Gingrich takes the lead

Newt Gingrich has taken the lead in PPP's national polling.  He's at 28% to 25% for Herman Cain and 18% for Mitt Romney.  The rest of the Republican field is increasingly looking like a bunch of also rans: Rick Perry is at 6%, Michele Bachmann and Ron Paul at 5%, Jon Huntsman at 3%, and Gary Johnson and Rick Santorum each at 1%.

Compared to a month ago Gingrich is up 13 points, while Cain has dropped by 5 points and Romney has gone down by 4.  Although a fair amount of skepticism remains about the recent allegations against Cain there is no doubt they are taking a toll on his image- his net favorability is down 25 points over the last month from +51 (66/15) to only +26 (57/31). What is perhaps a little more surprising is that Romney's favorability is at a 6 month low in our polling too with only 48% of voters seeing him favorably to 39% with a negative opinion.

Gingrich's lead caps an amazing comeback he's made over the last 5 months.  In June his favorability nationally with Republican voters plummeted all the way to 36/49. Now he's at 68/23, representing a 58 point improvement in his spread since then. As recently as August Gingrich was mired in single digits at 7%, and even in September he was at just 10%.  He's climbed 18 points in less than 2 months.

There's reason to think that if Cain continues to fade, Gingrich will continue to gain.  Among Cain's supporters 73% have a favorable opinion of Gingrich to only 21% with a negative one. That compares to a 33/55 spread for Romney with Cain voters and a 32/53 one for Perry.  They like Gingrich a whole lot more than they do the other serious candidates in the race.

Cain's base of strength continues to be with Tea Party voters, where he gets 33% to 31% for Gingrich, and only 11% for Romney.  This is where you can really see that Gingrich will be the beneficiary if Cain continues to implode- Gingrich's favorability with Tea Partiers is 81/14. Romney's is 43/45. There's a lot of room for Gingrich to build up support with that key group of Republican voters.

Cain's continuing to benefit from doubts about whether the allegations against him are true- 54% of primary voters think they are 'mostly false' to only 24 who believe they are 'mostly true.' Painting himself as a victim of the media is proving to be a good strategy for Cain so far- 61% think it has been 'mostly unfair' to him compared to 26% who say it has been 'mostly fair.' Only 26% of Republicans say they have a more negative opinion of him now than before the accusations surfaced, and just 27% think he should drop out of the race.  All of that's fine but here's the bottom line- Cain's favorability numbers are declining and so is his support. If those trends continue he will fade as a candidate.

The other Republican coming off a bad week is Rick Perry and his numbers have continued on their downward trajectory.  Just 35% of GOP primary voters see him positively to 49% with a negative opinion. That's a 18 point drop compared to a month ago when he was at 42/38. And he's gone from 14% to 6% in the horse race, a bigger decline than Cain's.

If there's any sign of hope for Perry and the other non-Gingrich/Cain/Romney voters it might be the rise of Gingrich. Gingrich has gained 18 points in only 2 months, suggesting that someone else might be capable of gaining 18 points in the 2 months before Iowa as well. And Perry's national favorability of 35/49 is pretty much identical to the 36/49 Gingrich had in June- Newt obviously came back and perhaps Perry can as well, although there's no doubt the clock is ticking.

As for Romney he has not shown any ability to take advantage of the trouble his fellow candidates keep getting themselves into. In July Romney was at 20%, in August at 20%, in September at 18%, October at 22%, and now in November at 18%.  He's been at 20 +/-2% for the last five months in our polling. While the flavor of the month has gone from Trump to Bachmann to Perry to Cain to Gingrich, Romney hasn't had a turn in that seat- he can only hope that his chance in that role will come in January, which is certainly the best time to have it.

North Koreans helping Iran with nukes: Source

Hundreds of North Korean nuclear and missile experts have been collaborating with their Iranian counterparts in more than 10 locations across the Islamic state, a diplomatic source said yesterday.
The revelation lends credence to long-held suspicions that North Korea was helping Iran with a secret nuclear and missile program.

It also represents a new security challenge to the international community as it seeks to curb the nuclear ambitions of Pyongyang and Tehran and thwart trading of nuclear and missile technology.
North Korea has long been suspected of being behind nuclear and missile proliferation in Iran, Syria, Myanmar and Pakistan.

“Hundreds of North Korean nuclear and missile engineers and scientists have been working at more than 10 sites (in Iran), including Natanz and Qom,” the source said, citing human intelligence he declined to identify for security reasons.

The source would not allow the specific number of North Koreans to be published, citing the sensitivity of the intelligence, and would not give further details on the extent of the collaboration. The source spoke on condition of anonymity because of the delicate nature of the issue.

