The Guardian World News
Sun May 9 22:33:21 EDT 2010
Home: http://www.guardian.co.uk
Feed: http://www.guardian.co.uk/rssfeed/0,,1,00.xml

Deadline day for Lib Dem- Conservative deal -

• Nick Clegg sets himself 24 hours to get agreement
• Surprise at 'flexible' stance from David Cameron

Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, has given himself until the end of tomorrow to decide whether to let David Cameron form a government, or instead risk a deal with Labour that might be seen as illegitimate by the public and jeopardise the success of a yes vote in a referendum on electoral reform.

Clegg met Gordon Brown for an hour at the Foreign Office today and is understood to have set out his fear that a Lib-Lab coalition might be regarded as illegitimate even if Brown stood down as its leader.

Senior cabinet figures have told Brown in the last 48 hours that he should stand down and operate merely as a transitional figure for an unspecified period.

Brown is said to be willing to step aside in due course, with some cabinet hardliners saying he should quit before a referendum on electoral reform and that his presence would taint the outcome.

In these circumstances, the rules provide for the cabinet to choose a leader from within its ranks. No agreement exists as to the identity of this figure, but the likely options are Labour's deputy leader, Harriet Harman, or foreign secretary David Miliband. Some cabinet ministers were privately urging the Lib Dems to call for Brown to go as a precondition of an agreement.

Cameron and Clegg met for 30 minutes in the Commons tonight – their second face to face meeting since the election. The meeting followed seven hours of talks between Lib Dem and Tory negotiating teams at the Cabinet Office to discuss the outlines of a common policy programme to deliver stable government. The negotiating teams agreed to meet again tomorrow. Cameron is understood to have told senior Tories that he would not be offering a referendum on electoral reform under his government, which would deny the Lib Dems one of their most cherished prizes.

So far Cameron has only offered a cross-party inquiry into electoral reform.

Neither side gave much away except to say they had discussed deficit reduction, climate change, civil liberties, political reform and bank regulation. The emphasis on deficit reduction is designed to calm the markets before trading opens tomorrow.

Clegg has been surprised by the Tories flexibility in the negotiations. Cameron has suggested reductions in the number of MPs, an elected House of Lords and a fixed-term parliament – all major concessions.

But Clegg still regards electoral reform as the main prize he can secure from the last Thursday's general election, which left his party holding the balance of power, albeit with a reduced number of MPs.

Instead of a working in a coalition, Clegg and Cameron could agree "confidence and supply" – a commitment by the Lib Dems to let a Tory budget and an agreed Queen's speech through. Clegg is also understood to believe that the coalition talks between his senior MPs and Conservative counterparts have only another 24 hours to run before the public will lose patience.

Clegg's team comprised the Lib Dem manifesto author, Danny Alexander, home affairs spokesman, Chris Huhne, the schools spokesman, David Laws, and the former chief whip Andrew Stunell.

The Tory team was the party's policy chief, Oliver Letwin, shadow chancellor, George Osborne, the shadow foreign secretary, William Hague, and Ed Llewellyn, Cameron's chief of staff.

Labour is trying to convince Clegg that his chances of electoral reform for the Commons are much greater under a Labour-organised referendum.

Brown, who returned to Downing Street from Scotland with his family today, has also promised that he would pass legislation on electoral reform almost immediately. There have also been Labour guarantees about caps on spending in the referendum.

In contrast, Cameron would not be able to back electoral reform even if he granted a referendum. Senior Tories such as Graham Brady, the right's candidate for chairmanship of the 1922 committee of backbenchers, said his instinct was for a Cameron minority government, partly due to his fear of electoral reform.

Many Tories see a proportional voting system as likely to exclude the Tories from government for generations, as well as destroying the cherished link between MPs and their constituencies. Speaking todaybefore talks resumed, Clegg said: "I'm very keen that the Liberal Democrats should play a constructive role at a time of great economic uncertainty to provide a good government this country deserves. Throughout that we will continue to be guided by the big changes we want – tax reform, improving education for all children, sorting out the banks and building a new economy from the rubble of the old, and extensive fundamental political reform."

He is also under serious internal political pressure, including from the former Lib Dem leader in the Lords Lady Williams, not to strike a full coalition deal with Cameron. She told the Guardian it is not in the Tory DNA to move properly in key areas. "I think it would be better for us to offer them confidence and supply and let them govern as minority government coupled with cross-party work in two areas: we need swift cross party action to bring down the deficit, and action on political reform."

It is known other very senior Lib Dem MPs and peers do not want Clegg to strike a deal with Cameron, saying he will have fulfilled his promise to the electorate to give the Conservative leader the first chance to form a government on the basis that he came first in seats and share of the vote. Simon Hughes, the Lib Dem energy spokesman said today: "I can't imagine that a review [on electoral reform] would be enough to be honest. We've been there before, we were there at the 1997 election … We had an inquiry, a referendum was promised, there wasn't a referendum."

Wendy Shanker has been obsessed with the pop icon since childhood, and even – briefly – became her assistant. She explains how Madonna transformed her life

Traditionally, a guru is a spiritual teacher who guides a student on the road to Enlightenment, or finding God. In Sanskrit, "gu" means darkness and "ru" means light. Madonna is my guru.

Relax: I'm a fan, not a fanatic. I don't think she's channelling messages from the Almighty while dolled up as Evita Peron. Besides, I'm Jewish. My people don't worship idols, pop or otherwise. But I disagree with anyone who dismisses Madonna as a pop diva with revolving boyfriends and an obsession with her glutes. For more than a quarter of a century, she has entertained and enlightened us – and now a new generation is becoming M-powered.

The Power of Madonna soundtrack from the hit TV series Glee has put her back at No 1 in the charts again. The kids on the show weren't even born when she first hit the scene, but they all know her as an "icon" and a "Hall of Fame MILF". In the show, music teacher Will Schuester tells them, "Culturally, Madonna's legacy transcends her music because, by and large, the subtexts of her songs are about being strong, independent and confident, no matter what your sex. More than anything, her musical message is about equality." But perhaps cheerleading coach Sue Sylvester – like me, a Madonna obsessive, whose performance of the song Vogue is now a YouTube classic – comes closest to nailing that guru vibe when she says, "Madonna. Simply saying the word aloud makes me feel powerful."

Life is a mystery

At the beginning of her career, Madonna was that naughty girl with the belly button vamping around on MTV. As I watched her grind on a giant boom box on The Virgin tour in 1985, it occurred to me that I was a pre-teen with a lot to learn.

Then I discovered that Madonna, like me, was born and raised in Michigan. That her mother died at an early age, as mine did. That she, too, had an authoritative father. I couldn't relate to her Catholicism, but as a Jew, I shared her turbo-powered association with guilt.

I started to dress with the M-vibe: cut-up sweatshirts, bright leggings, fluorescent lacy bows in my Aussie sprunch sprayed hair. My dad made me take off an Egyptian ankh I wore to school one day. He said it looked like a crucifix.

I saw Madonna perform again on her Blond Ambition tour, during my freshman year at the University of Michigan (the same school Madonna attended, before dropping out to seek fame in New York City). She wheeled around in her whip braid and cone bra, humping the bed and tonguing her dancers. By the time she pranced, Fosse-style, over mirrored chairs and triumphantly sang, "Keep it together . . . forever and ever!" I was a goner.

Was it fascination, or an obsession? In the spring of 1993, I took a page from the Madonna playbook and moved to Manhattan myself, hoping to find my future there . . . and maybe even the Girl herself.

Everyone must stand alone

A month later, I saw her up-close for the first time. My dad and stepmother were in town staying at the Plaza Hotel, where a premiere party for Sleepless in Seattle was being thrown. At the time, "Mo" was BFF with "Ro" (the actor Rosie O'Donnell) and showed up to support her pal. Her dark-rooted, strawberry-blond hair was tautly pulled into pigtail braids. She wore a red dress made from what looked like an Adidas jogging suit, and a man's jacket around her tiny shoulders.

Irrationally, I wanted to cry. It felt like the punch I'd get from seeing my mother in person, even though she'd died when I was a girl. Not that my (non) relationship with Madonna had any connection to my mother – did it?

I couldn't bear gawking with everyone else. My forceful father noticed my suffering, and proceeded to do The Coolest Thing Ever. He ran up to his hotel room, and returned carrying a portable police scanner that looked like a walkie-talkie. (Precisely why he was travelling with a portable police scanner is another story.) He grabbed me and pulled me through a discreet door that led to the Plaza's kitchen. We wound past ovens, refrigerators and bustling cooks, as he pretended to confer on the walkie-talkie and muttered, "So sorry, miss. There must have been some confusion. We'll get you in there right away." He pushed open another door – and we were at the bash.

