Newt Gingrich set his sights on Florida after a stunning win in South Carolina’s presidential primary, while main Republican rival Mitt Romney bowed to pressure to release his tax returns.

Gingrich’s resounding victory Saturday turned the topsy-turvy race on its head, and his political resurrection ensures a dramatic 2012 battle to be the Republican standard-bearer against President Barack Obama on November 6.

It shattered the aura of invincibility cloaking the former Massachusetts governor and turned Florida’s January 31 primary into a pivotal contest that could either confirm Gingrich’s momentum or restore Romney as the frontrunner.

Palm Beach County Republican Party chairman Sid Dinerstein said Florida was now the “make-or-break state” in the contest. “There is a very good chance therefore that after Florida the race is practically over,” he told AFP.

“It was not a great week for me,” a stung Romney conceded to Fox News Sunday after watching his substantial lead in South Carolina evaporate in a matter of days. Gingrich eventually won by 12.5 percentage points.

The campaign rhetoric grew increasingly bitter as the multimillionaire investor Romney and the pugnacious former House speaker locked horns.

Romney said there was “no question” he would go after his rival’s character more strongly than he has, implying he would call out Gingrich on his past ethics charges and his admitted marital affairs.

“Character is a big part of leadership, as is vision, sobriety, steadiness. These are attributes which I think people want to see in their candidate.”

Gingrich, who made the talk show rounds on Sunday after his victory, focused his attention on savaging the Democratic incumbent Obama, who he portrayed as a dangerously weak radical whose first term has been a “disaster.”

“Beating Barack Obama has to be the number one mission of the Republican Party,” Gingrich told NBC’s “Meet the Press,” adding that Republicans needed a candidate “strong enough and tough enough” to take on the president.

He posed himself as the insurgent street-fighter up against the establishment candidate Romney, and suggested it was best to air differences and weaknesses now, rather than in the run-up to November when Obama will use his “billion-dollar campaign” to cripple his opponent.

Gingrich’s win rekindled doubts about whether the relatively moderate Romney can rally the party’s conservative core, which views him with suspicion.

Former senator Rick Santorum, who finished a distant third in South Carolina, painted them both as unelectable. Romney versus Gingrich is “a choice between a moderate and an erratic conservative,” he told ABC.

Romney appeared to embrace Santorum’s attack on Gingrich, noting that “no one says to me that I’m someone that flies off the handle (or) that I’m erratic.”

But he has been criticized for appearing out of touch with average Americans.

After coming under pressure from Gingrich and others, Romney vowed to release his 2010 tax return on Tuesday, seeking to dispel doubts over what he might be hiding ahead of the all-important Florida vote.

But he insisted he would not shy away from his business record, saying he believed Americans — with respect for Congress at an all time low — would support private-sector success over someone who “spent 40 years in Washington as a congressman and a lobbyist.”

Gingrich was propelled into contention by some stellar debate performances, in particular a vicious counter-attack on the media when probed about an allegation by his ex-wife that he had once requested an open marriage.

But Florida is a far larger and more diverse state, with Romney’s vaunted campaign riches and well-oiled machine expected to give him the edge.

Organization is key here, and deep pockets are needed to air political advertising in Florida’s several media markets.

More than 220,000 voters have already cast early ballots, a state party official told AFP — which analysts say should favor Romney as many voted prior to Gingrich’s victory.

While Romney has a pronounced edge in Florida — polls have him ahead by an average of 18 percentage points — funds for Gingrich have soared.

His campaign will announce Sunday that it raised $ 1 million in eight hours, while a group of his supporters will launch an ad campaign Tuesday targeting Romney, The Washington Post reported.

Gingrich’s triumph in South Carolina followed a Santorum victory in Iowa and a Romney win in New Hampshire, dividing up the electoral spoils and bragging rights.

The four candidates, including veteran congressman Ron Paul who finished fourth in South Carolina, have a chance to impress Florida voters when they duel it out in a televised debate Monday night in Tampa.

Pattaya today newspaper

Police check points throughout Pattaya yielded the arrest of three owners of illegal guns.  One suspect, Jamnien Suwanlong, explained that he needed to carry a gun to defend himself from enemies. Another suspect did not know his gun was loaded as his wife had put it in his pocket.

Pattaya today newspaper

Palestinian envoys are battling for UN Security Council votes to back their effort to win full UN membership, while the United States is using its diplomatic big guns to make the bid fail.

The Security Council held its first meeting to discuss the application on Monday and is to meet again Wednesday to formally send the request made by Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas to a membership committee.

The Palestinian campaign faces an uphill struggle as the United States has vowed to veto any resolution backing their application. No vote at the 15-member council is expected for several weeks however and frenzied lobbying has started.

On top of campaigning at the UN, the Palestinians are to send high level delegations to council members Bosnia, Gabon and Nigeria in a bid to win backing, Palestinian envoy to the UN, Riyad Mansour, told reporters.

The United States and Israel, which insist that only direct negotiations can produce an accord, are lobbying furiously for council members to oppose or abstain in the resolution.

If the resolution does not get nine votes in favor it will fail and the United States will not have to use its veto.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton raised the Palestinian bid with Lebanon’s Prime Minister Nijab Mikati at the UN headquarters before Monday’s meeting, US officials said. Lebanon holds the council presidency in September and has backed the Palestinian bid.

She also raised the case Monday with Colombia’s Foreign Minister Maria Angela Holguin.

Nine of the 15 council members already recognize the Palestinian state, but diplomats say the Palestinians will struggle to get nine votes.

Only China, Russia, Lebanon, India, South Africa and Brazil have declared themselves certain to vote for the Palestinian bid.

