SINGAPORE: An Australian man has been cleared of a charge of molesting a purchasing officer.
This came after Mr Kevin Francis D'arcy, 59, made a public apology in a local English daily on January 19 as requested by the woman.
The incident happened on August 31, 2012 in Boat Quay.
Mr D'arcy apparently squeezed the buttock of the 32-year-old woman, who was clubbing with her sister and friend.
-CNA/ac
Google has finished a version of its Native Client programming technology that extends beyond mainstream x86 PC processors into the world of ARM chips.
Native Client, or NaCl for short, is designed to let programmers easily adapt the C or C++ software they've written for native software so that it can run as a part of Web apps, too. It's designed for high performance, but it's also got security mechanisms built in to counter the risks of running malicious code directly on the processor. The first version of NaCl, though, only worked on personal computers using Intel or AMD's x86 chips.
Google's David Sehr announced NaCl for ARM today with version 25 of its NaCl software developer kit, which programmers use to build NaCl programs.
The technology is designed so that programmers can bring their existing code to the Web -- for example, game designers who have written a physics engine in C++. But NaCl has been at odds with the Web philosophy in one important way, namely, that NaCl software doesn't simply run on any device with a browser.
Extending to ARM is thus an important for NaCl, because ARM chips power almost every smartphone out there. But this version of NaCl doesn't do that -- it only works on the new ARM-based Samsung Chromebooks.
To reach mobile phones, Google is banking on a revamp called Portable Native Client, or PNaCl. It adopts a low-level translation technology called LLVM that adapts native code to a variety of processors.
"With Portable Native Client, we'll be able to support not just today's architectures, but also those of tomorrow - and developers won't have to recompile their app," Sehr said in the blog post.
With PNaCl, programmers will be able to produce a single package (with the .pexe extension rather than NaCl's .nexe extension) that will run on all supported devices. With today's approach, programmers must produce separate .nexe files for ARM and for x86.
Another major challenge for Native Client is attracting support. It's built into Chrome, but no other major browser maker supports it, and Mozilla is downright frosty about NaCl.
So far you can only get NaCl software through Google's Chrome Web Store. That's also a big departure from the ordinary Web, where you simply point a browser at a Web page to fetch the necessary HTML, CSS, and JavaScript software.
That'll change with PNaCl, too, Google said. The Chrome Web Store is required today to ensure software is compatible with different chip architectures, Google said in a statement. PNaCl sheds this chip-architecture constraint.
JERUSALEM Israel's parliamentary election ended Wednesday in a stunning deadlock between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's hard-line bloc and center-left rivals, forcing the badly weakened Israeli leader to scramble to cobble together a coalition of parties from both camps, despite dramatically different views on Mideast peacemaking and other polarizing issues.
Israeli media said that with 99.8 percent of votes counted on Wednesday morning, each bloc had 60 of parliament's 120 seats. Commentators said Netanyahu, who called early elections expecting easy victory, would be tapped to form the next government because the rival camp drew 12 of its 60 seats from Arab parties who've never joined a coalition.
A startlingly strong showing by a political newcomer, the centrist Yesh Atid party, turned pre-election forecasts on their heads and dealt Netanyahu his surprise setback.
Yesh Atid, or There is a Future, a party headed by political newcomer Yair Lapid, is now Netanyahu's most likely partner. Lapid has said he would only join a government committed to sweeping economic changes and a resumption of peace talks with the Palestinians.
Addressing his supporters early Wednesday, Netanyahu vowed to form as broad a coalition as possible. He said the next government would be built on principles that include reforming the contentious system of granting draft exemptions to ultra-Orthodox Jewish men and the pursuit of a "genuine peace" with the Palestinians. He did not elaborate, but the message seemed aimed at Lapid.
Shortly after the results were announced, Netanyahu called Lapid and offered to work together. "We have the opportunity to do great things together," Netanyahu was quoted as saying by Likud officials.
Netanyahu's Likud-Yisrael Beitenu alliance was set to capture about 31 of the 120 seats, significantly fewer than the 42 it held in the outgoing parliament and below the forecasts of recent polls.
With his traditional allies of nationalist and religious parties, Netanyahu could put together a shaky majority of 61 seats, results showed. But it would be virtually impossible to keep such a narrow coalition intact, though it was possible he could take an additional seat or two as numbers trickled in throughout the night.