Hello, Meg Ryan! What's up, Tom Hanks! But Madonna had disappeared. Of course, I don't know what I'd have said had she actually been sitting there, snapping gum and dishing about bisexuality with Rosie. My dad and I waved to our astounded family members, their faces still pressed to the other side of the glass. We each grabbed a gift bag (I still have my cute Sleepless in Seattle nightie) and exited through the red ropes in the lobby. There's a saying that when the student is ready, the teacher appears. Apparently, I wasn't ready yet.

I hear you call my name

In October of 1993, I saw The Girlie Show at Madison Square Garden. Tickets weren't hard to scrape up: Madonna had been dismissed as a super-slut after her unholy trinity of Erotica album/Sex book/Body of Evidence film. She'd recently appeared on Late Night with David Letterman, wearing combat boots and swearing like a sailor (Oh Dave, how the tables have now turned). Madge's sexcapades left me feeling ambivalent, too. I hoped seeing her again would clarify my confusion.

Here's what I wrote in my journal that night: "Just saw The Girlie Show at MSG. Felt proud of Madonna, but distant too. She looked beautiful, never sang better. 'Rain, feel it on my fingertips . . .'"

The next day, a friend scored a single ticket for the last MSG show on the tour. Did I want to go again, by myself? Why not? And here's what I wrote afterwards:

"I CAN DO ANYTHING. I AM SO STRONG. I CAN FILL UP MADISON SQUARE GARDEN AND SING AND DANCE AND TELL JOKES – THE WORLD CAN HEAR ME AND LOVE ME! ONLY I CAN STOP MYSELF. BUT I'M NOT GOING TO. EVERYBODY IS A STAR [Madonna's closing line from the show] AND I AM THE BIGGEST AND BRIGHTEST OF THEM ALL."

It had finally dawned on me what was at the heart of my fascination: Madonna could show me the way to my heart, my spirit and myself. I just didn't know you called that a "guru".

I wangled my way into an assistant job at MTV, despite not being able to tell Pearl Jam from Nirvana. And a year after I started, my boss pulled a few strings and got me my dream gig: I would serve as Madonna's talent liaison at the 1994 Video Music Awards.

Curiously, when I finally met her, I felt completely calm, totally prepared. She was shockingly petite. Her eyes were a light, clear blue – in all the pictures I'd seen of her, I had never noticed their true colour. Managers, assistants, publicists, bodyguards and label reps surrounded her. A slew of producers assaulted her with instructions. In frustration, she turned to me and said, "I want YOU to know everything."

Now I like to think she was giving me her blessing ("I want you to") and offering me the wisdom of the world ("know everything"). In reality, she was ordering me to keep track of the details that would keep the night running smoothly. I swiftly guided her through Radio City Music Hall. I lined up the Spice Girls outside her dressing-room door (after their audience with their idol, Ginger squealed: "Oh my God, we just met MADONNA!" as they all hopped around on their platform boots). Madonna barely paid attention to me. She couldn't. Everyone wanted something from her. Every move had to be calculated.

The next time I saw her face to face was in 2000, when I was hosting a women's cable show and she was promoting her film, The Next Best Thing. Madonna had changed the role she played from a swimming instructor to a yoga teacher, reflecting the eastern spirituality she'd explored in the album Ray of Light. I thought I caught a gleam of recognition in those bottomless blue eyes. As a producer clicked a stopwatch to start our three-minute interview, Madonna leaned forward to whisper something in my ear. "Go ahead," she told me, "be brilliant."

Be brilliant, Wendy. Say something incredibly witty and memorable. About a yoga movie. In three minutes. The stopwatch clicked ominously. A cameraman rolled his eyes as I hesitated. And then I realised – Madonna wasn't commanding me to be brilliant, she was giving me permission.

From then on, I followed her advice. Be brilliant, bright and confident. Speak up when superiors take credit for your ideas. Demand respect if a man tries to make you feel small. Work hard, and take the risk. I tried to bring "brilliance" to my career and my relationships.

Then I got really, really sick. Back in 1999, I'd been diagnosed with a rare auto-immune disease called Wegener's Granulomatosis, in which the body unwittingly attacks the sinuses, lungs and kidneys. At the end of 2003 it flared up again, forcing me into intense treatment with steroids and chemotherapy. I swore I wouldn't become one of those people who gets ill and discovers The Importance of Life – but I couldn't help asking myself some big questions. And, after modifying the directives of western doctors and embracing some eastern alternatives, I began to heal – so I travelled the world to see Madge in concert.

During each show, I'd have a moment when I would feel an almost religious ecstasy as I bounced along to Into the Groove, or crooned What It Feels Like For a Girl. In 2006, I returned to Madison Square Garden for the Confessions on a Dance Floor tour, feeling so grateful to be in a body that was strong enough to twirl around. As we revved up to the chorus of Ray of Light ("And I feel . . . like I just got home!"), I hit the spiritual jackpot. The expanse of the Garden, every seat in the house, radiated with golden light.

And it feels like home

As Madonna gets older and writes more of her own songs, her artistic vision matures. I often wonder if her love songs are written about a man in her life, or a bigger spirit that envelops all of us.

I think Madonna is still searching for her (inner) guru. It shocks me when she's criticised for changing and reinventing herself. What, she was supposed to remain a sex-crazed dance machine, power-hungry exhibitionist, ambient earth mother, lady of the manor, charitable Kabbalah scholar, or African adoptive mom for ever? We all evolve – Her Madgesty just does it on a bigger stage, with a better wardrobe.

A guru is like a parent who raises a child to flourish on her own. What values does Madonna impart to us? Female empowerment. Body consciousness. Religious and sexual tolerance. Cycles of imperfection and improvement. Evolution of the self. You got a problem with that?

Sure, it's possible that Bruce Springsteen could direct you towards your true purpose ("Baby, you were born to run"). Or U2 – though I reckon they still haven't found what they're looking for. Bono once called Madison Square Garden "rock and roll's great cathedral", and more than once I've had an ecstatic experience there – thanks to my guru. Maybe, all this time, Madonna has been guru-ing you too, and you just didn't know it.

Late-night talks thrash out deal amid fears Greek crisis could threaten European project

European governments early this morning approved a €500bn deal to save the euro after 11 hours of talks that took place against the prospect of the single currency drowning in a tidal wave of debt and default fears, and even a question mark over the whole European Union.

EU finance ministers meeting in Brussels had quickly agreed a modest "stabilisation mechanism" worth €60bn for eurozone countries in trouble.

But early this morning the Spanish finance minister Elena Salgado announced that the ministers had agreed to make a further €440bn available, a proposal suggested by Berlin and Paris, which would also involve the International Monetary Fund and come in return for pledges of swingeing spending cuts from countries needing support.

The Franco-German euro rescue blueprint seen by the Guardian singled out Portugal and Spain by name as likely beneficiaries of the intervention scheme, but insisted that both countries would need to embark on fiscal retrenchment, attaining "budget consolidation" targets worth 1.5% of their economic output this year and 2% next year in order to qualify for bailouts.

The desperate measures agreed in the early hours in the Belgian capital represent the most fundamental rewriting of the single currency regime since its inception 11 years ago, after months of hesitation over what to do about the debt crisis in Greece.

However, as the governments engaged in a high-risk gamble to shore up the currency, it was unclear whether the moves would be enough to see off market pressure on the eurozone's weaker links.

After a special summit of the 16 eurozone government leaders, which ended early on Saturday morning, the European commission and the 27 finance ministers of the EU member states quickly agreed on a so-called stabilization mechanism, invoking last-resort emergency clauses in the Lisbon treaty as the legal basis.

Despite the political limbo in Britain, the chancellor, Alistair Darling, travelled to Brussels, anxious to forestall any attempt to manoeuvre the UK into footing part of the bill for shoring up the euro.

But he agreed with the other 26 ministers to more than double a European commission-administered fund for balance of payments support from €50bn (£43bn) to €110bn.

The extra €60bn will also be available to eurozone countries. In the worst-case scenario, Britain would still be liable for €15bn, according to the Treasury.

Under previous rules, the commission has been allowed to raise €50bn, using the EU budget as collateral, to help distressed countries outside the single currency. In the past 18 months, Latvia, Hungary and Romania have drawn on it.

A further, and perhaps the most far-reaching, plank in the rescue strategy concerned the European Central Bank (ECB). The bank is under pressure to assent to a programme of quantitative easing through a massive bond buyback operation on the secondary markets, and perhaps also by agreeing to accept downgraded bonds as collateral for lending, as it agreed to do for Greece last week. Senior ECB officials attended last night's Brussels meetings and the central bank is expected to make a statement today.

The breakthrough on the €500bn bailout was preceded by intense lobbying from Washington, with Barack Obama talking last night to the German and French leaders, Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy.

At German insistence, the €110bn rescue package for Greece decided last week is to be the template for the save-the-euro blueprint worth four times that figure. The German terms also mean the IMF will be strongly involved.

Early this morning it was revealed that the IMF would contribute an additional sum of up to €220bn. Legally, the money would also come from the member states, under bilateral loan guarantees, rather than being an EU facility administered by Brussels.

