Thirteen workers flee drilling platform but oil company denies spill

Fresh fears about drilling in the Gulf of Mexico were raised today when fire forced workers to abandon an oil and gas platform, just six months after the BP explosion that created an environmental disaster in the region.

The company, Mariner Energy, said none of the 13 workers, who fled the platform and took to the sea in immersion suits, were injured. The coastguard said they were taken by ship to a nearby platform and from there to hospital in Houma, Louisiana, to be checked. Ships, helicopters and a plane were sent by the coastguard from Houston, New Orleans and Mobile.

Photographs of smoke billowing from the rig alarmed politicians, environmentalists, fishermen and others on the Gulf coast, still coping with pollution from the BP oil spill.

Peter Troedsson, a spokesman for the coastguard, said the fire had been put out and, in spite of initial reports of an oil slick, ships and helicopters at the scene could see no pollution round the platform.

He said the initial report had come from a Mariner ship at the scene, but the coastguards could see no oil sheen at the site.

The fire is a setback for the oil industry, which has been arguing that drilling in the Gulf is safe and that the BP explosion was a rare event. It came only 24 hours after companies including Mariner had staged a rally in Houston against a moratorium on deepwater drilling in the Gulf. About 5,000 employees had been bussed in for the rally.

Barbara Dianne Hagood, a spokesman for Mariner Energy, told the Financial Times on Wednesday: "I have been in the oil and gas industry for 40 years, and this [the Obama] administration is trying to break us. The moratorium they imposed is going to be a financial disaster for the Gulf coast, Gulf coast employees and Gulf coast residents."

Another spokesman for Mariner, Patrick Cassidy, said he did not anticipate any pollution, as the platform had not been drilling and there had been no blowout. "There is no hydrocarbon spill," he said.

The fire had broken out on a facility above the water, at some distance from the wells, he added.

Dave Reed, an oil worker on a platform about 14 miles away, told CNN he could see the smoke and that a call had gone out for ships, helicopters and planes in the region to divert to the area. "It took an hour for the helicopters to get here and all 13 were taken from the water," Reed said.

The alarm was raised by a commercial helicopter flying over the platform. A coastguard spokesman, chief petty officer John Edwards, said: "We were able to confirm that all people were accounted for."

The fire broke out on the platform Vermilion Oil Rig 380, about 90 miles south of the Louisiana Coast and west of the earlier BP explosion that had killed 11 workers.

Both the White House and the coastguard said they did not anticipate any pollution, but that ships equipped with facilities to help clean up spills had been sent to the area as a precaution.

The White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs, said: "We obviously have response assets ready for deployment should we receive reports of pollution in the water." The White House stressed that, unlike the BP rig, the platform was not a deepwater facility and was only working to a depth of 340ft.

BP's attempts to cap its well, which saw hundreds of millions of gallons of oil spill into the Gulf, were bedevilled by the depth at which they had been drilling. They finally capped the well in July.

Mariner is a small company in the process of being taken over by the Apache oil company in a deal worth an estimated $3.9bn (£2.5bn). The deal has not yet been completed. Shares in both companies fell after news of the fire.

Israeli and Palestinian leaders begin framework talks on a peace deal which could encompass borders, Jerusalem, Jewish settlements and security

The Israeli and Palestinian leaders, Binyamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas, met for the first day of direct talks in Washington yesterday and agreed that a peace deal could be achieved within a year.

George Mitchell, the White House envoy who joined the negotiations, said the two leaders decided to begin putting together a framework agreement on all major issues – such as borders, Jerusalem, Jewish settlements and security – that will "establish the fundamental compromises necessary" to flesh out a comprehensive peace deal.

Mitchell said Netanyahu and Abbas agreed to meet again in a fortnight in the Middle East and every two weeks after that. The US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, and Mitchell will attend the first of those meetings on 14 September.

The negotiations are likely to face their first real test with the next round of talks coming just days before Israel's partial freeze on construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank comes to an end.

Netanyahu has so far resisted US calls to renew the freeze, which the Palestinians see as a litmus test of the Israeli prime minister's intent.

Mitchell declined to disclose the detail of the discussions, although he said some of the major issues were touched on. Netanyahu and Abbas met US officials and then met privately. Mitchell described the two men's relationship at the talks as "cordial".

Before the talks opened, Netanyahu said two key demands – recognition of his country as a Jewish state and arrangements to ensure it does not come under attack from within a Palestinian state – were a prerequisite to a wider agreement.

Netanyahu again called Abbas his "partner in peace" and said he was prepared to make "painful concessions" to reach a deal. But the Israeli prime minister said that what he called the "two pillars to peace" must be resolved.

Clinton launched the negotiations by calling for the leaders to show themselves as bold and courageous statesmen and reach a comprehensive peace agreement within the one-year deadline set by Barack Obama. "We understand the suspicion and scepticism that so many feel born out of years of conflict and frustrated hopes," she said. "But by being here today you each have taken an important step toward freeing your peoples from the shackles of a history we cannot change."

Netanyahu said Israel was prepared to make sacrifices to reach an agreement. "Together we can lead our people to a historic future that can put an end to claims and to conflict. This will not be easy. A true peace, a lasting peace, will be achieved only with mutual and painful concessions from both sides … from my side and from your side," he said.

Hamas responded to the talks by announcing that it has joined forces with other armed groups such as Islamic Jihad to launch a wave of attacks against Israel. Earlier this week, Hamas claimed responsibility for the killing of four Jewish settlers in the West Bank, including a pregnant woman.

The Israeli prime minister said there were two issues that he regarded as central to any agreement: legitimacy and security. "Just as you expect us to be ready to recognise a Palestinian state as the nation state of the Palestinian people, we expect you to be prepared to recognise Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people," he said. "I said too, a real peace must take into account the genuine security needs of Israel … new forces have risen in our region, Iran and its proxies and the rise of missile warfare [with Hamas attacks from Gaza]. A peace agreement must take into account security arrangements against these real threats."

Abbas said he believed a deal was possible. "We're not starting from scratch, because we had many rounds of negotiations between the PLO and the Israeli government."

Warning extended to include Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts

Hurricane Earl blew towards North Carolina today with winds of up to 125mph (200kph), putting the east coast on alert. Federal emergency management agency (Fema) administrator Craig Fugate said there was no longer time to wait on the next forecast to see how close the eye of the storm might get to shore.

A hurricane warning for the tip of Massachusetts, including Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard, joined earlier warnings and watches for hurricanes or tropical storms that stretch from North Carolina up to near the Canadian border.

"They really need to focus today on what they're going to do before the storm gets there," Fugate said. "Implement your plans and be ready to heed evacuation orders."

Earl was a dangerous category 3 storm and the hurricane force winds were beginning to spread farther from the eye as the centre of the storm underwent a change, the National Hurricane Centre in Miami said.

The centre's director, Bill Read, said hurricane winds were spread 90 miles from the eye and widening. The eye of the storm was predicted to remain about 30 to 75 miles east of the Outer Banks, meaning that, at the closest point of approach, the western edge of the eyewall could impact Cape Hatteras, with huge waves, beach erosion and maybe some property damage from the waves.

"They're going to have a full impact of a major hurricane," Read said.

There will be a similar close approach for the eastern tip of Long Island, Rhode Island, Martha's Vineyard, and Nantucket. "They'll be facing a similar scenario that North Carolina is facing today," Read said. "And it will be bigger. The storm won't be as strong but they spread out as they go north and the rain will be spreading from New England."

That will mean strong, gusty winds much like a nor'easter, and because leaves are still on the trees, there could be fallen trees or limbs and downed power lines. "This is the strongest hurricane to threaten the northeast and New England since Hurricane Bob in 1991," said Dennis Feltgen, a meteorologist and spokesman for the National Hurricane Centre. "They don't get storms this powerful very often."

The North Carolina National Guard is deploying 80 troops to help, and president Barack Obama declared an emergency in the state. The declaration authorises the Department of Homeland Security and Fema to coordinate all disaster relief efforts.