The results capped a lackluster campaign in which peacemaking with the Palestinians, traditionally the dominant issue in Israeli politics, was pushed aside. Netanyahu portrayed himself as the only candidate capable of leading Israel at a turbulent time, while the fragmented opposition targeted him on domestic economic issues.
Israeli actor, journalist and author Yair Lapid, leader of the Yesh Atid party, speaks to supporters, Jan. 23, 2013 at his party headquarters in Tel Aviv.
Netanyahu's goal of a broader coalition will force him to make some difficult decisions. Concessions to Lapid, for instance, will alienate his religious allies. In an interview last week with The Associated Press, Lapid said he would not be a "fig leaf" for a hard-line, extremist agenda.
Lapid's performance was the biggest surprise of the election. The one-time TV talk show host and son of a former Cabinet minister was poised to win 19 seats, giving him the second-largest faction in parliament.
Presenting himself as the defender of the middle class, Lapid vowed to take on Israel's high cost of living and to end the contentious system of subsidies and draft exemptions granted to ultra-Orthodox Jews while they pursue religious studies. The expensive system has bred widespread resentment among the Israeli mainstream.
Thanks to his strong performance, Lapid is now in a position to serve as the kingmaker of the next government. He will likely seek a senior Cabinet post and other concessions.
Yaakov Peri, a member of Lapid's party, said it would not join unless the government pledges to begin drafting the ultra-Orthodox into the military, lowers the country's high cost of living and returns to peace talks. "We have red lines. We won't cross those red lines, even if it will cost us sitting in the opposition," Peri told Channel 2 TV.
Addressing his supporters, a beaming Lapid was noncommittal, calling only for a broad government with moderates from left and right. "Israelis said no to the politics of fear and hatred," he said. "And they said no to extremism and anti-democracy."
There was even a distant possibility of Lapid and more dovish parties teaming up to block Netanyahu from forming a majority.
"It could be that this evening is the beginning for a big chance to create an alternative government to the Netanyahu government," said Shelly Yachimovich, leader of the Labor Party, which won 15 seats on a platform pledging to narrow the gaps between rich and poor.
Although that seemed unlikely, Netanyahu clearly emerged from the election in a weakened state.
1/2
The second in command of al Qaeda's Yemen affiliate was reportedly killed in an airstrike in Yemen in December, according to a news report by Arabic television network Al Arabiya, the third time the former Guantanamo detainee has been reported dead since 2010.
According to the report, Said al-Shihri died last month after sustaining severe injuries from a joint U.S.-Yemeni airstrike that targeted a convoy in which he was riding. The al Arabiya account, based on information from "family sources," said that the airstrike left al-Shihri in a coma. He allegedly died soon after and was buried in Yemen.
On Tuesday afternoon, hours after the initial report, a Yemeni government official denied having any information regarding the death of al-Shihri, according to Arabic news site al-Bawaba.
No photos of a body have yet surfaced and no mention of his death has appeared on jihadi forums.
This is the third time al-Shihri, the second in command of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), has been reported killed since 2009. In 2010, the Yemeni government claimed it had captured him. In September 2012, Yemeni news sites reported he was killed in an American drone strike.
PHOTOS: Terrorists Who Came Back from the Grave
READ: Gitmo Detainee turned terror commander killed: Reports
Al-Shihri, a "veteran jihadist," traveled to Afghanistan shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks to fight coalition troops, only to be captured weeks later, according to West Point's Combating Terrorism Center. He was sent to the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where he stayed for six years before being released to Saudi Arabia. There, he entered a so-called "jihadi rehab" program that attempted to turn terrorists into art students by getting them to get "negative energy out on paper," as the program's director told ABC News in 2009.
READ: Trading Bombs for Crayons: Terrorists Get 'Art Therapy'
But just months after he supposedly entered the fingerpainting camp, al-Shihri reappeared in Yemen where he was suspected to have been behind a deadly bombing at the U.S. embassy there.
At the time, critics of the "jihadi rehab" program used al-Shihri as evidence that extremists would just go through the motions in order to be freed.