Several of the smaller EU member states were unhappy with the proposals last night, while Spain was said to be furious at being asked to pledge spending cuts. Salgado, said: "We are going to defend the euro. We have to give more stability to our currency."

The bigger bailout fund would apply only to the 16 countries using the single currency, whose governments would be liable in the case of default.

While Britain signed up for the €60bn mechanism, the more ambitious scheme was a red line for Darling.

Treasury officials said that Britain would agree to the plan only if there were copper-bottomed pledges that there could be no fiscal implications for the British government.

"What we will not do and what we can't do is to provide support for the euro," the chancellor said ahead of the meeting. "That has got to be for those countries that use the euro."

Over the past week, Merkel, Sarkozy and Jean-Claude Juncker, the Luxembourg prime minister and head of the eurogroup, have declared war on the financial markets, deploying martial language to denounce the "speculators" engaged in a global campaign to destroy the euro.

Anders Borg, Sweden's finance mionister said: "We are seeing wolfpack behaviour in the markets, and if we don't stop these packs, they will tear the weaker countries apart."

The Europeans were also under pressure from the Americans and other world leaders to act decisively to stabilise the euro for fear that a meltdown in Europe will spread to economies globally.

The IMF board met in Washington yesterday and approved its three-year €30bn support for Greece, as part of the €110bn bailout package. It was also said to be coordinating closely with the Europeans on this morning's decisions.

This morning's moves looked like a last-ditch act that will either presage the consolidation of the euro or, if it fails, lead to meltdown and the unravelling of the single currency zone.

What began last autumn as an incipient crisis in Greece – representing less than 3% of EU GDP – has snowballed into a full-scale euro crisis, which could bring down large parts of the banking sector and tip much of the west back into recession.

The Taliban's more brutal treatment of civilians and Nato's response have raised the temperature – and the fear factor – as the fighting season approaches

The coming of spring always brings an influx of Taliban fighters to the district of Zhari, where the young leaves on the grapevines and fruit orchards provide cover so thick that Nato's hi-tech thermal imaging cameras struggle to see the insurgents hiding within.

But this year things are different. The Taliban are back once again, but the locals who live in the area on the western doorstep of the city of Kandahar say they have arrived in far higher numbers than in previous years.

"Two months ago there were only around 30 in the area, but it has increased dramatically in the last two weeks," said Faiz Mohammad, a shopkeeper from the town of Sanzari in Zhari district.

"We now see hundreds of them, young teenage boys, led by older commanders. They are clean shaven and look like everyone else, except they carry good weapons and communications equipment."

It is a similar story in the nearby villages of Pashmol and Ashgho, locals say. According to one farmer, the fighters operate within just a few hundred metres of Nato bases. "They just come up and check we haven't met government officials and demand we give them food and money," said Bari Dad.

The young fighters, fresh from over the border in Pakistan, appear to be mustering in exactly the places where Nato expects to do some of its heaviest fighting this summer.

As they did before the major February operation in Marjah in Helmand, the insurgents are preparing for the onslaught by laying roadside bombs and mines in the areas where they expect to fight. But, unlike in the past, they now rarely tell the locals where they are buried, Dad said.

In what has been called the "cornerstone of the surge effort", June and July will see about 23,000 US, Canadian and Afghan troops attempt to clear Kandahar's rural hinterlands, focusing particularly on areas such as Zhari and the neighbouring district of Panjwai.

The hope is that by controlling these areas they will take the pressure off the beleaguered city of Kandahar and its estimated 500,000 citizens.

Nato talks of creating "rings of security" around the provincial capital. But inside the city a Taliban campaign of violence has succeeded in creating an atmosphere of panic and terror.

Sources throughout the vital southern province report similar stories of a higher than usual influx of fighters, including insurgents, passing through the district of Shah Wali Kot to the north and the area of Dand to the south. The Indian consulate in Kandahar also said it had received reports from locals from Maruf, a district on the border with Pakistan, that Taliban activity has "increased many-fold" compared with last year.

Pranav, a diplomat at the heavily fortified Indian consulate, said that insurgents appeared also to be moving in from neighbouring provinces, including Helmand, in preparation for a major Kandahar offensive.

Both sides are gearing up for a bloody summer. The head of the health department has set up an additional 100 beds for the city's main hospital, which previously held 330. Those beds are already full of the war wounded, including many suspected Taliban fighters.

Caught between the two sides, civilians are hoping to avoid the crossfire.

Mohammad Karim, a farmer from Ashgo, said: "The Taliban publicly executed a man in our village by hanging him from a tree and then shooting him. He was accused of passing information to the foreigners. Both sides are creating problems for us and we try to remain neutral."

Haji Abdul Haq, a tribal elder from Arghandab district, said people in his area were only interested in avoiding the fight. "The people only want peace and security; they don't care if it's provided by Isaf [the international security assistance force led by Nato] or the Taliban," he said.

A recent public opinion survey in Kandahar conducted for the US army found that despite their efforts to remain above the fray, most of the 1,994 people questioned sympathised with the insurgents' reasons for taking up arms against the government. Some 94% of respondents did not want foreign forces to start a new operation.

The US has already stepped up its secret war against the Taliban: special forces teams have been killing and capturing mid-level commanders and apparently squeezing the insurgents' supply chains.

But in recent weeks the Taliban have responded with an aggressive assassination campaign, bringing an unprecedented level of fear to the city.

Rumours are circulating that Taliban leaders in Pakistan have issued a "kill list" of officials who have been targeted – most of whom do not have any security to speak of.

Last month the city's deputy mayor was shot dead as he prayed in a mosque. A week earlier, a young Afghan woman employed by Development Alternatives, a company that works on US government construction projects, was gunned down as she travelled to work.

These developments have created a clear sense of fear, particularly among anyone connected with the government, Nato or any foreign organisation.

At a time when the US military is trying to bolster the provincial government's capacity to get things done, key staff members are trying to quit. One aide in the governor's office, who cannot be named, has handed in his resignation although it has not yet been accepted.

Some who leave government employment find that it is already too late: former interpreters for Nato soldiers have been targeted and killed, in one case more than a year after leaving the job.

One Afghan man, who cannot be named, said he quit his well-paid job at the International Committee of the Red Cross after receiving phone calls from acquaintances in Quetta, the frontier town in southern Pakistan where many Taliban live with their families, politely asking him not to work with the foreigners any more. When he argued that the Red Cross was a humanitarian organisation that famously strives to be neutral, he was told the Taliban believe that they share information with the Americans and cannot be trusted.

And the United Nations, which also describes itself as neutral, now considers its staff to be in such danger that on 27 April all foreign workers were hurriedly evacuated to Kabul and local staff told to remain at home after rumours that the UN compound was going to be attacked.

With the departure of the UN, there are very few foreigners still living in the city. When I checked into a heavily fortified guesthouse, the first thing the manager showed off was not the bedroom but a basement safe room and an escape route over the roof.

He was right to be cautious: just round the corner is the remains of a compound that housed a number of foreign companies working on US-funded projects. The building was largely destroyed on 15 April by a suicide bomber who drove a car packed with explosives into the front gate.

"They are trying to show who is the boss in Kandahar city, and it appears to be working," said Ganesh, the Indian diplomat.

The collapse in security and the increase in US military patrols have frightened locals who used to regard the city as a sanctuary from more dangerous outlying districts.

And foreign officials worry that operations in the surrounding districts will displace fighters into the city itself; urban warfare on the streets of Kandahar would be a disaster for the Nato strategy of trying to create security in areas where the population is most dense. Last week, Mark Sedwill, Nato's senior civilian representative, admitted that street to street fighting was a possibility.

"We are just in absolute despair," said one man from Arghandab district who had come into the city to shop. "People used to move their families into the city when there was fighting in the districts, but now that's not safe either. We really don't know where to go."

Despite the dire state of security in the city and its surrounding areas, there is widespread opposition among locals to a major military offensive, which, like the February operation in Marjah, has been well publicised in advance.

Nato hoped that this would encourage fighters to simply withdraw. But it has, in fact, given the Taliban time to thoroughly prepare the battleground with bombs and mines as well as terrifying the local population.

When Hamid Karzai visited the city at the beginning of April to talk to elders, most of them called on him to cancel the plan.

Last week Nato began trying to play down the military aspect of this summer's surge, saying it would prefer to call it a "process that is encompassing military and non-military instruments" rather than an "operation", or "offensive".

Others say that nothing will change until a solution is found for Kandahar's underlying problems of official corruption and tribes who feel excluded from power, which they say is controlled by a small oligarchy of businessmen-politicians.

Several Kandaharis I interviewed saw the Taliban insurgency in terms of rivalry between members of the largely excluded Gilzai tribe, which has always been heavily represented within the Taliban, and the traditional elite Durrani tribe to which Hamid Karzai belongs.

