Support of two independent MPs gives Labor party a two-seat majority over Liberal-led opposition coalition

Julia Gillard faces the challenge of holding together Australia's first minority Labor government in nearly 70 years after she won the support yesterday of two independent MPs to become the country's first elected female prime minister.

Seventeen days after inconclusive elections failed to return a clear winner, Gillard's Labor party-led coalition will have a majority by 76 to 74.

The result came after two of three wavering rural independent MPs backed her, while the third threw his weight behind the opposition coalition led by Tony Abbott of the Liberal party. In a day of high drama and tension, the decisions gave Gillard the 76 seats needed.

Gillard had called a snap election after she ousted the prime minister Kevin Rudd in a leadership challenge this June. After getting an immediate bounce in opinion polls, a shaky election campaign dogged by leaks against her, party infighting, and the presence of Rudd left her almost neck and neck with Abbott after polling day.

For the last two and a half weeks the country has been hanging on to every word of the independents, who became known as the "three amigos".

The tension came to a head as the MP Bob Katter, from north Queensland, broke ranks with his two colleagues to back Abbott, citing the way fellow Queenslander Rudd had been treated by Gillard. "Kevin's thinking and my thinking are very similar," he said. "I'm very good friends with him."

An hour later, however, Gillard was confirmed as prime minister after the other two independents, Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott, backed her.

Both from New South Wales, the pair have consistently said that stability and longevity of government were paramount in their decision: they backed Gillard because they thought Labor had the most to lose if the government turned out to be short lived; Labor, they said, would be more likely to lose an early election if the government fell. "The consideration was, who's likely to work harder to make the parliament work, to make the nation work?" said Oakeshott.

Gillard said: "We will govern in the best interests of the Australian people, and I know that if we fail in this solemn responsibility, we will be judged harshly when we next face the Australian people at the next election."

Her sweetener to the rural independents was a A$9.9bn (£5.9bn) package, which will include a regional focus on health and education. "We will make sure regional Australia gets its fair share."

Oakeshott and Windsor also said Labor's policy on climate change was crucial to their decision – though that issue will probably see them clash with many in their mainly conservative electorates who are against putting a price on carbon emissions.But Windsor said climate change debate had to be revisited. "I see enormous opportunities where others [in rural Australia] fear the whole debate."

Abbott called the election result disappointing. "For our country's sake I hope the Labor party can provide a better government than it has over the last three years. For the country's sake I hope the Labor party can rediscover its soul that has been so lacking."

His coalition partner, the National party, traditionally backed by rural voters, said the poll outcome was a lost chance for a regional Australia. Warren Truss, the party's leader, said he was worried about the upper house of parliament being controlled by Labor and the "extreme Greens".

But this will not be an easy parliament for Labor. Gillard's minority government has already been dubbed the "rainbow coalition", pulling together 72 members from her own party, one Greens MP, and three independents. The Greens picked up many disenchanted Labor voters at the election, those wanting to see greater action on climate change as well as more humane treatment for asylum seekers.

The rural independents have predominantly conservative electorates that want more infrastructure and services in the regions, and remain sceptical about climate change. A mining tax is also likely to be a sticking point, with Greens supporting it but rural MPs with big mining presences likely to oppose it.

Keith Suter, who lectures in politics at Macquarie University, Sydney, said the rural independents, having gone against a majority view among their electorates, needed time to prove they had made the right decision. "So they will want a Gillard government to continue for as long as possible and pour as much money as possible into the rural sector – so [at] the next election is held they can say being pragmatic has paid off."

Government accused of scaremongering after prime minister claims 500 asylum seekers aboard boat a security concern

The arrival off the west coast of Canada of a rusty boat containing nearly 500 exhausted Sri Lankan Tamil asylum seekers has sparked an angry debate about racism that has divided national opinion.

The merchant vessel Sun Sea limped, under escort, into Esquimalt naval base in British Columbia on 13 August after a four month voyage from Songkhla in Thailand. The passengers spoke of grim conditions. One man died during the journey and was buried at sea.

"It is a miracle that they survived," David Poopalapillai of the Canadian Tamil Congress (CTC) told the Guardian. "The boat is very primitive, you wouldn't even go out fishing in it." He ascribed their survival to the fact that they had been living for many months in very hostile conditions in Sri Lanka.

The 380 men and 63 women are being held in detention centres near Vancouver. The 49 children on board are with their mothers although not officially detained. Hearings into whether the Tamils can be released while applications for refugee status are processed are due to start tomorrow .

Even before the boat reached Canada, it had stirred up controversy. The Conservative prime minister, Stephen Harper, described the vessel as "abnormal", claimed that it created security concerns and warned that he could seek a change in the law to deal with similar arrivals. Canada's public safety minister, Vic Toews, said that it could contain members of the Tamil Tigers and that it was a "test ship ... part of a broader organised criminal enterprise".

The government has been accused of scaremongering by the opposition, immigration lawyers and refugee groups. The Liberal party leader, Michael Ignatieff, criticised suggestions that the boat should have been turned away, as happened to similar vessels approaching Australia. He said during a recent political rally in Winnipeg: "This is Canada, not Australia. That means Canada has principles, the charter of rights and freedoms, our international obligations."

Canada has a long history of welcoming refugees, from 200,000 Hungarians who fled after the failed 1956 uprising to more than 100,000 US draft resisters who crossed into Canada during the Vietnam war. There were also darker times; coincidentally, last week, details were announced of a monument to commemorate the St Louis, a ship carrying Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany in 1939 which was turned away by the Canadian government. Many of its 900 passengers subsequently died in concentration camps.

Lorne Waldman, the lawyer representing more than 50 of the asylum seekers, told the Guardian that before the boat landed the tone was set. "From the get-go, it was suggested that there were criminals and terrorists aboard," he said. "The Sri Lankan government has a huge interest in portraying them this way rather than as victims of a genocidal civil war. Some of those on board are victims of torture and have shrapnel wounds."

Waldman, who represented a smaller number of Tamils who arrived last October on another boat, the Ocean Lady, said that terrorist claims had been made then but none substantiated.

Professor Rohan Gunaratna, who is advising the Canadian government, said, in an email from his home in Singapore, that the Tamil Tigers had "decided to regroup in Canada where (they) have traditionally raised funds and lobbied politicians that depended on the migrant-diaspora vote." He claimed there was evidence that the Tamil Tigers had organised the voyage.

An opinion poll last month indicated that a majority of Canadians wanted the Tamils to be sent back.

"Why such rage directed at such a minuscule group?" asked columnist Stephen Hume in the Vancouver Sun. "Perhaps it's because they aren't white ... How we respond to a few Tamils seeking safety and a future for their children says far more about us than it does about them. And what it says so far is rather distasteful."

This provoked a furious reaction. "Gee, could it be that we are sick of being played for Patsies?" was one of the milder responses from readers. "You might sing a different song if your community was flooded with Hindus, Vietnamese, etc who brought such worthy skills with them as drive-by shootings, drug wars, murder of their own wives and daughters," read another.

Poopalapillai, of the CTC, which represents about 200,000 Tamils, mainly in the Toronto area, blamed the Sri Lankan government for raising the spectre of terrorism. "If there are any undesirable residents, put them through due process," he said. "Most of these folks went through persecution and hostile conditions. The only thing they had in their mind was to save their lives." Of the opinion poll, he said: "Canada is a very compassionate country but people were not very well informed at the time this poll was taken."

A government spokeswoman said that the average process time for refugee status was 21 months but the hearings this week could lead to the conditional release of at least some of the asylum seekers once their identities had been established.

Author of La carte et le territoire accused of pinching book title

The latest literary offering by the French author Michel Houellebecq was supposed to be his least incendiary yet: a satirical novel that kept the sexism, violence and racial hatred to a minimum. In their place, however, has slid another brewing controversy: alleged plagiarism.

A writer from the southern French city of Nimes has today claimed publicly that the title of La carte et le territoire (The map and the territory) was that of a manuscript he published himself in 1999. Michel Lévy said Houellebecq "could not have been unaware" of this: Lévy's sister, Michelle, was at the time the chair and founder of a Friends of Michel Houellebecq association, now defunct.

"The writer came to see my sister on numerous occasions and could not have been unaware that I was publishing a book with this title," Levy, 55, told Le Parisien, adding that his own work had been catalogued in the French national library. "This cannot be down to chance."

But lawyers at the French-language publishing house Flammarion have disagreed. In a letter to Lévy the publisher said the title was "an association of two commonly used words" and could not be claimed by anyone as their own work.

As legally unfounded as they might be the allegations nonetheless add to an argument over plagiarism which last week drew attention to the fact that Houellebecq had taken several passages of La carte et le territoire from Wikipedia.

In an article entitled The possibility of plagiarism, the French version of the news website Slate compared passages from the novel with entries on the online encyclopaedia, and concluded they were virtually identical. The Slate commentators then invited readers to talk about whether the passages – on a hunting activist, the town of Beauvais, and the housefly – were instances of unashamed copying or stylistic technique.

On the housefly, Houellebecq writes: "Adult flies live from two weeks to a month in nature, or longer in laboratory conditions. After emerging from the pupa, the flies stop growing. Small flies are not young flies, but flies which have had insufficient food during their larval stage."

Wikipedia's entry, translated, is: "Adults live from half a month to a month in nature, or longer in the more comfortable conditions of a laboratory. After emerging from the pupa, the flies stop growing. Small flies are not young flies, but flies which have not had enough food during their larval stage."

But for the author of Atomised and the possibility of an island, the answer is clear. "If people really think that [this is plagiarism], then they haven't the first notion of what literature is … It is part of my method," he said, branding his accusers "incompetents" in a video on Le Nouvel Observateur's website.

His decision to take from Wikipedia, he said, was akin to techniques used by other globally renowned writers, such as Jorge Luis Borges and Georges Perec.

But, he added, the accusation of copying would stick… "When you use a big word like plagiarism, even if the accusation is ridiculous, something [of the accusation] will always remain. It's like racism."

These minor controversies will do little to harm critical reaction to the novel, regarded as Houellebecq's best chance yet of winning France's supreme literary prize, the Goncourt. Released yesterday the award's shortlist features La carte et le territoire alongside the latest novel by fellow Gallic hellraiser, the author of Baise-moi, Virginie Despentes.