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JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Hawkish Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has claimed victory in Israel's parliamentary election, shrugging off surprise losses to centre-left challengers and vowing to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
However, Tuesday's vote, which also disappointed religiously inspired hardliners, may deflect the premier's focus on confronting Tehran and resisting Palestinian demands as Israel's secular middle-class demanded new attention on domestic issues.
That in turn might draw Netanyahu toward a less fractious relationship with his key ally, U.S. President Barack Obama, who himself embarked on a new term this week with great ambitions.
Interim vote count results on Wednesday showed the Israeli leader's right-wing Likud and the ultra-nationalist Yisrael Beitenu would remain the biggest bloc in the 120-member assembly, but with only 31 seats, 11 fewer than the 42 the two parties held in the last parliament.
That put Netanyahu on course for a third term in office, perhaps leading a hardline coalition that would promote Jewish settlement on occupied land.
But his weakened showing in the ballot, which he had called nine months early in the hope of a strong mandate for his struggle with Iran, could complicate his efforts to forge an alliance with a stable and substantial majority in parliament.
"I am proud to be your prime minister, and I thank you for giving me the opportunity, for the third time, to lead the state of Israel," the 63-year-old leader told a cheering crowd in the early hours of Wednesday at his campaign headquarters.
Netanyahu said he planned to form as broad a governing coalition as possible, suggesting he would seek partners beyond his traditional ultra-nationalist and religious allies. His first call may be to Yair Lapid, a former television anchorman whose centrist, secular party came from nowhere to second place.
"The first challenge was and remains preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons," Netanyahu said.
Iran denies it is planning to build an atomic bomb, and says Israel, widely believed to have the only nuclear arsenal in the Middle East, is the biggest threat to the region.
Netanyahu views Tehran's nuclear program as a threat to Israel's existence and has stoked international concern by hinting at possible Israeli military action to thwart it.
He has shunted Palestinian peacemaking well down the agenda despite Western concern to keep the quest for a solution alive.
Wednesday's count forecast an even split between right-wing parties and the centre-left, with each bloc taking 60 of parliament's 120 seats.
Lapid's Yesh Atid (There is a Future) party should have 19 seats, the interim count showed - a stunning result for a newcomer to politics in a field of 32 contending parties.
Lapid won support amongst middle-class, secular voters by promising to resolve a growing housing shortage, abolish military draft exemptions for Jewish seminary students and seek an overhaul of the failing education system.
He urged Netanyahu "to build as broad a government as possible so that we can bring about real change in Israel".
The once dominant Labour party led by Shelly Yachimovich was projected to take third place with 15 seats. She described Likud victory claims as "ridiculous" before final results were in.
"There is a very good chance, a very good chance, that tomorrow morning Benjamin Netanyahu will not be able to form a government," she declared at her party headquarters.
Reconciling views to build a cabinet will certainly be hard.
"YESH ATID SWEEP"
Some in Netanyahu's party acknowledged that the election had gone somewhat awry. "We anticipated we would lose some votes to Lapid, but not to this extent. This was a Yesh Atid sweep," Likud-Yisrael Beitenu campaign adviser Ronen Moshe told Reuters.
Lapid said before the election he would consider joining a Netanyahu-led government. If that happens, the ultra-Orthodox religious parties which often hold the balance of power in parliament might lose some of their leverage.
After a lackluster campaign, Israelis voted in droves on a sunny winter day, registering a turnout of 66.6 percent, the highest since 2003. That buoyed centre-left parties which had pinned their hopes on energizing an army of undecided voters against Netanyahu and his nationalist-religious allies.
"A big majority of middle class Israelis have voted strongly against the priorities of the last government," said Dan Avnon, a political science professor at Hebrew University.
"These are the people who pay the taxes and serve in the army," he said. "I don't think they can be ignored."
Opinion polls before the election had predicted an easy win for Netanyahu, although the last ones suggested he would lose some votes to the Jewish Home party, which opposes a Palestinian state and advocates annexing chunks of the occupied West Bank.
Wednesday's interim count gave 11 seats to Jewish Home.
The biggest casualty was the centrist Kadima party, which teetered between a minimum parliamentary showing of 2 seats and political extinction, depending on the final vote tally due later on Wednesday.
Kadima had gained the highest number in the previous election in 2009, although its then leader Tzipi Livni failed to put together a governing coalition.