The claim is backed up by figures from the US military, showing that Durranis hold two-thirds of positions within the provincial government and 26 out of 34 district and police chiefs.

"Things will never get better unless the Ghilzai are more fairly represented," said Faiz Mohammad the shopkeeper from Zhari. "You cannot just ignore the needs of a major tribe like that."

Charges that ecological review waived on 26 new offshore drilling projects come as latest attempt to seal well fail

The Obama administration waived environmental reviews for 26 new offshore drilling projects even as the BP oil disaster spewed hundreds of thousands of gallons of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico, environmental activists said today.

The charge came as hopes for a quick fix to the Deepwater Horizon spill were dashed when a build-up of crystallised gas blocked pipes in a huge metal containment box that had been built to cap the well. Engineers are now considering a "junk shot", shooting a mix of debris – including shredded tires and golf balls – into the well at high pressure to clog it, said Thad Allen, a US coast guard commander.

With the spill still unchecked and spreading to Alabama's beaches, there was renewed focus on oversight procedures that allowed BP and Transocean to drill without backup plans in place.

The Centre for Biological Diversity said that even after the disaster, the Obama administration did not tighten its oversight of offshore drilling. An investigation by the respected environmental group revealed that since 20 April, when an explosion the Deepwater Horizon rig killed 11 workers, 27 new offshore drilling projects have been approved by the Mineral Management Service (MMS) the regulatory agency responsible for overseeing extraction of oil, gas and other minerals.

All but one project was granted similar exemptions from environmental review as BP. Two were submitted by the UK firm, and made the same claims about oil-rig safety and the implausibility of a spill damaging the environment, the centre said.

"This oil spill has had absolutely no effect on MMS behaviour at all," said Kieran Suckling, the director of the centre. "It's still business as usual which means rubber stamping oil drilling permits with no environmental review."

The charges were the latest in a string of revelations about lax oversight of offshore drilling that, while dating back to the George Bush era, have also damaged the Obama White House. "I don't know where the regulators were on this. They certainly were asleep," Richard Shelby, a Republican senator from Alabama, told CNN today. "This reminds me of a big truck speeding along the Los Angeles freeway with no brakes."

With the Deepwater wellhead pumping 795,000 litres (210,000 gallons) of oil into the sea each day, authorities sought to stop its spread to the Alabama coastline.

Allen said a gate was being built to protect the port of Mobile, but owing to the unpredictability of winds and currents he said the entire region should remain on alert. "The entire Gulf pretty much has to be on guard," he told CBS television.

BP crews were forced on yesterday to abandon their efforts to put a box over the leak after a combination of ice crystals, high pressure, and low temperatures made the 100-tonne contraption too buoyant.

It was unclear whether BP would make a new attempt. "I wouldn't say it has failed yet," Doug Suttles, the firm's chief operating officer, told reporters. But Allen said BP was now looking at sealing the well with the junk shot.

The latest failure to seal the wellhead has deepened fears about the economic and environmental impact of the spill, which is on course to surpass the Exxon Valdez disaster.

"What it means is that we are most likely looking at one of the worst case scenarios," said Jacqueline Savitz, a scientist for the Oceana conservation group. "The longer it gushes, and the more oil it spews, the more animals are going to be affected."

The prospect of oil continuing to gush until BP manages to drill a relief well in two or three months time has intensified concerns among those states now on the spill's trajectory.

Florida's Democratic senator, Bill Nelson, said the spill threatened his state's fishing and tourism industries and even its military bases. "You are talking about massive economic losses," he told CNN.

Environmental and safety procedures on the Deepwater Horizon rig will come under even greater scrutiny this week as multiple investigations into the disaster get underway. In Louisiana, the coast guard and the MMS will start their inquiries with two days of public hearings.

The justice department is also conducting an investigation into the spill and has not ruled out criminal charges. "I've sent down representatives from the justice department to examine what our options are with regard to the activities that occurred there and whether or not there has been malfeasance on the part of BP or Transocean," Eric Holder, the US attorney general, told ABC television.

Three separate congressional committees will also take a close look at offshore drilling and the disaster this week, with testimony from the executives of BP America, Transocean, the company which owned the sunken rig, and Halliburton, which made the cement cap on the well, whose failure set the disaster in motion.

BP's initial investigations suggest the blast was caused by a bubble of methane gas that shot up through the drill column and broke several protective seals and barriers, the Associated Press reported.

With oil still gushing into the Gulf of Mexico nearly three weeks after the initial explosion, the continuing catastrophe saw commentators from Al Gore to Fidel Castro weighing in at the weekend.

The Cuban leader, in a piece in the local media, said the spill was further evidence of corporate.

"The ecological disaster which occurred in the Gulf of Mexico shows how little can governments do against those who control financial capital," he wrote, adding "The hateful tyranny imposed on the world."

ends

^E

Passengers face double-whammy as union officials meet to discuss next wave of British Airways strikes

Air travellers are facing a double threat involving the latest ash plume from Iceland's volcano moving around into UK airspace, as well as a union summit to discuss strikes which could affect hundreds of thousands of British Airways passengers.

It follows a weekend of disruption, with the ash cloud closing most airports in northern Italy and some in Scotland, northern Spain, southern France, Switzerland and Germany for 12 or 24 hours, and continuing threats to continental and UK airspace. Stornoway and Benbecula airports have reopened, however Barra airport in the Outer Hebrides is closed as it is in the no-fly zone from 7pm today until 1am tomorrow.

The Met Office said that the volcano remains "dynamic", and wind patterns could swing the ash cloud around into Britain's southern airspace by the early hours. All airlines operating in north-western Europe are warning intending passengers to check the situation before travelling to the airport.

Although the disruption was far less than the blanket shutdown across much of Europe when Eyjafjallajokull first erupted last month, the plans of hundreds of thousands of business and holiday travellers were still thrown into chaos over the weekend. Portuguese airports were badly affected, with 119 flights cancelled at Porto and 71 at Lisbon. Scores of flights between the UK and the continent were cancelled by Ryanair and EasyJet from airports including Stansted.

Swiss airlines cancelled 16 flights to Germany, Hungary and the Netherlands, and airports were starting to close in Austria last night, with Vienna expected to shut by midnight, and none reopening before 5am today. Ireland's west coast airports were closed by mid-afternoon, and the flag carrier, Aer Lingus, apologised for the cancellations since last Tuesday.

Transatlantic connections were also diverted to avoid the cloud, adding hours to flights between Europe and North America, and causing runway congestion as flights missed their landing or takeoff slots.

On the industrial front the outlook remains just as cloudy. The joint general secretaries of the Unite trade union, Tony Woodley and Derek Simpson, will consider a request by BA shop stewards for weeks of strikes starting as soon as next Monday. But BA is confident that contingency plans used during seven days of strikes in March will again blunt the impact of any industrial action.

Cabin crew rejected BA's latest attempt to resolve a dispute over staffing cuts last week. It is understood that Woodley and Simpson are sympathetic to a lengthy walkout. One plan, now believed to have been shelved, involved four waves of five-day strikes interspersed with 24-hour gaps. The ultimate decision over the form of industrial action lies with the general secretaries, but the airline could be disrupted until 8 June, including the week of half-term.

A trade union source said: "There are still discussions to be had about the length of any strike. But there is an acceptance that a lengthier strike may be what is needed to make the company see sense."

In an indication of the deteriorating relationship between BA and cabin crew shop stewards, only a handful of flight attendant representatives will be able to attend today's meeting because the airline has not released union officials from rostered duties, according to a union source.

Willie Walsh, the BA chief executive, has dismissed as "nonsense" claims by Unite and more than 100 industrial relations academics that he has embarked on a union-breaking exercise. The airline has repeatedly called on Unite and Bassa, its main cabin crew branch, to end the dispute over cuts in staffing levels on flights, which have been carried out without any compulsory redundancies.

However, the dispute has mushroomed into a clash over the removal of staff travel perks from 5,000 cabin crew who joined the first phase of walkouts in March and the disciplining of 55 staff over incidents related to the industrial action. Woodley and Simpson urged cabin crew to reject a BA peace offer, which partially addressed the staffing cuts, because it did not fully reinstate the discounted BA travel scheme or pledge leniency for the disciplined staff, including a senior Bassa representative who was sacked last week.

The new row over staff travel has raised the threat of a legal challenge from BA, after the airline wrote to Unite last week querying whether the union is now preparing to strike over a separate issue that has not been subjected to an official ballot. The first wave of strikes, over two consecutive weekends in March, cost BA around £43m with the six days of disruption due to the volcanic ash cloud costing a further £100m.

BA is seeking cuts in its cabin crew budget because it is on track to have lost around £1bn over the past two years.

Exit polls in North Rhine Westphalia indicate Angela Merkel risks losing her majority in the upper house of parliament

Angela Merkel suffered a bruising defeat in a key regional election as voters turned on her centre-right alliance after a campaign that was eclipsed by the Greek debt crisis.

