United States:The Republican presidential race turned into a contest of conservative credentials as candidates used a debate in Florida to cast doubt on one another's ideological purity and political consistency.
As the frontrunner in national polls, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani was the target for most criticism from rivals over his liberal positions on sensitive issues for conservatives, including gay rights, abortion and immigration. Former senator Fred Thompson said that Mr Giuliani sides with Hillary Clinton - a figure whose name evoked regular boos from the audience - on many issues.
"Mayor Giuliani believes in federal funding for abortion. He believes in sanctuary cities. He's for gun control. He supported Mario Cuomo, a liberal Democrat, against a Republican who was running for governor; then opposed the governor's tax cuts when he was there," Mr Thompson said.
Mr Giuliani dodged the attack by declaring that "Fred has his problems, too", pointing out that Mr Thompson had opposed tort reform, a key issue for pro-business conservatives who want to put a ceiling on pay-outs to plaintiffs who sue companies.
John McCain, who has struggled to keep his campaign viable since the summer, accused former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, who is ahead in the early-voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire, of changing his political spots to curry favour with primary voters.
"Governor Romney, you've been spending the last year trying to fool people about your record. I don't want you to start fooling them about mine," Mr McCain said.
About 70 per cent of likely Republican primary voters describe themselves as conservatives, but many on the right of the party have reservations about all the frontrunners. Religious conservatives who attended a summit of "values voters" in Washington DC at the weekend backed former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee in a straw poll of presidential candidates.
Mr Huckabee won more than half of the votes of those who attended the two-day meeting. A former Baptist minister, he sought to remain above the fray during Monday's debate.
"I am more than content to let you let them fight all they want tonight, shed each other's blood and then I'll be ready to run for president because I'm not interested in fighting these guys," he said. "What I'm interested in is fighting for the American people, and I think they're looking for a presidential candidate who's not so interested in a demolition derby against the other people in his own party."
Although Mr Huckabee is running a distant fifth in national polls and has raised less than $1 million, he is in third place in Iowa, which will hold the first caucus in January. He is hoping to exploit conservative doubts about Mr Romney and about Mr Thompson, a late entrant to the race whose campaign has so far failed to show much energy.
Mr Giuliani's three marriages and his liberal views on social issues make him unacceptable to many Christian conservatives, although he hopes that his appearance at the Values Voters summit may have helped to blunt their hostility towards him.
When they were not sniping at one another, the Republican candidates mostly agreed on policy issues, with all but Texas libertarian Ron Paul backing the president George Bush's policy in Iraq and endorsing military action to prevent Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon. Most of the candidates talked tough on Russia too, with Mr McCain inverting Mr Bush's declaration that he had looked into Vladimir Putin's eyes and seen his soul.
"When I looked into Mr Putin's eyes, I saw three letters: a K, a G and a B," Mr McCain said.
The candidates received their loudest applause when they denounced Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton.
"Hillary Clinton wants to run the largest enterprise in the world, the government of the United States. It employs millions of people, trillions of dollars in revenue," Mr Romney said.
"She hasn't run a corner store. She hasn't run a state. She hasn't run a city. She has never run anything. And the idea that she could learn to be president, you know, as an internship just doesn't make any sense." Mr Giuliani and Mr McCain both said they had the best chance of defeating Mrs Clinton in a general election, but Mr McCain had the best line of the night when he condemned the former first lady for supporting a $1 million grant for a museum to commemorate the 1969 Woodstock concert.
Mr McCain, who was tortured as a prisoner of war in Vietnam 1967-1973, remarked that he had been unable to attend the concert. "I'm sure it was a cultural and pharmaceutical event. I was tied up at the time," he said.