Ministers rule out immediate talks with Basque separatist group, saying it is regrouping after arrests of senior members

Spain's socialist government today ruled out negotations with the armed Basque separatist group Eta, claiming the organisation had announced a ceasefire purely because it was too weak to carry out terrorist attacks.

"Eta kills in order to impose itself, so that means one cannot dialogue," said the interior minister, Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba. "Eta has stopped because it cannot do anything ... and also in order to rebuild itself."

The government declined to comment officially, but was busily repeating the message that it did not believe in Eta's ceasefire. "The Eta terrorist group is very weakened," said the transport minister, José Blanco. The government was only interested, he said, in "a definitive laying down of arms and end to violence".

The momentary excitement caused by yesterday's video message from Eta had almost entirely dissipated today, although some radical separatists in the Basque country welcomed what they called a "unilateral, unconditional and indefinite" ceasefire.

Analysts gave little credence to the idea that the ceasefire might mark the end of four decades of violence that have claimed more than 800 lives. They said the group had been forced to stop planning attacks six month ago after a series of arrests left it leaderless and disorganised.

"The statement aims to give political meaning to a strategic rest decreed by Eta's leaders six months ago in order to reorganise internally to cope with police pressure," wrote Florencio Domínguez, an Eta expert, in La Vanguardia newspaper.

Dominguez pointed to the arrest in February of Ibon Gojeaskoetxea, a senior Eta commander, as the key moment. That arrest was hailed as the fifth time in two years that police had detained the person directly in charge of Eta's handful of remaining armed units.

At the same time, police had prevented new units from being formed in several parts of Spain, and discovered Eta's latest bombmaking laboratory and had dismantled its new bases in Portugal, to where Eta had hoped to move its support infrastructure that historically had been based in France.

The killing in March of a French police officer, who discovered members of the gang trying to steal cars at a showroom near Paris, was the result of a panicked attempt to escape arrest and came despite the decision to stop carrying out attacks, according to Rogelio Alonso, of Madrid's Rey Juan Carlos University.

"Eta is selling smoke," he said. "Even during their ceasefires, they continue to kill."

The immediate result of that killing, in any case, had been to increase the intensity of French police pressure on the group.

Observers saw the ceasefire statement – read out by a masked woman – as a response to pressure from former leaders of the banned Batasuna party, who have been urging Eta to call a permanent ceasefire so that the party can be legalised once more. But the announcement fell short of meeting the demands of the Batasuna leaders, with Eta failing to indicate whether its ceasefire was permanent or temporary.

A group of spokesmen for the radical Basque separatist movement that is close to Eta nevertheless hailed the ceasefire as "a valuable contribution to the construction of peace and the consolidation of democratic process".

Attempts by radical separatists to guide Eta towards abandoning violence were being "sabotaged" by the government, columnist Ramón Sola claimed in the Basque-language newspaper Gara.

"The announcement that there will be no attacks provides a secure zone where the socialist government can resolve an armed conflict that has outlasted two different regimes and dozens of governments," he said, referring to the dictatorship of General Francisco Franco and the democratic governments elected after his death in 1975.

Kim Jong-un expected to be named next leader as Pyongyang hosts first party summit in 30 years

Members of North Korea's ruling party were gathering in Pyongyang for a rare meeting that could see the country's leader, Kim Jong-il, name his youngest son as his successor.

Although the exact date of the congress, the first of the Korean Workers' party for 30 years, had yet to be announced, reports in South Korea said troops had moved into the capital, apparently in preparation for a parade to mark the event.

In recent days, North Korean schoolchildren have taken to the streets to sing Footsteps, a song many believe was written for Kim's third son, Kim Jong-un, who is tipped to become the third member of the dynasty to rule the communist state. In addition, thousands of people waving plastic flowers spent the weekend rehearsing for a parade, according to China's Xinhua news agency.

The city is reportedly decked out in posters announcing the meeting. "Let's make this a festive event that will shine in the history of our country and people," read one seen in footage from AP Television News.

The Rodong Sinmun, the party's newspaper, said delegates from across the country were poised to approve key policies and personnel changes at the heart of the regime's leadership. The meeting coincides with the 62nd anniversary, on 9 September, of North Korea's founding by Jong-un's grandfather, Kim Il-sung.

In a typically colourful commentary, the Rodong Sinmun said: "The people's hearts awaiting the revolutionary, festive occasion heat up due to their joy and happiness."

Speculation that Kim Jong-un will eventually succeed Kim Jong-il has intensified since his 68-year-old father suffered a stroke two years ago.

Kim Chan-gyong, an assistant professor at the North Korean academy of social science, said the conference signalled a turning point for the regime. "I think it will serve as an important occasion amid our efforts to build a powerful socialist nation ... at a time when there is historic demand for a new turning point," he told APTN.

The international community will use what information it can glean from reports of the secretive meeting to piece together an idea of how North Korea might behave under a new leader.

"I am aware of the news reports, but all I can say is that we are collecting information from various fronts and rushing to analyse it," Japan's chief cabinet secretary, Yoshito Sengoku, told reporters in Tokyo. "Japan's biggest interest lies in whether the meeting produces a regime that could help pave the way for breaking a stalemate in the six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear programme."

The meeting is the first party congress since 1980, when Kim Jong-il was confirmed as Kim Il-sung's successor, although he did not become leader until his father's death in 1994. It comes at a time of rising tensions in the region: relations with Seoul quickly deteriorated after international inspectors said a North Korean torpedo had sunk the Cheonan, a South Korean naval ship, in March.

While Pyongyang has indicated it is willing to return to nuclear talks – with conditions – the US, Japan and South Korea say they will only consider reopening negotiations if the regime apologises for the Cheonan sinking. North Korea denies involvement in the incident, in which 46 sailors died.

Little is known about Kim Jong-un. He is thought to be aged 27 or 28 and was educated at the prestigious International School of Berne, in Switzerland. A widely circulated, but unconfirmed, photograph of him appears to have been taken when he was in his teens.

Kim Jong-il's recent visit to China is being seen as part of efforts to win support for the power switch from North Korea's only ally and biggest aid donor. There has been no confirmation of rumours that Kim Jong-un accompanied his father on the trip.

Reports from the South say the country's fearsome propaganda machine has already begun building a cult of personality around Kim Jong-un, including the release of poems and songs extolling his virtues as a leader. His ascent to the Workers' party hierarchy is thought to have begun last year when he was reportedly rubber-stamped as a member of parliament.

North Korea experts believe Kim Jong-il will place his son in a key party post, giving him a base from which to emulate his father's rise through the ranks of the country's military and political elites.

While little progress has been made in resolving the Cheonan incident or restarting nuclear talks, North Korea has made what it called "humanitarian gestures" that analysts say are intended to improve its international standing. Last month, it released aUS man who had entered the country illegally, following an intervention by the former US president, Jimmy Carter. Today, it said it would release seven members of a South Korean fishing vessel, including three Chinese, who apparently strayed into North Korean waters in early August. The state-run Korean Central News Agency said the fishermen would be sent back to South Korea after they "admitted the seriousness of their act and gave assurances that they would never repeat it".

Kidnapped Austrian schoolgirl Natascha Kampusch's autobiography reveals details of her 3,096 days in captivity

Natascha Kampusch, the Austrian woman who was kidnapped and held captive for more than eight years, has told of how she tried to kill herself after being beaten up to 200 times a week by her captor.

In her forthcoming autobiography Kampusch, 22, said Wolfgang Priklopil called her "my slave" and demanded she perform household tasks semi-naked after he kidnapped her as a 10-year-old in 1998.

Kampusch escaped from Priklopil's house in August 2006 and became a talk show host in Austria less than two years later, although a year ago she spoke of having almost reverted back to the life she had as a prisoner – suffering from anxiety attacks and spending most of her time in her Vienna flat.

Priklopil killed himself hours after Kampusch managed to escape while he was cleaning his car.

In her autobiography, 3,096 Days, which is being serialised in the Daily Mail, Kampusch told of how she was bundled into a van by Priklopil on 2 March 1998.

"Everything happened very fast. At the very moment I lowered my eyes and started walking past, he grabbed me by the waist and threw me through the open door of his van," Kampusch writes.

"Did I scream? I don't think so. Yet everything inside me was one single scream. It pushed upwards and became lodged far down in my throat."

Kampusch says during the early days of her captivity she was treated well by Priklopil, but in the book she reveals for the first time the violence to which she was later subjected. She talks of how after she reached puberty around the age of 12 her captor "started treating me as if I were dirty and disgusting", and would kick her in the shins or punch her when she walked past him.

"He also subjected me to minor sexual assaults as part of my daily harassment," she writes.

Priklopil began allowing her upstairs to do housework from the age of 14, Kampusch says, but she would be subjected to beatings if her work was deemed to be of poor quality.

"He hated it when the pain made me cry," Kampusch remembers. Priklopil would push her head underwater in the sink and throttle her when she sobbed.

In the extracts published today, Kampusch insists Priklopil's relationship with her "wasn't about sex" – although she says he would tie her to him and force them to share a bed.

"When I was 14, I spent the night above ground for the first time. I lay stiff with fright on his bed as he lay down next to me and tied my wrists to his with plastic cuffs.

"But when he manacled me to him on those many nights, it wasn't about sex. The man who'd beat me and locked me in the cellar had something else in mind: he simply wanted something to cuddle."

Priklopil also insisted that Kampusch shave off her hair, and used food deprivation to keep her under his control, she writes. The book also reveals that she was "never fully clothed" while working in the house – a strategy Kampusch says was designed to prevent her from running away.

"Usually, I wore just a cap and knickers – though when he eventually started letting me work in his garden, it was always without my knickers," she writes.

After two years of regular beatings, Kampusch "began a kind of passive resistance", punching herself in the face before Priklopil was able to. When she reached 15, the beatings became even more frequent: "… repeated punches to my head that made me nauseous, sometimes more than 200 blows to my body in a week", Kampusch writes.

The 22-year-old also documents her attempts to kill herself, saying the efforts provoked fear in her captor. Kampusch attempted to strangle herself with items of clothing, slit her wrists with a needle and later lit a fire in the cellar, but said "the will to survive kicked in".