Captain and two bowlers protest their innocence as players are to be interviewed by police under caution

The three Pakistan cricketers at the centre of an alleged betting scam that has thrown world cricket into crisis were last night charged under the anti-corruption code of the game's governing body and provisionally suspended.

After a day that began with the Pakistan Cricket Board agreeing to omit the players from the team for the rest of the tour, and the Pakistan high commissioner claiming they were "set-up" by the News of the World, the ICC suspended the three pending a tribunal.

Outside the west London hotel in which Test captain Salman Butt, fast bowler Mohammad Asif and brilliant teenage prospect Mohammad Amir are also staying, ICC chief executive Haroon Lorgat provided the swift action many in the game had demanded.

"We will not tolerate corruption in cricket – simple as that. We must be decisive with such matters and, if proven, these offences carry serious penalties up to a life ban," he said.

"The ICC will do everything possible to keep such conduct out of the game and we will stop at nothing to protect the sport's integrity. While we believe the problem is not widespread, we must always be vigilant. It is important, however, that we do not pre-judge the guilt of these three players. That is for the independent tribunal alone to decide."

Under tougher new rules brought in last year by the ICC, the players can be suspended provisionally ahead of any hearing if it is in the interests of the game.

The row was triggered by allegations in the News of the World that the three had agreed to bowl no-balls in specific overs of last week's fourth Test at Lord's in return for money.

The charges were announced after officials from the ICC's anti-corruption and security unit (ACSU) spent the afternoon at Scotland Yard viewing evidence and seeking police go-ahead. The police are conducting a parallel criminal inquiry.

The three players will today be interviewed under police caution for the first time. Earlier they had agreed to withdraw from the rest of the tour citing the "mental torture" they had been placed under by the allegations. They protested their innocence and the Pakistani high commissioner suggested they might have been "set up" by the News of the World.

While their team-mates were turning out against Somerset 160 miles away in Taunton, the accused three were being whisked into their country's high commission in London amid a flurry of claims and top level political negotiations.

ICC investigators, who had been examining spot-fixing allegations against Pakistan for some time, have been in London since Monday. Sir Ronnie Flanagan, the former Northern Ireland police chief who was appointed chairman of the ACSU three months ago, arrived from Abu Dhabi to join them, while its chief investigator, Ravi Sawani, met police.

But despite withdrawing the players from the tour, following pressure behind the scenes from the England and Wales Cricket Board and the sport's global governing body, the Pakistan camp remained bullish.

The high commissioner, Wajid Shamsul Hasan, claimed the players had been "set up" by the News of the World. Asked if they had been framed, he answered "yes" and suggested the newspaper's video evidence could have been filmed after the contentious no-balls had been bowled.

The News of the World said it "refuses to respond to such ludicrous allegations". The newspaper is understood to be preparing further revelations for Sunday.

Hasan said of the three players: "They are extremely disturbed about what has happened in the past week, particularly in regards to their alleged involvement in the crime. They mentioned they are entirely innocent and shall defend their innocence as such.

"They further maintain that on account of the mental torture that has affected them they are not in right frame of mind to play the remaining matches."

Pakistani journalists repeatedly asked whether the team was a victim of a conspiracy and Pakistan's sports minister, Ijaz Jakhrani, also suggested there could be another explanation for the apparently damning News of the World evidence.

"Let's wait until the report comes. After that we will be in a position to see if it is spot fixing, if it is match fixing or if it is a conspiracy against these players or against the country," he told the Indian news channel CNN-IBN.

After the three wary-looking players arrived to a media posse and a small knot of 20 or so protesters, officials from the Pakistan high commission handed out copies of an article by the journalist and academic Roy Greenslade.

The piece was highly critical of the methods used in previous stings by Mazher Mahmood – the so-called "Fake Sheikh" behind the sensational News of the World claim that a middleman accepted £150,000 to correctly predict the exact time when no-balls would be bowled.

Although Hasan insisted the three players were "not running away" – they will remain in England and their passports are being held by the team manager – they were whisked out of a side door and departed in a people carrier while the car in which they arrived acted as a decoy.

Mazhar Majeed, the 35-year-old middleman the News of the World alleges was at the heart of the betting sting, was arrested on Sunday and released on bail. Separately, he was also arrested as part of an investigation by HM Revenue and Customs into money laundering through Croydon Athletic, the non-league football club he owns.

Both the ECB and the ICC felt the intense focus on and public clamour for action had made it impossible for the three players to play any further part in the tour. The ICC was under pressure to act before Sunday's Twenty20 match between England and Pakistan in Cardiff.

Sources had indicated all week that a negotiated withdrawal was the most likely solution, but a last minute intervention from PCB chairman, Ijaz Butt, threw a spanner in the works. His insistence that the players might still play was seen as an attempt to reassure the Pakistani public that it was not capitulating.

Regulatory agency says findings should not stop medicinal use of oral bisphosphonates

Longterm use of drugs that are commonly prescribed for osteoporosis may be doubling the users' risk of developing cancer of the oesophagus, a study warns.

The drugs are routinely used to either treat or prevent osteoporosis and other bone conditions and are taken by many hundreds of thousands of patients.

Research in today's British Medical Journal links the use of oral bisphosphonates to an increased risk of getting one of the more severe forms of cancer, although no links were found to stomach or bowel cancer.

Experts from the University of Oxford's cancer epidemiology unit and the government's Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) analysed data from a UK GP practice database on around 6 million people.

Among those aged 40 and over, 2,954 had oesophageal cancer, 2,018 had gastric cancer and 10,641 had bowel cancer, all diagnosed between 1995 and 2005.

Examination of their health records showed that the chance of oesophageal cancer was 30% higher in people who had had one or more previous prescriptions for oral bisphosphonates, compared with people who had never taken the drugs.

The risk was almost double for those who had 10 or more prescriptions, compared with those who had had less than 10. And for those taking the drugs for at least three years – five years on average – the risk was more than double compared with those who had never had a prescription for the drugs.

Typically, oesophageal cancer develops in one per 1,000 people aged 60 to 79 over five years. Use of oral bisphosphonates over five years would push this up to two cases per 1,000 people, the authors said.

The main author, Dr Jane Green, said: "Oesophageal cancer is uncommon. The increased risks we found were in people who used oral bisphosphonates for about five years, and even if our results are confirmed, few people taking bisphosphonates are likely to develop oesophageal cancer as a result of taking these drugs.

"Our findings are part of a wider picture. Bisphosphonates are being increasingly prescribed to prevent fractures, and what is lacking is reliable information on the benefits and risks of their use in the long-term."

Each year, around 8,000 people in the UK are diagnosed with the disease and around 7,500 people die from it.

An MHRA spokesman said the findings should not stop patients from taking their bisphosphonate medicine. He said the UK Commission on Human Medicines had advised that the evidence from the study was not strong enough to suggest a definite causal association between oral bisphosphonates and oesophageal cancer. However in order to reduce risk of oesophageal irritation it is important to carefully follow the instructions.

The spokesman added: "Patients should also report any signs of oesophageal irritation such as difficulties or pain on swallowing, chest pain, or heartburn to their doctor."

Recent studies have suggested no link between the drugs and oesophageal cancer, but it is thought the drugs do protect against breast cancer in post-menopausal women.

Assistant secretary general to investigate after community leaders say they begged for help before villagers were raped

Pressure grew on the UN over its peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo yesterday after claims that it ignored appeals for protection just days before more than 240 villagers were raped by rebel forces.

Human rights groups said the UN was still failing to safeguard civilians after 11 years in Congo and demanded an urgent review. A British MP said the best solution now lay in seeking military support from Congo's neighbour, Rwanda.

The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, has sent his assistant secretary general for peacekeeping, Atul Khare, to investigate the alleged lack of action from the Congo stabilisation mission, Monusco, the world's biggest peacekeeping mission, which costs $1.35bn (£865m) a year.

The attacks took place between 30 July and 4 August, and the number of reported victims is now 242, ranging from a month-old baby boy to a 110-year-old woman. Survivors have accused the FDLR rebel group – which is led by perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide who fled to Congo – along with Congolese Mai-Mai militia.