Official vote results will be announced on January 30. After that, President Shimon Peres is likely to ask Netanyahu, as leader of the biggest bloc in parliament, to try to form a government.
WESTERN ANXIETY
Whatever permutation finally emerges, a Netanyahu-led government is likely to resist any push for a peace deal with the Palestinians that would come anywhere near satisfying the moderates who seek a viable independent state alongside Israel.
Naftali Bennet, high-tech millionaire son of American immigrants who leads the hard-right, pro-settler Jewish Home party, was a likely coalition partner despite his election showing, which was less than surging opinion polls had predicted.
Bennet, who advocates annexing West Bank land to Israel, told cheering supporters: "There is only one truth and it is simple. The Land of Israel belongs to the people of Israel."
Britain warned Israel on Tuesday it was losing international support, saying Jewish settlement expansion had almost killed off prospects for a two-state solution.
U.S.-brokered peace talks broke down in 2010 amid mutual acrimony. Since then Israel has accelerated construction in the West Bank and east Jerusalem - land the Palestinians want for their future state - much to the anger of Western partners.
Netanyahu's relations with Obama have been notably tense and Martin Indyk, former U.S. ambassador to Israel, told the BBC the election was unlikely to change that.
"President Obama doesn't have high expectations that there's going to be a government in Israel committed to making peace and is capable of the kind of very difficult and painful concessions that would be needed to achieve a two-state solution," he said.
But Aaron David Miller, once a senior U.S. adviser on the peace process, said a weakening of the right might improve ties: "The fact is, if (Netanyahu) goes with Lapid and he reaches out to the centre, you're going to end up with an American-Israeli rapprochement to a certain degree," Miller told CNN.
Tuesday's vote was the first in Israel since Arab uprisings swept the region two years ago, reshaping the Middle East.
Netanyahu has said the turbulence, which has brought Islamist governments to power in several countries long ruled by secularist autocrats, including neighboring Egypt, shows the importance of strengthening national security.
Foreign policy issues barely registered during the election campaign, with a poll in Haaretz newspaper on Friday saying 47 percent of Israelis thought social and economic issues were the most pressing concern, against just 10 percent who cited Iran.
A major problem for the next government, which is unlikely to take power before mid-March, is the stuttering economy.
Data last week showed the budget deficit rose to 4.2 percent of gross domestic product in 2012, double the original estimate, meaning spending cuts and tax hikes look certain.
(Reporting by Jerusalem bureau; Editing by Alastair Macdonald and David Brunnstrom)
TOKYO: Japan plans to ease restrictions on American and French beef imports imposed due to concerns over mad cow disease, government officials and local media said Tuesday.
Japan, which was once the largest buyer of US beef, halted imports after a case of mad cow disease was detected in an American herd in 2003. It now imports meat only from cattle aged under 20 months.
Tokyo plans to raise the limit to 30 months starting on February 1 if the health ministry's council gives approval, the health, labour and welfare minister Norihisa Tamura told a news conference.
Japan will also apply the same age limit to beef imported from France, which was previously totally banned, Kyodo News quoted unnamed ministry officials as saying.
As for beef from cattle raised in the Netherlands, currently also subject to a total ban, Japan has been in talks with the Dutch government to set the age restriction at up to 12 months in response to its request, Kyodo said.
Beef meeting these relaxed criteria is expected to start arriving in Japan around late February to early March, it added.
-AFP/fl
North Korea's army.
North Korea is easing some of strict cell phone rules -- now, visitors can bring their own mobile devices into the country, according to the Associated Press.
While this may seem like a minor move on the part of the North Korean government, it is actually a big step for one of the most closed-off countries in the world. Despite the ease in regulations, foreigners are still not allowed to talk to any locals via mobile device.
For years North Korea's authorities made visitors leave their cell phones at the border or airport when arriving to the country, according to the Associated Press. Now, the new rules allow foreigners to bring their own WCDMA-compatible phones or rent a mobile and buy a local SIM card at the airport. These SIM cards allow calls to Japan and the U.S., but not South Korea.
This change in the rules may have been brought on by Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt's recent trip to the country in his push to get North Korea's government to give its citizens more Internet access. On his visit, Schmidt elected to leave his phone in China and rent a local handset.
