<xsl:template match="/">
    <xsl:for-each select="news/item">
                        <xsl:sort select="date1" order="descending" />                                     

                          <xsl:value-of select="date1"/>                                

                  </xsl:for-each> 
</xsl:template>

MYXML

<news>
 <item>
<date1>January 1,2010</date1>
 </item>
 <item>
  <date1>November 29,2009</date1>
</news>


         Its displaying the result but not in sorted way..