White House says oil has gone from Gulf of Mexico oil spill

The Nobel Laureate warned in speech that the upcoming poll will be marred by fraud

Former UN nuclear weapons chief and prominent Egyptian dissident Mohamed ElBaradei has called on Egyptians to boycott next month's parliamentary elections, threatening a campaign of mass civil disobedience if his demands for political reform continue to be ignored.

In his most provocative speech to date since making a high-profile return to Cairo earlier this year, the Nobel Laureate warned that the poll would be marred by fraud, and that "anyone who participates in the vote either as a candidate or a voter goes against the national will".

He went on to claim that the three-decade rule of president Hosni Mubarak was a "decaying, nearly collapsing temple", and promised activists that regime change was possible in the coming year.

Mubarak, 82, is believed to be in poor health, and there is speculation his son Gamal is being groomed to succeed him ahead of next year's presidential ballot. ElBaradei's intervention comes at the end of a tumultuous few weeks in the race for the presidency, during which the 68-year-old accused the government of waging a smear campaign against him following the publication on Facebook of photos purporting to show his daughter posing in a swimsuit alongside bottles of alcohol.

The creator of the Facebook page, entitled "Secrets of the ElBaradei family', said the images proved ElBaradei's family were atheists, a politically devastating accusation in a predominantly Muslim country. The ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) denied involvement.

The Facebook controversy is the latest development to shake up Egypt's traditionally stagnant political landscape as rival forces begin jockeying for position in anticipation of Mubarak's reign – which has been criticised for human rights abuses – coming to an end. In a sign of potential splits within the NDP, posters backing intelligence chief Omar Suleiman for the top job were recently pasted anonymously on top of placards bearing the face of the president's son, only to be removed by security services the following morning. Egyptian newspapers were banned by the government from reprinting the images.

ElBaradei's National Association for Change, which is among those campaigning against inheritance of power, announced this week it was nearing 1 million signatures in support of the former IAEA director's call for constitutional change. ElBaradei has insisted he will not stand in next year's presidential elections unless reforms take place to ensure the vote is free and fair.

In the meantime, he is trying to persuade the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's largest organised opposition movement, to join the boycott of next month's parliamentary elections.

"If the whole people boycott the elections totally it will be, in my view, the end of the regime," he told supporters yesterday.

French police investigate Robert Hall for aggravated murder after he tells of death of spouse Joanne

A British man suspected of killing his wife in a drunken row before burning her body and burying her remains in concrete in the grounds of their chateau is being investigated by French authorities.

Robert Hall, 55, a former businessman who had lived for several years in rural Brittany with his wife Joanne, is understood to have contacted one of his children on Saturday to inform them of their mother's death and his subsequent actions.

The couple's children alerted French police, who arrested Hall. Detectives said he told how his wife, 49, had taken a fatal tumble and that he had carried out her final wishes by erecting a makeshift "mausoleum" in the grounds of their house.

Catherine Denis, a spokeswoman for the Rennes prosecutor's office, said "it appeared the death was accidental".

But another spokesman said Hall had been placed under formal investigation for aggravated murder.

Speaking at a press conference yesterday, Denis said it appeared the couple had a "violent row while they were both drunk" on Friday night and that, during the conflict, Joanne Hall had died.

Her husband had admitted burning the body outside the house and then "putting the ashes in cement", she added. "[He] said he had wanted to build a kind of mausoleum with this cement in order to respect a pact made with his wife."

Police searching the house and grounds, in the village of Le Châtellier near Fougères, said they had found remains but that tests would be required to establish if they were human.

The Halls rented the chateau and its 50-hectare (130-acre) grounds to British holidaymakers and the house was advertised as ideal for families looking to enjoy the Breton countryside from the comfort of a well-equipped country estate.

Reviews on the TripAdvisor website, however, indicate that many guests were unimpressed by the house. One reviewer, writing in 2006, wrote that: "[There was] lino on the floor, showers leaked, water was often off all day, so no showers or flushing toilets. Bat droppings on our beds, and bats flying around our room at night. Door handles came away in our hand."

Oil chiefs insist that Britain's oil rig safety regime in the North Sea does not need to be overhauled

The UK head of Transocean, the operator of the Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico, has clashed angrily with MPs in the first British hearing into what lessons can be learned from the disaster.

Paul King, who is in charge of the drilling rig operator's sizeable North Sea operations, added that he would not let his son work for Transocean if he thought it did not care about its workforce.

Other oil executives giving evidence to the committee of MPs insisted that Britain's safety regime did not need to be overhauled and warned that operators would pull out of the North Sea if a moratorium on new drilling in Britain were imposed.

They argued against forcing North Sea operators to fit two pairs of blind shear rams, designed to shut down a well in the event of a blow-out. Unlike many newer rigs, the Deepwater Horizon well only had one pair which meant there was no back-up when the blow-out happened, which had catastrophic consequences.

Mark McAllister, chief executive of oil company Fairfield Energy and chair of an industry body recently set up to deal with spills, said that his brother had died in the Hillsborough disaster in 1989, when 96 football fans died. They were crushed against fences designed to stop fans running on to the pitch, which he cited as an example of how some safety regulations made situations more dangerous. He did not elaborate how having two pairs of blind shear rams, which cut through a pipe to shut off the well, could make drilling more risky, but added: "We are wary of making universal changes which may not be appropriate from situation to situation."

Malcolm Webb, chief executive of industry body Oil and Gas UK, defended the regulatory system in the North Sea, which requires operators to mitigate risk as much as reasonably possible, but is not "prescriptive".

"There are different requirements for different types of situation," he said. "That does not mean that we have lax standards." He also rejected calls by the European commission to set up a European-wide system of regulation for the industry, claiming it would "dumb down" the UK's "superior" regime.

Tim Yeo, the former Conservative environment minister and the chairman of the energy and climate change select committee, summed up the three witnesses' position as: "No change required in the UK and the EU can get lost."

King was also repeatedly challenged by MPs about an unpublished report by the Health and Safety Executive into Transocean's North Sea operations, which was detailed in the Guardian this week and found instances of bullying and harassment of rig workers with "potential safety implications".

When he was asked by Tom Greatrex , the Labour member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West, if drilling companies such as Transocean, rather than oil producers such as Shell and BP, took safety less seriously, he responded: "I find that quite offensive. We seriously care about the way our business is run."

Yeo also said that drill managers were under too much pressure to raise safety concerns on a rig because delays are so expensive. "The financial incentives to cut corners are huge," he said.

Jake Molloy, general secretary of the Offshore Industry Liaison Committee (OILC), a union representing North Sea workers, agreed that despite corporate safety initiatives, many were still reluctant to raise concerns. "If you are constantly a thorn in the side of management then you very quickly find yourself branded as 'having the wrong attitude'."

Referring to the HSE report, King insisted he had no evidence of "large amounts" of bullying taking place and claimed that feedback from its staff on the report's findings were "very positive".

Campaigners highlight plight of detainees, mostly arrested in clampdown on Shia groups before next month's elections

Britain has been urged to intervene with the government of Bahrain to demand an end to the alleged torture of 23 "terrorists" – one of them a UK citizen – who insist they are a legitimate opposition movement in the western-backed Gulf state.

Bahraini activists and international human rights organisations have joined forces to highlight the plight of the detainees, most of whom were arrested as part of a clampdown on Shia opposition groups in the runup to next month's elections.

Bahrain's ruling Khalifa dynasty is Sunni Muslim but 70% of the population are Shia who complain of discrimination. Street clashes are common between security forces and Shia protesters who burn tyres and throw petrol bombs.

The men are charged with "forming an illegal organisation" aiming to "overthrow the government and dissolve the constitution", fundraising and planning terrorist acts, and other offences under Bahrain's anti-terrorism law.

Up to 250 people are believed to have been arrested.

"The regime has been planning this attack for years," Saeed al-Shehabi, of the Bahrain Freedom Movement, told a press conference at the House of Lords today. "But they can't produce one gun or any explosives. So where is the terrorism? Burning a tyre is not terrorism." Shehabi has been charged in absentia.

Ja'afar al-Hasabi, a dual Bahraini-British national, had been hung by his wrists and feet, blindfolded, beaten and deprived of sleep while listening to the cries of others being tortured, Shehabi said. "Ja'afar al-Hasabi is a British national. He deserves to be protected by the state."

Abdul-Jalil al-Singace, the leader of the opposition group al-Haq, was arrested last month when he returned to Bahrain from the UK. Singace is accused of "leading sabotage cells … contacting foreign organisations and providing them with false information about the kingdom".

He has also allegedly been beaten and tortured and has had no access to a lawyer, his family or to an independent doctor. Singace, who is disabled, is said to have been forced to crawl after his crutches and wheelchair were taken away in prison.

The Foreign Office said it could not verify that Hasabi had been tortured but it was seeking consular access and urging the Bahraini authorities to respect due process and follow the rule of law.

Strikingly, the Bahraini government has not accused the detainees of being supported by Iran, which is often blamed for backing opposition groups in Gulf states. It says allegations of mistreatment and torture are politically motivated. Maryam al-Khawaja of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights said: "Human rights activists in Bahrain live in constant fear. People are awake at three in the morning waiting to see if they will be picked up. People get into their cars and lock the doors so they can make a last phone call before being arrested."

The Manama government says allegations of mistreatment and torture are politically motivated.

On Sunday King Hamad bin Khalifa used a speech marking the end of Ramadan to justify the arrests, saying they were needed to stop the civil unrest that had plagued the country in recent years. "They are spreading corruption through acts of violence, rioting and terrorism and the rules of sharia law are clear in forbidding that," he said.

Human Rights Watch has protested that the recent arrests "appear to be linked to public criticisms of policies of [the Bahraini] government rather than acts of violence or incitement to violence".

Palestinian TV viewers drop everything to watch local politicians sent up in nightly sketch show

Political rivals Hamas and Fatah are united – in anger. But the bite-sized nightly satirical sketches of Watan ala Watar have become a Ramadan sensation, cheering thousands of Palestinian television viewers through the holy month.

The show has distracted families from the iftar meal that breaks their traditional daily fast, causing them to abandon half-eaten plates of chicken, lamb and rice for 10 minutes of intensive mockery of their political leaders.

Watan ala Watar – the title roughly translates as "country hanging by a thread" – has been broadcast every night since Ramadan began on 11 August.

When the holy month ends this week, so will the Palestine Broadcasting Corporation's top-rated show.

The sketches have controversial themes of politics, corruption, nepotism, religion and morality.