The book also tells of how Priklopil manipulated her psychologically, potentially hinting at why she did not attempt to escape earlier.

"He told me my parents had refused to pay a ransom," she writes. "'Your parents don't love you at all … they don't want you back … they're happy to be rid of you.'"

"These statements were like acid. Systematically, he was undermining my belief in my family."

Brian Lenihan dismisses talk that €25bn cost of toxic bank could bankrupt Ireland and says no 'magic resurrection' for economy

Ireland's finance minister, Brian Lenihan, was in Brussels tonight in an effort to clinch a deal over the toxic Anglo Irish Bank while trying to calm financial markets' fears that the government bailout could bankrupt the country.

After "constructive" talks with the EU competition commissioner Joaquín Almunia today he heads into a conference of European finance ministers tomorrow aware that Ireland's financial system has come under intense scrutiny from the financial markets.

In a rare interview on the subject of the bank, Lenihan said he was confident that the €25bn (£21bn) already pumped into the bank could be absorbed by the public purse.

"Yes, the costs are annoying, infuriating, but they are manageable," Lenihan told the national broadcaster RTÉ before flying to Brussels.

The minister also spoke about the cancer that has prevented him from taking on a more public role, saying treatment had stopped in June and he was not in any "present danger".

The future of Anglo Irish has dominated the news agenda in Ireland for the past two weeks, culminating in the revelation last week that the bank lost more than €8bn in the first six months of the year. There have been increasing fears that the Irish economy cannot withstand such huge debts.

Credit default swaps on Irish government debt, which measure the cost of insuring the bonds against default, have risen in the past fortnight after the country was downgraded by the ratings agency Standard & Poor's. S&P cut Ireland's long-term rating by one notch to AA- on fears of a far higher bill for supporting the banking sector and assigned a negative outlook, meaning another cut is more likely than not in the next one or two years.

But Lenihan insisted that the one-time Celtic Tiger would not be broken by the bank. "I was a bit concerned at the suggestion that a lot of public opinion believe that Anglo Irish will bankrupt the country," he said. "That's simply not the case."

He said there were no "magic" solutions and if people wanted a quick fix – such as closing the bank – the country's economy would be frozen for years to come.

The government's proposals for restructuring the bank have been with the EU for some time and Brussels is due to make its decision in the next two or three weeks.

One option, favoured by the bank's management, is the creation of a good bank and a bad bank to carry all the impaired property loans. The other, which Lenihan hinted was the preferred option, was to wind it down over 10-12 years. He denied that the markets did not have confidence in the government's ability to repay its debt and said they were simply looking for certainty over the future of Anglo.

He said there were no easy fixes with "the size of the bust in Ireland".

"We will not be distracted by those who suggest that there is some kind of quick fix where you can bust the country and magically stage a resurrection," he said.

"There is no economy in the world that has done that. It has been tried in various Latin American countries and it has led to a deep freeze for a long number of years in any country where it was attempted."

Counsellors and lawyers are busier than seafarers in Louisiana, as some experts warn that fishing industry will never recover

High tide, and the remains of a late summer storm, and it is hard to tell on this strip of land between the Mississippi and the marsh where land ends and water begins. It was here – in the most southerly reaches of Louisiana on terrain that is slowly sliding into the sea – that oil from BP's Macondo well first started coming ashore, about a week after the 20 April explosion on the Deepwater Horizon. Eleven men were killed when the drilling platform blew up.

And it is here where local people will take the most convincing that the worst of the oil spill is behind them and that recovery is under way.

Barack Obama's point man on the spill, the US Coast Guard's former commander, Thad Allen, said at the weekend that the well no longer posed any threat to the Gulf. Crews will begin the last few remaining operations needed to abandon the well this week.

People here live and die by the water. On a fine day the docks in Venice empty out, with seaworthy boats and able-bodied crew off to look for oil contamination, at sea and in the marsh grass.

No one, it seems, believes the assurances from the White House or government scientists that the oil is largely gone. And no one really believes BP when oil company executives say they will stay in Louisiana for the long haul.

They have seen one exodus already, just before Tropical Storm Bonnie blew through, about a week after the well was capped in mid-July. BP evacuated work crews and boats; many have not returned.

"Oh, the oil's out there," said a captain of one of the air boats chewing through the marsh. When the water is clear the oil pops out like a giant black teardrop. He said the air boats were carrying away up to 3,000 white plastic trash bags of oiled sand from a nearby section of marsh each day. "We'll be here for at least a year – if they still want us, that is."

The autumn shrimping season opened on schedule on 16 August and the authorities have steadily been opening up more of the Gulf for fishing. About 83% of US waters in the Gulf are now open for fishing. The first tests on shrimp, swordfish and tuna hauled out of the Gulf showed no traces of oil.

But Acy Cooper, who wears a shrimpers' white rubber boots even on days when he is not fishing, is possessed by a powerful sense of dread. How can we know for sure that the shrimp is safe from crude or its toxic components? He has seen oil in certain shrimping areas.

"We are only going to get one shot at this. If we don't do it right, we are going to be in big trouble if any tainted shrimp gets on the market," he said. "We don't want to get anything on the market that is going to kill us in the long run."

Not even the most stringent testing can ensure that fishermen stay out of oiled waters – not when some fishermen have been out of work since late April. "Some people are so hungry they are going to do what they can to survive," Cooper said.

Already the local economy is being transformed. On noticeboards, cards for mental health services and lawyers offering to sue BP are tacked on top of advertisements for fishing guides. It is getting harder to find a market for fish.

The other day George Barisich, the head of the United Commercial Fishermen's Alliance, had to drive all the way into Mississippi before he could find a processor who wanted his shrimp. He said he was reduced to selling for just $1.40 (90p) per pound.

Officials from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency have been on local radio shows, such as Talk of the Bayou, trying to persuade fishermen like Cooper they have nothing to fear.

"So far we haven't seen a bit of evidence the oil is getting real deep in the marsh," said Jacqueline Michel, a NOAA biochemist.

Only 22 of the 2,000 water samples taken from the Gulf contained traces of oil, and none has permeated deep into the wetlands, which are breeding grounds for shrimp.

The callers were not buying it, and neither was Cooper. He worries that the last few months may have ruined the fisherman's life for some.

Although local people complain that BP gave too many jobs to outsiders rather than locals for cleanup work, some taken on have become used to earning good money – even when they were waiting around at the marina – on the oil company's "vessels of opportunity" programme for the cleanup.

Cooper is worried they may give up on shrimping, now that it's such an uncertain occupation.

"We are on the verge of losing this industry," he said. "The chain is broken with the vessels of opportunity."

For Al Sunseri that chain stretches back to 1876 when his family set up the P&J Oyster Company on the edges of New Orleans' French quarter.

He still turns up for work at 4.30am, but there are no workers shucking oysters on the loading dock. Eleven people have been let go.

Premium oysters are a vanishing commodity. Those oysters not killed by the oil were finished off by the Louisiana government's decision to flood the Gulf with fresh water to try to keep the oil offshore.

Sunseri now occupies his time taking orders on a clipboard, trying to mollify the desperate chefs who are his main customer base. He is running dangerously low on shucked oysters.

He asks callers if they could get by with a smaller order. "I am just going to have to tell people I don't have them and that is not something that I am used to doing," he said.

The shortage has pushed the price of oysters in the shell up 40% since the spill. That is too rich in the depths of a recession – even for a luxury product. Sunseri also worries that what oysters he can find are of variable quality.

"I know they say about 40% of the oyster growing area is open but as far as productive areas, it is maybe about 15%," he said. "We don't have babies, and we don't have the market-sized ones."

He moves over to a tabletop display of oyster shells. Those that are being harvested are about half normal size. "These would ordinarily not be harvested for another year," he said.

"They really should be in there developing. The few little oysters that I am selling right now are really inferior."

Even industry cheerleader Mike Voisin, who chairs the Louisiana Oyster Task Force, admits it will be three years before the oyster beds resettle. Until then, he says, the harvest will probably fall to half of the usual 113,000 tonne annual take.

The timespan is depressing for Sunseri. He said he is telling his children: "Your daddy does not care if this business fizzles away. Don't feel the burden of carrying this on."

For Ryan Lambert, who once counted himself the biggest fishing charter operator around Venice, such acceptance is unthinkable. He is much too angry to be resigned.

The spill left him with a calendar showing week after week of cancelled bookings, gutting a business that once brought in $1.3m a year.

By BP's reckoning though, his losses were just $66,000. Lambert is furious. He said he has paid his accountant hundreds of dollars to meet BP's demands for documentation. "I shouldn't have to fight for the money that is owed me," he said. "I am not the bad guy here. They are the ones who ruined it for me, not vice versa. For me to have to fight for them to pay me for what they did makes me sick."

He is also worried sick that the fish will start disappearing, as they did in the years after the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska, and that his business will be dealt a slow, painful death.

He built his company from scratch, starting from his love of bass fishing; now his clients troop into his fishing lodge from all across the country. He rebuilt once before, after Hurricane Katrina. He is not sure he can do it again, or wait for the Gulf to make a full recovery.

"I am 52 years old. I can't wait 20 years for them to clean things up."

He feels certain BP will pull out much sooner. "The well will be stopped, and then they will hang around until the oil stops coming up on the beaches, and then they will be gone," he said.

"Anything they don't clean will be left to me and the microbes and Mother Nature until all of a sudden we won't be America's best fishery any more.

"This will be history some day, and I will still have that problem."

Voices on the ground

'On television they are saying all the time that there is no oil. What BP did is that they succeeded in buying off the White House and Congress and most of the senators, and now they are buying off the networks' Dean Blanchard, shrimp magnate

'The oil is still very in the coastal areas, it's still coming up along the beaches, and it's in the bottom offshore as well as in the bays and estuaries. A lot needs to be addressed before BP says it has all been attended to' Wilma Subra, chemist

'The only silver lining that is going to come out of this is that the goverment and the country are going to understand the importance of the Gulf' George Barisich, president, United Commercial Fishermen's Association

'Ironically, this catastrophe may in the end run have more impact on oil leasing programmes than on the Gulf of Mexico ... We recognise now that we have something much more like a nuclear reactor on our hands than a wood-burning stove and that is an awreness that is new to the federal government, new ot the public, and new to Congress' Oliver Houck, environmental law professor at Tulane University

Relief for hospitals and schools as staff go back to work, but unions say their demands have still not been met

Nurses, teachers and other public servants in South Africa will return to work tomorrow after union leaders agreed to suspend a crippling four-week national strike.