The German chancellor's Christian Democrats (CDU) dropped more than 10% in the election in North Rhine Westphalia, according to exit polls. The CDU, which polled 34.5%, and its coalition partner, the Free Democratic party (FDP) – which secured 6.5% – no longer have an outright majority.

The defeat is likely to cast a shadow over the rest of the Merkel government's term in office. While the campaign was dominated by regional issues such as bankrupt municipalities and education funding, it was overshadowed by the international issue of debt-ridden Greece.

Merkel was widely accused of delaying a decision over the massive Greek bailout for fear that she would isolate voters in North Rhine Westphalia. In the event it was her perceived dithering that is believed to have contributed to the CDU's loss of support, along with a local party funding scandal.

Crucially for Merkel, the poll setback means that her coalition will now lose its majority in the Bundesrat, or upper house of parliament, which will make it far more difficult for her government to push through legislation.

The opposition Social Democrats (SPD), which had run on a par with the CDU in the polls for some weeks, also appear to have won 34.5% of the vote (a loss of 2.6%), while the Greens increased their standing by 6.3% to 12.5% – not enough for the two to form a majority.

The Linke – or Left – party, a relatively new political formation with its roots in the former communist East, increased its influence by securing 6%, enabling it to enter the regional state parliament for the first time.

With the CDU/FDP unable to form a coalition, and the SPD/Greens in a similar position, options for a new administration in North Rhine Westphalia are wide open. One not unlikely constellation is a grand coalition between the CDU and the SPD, which some Merkel insiders have said she might even favour over an CDU/FDP alliance as being potentially more workable. Merkel ruled with the SPD on a national level until last year.Meanwhile her future as party leader is now expected to be a subject for fierce discussion within the CDU over the coming months.

Times Square car bomb was the work of a Pakistani Taliban group, rather than "lone wolf" attacker

Senior White House officials said today they believe last week's Times Square car bomb was the work of a Pakistani Taliban group, rather than a "lone wolf" attacker, after finding evidence of a broader plot behind the botched attack.

A US citizen, Faisal Shahzad, 30, is in custody for the bombing and is said to be providing valuable information. The US attorney general, Eric Holder, told ABC television that a recent visit by Shahzad to Pakistan was no coincidence.

"We've now developed evidence that show the Pakistani Taliban was behind the attack," Holder said. "We know that they helped facilitate it. We know that they probably helped finance it. And that he was working at their direction."

A group called Tehrik-e-Taliban (TTP) claimed responsibility last weekend for the bomb, which failed to detonate after suspicious street vendors raised the alarm about a car abandoned in Manhattan's famous crossroads.

Although the group's claim was initially greeted with scepticism, the TTP was named today by John Brennan, the White House's special adviser on counter-terrorism. "It's looking like the TTP was responsible for this attack – that he [Shahzad] had worked with the TTP over the past number of months," he said.

The disclosure came as missiles fired by an American drone killed at least nine people in Pakistan's tribal belt this morning. Two missiles slammed into a house in North Waziristan, the tribal region where Shahzad claims to have met the Taliban leadership and obtained explosives training.

The US has stepped up pressure on Pakistan to attack militant hideouts in the tribal belt in recent days, particularly North Waziristan. Using unusually belligerent language, the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, warned of "very severe consequences" if a successful attack was linked to Pakistan.

In an interview due to be broadcast on CBS today, she said the US "wants more, expects more" from the Pakistani authories. "We've made it very clear that if, heaven forbid, an attack like this that we can trace back to Pakistan were to have been successful, there would be very severe consequences," she said.

The US military commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, reportedly delivered a similar message to the Pakistani army chief, General Ashfaq Kayani, at a meeting last Friday.

Clinton's threat is understood to mean the US could slow millions of dollars in economic and military aid, rather than mount direct military action in the tribal belt, although some American politicians have urged that, too.

The US is already engaged in its most ferocious campaign on Pakistan soil for decades, through the CIA drone strikes, which currently average about two per week. A senior Pakistani intelligence official said there had been 40 drone attacks this year, compared with 49 in the whole of 2009. Other tallies have counted just over 30 strikes in 2010.

The CIA has received permission to strike a much wider range of suspected militants than before, including those whose identities have not been established, the Los Angeles Times reported last week. Previously, the CIA could only attack individuals on a vetted list of Taliban and al-Qaida leaders.

Today's drone strike destroyed a compound in Datta Khel, a notorious militant stronghold close to the Afghan border. One villager told Reuters that drones circled over the destroyed compound for some time after the attack; the identity of those killed is not known.

"The Americans are very anxious and angry," said Dr Riffat Hussain, an Islamabad-based defence analyst. "Hillary is sounding a word of warning to Pakistan, and this latest drone strike may be related to that."

Separately, Pakistani army helicopters killed 18 militants and destroyed six militant hideouts during operations in Orakzai, another corner of the tribal belt where Taliban fighters recently beheaded three men, according to a government official in the area. The toll could not be independently verified.

Little progress expected until both sides sit around same table and Washington imposes own programme

Long-stalled indirect peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians resumed today, amid low expectations of success and a public warning from Israel that only face-to-face negotiations could produce an agreement.

George Mitchell, the US Middle East envoy, met the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, in Ramallah before the announcement that so-called "proximity talks" mediated by the White House had formally begun.

Saeb Erakat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, confirmed that discussions had resumed where they left off 18 months ago, when contact was broken off between Abbas and the then Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, during the Gaza war.

Erakat made clear that the Palestinians would go into direct talks only if Israel implemented a full freeze on building or expanding Jewish settlements in both the West Bank and East Jerusalem – the issue that has bedevilled US attempts to get the peace process back on track.

But Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel's current prime minister, told ministerial colleagues in Jerusalem that direct talks would be needed to reach a deal. "As time goes by, we cannot reach decisions and agreements on critical issues like security and our and their interests without sitting in one room," he was reported as saying. "Peace cannot be made from afar."

Israeli media reported that the US had told Abbas that it would not unveil mediation proposals or a plan of its own before the start of direct, substantive talks on the toughest "final-status" issues of the conflict such as borders, Jerusalem and refugees.

Yesterday, the PLO executive committee announced it had given the green light to Abbas to begin proximity talks – but only after receiving US assurances that Israel will refrain from "provocative" actions. The Arab League has agreed to support four months of talks. That deadline coincides roughly with the end of Netanyahu's partial 10-month West Bank settlement freeze.

Middle East analysts generally agree that prospects for agreement range from poor to non-existent, unless or until the US gets directly involved by tabling its own detailed blueprint for peace and eventually imposing it. Each side has profound doubts about the other's ability or willingness to do a deal.

Abbas, though backed by the US and EU, is a weak leader who faces challenges from his own Fatah movement as well as a debilitating split with the rival Islamists of Hamas, who oppose negotiations with Israel and still control the besieged Gaza Strip.

Netanyahu, leading the most rightwing government in Israeli history, depends on allies who are sympathetic to the West Bank settlers and do not accept a two-state solution. Strikingly, at the same time his coalition partners on the left are stressing the urgency of making peace.

Ehud Barak, the defence minister and Labour party leader, said in a speech on Sunday: "Without an agreement we will be subject to international isolation and we will suffer a fate similar to that of Belfast or Bosnia, or a gradual transition from a paradigm of two states for two peoples to one of one state for two peoples. Some people will try to label us as being similar to South Africa. That's why we must act."

Avishai Braverman, Labour's minister for minority affairs said: "It's time to address the core issues, courageously. The talks must stop focusing on one or another [West Bank] outpost or one or another building, and we must go straight to the main big problems. We are in such a state of international isolation that if we fail to move forward to a solution of two states for two people, that isolation will weaken us significantly."

With midterm elections looming, and Democratic fortunes fading fast, immigration is becoming an albatross for Obama

Arizona's draconian new immigration law has prompted calls from civil rights groups for a boycott of the state's industries and sports teams. But don't get too excited. It turns out that the new law is quite popular – and not just in Arizona. Two recent national polls – one by Gallup, the other by CBS – have found that a majority of Americans strongly approve of the state's immigration crackdown. In fact, some even some think it doesn't go far enough.

Have Americans become rightwing nuts? Hardly. But Washington's endless dithering on immigration policy has the whole country at a boiling point. And if Arizonans want to vent their anger, well, bully for them, say voters – including a majority of independents, and even a solid third of Democrats.

With the midterm elections just six months away, and Democratic fortunes fading fast, immigration is fast becoming an albatross for Obama. Egged on by his disaffected Latino base, Obama decided to denounce the Arizona law. But voters obviously don't agree with him.

And Obama has also decided to urge Congress to begin work on comprehensive immigration reform, even though his key GOP ally, Senator Lindsey Graham, a moderate, isn't playing ball. Graham warned Obama months ago that if he rammed healthcare reform through Congress, he could kiss immigration reform goodbye.

Apparently, the president wasn't listening.