One depicts the Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh neglecting political duties for the attentions of a glamorous Lebanese singer visiting Gaza to scatter a little stardust over a population under siege. Another shows officials charged with tackling corruption in the West Bank handing key jobs to relatives. Relentless mockery is made of the western-backed Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad. The credits show a Gazan woman puffing away at a water pipe under her veil in defiance of a Hamas ban.

"We put issues under the spotlight, and when you make people laugh you reach them," says the show's star and scriptwriter, 33-year-old Imad Farajin. "We touch traditionally taboo issues."

Farajin – like his co-stars – has become instantly recognisable on the streets of his home town, Ramallah. Not all the attention has been welcome.

"I feel there is a lot of electricity surrounding me. The programme bothers a lot of people." Criticism reached a peak a couple of weeks ago, he said. "There were a lot of people telling me to stop, that I shouldn't be doing this. Tremendous pressure was exerted on us."

The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, was approached by critics demanding the show be taken off the air, according to the Watan ala Watar team. But Yasser Abed Rabbo, a veteran Palestinian politician, defended it, says Farajin. "He told the president that we live in a democratic society and that we shouldn't be stopped."

The programme reaches beyond the Palestinian territories, thanks to its appearance on YouTube within an hour of being broadcast, and a Facebook page.

Storylines focusing on Fatah and Hamas politicians are the most sensitive, says Farajin, but other topics have been the subject of internal debate at the PBC.

"There have been discussions about whether to show some episodes, but none have actually been omitted. Sometimes we ourselves feel we have gone too far, especially with religion," he says.

"Ours is a conservative society – there are some sexual taboos we can't touch." Other issues out of bounds, he says, are political prisoners, Palestinian refugees and "martyrs".

Farajin, a Muslim who studied at drama school in Liverpool, is looking forward to taking a break after Ramadan. The current series of Watan ala Watar is the second, but its future is undecided.

Although convinced of the value and necessity of satire and irreverence, Farajin has not lost sight of his underlying beliefs. "We have a right to live free with dignity under a sovereign state," he says.

A lot of Palestinians, he says, are "sick and tired of slogans and procrastination".

After 30 episodes of Watan ala Watar, their leaders should be well aware of that.

Billionaire's biggest single grant to an American organisation will allow HRW to expand its reach into developing nations

The billionaire financier George Soros is giving $100 million (£65 million) to America's leading human rights organisation in a move that will enable the group to massively expand its operations around the world.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) will increase its staff of 300 by about a third on the back of the five-year Soros grant, using the new firepower to increase its advocacy in key emerging regions in the developing world. The donation, the largest in HRW's history and bigger than any previous single grant from Soros to a US organisation, aims to help the group fulfil its ambition to boast a truly global reach.

The New York-based organisation, formed in 1978 as Helsinki Watch, has built its reputation as a leading watchdog on governmental abuses around the world. But it has tended to focus its energies on western capitals, believing the best way to improve human rights was to persuade developed countries to use their muscle to effect change.

Increasingly, though, the group has become aware of the strength of developing nations such as Brazil, South Africa and India, who may now hold more sway in their regions than Washington, London or Berlin. The Soros grant will be used to beef up operations in those countries.

"Think of Zimbabwe," Kenneth Roth, HRW's director, said. "The US and European Union all have great policies on Zimbabwe, but it's not enough: the key to changing Mugabe is South Africa."

Roth also gave the example of Sri Lanka, where both the United States and the European Union have strong human rights policies but have failed to prevent president Mahinda Rajapaksa "thumbing his nose at the West". A HRW focus on India and other Asian countries, including China, could have more impact.

Announcing the grant, Soros said he was drawn to the idea of helping the group extend its global influence as part of his philanthropic mission to use his huge wealth, obtained through interventions in the money markets, to forward the cause of open societies.

"Human rights underpin our greatest aspirations: they're at the heart of open societies," he said. "Human Rights Watch must be present in capitals around the globe, addressing local issues, allied with local rights groups and engaging with local government officials."

The grant, Soros said, would inspire a sea-change in the organisation that would result in its largely New York-based management having up to half its board members outside the US.

So far this year Soros has handed out about $800m through his Open Society Foundations. Despite the economic downturn, which has caused a dip in philanthropic giving, Soros has been increasing his largesse recently, partly, he has said, out of recognition of his age – he turned 80 last month – and a desire to distribute much of his wealth during his lifetime.

Soros was born in Hungary. He is a consummate player of international currencies, and is famous for having made about $1 billion during the Black Wednesday crisis in the UK in 1992.

His donation comes at an opportune moment for HRW. The group has had a turbulent year, sustaining criticism for its reporting on Gaza war crimes, which it said amounted to a disinformation campaign by the Israeli government. Its own co-founder, Robert Bernstein, has accused the group of bias against Israel in its handling of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Meeting with Rev Jane Hedges will see head of the Vatican shake hands with a clergywoman for the first time

Pope Benedict's arrival in Britain breaks new ground on many levels, with a state welcome from the Queen and the beatification of Cardinal Henry Newman. But buried in the itinerary is another and, some would say, more piquant landmark.

Next Friday, the pope will meet the Rev Jane Hedges, canon steward of Westminster Abbey and a campaigner for women bishops in the Church of England. It will be the first time the head of the Vatican, which earlier this year declared female ordination a "crime against the faith", shakes hands with a clergywoman.

Their meeting will act as a reminder of the differences and difficulties between the Anglican Communion and the Roman Catholic church. The abbey team is aware of the many historic aspects to the visit.

"We shall greet this pope as our guest. There will no hint of battle," wrote the dean of Westminster, the Very Rev Dr John Hall, last week in the Tablet, a weekly Catholic newspaper.

An ecumenical evensong will begin with an exchange of peace between the archbishop of Canterbury and Benedict XVI, and include a psalm, the Magnificat, readings and prayers. "I have no doubt that it will be a memorable occasion. Yet it will also be coloured by many emotions," Hall said.

It was almost a year ago that the pope created the ordinariate, a way for traditionalist Anglicans to convert to Catholicism – their desire prompted largely, but not solely, by the ordination of women, which is often cited as the single biggest obstacle to reconciliation and unity between the two denominations. The archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, was informed of the initiative two weeks before its announcement.

"It looked at first as though battle lines were being drawn, to the embarrassment of all: papal tanks to be deposited on the Lambeth palace lawns and groups of partially reordered Anglicans to be landed on Westminster Cathedral's forecourt," wrote Hall.

However, within a month, amid speculation over Williams' leadership, the two met in Rome, and proclaimed their desire to strengthen ecumenical relations.

This depth of friendship and respect should not be underestimated, says Monsignor Andrew Faley, of the Catholic bishops' conference of England and Wales, who described the body language at that meeting as "utterly cordial and one of equality". "There is a serenity about the relationship. [The pope] will be welcomed into the home of the archbishop, it is a very reciprocal gesture of friendship and closeness, the tone of the meeting is a very mature one."

On the subject of the ordinariate, which will allow Anglicans to convert but retain aspects of their own heritage, he said: "It might have been more helpful had the archbishop been kept informed. I do not think the ordinariate is anything to do with the strength of our relationship."

One senior Anglican also thinks the papal project will have little or no impact on the visit, calling it a "red herring".

The Rt Rev Tom Wright, the former bishop of Durham, said: "People leave the Roman Catholic church for Anglicanism and the other way round. It has always been the case, it is two-way traffic.

"It is easy to think ecumenical relations are what happens at a high level in public statements, but it's what happens on the ground that is important."

He dismissed the Vatican's horror over women's ordination as "surface noise", but it is difficult to see past robust views.

At the 2008 Lambeth Conference, the once-a-decade meeting of the world's Anglican bishops, the Vatican contingent scolded them for failing to reach a consensus on the ordination of women and gays as bishops. Liberal churches were suffering from "spiritual Alzheimer's and ecclesiastical Parkinson's", homosexuality was "disordered behaviour" that must have the clear condemnation of all and unrest in the Communion posed a "further and grave challenge for full and visible unity".

The Roman Catholic archbishop of Southwark, the Most Rev Kevin McDonald, spent eight years at the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. He said those involved in ecumenical dialogue had to consider where it was leading. "It is a matter of trust and faith.

"The Church of England has been trying to find a way of accommodating people. They are running into a lot of trouble doing that. The Catholic church does not want to tell the Church of England how to deal with this. There is no reason to think there is a pulling back on either side, but there has been a reality check." Anglicans and Roman Catholics were in a "different place" to where they were in the 1960s and 70s. "People should not underestimate what we do have in common, perhaps it is best to capitalise on that, not make the best enemy of the good." Previous meetings between popes and archbishops have been heavy with symbolism: Paul VI presenting Archbishop Michael Ramsey with his diamond and emerald episcopal ring in 1966, John Paul II walking with Robert Runcie in Canterbury cathedral in 1982.

The sight of Benedict XVI and Williams praying for unity at the shrine of Edward the Confessor could be a defining moment: the 11th century monarch is the patron saint of kings, difficult marriages and separated spouses.

A friend passed this along, from a US blog I'd never heard of but which seems quite interesting.

This blogger, Ghassan "Gus" Bridi, apparently an Arab American and a lawyer who describes himself as leaning left on some matters and right on others, was thinking about Newt Gingrich's comments on the lower Manhattan mosque fracas. And he was thinking about Lebanon, and its rebuilding after the 2006 war. By the way I just happened across a very fine French film about the 2006 Israeli bombings called Under the Bombs. Keep an eye out. The story isn't the most original in the world, but it was evidently filmed amid the actual rubble and thus is quite something to see.

Anyway, this guy writes that the effect of the 2006 bombings was devastating. About 1,200 Lebanese civilians were killed, which put on the US scale would be the equivalent of 90,000 Americans. And he writes:

...that's the equivalent of roughly thirty 9/11's Israel exacted on Lebanon in July and August 2006 over the course of 34 days—nearly one 9/11 a day for an entire month without relent.

Incidentally, July and August of 2006 only tell a small part of the story when it comes to Israeli aggression against Lebanon. There have been decades of invasion, devastation, and occupation which predated 2006. Several thousands of Lebanese have been killed at the hands of the Israeli Defense Force. Tens of billions of dollars of damage have been levied on the Lebanese infrastructure and private and public property courtesy of the IDF over the course of decades.

"Ground Zero" for Lebanon is an ever expanding, never ending, open wound that never heals.

So what now Newt?

