In an opinion article published late last week in The Washington Examiner, Mr. Romney vowed to issue waivers to roll back the health care plan and to undo the contraception decision.
One of them, Kristen Breitweiser, said he vowed to issue subpoenas and to treat his vice chairman, Lee Hamilton, a Democrat and former House Intelligence Committee chairman, as an equal partner.
Still, Mr. Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts, did not back away from some of his more conservative proposals, including his vow to issue an executive order to end the carrying out of Mr. Obama's health care plan.
"It's time for us to take care of business," Obama said, referring to his vow to issue executive orders if Congress doesn't act.
In an emotional interview with French TV channel i>Télé, a free-to-air news channel, a visibly upset Patrick Pelloux, a casualty doctor who also contributed to the weekly, spoke of his efforts to save his colleagues as one of the first on the scene and vowed to publish next week's issue.
Beijing had appeared to be trying to present a friendlier face to workers, with Wen Jiabao, the prime minister, vowing to address issues of unsafe working conditions and unpaid wages affecting tens of millions of Chinese migrant workers.
Gillard also said she was disturbed that abortion law was again emerging as a political issue, with DLP senator John Madigan seeking to legislate to ban "gender selection abortions" and vowing to pursue the issue if he gained a balance of power vote in the Senate after the election.
Republicans are vowing to push the issue, if necessary, to the United States Supreme Court.
He went further, vowing to confront the issue of poverty in America "with bold action".