Charles Masudi Kisa said his Walikale Civil Association sounded the alarm on 25 July, telling local authorities that the withdrawal of soldiers from several outposts was putting people in danger of attacks from rebels. The military had abandoned every post from Luvungi to just outside Walikale for unclear reasons, he said.

On 29 July, acting on information from motorcycle taxis, he warned the UN civil affairs bureau in Walikale, the army and the local administration that rebels were moving in on Luvungi. "We told them these people were in danger," he said.

Lyn Lusi, programme manager of the Heal Africa hospital in Goma, which treated many of the rape victims, said appeals had gone unheeded. "There was a warning it was going to happen," she said. "They took it to the FARDC [Congolese army] and nothing was done."

Lusi said Khare had announced that the UN would clarify its rules of engagement so that peacekeepers could intervene more aggressively. The UN was unable to confirm this.

Monusco insists it was not told of the attacks for more than a week, despite having a base just 20 miles from Luvungi.

Roger Meece, the UN mission chief in Congo, said UN peacekeepers in the area did not learn about the rape and looting spree until 12 August. Two UN officials in Kinshasa told the Associated Press they heard it from media reports, even though the UN's small civil affairs office in Walikale is charged with protecting civilians.

Ellie Kemp, Oxfam policy head in Congo, said she understood there was no community liaison interpreter for the Monusco unit based near Walikale, making it difficult for villagers to convey warnings. She said one had since been assigned.

"There is a whole series of problems that the UN has been aware of for years," Kemp added. "Soldiers on the ground don't know what's needed of them."

She called for the UN to launch a public inquiry into the mission. "It shouldn't take this kind of incident to make the UN listen to its own advice. Why the hell hasn't it happened?"

Others joined the criticism. Sipho Mthathi, the South Africa director of Human Rights Watch, said: "Civilian protection has remained one of the biggest problems in the DRC and has been one of the biggest failures by the UN as well as the Congolese military. The UN lacks capacity to gather enough intelligence to act proactively. They often feel that if they come in they will be outnumbered by the FDLR. If the UN missions and Congolese army are not capable of protecting civilians then there has to be another way."

Erwin van der Borght, the Africa programme director at Amnesty International, said: "[We call] for an immediate review of the failures of the DRC government and the UN to protect civilians during the mass rape and other sexual violence committed in the Walikale region of North Kivu between 30 July and 2 August, specifically in light of media reports that the UN might have received information at an early stage that civilians were at risk of violence by armed groups."

Congo's army and Monusco have been unable to defeat the few thousand rebels responsible for the conflict in eastern Congo, fuelled by the vast mineral reserves. Monusco has been accused of supporting army units responsible for grave atrocities. The Congolese government wants it to withdraw next year.

Eric Joyce MP, chair of the all-party parliamentary group on the Great Lakes Region, said: "Monusco seem completely and utterly impotent," he said. "They do their best under constraints, but they are thinly spread and don't have fighting troops as Rwanda could provide. The international community needs Rwanda to do something about the FDLR."

Jan Brewer, running for re-election as Arizona governor, suffers not one but two televised debate car-wrecks

Poor Jan Brewer, the current governor of Arizona and a hero to the anti-immigration movement in the US. Taking part in her one (and, we can safely assume, only) candidates' debate before the election in November, she suffers not one but two televised meltdowns.

The first, above, occurred during the debate itself, while she was making her opening statement and was attempting to list her accomplishments. That should have been the easiest part of the debate. But no. "It will go down as one of the most painful openings to a political debate in recent memory," noted NPR.

Yesterday, Brewer commented: "It certainly was the longest 16 seconds of my life. I'm human, I'm human."

The second, below, came after the debate when she was confronted by reporters asking about her previous claim that decapitated bodies of illegal immigrants had been found in the Arizona desert – although there is no evidence to support Brewer's claim.

Repeatedly asked to explain her claim – which she had used as an example of why Arizona needed its controversial new anti-immigration law – Brewer simply refused to open her mouth, before fleeing the scene to annoyed groans from the assembled journalists.

Her performance will presumably be some help to her Democratic challenger, Arizona's state attorney general Terry Goddard, who challenged Brewer to recant her statement on the beheadings during the debate. But Brewer enjoys a huge opinion poll lead and her twin meltdowns seem unlikely to make enough of a dent.

The universe just ramped itself up. Simple. And yet doubts remain - spontaneous creation is, for most folk, just a contradiction in terms

"Dear Sir: Your astonishment's odd; / I am always about in the quad." This was the divine response, as imagined by Ronald Knox, to the inquisitive undergraduate who, following Bishop Berkeley's line of thought, wondered whether a tree in the college quadrangle would still exist if God was not there to sustain it. Now someone rather higher in the academic hierarchy has raised the question in a different form. Professor Stephen Hawking says in his new book that there is no place for God in theories about how the universe got started: "Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something." Anyone who has ever watched in amazement as a piece of domestic equipment, say a washing machine, suddenly swings into action, even though no human hand has touched any buttons, will be able to grasp something of what Hawking is hinting at here. The universe just ramped itself up. Simple. And yet doubts remain. One accepts that if God were to choose one day to explain the universe to Hawking, the professor would be one of the few people on the planet with any serious chance of understanding the conversation. But spontaneous creation is, for most folk, just a contradiction in terms. God may or may not find all this amusing. The thing is – how to put this gently to Professor Hawking? – that God does not necessarily follow the ins and outs of our many arguments about His existence. Who could blame Him if, after all this time, He has become tired of them? Meanwhile, there is still a tree in the quad.

The very possibility of bisexuality can sometimes run into the same disbelief that Queen Victoria is said to have shown towards lesbianism

It has to be said that something is awry when rumours about a politician's sexuality leave him feeling forced to publicise the miscarriages his wife has suffered. Quite what that something is, however, is harder to pinpoint than it would have been in the past. William Hague made his extraordinary statement on Wednesday despite serving in a government alongside openly gay ministers. Homosexuality is not the bar to office that it once was, and yet gay politicians face a distinctive pressure to declare themselves as such.

While suggestions that the foreign secretary is anything other than straight are no more than gossip, in a truly tolerant society there would be nothing to gossip about. To see that there still is, consider the case of Crispin Blunt, the prisons minister who last week let the press know he was leaving his wife to "come to terms" with being gay. While it may indeed be OK to be gay in public life, it is not done to be unsure about it. The very possibility of bisexuality can sometimes run into the same disbelief that Queen Victoria is said to have shown towards lesbianism. In this warped context the harrowing experience of marital miscarriage can be offered up to counter allegations of sleeping with men, whereas it should be no more material than it would be in the case of an affair with a woman.

All sorts of people are coy in discussing who tugs on their heartstrings. But from Ron Davies' "moment of madness" 12 years ago to David Laws' resignation this spring, politicians of all stripes have paid a price for being anything less than upfront about any attraction they feel towards the same sex. That price is perhaps especially high for those cut from conservative cloth. This is less a point about the top of today's Conservative party, which David Cameron has gone to some lengths to lead towards tolerance, than about those parts of society where old prejudices still lurk. Homophobia has touched all wings of politics over the decades, but it is most easy to find on the right. Fusty assumptions that liberals first challenged two generations ago have only faced serious challenge within reactionary circles during the last few years. Some of the mud hurled Mr Hague's way seems to trace back to his own constituency association, while Mr Blunt's local party is reportedly "unhappy" that he had dared to keep his private feelings private. While the slow tide towards tolerance appears irreversible, Mr Cameron's own vote against fair access to IVF for would-be lesbian mothers is another reminder that it has a way to go.

The prime minister was nonetheless standing solidly with his foreign secretary yesterday, just as he stood alongside Mr Blunt, whose welcome political survival is a heartening reminder of how times have progressed. It has often been said that sex itself is less politically poisonous than all the connected questions of finance, probity or supposed security risks, and that is doubly true today. The only possible public interest question in connection with Mr Hague is whether any hypothetical feelings he harboured for his aide Chris Myers prompted him to appoint him as a special adviser. Even if this did happen, it is not certain that any rule would have been broken, since such rules as there are state that advisers are "exempt from the general requirement that civil servants should be appointed on merit".