"We left our phones and laptops behind in China, since we were warned they'd be confiscated in NK, and probably infected with lord knows what malware," Schmidt's daughter, who accompanied her father to North Korea, wrote in a blog post yesterday.North Korea is known for restricting its citizens' access to cell phones. In 2008, the government banned the use of cell phones to prevent its residents from sharing news about a worsening food crisis. And in December 2010, after the death of president Kim Jong-il, all cell phone use was prohibited during a 100-day mourning period. Those people caught using a mobile device were considered war criminals and "punished accordingly."
The ongoing bans on cell phones seems to stem from the government's desire to keep a tight reign on information flow in and out of the country. According to the Associated Press, more than 1 million North Koreans now have cell phones and that number is growing. However, 1 million people is still less than 5 percent of the country's total population.
News Analysis
President Obama is a student of history - it was no coincidence that he formally announced his run to become the first African-American president back in 2007 at the Old State Capitol in Springfield, Illinois, where Abraham Lincoln delivered his "house divided" speech in 1858 - and his inaugural address today drew an unmistakable line between the nation's past and its prospects for the future.
The president opened his remarks by referencing Lincoln's words from that speech, stating that America came to realize at that point in history that "no union founded on the principles of liberty and equality could survive half-slave and half-free." He grounded his remarks in the Declaration of Independence's claim that "all men are created equal," tying it to both the American Revolution and rules mandating that there is fair play in the free market, to the need for a great nation to "protect its people from life's worst hazards and misfortune."
Later, he again invoked the declaration - though this time, he referred to the notion that "all of us are created equal" - before referencing three landmark moments in the battle for civil rights: The Seneca Falls Convention for women's rights, the clashes in Selma for African-American rights and the riots at New York's Stonewall Inn for gay rights. (The speech marked the first presidential inaugural in which LGBT rights have been referenced.)
He then pivoted from the triumphs of the past to the necessity of continuing the fight, calling for equal pay for women, equal rights for gay men and women, an elimination of long lines to vote, better treatment of immigrants, and, in an indirect reference to his desire to pass gun control legislation, the necessity of children from Detroit to Appalachia to Newtown to know "that they are cared for, and cherished, and always safe from harm."
At five separate moments in his second inaugural address, delivered to an estimated 500,000 to 700,000 people at the Capitol, Mr. Obama uttered the words "We, the people" - the opening words to the preamble of the Constitution. Those words were deployed to underscore the president's argument that Americans need to recognize that we are all in it together - and that while America celebrates initiative and enterprise, "preserving our individual freedoms ultimately requires collective action."
"For the American people can no more meet the demands of today's world by acting alone than American soldiers could have met the forces of fascism or communism with muskets and militias," he said. "No single person can train all the math and science teachers we'll need to equip our children for the future, or build the roads and networks and research labs that will bring new jobs and businesses to our shores. Now, more than ever, we must do these things together, as one nation, and one people." He went on to add that "we are made for this moment, and we will seize it - so long as we seize it together."
That idea underscored the positions Mr. Obama reiterated during the speech, which at times came closer to a policy-oriented State of the Union Address than an inaugural, which historically tends to be more about soaring rhetoric. (The president will offer his State of the Union on February 12.) In addition to arguing that economic inequality hampers the nation's success, he said that the future depends on harnessing "new ideas and technology to remake our government, revamp our tax code, reform our schools, and empower our citizens with the skills they need to work harder, learn more, and reach higher."
"We do not believe that in this country, freedom is reserved for the lucky, or happiness for the few," said the president. "We recognize that no matter how responsibly we live our lives, any one of us, at any time, may face a job loss, or a sudden illness, or a home swept away in a terrible storm. The commitments we make to each other - through Medicare, and Medicaid, and Social Security - these things do not sap our initiative; they strengthen us. They do not make us a nation of takers; they free us to take the risks that make this country great."
Mr. Obama also fit a call for a renewed focus on fighting climate change - an issue largely absent from his first-term agenda - into the notion of collective action for the common good, saying that "the failure to [address it] would betray our children and future generations."
In addition to climate change, Mr. Obama's second term agenda involves pushing passage of gun control and immigration legislation, overseeing the further implementation of the health care law, winding down the war in Afghanistan, and continuing to try to find some way to come to a major agreement with Republicans to address the nation's massive debt and deficit.