Should you expect the Lebanese to allow a synagogue to be built on their Ground Zero, in the aftermath of a 9/11 that occurred 5 years after ours and which, "proportionately" speaking, was 30 times the size of ours?

Well guess what you hateful, misguided, twit?

THEY DID.

In the process of re-building Beirut yet again, in 2008, renovations began and have now been completed on the Maghden Abraham Synagogue located in the middle of newly renovated downtown Beirut in an area known as the "Solidere" which has become the focal point and showcase of Lebanon's rebirth.

This isn't some hole in the wall, nondescript, "excuse me" synagogue hidden out of view so as to not "offend" Lebanese non-Jews—this is an elaborate, ornate, beautifully designed, cathedral-style house of worship built for a Lebanese Jewish population that totals less than 500 in a country of more than 4,000,000 (in stark contrast to the eight million American Muslims living in the United States).

You can read more about the synagogue here. Even Hassan Nasrallah of Hezbollah sanctioned the building of the mosque, saying his beef was not with Judaism but with Israel.

So Newt Gingrich makes Hassan Nasrallah seem like a moderate. So does Sarah Palin. And they are what the world sees of America on a question like this one. It stabs the heart, doesn't it?

• Sports minister claims racism and corruption exist in UK game
• Lokomotiv banner no worse than Newcastle in 2007, he adds

Russia's sports minister, Vitaly Mutko, today defended the country's 2018 World Cup bid against allegations of corruption and of racism among fans.

With less than three months until Fifa's executive committee holds a secret ballot in Zurich to decide the venue for the 2018 tournament, the bidding nations are campaigning in earnest. While Mutko refused to say whether he believed Russia and England were the favourites to host the 2018 World Cup, assessing his bid's chances simply as "good", he claimed he had great respect for England's.

But the minister – speaking at Moscow's Luzhniki stadium, which would host the final if the event went to Russia — also expressed his exasperation with the recent negative coverage of his country's bid. He pointedly declared that it was wrong for countries to "gloat" at each other's difficulties.

Mutko repeatedly expressed his warm feelings towards the English game but said that these sentiments were not always reciprocated. "We respect English football. We respect the English more than they respect us," he said. "I can't find a reason for such dislike [in the British press] for Russia's bid."

The Kremlin is extremely sensitive to western criticism, especially from Britain, with Mutko claiming that corruption and racism among fans exist in numerous countries, including the UK. "Sometimes in the non-Russian press we read that there is also corruption in England. People sometimes cross the road in the wrong place."

His remarks come after Lokomotiv Moscow fans celebrated Peter Odemwingie's recent sale to West Bromwich with a banner showing a banana and the message: "Thanks West Brom". Mutko, though, claimed that he had come across unpleasant sentiments when he attended a Newcastle United match three years ago.

He also revealed that, when the Fifa vote takes place, Russia's powerful prime minister, Vladimir Putin, is planning to travel to Zurich for it and to lobby Fifa's executive committee personally. In 2007 Putin flew to Guatemala and persuaded the International Olympic Committee to award the 2014 Winter Olympics to Russia and the Black Sea resort of Sochi.

Mutko said that Putin had been intimately involved in drafting Russia's bid and raises the subject weekly. Last month he hosted members of Fifa's six-man inspection team at his private dacha outside Moscow and spent 90 minutes telling them that Russia would fulfil all its Fifa obligations.

Putin also gave a "personal guarantee" that all building would be completed on time. Should Russia win, it plans to waive visas for fans, as it did for the 2008 Champions League final between Chelsea and Manchester United.

A zero-carbon heating initiative in Paris plans to harness hot air generated by underground travel to warm up nearby homes

Warmth generated by sweaty passengers as they commute on the Paris Mètro may be used to heat a block of low-income flats located near the Pompidou Centre in the city centre. This could slash the building's energy bill and carbon footprint by a third, according to the property's owner.

The temperature in nearby Rambuteau Mètro station stays at a toasty 14-20C degrees all year round thanks to the heat generated by passengers, trains and other machinery. Paris Habitat-OPH, the owners of the building, plan to use the underground heat to warm up water as it courses through pipes. It will then be pumped to the surface into an underfloor heating system in the block of flats.

"It's a huge source of free, zero-carbon heat so it couldn't make more sense," said Dr Patrick James, a researcher at the University of Southampton's School of Civil Engineering and the Environment. "I guess the only problem will be if there's a train strike in the winter, in which case they'll need a back-up source of heat."

The UK is currently considering similar projects. "By 2016, all new residential buildings will need to be zero carbon, so people are definitely starting to think about innovative ways to heat buildings," he said. Heating accounts for roughly two-thirds of the average UK home's carbon emissions.

Normally, it would be prohibitively expensive to hook up a building's heating system to a subway. "You'd have to dig up roads and it just wouldn't be cost effective," said Dan Phillips, head of sustainability at environmental engineering firm Buro-Happold. It only works here because the flats are connected to the subway by an old stairwell which can house the new pipes bringing the heated water to the surface.

Engineering companies will be invited to bid for the contract by the end of the year and Paris Habitat-OPH hopes to start construction in 2011.

Paris is not the first city to attempt such a feat. Heat generated by Central Station in Stockholm is used to heat an office building. And in Oslo, heat is captured from sewerage and used to heat the city.

Geoffrey Robertson QC calls for end of church law and chides UK government for recognising Vatican's sovereignty

The system of law operated by the Vatican has allowed serious sex offenders to escape punishment and must be abandoned, says a prominent lawyer.

According to Geoffrey Robertson QC, whose book The Case of the Pope is published tomorrow: "Canon law has been allowed to trump criminal law in countries throughout the world. This is a very serious matter‚ the pope through his pretensions to statehood refuses to acknowledge that child sex abuse is a serious crime as well as a sin.

"The Catholic church must abandon canon law as a punishment for priests who commit crimes."

The church's form of law, Robertson argues, "has no public hearings, no DNA test facilities, no enforcement mechanism, and the most severe punishments – excommunication or an order to return to the laity (without entry on a sex offenders' register) – bears no comparison with the sentences of imprisonment or community service that can be expected under criminal law."

He describes the penalties as "derisory", with those found guilty of molesting children required to undergo "chiefly spiritual exercises".

Robertson also argues that the pope cannot legally be considered a head of state and, therefore, covered by diplomatic immunity. The lawyer is highly critical of the British government, which he accuses of failing to understand the international law surrounding sovereignty.

The UK is one of several countries that recognises the sovereignty of the Vatican and the Holy See based on the 1929 Lateran treaty signed by the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini.

"This is nonsense," Robertson told the Guardian. "The Lateran treaty says nothing of the sort, and even if it did the UK would not be bound, since it was not a party.

"The Lateran treaty cannot serve as a credible or creditable basis for the Holy See to claim statehood. The grant of 108 acres – the size of a large golf course – was not pursuant to any international treaty, but rather the unilateral declaration of one sovereign state."

Neither city nor See was ever accepted as a member of the League of Nations, and their offer to join the United Nations in 1944 was rejected "with some derision" by the then US secretary of state, Cordell Hull, Roberston said. "Yet this is the rock on which the Holy See still stands for its sovereignty and statehood."

The law, set out in the 1933 Montevideo Convention on defines states as entities with a permanent population and a defined territory.

Robertson said: "The most dimwitted tourist in St Peter's Square can recognise that before him stands not a state, but a palace with a basilica surrounded by museums and gardens."

The claims come amid growing calls from campaigners for the pope to be arrested for crimes against humanity when he arrives on Monday to begin the first papal visit to Britain in nearly three decades.

Today it emerged that the deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, will be among the senior politicians and religious leaders presented to Benedict XVI by the Queen at Holyroodhouse Palace in Edinburgh. There are no plans for David Cameron to attend.

The Vatican has been accepted as a party to international treaties, including the statue for the international criminal court. Robertson argues that even if the Vatican is considered a state, there is still the possibility of an arrest for crimes against humanity under the jurisdiction of the court.

Habitat loss could cause a dramatic fall in dwarf seahorse populations, warn conservationists

One of the world's smallest seahorses faces extinction because of the BP oil spill, conservationists have warned.

The minute creatures, barely 2cm tall, were elusive even before the spill, found only among the seagrass in the shallow waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Now conservationists from the Zoological Society of London's Project Seahorse team are warning populations could fall precipitously because so much of their habitat could have been lost to the spill.

"We have very high levels of concern for this particular species because they have a narrower range," said Heather Masonjones, a seahorse biologist at the University of Tampa.

Although most seahorses are believed to live in shallow water, some also cling to the seagrass mats that float in the open water. During the three months that oil was gushing from BP's well, these mats become collection points for crude. Some of these were set alight in burn fields as BP tried to stop the oil washing on shore. Furthermore, thick clouds of oil in water typically starve seagrass of the light they need to survive, while toxic components of the oil as well as the millions of gallons of chemical dispersants used to break down the spill could also be shrinking suitable habitat for seahorses.

The dwarf seahorses, or Hippocampus zosterae, are particularly ill-suited to escape. They are poor swimmers, making the species extremely vulnerable to a sudden environmental impact such as the BP spill, said Heather Koldewey, the associate director of Project Seahorse. They also mate for life, and produce relatively few offspring, making it more difficult for them to recover from a cataclysmic event.

Masonjones said the experience of earlier oil spills suggested it could take five years for seagrass to make a complete recovery, which represents about three generations of seahorses. It is also unclear how dispersants, which can be hormone disrupters, will affect reproduction cycles, especially on seahorses where males carry the eggs.

Koldewey said it was crucial that BP take steps to help protect the seagrass in the oil spill clean-up in the months ahead to avoid further damage to seahorse populations: "We are urging BP to continue to use booms in the clean-up to isolate the oil slicks. These can be skimmed, left to evaporate, or treated with biological agents like fertilisers, which promote the growth of micro-organisms that biodegrade oil."

Announcing a $50bn plan to rebuild America's road and railways, Obama knocks Republicans as party of 'No, we can't'

With the Democrats in Congress fearing a bloodbath at the midterm elections, Barack Obama attempted to seize the political initiative with a new plan for reviving America's infrastructure while bashing the Republican opposition for its obstruction.

"If I said the sky was blue, they'd say no. If I said fish live in the sea, they'd say no," Obama told a rally of union members and their families in Milwaukee.

Speaking with his sleeves rolled up, Obama announced a programme of $50bn spending, spread over six years, on roads, railways and bridges, aimed at giving a shot in the arm to the faltering US economy and mending the nation's crumbling transport anatomy.