Repeated attempts to contact the Iranian embassy in Seoul by telephone were unsuccessful.
Natanz is home to a fuel enrichment plant and a pilot fuel enrichment plant, the International Atomic Energy Agency said in a report on Iran’s nuclear program published last week.

North Korea - which conducted two nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009 - revealed a year ago that it is running a uranium enrichment facility. Highly enriched uranium can be used to make weapons, providing Pyongyang with a second way of building nuclear bombs in addition to its existing plutonium program.

Both North Korea and Iran are under United Nations sanctions for their nuclear programs. The North has expressed interest in rejoining international disarmament talks it walked away from in 2009.
The source’s information came days after the U.N. nuclear watchdog expressed “serious concerns” on possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear program.

The IAEA said in its report that it believes the country “has carried out activities relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device” under a “structured program” until 2003, and “some activities may still be ongoing.”

The source, with access to intelligence on the years-long weapons collaboration between Pyongyang and Tehran, said the North Koreans are visiting Iran via third countries and many of them are being rotated in every three to six months.

The North Korean experts are from the country’s so-called Office 99, which is directly supervised by the North’s ruling Workers’ Party Munitions Industry Department. The bureau is widely believed to be engaged in exports of weapons and military technology.

South Korea’s top spy agency, the National Intelligence Service, said it could not confirm the North Korean-Iranian cooperation, citing intelligence matters.

A senior South Korean official said Seoul is keeping a close eye on developments.

“It’s not a matter that the government can officially confirm,” another government official said.

The official added that nuclear cooperation between North Korea and Iran has not been confirmed, though the countries have cooperated on missiles. The two officials asked not to be identified, citing office policy.

The Associated Press reported late last year that Mohammad Reza Heydari, a former Iranian diplomat in charge of airports who defected to the West earlier in 2010, said he saw many North Korean technicians repeatedly travel to Iran between 2002 and 2007 to work on the country’s nuclear program.

US blog: Mossad behind Iran blast

Blogger Richard Silverstein claims Israel orchestrated explosion that killed 17 at Iranian missile storage facility, in collaboration with local militant group

by Dudi Cohen

US blogger Richard Silverstein said Saturday that Israel was the mastermind behind the blast the killed at least 17 people at an Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps base near Tehran.

In his blog, Tikun Olam, Silverstein quotes an Israeli expert as saying that the Mossad was responsible for the explosion, in collaboration with the Iranian militant opposition group Mojahedin-e-Khalq.
"It is widely known within intelligence circles that the Israelis use the MEK for varied acts of espionage and terror ranging from fraudulent Iranian memos alleging work on nuclear trigger devices to assassinations of nuclear scientists and bombings of sensitive military installations," Silverstein said.

He attributed an incident similar to Saturday's explosion which occurred at a different IRGC missile base last year to Mossad sabotage.
Silverstein noted that his source "has never been wrong so far in the reports he’s offered."

'External sabotage unlikely'

Meanwhile, a former IRGC soldier said that the explosion occurred at military storage facility where Shihab missiles are stored. Hamed Ebrahimi, who served at the base for two months, told the Iranian online daily Rooz that the tough security at the facility makes it highly unlikely that the blast was caused by an act of external interference.

The soldier said that the base is split into two divisions; one stores missiles, while the other serves as an air force training center.

A senior IRGC officer was among the massive blast's victims. The officer, identified as Hassan Tehrani Moqaddam, held a rank parallel to brigadier general, the Fars news agency said. He reportedly served as a researcher at a Tehran university and headed the "Jihad Self-Reliance" unit, mostly tasked with developing arms and missiles following the embargo imposed on Iran since 1979.

The explosion occurred 40 km (25 miles) outside Tehran, and was felt in the capital.
The IRGC ruled out the possibility that deliberate sabotage was behind the flare-up. On Saturday, it was reported that the blast occurred while munitions were being moved.

"The primary cause for the explosion is being determined, and will be made public at a later date," IRGC spokesman Ramezan Sharif said, stressing that the 17 people who died in the incident and the 16 who were injured were all IRGC operatives, and not civilians.

The funeral procession for the victims has been scheduled for Monday, and is to leave the IRGC's headquarters in Tehran.

In-vitro meat coming soon

KATE KELLAND - Reuters

Scientists are cooking up new ways of satisfying the world's ever-growing hunger for meat.
"Cultured meat" - burgers or sausages grown in laboratory Petri dishes rather than made from slaughtered livestock - could be the answer that feeds the world, saves the environment and spares the lives of millions of animals, they say.

