The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood decided Monday to postpone a planned rally to avoid further bloodshed, while the group-backed government was locked in a bitter dispute over a highly controversial presidential declaration.

Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, the first civil-elected president of the country, on Thursday issued a new constitutional declaration, effectively saying that all laws, decrees and constitutional declarations issued by the president since he came to office on June 30, 2012 are final and unchallengeable by anybody.

The opposition angrily charged that the declaration gave Morsi too much power and large scale protests erupted across the country.

The Egyptian Health Ministry said clashes between anti-Morsi protestors and his supporters had injured 444 people and killed two.

In a bid to show their support to Morsi, the Brotherhood, Morsi's powerbase, had called for a rally on Tuesday near Cairo University.

The ultra-conservative Salafists were also expected to join the rally.

Despite the postponement, the government and the opposition have made no obvious progress on resolving the crisis.

After Morsi met with members of the Supreme Judicial Council, presidential spokesman Yasser Ali announced Monday that no changes were made to the new constitutional declaration and "sovereignty matters" were the only field free of legal reviews, stressing that the declaration was temporary rather than permanent.

The presidential declaration also said that a new constitution should be written within a maximum period of eight months, instead of six, from the date of the Constitutional Assembly's formation. This means it extended a previously set deadline by two months to February 2013.

It said no judicial body can dissolve the Shura Council (the upper house) or the Constituent Assembly.

The opposition had since filed lawsuits against the presidential declaration, demanding Morsi scrap the plan entirely.

The Egyptian administrative court on Monday decided to review the cases on Dec. 4.

Also, the international community on Monday urged Egypt to end the bloodshed and solve the crisis as soon as possible.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said at a press briefing in Beijing on Monday that China hopes Egypt could maintain political and social stability so as to promote the process of political transition in an orderly way.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said during a call with Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohamed Kamel Amer that Washington wanted to see the settling of these disputes in a democratic manner. Endi

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