Official media outlets, meanwhile, have reported that the decree is working: illegal importation of banned goods has already fallen in response to the new measure.
In a follow-up piece, AllThings Ds Kara Swisher reported that the decree would also extend to employees who worked from home only a few days a week.
[Gen. Luis Ernesto Gilibert, who was widely expected to be removed by Mr. Uribe as chief of the country's National Police, resigned Monday night, Reuters reported.] The decree is not as strong as a state of siege, under which the government could impose curfews, penalize those who broke them and severely limit freedom of movement.
After a spate of widely reported attacks on women, the decree is "a sign of radical change on the issue," he said.
The decree, reported by the state-run news agency, SANA, came as the Arab League said it would meet next Sunday to discuss the findings of its mission to Syria, and as the secretary general of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, called the repression in Syria "a dead end".
The decree was widely reported as equivalent to legalization, but the truth is that small-scale medical marijuana has been permitted in Colombia for the past 30 years.
The decrees, reported Thursday by the official Bahrain News Agency, give the authorities wider ability to revoke the citizenship of people involved in what the government calls "terror" acts and to halt financing for groups suspected of backing protests.
Other Spanish news media also reported that the government was preparing to legislate by decree to change the statute of the cajas and strengthen their merger arrangements.
He would "obey what the people say by abrogating the decree raising gasoline and everything that accompanied that measure", the Associated Press news agency reported him as saying.
Mr. Clohessy says new cases of abuse by priests still are being reported regularly, despite the no-tolerance decree issued by the United States Conference of Bishops in Dallas in 2002.
The Assembly voted on Tuesday to approve the decree powers in a preliminary vote, with a final vote on the controversial proposal expected later this week, Reuters reported.