He has signaled that to accomplish these goals, he will take a more confrontational approach with Republicans than he did in his first term -- an approach illustrated by his recent refusal to negotiate on raising the debt limit. His inaugural address offered little in the way of appeals for Washington bipartisanship; instead, Mr. Obama called on Americans in and out of the nation's capitol to come together to help the nation stay on the right path, even if the results are sometimes "imperfect."
"Progress does not compel us to settle centuries-long debates about the role of government for all time - but it does require us to act in our time," he said. "For now decisions are upon us, and we cannot afford delay."
It was an appeal grounded in the notion that America's strength comes from all its citizens, no matter their status. And it was offered by a president who knows the debt he owes to history - a president who sees himself both as a symbol of American progress and a vessel to keep it moving forward.
A presidential inauguration is a big, long event that lasts all day and into the night–and who has time to really watch it? People have jobs, ones that don’t let you off for a federal holiday.
Everyone (or, at least, some) will be talking about it, which means potential embarrassment for anyone who doesn’t know what happened. Thankfully, ABC employs news professionals stationed in Washington, D.C., to pay attention to these kinds of things and boil off some of the less noteworthy or interesting stuff, presenting you with short videos of everything that really mattered. Or at least the things a lot of people were talking about.
A full day of paying attention to President Obama’s second Inauguration leads one of those professionals to offer these 7 1/2 things:
1. Beyonce Sang the National Anthem
Boy, howdy! Did she ever? Beyonce has essentially become the Obama’s go-to female performer: She recorded a music video for Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” initiative in 2011, and she performed at the president’s last inauguration in 2009. Her velvety, soulful “Star Spangled Banner” is getting good reviews.
2. Kelly Clarkson Also Sang
Kelly Clarkson is not as “in” with the First Couple as Beyonce seems to be, but they let her sing “My Country ‘Tis of Thee,” and she did a pretty good job with it. This was kind of weird, though, because at one point she said she loved Ron Paul, although she later said she would vote for Obama.
3. Obama Talked About Gay Rights
This may not seem shocking since more than half the country, including President Obama, supports gay marriage. But the president made a point of mentioning gay rights during his speech, equating the struggles of the LGBT community with those of past civil rights movements, and in doing so made history.
He name-checked Stonewall, the New York City bar that was raided by police in 1969 sparking riots to protest the anti-gay crackdown. And he actually used the word “gay”: “Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law – for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well,” Obama said in his address.
Plenty of inaugural addresses have been chock full of rhetoric about freedom and equality, but in the last four years, the political culture surrounding gay rights has changed significantly, as more states legalized same-sex marriage and as broad swaths of the country got more comfortable with homosexuality in general. Obama’s “evolution” on gay marriage, and now his inaugural address, have helped signify that change.
4. Joe Biden Made Jokes and Shook Hands With People
Could we expect anything less?
Here’s how the Vice President toasting Sen. Chuck Schumer instead of President Obama at the big luncheon: ”I raise my glass to a man who never, never, never operates out of fear, only operates out of confidence, and a guy–I’m toasting you, Chuck.” Watch it:
And here he is, scurrying around and jovially shaking hands with people along the parade route:
5. Richard Blanco Read a Poem That Was Sort of Whitman-esque, But Not Entirely
Cuban-born Richard Blanco became America’s first openly gay, Latino Inauguration poet. He read a nine-stanza poem entitled “One Today,” which set a kind of unifying American tableau scene.
6. Obama and Michelle Walked Around Outside The Limo
President Obama walked part of the parade route, from the Capitol to the White House, with Michelle. They waved to people. It is not entirely abnormal for a president to do this at an inaugural parade. But they walked quite a ways.
7. John Boehner: ‘Godspeed’
The speaker of the House presented American flags to Obama and Biden, telling them: “To you gentlemen, I say congratulations and Godspeed.”
7 1/2. Sasha and Malia Were There.
Obama’s daughters, Sasha and Malia, were there. They didn’t really do much, but they did wear coats of different shades of purple that got a lot of attention on Twitter.
Reports of the daughters looking at smartphones and applying lip gloss highlighted their day. As did this .gif of Sasha yawning.
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israelis voted on Tuesday in an election widely expected to win Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a third term in office, pushing the Jewish State further to the right, away from peace with Palestinians and towards a showdown with Iran.
