives Mr Morsi sweeping new powers 
 
 Presidential decree gives Mr Morsi sweeping new powers 30 Nov: Islamist-dominated constituent assembly adopts draft constitution 
 
 Islamist-dominated constituent assembly adopts draft constitution 1 Dec: Mr Morsi sets 15 December as date for constitutional referendum 
 
 Mr Morsi sets 15 December as date for constitutional referendum 2 Dec: Judges go on strike 
 
 Judges go on strike 5 Dec: Clashes outside presidential palace 
 
 Clashes outside presidential palace 7 Dec: Protesters breach palace cordon 
 
 Protesters breach palace cordon 8 Dec: Mr Morsi rescinds his presidential decree but remains firm on referendum 
 
 In another apparent concession, the president suspended a big tax increase on the sale of a variety of goods including soft drinks, cigarettes and beer. 
 
 The decision was carried in a statement that appeared on Mr Morsi's Facebook page in the early hours of Monday, state-owned al-Ahram newspaper reported. 
 
 Weakened police 
 
 As tension increased before Saturday's referendum, Mr Morsi ordered the military to maintain security "up to the announcement of the results from the referendum", AFP news agency reports. 
 
 The BBC's Jon Leyne in Cairo says the step will raise fears that Egypt is moving back towards military rule. 
 
 Under the new presidential decree, the military is asked to co-ordinate with the police on maintaining security and is also entitled to arrest civilians. 
 
 The police have been seen as weakened since the fall of former President Hosni Mubarak and failed to intervene when anti-Muslim Brotherhood protesters ransacked the Islamist movement's Cairo headquarters last week, correspondents say. 
 
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 An increased military presence was visible on Monday close to the presidential palace, which has been the focus of opposition demonstrations. The army has sealed off the area with concrete blocks. 
 
 It is not yet clear whether the opposition will boycott Saturday's referendum. However, a group of senior judges announced on Monday that they would be prepared to oversee the vote, on certain conditions. 
 
 Votes in Egypt are traditionally supervised by the judiciary but the 22 November presidential decree led thousands of judges to go on strike. 
 
 Now, with the decree rescinded, the State Council Judges' Club has agreed to oversee the vote as long as pro-Morsi supporters call a halt to a sit-in outside Egypt's Supreme Constitutional Court. 
 
 The court suspended work on 2 December, citing "psychological pressure" from Islamists who had prevented a meeting on a draft of the new constitution. The protesters had wanted to block a ruling on the legality of the document. 
 
 'Division and sedition' 
 
 The opposition argues that the constitution was drafted by an assembly dominated by Mohammed Morsi's Islamist allies. 
 
 Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Nobel peace laureate and founder of the Constitution Party, Mohamed ElBaradei: "The whole process is hostage to religious institution rather than judiciary" 
 
 In a statement after talks on Sunday, the opposition National Salvation Front said it would not recognise the draft constitution "because it does not represent the Egyptian people". 
 
 "We reject the referendum which will certainly lead to more division and sedition," spokesman Sameh Ashour said. 
 
 In a BBC interview, one of the Front's main leaders, Amr Moussa, insisted they were not "aiming at doing anything that would lead to the disintegration of the state". 
 
 "Why should we make the people swallow a constitution that could have been much better and should have been much better?" 
 
 On Sunday, hundreds of opposition protesters protested against the referendum outside the presidential palace. 
 
 Analysis Many Egyptians are furious that their lives have not got better since the revolution. They point to a lack of reform, with no economic progress, no attempt to cleanse the notoriously brutal and corrupt police force, let alone any success in sorting out Egypt's many other problems, such as the piles of rubbish on the streets, the terrible traffic, and the filthy and polluted environment. As for President Morsi, he is fighting a battle on two fronts. While many opponents object to the Islamic tendencies in the new constitution, he is also under enormous pressure not to give ground to the liberals. No easy way out of Egypt crisis 
 
 They chanted anti-Muslim Brotherhood slogans and held up banners reading slogans such as "Morsi, hold back your thugs" and "The people demand the fall of the regime". 
 
 But Mohamed Soudan, foreign relations secretary of the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party, said Mr Morsi was constitutionally bound to go ahead with the vote because the date had been announced by the constituent assembly. 
 
 The president says he is trying to safeguard the revolution that overthrew Hosni Mubarak last year, but his critics accuse him of acting like a dictator. 
 
 Mr Morsi's decree of 22 November stripped the judiciary of any right to challenge his decisions and triggered violent protests. 
 
 Although the decree has been annulled, some decisions taken under it still stand. 
 
 The general prosecutor, who was dismissed, will not be reinstated, and the retrial of former regime officials will go ahead. ||||| CAIRO Egyptian police battled thousands of protesters outside President Mohamed Mursi's palace in Cairo on Tuesday, prompting the Islamist leader to leave the building, presidency sources said. 
 