But the unions warned that they will resume mass action if a suitable pay deal is not struck in the next 21 days.

The halt will come as a relief to beleaguered hospitals and schools, and to President Jacob Zuma, who has seen his former union allies turn against him.

In a joint statement today, more than 20 unions portrayed the move as a victory, saying the government had raised its 5.2% wage increase to 7.5%. The unions have been holding out for 8.6%.

They said: "Labour has decided to suspend the strike and this does not mean we have accepted the state offer."

But there were hopes that public services would return to normal from tomorrow. Chris Klopper of the Independent Labour Caucus said today: "We expect workers to go back to work immediately, and that means tomorrow."

Thobile Ntola, president of the South African Democratic Teachers Union, told a gathering of his members: "There comes a time in any strike in which we must weigh our options."

He said it was the government, not the workers, that had caused the strike. He criticised Zuma for travelling overseas instead of showing leadership: "What has the president done? He has left the country and gone to China."

He also said Cabinet ministers and top officials should forgo their own pay raises. "Our demands are genuine," he said. "The inequalities in this country are very vast, and they need to be closed."

The strike involving 1.3 million public sector workers has dragged on for three weeks, testing public sympathy. Volunteers and army medics have been called in to help at hospitals, and some patients have been moved to private medical facilities.

School pupils in their final year are worried they will not be able to sit final exams on time. Judges have told jailed suspects their pleas for bail cannot be heard for want of interpreters and other court staff.

Police have used rubber bullets and water cannon to disperse protesters who sought to block hospitals and hundreds of people have been arrested.

South African media have reported numerous acts of violence against health and education staff who insist on going to work.

A nurse suffered burns when her house in Soweto was petrol bombed, according to the Sowetan newspaper today.

Another had serious head and neck injuries after reportedly being been beaten by striking workers at Chris Hani Baragwanath hospital in Soweto on Friday.

A day earlier another nurse was stabbed at a hospital in Pietermaritzburg. There were also reports of a nurse being abducted and held for several hours before being released unharmed.

Government officials have said the state cannot afford the offer they have already put on the table and there is no more room in the budget to increase its offer, which would swell state spending by about 1%.

Economists estimate that the labour action is costing the economy about 1bn rand (£90m) a day.

The SA Chamber of Commerce and Industry has warned that the strike was wiping out the economic gains of hosting a successful football World Cup.

It has also put a strain on the historic alliance between the African National Congress and the labour movement, which helped propel Zuma into office. Some have expressed disappointment at Zuma's failure to reward them and speculated that he could be vulnerable to a leadership challenge.

Africa's most powerful economy has been hit by two other labour stoppages. About 70,000 workers at petrol stations, garages and auto dealerships walked off the job last Wednesday, seeking 20% wage increases.

The National Union of Mineworkers said more than 8,000 workers seeking 15% increases at Northam Platinum began a work stoppage today.

Women's rights activist goes on trial accused of 'waging war against God', as lawyer for another activist is arrested

Iran has launched a fresh crackdown on human rights activists by arresting an outspoken Iranian lawyer and charging a young activist with "waging war against God", a crime punishable by death in Iranian law.

On Saturday Nasrin Sotoudeh, who has represented several political activists and protesters arrested in the aftermath of the disputed presidential election last summer, was arrested and charged with "propaganda against the regime" and "acting against national security".

Her husband, Reza Khandan, said Sotoudeh was recently warned by Iranian intelligence officials that she would be arrested if she continued to represent Shirin Ebadi, the Iranian Nobel Peace prize laureate and human rights activist who left Iran a day before the election. Ebadi's Tehran office was ransacked and her belongings confiscated last year.

Ebadi, who now lives in London, said Sotoudeh had been representing her in three cases, including one against the government newspaper Keyhan, which recently called Carla Bruni-Sarkozy "a prostitute" over her support for Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, an Iranian woman sentenced to death after being convicted of adultery.

Ebadi said the latest moves were intended to send a message to human rights activists that "they have to pay a high price if they want to pursue their work in the country".

Shiva Nazar Ahari, a 26-year-old women's rights activist and a speaker for Iran's Committee of Human Rights Reporters, was put on trial on Saturday amid fears that she faces execution if convicted. The verdict is expected shortly. Her lawyer, Mohammad Sharif, said the charges against his client were based on the "false" allegation that she was linked to People's Mujahideen of Iran, an exiled Iranian opposition groupShe has denied the accusation.

Shadi Sadr, an award-winning human rights lawyer who was forced to leave Iran after the election, said the state was intent on silencing opposition. "In the absence of the media in Iran, lawyers and human rights activist have become the only reliable source of information for everybody and the recent pressure is a clear signal that Iran wants to silence this only existing source," she said. The charge of "waging war against God" – muharebeh – was originally intended to be used against armed gangs and pirates, not human rights activists, she said.

Amnesty International urged Iranian authorities to release both women. "The arrest and trial of human rights activists and lawyers – many of them women – on vaguely worded allegations is about the security forces perpetuating the climate of crisis that followed the 2009 presidential election, the outcome of which was disputed, and provides a pretext for the now year-long campaign targeting human rights groups, activists and lawyers," a statement said.

It continued: "It is a coincidence that one [Nasrin Sotoudeh] was held and the other [Shiva Nazar Ahari] tried on Saturday; it is not a coincidence that both were women; or that both were human rights activists and that they face analogous allegations."

Nazar Ahari and Sotoudeh were both members of an Iranian women's rights movement, the One Million Signature Campaign, aimed at collecting signatures from Iranians opposed to the country's discriminatory laws against women.

German Vegetarian Society says Flime restaurant was ruse to illustrate damage done by over-consumption of meat

It boasted that it would introduce a new dining movement to Germany, called for diners to donate body parts to be incorporated into the dishes, and even advertised for a surgeon to perform the amputations.

But Flime, the Berlin restaurant which was nicknamed the "Cannibal Cafe" and was due to open in Berlin today has – perhaps not surprisingly – been exposed as a fake.

Flime stands for Fleisch Isst Menschen, or Meat Eats People, and has been revealed as the idea of the German Vegetarian Society (Vebu) as a rather obscure way to bring consumers' attention to the evils of meat-eating.

The only trouble is that the publicity sparked by the high-profile promotion for the hoax restaurant has far outweighed the attention paid to today's press conference at which Vebu announced it was all a ruse to illustrate a serious point.

"Vebu wants to draw attention to all of us who are affected by the worldwide consumption of meat," the society said in a statement. It pointed out that every 3.6 seconds somebody dies in the world due to undernourishment, while the majority of grain production is used for the feeding of farm animals. "Nobody really thinks about those facts in their day-to-day routine. Because of that it was necessary to call this creative campaign into action," said Sebastian Zösch of Vebu at a Berlin press conference.

Vebu added that livestock farming "produces more greenhouse gases than the entire transportation sector" and that water consumption could be cut drastically if people gave up eating meat, due to the large quanties of it that are used in meat production.

Last month the Guardian reported that the campaign for the restaurant which was in newspapers, online, on TV and radio, had provoked angry reactions from Berlin residents, many of whom were reminded of the case of the German cannibal Armin Meiwes who was sentenced to life imprisonment for murdering and consuming Berlin technician Bernd Brandes in 2001.

The supposed restaurant owners claimed their cuisine was inspired by the indigenous Brazilian Waricaca tribe, famous for once practicing the ritual of "compassionate cannibalism", in which parts of the corpse of a loved one were consumed as a way of coping with death.

Peter Smith to tell campaigners to show respect to Catholics celebrating Pope Benedict XVI's visit to London

An archbishop is to meet leading campaigners against the pope this week to tell them to "show respect" to Catholics celebrating his visit to London.

Scotland Yard has brokered the meeting between the Archbishop of Southwark, Peter Smith, a senior figure in the Catholic church, and the organisers of a campaign against Pope Benedict XVI's visit.

Smith said today he had no intention of infringing the rights of those intending to protest against the papal visit. But he said he planned to use the encounter to encourage them not to become overly confrontational.

"I've always said, thank God in this country we have free speech," he said. "They are perfectly entitled to protest. What I would ask of all of them is to do so in a dignified way, which does not disrupt the joy of the Catholic community in welcoming the pope. I hope they would show respect to those of us who do have [religious] convictions."

Smith denied that he requested the meeting. But a Metropolitan police memorandum seen by the Guardian states that the request came from Smith.

"At the request of Archbishop Smith, the Metropolitan Police Service will provide a room for the meeting between members of the Protest the Pope Movement and the Roman Catholic Church," sergeant Nicholas Williams, the Met's head of the Communities Together Strategic Engagement Team, said in a letter to protesters.

"Can I stress this is not a Metropolitan Police meeting. We are simply acting as the 'middle man' in order to bring you and the Roman Catholic Church together for a discussion."

High-profile members of the campaign group Protest the Pope, an umbrella group of organisations opposing the visit, will meet Smith on Wednesday. They have planned a march on 19 September to coincide with his visit to the capital, which will culminate in a vigil in Hyde Park.

Organisers meeting Smith include the gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell, Andrew Copson, the chief executive of the British Humanist Association, and Terry Sanderson, president of the National Secular Society. He said he would not be "lectured" by the archbishop. "There is a defensive tone in what [Smith] is saying," he said. "It is an indication of the church's fear that something will happen to bring the pope into disrepute. I think something should happen to embarrass the pope into, for example, confronting the child abuse scandal. We're not going to be kind to the Pope because he does not deserve to be respected."

Although there is a rainbow coalition of groups opposing the papal visit, they have agreed a strategy that will focus on the stories of sexual abuse survivors.

