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Bible belt beckons for Romney and co
As favourite to win in New Hampshire, Mitt Romney lived up to expectations emerging on top in the first primary to choose the Republicans’ presidential candidate. The next stop is South Carolina and he has just ten days to make his mark there. Addressing supporters, he said: “Thank you New Hampshire, tonight we made history. You know tonight we celebrate, tomorrow we go back to work.” And work he will have to. They like Romney in New Hampshire, but it is a different story in bible belt South Carolina. In a state with rampant unemployment Romney’s opponents will portray the multi-millionaire as a symbol of corporate greed. Runner-up in New Hampshire was the elder statesman among the hopefuls, 76 year old Ron Paul, considered by some to be the godfather of the Tea Party of ultra-conservatives. A good result in South Carolina could set him up as a credible challenger to Romney. Jon Huntsman landed third in New Hampshire. He is possibly the most moderate of all the runners, but with a stance very close to Romney’s. He refused to take the result as a message to step down though the next primary could decide his future in the Republican campaign. He is trailing in the polls. Sounding defiant he told a rally of his followers: “Thank you ladies and gentlemen. I’d say third place is a ticket to ride. Ladies and gentlemen: Hello South Carolina! “ Campaigning in South Carolina is already underway and promises to become ruthless. For the rivals, Romney is the man to beat, and the gloves are off to attack his record as a businessman. But should the former Massachussetts governor However should he carry the day, his bandwagon will be very difficult to stop. Analysing the New Hampshire presidential primary In the aftermath of the New Hampshire presidential primary vote euronews spoke to Jeffrey Frieden, Professor of Government at Harvard University in Boston. euronews: “Jeffrey, what do you make of the results from New Hampshire?” Jeffrey Frieden: “They’re more or less as expected. Mitt Romney did well. He came in first and got almost 40 percent of the vote. I think that comes close to about the best result he could expect in New Hampshire, which is a state which has always been friendly to him. “The principal question in most people’s minds as we were moving into the primary were – who would come in second? And in that context, the question many of us were asking was whether Jon Huntsman might be able to displace Ron Paul in second position. “Huntsman, as you may recall, put almost no effort into Iowa and put ALL of his effort into New Hampshire, which is a state which is more inclined towards his sort of moderate Republican political position. Huntsman did reasonably well with about 16 percent of the vote, but he did not come in second, he came in relatively far behind Ron Paul and so I think the principal result of this will be to raise serious questions as to whether Huntsman’s candidacy is viable. euronews: “You mentioned that New Hampshire was generally friendly towards Romney. South Carolina has a higher unemployment rate than the national average, and of course Mitt Romney is a well-known billionaire who has made his money from buying companies and breaking them up, many of which are in South Carolina. How is he going to fare there do you think?” Jeffrey Frieden: “South Carolina is a very, very different environment for Romney. It’s a much more conservative state. Seventy percent of Republican voters, by most estimates, are evangelical Christians. There is some questions as to whether these evangelical Christians could be concerned about Romney being a Mormon. “There is also a serious question about some of the economic issues that you mentioned. South Carolina has a very high unemployment rate and there is a lot of resentment against the kind of financial engineers that Romney, to some people, represents. “Romney is also not as socially conservative as the average Republican voter in South Carolina. So he faces a much more difficult environment in South Carolina. This will be a true test of his ability to get support from the more conservative, and especially the more socially conservative wing of the Republican party. “If Romney does well in South Carolina, I would say the nomination is clearly his. If, on the other hand, he does particularly poorly, particularly if he comes in second or even third, then the race may still be on.” euronews: “There’s no sign of any of the runners dropping out of the race so far. That seems to be splitting the conservative vote and playing into the hands of Mitt Romney.” Jeffrey Frieden: “Absolutely. The Republican field is very fragmented, and the conservative wing of the Republican Party simply has not been able to unite around a single candidate. I think that’s largely because there are flaws in each of the candidates. “Newt Gingrich is probably the most politically experienced, but he has many, many enemies within the party. People like Rick Perry, Santorum, Bachman – who has already dropped out – others have some support within the conservative wing, but each of them has grave weaknesses. “So I think that one of the things that is helping Romney is that he has three or four conservative rivals, none of whom seems to be able to get the rest of the field to unite around him.” More about: American politics, Mitt Romney, Republicans, USA presidential elections 2012