And neither was Senate majority leader Harry Reid, who is trailing both of his GOP opponents in the polls, and could well lose his seat this November. Reid tried to rally Latino voters in Nevada last month by promising that Democrats would try to pass immigration reform this year, even if the GOP won't help.

Apparently, though, Reid forgot to consult with other Democrats. Because it turns out, post-Arizona, that there aren't enough Democratic votes to pass immigration reform. In fact, Reid may not even be able to get the 50 votes necessary to bring a Democrat-only bill to the Senate floor – let alone secure its passage.

What's Obama to do? Right now, he's caught between his angry and mobilised Latino base, which is demanding that he push forward with a plan to legalise undocumented immigrants, and mainstream voters, who seem to be leaning toward the GOP's view that border and workplace enforcement should come first.

It's a recipe for disaster.

Many Democrats – and not just Reid – need Latinos and other base groups to turn out in large numbers if they hope to prevail against Republicans this November – and preserve their party's control of Congress.

According to political experts, in some 35 congressional election contests in the West, a high Latino voter turn out could well provide the margin of difference.

Also up for grabs, depending on Latino voting, are critical races in high-density Latino states like Florida. There, a rising GOP star, Marco Rubio, who is Latino, is seeking to win a three-way Senate race in which former GOP Gov. Charlie Crist is running as an independent.

On the other hand, there are just as many competitive districts in the South and Midwest where key swing voters overwhelmingly support the new Arizona crackdown, according to polls. Any move by Obama and the Democrats in the direction of legalization – even stepped criticism of Arizona's new law, perhaps – could well doom Democratic fortunes there.

For the GOP, meanwhile, it's a question of how to balance the short-term political gain of holding out on immigration reform with the potential long-term damage to the party of appearing hostile to Latino aspirations.

Everyone knows, Latinos especially, that the Arizona GOP was responsible for the Arizona law. And since many Republicans at the national level have refused to criticize the law, they are not winning any new friends among a key swing constituency they lost in 2008.

But most Republicans are calculating that Latinos are just as concerned as mainstream voters about the deficit and the state of the economy – and won't penalise the GOP for not focusing on immigration before November.

And, in fact, like many Democrats, the GOP is also finding itself boxed in by its nativist wing. Just ask Senator John McCain, who has enthusiastically backed the state's new immigration crackdown because of nativist pressure from GOP challenger, and Tea Party favorite, JD Hayworth.

If he hadn't, he wouldn't stand a chance of getting re-elected, observers say.

With only a narrow legislative window remaining – Congress takes a break on May 28, and when it returns, candidates start ginning up their election campaigns – serious action on immigration is unlikely.

Reid, already under fire from the GOP for his grand-standing on immigration, has promised to focus on an energy, bill first and foremost.

Obama, meanwhile, recently took advantage of the annual White House "Cinco de Mayo" celebration to say that he still hoped that Congress would "start work" on immigration this year.

In the game of verbal inches that often passes for Washington politics, that statement was taken as a positive sign.

Of what, though, no one's exactly sure.

• Site close to synagogue where Jews were captured
• Ceremony comes amid rise in antisemitic attacks

It has taken nearly 70 years, but tomorrow, as the sun sets over Athens, a monument to honour Greece's Holocaust victims will finally be unveiled.

Athens is the last EU capital to commemorate those who perished at the hands of Nazi forces.

"To get here has been difficult but now it is done the message is simple. We have not forgotten and we will not forget," said Benjamin Albalas, president of the Jewish community in Athens.

Greece lost more of its Jewish population in the Final Solution, proportionately, than almost any other country in Europe during the second world war. Around 65,000 men, women and children were dispatched to their deaths in Auschwitz between 1941 and 1944.

An estimated 1,000 Athenian Jews were packed off to the concentration camp in April 1944 after thousands fled or went underground. Arriving there after a two- week train journey, they were met by Dr Josef Mengele. "He selected 320 men and 328 women for his own 'research,'" writes the historian, Mark Mazower, in his book Inside Hitler's Greece. "The others were immediately gassed and burned in crematoria."

What remains of the country's Jewish community today had campaigned long and hard for the memorial to be erected. The quest began in earnest last year when the municipality of Athens donated a prime piece of real estate, overlooking the ornate cemetery where Pericles delivered his famous funeral oration in honour of the Athenians killed during the Peloponnesian War in 431 BC. Few areas resonate as much with the ideals of freedom, equality and democracy.

More symbolically, the site is also close to the synagogue in Melidoni street where, under a ruse of food hand-outs, the Jews of Athens were trapped and captured by the Germans.

The acclaimed Greek-American artist DeAnna Maganias conveyed what the Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel describes as "man's inhumanity to man" in a plaque on the site. Carved in the form of the Star of David – the ancient symbol of Judaism – acting like as compass, the sculpture points to the cities and villages across Greece from where tens of thousands of Jews were gathered and deported. The community chose it on the basis of its "simplicity" and "ingenious design".

"In keeping with the Jewish tradition it symbolised death and the memory of death in a quiet and calm way," said a committee member who oversaw an international competition for the memorial. But the marble monument, which is set in a herb garden, is also about healing. While six of the work's pieces are triangular, conjuring broken-off pieces of the star, the central piece, a massive hexagon block, remains intact and is reminiscent of rejuvenation and survival.

"The herbal garden is a symbol of healing and place," said Maganias. "The idea is that people walk around the monument. The orientation of the star, engraved with the names of cities and towns from which victims were deported and the smell from the herbs aim to act as a catalyst of memory."

The unveiling of the monument comes against a backdrop of growing attacks against Jewish targets in Greece. In January Crete's historic synagogue was firebombed twice following the vandalism of cemeteries nationwide. Constantine Plevris, a prominent neo-Nazi accused of inciting racial violence with a book glorifying Hitler, was also acquitted by the supreme court.

"Incidents of antisemitism are definitely on the rise and our fear is they will increase with the economic crisis afflicting Greece," said David Saltiel, who heads the Central Jewish Council representing the country's 7000-strong community.

"We feel especially depressed by the decision of the supreme court. This monument, which as a community we dedicate to this city, is a reminder of what can happen when a society loses its tolerance for people who are different."

Mary Michalidou, an expert on monuments in Greece, agrees that Athens' Holocaust memorial is long overdue. "But," she says, "while it should have happened earlier, its location aesthetically and symbolically couldn't be better. It will now rank among Europe's best Holocaust monuments."

Culture minister Sandro Bondi refuses to attend event over screening of Sabina Guzzanti's Draquila which mocks the PM

The Italian government is refusing to take part in this year's Cannes film festival in protest at a documentary mocking prime minister Silvio Berlusconi's response to the L'Aquila earthquake, which devastated the central Italian town last year, killing more than 300 people.

Italy's culture minister, Sandro Bondi, snubbed an invitation to the festival, expressing his "regret and concern" over the screening of Draquila, which he described as "propaganda that offends the truth and the entire Italian population".

The work of Italian satirist Sabina Guzzanti, Draquila claims that Berlusconi systematically exploited victims of the quake to increase his popularity.

Coming at a time when Berlusconi's ratings had dropped to an all-time low and he was assailed by accusations over his private life, the earthquake "was as if God had stretched out his hand" to the prime minister, says Guzzanti. In one scene she impersonates Berlusconi strutting in front of cameras wearing a hard hat.

The daughter of a former MP in Berlusconi's People of Freedom party, Guzzanti has long been a thorn in the side of the Berlusconi government. In 2008, Italy's equal opportunities minister Mara Carfagna threatened to sue her when she suggested Berlusconi had given the 32-year-old former topless model her job in return for sexual favours. Both Berlusconi and Carfagna have denied reports of an affair.

Italian authorities tried to prosecute her for saying that Pope Benedict will "end up in hell, tormented by queer demons".

Her film will infuriate Berlusconi, who moved the G8 summit to L'Aquila and has repeatedly cited the government's response as a major achievement.

Bondi's refusal to go to Cannes risked sparking a diplomatic row. Former French culture minister Jack Lang branded Bondi's decision "absurd", adding that he had "a strange concept of [artistic] freedom".

"His position is puerile, infantile and capricious. Incomprehensible from a minister of the republic," said Lang, currently special envoy of French president Nicolas Sarkozy.

In Italy, opposition politicians and film-makers called for Bondi's resignation . "It's not art that offends the truth and the Italian people, but the decision of a minister who, instead of acting like one, prefers to play the role of the prime minister's faithful servant," said Luigi De Magistris, an MP with the Italy of Values party.

Bondi also came under fire from within his own party. "Representing Italy is the minister's duty over and above polemics," said People of Freedom MP Fabio Granata. "It's a question of respect for Italian cinema."

However, Bondi received support from opera director and film-maker Franco Zeffirelli, who claimed the minister was right not to go. "I don't see why Bondi should endorse an unworthy film that offends Italy," he said, "The festival is famous for putting the world's rubbish on its bill."