Organisers are planning to to fly abuse survivors into London from across the world for a press conference on 15 September, the eve of the visit.

They include Mark Fabbro, an Australian who says he was sadistically raped by a priest at a Jesuit school in Melbourne in 1971, when he was 11. Also planning to speak is Sue Cox, who recently broke a 50-year silence over the sexual abuse she endured from a priest, detailing her trauma in a public letter to the Archbishop of Westminster.

"As an abused child, I knew nothing of 'orders' or 'dioceses' or anything hierarchical – all I knew was that a priest, of the kind I had been brought up to revere, seriously sexually abused me when I was 10 years old, on the eve of my confirmation, then raped me when I was 13, in my own bedroom in my own home," she wrote.

"I can hardly believe," she added, "that the church is so stupid that it cannot see that there is a real opportunity here to show some of the compassion and humility that it preaches so fervently."

Dutch judo champion whose victory in the 1964 Olympics reshaped the sport

Anton Geesink, who has died aged 76, was in every sense a towering figure in the world of judo. He was 6ft 6in (1.98m) tall, weighed in at around 120kg (18st 13lb) and was, according to his British contemporary Tony Sweeney, "so strong that he could have thrown you over his shoulder like a rubbish bin if he wanted to". But that was not Geesink's way. "He was superbly fit and very, very subtle – a real technician," said Sweeney.

Geesink won the open (unlimited weight) title at the Tokyo Olympics in 1964, when judo was featured for the first time. For the Japanese, judo transcends sport. Success at the Tokyo Olympics was an endorsement of the national identity. Japanese fighters duly won the first three titles (lightweight, middleweight and heavyweight), but this was no compensation when the Dutchman Geesink won the fourth, and most important, crown.

The Japanese were mortified, but Geesink's victory effectively reshaped the future of the sport. The 1964 Games were the first to be televised live by satellite and the image of the giant Geesink towering over his opponent, Akio Kaminaga, went around the world. "That moment was not just good for Dutch sport, but for the sport of judo," said Jos Hell, president of the Dutch Judo Federation. "Without Anton's victory, judo would not have become so popular as an international sport."

Geesink was born in Utrecht and brought up in Wijk C, the bustling, energised heart of the city. His family was poor and he started work as a labourer on building sites aged 12. He took up judo when he was 14 and progressed quickly, competing in his first European championship at 17 (winning a silver medal). By the time of his retirement, in 1967, he had amassed 21 European titles, a record unlikely to be broken.

In the world championships, Geesink's breakthrough came in Paris in 1961, when he beat the reigning champion, Japan's Koji Sone. For judo purists, this was the seminal moment; the first non-Japanese world champion. But the world did not watch judo championships, unless they were in the Olympics. Geesink had previously trained with Yasuichi Matsumoto at Tenri University in Nara. Matsumoto put him up against Japanese judokas in training, in the hope that one of them would beat him, but in the knowledge that it was unlikely. Geesink would later say that this was his finishing school.

In the preliminary rounds of the Olympic competition, Geesink met and defeated Kaminaga. Sweeney was in the packed Nippon Budokan Hall when Geesink and Kaminaga met again in the final. "When Kaminaga came out there was a shrill, almost hysterical, scream from somebody in the crowd, and Kaminaga glanced up. He looked really grey and subdued," said Sweeney. It took nine minutes and 33 seconds for Geesink to win by kesa-gatame, a ground hold where one arm goes behind the opponent's neck and the other secures his arm.

At the victory, a Dutch official rushed on to the mat but turned back as Geesink raised an imperious arm. The two fighters bowed to each other and to the referees. According to Jim Bregman, who was in the American team in Tokyo, the Japanese returned to their changing rooms and wept.

Geesink would win one more world title, in Rio de Janeiro in 1965, when he won the 80kg event. The Dutchman withdrew from the open event because of a leg injury. In later life both knees would be replaced by artificial joints, caused by the wear and tear of judo.

After his retirement, Geesink was a part-time professional wrestler for five years. He also appeared in advertisements (he was the face of Fyffes bananas) and films, the most notable being I Grandi Condottieri (1965), an Italian version of Samson and Delilah. He also taught in his own judo club in Utrecht.

In 1987 Geesink became a member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). Juan Antonio Samaranch, the IOC president, had deemed that Geesink should become one of the Dutch representatives, but some members of the Dutch national Olympic committee thought he was not the obvious candidate. Geesink did not always help himself in such circumstances, as he was inclined to say exactly what he thought, irrespective of the consequences. He was one of 13 IOC members investigated in a vote-buying scandal in 1999, in the run-up to the 2002 winter Olympics. He admitted that his Anton Geesink Foundation had received a cheque for $5,000 from the bank account of the president of the bid committee for Salt Lake City, which went on to host the 2002 event. It was accepted by the IOC that Geesink had used the money to promote his Dutch Olympic academy and not for personal gain. He was let off with a warning.

He is survived by Jans, his wife of more than 50 years; his sons, Willy and Anton; and his daughter, Leni.

• Antonius Johannes Geesink, judoka, born 6 April 1934; died 27 August 2010

Pioneer of life-saving lung treatment for premature babies

Graham "Mont" Liggins, who has died aged 84, developed a life-saving treatment for premature babies, after showing that foetal lung maturation could be speeded up by administering a steroid. This gave babies born with lungs that were not functioning properly a chance to breathe and survive. His research changed medical practice and saved hundreds of thousands of lives.

Mont used to tell the story of his farming neighbour, knowing he was an obstetrician, asking why lambs so often die after premature delivery when dogs worry the ewes. Mont did not know, but he realised the question mattered and he wondered if it might have something to do with the stress-response steroid cortisol. He tested his hypothesis in a series of experiments and eventually proved that, at least in sheep, foetal cortisol release triggers labour.

This was important, but he had also noticed something else. The lungs of premature lambs normally sank in water because they had failed to fill with air. However, if the ewe had been given corticosteroids prior to delivery, the lungs inflated normally and floated – the steroids had stimulated production of a soapy substance, surfactant, which was vital for lung aeration. Premature human babies also lack surfactant, and can develop a frequently fatal condition known as respiratory distress syndrome (RDS). Over the next few years Mont and Ross Howie, a paediatrician colleague, randomly allocated steroids or placebos to more than 1,000 women in premature labour. Both RDS and mortality fell dramatically in the experimental group, and that simple treatment now saves the lives of many thousands of premature babies.

Mont was born in Thames, on New Zealand's North Island, the fourth son of a doctor. His nickname arose from his childhood infatuation with the cartoon character Monty the Mouse. From 1944 to 1948 he studied medicine in Dunedin, on South Island, where he later worked as a GP to save up enough money to travel to Britain for specialist training. He met his wife, Celia, later Auckland's first female obstetrician, in Newcastle upon Tyne and together they worked for a short time in Cumbria, where Mont claimed to have regularly swum in the sea off the Windscale nuclear power plant. Celia blamed radioactive waste for the lymphoma he developed many years later.

In 1959, he returned to New Zealand as a consultant at the National Women's hospital, in Auckland, where he met Bill Liley, the obstetrician who later performed the world's first intrauterine transfusion for rhesus disease, who suggested preterm labour as a topic for study. After minor projects on fertility treatment, Mont developed his experimental techniques, in particular his methods for studying the physiology of lambs in utero. He later refined them after visiting the University of Davis, California, and the Nuffield Institute for Medical Research at Oxford, run by Geoffrey Dawes.

A natural outdoorsman, Mont epitomised the Kiwi "No 8 wire man" mentality: someone who can fix anything with whatever is to hand. For the next 30 years he combined clinical practice with animal physiology performed in his laboratory, a small wooden hut in the hospital grounds, and with Dawes led the science of foetal physiology.

Mont was a scrupulously honest researcher. In California he blew the whistle, at some risk to his own career prospects, when he discovered a colleague fabricating data. When his steroid discovery paper was praised for the careful trial design he always acknowledged his debt to Howie. His treatment was not accepted overnight, though. The first report, in the journal Pediatrics in 1972, is now a citation classic but, incredibly, the Lancet had rejected it on the grounds that it would be of little general interest. Perhaps an obstetrician had reviewed it – obstetricians were certainly reluctant to implement it. They argued that other, smaller, studies had shown no benefit. Mont probably suspected that they were reluctant to advocate a treatment developed in a small faraway country such as New Zealand.

Clinical obstetrics was in poor health at the time – in 1979, the evidence-based medicine pioneer Archie Cochrane awarded the specialty the wooden spoon for the worst use of randomised trials in all of medicine, and it took nearly 20 years before everyone realised that Mont had been right all along. Steroids work in all premature babies, and cost a few pence. The systematic review that finally pulled together all the evidence relating to their effectiveness is now a classic in its own right, and even forms the basis of the logo of the Cochrane Collaboration, the worldwide evidence-based medicine organisation.

He was professor of obstetrics and gynaecological endocrinology at the University of Auckland from 1968. When, in 2001, the university established the first major research institute dedicated to developmental research, it was named the Liggins Institute. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1980, appointed CBE in 1983 and knighted in 1991. He retired from clinical practice and from his chair in 1987, but never from his "No 8 wire man" role; shortly before his death, he had rigged up a solar panel to run a watering system for his vegetable patch.

Celia predeceased him. He is survived by two sons and two daughters, and several grandchildren.

• Graham "Mont" Collingwood Liggins, physiologist, born 24 June 1926; died 25 August 2010

US officer and Green Beret who trained the Bolivian troops that captured Che Guevara

Major Ralph "Pappy" Shelton, who has died aged 80, was the American officer who trained the Bolivian troops that captured Che Guevara in 1967. Together with 16 Spanish-speaking US officers, Shelton set up a training camp in eastern Bolivia in April 1967 to teach a battalion of 400 Bolivian conscripts the techniques of counter-guerrilla warfare. When their training ended in mid-September, they were transferred to the guerrilla zone, and two weeks later, on 8 October, surrounded Guevara's guerrilla band. Guevara himself was wounded and captured, and executed on 9 October. Shelton slipped out of the country on the following day and returned to his headquarters in the Panama Canal Zone.