BNP joins Sberbank in consumer credit joint venture
French bank BNP Paribas is to keep a toe in the water in Russia with a joint consumer lending venture with state-backed Sberbank. Previously BNP had said it would end much of its stand-alone retail banking activities in Russia: Britain’s Barclays and HSBC have already pulled out. The French will own 30 percent of the joint venture which offers loans to clients directly in the store where a purchase is made, rather than at a bank branch, also known as point-of-sale lending. Pascal Roussarie, a spokesman for BNP’s Cetelem brand said: “Sberbank is bringing its network, which is enormous … Cetelem, meanwhile, is bringing existing partnerships and its expertise in loans. We wanted to stay in the (consumer) market.” Banks are pulling out of Russia as they slim down their balance sheets to beef up capital in the face of tougher regulations and Europe’s debt crisis. More about: Banking, BNP Paribas, Russia

Monitoring mission should pull out of Syria
More amateur video said to show funerals of the latest victims killed by Syrian security forces has been published on the internet. An Arab League advisory organisation says the rising death toll is making a mockery of the mission by monitors in Syria to asses the regime’s compliance with a peace deal. In fact the organisation has called for the mission to be aborted claiming it is allowing Damascus to cover up continued violence and abuses. Since December 23, the day before the observers arrived, at least 286 people have been killed. More about: Arab League, Bashar al-Assad, Death, Syria, Urban violence

Spain’s King makes plea for unity as he opens parliament
King Juan Carlos of Spain has called for unity and commitment from politicians to get the country through its worst financial crisis in decades. The appeal came as he officially opened the Spanish parliament in Madrid. The King and other royals received a standing ovation as they entered the chamber. It was the first parliamentary session since Mariano Rajoy took over as prime minister. Rajoy’s government has a mammoth task on its hands when it comes to getting Spain’s economy back on track. “I am sure the representatives will know how to work together to solve the conflicts and problems we will face,” King Juan Carlos said, as he addressed parliament. “We have to trust in ourselves, we will also have to transmit that confidence to citizens.” The King’s appearance came as a fraud investigation continued to engulf his son-in-law. Inaki Urdangarin is accused of siphoning off funds from public contracts, awarded to a non-profit organisation he headed up between 2004 and 2006. He denies the allegations. More about: Economy, Financial Crisis, Mariano Rajoy, Parliamentary debate, Spain

Serbia president against Kosovan-Serb referendum
Serbia’s president Boris Tadic has spoken against a referendum planned by north Kosovan Serbs to decide whether to recognise the Kosovo Albanian-dominated government. Talks brokered by the European Union resulted in improved relations between Pristina and Belgrade, but Kosovo’s 10 percent of ethnic Serbs may jeopardise the relationship with the referendum. Speaking at a news conference in Belgrade, Tadic said the referendum was pointless: “This sort of vote essentially doesn’t contribute to the cause because the world already knows that Serbs, especially those in the north, don’t accept Pristina institutions. So this kind of referendum is extremely unnecessary.” The vote is seen as an act of defiance against the Serbian government which many of the 40,000 Serbs in northern Kosovo feel has gone too far in the Belgrade-Pristina talks. Kosovan Serb Marko Dimic, who is in favour of the vote planned for February 14 and 15, said: “The aim of the referendum is just to show the international community and the ethnic Albanians that we are against this ethnic Albanian government in Pristina.” However, another Kosovan Serb woman supported Tadic’s stand. “I’m against the referendum because Serbia is against it,” she said. Kosovo, whose population is 90 percent ethnic Albanian, declared its independence in 2008 – an act not recognised by Serbia. Kosovan Serbs continue to pledge their allegiance to Belgrade. More about: Ethnic minorities, Kosovo, Referendum, Serbia