But it wasn't the ins and outs of infrastructure reconstruction that interested most members of the media, who saw the speech entirely in the light of the coming election. According to CBS's Robert Hendin:

He used the appearance to do what many Democrats have hoped he'd have done all year: Fight back against Republican opposition and focus on issue number one for voters, the economy.

In a follow-up speech tomorrow in Cleveland, Obama will again call for a $200bn worth of tax credits on company research and development spending. "The message that Americans are unhappy with the state of the economy seems to have sunk in," noted the Economist's blog, tongue in cheek.

Obama's Labor Day speech also gave a broad hint of how the Democrats plan to campaign in the autumn, with the midterm elections on November 2 looming: a message designed to appeal the middle class as the backbone of the US economy, and acknowledging the scale of the economic crisis America finds itself in, while ticking off the administration's achievements.

At the same time Obama was careful to use his speech to frame Republicans as the "party of no," for their attempts to obstruct previous economic stimulus plans:

Even as we speak, these guys are saying no to cutting more taxes for small business owners. I mean, come on! Remember when our campaign slogan was "Yes We Can?" These guys are running on "No, We Can't," and proud of it. Really inspiring, huh?

"Bottom line is, these guys refuse to give up on the economic philosophy they peddled for most of the last decade," Obama said. "They called it the ownership society. What it really boiled down to was: if you couldn't find a job, or afford college or got dropped by your insurance company – you're on your own."

The meat of Obama's speech was on what he called "a new plan for rebuilding and modernizing America's roads, rails and runways for the long-term":

Over the next six years, we are going to rebuild 150,000 miles of our roads – enough to circle the world six times. We're going to lay and maintain 4,000 miles of our railways – enough to stretch coast-to-coast. We're going to restore 150 miles of runways and advance a next generation air traffic control system to reduce travel time and delays for American travelers, something I think folks across the political spectrum could agree on.

While those numbers are impressive, the size of the US means they are only a small fraction: 150,000 miles of roads is just 5% of all US paved roads, according to the Federal Highway Administration. And 4,000 miles of railroad is less than 2% of all track according to the Association of American Railroads.

But according to Robert Puentes, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and an expert on transport policy, the president's plan is a welcome step. "Transportation policy in the US is not stalled due to a lack of good ideas. It is stalled due to a lack of funding, or, more accurately, for a lack of interest in raising taxes to generate the funding," argued Puentes.

Promising that the programme would not add to the deficit, Obama said his plan involved the establishment of a federal "Infrastructure Bank" designed to increase efficiency by consolidating more than 100 different schemes already in existence.

As Obama forecast, the Republican party's response was an emphatic rejection. "This is hardly the first time Democrats have promised to create jobs with 'shovel ready' stimulus spending," said Tom Price, chairman of the influential Republican Study Committee in Congress. "Infrastructure is important, but borrowing another $50bn is clearly not the answer we need."

Elsewhere, reaction was muted, even from Democrats. The Berkeley economist Brad DeLong suggested that a $50bn of spending amounted to shaving 0.3 of a percentage point off the national unemployment rate – which is currently running at 9.6%. "Don't get me wrong: boosting federal infrastructure spending is almost certainly a very good idea," wrote DeLong on his blog. "But the thing that stands out – again – is the radical disjunction between the scale of the economy's problems and the proposed solution."

Administration officials admitted later that the infrastructure spending proposals would not actually create any jobs until 2011 at the earliest. As CNN noted: "But the fact is it's unlikely that Congress will pass either proposal in the narrow window of a few weeks that lawmakers will be working this fall. And even if Congress miraculously came together to pass these initiatives, they would not have much of any impact this year anyway."

Genetically modified salmon is deemed safe for human consumption – despite higher levels of a suspected carcinogen

With fish stocks around the world depleted by overfishing and disrupted by climate change, farm-raised salmon stands as a viable if not entirely appetising alternative.

Last Friday, though, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) took a potentially dangerous step. The agency ruled that salmon whose genes have been altered so that they grow more rapidly than their wild counterparts are safe for human consumption. In so doing, the FDA opened the door for salmon to become just another unhealthful cog in the industrial-food machine. And it may have foisted upon the public yet another cancer risk.

According to a report in the New York Times, FDA scientists found that the altered fish, developed by AquaBounty Technologies, based in the Boston area, were unlikely to escape into the environment and cross-breed with native schools of Atlantic salmon. The agency also found that even though the genetically altered salmon carry elevated levels of insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1), a suspected carcinogen, those levels are so minute that they pose no health risk.

Precautions aside, it requires considerably more than the customary level of naivety to believe wild salmon wouldn't be contaminated by their laboratory-designed cousins. If AquaBounty's progeny ever come to market, it would only be a matter of time before some unforeseen accident undid everyone's best intentions.

But it is the IGF-1 about which we truly ought to be concerned, because the FDA's finding is evidence of an unacceptably narrow focus. The substance occurs naturally in salmon and other animal products, and the agency tells us that the genetically altered fish contains only a tiny amount more. Yet, by considering such matters one at a time, the FDA may well be introducing us to many tiny risks that start adding up to a very real risk.

This isn't the first time we've had to worry about IGF-1. In the 1990s, the FDA approved the use of genetically engineered recombinant bovine-growth hormone (rBGH, also known as rBST) to induce cows to produce more milk. It was, and is, a controversial practice, and I wrote about it for an iconoclastic (and defunct) environmental journal called Garbage magazine.

My reporting convinced me that rBGH posed a greater risk to cows than to humans, as the unnaturally high rate of milk production stressed the animals, sometimes resulting in an infection known as mastitis. (Which is treated with antibiotics. Which enter the food supply. Which – well, you get the picture.)

But cows given rBGH, like genetically altered salmon, also have higher levels of IGF-1, some of which makes its way into the milk. Not enough to worry about? Perhaps. But if salmon and milk and a whole range of edible food-like substances (to use Michael Pollan's phrase) yet to come contain elevated levels of IGF-1, when, exactly, are we supposed to start worrying?

In addition to being linked to colon, prostate and breast cancer, IGF-1 is a trigger for puberty, which has led to speculation that too much could cause puberty to come about prematurely. IGF-1 also has its uses, both legitimate and dubious. When human-growth hormone is administered as a corrective to children with certain rare types of hormonally based dwarfism, it stimulates the production of IGF-1, which in turn boosts growth. A quick search of the internet also reveals that IGF-1 is touted as an anti-aging formula and as a body-building substance.

As it happens, I recently finished Jared Diamond's celebrated book Guns, Germs and Steel, which, among other things, explains the civilising effects of domesticating – that is, genetically altering – certain plants and animals. But genetic engineering as practiced in the Fertile Crescent thousands of years ago contained within it certain limits that ensured some degree of safety. Even the green revolution of the 1960s was based on tried-and-true methods of selective breeding.

By contrast, modern scientific tools allow genetic engineers to try just about anything in order to see what will happen. AquaBounty's Atlantic salmon, for instance, contain a growth-hormone gene from Chinook salmon – and another gene from an entirely different fish, the ocean pout, which has the effect of keeping that growth-hormone gene switched on. The result is an alien creature, unknown in the natural world.

Consumer and governmental wariness has so far prevented genetically modified foods from taking over our grocery shelves. Milk from cows given rBGH is banned by the European Union, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. Some American companies – even Wal-Mart – have done a nice business selling milk guaranteed to be from rBGH-free cows.

Likewise, a host of consumer organisations is fighting against genetically modified salmon. Typical is this statement from Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch, which is full of warnings about the environmental, toxic and even allergenic hazards posed by "mutant salmon".

The FDA won't make a final decision until later this fall, after a round of public hearings. So perhaps this is not yet a done deal. Maybe Michelle Obama is importuning her husband even now. Trouble is, there are few politicians willing to incur the wrath (and eschew the campaign contributions) of the American industrial food system.

In the end, the battle over genetically modified salmon is emblematic of a larger problem: an ongoing shift away from real food in favour of substances concocted in a lab.

• UK should keep control of bank levy money, insists chancellor
• George Osborne says Thatcher's EU rebate is non-negotiable

Britain today flatly ruled out taking part in a planned new European scheme for bailing out distressed financial institutions by using the proceeds from a levy on banks.

As EU finance ministers at a meeting in Brussels agreed a new European system of financial supervision and co-ordinating the budgets of the 27 member states, George Osborne, the chancellor, resisted calls for using the proceeds from the new levies on banks for dealing with failure. "It's up to national governments and parliaments as to what should happen with the revenue," he said. "I made clear that we did not support proposals for a European resolution fund. There was no agreement on that issue."

In a move co-ordinated with France and Germany, Britain is to introduce a levy on banks in January. Sweden already has such a levy and other EU countries are expected to follow suit. The European commission is drafting new rules proposing that the money raised go into "national resolution funds" which would then be used to unwind or bail out distressed banks.

"The proceeds must be available to the resolution funds," said a senior commission official. "The taxpayer should not have to foot the bill."

Osborne insisted that Britain would not join in, but would use the revenue to help reduce the budget deficit at a time of severe public spending cuts.

Germany supports using the levy for the insurance fund, but Britain has an ally on the issue in France which also intends to use the money to consolidate its budget.

"The banking levy would bring us revenue to deal with future crises," said Anders Borg, the Swedish finance minister.

But there was no consensus on this and on other plans to tax the financial sector, with Osborne making clear that he opposed a Robin Hood tax on financial transactions or activities.

"There is no unanimity for the moment," said Didier Reynders, the Belgian finance minister who chaired the meeting.

Despite the cacophony of different views, France is expected to use its upcoming chairmanship of the G20 to push for a global agreement on a financial transactions tax and Germany is supportive.

"It is technically feasible, practically difficult, politically desirable and financially useful," said Christine Lagarde, the French finance minister.

In agreeing to the establishment, from the beginning of next year, of a new system of three European supervisory agencies for the financial markets and the creation of an overseeing European Systemic Risk Board, Osborne insisted that Britain had defended the key interests of the City of London, that the new banking authority would be based in London and not Frankfurt and that the head of the systemic risk board would be Jean-Claude Trichet, the head of the European Central Bank, but only for the first five years since the post could not become a monopoly for the eurozone.

"It's a deal that's good for Britain," said the chancellor.

With rancorous negotiations looming next year over a new seven-year EU budget, Osborne also declared that Britain's contested rebate, secured by Margaret Thatcher in 1984, was utterly non-negotiable.