"We had a job to do and we did it," Shelton said last year. "The people of Bolivia wanted Guevara gone and asked for help, and we were glad to give it. That man is famous now, but he killed lots of innocent people and we were glad to help put him out of business."

Shelton was the son of a poor farmer who moved from Mississippi to Tennessee. He contributed to the family income by working as a logger and sawmill operator before leaving for Detroit aged 17 to find work in an automobile plant. He joined the army in 1948 and was sent initially to Japan before serving as a sergeant in the Korean war. He was wounded and returned to his father's farm but, unimpressed by the farming life, returned to the army. He served in Germany and then went to an officers' training school, graduating first in his class as a second lieutenant. As the oldest trainee, he acquired the nickname "Pappy".

In 1962, aged 32, he joined the elite "special forces", or Green Berets, established by the Kennedy government in 1961 to combat guerrilla insurgencies in different parts of the world. Shelton was sent out to Laos where the Green Berets operated behind enemy lines in the fight against the Pathet Lao guerrillas. After Spanish-language training in the Panama Canal Zone, Shelton was dispatched to the Dominican Republic in the wake of the US invasion in 1965 as part of the mobile training teams (MTTs) that the US military was setting up to assist local armies. In March 1967, when news of a guerrilla uprising in Bolivia first surfaced, Shelton was the obvious candidate to lead the MTT for deployment there.

Shelton flew to Bolivia in April and, in collaboration with Colonel Joaquín Zenteno Anaya, the Bolivian commander in the guerrilla zone, searched for a training base. They found an abandoned sugar mill outside the small settlement of La Esperanza, some 40 miles north of Santa Cruz, and training began. Shelton was in his element: he commandeered the bulldozers being used by an American aid mission, he embarked on civic projects to endear his troops to the locals, and he took little notice of the US ambassador in La Paz or his military superior, Colonel JP Rice, based in Cochabamba. Shelton reported directly to US southern command in Panama, with whom he was in daily radio contact. He was also kept well informed of the guerrilla fighting 100 miles to the south, through two Cuban exiles operating as CIA agents in the field.

When I interviewed Shelton at La Esperanza in October 1967, he was preparing for a training session with a second battalion of conscripts, but he seemed confident that the guerrilla war was ending. The next day, a sergeant from the US camp, sitting at his favourite cafe in the main square, jumped up to tell me that Guevara had been captured. When I bumped into Shelton at the airport two days later, he gave a smile but said nothing, except: "Mission accomplished."

Shelton retired from the army after his Bolivian excursion and took a master's degree at the University of Memphis. An active public servant, a mason and a board member of his Methodist church, he also served as a commissioner in the mayor's office in Sweetwater, Tennessee. He is survived by his wife, Susan, and four daughters.

• Ralph "Pappy" Shelton, US counter-insurgency officer, born 1930, died 29 June 2010

President on the road to persuade voters economy is safe in his hands, ahead of elections expected to be tough on Democrats

Barack Obama is launching a campaign to persuade American voters that the ailing US economy is safe in his hands, ahead of November's mid-term elections in which the Democrats are expected to receive a drubbing.

The president chose Milwaukee, a city in the manufacturing heartlands and home of the motorbike firm Harley-Davidson, to unveil a $50bn (£32bn) infrastructure package designed to boost jobs by investing in roads, railways and airport runways.

White House officials presented the scheme as a jump-starting of the economy that would put construction workers, welders and electricians back to work.

The speech is an indication that Obama intends to focus almost exclusively on the economy over the eight weeks up to the 2 November elections. His critics – including several representatives of his own Democratic party struggling to hang on to their seats – say this is not before time, and accuse the president of having dispersed his energies too widely on healthcare and foreign policy rather than concentrating on voters' fears about their livelihoods.

Tomorrow marks the unofficial start to the campaign season, and there are signs of increasing urgency, if not panic, within Democratic ranks. The Cook Political Report, which monitors congressional races, predicts the Republicans stand to gain at least 35 seats in the House of Representatives, four short of the number needed to regain control, while a possible take-back of the Senate may also be on the cards for the party.

A recent Gallup poll gave Republicans a 10-point lead, the largest headway for the party ahead of the mid-terms since 1942 and double the advantage they held at the same time in 1994, when they snatched back Congress from the Democrats during Bill Clinton's first term.

Obama's infrastructure plan promises to rebuild 150,000 miles of roads, bring back to scratch 4,000 miles of railways and improve 150 miles of airport runways. It would also pay for the installation of a new air traffic control system and set up a permanent infrastructure bank to channel private and public money into projects.

The president will announce further job-creating schemes on Wednesday in Cleveland, including a plan to extend tax incentives for research.

The problem for Democrats is that none of these initiatives are likely to make a discernible difference before 2 November to the unemployment rate, which last month rose to 9.6%.

There is also an element of damned if he does, damned if he doesn't. While Democratic candidates complain that Obama has failed to focus enough on the economy, Republicans suggest he has done too much, portraying him as an insatiable spender of public money.

As an indication of the likely campaign ahead, the Drudge Report, an influential conservative website, led today with the infrastructure package under a picture of Obama and the headline: "Addicted to stimulus – $50,000,000,000 more."

With Obama's presidential approval rating languishing at 45%, according to Rasmussen report, many Democratic incumbents are now openly avoiding any link with him. Some are barely mentioning their Democratic credentials on campaign literature.

Desmond Fernando, who has died aged 77, was a distinguished lawyer and jurist of international stature whose practice as an advocate in Sri Lanka was based on an unceasing commitment to human rights. When I visited Sri Lanka, the depth of respect and affection for Desmond within the legal profession was obvious. He was a man of integrity, great energy, modesty and charm.

In a country with a democratic but often violent political system, both between Sinhalese and Tamils, but also within the Sinhalese community, Desmond fought hard to protect the independence of the judiciary and to prevent politicisation of the legal profession.

In 1990 he was appointed to the rank of president's counsel in Sri Lanka, the equivalent of a QC in England and Wales.

Desmond was the son of well-to-do Sinhalese parents, Peter and Mary. He was educated at St Joseph's College, in Colombo, and at the University of Colombo. He then became a law student at Keble College, Oxford, where he acquired a further degree. He was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1958 but soon returned to Sri Lanka and was enrolled as an advocate by the supreme court. In 1974 he became the first secretary of the Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL) and was subsequently appointed president.

Desmond was in contact with many senior politicians but had no political ambitions for himself. He opposed the idea of a separate Tamil state and strongly pressed for the removal of discrimination against Tamils, which had been the root cause of their uprising. He tried to help Tamils by ensuring that legislation was published in Tamil as well as in Sinhalese and English; by enabling Tamil to be used as a working language in the courts; and by ensuring that Tamils were treated fairly in admission to law schools and in appointment to the judiciary.

Desmond was very concerned about the recent politicisation of the judiciary and the bar. He made clear his concern that the BASL had failed to present a united front against government actions which were clearly inconsistent with the rule of law.

Desmond was an active member of the International Bar Association (IBA), which is committed to the protection of legal systems wherever they are under threat. He was only the second Asian lawyer to become president of the IBA and he created its human rights committee. He was also involved with the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), becoming vice-president, and was a councillor of Lawasia, an international body of jurists from south and east Asia and parts of the Pacific.

He was married to Suriya Wickramasinghe, a human rights activist. They later separated.

Victor Figueroa Clark writes: For my PhD research into the role of Chilean internationalists during Nicaragua's Sandinista government, I interviewed Luís Corvalán (obituary, 16 August) one sunny afternoon in 2007. Although he was 90, his mind was still sharp and he spoke clearly, taking occasional sips of sweet black tea while answering my questions.

He described a narrow escape from Pinochet's secret services, when they raided a house where the party leadership was gathered. They repeatedly hammered on the door demanding entry – so the people inside all scattered. Some stayed round the kitchen table, there were women at the sink, and Corvalán himself went into the upstairs bathroom. Glancing out of the window he saw that all exits were blocked. He could hear shouting downstairs, and then boots stomping upstairs. In a flash he stood over the toilet, just as the door was kicked open. "What's this, Sir? Have some respect."

The policeman's sense of decency won out, and he apologised before returning downstairs. The remaining comrades explained that they were holding a wake, and the agents left empty-handed, unaware that they had let the party's leaders slip through their fingers.

Without the contributions of generals to political discourse, the debate can be uninformed – and the generals unchallenged

The sight of a politician was alleged to produce in Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson, the chief of the imperial general staff in 1918, a state of sexual arousal. He had been a key figure behind the so-called Curragh mutiny four years before. In March 1914, the 6th Cavalry Brigade indicated that it would refuse to obey an order from the Liberal government to coerce Ulster unionists into acceptance of Irish home rule. Wilson was not alone: his inspiration was the most famous soldier of the age, Lord Roberts of Kandahar, the hero of the second Afghan war and the last ever commander-in-chief of the British army.

Sir Richard Dannatt is not the first general to involve himself in politics, and he will not be the last. In 1827, the Duke of Wellington was appointed commander-in-chief of the British army, while remaining in the cabinet. The following year he was prevailed upon to give up the post when he became prime minister. He did so with a bad grace, but if he had not he would have united (in the words of George Canning in 1827) "the whole power of the state, civil and military, in the same hands". That is not the danger that confronts us. Defence is inherently political business, and a good general – particularly one who is going to fight battles in Whitehall or Afghanistan – needs to have political antennae. Moreover, Dannatt's political involvement derives not from any erotic stimulus but from a deeply held concern for the profession that he served with such distinction for almost 40 years. Aware in 2006 that the army which he headed was "running red hot", he was anxious to preserve its cohesion and integrity rather than have it destroyed by over-commitment.

The constitutional questions that matter are twofold. The first is why does the head of the army find it so difficult to express his professional judgment within the current structure of government? The answer should be that not he, but the chief of the defence staff, who speaks for all three services, is the proper conduit for the transmission of professional judgments on how best to defend Britain's national interests. That may be precisely why the coalition government has created the National Security Council. If so, we await the evidence of delivery – presumably in the Strategic Defence and Security Review.