Just as MPs were once able to appoint their spouses as secretaries, ministers recruiting advisers are still unaccountable for their choice. As we report today, the coalition is placing political staffers into supposedly apolitical official roles, perhaps to avoid taking flak for creating more of the unpopular special adviser posts. That is the wrong response, but so is a kneejerk bar on all political appointees. In order to work with an apolitical bureaucracy, ministers need to be able make a few appointments of their own. They ought, however, to be answerable for these. Making them so would help to prevent private lives from being dragged into the public mire.

Other people on Pankaj Mishra's list of influential anti-Islamic witch-hunters (Comment, 1 September) can speak for themselves, but please let me state clearly what I have several times stated before: that I am not against Islam, but against Islamic extremism. I regard Islamic extremism as the biggest threat that Islam faces. I only wish I were influential, so that I could do more to get this surely very simple point across: Islam, like most religions, is well supplied with textual incitements to violence that nobody takes seriously except the violent, who are looking for an excuse. In other words, the menace lies in the extremism, not in the religion.

Doesn't Pankaj Mishra feel the same? It isn't always easy to detect what he really means under the rhetoric: writers who don't realise that a collection of words like "triggers a tsunami of vitriol" is a hopelessly mixed metaphor are apt to leave their readers puzzled. But as far as I can make out, he genuinely thinks that Ayaan Hirsi Ali has a right to protest against her childhood injuries, as long as she accepts that such injuries are inflicted by "patriarchal cultures" and not by her religion. Hirsi Ali blames the religion, which she wants dismantled.

As it happens, I agree more with him than I do with her. The abolition of Islam, in my view, would not be desirable even if it were possible. What Islam most needs to do, however, is to find ways for its vast majority – more than a billion people all over the world – to express their condemnation of a murderous minority. We are prepared to accept that silence does not mean indifference or tacit approval. But if silence means that those who say nothing about atrocities generated within the Islamic culture are worried that they will help anti-Islamic forces in the west then they are mistaking their real enemy.

No western government wants to persecute Muslims. There are private citizens in the west, extremists on their own account, who would like to persecute Muslims, but they do not have their hands on the levers of power. Whether in the Islamic countries or in those western countries which have a significant Islamic component to their population, most of the people who want to persecute Muslims are Muslims. Most of the Muslims who get persecuted are women. To that hideous anomaly, Ayaan Hirsi Ali is perfectly understandable when she takes a root-and-branch attitude. After all, a root-and-branch attitude was taken to her: she was a female, so she suffered.

Perhaps Pankaj Mishra could answer a simple question. It is the same question that Nicolas Sarkozy, before he was President of France, once asked Tariq Ramadan when they were on television together. Sarkozy asked Ramadan whether he condemned the stoning of women. Ramadan, so much admired by Pankaj Mishra, said he couldn't answer until the subject had been discussed by the imams. Would Pankaj Mishra care to answer, or is he, too, waiting to be told?

Clive James

Cambridge

Tony Blair thinks the media got McCain and Obama the wrong way around in 2008, according to his autobiography

What did Tony Blair think of the 2008 US presidential election? Chris Brooke, who is valiantly live-tweeting his reading of Tony Blair's memoir, A Journey, highlights Blair's take, which comes on pages 512-513:

It's one of the oddest things about modern politics. The paradigm imposed, usually by a particular media view, completely disorients the proper analysis. I used to smile at the way the Obama/McCain election of 2008 was framed: Barack was the man of vision, John the old political hack. One seemed to call America to a new future, the other seemed a stale relic of the past. This was a paradigm that determined the mood and defined the election.

Actually, it was John who was articulating a foreign policy that could be called wildly idealistic for the cause of freedom. Barack was the supreme master of communicating a brilliant vision, but he was a practitioner of realism, advocating a cautious approach based on reaching out, arriving at compromises and striking deals to reduce tension. For these purposes, leave alone who is right. It's just a really interesting feature of modern politics that the mood trumps the policy every time.

'It's time to get to work,' says US secretary of state with the knowledge that expectations are low as negotiations begin

It is clear Israelis and Palestinians face a tough slog if the negotiations launched in Washington today are to get anywhere near the agreement Barack Obama hopes to reach within a year.

Low expectations were reflected in the opening statements, but it was the US that sounded most determined to keep hopes alive in the face of profound scepticism in the Middle East and beyond. Hillary Clinton's most significant comment was her promise to be an "active and sustained partner" – noting that an agreement was "in the national security interests of the US".

But her clear warning that the US "cannot and will not impose a solution" will alarm those who believe that only thus will Israelis and Palestinians be able to wriggle out of what she called "the shackles of history" to make peace.

Clinton's appeal to "those who criticise and stand on the sidelines" was unlikely to impress Hamas. The Islamist movement that controls Gaza prefers resistance (including the killing on Tuesday of four Israeli settlers) to negotiations, and excoriates Mahmoud Abbas as a traitor.Wider Arab support for this re-launched process is limited to two close US allies — President Mubarak of Egypt and King Abdullah of Jordan, who both already have (domestically unpopular) peace treaties with Israel. Saudi Arabia and Syria, which attended the ill-fated Annapolis talks in 2007, were conspicuously absent.

Crucially, neither side signalled any readiness for concessions that could create forward movement in the talks, though it would have been surprising if they had at this stage.

Binyamin Netanyahu's familiar script reflected his dual need not to alienate the Americans or his rightwing coalition allies at home. So he hailed Abbas as a "partner" while stressing the importance of security, and repeated his insistence on explicit recognition of Israel as "a Jewish state" – a demand taken by many as a way of blocking the right of return of Palestinians who lost their homes in 1948 and 1967.

Netanyahu's pointed references to "Iran and its proxies" and the emergence of "missile warfare in the region" in recent years were reminders of the threats he and many of his compatriots worry about far more than the Palestinians these days. It may be true that "a lasting peace will be achieved only with mutual and painful concessions from both sides," but there was no sign that he is willing – or politically able – to extend his grudging moratorium on settlement building in the West Bank when it expires later this month. The Palestinians have warned they will break off talks if he does not.

Netanyahu's solemn invocation of the biblical Isaac and Ishmael — burying the Patriach Abraham "the father or our two peoples... in a moment of pain and mutual respect" seemed unlikely to win many Palestinian hearts or minds.

Abbas, speaking in Arabic through an interpreter after Netanyahu's fluent American English, was less florid, warning of "the magnitude of the obstacles facing us" and calling again on Israel to freeze settlements and end the siege of the Gaza Strip. Reference back to an agreement signed by Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat (pictured below, with Bill Clinton) after Oslo in 1993 was a reminder of a more hopeful era.

But Abbas – often criticised by Hamas as a "collaborator" – sounded anxious to prove his good intentions when he revealed that Palestinian security forces were already on the track of the gunmen – Hillary Clinton's "enemies of peace" – who struck with grim predictability near Hebron on Tuesday night. "We cannot tolerate any actions that will undermine your security or ours," Abbas said.

Clinton, ending the public part of proceedings with an affectionate pat on the back and a handshake for each leader in turn, had the best line: "Now it's time to get to work," she concluded. And very hard work it is going to be.

The summit in Washington between Binyamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas follows several previous attempts at peace

Camp David I Israel signed the Camp David accords in 1978 and a peace treaty with Egypt in 1979 and returned the Sinai peninsula in return for full relations with its former enemy. But talks on Palestinian autonomy went nowhere.

Madrid The mother of all Israeli-Arab peace conferences was at Madrid in 1991, when Israel and all its immediate Arab enemies came to the negotiating table for the first time. Israel refused to deal directly with the PLO, so the Palestinians formed part of a joint delegation with Jordan. Talks eventually petered out but the principle of "land for peace" has remained the basis for all subsequent negotiations.