Granted, it may take a while to catch on. And it won't be cheap.

The first lab-grown hamburger will cost around €250,000 (NZ$437,000) to produce, according to Mark Post, a vascular biologist at the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands, who hopes to unveil such a delicacy soon.

Experts say the meat's potential for saving animals' lives, land, water, energy and the planet itself could be enormous.

"The first one will be a proof of concept, just to show it's possible," Post told Reuters in a telephone interview from his Maastricht lab. "I believe I can do this in the coming year."

It may sound and look like some kind of imitation, but in-vitro or cultured meat is a real animal flesh product, just one that has never been part of a complete, living animal - quite different from imitation meat or meat substitutes aimed at vegetarians and made from vegetable proteins like soy.

STEM CELLS

Using stem cells harvested from leftover animal material from slaughterhouses, Post nurtures them with a feed concocted of sugars, amino acids, lipids, minerals and all other nutrients they need to grow in the right way.

So far he has produced whitish pale muscle-like strips, each of them around 2.5 cm long, less than a centimetre wide and so thin as to be almost see-through.

Pack enough of these together - probably around 3,000 of them in layers - throw in a few strips of lab-grown fat, and you have the world's first "cultured meat" burger, he says.

"This first one will be grown in an academic lab, by highly trained academic staff," he said. "It's hand-made and it's time and labour-intensive, that's why it's so expensive to produce."

Not to mention a little unappetizing. Since Post's in-vitro meat contains no blood, it lacks colour. At the moment, it looks a bit like the flesh of scallops, he says.

Like all muscle, these lab-grown strips also need to be exercised so they can grow and strengthen rather than waste away. To do this Post exploits the muscles' natural tendency to contract and stretches them between Velcro tabs in the Petri dish to provide resistance and help them build up strength.

Supporters of the idea of man-made meat, such as Stellan Welin, a bioethicist at Linkoping University in Sweden, say this is no less appealing than mass-producing livestock in factory farms where growth hormones and antibiotics are commonly used to boost yields and profits.

And conventional meat production is also notoriously inefficient. For every 15 grams of edible meat, you need to feed the animals on around 100 grams of vegetable protein, an increasingly unsustainable equation.

All this means finding new ways of producing meat is essential if we are to feed the enormous and ever-growing demand for it across the world, Welin told Reuters in an interview.

NOT SUSTAINABLE

"Of course you could do it by being vegetarian or eating less meat," he said. "But the trends don't seem to be going that way. With cultured meat we can be more conservative - people can still eat meat, but without causing so much damage."

According to the World Health Organization, annual meat production is projected to increase from 218 million tonnes in 1997-1999 to 376 million tonnes by 2030, and demand from a growing world population is seen rising further beyond that.

"Current livestock meat production is just not sustainable," says Post. "Not from an ecological point of view, and neither from a volume point of view. Right now we are using more than 50 percent of all our agricultural land for livestock.

"It's simple maths. We have to come up with alternatives."

According to a 2006 report by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, industrialized agriculture contributes on a "massive scale" to climate change, air pollution, land degradation, energy use, deforestation and biodiversity decline.

The report, entitled Livestock's Long Shadow, said the meat industry contributes about 18 percent of global greenhouse-gas emissions, and this proportion is expected to grow as consumers in fast-developing countries like China and India eat more meat.

Hanna Tuomisto, who conducted a study into the relative environmental impacts of various types of meat, including lamb, pork, beef and cultured meat, said the lab-grown stuff has by far the least impact on the environment.

Her analysis, published in the Environmental Science and Technology journal earlier this year, found that growing our favourite meats in-vitro would use 35 to 60 percent less energy, emit 80 to 95 percent less greenhouse gas and use around 98 percent less land than conventionally produced animal meat.

"We are not saying that we could, or would necessarily want to, replace conventional meat with its cultured counterpart right now," Tuomisto, who led the research at Oxford University's Wildlife Conservation Research Unit, said in a telephone interview.

But she said cultured meat "could be part of the solution to feeding the world's growing population and at the same time cutting emissions and saving both energy and water."

TASTY?

While experts in the field agree that within several years, it may be possible to produce in-vitro meat in a processed form - like sausages or chicken nuggets - producing more animal-like products such as pork chops or steaks could be a lot more complex and may take many more years to develop.

Post, who is financed by an anonymous private funder keen to see the Dutch scientist succeed, hopes to hand the world its first man-made hamburger by August or September next year, but for the moment he admits what he has grown is a long way from a mouth-watering meal.

He hasn't yet sampled his own creation, but reviews from others are not great. A Russian TV reporter who came to his lab tried one of the strips and was unimpressed.