The second question is when do such interventions move from issues of policy to politics, from addressing the objective needs of the nation to being matters of party debate? The answer seems to be provided by the headlines in the Sunday Telegraph, "Army chief: how Blair and Brown betrayed our troops". Given the relevance of the respective legacies of both to the Labour party leadership debate, those words move Dannatt into the twilight zone between policy and politics. But Dannatt is no longer serving, and he is as entitled to express his views in terms which have party political impact as is any retired officer, including those who do so more regularly – the former chiefs of the defence staff who sit in the House of Lords. Nor should it be assumed that they only attack the Labour party. Lord Lewin, who held the job in the Falklands war, and Lord Bramall, told the Conservative party it would be "crazy" to ditch Margaret Thatcher in the middle of the first Gulf war.

The real issue here is that we need a much more mature and informed debate on defence than is likely if officers are pressed to be silent on matters of professional importance. And we need it for democratic reasons. First, because an electorate cannot make informed judgments on defence issues if it is systematically denied information on spurious grounds of security or constitutional impropriety. Second, we need it because the generals are not always right, and they – like everybody else – must be engaged in open debate.

General Motors book by Steven Rattner lifts lid on Obama administration's handling of US car industry bailout

America's motor city almost lost its anchor tenant. The White House vetoed a plan by General Motors to abandon its skyscraper headquarters in the heart of depressed downtown Detroit at the height of the carmaker's struggle to stay afloat, according to a behind-the-scenes account by Barack Obama's former "car tsar".

The book by Steven Rattner, a former Wall Street private equity financier who co-ordinated the US government's bailout of ailing GM and Chrysler last year, has caused a buzz in Washington with tales of foul-mouthed tirades and tense confrontations between senior White House officials, unions and car industry bosses.

Rattner reveals that the US government unsuccessfully tried to lure Carlos Ghosn, boss of Renault and Nissan, to replace Rick Wagoner in the top job at GM in 2009. He depicts the treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner, as subservient to the White House's notoriously blunt chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, who at one point became so frustrated with the United Auto Workers warnings of job losses that he snapped: "Fuck the UAW."

The bailout of Detroit remains a highly sensitive political issue. Fiscal conservatives among Republican ranks, including followers of the influential so-called Tea Party movement, shudder at the use of taxpayers' money to subvert the free market by propping up failing businesses. The White House is anxious to claw back some of the $85bn (then £48bn) it pumped into the carmakers and has pushed for a re-flotation of GM around the time of congressional elections in November.

Although the US government owns 61% of GM, the official line has always been that it does not intervene in the company's management. But Rattner says the White House stepped in to shoot down a proposal by GM in May last year to save money by moving out of the Renaissance Centre, its landmark tower block on the Detroit river, and shift its head office to a technical centre in Warren, north of the city.

The idea, floated publicly by GM's then chief Fritz Henderson, was greeted with horror by Obama's advisers, one of whom asked: "Are you out of your mind? … Think what it would do to Detroit."

A study commissioned by the government found the move would cause a double-digit percentage drop in Detroit's already depleted property market. Rattner says the matter was referred to Emanuel's office and that "word came down that the move would be a bridge too far".

Obama, according to an advance copy of Rattner's book obtained by the Detroit News, was never a big fan of Detroit's manufacturers. Shortly after his election, the president is said to have demanded why US carmakers were unable to replicate the success of Toyota and other Japanese manufacturers, asking: "Why can't they make a Corolla?" His advisers replied: "We wish we knew."

And Rattner recalls Obama "grimacing" with distaste when he was obliged to sign off on $7.1m in pension benefits accrued by Wagoner, who was forced out as GM's boss by the government prior to the company's bankruptcy filing: "I found it striking that the president of the United States had spent more time on an issue of executive pay than on the question of whether to dismiss a major CEO [chief executive officer] in the first place."

After Wagoner's ousting, an approach to the highly esteemed boss of Renault and Nissan to take the helm of GM was met with "deft demurral" by Ghosn, the book recounts.

Rattner only lasted six months within the administration. He left under an ethical cloud as New York's attorney general investigated alleged kickbacks paid by his former firm, Quadrangle, to secure pension fund clients. Quadrangle paid $12m to settle the allegations in April and Rattner denied any wrongdoing.

But the short-lived White House adviser has no shortage of tales to tell. He is mildly derogatory towards the US treasury secretary, describing Geithner as "organised and low-key, although given to occasional bursts of profanity and odd fits of giggling". Rattner claims Geithner was in effect "supervised" by the White House's chief of staff after a rocky start at the treasury, with Emanuel dictating Geithner's public appearances and staff appointments.

Emanuel, who is well known in Washington for his fruity language, allegedly deployed the "f" word at the UAW during a discussion of whether the bailouts were a price too high to save jobs. When asked about the book this week, the UAW's president, Bob King, declined to rise to the bait, describing Emanuel's reported remark as "a bunch of baloney" and telling CNBC television: "If it wasn't for Rahm Emanuel and the White House, we wouldn't have an auto industry today."

A GM spokesman refused to be drawn on the contents of Rattner's book, describing it as history: "We're a new company and we have too much work to do and no time for book reviews."

Gareth Williams is pictured at tube station nine days before body was found, as police seek man and woman seen at flats

The last known images of the MI6 code-breaker Gareth Williams, found dead in a padlocked holdall in his bath, were released by detectives today, as they made a public appeal for information about his death.

CCTV pictures show the Cambridge-educated mathematician, seconded from the government communications headquarters (GCHQ) to MI6, shopping in central London, including at Harrods, shortly after returning from a holiday in America.

The images were released as police appealed for witnesses who may have seen Williams, 30, from Anglesey, before his body was discovered at the MI6-owned flat where he was living in Pimlico on 23 August.

They also wish to trace a mystery couple, said to have visited the Alderney Street premises where he had the top-floor flat, in the late evening on an undisclosed date in June or July. Said to be "of Mediterranean appearance" and in their 20s or 30s, the two were buzzed in through the communal door to the house.

Postmortem results have so far failed to establish a cause of death, other than to find that Williams does not appear to have been shot or stabbed. There are also no obvious signs of strangulation.

Scotland Yard revealed that he was unclothed when discovered inside a zipped and padlocked red holdall in the empty bath in his ensuite bathroom.

Toxicology test results show no traces of alcohol, or of routine or recreational drugs. A Metropolitan police spokesman said: "Testing for other substance continues."

There was no sign of forced entry to Williams's flat or of any disturbance inside. Nor did it appear that any property was missing. "There is no suggestion the items within the flat were specifically posed," said the spokesman.

The mystery surrounding the death, which the police so far have refused to classify as murder, has led to intense speculation ranging from theories relating to his work as a ciphers and code-breaking expert, to rumours about his private life.

Described as 5ft 7in tall with short hair and of muscular build, Williams, who was not married and was said to be a "very private person", was days away from completing a one-year secondment to the headquarters of the Secret Intelligence Service MI6 in Vauxhall, London, when his body was found.

He had returned to the UK from a holiday in the US on Wednesday, 11 August, said police. In one CCTV image he is seen, wearing a red T-shirt, beige trousers and white trainers, entering Holland Park underground station at about 3pm on Saturday, August 14.

The next day he is shown shopping in Brompton Road, where he visited a cash machine and Harrods department store. Later, at about 2.30pm, he is seen just outside Harrods in Hans Crescent before heading towards Sloane Street, near the Dolce and Gabbana store. This was the last known sighting of him.

Detective Chief Inspector Jacqueline Sebire, who is leading the investigation, said: "This remains a complex, unexplained death inquiry." She appealed for anyone who may have seen or had contact with Williams between 11 and 23 August to contact the incident room on 020-8358 0200, or Crimestoppers on 0800-555 111.

In a statement shortly after his body was found, Williams's family described rumours suggesting his sex life might hold the clues to his deathas "very distressing".

They paid tribute to him as a "generous, loving son, brother, and friend" and a very private person, who was "a great athlete, and loved cycling and music".

The 'Polish pope' was the first serving pope to visit Britain - and he faced up to the Falklands war and the Free Presbyterians

Whatever the challenges facing Pope Benedict XVI in Britain next week, they pale in comparison with 1982.

Pope John Paul II flew in at 8 o'clock on a bright May morning to a country at war in the Falklands, with casualties overnight against the troops of Argentina, an overwhelmingly Catholic country.

Almost to the wire, no one outside the Vatican knew whether the visit was actually going to happen. Vincent Malone, now retired auxiliary archbishop of Liverpool, sat through a health and safety meeting - should the Savlon be in tubes or jars was one agenda item - expecting a message from Rome that would call the whole thing off.

However, the charismatic "Polish pope" was determined to become the first serving pontiff to visit the island that had turned its back on Rome nearly 500 years earlier.

John Paul had sprung the idea a year before, in a video link to the Catholic national pastoral congress in Liverpool. The timing was perfect for the Anglican church and other denominations fired up with ecumenical vigour. After kissing the runway at Gatwick in front of 3,500 singing children, and scooping up a 12-year-old with cerebral palsy in his arms, he met their expectations in full.

On the first day alone, he departed from his prepared text three times, to call for peace in the Falklands, and in Northern Ireland - whose struggles were represented throughout the visit by protesters from Ian Paisley's Free Presbyterian church. But, as the Guardian's then churches correspondent, Martyn Halsall, puts it today: "That was an expression of the fundamental Christian ideal of peace. It transcended politics."

The nitty-gritty of the visit lay elsewhere. "John Paul had clearly been very well briefed about the relative liberalism of English Catholics on social issues," says Halsall. As the 62-year-old pope toured nine cities in six days, delivering 16 major addresses and drawing vast, sunny-natured crowds, he put the tenets of his faith into a contemporary, British context.

"One veteran observer even floated the idea that this was a new pope – Jean Paul III," says Halsall. Especially significant was a visit to Canterbury and an embrace with its archbishop, Robert Runcie - a see and its holder whose status the Vatican did not officially recognise.

The first pope from outside Italy since the 15th century, John Paul had some of the Anglophilia of many Poles. Among the most enthusiastic of crowds were Polish communities settled in Britain. He addressed them in their own language on three occasions.