The commissioner in charge of the budget, Janusz Lewandowski, indicated this week that the British rebate was past its sell-by date.

Osborne said he was "making it clear from the start that we're not going to give way on this at all. People better know this at the beginning of the process".

It's not that far-fetched to view the Nuu-chah-nulth and their lands as an illegally occupied nation

This is the time of year that, as I drive through the town of Port Alberni heading to my home on the west coast of Vancouver Island, Native people are along the roadside selling their salmon. I bought a fish from them last month, a sockeye so fresh that its eyes were still clear, its skin gleaming silver.

I brought my salmon over to a friend's house for dinner. He admired the fillet, the flesh bright and red and firm, and asked where I got it. When I told him I'd bought it from a Native seller at the side of the road, he took a step back. "I don't mind if they catch fish for food," he said, straightening himself as he spoke. "But they should not be allowed to sell it."

He's far from the first person to say this to me. Many locals have told me that I shouldn't support the "illegal" Native fishery. They state this with such confidence that I can only wonder how much they have thought it out. Who the hell are we, to tell them what they can or cannot do?

We all know that "they" were here first. In Port Alberni, of all places, the displacement of the Native people from their own village site was documented by the very man who forced them out: a Scotsman called Gilbert Malcolm Sproat.

In 1860, Sproat sailed two ships up the Alberni canal. Upon encountering a Nuu-chah-nulth village at the mouth of the Somass River, Sproat informed the chief "that his tribe must move their encampment, as we had bought all the surrounding land from the Queen of England, and wished to occupy the site of the village for a particular purpose." These are Sproat's own words.

"Look at this place now," says Harry Lucas, pointing towards the shiny white fibreglass boats tied up at the marina, next to the river mouth. Harry, 69, has been fighting for the Nuu-chah-nulth rights, both to fish and to sell fish, for three decades. "It used to belong to us. There used to be houses here."

I met Harry a couple of weeks ago, selling his fish up the road. I wanted to hear the Nuu-chah-nulth perspective on having their fishery regulated by a people who are relative newcomers to this land. "We were given that right, to sell our fish, by the courts," says Harry.

He's right. The Nuu-chah-nulth invested a decade in legal preparation, over three years of that in court. Numerous expert witnesses, ranging from Nuu-chah-nulth oral historians, to archaeologists and anthropologists from Canadian and US universities, provided evidence that Nuu-chah-nulth seafood trade did indeed predate the arrival of the Europeans. Last autumn, British Columbia Supreme Court Justice Nicole Garson concluded that the Nuu-chah-nulth had succeeded in proving a long history of trading and selling fisheries resources, and ruled in their favour.

What I wonder about, though, is why Native people went to so much effort to prove this in court. While some non-Native Canadians feel that First Nations are being demanding, or are favoured by special rules that apply only to them, I actually think the Natives are being quite tolerant of the fact that our presence is here at all.

I am reminded of something one of my Nuu-chah-nulth friends said to me years ago. I had mentioned the reserve where he lived, and he turned to me abruptly. "Don't call my village a reserve," he said. Just words. But there is so much loaded into those words. His home village has been inhabited for thousands of years, possibly as many as 5,000 years. Call it a village, and you acknowledge that history, that connection. Call it a reserve, and you accept that the land is owned by the Canadian government, that its inhabitants live there by the government's grace.

And that's what I think of, when I hear of the three years Nuu-chah-nulth spent giving evidence in court. Sure, they won the case, though Canada has appealed the decision (hearing dates for the appeal are set for this December). But, by the very fact of their being there, in the courtroom, Nuu-chah-nulth accept Canada's authority: they are participating in the process. No one alive today, Native or non-Native, has asked for the situation we are in now. And there are no easy answers: they're here and we're here and, somehow, we've got to learn to live together.

But if what happened in Port Alberni 150 years ago happened today – if one nation moved in, unprovoked, to an established and occupied land and forced its inhabitants out – there would be global outrage. The occupation would be considered illegal.

It's easy to come up with quick opinions or judgements, but I think it is important to try to look at the bigger picture: the history, the context and, perhaps, even a cautious step outside our own narrow world view.

It's not actually that far-fetched to view the Nuu-chah-nulth (or any other First Nation in Canada that has not signed a treaty with the Canadian government) as an illegally occupied nation. And, once you look at it that way, well, it's hard not to ask: who the hell are we, anyway, thinking we have a right to tell them what they can or cannot do?

Scientists are racing to prevent a build-up of water under a glacier on Mont Blanc from flooding the village of Saint-Gervais

Viewed from up here, the world of man appears very small and vulnerable. The Tête-Rousse glacier, hovering between sky and earth at an altitude of 3,200 metres, dominates the scene splendidly. It is a magnificent panorama of infinite horizons, the perfect silence interrupted only by sound of the climbers' crampons as they start the ascent to Aiguille du Goûter, the normal route up Mont Blanc. Facing us, the Aravis range and the Chablais Alps break up the horizon, while in the valley below, tiny chalets appear to be clinging to the mountainside.

But the serenity is deceptive. In the core of the glacier lies a silent threat that could, without warning, destroy the village of Saint-Gervais below. Trapped under the glacier lies an enormous 65,000 cubic metre pocket of water – the equivalent of 20 Olympic swimming pools – that could burst and surge down on to the village below. "It's impossible to predict when that might happen," said Christian Vincent from the Grenoble Laboratory of Glaciology and Geophysical Environment. He is here to carry out a regular temperature check at Tête-Rousse.

The 75 metre-deep glacier covers 8 hectares of a rocky basin. Early this summer, several boreholes were pierced with a high-pressure hot water drill and special sensors introduced on to the bedrock. Using a snow shovel, the scientist clear the markers that show where these were placed and note down the temperatures. "Precise knowledge of a glacier's temperatures is vital to understanding how these water pockets are formed," Vincent explains.

The danger may be invisible but it is real enough. One such disaster remains in Saint-Gervais's collective memory. In 1892, 80,000 cubic metres of water that had collected in a sub-glacial cavity burst through the ice "cork" that was holding it in. A torrential flow of water tore down rocks and trees in its path and buried Saint-Gervais in mud and debris, leaving 175 dead.

According to the current mayor, Jean-Marc Peillex, far greater damage would be caused now, "due to urbanisation and the large number of tourists visiting the glacier". As many as 900 houses could be swept away.

The alarm was first sounded in 2007, when the thickness of the ice was measured by radar. "Nobody thought there might be water under the glacier," Vincent said. "But the images showed something abnormal about 10 metres above the bedrock."

In 2009 this was confirmed by proton nuclear magnetic resonance, a technique similar to a medical MRI scan. It proved that an enormous pocket of water – or possibly several pockets – was locked deep inside Tête-Rousse. The reason for the water collecting lies in climate warming. But paradoxically – grassroots science being more complex than theoretical models – this has led to a cooling of the lower part of the glacier. The probable process, as described by Vincent, is that the water from thawing in the upper part of the glacier trickles down on to the bedrock though micro-fissures until it finds an outlet.

In the case of Tête-Rousse, the warming observed over the past decades has reduced the thickness of the snow cover (the firn, which provides thermal protection), and to a greater extent in the lower part of the glacier than in the upper part.

As a result, during a recent cold snap, the thinner spur of ice below cooled more rapidly than the ice at the glacier's summit (there being a difference of more than 2C between the two), resulting in the formation of a dam that blocked the water trickling down from above. However, being unable to find an outlet, the water has accumulated and now the pressure is rising – and threatening to burst like a pressure cooker.

A scientific report issued in July by three Grenoble laboratories concluded that it was necessary to pump the water out the sub-glacial cavity as soon as possible. A warning system, costing $640,000, was immediately set up. Two metal cables were placed across the glacier, which, if broken, would trigger a siren in the valley below. The nearest inhabitants have been informed about the 17 rallying points on high ground, and would have 10 minutes to reach the nearest one if the alarm sounds.

The pumping of Tête-Rousse began last month. Powerful boring machines and pumps were transported by helicopter to the glacier. The water will be pumped out within a month and gradually released. The whole operation will cost $2.5m, 80% of which will be paid for by the French government and the European Union.

Is that the end of the story? "In a year or two we will have to check if the pocket is filling up again," says Vincent. "If that is the case, we will have to consider boring a permanent channel to drain the water." Models show that the water collected in just two years.

Reservoir formation under glaciers is a rare phenomenon. But with global warming these risks are increasing, such as the collapse of surface ice and, with the receding permanent snowline, the formation of proglacial lakes whose natural barriers will give way, up there between earth and sky.

Keeping the lights on

In Chamonix, climate change is also a reality for EDF, the French electricity giant. The Mer de Glace glacier has been retreating fast in recent years and is threatening the sub-glacial water intake in the Les Bois hydroelectric power plant.

When this plant came on stream in 1973, the intake took place 200 metres under the ice. In spring 2009, it was out in the open, and, to make matters worse, covered by a mass of glacial rock and sediment following a number of storms.

EDF now has to maintain electricity production while carrying out the work needed to adapt to the new circumstances – and keeping the Les Bois plant "at the highest level of environmental integration".

Not without reason: the 12km Mer de Glace is the longest French glacier and something of a national treasure.

The stakes for the Haute-Savoie region are considerable. The Bois hydroelectric plant produces 113m kWh per year, mostly during the thaw, which is the domestic consumption of 50,000 inhabitants, or a town the size of Annecy.

However, the glacier has been retreating at a rate of about 30 metres a year since 2003. "And the pace has increased in the past few years," said an EDF official. At the Rochers de Mottets level, for instance, ice thickness has been falling by between eight and 10 metres a year since 2004.

"We anticipated this situation, and after some research, we decided to move the intake upstream in the glacier under 100 metres of ice, which won't change anything to the scenery or the tourism business," said EDF, before launching the $19m project. Work started in 2008 on an underground channel to divert the water permanently to the new intake area – no easy matter under such difficult geographic and climatic conditions. The installation is due to come on stream in the spring.

Meanwhile, a temporary solution was found by digging a channel a few dozen metres long to emerge below the glacier. That will provide sufficient water to feed the plant until 2011.

This article originally appeared in Le Monde

Kigali denounces claims, including possible genocide, as 'insane' and threatens to withdraw from peacekeeping missions

The UN has delayed the release of a report accusing Rwanda of war crimes and possibly genocide in the Democratic Republic of Congo after the government in Kigali angrily denounced the claims as "insane".

