java: R cannot be resolved to a variable

I know this question has been asked before but I am at my witts end with this. I have just created a new project and getting this error.

Ofcourse the R.java file is not being generated.

I am using JRE7 android 4.2.2

    package com.example.myfirstapp;

import android.os.Bundle;
import android.app.Activity;
import android.view.Menu;

public class MainActivity extends Activity {

    @Override
    protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);
    }

    @Override
    public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
        // Inflate the menu; this adds items to the action bar if it is present.
        getMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.main, menu);
        return true;
    }

}

As we can see no R import in the mainactivity class

Lets take a look at the untouched manifest file:

   <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    package="com.example.myfirstapp"
    android:versionCode="1"
    android:versionName="1.0" >

    <uses-sdk
        android:minSdkVersion="8"
        android:targetSdkVersion="17" />

    <application
        android:allowBackup="true"
        android:icon="@drawable/ic_launcher"
        android:label="@string/app_name"
        android:theme="@style/AppTheme" >
        <activity
            android:name="com.example.myfirstapp.MainActivity"
            android:label="@string/app_name" >
            <intent-filter>
                <action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />

                <category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
            </intent-filter>
        </activity>
    </application>

</manifest>

nothing there that looks out of place. I have tried multiple close project open project. clean and builds.

None of the res are in uppercase and I have experimented with the project properties java build path order and export. Under libaries I have 3 different android libaries:

android 4.2.2 android Private Libaries android dependencies

THis is making me start to long for C++ :)