More widely, John Paul spoke with the eloquence of an actor and poet - both part of his CV - of his delight in being the country's guest. He called himself the "bishop of Rome" - a phrase used slightingly by Henry VIII - and met the Queen (although not the prime minister, Margaret Thatcher - the Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Casaroli, did the talking with her).

Halsall singles out three especially striking occasions, one related to the Falklands specifically, the other two with resonances for all humanity. "It was extremely moving when he appealed for peace at Coventry cathedral, drawing on the new church amid the ruins of its blitzed predecessor.

"Then, his relationship with young people at the youth service in Cardiff was pure charisma.

"And when he moved among the elderly, ill and dying at a special service in London, he became a simple priest, doing the fundamental work of his calling."

The crowds posed problems every bit as expensive as those in preparation for Benedict. Logistics were often horrendous; and security at Coventry alone cost £2.65m at today's prices. A perimeter fence at Glasgow, where Protestant bands played Orange songs at a small counter-rally, cost £160,000. Six Free Presbyterian ministers, arrested on the first day for alleged public order offences, were released on bail only after the pope's aircraft had lifted off for Rome.

There were disappointments, too. Security fears and excessive hype saw the crowd at Heaton Park in Manchester fall to 200,000 instead of the predicted million. In an ironic reversal of the Feeding of the Five Thousand, one stallholder threw away £2,000 worth of unwanted burgers, sausages and chips.

But overall, everyone was satisfied and extremely relieved, even though the Falklands war continued unabated and fundamental issues between the churches were not resolved.

One of the last, and most lasting, images was John Paul's gentle teasing of the youth rally, saying twice that he had to return to Rome, which prompted, with stylish timing, huge cries of "No". He hoped to come back, he said, but that was not to be.

Soon his successor arrives instead.

What did the pope do last time?

Fri 28 May Meets Queen; mass for 3,000 at Westminster cathedral; ministry to 4,000 elderly, sick and dying at St George's, Southwark. Modest crowds watch popemobile pass.

Sat 29 May Service with archbishop Robert Runcie in Canterbury cathedral; mass for 60,000 at old Wembley stadium.

Sun 30 May Mass for 25,000 British Poles at Crystal Palace; 350,000 welcome him to Coventry; visits both Liverpool cathedrals, where there were an estimated million people on streets and at services.

Mon 31 May Meets Manchester Jewish community, 200,000 at mass; 210,000 in York; 44,000 teenagers in Edinburgh.

Tue 1 June Meets Scottish Protestant church leaders; 250,000 turn out at Glasgow (biggest religious service ever held in Scotland), where there are minor protests.

Wed 2 June Mass for 100,000 in Cardiff; youth rally of 37,000; leaves for Rome.

There are four major questions to ask about the News of the World's sting operation on the Pakistan cricket team.

Q1. Did the paper have prima facie evidence of wrongdoing?

Q2. Was it proportionate to offer so much money to (relatively) poorly-paid and young sportsmen?

Q3. Was the offer couched in such a way that the cricketers were unaware of the gravity of what they were being asked to do?

Q4. Was there a genuine public interest in exposing (alleged) sporting corruption?

So let's consider them one by one. My answers are tentative, and based on informed guesswork, because we do not have the facts. But they are the questions that deserve answers (and, arguably, a little more information from the paper).

A1. Given the nature of rumours about corruption within Pakistan cricket, it's highly likely that the paper's investigations editor Mazher Mahmood did, as he wrote yesterday, receive a tip-off.

He explained that "the crucial extra piece of information... was the name Mazhar Majeed, a millionaire businessman who acted as an agent for Pakistani players" (who also happens to own Croydon Athletic football club).

This sounds straightforward enough, and Mahmood does detail his meetings with Majeed at two London hotels, including (supposedly) verbatim - dare I say ball-by-ball? - accounts of their conversations.

A2. Majeed may be a millionaire, but the players are not. Now, I'd guess that many people would be tempted by £150,000 to do something which, on the face of it, appears relatively harmless.

Tossing down a couple of no-balls is no big deal, after all, though I readily concede that it could have been the thin end of the wedge.

If we accept Mahmood's account, then Majeed was just indulging in a dry run with the no-ball business. He claimed to have fixed a match in Australia and was clearly prepared to fix a Test match.

Again, if one accepts Majeed's statements at face value, £150k was a small sum for him to make. But the pay-outs promised to low-paid players should be seen in a different light.

Though it's possible to argue that the sums given to them would have been disproportionate, I don't think Mahmood or the News of the World could be certain how much each player would receive. So the paper is exonerated on this charge.

A3. We cannot be be sure of how the offer was couched to the players by Majeed. Did they really do it for the money, for instance, or because it seemed like a bit of harmless horse-play?

Even if they were doing it to make money, they may well not have seen it as a form of cheating because there's a supplementary question to ask here: is the climate of corruption so deep within Pakistan cricket that this was viewed as unexceptional?

A4. I like sport and I like cricket. I support Essex and England. I understand the desire to win and the passion it arouses in both players and spectators.

Sport is meaningless if it is fixed because it is, at its heart, all about competition. Otherwise, there is no point to it.

People who do not like sport may well take a different view. They may see it as nothing more than a branch of the entertainment industry and, as such, fixing what happens is no big deal. So where, they might ask, is the public interest in exposing it?

Though I have also grown increasingly cynical in recent years about corruption in sport (such as the use of performance-enhancing drugs), I cannot agree.

I do believe that there is a genuine public interest in exposing sporting corruption (though I readily concede it's less important than, say, political and financial corruption).

All of this suggests, does it not, that I am relaxed about the News of the World's story? Well, on the basis of what we know and can surmise, I am.

Of course, there is much that we do not know and we also have to accept that Mahmood's written account of his meetings with Majeed is entirely truthful and comprehensive. It is possible that there were crucial omissions and also possible that there were other enticements offered to Majeed and the players.

But I always say that journalistic investigations that involve subterfuge and entrapment - as with intrusions into privacy - need to be viewed on a case-by-case basis.

However critical I am of the News of the World and Mahmood for their over-reliance on stings, they do not get it wrong every time. The Pakistan exposure appears to be justified.

A new elementary school in Los Angeles named after giants of environmental movement is courting needless controversy

Here's a problem for any new school: what to call yourself. Do you opt for an iconic figure from history? Or what about a name which reflects the school's location? The first rule, however, should be not to choose a name that can in any way be deemed controversial. In other words, avoid any name that even has a passing whiff of politics about it.

Bottom of the class, then, for the governors of a new school set to open this month in Los Angeles. Not content - and who can blame them - with the name "Central Region Elementary School #13", as their new school was being described by architects and the local board of education, the school-naming committee decided to pick one of six possible suggestions.

The first suggestion - the Pete Seeger Community School, in honour of the folk singer - was rejected because the singer had "affiliations with the Communist party".

Such a decision suggests that the committee members were astute enough to avoid controversy. But this conclusion crumbles to dust when you hear what name they finally settled on: the Carson-Gore Academy of Environmental Sciences.

To name your school after one controversial figure might be judged careless by some. But to name it after two just seems positively reckless. Al Gore, the former US vice-president and force behind An Inconvenient Truth, and Rachel Carson, the author of the seminal environmental text Silent Spring, are deemed by many to be giants of the modern environmental movement. But they are also among its most divisive figures.

The school-naming committee surely must have known that by picking such an eye-catching name they would be casting an unnecessary spotlight on their new school?

Don't get me wrong: personally, I think it is refreshing that a public elementary school wishes to give such a heavy emphasis in its curriculum to environmental science. But, equally, there will be many out there – not least, the Glenn Beck/Tea Party contingent – who will think this is nothing less than the devil's work, with or without reference to Carson and Gore. (Just as I was writing this sentence, I noticed that the rightwing site NewsBusters had got hold of the news and reacted with predictable results.)

Spin it round the other way: would environmentalists be happy if a school was named after Glenn Beck? It doesn't even bear thinking about. That's my point.

The Los Angeles Times, which broke this story earlier today, is not really focusing on the naming of the school. It says the source of a bigger controversy is that the $75.5m school has been built on contaminated soil. It quotes a letter from a local environmental group called the California Safe Schools coalition which says the site has not been cleaned up properly:

Renaming this terribly contaminated school after famous environmental advocates is an affront to the great work that these individuals have done to protect the public's health from harm.

I don't know the ins and outs of this particular clean-up operation, but I would have thought the rules in California for cleaning up brownfield sites, particular if they are to be used to build schools, must be pretty exacting. Therefore, this is possibly the one time when Rachel Carson's name might actually seem appropriate for a school. But I can also understand why these parents are concerned that the site be unequivocally cleansed of the benzene, ethylbenzene, naphthalene, tetrachloroethylene, vinyl chloride and trimethylbenzene which California's Department of Toxic Substances Control said (pdf) it had detected in soil at the site before the clean-up began.

Meanwhile, the LA Times reports that the school principal Kurt Lowry says he intends to invite both Al Gore and members of Rachel Carson's family to the school's official opening in October. It adds:

Lowry said the school's environmental emphasis will do Gore proud, including recycling projects and research and beach cleanups. Cross-curriculum efforts will include environmental speeches and presentations in English, topsoil measurements in math and climate study in science. The principal also envisions an organic garden that could produce a student-led farmer's market.

No word yet on whether the pupils will get to watch An Inconvenient Truth in class. If they do, the school best prepare itself for a fresh round of outrage and controversy.

Keeping tabs on NGO activities is key to ensuring successful long-term development in Uganda and elsewhere. Lessons can be learned from the Katine project's stress on partnership

A call to regulate non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that seek to bring positive change to Africa by investing huge amounts of time and energy to help those in need has to be a good idea because, in the end, those they are trying to help will benefit. In a recent blog on this website, Marieme Jamme, a philanthropist and president of SpotOne Global Solutions Group, said it all.

But many questions remain unanswered. For example, who should regulate NGOs? Could government structures work best? Should the community members where the NGOs intend to work take the lead? Or should there be some sort of an NGO regulating other NGOs?

