Romney vows to visit Israel first if elected to White House (Reuters)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney will draw a contrast with President Barack Obama on Middle East policy on Wednesday and promise to bolster U.S. ties with Israel if elected next year.

In remarks to Jewish Republicans, Romney will promise to make a visit to Israel his first foreign trip if he becomes the Republican presidential nominee and goes on to oust Obama from the White House in next November's election.

Republicans have complained that the Democrat Obama has favored the Palestinians over traditional U.S. ally Israel in the long-running Middle East dispute.

Obama angered the Israelis last May when he embraced a goal long sought by the Palestinians: that the state they seek in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip should largely be drawn along lines that existed before the 1967 war in which Israel captured those territories and East Jerusalem.

Romney, in a speech to the Republican Jewish Coalition, will say Obama has proposed that Israel adopt "indefensible borders" and had been "timid and weak in the face of the existential threat of a nuclear war."

"These actions have emboldened Palestinian hard-liners who now are poised to form a unity government with terrorist Hamas and feel they can bypass Israel at the bargaining table. President Obama has immeasurably set back the prospect of peace in the Middle East," Romney will say, according to speech excerpts released by his campaign.

The Republican Jewish conference is to hear from all the major Republican candidates seeking the 2012 nomination, including surging Romney rival Newt Gingrich.

A theme throughout the speeches is certain to be the need to strengthen the U.S. commitment to Israel and ensure it remains a democratic bulwark in an unstable region threatened by the possibility of Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon.

"I will travel to Israel on my first foreign trip. I will reaffirm as a vital national interest Israel's existence as a Jewish state. I want the world to know that the bonds between Israel and the United States are unshakable," Romney will say.

Romney will also have strong words for Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, saying he should be indicted for the crime of incitement to genocide under Article III of the Genocide Convention.

"The ayatollahs will not be permitted to obtain nuclear weapons on my watch. A nuclear-armed Iran is not only an Israel problem, it is problem for the United States and all the decent countries of the world," Romney will say.

(Editing by Jackie Frank)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/obama/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111207/pl_nm/us_usa_campaign_romney_israel

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Newt Gingrich surges in Iowa. Will it last?

Newt Gingrich leads the Republican pack of presidential hopefuls in the key state of Iowa, according to a new poll out Sunday, and he seems likely to pick up Herman Cain's endorsement.

At this point in the race for a Republican presidential nominee ? just one month out from the Iowa caucuses ? it seems to be Newt Gingrich?s to lose.

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He?s got the wind at his back in most polls ? especially the closely-watched Des Moines Register?s Iowa poll out Sunday. Just as important (perhaps more so), he?s way ahead of the pack when likely primary election voters? second choice is taken into account.

Unlike Herman Cain, who dropped out Saturday, Gingrich?s personal failings involving women other than his wife occurred a decade or more ago. Significantly, many evangelical leaders (if not their followers) have accepted his prayerful contrition.

To most Republicans, it doesn?t matter that he may have flip-flopped on such issues as climate change and an individual mandate on health care; he?s on the right side now. And if his position on illegal immigrants is more nuanced than his thrown-?em-all-out presidential rivals, that?s a reminder of the compassionate conservatism the Republican Party once espoused.

Democrats, of course, see Gingrich differently, and many dream of a race in which President Obama?s impressive re-election forces and the media really dig into the former House Speaker?s past ? looking deeply and critically at the sometimes squirrely ideas he?s put forth (replacing school janitors with kids pushing brooms), his money-making ventures that have made him the quintessential wealthy Washington insider (including lobbying for the health care industry and housing mortgage giant Freddie Mac), a personality that comes across as aloof and arrogant.

As Jennifer Jacobs, the Des Moines Register?s chief political writer, observed in reporting the latest poll results Sunday, ?Gingrich?s rivals are already starting to put him through the woodchipper.?

That includes some fellow Republicans who served with him in the House. Rep. Peter King (R) of Long Island (who has not endorsed anybody) recently referred to Gingrich as ?condescending ? undisciplined ? pedantic? and with an ?incredible sense of exaggeration.?

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/_fy1yoaqVTU/Newt-Gingrich-surges-in-Iowa.-Will-it-last

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ECB's Stark: Crisis cure needed to avoid disaster (Reuters)

NEW YORK (Reuters) ? An urgent solution to the euro zone debt crisis needs to be found otherwise there will be widespread macroeconomic and financial disaster, Juergen Stark, one of the European Central Bank's top policymakers, warned on Friday.

That solution however, is in the hands of political leaders and not of the ECB, he said, urging the euro zone to move ahead with "some sort" of fiscal union.