World number one John Higgins comes out fighting as new allegations emerge that he bet on himself to lose

The world No 1 snooker player whose suspension last week over match-fixing allegations threw the sport into turmoil vowed today to "vigorously defend" himself, as new claims emerged that he had bet on himself to lose in last year's world championship final.

For the second week running, John Higgins knocked the general election off the front of the News of the World as the Sunday tabloid followed up last week's allegations, which featured Higgins caught on camera agreeing to lose four specific frames later this year, with new claims that he had bet on himself to lose during last year's final against Shaun Murphy.

Higgins, who was immediately suspended last Sunday as his agent Pat Mooney was forced to resign from the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA) board, has insisted that he has never intentionally missed a shot or lost a frame. He again insisted on Sunday he was "100% innocent" and vowed to clear his name.

The Scot said in a statement that the past few days had been "emotionally draining for me and my family". He said: "In the last week I have experienced a whole range of emotions: despair, frustration, anger, rage and most of all a sense of betrayal."

Sunday's reports alleged that Higgins called a bookmaker to place a bet of around £1,000 on himself to lose at the halfway point of last year's final, which he went on to win.

Although betting to lose on a match in which you are involved is now banned under snooker's disciplinary code, so called "insurance betting" was commonplace in snooker, and even encouraged by some in the sport, until recently.

And players still regularly bet on there being a higher break in the remainder of a tournament, for example, if they hold the highest.But a government review into sporting integrity and the threat of match fixing concluded earlier this year that governing bodies should move towards a ban on any professional sportsman or woman betting on their own sport, whether they are involved or not, in order to remove any suggestion that they could be influenced.

The WPBSA chairman, Barry Hearn, who has seen his plans to revitalise the sport thrown into disarray by last week's allegations, said the new information would be passed to David Douglas, the former Metropolitan police chief who sits on the governing body's board and is heading an inquiry into Higgins's case and other similar claims.

Criminal prosecutors are deciding how to proceed in other match-fixing cases involving allegations against three other top players, all of whom protest their innocence. "It appears to be another breach of the rules but it doesn't materially affect the issue.

"The information will be passed to David Douglas to consider along with the other information he has. It appears to be a case of insurance betting rather than an attempt to fix the result," said Hearn, who has promised a lengthy ban for Higgins if he is found guilty of agreeing to lose frames in exchange for an alleged payment of €300,000.

A bloodthirsty painting of a Highlands otter hunt has been controversially chosen as the centrepiece of an exhibition of art celebrating hunting and sport

A painting normally considered too upsetting for modern tastes – bloodthirsty hounds, triumphant hunter and speared otter – is to go on display as the centrepiece of a new exhibition examining the artistic celebration of hunting and sport.

Curators at the Bowes Museum in Barnard Castle, County Durham, admit they thought long and hard about whether a visitor warning for Sir Edwin Landseer's depiction of a Highlands otter hunt (the otter lost) was needed. They decided against but are open to changing their minds.

In the meantime, it will go on display for the entire summer from on Tuesday along with old and new works exploring Britain's passion for hunting, horse racing, football and boxing.

Exhibition curator Laura Layfield admitted that, while impressive, the painting is undeniably "gruesome" and the reason why it was taken off permanent display by its owners, the Laing in Newcastle. "It is an amazing landscape and we're offering a rare chance to see it," she said. "This is the perfect example of showing how Landseer was trying to produce history paintings, it is almost like a battlefield scene."

Landseer – who sculpted the lions in Trafalgar Square – spent a long time in the Highlands watching country life and the otter painting depicts a hunter and enthusiastic otter hounds belonging to the Earl of Aberdeen.

He wanted, along with artists such as George Stubbs and Alfred Munnings, to show that depicting sport and animals was not, as many sniffily thought, a lower form of art.

Horse racing features heavily in the show, reflecting the passions of the museum's founder, John Bowes, who, with a remarkable horse called West Australian, was the first man, as owner, to win the Triple Crown (Derby, St Leger, 2,000 Guineas).

The show is the first in the museum's new temporary exhibition space and is - along with new galleries for decorative arts and fashion/textiles - the latest evolution of a museum with one of the most romantic histories of any in the UK.

The building – imposing and grand – opened in 1892 in the pretty Teesdale market town of Barnard Castle, the fulfilment of a philanthropic dream held by Bowes and his wife Joséphine .

Bowes's life story is the stuff of fiction. He was the illegitimate son of the tenth earl of Strathmore and Mary Millner, a working class village girl. Because of that, on his father's death the title and Scottish estates went to Bowes' uncle while he had to make do with a not insubstantial inheritance in Durham.

After Eton and Cambridge, Bowes served 15 years as Liberal MP for South Durham before, in 1847, having some sort of epiphany. He moved to Paris and bought the Theatre des Varietes, beginning a relationship with a not very good actress called Mademoiselle Delorme, or Benoite-JosephineCoffin-Chevallier as she preferred not to be known.

It was a match made in heaven and they married in 1852, becoming enthusiastic patrons of the arts and voracious collectors of paintings, ceramics, and furniture.

They had no children which probably fed their obsession of creating a museum of national renown to house their vast collection.

Although it is packed with Sèvres and Meissen ceramics as well as paintings by the likes of Gainsborough, El Greco and Goya, the most popular item in the museum is still a mechanical silver swan which visitors breathlessly run to each day to see it wound up at 2pm whereupon - for 32 seconds - it preens itself, bends its neck and takes a fish from the water. It was bought by the Bowes' after they saw it at the Paris International Exhibition of 1867, also seen by Mark Twain who described it in The Innocents Abroad - "I watched the Silver Swan, which had a living grace about his movement and a living intelligence in his eyes." These days it's also on Youtube.

• British Sporting Art runs 11 May-10 October.

It has one of the most offputting names imaginable. But a Canadian mining town is hoping to turn that to its advantage

Stepping into the jaws of a monster asbestos pit might not be most people's idea of fun, but a small French-Canadian mining town is out to change all that with a surreal campaign to attract the tourist dollar. Asbestos (population 5,000) is the spiritual home of a substance banned across most of the western world. Recently it has come under fire for exporting the cancer-causing mineral to developing countries, such as India and China.

The town believes its eponymous export has been unfairly demonised. It may have a major public relations problem, but isn't going to let this get in the way of its plans to offer healthy living and adventure activities to tourists.

Alain Roy, a local councillor, describes global medical consensus on asbestos health risks as "de la bullshit". The townsfolk are proud of their heritage, he says. "We would be happy to welcome tourists to tell them the truth about who we are."

At 2km wide, the Jeffrey mine is almost as big as the surrounding town – a vast, graduated lunar landscape that developers plan to turn into an adventure-lovers' paradise, with tracks designed for all-terrain vehicles and bicycles. The project has already been road-tested. Rock climbing may be a possibility.

"It's like a great big sand pit, a gigantic playground!" says Marc Cantin, a coordinator at the local tourist board.

The town could have trouble pushing the healthy-living pursuits. A schlep down the local cycle path, past dismal slag heaps and asbestos rock hills, makes my alveoli ache. The surrounding countryside is lush and verdant, yet still the spectre of the white stuff looms.

Roy hopes to attract 30,000 new visitors a year and much of the promotion will target visitors to the prettier, though arguably less entertaining, neighbouring town of Danville. The two are to be linked in around three years to a hiking trail leading from the US border, less than 100km away.

There are no holiday-makers at local bistro Le Fou du Roi but dinner is a pleasant affair. The young cook, Carl Viens Vucharme, is keen to see more tourists. "If they're scared, they could always wear a mask," he says.

We've had the decades that fashion forgot. Now let's remember that it's all just a lot of clothes

I have never been terribly at ease with fashion. People can tell that about me from the merest hint of a glance from a long distance. I understand that some clothes are attractive and some are not. I understand that some colours work together aesthetically, and certain cuts are better than others for certain kinds of bodies. But the fashion industry loses me at the point where everything changes every six months. I can't possibly keep up with that. I have enough trouble understanding what's going on in Ashes to Ashes.

I can't think of another industry in which the changes are that swift, that extreme and that superficial.

Technological trends change fast, of course. It's long been noted that the brand new whizzy laptop you've just bought will have been superseded by the time you reach the bus stop. But that's on the basis of scientific advances. Not usually on aesthetics. Though Macs are pretty. So pretty.

Tastes change in other arenas too. There are bands I thought were great in my teens that I'm rather embarrassed about ever having liked. My brother warned me about buying albums by the Doors when I was 15. I should have listened. Ironically, in retrospect it was probably the leather trousers rather than the music that attracted me in the first place. Clearly my head is no longer turned by such things.

There's always hyperbole, there's always a bright new thing in music or film. There are movements in art, and styles change there too. But we don't suddenly hate Damien Hirst's work because Gillian Carnegie has come up with something new. We hate it because it's horrible.