In Uganda, efforts have been made to protect an unsuspecting public. For example, an NGO must be licenced by the registrar of companies or the ministry of internal affairs to start operating. Documents are then passed to district authorities who give permission for the NGOs to function.

Community-based organisations are registered by the district development department and issued with certificates that are renewed annually on payment of a fee and presentation of a report. Copies of relevant documents are kept at the office of the resident district commissioner (RDC), who represents the president. Attempts have also been made to run NGO forums across the country to help advise member NGOs though not with any great success.

Safeguards found lacking

Yet despite these safeguards, many Ugandans continue to live in abject poverty, while certain purported "saviours" exploit the poor as the government looks on. In 2008, for example, hundreds of Ugandans lost billions of shillings to Dutch International, an NGO registered to help people living with HIV/Aids escape poverty with financial support.

The NGO collected money from the public, claiming it was teaching people how to save. To become a "member", individuals had to pay UShs 125,000 as a membership fee and then continue to make further deposits. Each deposit made would attract 30% interest after 30 working days, a much better rate than that offered by Ugandan banks.

During the first years of the scheme, members really did earn millions. Most built houses, paid school fees for their children and bought cars. Many people joined, including myself, but our good fortune was short-lived. The interest rate began to fall and dwindled to nothing, followed by the capital investment itself. Although certain government offices held documents permitting the NGO to operate, it did not intervene. In fact, the NGO's founders were only arrested after a public outcry and then released a few weeks later. Dutch International subsequently closed shop in 2008, having taken billions of shillings from the public

In Uganda at present, whether an NGO is providing scholarships or, like Amref, implementing a long-term development programme in Katine, there is no effective means of regulating an NGO's activities.

The methods used to monitor the Katine community partnership project, supported by Guardian readers, could probably serve as a template for monitoring other NGOs. And yet even here, while Amref, sub-county and district authorities, and Katine community members themselves are meant to monitor, internally and externally, how the project is implemented, issues have continued to emerge.

Examples include shoddy work during construction of certain school buildings, boreholes and shallow wells, some procurement processes, the NGO's insistence that it stick by decisions rejected by the beneficiaries, such as the planned installation of a solar-powered water pump at the Tiriri health centre, and a lack of transparency in regularly sharing budgets with local community members and other stakeholders.

In some NGOs, if a staff member acting as an internal monitor risks saying anything contrary to the interests of their employer, they can lose their job. So they choose to to serve their boss rather than the target beneficiaries or, at best, work as a desk officer writing "good" reports at the expense of the project's set objectives. In many cases, local and regional authorities are monitoring the same NGOs that provide the authorities with fuel to make field visits.

NGOs can remain unchecked

Members of communities benefiting from an NGO project would be the best monitors in such cases. But when they are not familiar with the process of hiring a contractor, with the terms of the contract or with the original budget - all key indicators when measuring achievements - and, above all, have no voice over any errant staff, NGOs can remain unchecked.

The Katine project has weaknesses of its own but its monitoring approach is much closer to the ideal model that ensures NGOs offer their best to those in need, a point my colleague, Richard Kavuma, makes in his recent blog on the subject.

The emphasis on "partnership" with the Katine community – through its leaders at sub-county and Soroti district level – has helped influence Amref's programmes, even if not as much as desired. Strong leadership from people like Stephen Ochola, the Soroti district chairman, his deputy Ediau Ewadu, and their teams has, for instance, helped persuad Amref to revise its plans and work into the programme more "tangible" items such as boreholes or classrooms and cut back on capacity-building seminars.

But in reality, local communities elsewhere have little influence on many NGOs' activities – although reports may tell you otherwise. And that is what makes Katine's trail-blazing attempts to introduce stricter monitoring all the more important.

Immigrants to be stripped of French nationality for attacking police – but not for practising female genital mutilation

Nicolas Sarkozy has pledged to press ahead with legislation to strip immigrants who attack police of their French nationality. The French president rowed back, however, from imposing a similar punishment on those who practise polygamy or female genital mutilation.

As much of France returned to work after the summer holidays, Sarkozy made his first major statement of the new political term after meeting ministers responsible for security, justice and immigration.

He reiterated his determination to implement the sanctions, which he first threatened after three days of riots in the southern city of Grenoble which were sparked when police shot dead a suspected armed robber in July.

The Elysée Palace said the president would implement the measures "as soon as possible". The punishment would apply to foreign-born criminals who had obtained French nationality in the last 10 years and who "endanger the life of a person in charge of public security, in particular the police and gendarmes".

The proposals have been vehemently criticised by the opposition and some legal experts who say they are contrary to the constitution that states all French citizens are equal before the law regardless of race, creed or origin.

Gerard Larcher, president of the Senate upper house of parliament, told Le Monde: "The real question is: would it really improve French people's security?"

Critics accuse Sarkozy, who also faces international criticism over the expulsion of almost 1,000 Roma last month, of playing to extreme rightwing voters by linking violent crime and immigration.

Today it emerged that immigration minister Éric Besson had been forced to postpone his wedding after Facebook protesters vowed to disrupt the ceremony.

Besson, 52, a former socialist who defected to Sarkozy's ruling right-of-centre UMP party, had planned to marry Tunisian-born art student Yasmine Tordjam, 24, at the town hall in the chic 7th arrondissement of Paris – where former justice minister Rachida Dati is mayor – on September 16.

When more than 1,000 Facebook users had signed up to the group Create Havoc at Eric Besson's Marriage, the divorced father of three told France 5 television he was changing the date and place "so it will go back to what it should be – an exclusively private matter".

"There should be a Chinese wall between public matters and private matters and this wall is being breached," Besson said adding that he did not want his children, his new wife or his ex-wife to be "collateral damage for my political choices".

"I'm not afraid of it turning rowdy or havoc being created. However as I'm a minister this requires security measures and I have no desire to get married in this context with security guards.

"I don't see why public funds should be spent on guaranteeing the security of a marriage that is in the private domain."

A selection of the best images from around the world

Greenpeace Japan defiant as activists Junichi Sato and Toru Suzuki are convicted of theft and trespass after intercepting a box of whale meat

Millions of us could be in line for tax rebates. What would you do with the extra money?

HM Revenue and Customs, which administers the UK tax system, has admitted to errors that could result in more than 10 million people receiving rebates.

Though another 1.4 million are likely to receive the unwelcome news that they have actually paid less than they should, many of us will be celebrating an unexpected windfall. The average rebate will be around £418, and letters informing taxpayers that the government owes them money will start arriving from tomorrow.

If you're in line for a rebate, what will you do with it? Save, or splash out? And have you ever been lucky enough to receive one in the past?

Shareholders in disgraced Kabul Bank banned from selling property, says central bank governor

The government of Afghanistan is attempting to freeze the assets of some of the shareholders of Kabul Bank, the disgraced financial institution that has suffered days of panic withdrawals from depositors amid a major corruption scandal.

Abdul Qadir Fitrat, the governor of the central bank, said that orders had been given to prevent the sale of properties and other assets owned by shareholders who took personal loans from the bank.

He told a press conference that Kabul local authorities had banned the sale of properties owned by shareholders.

With the bank run into its fifth day, Fitrat also appealed for calm, saying the bank still had enough cash to cover the needs of depositors who wanted their money back. And while he said no public money had yet been used to prop up the bank, it was prepared for a bailout.

"The central bank will provide any support Kabul Bank requests," Fitrat said.

But Khalilullah Frozi, the owner of 28% of the bank, said no one had told him not to sell his assets and he was free to leave the country if he wished.

Frozi was the flamboyant chief executive of the bank until last week when he was ousted by the central bank along with the bank's chairman, Sher Khan Farnood, who also holds 28% of the available shares.

It was not clear whether any steps had been taken to prevent the sale of assets outside Afghanistan, particularly in Dubai where hundreds of millions of dollars were spent on luxury property with many of the houses on the artificial Palm Jumeirah development subsequently given to members of the Afghan elite.

The United Arab Emirates has said it has not received any requests from Kabul to freeze assets owned by Afghans.

Police investigating the death of MI6 worker Gareth Williams have released CCTV footage

MI6 officer Gareth Williams was filmed on CCTV at Holland Park tube station in west London nine days before his body was found in a holdall in his Pimlico flat. The footage has been released by Scotland Yard

At 70cm tall, Colombian has just been officially certified as the world's shortest man by Guinness World Records

Edward Nino Hernández is in many ways a typical 24-year-old Colombian man. He loves to dance reggaeton, dreams of owning a car – preferably a Mercedes-Benz – and wants to see the world.

What sets him apart is his size. He is slightly taller than a piece of carry-on luggage and weighs just 10kg (22lbs).

Nino Hernández has just been officially certified as the world's shortest living man by Guinness World Records, measuring 70cm (27in). "He hasn't grown since he was two years old," his mother, Noemi Hernández, said of the oldest of her five children.

The previous titleholder was He Pingping of China, who was 4cm taller and died on 13 March.They say Nino Hernández 's reign is not likely to last long, however.

Khagendra Thapa Magar of Nepal is expected to take over after he turns 18 on 14 October. He measures about 56 cm and is currently recognised by Guinness as the shortest living teenager.

Doctors never could explain why Ninõ is so small, his parents say.

"They never gave us a diagnosis," says his mother, during an interview in the family's sparely furnished apartment in Bosa, a district of southern Bogotá.

Hernández, 43, said her son weighed 1.5kg at birth and was 38cm long.

She said doctors at the National University studied him until he was three, then lost interest. She and her husband, a security guard, lost a daughter who was similarly small in 1992 when she was nearly a year old.

The couple's youngest child, 11-year-old Miguel Angel, stands 93cm tall and has facial features similar to his older silbling. The other three boys are of average height and appearance.

"I feel happy because I'm unique," Nino Hernández said in an interview.

He does, however, have his problems: cataracts in both of his eyes that blur his vision and, says his mother, require urgent surgery that the family can't afford.

Other than his eyes, he has no medical complaints.

Nino Hernández has earned some cash dancing at department stores and is now acting in a film in which he plays a drug dealer.

He adds that he's got used to all the picture-taking. But being the world's smallest man does have its drawbacks.

"It bothers me that people are [always] touching me and picking me up," he said.