"It's not very tasty yet," Post said. "That's not a trivial thing and it needs to be worked on."

But with the right amounts and right types of fat, perhaps a little lab-grown blood to give it colour and iron, Post is confident he can make his Petri dish meat look and taste as good as the real thing.

He also hopes the ability to tweak and change things will mean scientists will ultimately be able to make meat healthier - with less saturated and more polyunsaturated fat, for example, or more nutrients.

"The idea is that since we are now producing it in the lab, we can play with all these variables and we can eventually hopefully turn it in a way that produces healthier meat," he said. "Whereas in a cow or a pig, you have very limited variables to play with."

Mario Monti needs a miracle

Italy's gentle saviour is tougher than he looks. Mario Monti is a free-marketeer who disguises Thatcherite views and a steel will behind a cloak of unflappable good manners.

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, International Business Editor

As EU competition commissioner a decade ago he battled Germany into retreat over subsidies for the Landesbanken and forced France to break up its electricity monopolies.

He stunned Washington by fining Microscoft €497m (£426m) for abuse of dominant position and blocking the $45bn (£28bn) GE-Honeywell merger, the world's biggest up to that date, after it had already been approved by the Justice Department, as if to say the Americans were failing on the job.

It was Super Mario who turned the EU into a global super-regulator.

The last time we spoke, at Lake Como two years ago, he feared the EU was entering a "quasi-existential crisis".

These have proved to be prophetic words, though he had no inkling then of the role he himself would have to play to save his country, the euro and the world's banking system.

Mr Monti's hand is not quite as weak as it looks. The Italian state is a Christmas tree of valuable assets, owning 4pc of the oil company ENI, 31pc of the utility ENEL, 33pc of the aerospace group Finmeccanica, 100pc of Poste Italiane.

Company sales could generate €45bn quite easily and Mr Monti is already a convinced privatiser. Whether he can convince the centre-left in parliament to back such sales is an open question.

State assets total €1.8 trillion, roughly the same as public debt of €1.9 trillion. There is vast private wealth, by some estimates near €8.6 trillion, making the Italians much richer per capita than Germans or Americans.

The task for Mr Monti to carry out an "internal bail-out" by extracting a sliver of this national 'ricchezza' to rescue the state.

A variant of this was tried in July 1992, when bank accounts were raided by forced levy. Mr Monti will be less capricious. He is a stickler for due process. Options include a tax on residences and a wealth tax that might bring in €100bn.

Unlike Greece, Italy already has a primary budget surplus. It will be 0.5pc of GDP this year and 4pc by 2013 if the overall budget is balanced by then. This is the lowest in the G7 bloc.

The IMF's debt sustainability indicator places Italy top on the good conduct list at 4.1, ahead of Germany 4.6, France 7.9, the UK 13.3, Japan 14.3, and the US 17.

Italy's public debt of 120pc of GDP is in a sense offset by very low household debt of 42pc. Total private debt is 129pc, compared to a eurozone average of 169pc.

Raj Badiani from IHS Global Insight said Italy can, in theory, weather several quarters with 10-year bond yields above 7pc. What changes the picture is the "dangerous mix" of a faltering economy as well.

This threatens to send Italy's debt dynamics into a downward spiral as it struggles to find €300bn in 2012. What Mr Monti faces is really a stagnation crisis, not a debt crisis.

Growth has been just 0.6pc over the last decade, and productivity has been falling. The country has lost 40pc in labour competitiveness against Germany over the last 15 years, leaving it locked inside EMU with an overvalued currency.

Danay Gabay from Fathom Consulting said Italy will be even less able to compete than Greece: "We would distance ourselves from the mantra making the market rounds: that Italy's fundamentals are basically sound and the country is only facing a short-term liquidity crisis."

Mr Monti must, in effect, carry out an "internal devaluation" within EMU to claw back lost ground, squeezing wages and costs below German levels for years after.

Ireland is proving this can be done, but the Irish economy is flexible and exports are booming. It has a current account surplus. Italy has been losing global export share relentlessly as China chips away at its mid-tier manufacturing.

The professor has to perform this conjuring trick at the worst of times, just as fiscal contraction and a eurozone recession tip the economy back into slump.

He has no political base, and his popularity on the Left is unlikely to last long if he takes a machete to Italy's labour laws as demanded by Brussels and the bond vigilantes.

For all the joy in Rome last night, Italy is just as polarised as Britain was when Margaret Thatcher took over a ruined political economy in 1979. The unions are just as militant.

It will take all his charm to hold Italy's ship together through the coming storm, if not a miracle.