Oslo This summit in 1993 was the big breakthrough, leading to the famous handshake between Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin on the White House lawn. Israel and the PLO recognised each other. Rabin's assassination in 1995 marked a sharp decline. Israel came to regret the Oslo deal, while many Palestinians saw it as a trap to perpetuate occupation.

Camp David II Subsequent smaller-scale agreements, at Taba, Wye Plantation and Sharm el-Sheikh were followed by Bill Clinton's final attempt to broker a deal at Camp David in 2000. Agreement seemed close even on the toughest issues – Jerusalem borders and settlements – but in the end talks collapsed. Each side blamed the other for the breakdown, which was followed by the second Palestinian uprising.

Annapolis In 2007, a belated attempt by George Bush to show his concern for Israel-Palestinian peace after 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq. It was widely dismissed as little more than a photo-opportunity.

Israeli prime minister gives positive message to 'partner for peace' Mahmoud Abbas

Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, launched peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians today with a call for courageous, bold leadership and an appeal to stay the course even when a resolution seemed elusive.

Clinton noted that all of the key participants – Binyamin Netanyahu, Mahmoud Abbas and herself – had been there before in one role or another.

"Those of you here today, especially the veterans who are here today, you have returned because you have seen the cost of continued conflict," she said. "The core issues at the centre of the negotiations – territory, security, Jerusalem, refugees, settlements and others – will get no easier if we wait, nor will they resolve themselves."

For many diplomats, though, the great unanswered question at the talks was which Netanyahu would be at the table: 14 years ago the same Israeli prime minister seemed determined to kill any peace deal at talks with Yasser Arafat overseen by the US secretary of state's husband, the then president Bill Clinton.

Yesterday Netanyahu's language was of historic compromises and went further than many expected, repeatedly calling the Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, his "partner for peace".

Diplomats had expected the Israeli prime minister to pay lip service to a peace deal and even to make some significant concessions. What they had not expected were the repeated pledges to peace that poured forth after Netanyahu's meeting with Barack Obama yesterday and again today before the talks.

"Together we can lead our people to a historic future that can put an end to claims and to conflict. This will not be easy. A true peace, a lasting peace, will be achieved only with mutual and painful concessions from both sides … from my side and from your side," he said. "The people of Israel, and I as their prime minister, are prepared to walk this road and to go a long way in a short time to achieve a genuine peace that will bring our people security, prosperity and good neighbours."

Clinton suggested that maybe the experience of the years of missed opportunities and violence had tempered the Israeli leader as well as the Palestinians.

Netanyahu and Abbas both said they recognised the point. The Palestinian leader said that the issues were not new, and that was a reason for optimism.

"We're not starting from scratch because we had many rounds of negotiations between the PLO and the Israeli government," he said.

Netanyahu reiterated his assertion he would make historic compromises. However, the Israeli prime minister said that there were two issues he regarded as central to any agreement – "legitimacy and security".

"Just as you expect us to be ready to recognise a Palestinian state as the nation state of the Palestinian people we expect you to be prepared to recognise Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people," he said. "I think this mutual recognition between us is indispensable to clarifying to our two peoples that the conflict between us is over.

"I said too, a real peace must take into account the genuine security needs of Israel … new forces have risen in our region, Iran and its proxies and the rise of missile warfare [with Hamas attacks from Gaza]. A peace agreement must take into account security arrangements against these real threats.

"President Abbas, I'm fully aware and I respect your people's desire for sovereignty. I'm convinced it's possible to reconcile that desire with Israel's security."

Abbas noted that his Palestine Liberation Organisation recognised Israel's legitimacy in earlier accords going back to 1993, although they do not mention it explicitly as a Jewish state.

The Palestinian leader called for an end to all Jewish settlement construction in the occupied territories, an issue likely to be an open sore at the talks. Netanyahu has declined to commit himself to extending a partial freeze on building in the settlements in the West Bank, although not occupied East Jerusalem, when it expires this month. The Palestinians see the issue as a litmus test of his intent.

The difficulties of agreeing that compromise were highlighted after Netanyahu's defence minister, Ehud Barak, said the day before the talks that Israel could meet a Palestinian demand to divide Jerusalem so that the mainly Arab east of the city could become a Palestinian capital. "The Arab neighbourhoods in which close to a quarter of a million Palestinians live will be theirs," Barak told Haaretz newspaper.

One of Netanyahu's aides immediately contradicted Barak, saying the prime minister's position at the talks will be that the city must remain fully under Israeli control.

"Our position is that Jerusalem will remain the undivided capital of Israel," the aide said.

Stupid me, I should have remember to go to undispatch.com and check their archives on this. As usual, the intrepid Mark Leon Goldberg has been on the story of the Human Rights Council and the universal periodic reviews.

In the comment thread to my earlier post on this matter of the State Department and the Arizona immigration law and the UN, I wrote, in response to left halfback, who thought that the US shouldn't be reporting to the UN period end of story:

LHB: The point of participating in such a regime is not to expose ourselves to the UN; it is to set the example of participation so that other countries with less exemplary records may feel forced to do the same. Do we want Egypt and Syria and China and lots of other places to improve their human rights records? Of course we do. Pressuring them to participate in this UN regime seems like a way to help that process along.

No it won't change things overnight. Nothing does. But I rather like the idea of three countries with decent human rights records having the chance to comment on what I presume would be a phony and self-serving and false report by an Egypt or what have you. It can't hurt, and it strikes me as an improvement over the old way.

But the US will have no leverage over the Egypts if we don't participate ourselves. And so the moral of the story: It feels cathartic to tell the UN to f--- off and it proves Uncle Sam doesn't kowtow to anyone. But it also reduces our moral authority to criticize other nations. This is something they don't think much about over on Fox.

Back in February, Goldberg wrote the following tale about how the UPR process had actually made a bit of a difference:

Still, the ultimate measure of the effectiveness of the Universal Periodic Review is the extent to which it can inspire a country to alter its internal human rights practices. With countries that are generally rejectionist of this sort of external interference (say, Iran and North Korea) there is an obvious limit to what the council can practically accomplish. On the other hand, countries that have troubling human rights records, but are not completely rejectionist, have been inspired to improve their human rights records based on the recommendations of the Universal Periodic Review. For example, Human Rights Watch notes that following Saudi Arabia's first review last year, the Saudi government pledged a number of reforms on women's rights, ending the juvenile death penalty, and expanding its labor laws to include protection for domestic workers.

So there you are. This process yielded tangible gains in a country with a pretty dismal record. Here's a section from the Human Rights Watch write-up Goldberg linked to:

Saudi Arabia accepted a recommendation put forward by UN member states in February to take steps to end the system of male guardianship over women, to give full legal identity to Saudi women, and prohibit gender discrimination. The government also clarified that the Shari'a concept of male guardianship over women is not a legal requirement, and that "Islam guarantees a woman's right to conduct her affairs and enjoy her legal capacity."

Like any big process, it's far from perfect. But a little bit at a time. And in 10, 20 years, the UPR process might have a string of important successes to its credit.

But it couldn't work without the US's participation. Without the United States taking part, countries could and would just blow the process off. If you want to debate the political wisdom of including the Arizona thing, because it's fodder for the right, fine. But that's a political question, not a substantive one. On substance, I think these last two posts have made it abundantly clear that there are benefits to the US and the world to UPR participation.

It must always be remembered, when confronted with one of these new right-wing memes. Remember to tell yourself whenever you hear one that in all likelihood, there's some minuscule grain of truth to it, but you can be virtually certain that they are twisting it out of shape and omitting context that puts matters in a very different light. Do not panic like the Democrats too often do. Seek out facts. It took me half an hour to find this stuff out. Even allowing for the fact that you're not journalists with Barbara Crossette articles miraculously landing in your in-boxes, you could do it, too.

And, as several of you wisely said in the earlier thread, everything the Democrats do is potential fodder. Let Us Not Go Into Tizzies and Deliver Us From Distortion. Here endeth the lesson.