Rwanda threatened to withdraw its forces from UN peacekeeping missions – including leading the operation in Darfur – over the report which says that its army and allied militias were responsible for the slaughter of tens of thousands of Hutus, including women and children, in retaliation for the genocide of Tutsis in Rwanda in 1994.

The report, by the office of the UN high commissioner for human rights (OHCHR), accuses the Rwandan army of the "relentless pursuit and mass killing" of Hutus after invading what was then Zaire in 1996 in pursuit of the forces responsible for the genocide two years earlier. It details hundreds of mass killings which it says are undoubtedly war crimes and "could be classified as crimes of genocide".

The document was leaked last month, possibly in response to the pressure from Rwanda to suppress it. It had been scheduled for release in early September but the UN said it is being delayed until next month to allow the addition of comments from countries named in it. These include not only Rwanda but its neighbours, Uganda and Burundi, as well countries later drawn in to the conflict in Congo such as Angola.

The report has been welcomed by international human rights groups, which have said it should form the basis for a legal investigation of war crimes by the Rwandan army and its allies in Congo. Rwanda's foreign minister, Louise Mushikiwabo, has called the report "incredibly irresponsible".

Kigali is outraged at the charge of genocide against a leadership that brought an end to the genocide of Tutsis by an extremist Hutu regime in 1994. Rwanda sees the accusation as politically motivated and as part of a widening campaign to discredit it and diminish the mass murder of the Tutsis, in part led by lawyers for Hutu extremist leaders on trial at an international tribunal.

Mushikiwabo wrote to the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, last month accusing investigators of using "the lowest evidentiary standard" to back the allegations of war crimes and genocide. "Attempts to take action on this report – either through its release or leaks to the media – will force us to withdraw from Rwanda's various commitments to the United Nations, especially in the area of peacekeeping," she said.

The OHCHR said it will delay release of the report to allow comments but it is unclear whether substantial amendments will be made. If the accusation of possible genocide is removed it will appear that the UN has bowed to Rwandan pressure. Diplomats said that it is possible that the charge could remain but the scope and legal reasoning behind it could be refined.

A book festival for teenagers in Texas has been called off following the withdrawal of one writer's invitation on grounds of 'suitability'

A literary festival for teenagers has been cancelled in Texas after a group of authors withdrew in protest at the organisers' decision to "disinvite" controversial young adult writer Ellen Hopkins.

Hopkins, whose New York Times bestselling novels deal with topics from teenage drug addiction to prostitution and suicide, says she was invited to take part in the Humble Teen Lit Fest next January but after a librarian raised a fuss with some parents about the suitability of including her, the invitation was rescinded. Teen writers including Melissa de la Cruz, Pete Hautman and Matt de la Peña all pulled out in solidarity, the event has now been cancelled, and the National Coalition Against Censorship, along with five other organisations, is calling on the school district's superintendent to reinstate the festival "as originally planned".

"To deny all students access to an author because some people object to her views violates the rights of other students who want to meet her and hear her speak, and the rights of their parents not to have their own child's education restricted to accommodate the demands of others," wrote NCAC executive director Joan E Bertin in a letter.

"The whole situation blew up way bigger than I ever intended," said Hopkins, author of books including Crank and Glass. "With the other authors withdrawing, the comments really started flying. Most have been supportive, but there are always those who view things differently ... When you mention a word like 'censorship', opinions fly. The view that what happened in Texas wasn't censorship is seriously flawed. When one person manages to disinvite a speaker, simply because she/he doesn't find a book's content 'appropriate', that is censorship at its very worst. One person, or the handful of people he/she stirs up, cannot be allowed to decide appropriateness for an entire community."

De la Cruz said she decided to pull out as soon as she heard what had happened to Hopkins, whom she called a "provocative and daring" writer.

"I know it sounds corny in this day and age, and there are cynics who don't believe that anyone can take a stand," she said. "But YA writers as a whole are kind of like the teens they write for, we're idealistic and impulsive and we believe the world can be a better place. We care about our readers very much, and that was a huge part of feeling terrible about cancelling ... It is very upsetting and disturbing and just sad really. I'm sad for the librarian who instigated it as well as the superintendent, I feel for them too. I know they were trying to do their best for the kids. But you know, when the line is drawn, you have to decide which side you are on, and it's not about being morally superior or being right, it's about standing up for what you believe. It's quite difficult to be brave."

De la Peña withdrew because "it felt wrong to attend an event where a fellow author was invited and then 'uninvited'". "I think on the one hand people are happy to see authors standing together and making a statement against a form of censorship. On the other hand, a lot of people worry about the teens who are now left without a festival. I understand both sides. It's a sad situation," he said. "But ultimately this issue called for some kind of action. I still don't know if my decision to pull out was right or wrong, I just know it's what I had to do."

Humble superintendent Guy Sconzo told local press that he stood by his decision. "I totally own the decision to not invite [Hopkins] to the Teen Lit Fest," he told the Tribune. "I did hear from some concerned middle-school parents about this. Our Teen Lit Fests have always included middle and high-school students, and for a district-sanctioned, extra-curricular Saturday event, I felt it would be awkward at best to have a setting where students would be checked so only high-school students would be admitted to her session(s). I don't understand the censorship issue at all. All of our lit fests to date are outside of school being in session and to that end, I think we enjoy the right to determine who will and who will not participate."

Hopkins said she would be participating in the Austin Teen Author festival in October, when she would also be signing books in Humble, and is also taking part in a Houston teen book convention next spring. "In the wake of this, in comments that came into my blogs or articles about the debacle, I have been called things like ignorant, stupid, disgusting, narcissistic, money-hungry, power-hungry, etc," she said. "None are true, and all hurt to a degree. However, I accept all that and more because I feel it's hugely important to take a stand against censorship, not only for myself, but for every other person out there. That's why those other authors withdrew, and if it happened to one of them, I would have done the same thing."

De la Cruz said she was also trying to find a time when she would be able to speak in the area, "so that the kids who missed out on seeing us will have a chance to hear from us". "I know there are some who think maybe it would have been better if we had gone to the festival and talked about Ellen's books rather than boycott," she said. "But I really believe that actions speak louder than words, and the kids will learn that censorship should not be tolerated."

Its biggest investor takes a pragmatic approach to Sudan's affairs – and is keen that the independence vote runs smoothly

China has more to lose than most if things fall apart in Sudan this winter, where a potentially explosive national referendum on southern independence is due in January. Beijing is the country's biggest investor while for its part, Sudan is a significant oil supplier. Renewed instability could also adversely affect China's expanding interests in neighbouring countries such as Ethiopia, Chad, Libya and Egypt.

Mindful perhaps that the stakes are high, Liu Guijin, China's special representative for Africa and Beijing's point man on Darfur, is pushing hard to ensure the vote happens peacefully and on time. Speaking in London at the end of a European tour, Liu said Sudan was fast approaching an important crossroads and urged the international community to do all it could to avoid a pile-up. "If the situation in southern Sudan gets out of control, it will affect the peace and stability of the whole region," he warned.

Liu said the referendum, widely expected to result in southern secession and the creation of a new sovereign state, was crucial to full implementation of the 2005 comprehensive peace agreement (CPA) that ended decades of north-south conflict. While China would be happy to see the country's unity maintained, it would respect the outcome of a "transparent and credible" vote. But like the UN and some western powers, he said Beijing was worried that key agreements were not yet in place.

"Time is the pressing issue," he said. "The international community must make an effort on two tracks. One is to ensure the referendum takes place on time, that there is the needed infrastructure, for instance there are enough ballot papers printed. It also needs to push the two sides [the ruling parties in Khartoum and Juba] to resolve their differences." Outstanding issues included demarcation of the north-south border, wealth sharing, and the status of each other's nationals should the south secede.

Western officials have also expressed concern at the slow pace of preparations for the referendum, amid suspicions that the ruling National Congress party of President Omar al-Bashir is deliberately dragging its feet. In a report published this week, the independent International Crisis Group urged a swift settlement of the boundary issue "to avoid future complications, including a return to conflict ... As the country's oil resources are concentrated in these areas, the political and economic implications of border demarcation have been amplified, and some border areas remain dangerously militarised".

China's political and commercial embrace of Bashir's national unity government has been much criticised in the west. Khartoum is accused by American pressure groups and Christian organisations of causing tens of thousands of deaths in Darfur, where rebel groups and tribal militias have fought government forces and their janjaweed proxies since 2003 – though the figures are much disputed. External pressure has increased since the international criminal court (ICC) charged Bashir with genocide and war crimes.

Liu rejected such criticism, saying China had contributed millions of dollars to alleviate suffering in Darfur and fully supported the UN and African Union-sponsored peace talks. The importance of the talks has been underscored in recent days by an upsurge in fighting in west Darfur state's Hamidiya camp. But Liu said their potential to bring peace to Darfur was undermined by the continuing boycott exercised by two of the main rebel factions, which he said should end immediately.

More controversially, Liu argued the referendum and Darfur must take precedence over attempts by the ICC and its supporters to arrest Bashir. "The international community has to be pragmatic ... We understand the importance of the immunity issue ... It is not ignored. But the priority is a holistic solution of Darfur and the CPA." Bashir's arrest would make solving these problems "more difficult" and on that, he said, there was "a kind of consensus" between China and the US (both non-ICC signatories) and countries that backed the court, such as Britain and France.

Liu said China supported statements by the African Union and the Arab League urging members not to co-operate with ICC attempts to arrest Bashir. ICC signatory Kenya was reported to the UN security council for hosting Bashir in Nairobi last month, a move the EU decried as "totally unacceptable". But Liu said he agreed with African leaders who accuse the court of operating "double standards" when it comes to Africa, compared to its approach to western actions in Iraq and Afghanistan.

China strongly supported the sovereign right of all African nations to run their affairs without outside interference, he said – a principal reason why overall China-Africa trade plus bilateral investment and resource-backed development loans in numerous countries in addition to Sudan were booming.

It was not a case of China propping up dictators, Liu said. It was a case of helping Africans to make their own way. As for Bashir, he added, his fate was primarily a matter for the Sudanese themselves: "No one has the right to take away the immunity of a head of state, not even the UN security council."

With the death of Jefferson Thomas, one of nine teenagers to first test racial segregation in US schools, we look back at their battle for integration in 1957

So I was in a store yesterday afternoon, and "Late in the Evening" came on the sound system. That's a nice song, I thought. Haven't heard it in ages.