“This is an exercise in which there will be tremendous pressure on members of the Security Council, but we trust in our friends,” Mansour said.

Despite the US opposition, Mansour called on the Security Council to “synchronize itself with history” and approve Palestinian membership.

US President Barack Obama told Abbas publicly and privately at the UN last week that there could be no Palestinian state without an accord with the Israelis reached through direct talks.

The diplomatic Quartet on the Middle East — the United States, Russia, European Union and United Nations — launched a new bid to resume talks after Abbas made his historic application, setting a target of an accord by the end of 2012.

Germany’s Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle gave strong support to the Quartet initiative in his speech to the UN General Assembly on Monday.

“Two states existing peacefully side by side are possible. However, this can only be achieved through negotiations,” he said.

“The confrontation of words here in New York must not be allowed to lead to an escalation in violence in the Middle East,” he added, calling for “direct negotiations without delay!”

China’s Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi also added to the long list of international calls for new talks in his speech to the UN assembly.

The Quartet has called for talks to start within a month, proposals from both sides in three months, major progress in six months and a final deal by the end of 2012.

Abbas, riding a wave of popular support in the occupied territories, says he is ready for talks but first there must be a “complete halt” to Israeli settlement building in the occupied territories.

Israel’s Netanyahu has said he wants talks without conditions and is refusing to halt the new settlements.

A senior UN official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said on the sidelines of the Clinton-Mikati talks that he saw “little hope” for new talks.

If the Security Council bid fails, the Palestinians are expected to go to the UN General Assembly to seek observer state membership of the UN. They would almost certainly get a majority in favor.

France has called for the Palestinians to be given observer state membership in a bid to defuse the diplomatic clash.

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Libyan rebels have given forces loyal to Moamer Kadhafi until Saturday to surrender or face the “final battle” of a more than six-month uprising against the fugitive dictator’s crumbling regime.

The head of the conflict-wracked country’s National Transitional Council, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, said the ultimatum was offered to mark the three-day Eid al-Fitr feast following the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.

Talks are under way with civic and tribal leaders in a number of towns, including Kadhafi’s birthplace Sirte, where he may be holed up, in an effort to avoid bloodshed, but more fighting could be imminent.

“From Saturday, if no peaceful solution is in sight on the ground, we will resort to military force,” Abdel Jalil said, warning that Kadhafi “is not finished yet.”

NATO also said Kadhafi’s influence remained potent despite him being on the run.

“He is displaying a capability to exercise some level of command and control,” Colonel Roland Lavoie, military spokesman of the NATO air mission in Libya, told a news briefing via video link from his headquarters in Naples.

While rebels sought to talk Kadhafi troops into surrendering in Sirte, their last major stronghold, NATO air strikes were now focused around the town.

“The pro-Kadhafi troops that we see are not in total disarray, they are retreating in an orderly fashion, conceding ground and going to the second-best position that they could hold to continue their warfare,” Lavoie added.

Rebel military spokesman Colonel Ahmed Omar Bani told a news conference in the eastern stronghold of Benghazi on Tuesday that his forces were “ready for a final military battle,” describing Saturday as “zero hour.”

“We have been given no indication of a peaceful surrender… We continue to seek a peaceful solution, but on Saturday we will use different methods against these criminals,” he said.

The capital Tripoli, meanwhile, launched Eid celebrations late Tuesday with bursts of red tracer rounds fired into the sky as a substitute for fireworks and people congregating in Martyr’s Square, formerly known as Green Square.

“This is the first time we have felt relaxed in 42 years,” Amari Abdulla, 24, told AFP. “We will celebrate as in the past but this time it is simply better. It is a new Libya.”

Italian news agency ANSA, citing “authoritative Libyan diplomatic sources,” reported on Monday that Kadhafi and his two sons — Saadi and Seif al-Islam — were hiding in Bani Walid, a town southeast of Tripoli.

The rebel military spokesman said Kadhafi’s once feared intelligence chief, Abdullah al-Senussi, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court, may have been killed as he tried to reach Bani Walid.

Rebel fighters had destroyed two armoured vehicles on the road from the town of Tarhuna closer to the capital, and captured Kadhafi loyalists told them one of the passengers was Senussi, Bani said.

Libyan state television denied rebel claims that another of Kadhafi’s sons, Khamis, had been killed as he too tried to reach Bani Walid.

The rebels also renewed their calls for neighbouring Algeria to hand over Kadhafi’s wife and three more of his children who fled over the border on Monday.

Algerian foreign ministry spokesman Amar Belani told AFP the decision to allow Kadhafi’s wife Safiya, daughter Aisha and sons Mohammed and Hannibal to cross into the country was based solely on humanitarian concerns.

Just hours after crossing over, Aisha gave birth to a baby girl, a government official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“Aisha gave birth very early this morning. She had a little girl. Mother and daughter are doing fine.”

The rebels’ fledgling new administration meanwhile received a major boost to its finances with clearance from a UN sanctions committee for Britain to release $ 1.6 billion in seized regime assets to pay for emergency relief.

Similar applications by Germany to release about one billion euros ($ 1.4 billion) and France to unfreeze about five billion euros ($ 7.2 billion) were also under consideration but being held up by Russia, diplomats said.

The NTC executive committee number two said Libya also expected to rehabilitate “a lot” of its oil wells in the “next few days” and downplayed the threat of sabotage by diehard Kadhafi loyalists.

“Kadhafi is on the run now and we now have a good idea where is,” Ali Tarhuni said without elaborating. “The threat is present but not too dangerous.”

Pattaya today newspaper