Disastrous year for Japanese shares
Japan’s main stock index, the Nikkei, has closed at its lowest end-of-year level since 1982. Shares have lost around a fifth of their value over the past 12 months although the Nikkei is still 10 percent above its low of 2008 that resulted from the global financial crisis. Europe is one reason blamed for the poor performance of Japanese stocks by Atsushi Saito, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Tokyo Stock Exchange. “It is unfortunate that this year did not go in leaps and bounds, as it should in the Year of the Rabbit and that this European debt crisis will remain an obstacle for the future,” he said. But it is not just Europe. Japan has had a disastrous year in general. The majority of losses came in the two days following the March earthquake and tsunami that left 20,000 people dead or missing. Manufacturing was severely disrupted at carmakers such as Toyota and electronics giants like Sony. The subsequent meltdown scare at the Fukushima nuclear plant caused shares in parent company Tepco to plunge over 90 percent. More about: Economy, Japan, Japan disaster, Markets

Tax shake-up for France
The Paris government is planning to cut the amount that French companies pay in contributions to the state for health-care and pensions and make up the lost income with higher value-added tax on purchases. The plan to raise sales taxes before April’s presidential election did not find favour on French streets. One woman complained: “Consumers will pay more for what they buy as the sales tax increases, which will reduce our purchasing power. That is not good news, and it’s not a very good start to the year.” Government ministers are spinning this as a “social VAT” increase on the basis that France’s generous social welfare system can no longer be borne mainly by contributions from wages and businesses. Finance Minister Francois Baroin said: “We are in an unprecedented crisis with economic and budgetary consequences on a national and European level, and we have to deal with all the consequences: on labour costs, on taxes and costs which increase prices.” He denied that the reason for the changes is political and said they are aimed at boosting growth. There is no word yet on how much VAT will rise by. For some items it is already as high as 19.6 percent. At the start of the year VAT rates for so-called essential products and services such as food and energy went up from 5.5 to seven percent. More about: Austerity, Economic crisis, France, Taxes

USA: McCain backs Romney, Bachmann out
He has become the front-runner in the Republican race for the White House, and now he has the endorsement of John McCain. Mitt Romney stood alongside the Republican party’s 2008 presidential candidate at a rally in New Hampshire, the scene of the next primary in three days’ time. Romney edged out former senator Rick Santorum in the Iowa caucuses contest. He told reporters he will now expect what he calls fast and furious attacks from his Republican rivals. Danny Hayes, Assistant Professor of Government at the American University in Washington said: “I think we’ll see a pretty vigorous competition over the next few weeks between Romney and Santorum. “Again … I think the ultimate outcome is going to depend in many ways on whether Santorum can put together a formidable organisation to organise volunteers and to organise voters to turn out the vote in the primary.” The Tea Party favourite Michele Bachmann decided to quit the race after coming in sixth place in the Iowa vote. More about: American politics, Republicans, US elections, USA, USA presidential elections 2012

Eyewitness relives Damascus attack horror
Syrian state TV blamed what it called ‘terrorists’ for Friday’s carnage in Damascus. Some opposition activists claimed the regime itself carried out the attack. euronews spoke to an eyewitness by telephone. “The explosion claimed a lot of victims from the police force and also a lot of innocent civilians,” said Ahmed Sadek, a resident of the attack-hit Midan district. “After Friday prayers, we went to the scene, just next to where I live. I saw body parts scattered on the ground. I think the number of dead is more than 50. “The problem is that the human remains cannot be identified because of the strength of the explosion. “What we went through today was a tragedy. You could see people rushing to the scene and looking for relatives among the victims; women searching for their husbands and others looking for their fathers and others for their sons. This is appalling.” More about: Attack, Bashar al-Assad, Bomb blast, Damascus, Syria