If some countries resist that, maybe "we are at the stage now where politicians have to agree on a two-speed integration" of the euro zone," Stark, one of the ECB's six-member Executive Board, told investors after a presentation at the Forecaster Club of New York.

The euro zone faces a crucial time next week, when the bloc's leaders hold a crunch crisis summit and the ECB has its final monetary policy meeting of the year under growing pressure to show it is prepared to do whatever it takes to save the euro.

"The lingering and expanding sovereign debt crisis must be halted to avoid macroeconomic and financial disaster, in the euro area and beyond," Stark said in his speech. "A solution needs to be found urgently. No country is immune any more to a loss of market confidence in its public finances."

He pointed the finger at the United States, saying it was now "essential for the U.S. to formulate a credible fiscal consolidation program that returns its government debt to a declining path towards sustainable levels."

With the debt crisis taking an increasing toll on the euro zone's economy, the ECB is expected to cut interest rates for the second month running next week by at least 25 basis points -- a move that would shunt them back down to the record low 1.0 percent they started the year at.

On top of that, it is also expected to introduce a new wave of support measures to help the bloc's battered banks, including extending the loans it gives them to up to three years and loosening its rules to make it easier to access its funding.

Stark, who will quit the ECB at the end of the year, stuck to his view that the ECB should not be given the task of solving the crisis, code for no all-out bond buying.

"Monetary policy should not be overburdened. Monetary policy in the euro area was and will remain an anchor of confidence and stability. It will remain dedicated to its mandate of maintaining price stability."

Responding to market pressure for the ECB should take a bigger role in the solution of the crisis, he said the bank does not have to follow other central banks' strategy to protect markets against fallout of the crisis.

"What other central banks have done does not set precedents for the ECB. What other central banks have done is not the benchmark for us," he said. "We have our instruments."

Previously the ECB did not go under 1.0 percent with its main interest rate, but this time around economists believe it could be forced much closer to the zero mark.

Stark, who heads the bank's influential economics department which draws up pre-meeting recommendations on interest rate moves, warned that ultra-low interest rates carried dangers.

"Maintaining very low interest rates for a protracted period may weaken the financial incentive for deleveraging for both the banking and non-financial sectors."

"Very low interest rates may also discourage banks from trading in interbank money markets. This is an important market for the transmission of monetary policy," Stark said.

(For speech please click on: http://www.ecb.int/press/key/date/2011/html/sp111202.en.html)

(Reporting by Tim Ahmann and Walter Brandimarte; Writing by Marc Jones in Berlin; Editing by James Dalgleish)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/eurobiz/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111202/bs_nm/us_ecb_stark

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Gingrich's unpredictability raises concerns (The Arizona Republic)

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Does an x86 Ice Cream Sandwich Port Spell Future Intel Tablets? [Android]

Google made good on its IDF keynote promise and announced that is has ported Android 4.0 to Intel's x86 architecture. What does that mean? Could be that Intel tablets are on the horizon, but they still face issues with their chips' power consumption. More speculation is available at Ubergizmo. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/26wNkcdJPs8/does-an-x86-ice-cream-sandwich-port-spell-future-intel-tablets

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Some hot ticket toys already cleaned out online

Developers for LeapFrog explain the lessons they learn when kids get a hold of the company's latest games and devices.

By Marisa Taylor

It happens every year. The special toy that every child wants for Christmas flies off store shelves and parents are left scrambling to find little Susie or Johnny that must-have item, sometimes resorting to eBay (or, more recently, pepper spray).

This year looks to be no different, if Black Friday numbers are any indication. Retail foot-traffic increased by 6.6 percent on the day after Thanksgiving according to the shopping data analysis firm ShopperTrak, a slight edge over the 5.1 percent increase in shopping traffic on Black Friday in 2010.

So what?s a parent to do when the must-have toy is out of stock online? Needham and Company senior analyst Sean McGowan advises parents to keep checking in with local stores about when a new shipment of the item will be arriving, and then show up that morning to buy.

He also suggests networking with other parents and making pacts to buy enough of the item for the entire group if one parent finds it online or in a store.

The Catch-22 with holiday toys, he said, is that ?in order for [the toy] to be really big, there has to be enough in stock for it to sell. But if it?s available in mass quantities, there?s a perception that it?s not hot.?

So what will be this year?s the hot ticket toy? All signs indicate that the LeapFrog LeapPad Explorer, a tablet for kids with a built-in camera and video recorder, will be high on the list,?McGowan said. Even at this early stage, ?it?s the one thing you can?t find anywhere,? he said. ?For $100, you wouldn?t think it would be sold out, but it is.?

Indeed, at the time this story was being written, the LeapPad Explorer appeared to be out of stock on the websites of Toys ?R Us, Wal-Mart and Barnes and Noble.