 Officers fired teargas at up to 10,000 demonstrators angered by Mursi's drive to hold a referendum on a new constitution on December 15. Some broke through police lines around his palace and protested next to the perimeter wall. 
 
 The crowds had gathered nearby in what organizers had dubbed "last warning" protests against Mursi, who infuriated opponents with a November 22 decree that expanded his powers. "The people want the downfall of the regime," the demonstrators chanted. 
 
 "The president left the palace," a presidential source, who declined to be named, told Reuters. A security source at the presidency also said the president had departed. 
 
 Mursi ignited a storm of unrest in his bid to prevent a judiciary still packed with appointees of ousted predecessor Hosni Mubarak from derailing a troubled political transition. 
 
 Facing the gravest crisis of his six-month-old tenure, the Islamist president has shown no sign of buckling under pressure. 
 
 Riot police at the palace faced off against activists chanting "leave, leave" and holding Egyptian flags with "no to the constitution" written on them. Protesters had assembled near mosques in northern Cairo before marching towards the palace. 
 
 "Our marches are against tyranny and the void constitutional decree and we won't retract our position until our demands are met," said Hussein Abdel Ghany, a spokesman for an opposition coalition of liberal, leftist and other disparate factions. 
 
 Protesters later surrounded the palace, with some climbing on gates at the rear to look down into the gardens. 
 
 At one point, people clambered onto a police armored vehicle and waved flags, while riot police huddled nearby. 
 
 The Health Ministry said 18 people had been injured in clashes next to the palace, according to the state news agency. 
 
 YEARNING FOR STABILITY 
 
 Despite the latest protests, there has been only a limited response to opposition calls for a mass campaign of civil disobedience in the Arab world's most populous country and cultural hub, where many people yearn for a return to stability. 
 
 A few hundred protesters gathered earlier near Mursi's house in a suburb east of Cairo, chanting slogans against his decree and against the Muslim Brotherhood, from which the president emerged to win a free election in June. Police closed the road to stop them from coming any closer, a security official said. 
 
 Opposition groups have accused Mursi of making a dictatorial power grab to push through a constitution drafted by an assembly dominated by his supporters, with a referendum planned for December 15. 
 
 They say the draft constitution does not reflect the interests of Egypt's liberals and other groups, an accusation dismissed by Islamists who insist it is a balanced document. 
 
 Egypt's most widely-read independent newspapers did not publish on Tuesday in protest at Mursi's "dictatorship". Banks closed early to let staff go home safely in case of trouble. 
 
 Abdelrahman Mansour in Cairo's Tahrir Square, the cradle of the anti-Mubarak revolt, said: "The presidency believes the opposition is too weak and toothless. Today is the day we show them the opposition is a force to be reckoned with." 
 
 But after winning post-Mubarak elections and pushing the Egyptian military out of the political driving seat it held for decades, the Islamists sense their moment has come to shape the future of Egypt, a longtime U.S. ally whose 1979 peace treaty with Israel is a cornerstone of Washington's Middle East policy. 
 
 The Muslim Brotherhood and its allies, who staged a huge pro-Mursi rally in Cairo on Saturday, are confident enough members of the judiciary will be available to oversee the mid-December referendum, despite calls by some judges for a boycott. 
 
 "The crisis we have suffered for two weeks is on its way to an end, and very soon, God willing," Saad al-Katatni, leader of the Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party, told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday. 
 
 Cairo stocks closed up 3.5 percent as investors took heart at what they saw as prospects for a return to stability after the referendum in a country whose divisions have only widened since a mass uprising toppled Mubarak on February 11, 2011. 
 
 Mohamed Radwan, at Pharos Securities brokerage, said the Supreme Judicial Council's agreement to supervise the vote had generated confidence that it would go ahead "despite all the noise and demonstrations that might take place until then". 
 
 "NO WAY PERFECT" 
 
 Prime Minister Hisham Kandil, a technocrat with Islamist sympathies, said in an interview with CNN: "We certainly hope that things will quiet down after the referendum is completed." 
 
 He said the constitution was "in no way a perfect text" that everyone had agreed to, but that a "majority consensus" favored moving forward with the referendum in 11 days' time. 
 
 The Muslim Brotherhood, now tasting power via the ballot box for the first time in eight decades of struggle, wants to safeguard its gains and appears ready to override street protests by what it regards as an unrepresentative minority. 
 
 It is also determined to prevent the courts, which have already dissolved the Islamist-led elected lower house of parliament, from further obstructing their blueprint for change. 
 
 Despite charges that they are anti-Islamist and politically motivated, judges say they are following legal codes in their rulings. Experts say some political changes rushed through in the past two years have been on shaky legal ground. 
 