Netanyahu has vowed to pursue the settlement of lands seized during the 1967 Middle East war if he stays in power, a policy that would put him at odds with his international partners and worsen already tense ties with U.S. President Barack Obama.
Polls predict Netanyahu's Likud party, which has forged an electoral pact with the ultra-nationalist Yisrael Beitenu group, will take the most seats in the parliamentary election, albeit considerably fewer than they had originally hoped.
"We want Israel to succeed, we vote Likud-Beitenu ... The bigger it is, the more Israel will succeed," Netanyahu said after casting his ballot alongside his wife and two sons.
Some 5.66 million Israelis are eligible to vote, with polling stations staying open until 10 p.m. Full results are due by Wednesday morning, opening the way for coalition talks that could take several weeks to wrap up.
No Israeli party has ever secured an absolute majority, meaning that Netanyahu, who says that dealing with Iran's nuclear ambitions is his top priority, will have to bring various allies onboard to control the 120-seat Knesset.
The former commando has traditionally looked to religious, conservative parties for backing and is widely expected to reach out to the surprise star of the campaign, self-made millionaire Naftali Bennett who heads the far-right Jewish Home party.
Bennett's youthful dynamism has struck a chord amongst Israelis, most of whom no longer believe in the possibility of a Palestinian peace deal, and has eroded Netanyahu's support base.
Surveys suggest he may take up to 14 seats, many at the expense of Likud-Beitenu, which was projected to win 32 in the last round of opinion polls published on Friday -- 10 less than the two parties won in 2009 when they ran separate lists.
Such a result might embarrass Netanyahu, but would still leave him in pole position to form the next government. Acknowledging the threat, Netanyahu's son Yair urged young Israelis not to abandon the old, established Likud.
"Even if there more trendy parties, there is one party that has a proven record," he said on Tuesday after voting.
Portraying himself as a natural partner for the prime minister, Bennett has alarmed those who want to see an independent Palestinian state created alongside Israel, by calling for the annexation of chunks of the occupied West Bank.
"I pray to God to give me the power to unite all of Israel and to restore Israel's Jewish soul," Bennett said on Monday at a final campaign appearance before Jerusalem's Western Wall.
However, some political analysts have speculated that Netanyahu might seek to project a more moderate image for Israel on the world stage and look to share power with centrist parties, such as Yesh Atid (There is a Future) - a newly formed group led by former TV host Yair Lapid.
ARAB UPRISING
Israel's main opposition party, Labour, which is seen capturing up to 17 seats, has already ruled out a repeat of 2009, when it initially entered Netanyahu's cabinet, promising to promote peace negotiations with the Palestinians.
U.S.-brokered talks collapsed just a month after they started in 2010 following a row over settlement building, and have laid in ruins ever since. Netanyahu blamed the Palestinians for the failure and says his door remains open to discussions.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas says he won't return to the table unless there is a halt to settlement construction.
That looks unlikely, with Netanyahu approving some 11,000 settler homes in December alone, causing further strains to his already notoriously difficult relations with U.S. President Barack Obama, who was sworn in for a second term on Monday.
Tuesday's vote is the first in Israel since Arab uprisings swept the region two years ago, reshaping the Middle East.
Netanyahu has said the turbulence - which has brought Islamist governments to power in several countries long ruled by secularist autocrats, including neighboring Egypt - shows the importance of strengthening national security.
If he wins on Tuesday, he will seek to put Iran back to the top of the global agenda. Netanyahu has said he will not let Tehran enrich enough uranium to make a single nuclear bomb - a threshold Israeli experts say could arrive as early as mid-2013.
Iran denies it is planning to build the bomb, and says Israel, widely believed to have the only nuclear arsenal in the Middle East, is the biggest threat to the region.
The issue has barely registered during the election campaign, with a poll in Haaretz newspaper on Friday saying 47 percent of Israelis thought social and economic issues were the most pressing concern, against just 10 percent who cited Iran.
One of the first problems to face the next government, which is unlikely to take power before the middle of next month at the earliest, is the stuttering economy.
Data last week showed the budget deficit rose to 4.2 percent of gross domestic product in 2012, double the original estimate, meaning spending cuts and tax hikes look certain.
(This story has been corrected to add dropped word in paragraph four)
(Additional reporting by Ori Lewis, Editing by Peter Graff)
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