Nothing's quite as flighty as fashion. It has seasons. That's something I can understand, but only to the point of floaty dresses = summer; jumpers = winter. I can't understand why flares and drainpipes come and go on someone's whim, and I am always several years behind what's supposedly good. That's mainly because I am still trying to work out why it's better than the last thing that was good, failing to realise that it's because I have been told that it is.

I don't object to changing tastes. Of course not. My tastes change. For example, I probably wouldn't wear the grey donkey jacket I wore for most of my teens now. But that's a self-expression issue. I am no longer quite as hung up on seeming moody, or as attached to being depressed. And what I wear reflects that. Actually, more often than not, what I wear reflects the fact that I've just got off my bicycle. Not a great look, but not beholden to a world in which Ugly Betty looks like fun. But I object to tastes changing because someone set a date when they should. That's cheating.

Is it as simple as familiarity breeding contempt? No, it's economics taking over everything, including what we wear. And it's wrong because clothes are important. They help us express who we are, though that's dangerous territory, especially on mufti day at school. And they're a basic human need, protecting us from the elements, unless you're from Newcastle. But food and housing are basic needs too, and no one mocks you for living in last season's flat or for still eating bananas when mango's so much more of the "now". That's coming, though, isn't it? Oh God …

Value judgments on the ugliness or beauty of things that we wear are intrinsically weird. There are some items of clothing that we can all agree are awful. Many of them will be lauded during London Fashion Week and the like. And yet they'll be taking over our lives and influencing what we wear and how we're perceived and how much we're shamed into buying – until the next big thing takes over in about 10 minutes' time.

The decade before last might traditionally be the one that fashion forgot, but let's make this decade the one in which we remember that they're just clothes.

Let's have a lovely moment in London Fashion Week when the style gurus all say: "Do you know, what you've got on now's just fine." And as we're entering a new period of austerity, let us cry "Make do and mend!" and let slip the dogs of wardrobe.

She models for Armani, enjoys a game of baseball and likes to stay out drinking cocktails. Jude Rogers meets Joanna Newsom, the outspoken singer making harp-playing cool

Not for the first time, Joanna Newsom looks a little out of place. We are on the set of Later with Jools Holland, and she is sitting behind her huge harp, a tiny figure, with Iggy Pop and Ozzy Osbourne to her left, and Courtney Love to her right. Then she starts to play, and sing. Iggy stares at her for a moment, before sitting back. A broad smile spreads across his face.

In the six years since Newsom released her debut album, The Milk-Eyed Mender, she has remained a constantly surprising presence. The reasons are legion. She makes ambitious folk-inspired records in an era when the album is meant to be dead. Her lyrics mix archaic language with modern vocabulary, sung in a distinctive, stark voice – which a critic for AllMusic.com described as "somewhere between Bjork and a handbrake". She has made harp music influenced by Venezuelan and west African rhythms fashionable to indie fans. And stranger still, this mix sells out venues such as the 3,000-capacity Royal Festival Hall in minutes.

We meet again the afternoon after her performance on Later, and she has only been up a few hours after "quite a few post-show cocktails". Newsom is easygoing and down-to-earth, staying in a nondescript Hyde Park hotel. I order some tea, and she bites her lip: "I thought it might be time for a glass of wine. But no, you're right, tea! I can't get drunk on tape!"

It was Newsom's second album, Ys, in 2006 that made her name. A suite of five songs over 55 minutes, she had assembled a strong creative team, including Beach Boys collaborator Van Dyke Parks, Steve Albini, and her then-boyfriend, singer-songwriter Bill Callahan, to record it. In January 2007, she performed the album with the LSO, and with symphony ensembles around the world – not bad for a 24-year-old.

Then there was a change of direction. In late 2007 she and Callahan separated; she toured with a group of friends she called The Ys Street Band. Then she played a negligent mother in the video for MGMT's single Kids, modelled for Giorgio Armani, and was photographed at baseball games with US comedian Andy Samberg, now her boyfriend. More dramatically, last year she had an operation to remove nodules from her vocal chords, leaving her singing voice still distinctive, but much less high.

Some fans objected, which Newsom finds perplexing. "They're so horrified! It's a very weird thing." She speaks in elegant, carefully constructed sentences. "That's not to say that I haven't changed over time, because I have. But I haven't changed in the ways people think I have. If you'd asked me about fashion in 2004, for example, I'd have responded in nerdy detail. I think what's changing is that people are slowly understanding that I'm not what they originally assumed I was."

Born in Nevada City in 1982, a tiny goldrush town in northern California, Newsom tends to get characterised as an otherworldly type – a fairy, a pixie, a magical soul. And it's fair to say that her musical tastes are unusual: her parents took her to study at folk music camp as a child, while her musical heroes include folk singer Roy Harper and minimalist composer Ruth Seeger. She admits she's said some "dumb things that added fuel to the fire", and wishes she had been more canny. "You know, if people ask a question that contains within it the assumption that I am a pixie, and then I have to respond – it validates the assumption."

Far from being a pixie, she worries that she doesn't read enough and watches "too much crappy TV". She's also a big fan of Jay-Z and Kanye West – though not Lady Gaga. "I'm mystified by the laziness of people looking at how she presents herself, and somehow assuming that implies there's a high level of intelligence in the songwriting. Her approach to image is really interesting, but you listen to the music, and you just hear glow sticks. Smart outlets for musical journalism give her all this credit, like she's the new Madonna …" She breaks off and laughs. "Although I'm coming from a perspective of also thinking Madonna is not great at all. I'm like, fair enough: she is the new Madonna, but Madonna's a dumb-ass!"

Later, she emails to clarify what she describes as her "late-afternoon dopiness" on this subject: "I may have contradicted myself. My problem isn't actually with Lady Gaga. But there's not much in her music to distinguish it from other glossy, formulaic pop. She just happens to wear slightly weirder outfits than Britney Spears. But they're not that weird – they're mostly just skimpy. She's fully marketing her body/sexuality; she's just doing it while wearing, like, a 'fierce' telephone hair-hat. Her sexuality has no scuzziness, no frank raunchiness, in the way that, say, Peaches, or even Grace Jones, have – she's Arty Spice! And, meanwhile, she seems to take herself so oddly seriously, the way she talks about her music in the third person, like she's Brecht or something. She just makes me miss Cyndi Lauper." And on the subject of Madonna: "I shouldn't have called Madonna a dumb-ass. Her music and she have just gotten so boring to me, this last decade. I think maybe she doesn't hold her money very gracefully, the way some people can't hold their drink. But one thing she is surely not is dumb." She signs off warmly and sweetly, but it's not exactly a retraction.

When Newsom talks about her new album, Have One on Me, it becomes even clearer what bothers her about these two women. Have One on Me is a triple album that runs to almost two hours, but is much more direct than her previous work, and more grounded in female experience. The title track is about a 19th-century courtesan called Lola Montez, a mistress to the King of Bavaria, who was famous for allegedly inventing a dance in which she revealed she was wearing no underwear.

Montez lived for a time in Newsom's hometown, and became a figure of local myth. "I've always been fascinated by her," she says. "And in recent years, I found there was a parallel between what I do as a profession and what it meant to be a female artist at that time. I was noting the intersections between being a courtesan or a whore, and these professions that were socially looked down upon, the sort of professions that were basically creative."

Newsom still lives in Grass Valley, near where she grew up, and misses the area intensely when she is on tour, or visiting her boyfriend in New York. "It's a place where I immediately feel like myself, where I'm able to socialise without too much shyness."

'I'm a Simpson! I made it!'

She says that the vividly drawn versions of her on her album covers point to parts of her personality. But she denies making any conscious effort to appear otherworldly, and says the announcement of her album's existence only four weeks before its release was a practicality rather than a marketing strategy. "The music press is so saturated with Twitters and blurbs and MySpace – there's so much that is just noise. It's overwhelming and also, I think, ineffective." She laughs. "So we just thought we wouldn't play with that, and just announce it once."

She admits Newsom the performer and Newsom the private person are closer now than they have been – particularly in songs like Does Not Suffice, which concludes the new album. It's about a woman leaving her lover; she won't say who it's about, but hints heavily. "There were a few songs on the record that came to me quickly before I had a chance to stop them, and that was one. The mood of that song is the mood I was in."

She places her tea cup back on her saucer, and wants to talk about things other than music – like the fire alarm that saw her on Bayswater Road in her pyjamas at 6am, the curry she is looking forward to having tonight, and the fact that Simpsons creator Matt Groening turned her into a cartoon for the All Tomorrow's Parties festival she played at the weekend, which he curated. "Holy shit! I'm a Simpson! I made it!" She giggles, and there is a trace of that famous squeak. "I don't need a damn Grammy or anything. That's the sort of magic all this madness is for."

Joanna Newsom plays the Royal Festival Hall, London SE1 (0844 875 0073), with Roy Harper, tomorrow and Wednesday. Have One on Me is out now on Drag City.