 A Western diplomat said the Islamists were counting on a popular desire for restored normality and economic stability. 
 
 "All the messages from the Muslim Brotherhood are that a vote for the constitution is one for stability and a vote against is one for uncertainty," he said, adding that the cost of the strategy was a "breakdown in consensus politics". 
 
 (Additional reporting by Tom Perry, Tamim Elyan and Edmund Blair; Writing by Alistair Lyon; Editing by Andrew Heavens) ||||| Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi calls for dialogue 
 
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 Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi has called for a meeting with the opposition on Saturday to defuse a political crisis. 
 
 He was speaking hours after five people died and 644 were injured in clashes between his opponents and supporters. 
 
 Mr Morsi said he supported the right to protest but alleged that some people had been paid to foment violence. 
 
 The Muslim Brotherhood - which backed Mr Morsi for the presidency - says its Cairo HQ has been set on fire. 
 
 'Violent acts' 
 
 In a televised speech, Mr Morsi expressed sorrow over the deaths in recent days. 
 
 He said that 80 people had been detained as they had been "implicated in violent acts". 
 
 He blamed supporters of the ousted regime of President Hosni Mubarak for being behind recent violence. 
 
 Mr Morsi offered little in the way of concessions to his opponents but said that a controversial article in a recent decree which gave him sweeping powers could be modified. 
 
 US President Barack Obama welcomed Mr Morsi's call for talks, but stressed they should be "without preconditions", the White House said in a statement on Thursday. 
 
 "President Obama called President Morsi today to express his deep concern about the deaths and injuries of protesters in Egypt," the statement said. 
 
 "The president emphasised that all political leaders in Egypt should make clear to their supporters that violence is unacceptable," it added. 
 
 Mr Morsi's recent decree stripped the judiciary of any power to challenge his decisions. 
 
 The decree would be cancelled after a referendum on a new constitution planned for 15 December, whatever the result, Mr Morsi added. 
 
 Mr Morsi confirmed that the referendum would go ahead as planned, saying that if the constitution was voted down, another constituent assembly would be formed to write a new draft. 
 
 The speech is likely to inflame an already heated situation in Egypt, the BBC's Jon Leyne reports from Cairo. 
 
 It is not clear whether the opposition will be willing to take up his offer of dialogue, given that none of their demands have been met, our correspondent adds. 
 
 There will be fears that the attacks on the Muslim Brotherhood's headquarters could be just the start of a new round of violence and confrontation, he says. 
 
 The April 6 movement, which played a prominent role in the 2011 uprising that ousted President Mubarak, has rejected Mr Morsi's offer of dialogue, Reuters reported. 
 
 The activist group has called for fresh protests on Friday against Mr Morsi, who narrowly won June's first free presidential election. 
 
 Constitution row 
 
 Earlier on Thursday, the army set up barricades outside the presidential palace after ordering protesters to leave the area. 
 
 Most anti-Morsi protesters had left the area around the palace by the 15:00 (13:00 GMT) deadline, though some opposition activists remained and their numbers increased as evening fell. 
 
 There is controversy over the proposed constitution. 
 
 Critics say the draft, drawn up by a body dominated by Morsi-supporting Islamists, was rushed through parliament without proper consultation and does not do enough to protect political and religious freedoms and the rights of women. 
 
 Four of Mr Morsi's advisers resigned on Wednesday - three others did so last week and the official Mena news agency reported a further resignation on Thursday. 
 
 The opposition said before Mr Morsi's speech that it will continue to hold demonstrations. 
 
 "We had many injuries last night, and we are not going to have their blood wasted," said an unnamed member of the National Salvation Front, a recently formed group which has united some of the most prominent anti-Morsi figures. 
 
 The National Salvation Front has brought together former presidential candidates such as leftist Hamdeen Sabahy, former Arab League head Amr Moussa, and Mohammed ElBaradei, the former head of the UN's nuclear watchdog. 
 
 The April 6 movement and other activist groups are mostly made up of young Egyptians who were opposed to President Mubarak's rule and many have turned against Mr Morsi in recent months. 
 
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– Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi returned to the presidential palace today after fleeing yesterday when it was thronged by protesters, Reuters reports. Though 200 demonstrators camped out overnight, traffic was back to normal today and riot police had left the area. In yesterday's clashes, 35 protesters and 40 police officers were hurt. And things are looking to heat up again soon: The Muslim Brotherhood has called for a protest at the palace today against the "oppressive abuses" of the opposition, and the opposition in response called for leftist demonstrators to head back to the palace, leading to fears of violent clashes. Opposition protesters want Morsi to retract his expanded powers and stop a Dec. 15 vote on the new constitution hastily drafted by Islamists. Though they called yesterday's protest a "last warning" to the president, Reuters notes that they have little real chance of stopping the vote, which Morsi is confident will approve the constitution.