The LeapPad Explorer also appeared to be unavailable for Internet purchase on Target and Kmart?s websites, though an in-store search for availability in the New York City area yielded a few store locations that had it in limited stock. Most, however, were sold out.

On Amazon.com, a number of sellers had evidently stocked up on the LeapPad Explorer only to hawk it for more than double the original retail value.

Another in-demand toy is the Lalaloopsy Silly Hair Doll by MGA Entertainment. An earlier model of the little pink doll was on the market last year, but it has been upgraded for 2011 with bendable pink curls that appear to be all the rage. For she, in all her wild-haired glory, is also out of stock online on Toys ?R Us, Wal-Mart, Kmart and Target, and is marked up to $67 from around $30 on Amazon.com.?

Toys ?R Us said that the Thanksgiving weekend also yielded big sales of the Trash Pack ?Trashies? Garbage Truck by Moose Toys and the Animal Planet Air Swimmers eXtreme Radio Control Giant Flying Sharkand Clownfish, the latter of which does require the additional purchase of a helium tank. But both are still available online for purchase, as are hot sellers like Monster High dolls and Skylanders Spyro?s Adventure video games.

Company spokesperson Jen Albano said Toys ?R Us will continue to receive daily deliveries of its top selling items throughout the season up until Christmas Eve.

At Kmart, in addition to the LeapPad Explorer and the V-tech Innotab Tablet, the Fijit Friends Interactive Toysare slated to be extremely popular this season, according to spokesperson Sarah Fitzgerald. (Indeed, all three items are currently sold out at Kmart.com.) Regarding the tablets, she says, ?If moms are thinking about them, I would start scouring and securing them now.? Same goes for the Fijit Friends. But what about Lalaloopsy, her crazy-haired compatriot? ?You?re not going to see her in December,? said Fitzgerald.

For boys, Fitzgerald said Hot Wheels Wall Tracks, which uses 3M Command Strips to adhere racing tracks up walls, are already a big seller at Kmart, with the starter setcurrently unavailable for online purchase.

Overall, Fitzgerald said that innovative toys that feature some sort of upgrade from a popular classic are always big holiday sellers, even in the case of a more expensive item like the LeapPad Explorer. ?It doesn?t matter what the price or the year is; innovation carries the day when it comes to toys,? she said.

Some parents have resorted to creative measures to find the most coveted toys of the season for their kids. Judy Greenfield, 36, a stay-at-home mother of three in Sanford, Fla., hits up Facebook to figure out where to buy hard-to-find toys. One of her friends was looking for Squinky toyslast year, for example, and Greenfield was able to advise her that she?d spotted them at CVS; Greenfield will post about what she's looking for so that her friends can return the favor.?

Last year, when Greenfield was searching for the ever-popular ZhuZhu?Pets hamsters for her kids, she struck gold by visiting smaller versions of chain stores like Target and Walmart after finding that the larger stores were out of stock. This year, though, there?s no one item on her 4-year-old daughter?s list that she feels the need to strategize for. ?I think?due to?the economy we are not going to see a cabbage patch/tickle me Elmo type of scenario,? she wrote in an email.

But Jenny Robertson, 39, a sales and account manager for a sign company and single mother based in Columbus, Ohio, was able to turn the holiday toy craze into a major money-making opportunity. Last Christmas, she had a hunch that the ZhuZhu Pets would be popular, and stocked up on 30 of them back in September. She ended up selling about 200 of them on eBay, along with around 75 Crayola Crayon Makers, for a tidy profit that paid for her family?s Christmas presents and a trip to Washington D.C. with her two children.

Her tricks of the trade? Befriend sales people at the big box stores, because they can tell you when the next shipment of toys is coming in. ?They?re not beyond putting something back for you or tucking it behind a more common Fisher-Price toy and giving you the wink and the nod that it?s there,? Robertson said. She also discovered that the customer service counter was a great place to find returned items that parents didn?t know was a must-have, before they're returned to shelves.?

This year, however, she?s not doing any reselling on eBay, particularly since her 10-year-old daughter had to go without a coveted Zhu Zhu pet last year when Robertson ran out of stock. ?My friends thought I was nuts,? she said. ?We still laugh about the hamster Christmas.?

Circa 1956: From train sets to fluffy, stuffed poodles, TODAY's Dave Garroway and Helen O'Connell take a look at some of the popular toys of the decade.

Taryn Mohrman, lifestyle editor for Parents magazine, highlights the best toys of the year for your child, just in time for holiday shopping.

Source: http://bottomline.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/11/30/9121394-some-hot-ticket-toys-already-cleaned-out-online

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