Ric O'Barry, who appeared in the Oscar-winning film, delivers petition signed by 1.7 million people to US embassy in Tokyo

The star of an Oscar-winning film about dolphin hunting in Japan delivered a petition to the country's US embassy calling for an end to the practice.

Ric O'Barry, 70 – who appeared in The Cove and trained dolphins for 1960s TV show Flipper – was flanked by police and dozens of supporters carrying banners. The petition was signed by 1.7 million people from 151 countries.

O'Barry had hoped to deliver it to the Japanese fisheries agency but cancelled the plan after threats from a nationalist group with a history of violence. The Cove, which won this year's Oscar for best documentary, shows fishermen from the town of Taiji who scare dolphins into a cove before killing them slowly by piercing them repeatedly.

O'Barry said: "I'm not losing hope. Our voice is being heard in Taiji."

The annual hunt in the town began on Wednesday, but boats came back empty. The government allows the hunting of around 20,000 dolphins a year and argues that killing them is no different from breeding cows and pigs for slaughter. Most Japanese have never eaten dolphin meat and, even in Taiji, it is not consumed regularly.

In attempt to scotch rumours of ill health, fugitive Thai prime minister has photo released of him 'visiting Nelson Mandela'

Emerging from weeks of silence, the former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra has appeared in Africa, where he said he was dealing in diamonds and visiting Nobel laureate Nelson Mandela.

A photograph of his meeting with the former South African president was released in Thailand by his lawyer in an apparent move to quash rumours that the fugitive was ill – and to advertise that he was rubbing shoulders with VIPs abroad.

"I travel all the time. Currently, I'm in Africa for diamond mining," Thaksin told the Thai Rath newspaper, adding that rumours of his failing health were lies. He said the photograph of him with Mandela was taken last Friday.

A spokesman for the Nelson Mandela Foundation in Johannesburg did not return several calls seeking comment.

Thaksin, who was ousted in a military coup in 2006, has been accused of funding the anti-government Red Shirt protests in April and May. Protesters occupied Bangkok's main shopping district, forcing the closure of shopping malls and hotels , in an attempt to unseat the government and possibly bring Thaksin back to power. Sporadic violence and a crackdown by the military left 91 people dead and 1,400 wounded.

The tycoon-turned-politician, who remains popular among his rural poor power base, was convicted on conflict of interest charges in 2008 and fled the country. Thailand revoked his passports but Thaksin has acquired at least two new ones from Nicaragua and Montenegro.

He is believed to be living in Dubai. He has spent much of the past four years roaming the globe in search of business deals. He visited South Africa previously to inspect diamond mines and has travelled to Liberia, Uganda and Swaziland for investments in diamonds and gold. He has posted photographs of meetings with leaders on trips to Sri Lanka, Papua New Guinea and the Maldives.

Normally active on Twitter, Thaksin's last posts came on 25 July, the day before his 61st birthday, when he called for political reconciliation in Thailand. Since then he has kept a low profile.

In the interview with Thai Rath, he complained about a Thai supreme court ruling in February that approved the seizure of $1.4bn (£910m) of his assets over his abuse of power while in office.

"More than half of my assets have been robbed from me, so I have to earn them back again to look after my kids," he said of his three adult children. In a list of Thailand's wealthiest people published this week, Forbes magazine put Thaksin at 23 with a net worth of $390m.

Gay Tory MPs are adamant that the foreign secretary is not, as Lady Thatcher used to say, 'one of us', but it doesn't end there

Reporters who remember William Hague's byelection win in Richmond in 1989 affectionately recall one odd aspect of the campaign. Whatever they asked a Conservative press officer about their precocious bachelor candidate's views on great issues of the day, the jittery answer would usually be: "Did you know, his girlfriend's arriving tomorrow?" Yet gay Tory MPs are adamant that the foreign secretary is not, as Lady Thatcher used to say, "one of us".

Attitudes on sexuality have become much more relaxed since the days of section 28, to the point where having gay MPs is mandatory and David Cameron promises to curb homophobic bullying in the playground. As the "gay spy" narrative falsely imposed on murdered M16 staffer Gareth Williams showed yet again last week, Downing Street is yet to promise similar curbs in Fleet Street.

The media's reluctance to abandon a good sex story, let alone admit error, means it has been chipping away at Hague ever since. Far from being discouraged by his marriage to Ffion Jenkins, a member of his staff, shortly after becoming Tory leader in 1997, the pack took it as a challenge. "No smoke without fire" is a familiar justification for sexual gossip, straight or gay. From John Profumo to David Laws via Cecil Parkinson and David Mellor it is sometimes even true.

In most circumstances Hague's denial, accompanied by distressing revelations of miscarriages, should be regarded as watertight. He used the word "never" in respect of any gay relationships. But people lie about money and sex. So Tory hopes that the Sunday papers will take his word for it may be premature. Meanwhile the justification for stoking fresh headlines has shifted to one of Hague's "judgment".

It is marginally less humbug than the "national security" concerns spuriously invoked in the Profumo affair. Was Hague, 49, right to share a hotel room with a young aide (of either sex) or to appoint a talented friend to a special adviser's post for which his qualifications were not obvious? MPs were divided today. Brilliant but naive, an "intensely private" loner who does not consult enough, was the kinder verdict. Naive but arrogant was the sceptics' take.

Trickier by far was whether it was wise of the Foreign Office to issue an inadequate statement on Tuesday, which led to Hague's self-lacerating second effort 24 hours later. The worldly publicity pimp, Max Clifford, was adamant that Hague's statement was a major error, one which gave TV networks the green light to pursue what had only been a blog-driven tabloid tale.

"Only when it appears on TV does a story become serious with voters," scandal-ravaged MPs tell new colleagues. "Until that happens it is best to say nothing."

But Hague made clear yesterday that he and his wife felt they had endured enough gossip and wanted to take a stand. Honest, but naive was Westminster's prevailing verdict, it will not buttress his wonky reputation for wise judgement in the day job.

The Hagues' reward today was pages of gossipy coverage, mock sympathy over their miscarriages and suggestions he may quit politics. He was making a reported £1m a year before David Cameron lured him back. Downing Street dismisses such talk, but some sympathetic Tory MPs, still nursing bruises from the expenses scandal, do not. If Hague were to retire hurt after David Laws's departure the coalition cabinet's average IQ would be seriously depleted, though not necessarily its stock of common sense.

Historian suggests Princess Charlotte, sister of Kaiser Wilhelm II, may have hosted orgy to entrap aristocratic rivals

Its public image was one of prudery and Prussian punctiliousness, but a historical investigation into the sexual habits of the court of the last German emperor has revealed a previously unknown predilection for swinger-style parties and late-night orgies.

Using police files uncovered from the Prussian Secret State Archives in Berlin, historians have been able to reconstruct the erotic goings-on of a group of aristocrats and court officials, which started off as a sex party and ended in a series of bloody duels.

According to the Berlin historian Wolfgang Wippermann, a select group of Prussia's blue-bloods first met at the invitation of Princess Charlotte, the older sister of Kaiser Wilhelm II, at Jagdschloss Grunewald, a hunting lodge in the woods of western Berlin, in 1891.

The partygoers included the brother-in-law of the kaiser, his master of ceremonies, Leberecht von Kotze, a host of aristocrats and a foreign ministry state secretary.

The parties, details of which are revealed in Spiegel magazine, consisted of unbridled sex sessions, in which the participants drank and danced, as well as experimenting with a variety of different sexual positions.

Wippermann's research, which has culminated in the book Scandal in Hunting Lodge Grunewald, due to be published later this month, led him to a total of 246 letters, in which the experiments are outlined in detail.

The gatherings might have remained anonymous but for one of the partygoers, whose identity remains unknown – but who Wippermann suspects to be Charlotte herself – who the day after one of the escapades sent participants blackmail letters.

The letters included illustrations and descriptions of the events of the previous night, and threatened to reveal the identities of the participants.

Wippermann has no concrete proof, but believes that Charlotte, a chain-smoking lover of scandal who died after lengthy psychiatric treatment in 1919, may have even hosted the events with the sole purpose of entrapping her unwitting guests.