So I'm enjoying myself, and he gets to the third verse: I learned to play some lead guitar/and I'uz underage in this funky bar/and I...

And I what? The next line, of course, is "stepped outside to smoke myself a J." And I was lightly singing along, and I started singing those words, but lo and behold, they were cut. It skipped to: and I turned my amp up loud and I began to play. They used the "And I" from the line about smoking the doob, but then very obviously spliced it over to the line about turning up the amp.

What the hell? Is that really so offensive to today's sensibilities, the idea that a musician would step outside and smoke a little pot? Who makes such a cut? On whose authority? Did Paul Simon sign off on this?

Anyone heard any other examples of this kind of thing? I haven't, that I remember, but there must be dozens or hundreds of them if they did it to that basically harmless and happy little song.

Actually, contra my headline, this isn't censorship like the old days. In those days, if the BBC didn't want you to hear John Lennon say "I'd love to turn you on," they didn't cut the line, they just banned the song. That was their right, one supposes, reactionary as it was. But cutting actual lines out of songs. That's way worse.

I see liberalism and conservatism sharing the blame here. Conservatism because the strident evangelicalism so rampantly afoot in today's America can't abide a lyric like that under any circumstances. Liberalism because it's "difficult" for parents to have to explain such matters to their eight-year-olds, who aren't "ready" for them.

If eight years from now, when Margot has attained that age, if you see me writing anywhere that I think it's right that they destroyed a song like that in the interest of the children, please come shoot me.

Australia's new minority government must balance the economic benefits of a booming coal industry with an electorate calling for climate action

West of Australia's Great Dividing Range, a cluster of giant black gashes marks one of the country's biggest coal mines. Latrobe valley's pits and power plants provide 85% of the electricity used by the 5 million residents of the state of Victoria.

They are a source of pride at the local exhibition centre, where guides claim their seam is the basis for the long-term prosperity of the region. "We've got enough coal in this valley for 500 years and there's more elsewhere. Australia is one giant pit," says Ian Southall, manager of the centre.

But Latrobe will also soon be the focus of a protest by environmentalists, who want Australia to end its dependency on mining, commodity exports and coal power by moving more emphatically towards renewable energy.

The sharply different perspectives at Latrobe are also evident at a national level, where the mining industry and the environmental movement have emerged as unusually prominent and divisive political forces.

In last month's general election, Queensland and New South Wales – two giant rural states that are increasingly wealthy thanks to mining – swung sharply to the right, while the inner city of Melbourne shifted emphatically in the opposite direction towards the Greens.

The lobbying might of the mining industry has always been great, but its influence – and confidence – appear to have swollen with its growing economic clout. But there are doubts among analysts and political opponents that the miners' short-term benefits are in line with the country's long term interests.

Currently, the industry is in the midst of a boom. Thanks to commodity demand from China and other developing nations, Kieran Davies, the chief economist at RBS Australia, says Australia's two key exports – coal and iron ore – now account for 7.5% of gross domestic product. This has almost cleared the country's trade deficit and enabled Australia to sprint out of the global downturn with an economy that could soon grow at the astonishing annual rate of about 10%.

"This highlights how closely our fortunes have become aligned with China's," Davies recently wrote in the Australian Financial Review. "Commodity demand from Asia has held up even as the US has faded, which suggests that the big challenge for Australian policy makers is how best to manage the huge surge in income that has started to course through the economy."

That task has proved politically toxic. This summer, Labor prime minister Kevin Rudd was driven from power when he tried to impose a 40% tax on super-profits made by the mining industry to fund long-term infrastructure investment. Commodity conglomerates tilted him out of office with a lavishly funded publicity campaign that claimed he was threatening Australia's prosperity.

It was not entirely a coup by the mining lobby. Rudd was already unpopular among colleagues and had lost credibility with the electorate for buckling on carbon trading legislation despite earlier claiming that climate change was "the great moral issue of our time."

But the spectacularly sudden unseating of a prime minister underscored the influence of the minerals industry. Rudd's replacement, Julia Gillard, has softened the super-tax plan.

The question of how to balance the here-now, gone-tomorrow gains from mining with the long-term goals of a sustainable economy and climate stability refuses to go away. Nationalists are concerned that Chinese firms are increasingly buying not just coal, but collieries as well. Environmentalists are ashamed that Australia has one of the world's highest per capita emissions of greenhouse gases.

The success of the Greens, which affirmed its position as the undisputed third party in last month's election, is likely to push the transition issue further to the fore.

"We must make a discussion as a nation. Do we want to be just a quarry for China?" asked Richard Di Natale, a newly elected Greens senator. "That would be risky and unbalanced. Renewables can provide jobs and help us manage the transition to a low-carbon economy." At Latrobe valley, perceptions are different. A promotional video at the centre shows the plant's plans to reduce emissions through carbon capture and storage and by drying the brown coal and compressing it into coal pellets for export.

Centre manager Southall sees this technology as the future. "We recognise that wind and solar are playing a growing role, but brown coal remains the basis of prosperity. The green movement don't buy that. It's very divisive. I wish they would get on board."

Others are quietly trying to pioneer a transition at grassroots level. Not far from the mining machines and smoke stacks, a co-operative of union activists is working with local government, farmers and workers to establish a factory that makes solar water heaters, which would be funded with pension funds and state incentives for renewable power. Their aim is to provide jobs for former mine workers, reduce energy costs and cut emissions.

The founder of the co-operative venture, Dave Kerin, said it was necessary to find an alternative way to address the climate crisis because political methods weren't working. "This election led to a really creative confusion," said Kerin. "Our nation is based on consumption. But that is based on an illusion. Everything's been thrown into the air."

Even so, there was predictably little support for the Greens in Latrobe valley. "The so-called Greens are all from the city. They don't know anything about living in a real green environment. They just talk and then go home and switch on their air conditioners," said Trevor Wallace, manager of a chainsaw and tractor shop.

But he acknowledged that other parts of Australia also changed as they became more dependent on mining. "Whoever leads the next government, it is going to be hard to ensure stability. Some rifts take time to heal."

• To order Jonathan Watts' book, When a Billion Chinese Jump, for £9.99 (RRP £14.99) call 0845 606 4232 or visit guardianbooks.co.uk.

Strategy institute challenges idea that troops are needed in Afghanistan to stop export of terrorism to west

The threat posed by al-Qaida and the Taliban is exaggerated and the western-led counter-insurgency campaign in Afghanistan risks becoming a "long, drawn-out disaster", one of the world's leading security thinktanks warned today.

According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), the west's counter-insurgency strategy has "ballooned" out of proportion to the original aim of preventing al-Qaida from mounting terrorist attacks there, and must be replaced by a less ambitious but more sensible policy of "containment and deterrence".

The critique of the US- and British-backed military policy is contained in the latest strategic survey from the IISS, a respected but usually uncontroversial body. IISS officers made clear today they have departed from their normal practice because of the serious threat to the west's security interests in pursuing the current Afghan strategy.

In an effort to ignite a fresh debate and bring about a new approach towards Afghanistan, they challenge claims, not least from David Cameron, that the presence of thousands of British troops in Afghanistan is necessary to prevent al-Qaida from returning and thus increasing the threat to the UK.

"It is not clear why it should be axiomatically obvious that an Afghanistan freed of an international combat presence in the south would be an automatic magnet for al-Qaida's concentrated reconstruction," the IISS director-general, John Chipman, said.

Al-Qaida is now "engaged in Pakistan in very small numbers", not remotely comparable to the situation in Afghanistan pre-September 2001, Nigel Inkster, an IISS director and former deputy chief of Britain's Secret Intelligence Service, said. No such threat is likely to come from al-Qaida elsewhere, including Yemen and Somalia, he added.

The latest stats show exactly how many foreign-born citizens live in each country in Europe. See how they compare
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Immigration is always an issue across Europe - as we saw during the last general election in the UK. But facts are always left behind in the welter of opinions and half-formed truths that make up the debate.

We wanted to know exactly how many foreign citizens there are in each country - and Eurostat has published that data today.

It's a fascinating comparison of European countries, with some key facts, including:
• Germany has the highest number of foreign citizens in Europe: 7.2m. The UK is third with just over 4m
• Latvia has the highest number of non-EU citizens: 17.5%
• In most countries foreign citizens are younger than nationals - only in Poland, Latvia and Estonia is the opposite the case.

The full data is below. What can you do with it?

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Australian prime minister Julia Gillard has managed to form a government but her coalition allies will not always see eye to eye

Australian prime minister Julia Gillard may have been given an opportunity to govern but it will not be easy. Her minority government has already been dubbed the "rainbow coalition", pulling together 72 members from her own Labor party, one Greens MP and three independents with differing priorities.

At the election the Greens picked up many disenchanted Labor voters who want to see greater action on climate change as well as more humane treatment of asylum seekers. The Greens also back same-sex marriage. The rural independents have predominantly conservative electorates, who want more infrastructure and services in regional Australia but are largely socially conservative and sceptical about climate change. The Tasmanian independent wants changes to laws governing poker machines and has already extracted A$100m out of Labor for a local hospital. On top of all this, a single by-election wipe out the coalition's majority.

"This type of coalition is very novel for Australia. We have no tradition of it," said Keith Suter, lecturer in politics at Sydney's Macquarie University. He says it is in everybody's interest to make it work, especially the rural independents, as they have gone against the majority view in their electorates to support the coalition.

"They need time to prove that they've actually made the right decision, so they will want a Gillard government to continue for as long as possible and pour as much money as possible into the rural sector, so when the next election is held they can say being pragmatic has paid off," he said.

All three independents have said they will support Labor in no-confidence motions but will treat every piece of legislation on its merits. Juggling competing priorities could produce gridlock on the floor of the house.

The controversial mining tax is likely to be a sticking point. Under Labor, the former prime minister Kevin Rudd proposed a profits-based tax on Australia's huge mining and resources sector. Gillard watered this down so the mining companies would not have to pay as much. The Greens want the higher tax on mining reinstated but Tony Windsor, the independent MP from New England in NSW, who sided with Gillard today, is unlikely to agree to that because of a large mining presence in his electorate.

The Greens want to tackle climate change with a carbon tax. Less than a month ago Gillard promised there would be no carbon tax under a government she leads. The rural independents are committed to action on climate change but have sceptical electorates.

According to Suter, all the parties under Gillard will most likely be forced into the centre to save their own skins.

"No one wants to bring down the minority government and bring [conservative opposition leader] Tony Abbott to power," he said.