The attempts at blackmail exploded into a scandal of huge political proportions when news of the orgies reached high-ranking representatives of the Prussian court, as well as the emperor himself.

A heated debate in the Reichstag followed.

In the correspondence the whistle-blower, who graphologists say was certainly a woman, repeatedly takes a swipe at the Duchess of Hohenau, describing her as a "randy tart".

A celebrated horse rider, the duchess was married to the openly gay aristocrat Friedrich von Hohenau. Her love life was legendary and included liaisons with the future reichs chancellor Max von Baden, as well as Herbert von Bismarck, a state secretary in the foreign ministry.

The letter writer also unleashes her anger on Alide von Schrader, the wife of a master of ceremonies who enjoyed lesbian affairs, and Prince Aribert von Anhalt, an official for the first Olympic games, who is accused of having sex with other men.

After discovering his own master of ceremonies, Kotze, was deeply entangled in the affair, Kaiser Wilhelm had him imprisoned.

But Kotze was soon released because no arrest warrant had been issued and in his thirst for revenge began to search for the partygoers who had revealed his identity.

A series of duels between Kotze and other male partygoers followed. He was injured in one duel, receiving an Easter egg from the Kaiser as a get-well gesture, and then subsequently killed in another, when a bullet penetrated his intestine.

"I'm almost certain that Charlotte was responsible for this cabal," Tobias Bringmann, who has researched the case, told Spiegel. "What is needed now is to get a graphologist to compare her correspondence with that of the blackmailer."

Publishing's notion of what women want is dated and patronising. In my case it's like trying to stuff a rottweiler in a dress

The latest literary dust-up in the United States concerns the outsize critical admiration of Jonathan Franzen's new novel Freedom, the follow-up to his 2001 National Book Award winner The Corrections. Freedom secured two worshipful reviews from the New York Times in one week, the Book Review's lengthy cover essay drooling with such jaw-dropped awe that it was hard to read for the saliva stains. Franzen himself appears on the cover of Time, and Freedom sits in President Obama's stack of holiday reading.

Fellow novelist Jodi Picoult ignited online fireworks last week by claiming that female writers never attract the same reverence as "white male literary darlings" like Franzen. Naturally Picoult risks the appearance of plain old envy. Though a skilful craftsman, Picoult may also lack the literary standing to make such a charge. Myself, I've yet to read Freedom, embargoed until this Wednesday, but it does sound like an excellent book, one I'm looking forward to.

Nevertheless, Picoult has a point. A female novelist would never enjoy a Franzen-scale frenzy of adulation in America, which maintains two distinct tiers in fiction. The heavy hitters – cultural icons who often produce great doorstop novels that no one ever argues are under-edited – are exclusively male. Rising literati like Rick Moody and Jonathan Franzen efficiently assume the spots left unoccupied by John Updike and Norman Mailer, like a rigged game of musical chairs. Then there's everybody else – including a raft of female writers who keep the publishing industry afloat by selling to its primary consumers: women.

Elaine Showalter did a bang-up job in the Guardian Review last spring explaining why American women are never credited with writing the Great American Novel while identifying female writers who deserve more acclaim. So in preference to singing yet more praises of the gifted Annie Proulx, I'll share an inside glimpse of how publishers are complicit in ghettoising not only women writers but women readers into this implicitly lesser cultural tier.

With merciful exceptions, my publishers constantly send prospective covers for my books that play to what "women readers" supposedly want. Take the American reissue of my fourth novel Game Control – a wicked, nasty novel about a plot to kill two billion people overnight. The main character is a man, the focal subject demography. Yet what cover do I first get sent? A winsome young lass in a floppy hat, gazing soulfully to the horizon in a windblown field – soft focus, in pastels. Dismayed, I emailed back: "Did your designers read any of this book?" When I proposed a cover photo by Peter Beard of sagging elephant carcasses – perfectly apt – the sales department was horrified. Women would be repelled by dead animals. We settled on live elephants, but it was pulling teeth to get girls off that paperback.

Or take the amicable difference of opinion I am having with my German publisher, since apparently this problem is also European. My latest novel, So Much for That, is told from two male points of view. Its subject matter – illness, mortality, and the fiscal depredations of American healthcare – is unisex, its tone furious. Yet what's on the cover? A woman, looking stricken. Male readers wouldn't be caught dead reading a book with that cover on the Strassenbahn.

The titling of that novel also came up against stereotypes of my ostensibly all-female audience. The US sales department vetoed the original title, Time is Money, for "sounding like nonfiction", though fiction appropriating and subverting nonfiction titles is commonplace (nobody mistook Alison Lurie's Foreign Affairs for an international policy journal). It took me a while to discern the real problem: Time is Money was too direct, too aggressive, too in your face; it would frighten the girls away. This suspicion was confirmed when I suggested the Germans, with no equivalent of "so much for that", simply use my original title. Uh-uh. Zeit ist Geld is "too male and harsh". I admired my publisher's candour, if not his neutral substitute: The Better Part of Life.

Publishing's notion of what "women want" is dated and condescending. In the era of Venus Williams, girliness and goo isn't the way to every woman's heart. Yet publishers presume that women only buy a book that looks soft and that appears to be all about women, even if it isn't. Yet women, unlike men, buy books by and about both sexes.

Granted, the marketing logic seems unassailable: in the US, Britain and Germany, 80% of fiction readers are women. (Which mysteriously makes women look bad: those layabout ladies have nothing better to do than loll around and read. Yet if 80% of fiction readers were men, we'd assume that men are still far more cultured and better informed, while women squander their free time on mopping the floor.) Why appeal to the meagre male 20%?

Simple: smart female authors who twig that their careers depend on writing solely for their own gender will instinctively narrow their subject matter. Meanwhile, gauzy covers with shy titles signal that the literary establishment needn't take this work seriously. Little wonder, then, that the language of extravagant regard in that New York Times Book Review write-up of Jonathan Franzen – "Like all great novels," Freedom "illuminates, through the steady radiance of its author's profound moral intelligence" – is rarely lavished on female novelists. Little wonder that admiration of Franzen's focus on "family as microcosm or micro-history" would invert to disdain should a woman choose the same subject: look, just another bint stuck in her tiny domestic world.

When my novels are packaged as exclusively for women, I'm not only cut off from a vital portion of my audience but clearly labelled as an author the literary establishment is free to dismiss. By stereotyping my work's audience as self-involved and prissy, women-only packaging also insults my readers, who could all testify that trussing up my novels as sweet, girly and soft is like stuffing a rottweiler in a dress.

Lionel Shriver won the 2005 Orange prize for fiction with We Need to Talk About Kevin

Sackings, strike threats and a bitter battle for supremacy engulfs French TV channel

When launched four years ago France 24 was billed as a "CNN à la française": a television news channel that would counter the influence of Anglo Saxon media and make the voice of France heard around the world.

In recent days, however, that voice has sounded rather more anguished than authoritative.

Engulfed in rivalries and recriminations, the newsroom has been plunged into crisis, with one union threatening a  strike and another planning a vote of no- confidence. Journalists mutter about a "battle of the bosses" fuelling dissent. One even likened the atmosphere to the Saint Bartholomew's Day massacre: vicious, unrelenting and very, very, bloody.

Since last week, when rumours of sackings and suspensions at the highest level of editorial started flying round the newsroom, tensions that had long been bubbling under the surface have burst forth in spectacular fashion.

At the heart of the latest troubles are the channel's two chiefs: Alain de Pouzilhac, the chief executive known to staff as "Poupou", and his second-in-command, Christine Ockrent, one of France's best-known journalists whose imperious persona and brusque leadership have earned her the nickname "the Queen".

Target

Married to the foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, the formidable former news anchor Ockrent is no stranger to conflict: sources say that, during last year's surge of "bossnappings", she was terrified of being taken hostage by marauding journalists.

According to Paris's media pundits, she and Pouzilhac are now engaged in a battle for influence over the state-funded television channel, which broadcasts in French, English and Arabic.

While they slug it out the staff are becoming increasingly restless. "Editorial is falling victim to the battle of the bosses," one journalist told the daily newspaper Libération this week.

Last Wednesday the knock-on effect of this rivalry, and the tensions it prompted, became clear when Albert Ripamonti, an editor popular among France 24 reporters and seen as a favourite of Pouzilhac, was rumoured to have been fired by Ockrent.

The rumour turned out to be false; in fact, it was Vincent Giret, Ockrent's righthand man, who was reportedly suspended by the CEO. The reasons are unclear, and the management has refused to comment. The move by "Poupou", who took up his new position in July, has been greeted in media circles as a sign that the former adman is preparing to make his influence felt on the company.

Without providing figures to back up their claims, union leaders say the channel saw a drop in viewing figures in the first half of this year. They also predict a budget deficit of between €5-€10m.

Seeking to explain why the CEO targeted Giret and not Ockrent, some pundits suggested political reasons for his reticence, claiming that, as long as Kouchner was at the Quai d'Orsay, his wife would remain at France 24.

One leading commentator, Emmanuel Berretta, evoked the subject on his Twitter page this week, alluding to expectations that Kouchner would be ousted by Nicolas Sarkozy in a November cabinet shake-up. "Hypothesis: does C Ockrent's disgrace herald the fact that Kouchner is going to be kicked out of government at the reshuffle?"

While the open conflict between the bosses has emerged only recently, the dissent among France 24's staff is nothing new. Unions have complained for months that "malaise" at the heart of the editorial division has left journalists overworked, underpaid and badly treated.

Sweatshop

This week the CFDT union asked members to go on strike from Monday, while another, the CGT, has asked for a vote of no-confidence in the management. The CFDT said it was "worried" about the firm's circumstances, and denounced "the arbitrary and clannish management".

Among employees, current and former, complaints about the treatment of France 24's staff are legion. Last year, during a change in the business structure, around 30 people applied to leave.

"It's like we were pawns, like we weren't treated as human beings but like mechanical parts of a sausage factory," one former journalist said. "France 24 is like a medieval king's court. People have patrons: you're so and so's guy or you're so and so's. It's all about alliances."

Another former freelancer on the English language side said that "the sweatshop atmosphere" of the channel meant that journalists at Radio France International, part of the same public media group led by Pouzilhac and Ockrent, felt better off. "Journalists who have worked at both RFI and France24 consistently prefer the former to the latter, despite poorer pay," she said.

Website barackobama.ir promises 'an Iranian viewpoint on Barack Obama's opinions'

A group of Iranian journalists sympathetic to the world view of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has launched barackobama.ir, a website set up to address "an Iranian viewpoint on Barack Obama's opinions".

The news of its creation first appeared this week in a series of government-sponsored websites and news agencies, which endorsed it as an independent source of information about the life of Obama, his administration and issues such as 9/11, Israel and Iran's nuclear programme.

The website has attracted nearly 100,000 visitors in its first week. It introduces itself as a group "that believes that Barack Obama isn't only a name but a political phenomenon".

It depicts the American president as someone "who insists on the Arabic-Islamic part of his name: Hussein" and adds: "He is educated, lawyer, friendly, who observes the niceties of etiquette showing real oriental feeling in his innocent eyes that are the heritage of the occidental government's cruelty to the Negroes." But it adds that, by electing him as president, "the United States confessed to the increasing power of Islam".

Among articles published on his life is one headlined: "Is he the first Jewish president?"

Ahmadinejad sees the internet as a platform used for "psychological war against Iran" and has repeatedly asked its supporters to attack the "enemies" in the virtual society.

Since the disputed presidential election last summer, when Iranian protesters exploited Twitter and Facebook to spread their voice, the number of government-supported websites and blogs has increased significantly, while access to almost all opposition websites has been blocked.

An Iranian journalist who asked not to be identified said: "In Iran, all blogs and websites need to register with the government, especially those holding .ir domains, and the fact that barackobama.ir is set up without problem and is welcomed by governmental news agencies shows that it is backed by officials within the Iranian regime."

Saskatchewan government will not support takeover of fertiliser company by any sovereign wealth fund

Potash Corp of Saskatchewan's best hope of escaping BHP Billiton's $39bn (£25bn) hostile takeover bid has received a blow from a local government minister.

The Saskatchewan government says it is unlikely to support a takeover of the Saskatoon-based fertiliser company by a sovereign wealth fund, a state-owned firm from China or any other large potash-buying nation because it fears its primary motive would be to deflate the price of the region's most important asset.

A rival bid from the Chinese had been seen as Potash Corp's best hope of avoiding the clutches of BHP after its mining rivals Vale and Rio Tinto have signalled that they will not be launching a rival bid.

Saskatchewan energy minister Bill Boyd said: "It would seem to us … that their interest and the interest of taxpayers of Saskatchewan may not be aligned."

While the provincial government does not have the final say over any deal, its support is seen as crucial. Boyd has also announced that the Conference Board of Canada will conduct an independent analysis of a proposed takeover. "No matter who owns the potash mines, the people of Saskatchewan own the potash," he said.

Lord Sacks accuses astrophysicist of logical fallacy in book excluding possibility of supernatural creation

The chief rabbi, Lord Sacks, hit back at Stephen Hawking after the astrophysicist said God did not create the universe.

In his new book, The Grand Design, published next week, Hawking concludes that science excludes the possibility of a deity and that it is unnecessary to "invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going".

But his finding were described by Sacks as an "elementary fallacy" of logic.

Writing in the Times, the chief rabbi said: "There is a difference between science and religion. Science is about explanation. Religion is about interpretation. The Bible simply isn't interested in how the universe came into being."

Sacks also said the mutual hostility between religion and science was one of "the curses of our age" and warned it would be equally damaging to both.

"But there is more to wisdom than science. It cannot tell us why we are here or how we should live. Science masquerading as religion is as unseemly as religion masquerading as science."

In an earlier book, A Brief History of Time, Hawking was apparently more open to the idea of God, suggesting that a scientific understanding of the universe was not incompatible with a creator. "If we discover a complete theory … it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason – for then we should know the mind of God," he wrote.

Chris Wilson died along with 19 others when flight from Kinshasa to Bandundu was unable to land last week

The pilot of a plane that crashed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo killing 20 people has been named as a Briton who had worked as an air steward but loved flying so much he trained as a pilot.

Chris Wilson, 39, from Bury, Greater Manchester, died when the twin-engined plane crashed last week near the airstrip in the town of Bandundu.

His family said he had worked for Congolese airline Filair since 2009. They did not learn of his death until Saturday as no identification was found on his body.

Congo, which has suffered decades of civil war and corrupt rule, has one of the world's worst air safety records and is blacklisted by the international aviation authorities. UN spokesman Madnodje Mounoubai said a number of people on the ground had also been killed. There was only one reported survivor on the plane.

The Let L-410 plane took off from the capital Kinshasa and crashed after it was unable to land at Bandundu airport and seemingly ran out of fuel.

Wilson is survived by his parents, Jean and Eric Wilson, from Bury, a twin brother Robert, and three other siblings.

Jean Wilson, 78, told the Bury Times yesterday: "It's such a shock. He loved flying and he worked hard to fulfil his dream of becoming a pilot. He had three jobs at once just to pay for his training. He absolutely adored flying.

"I'm very proud of him for working so hard. He loved life and did everything he could to achieve his dream."

She added: "There have been so many messages from people he has known through the years. We didn't realise so many people cared for him."

Wilson's best friend, Martin Kirkby, said: "It is a tragedy. Chris worked really hard to become a pilot and he died doing what he loved. His passion was always to fly and he was very happy to be doing it."

Wilson joined the Territorial Army after university and was a member of the Royal Green Jackets. He trained in bomb disposal and served in the US and Germany. He worked for Airtours for several years before moving to another airline, BMED, as an air steward. He trained as a pilot while working there.

An air accident investigation into the cause of the crash has been launched. Wilson's family is in contact with the British Consulate about returning his body to the UK so his funeral can take place.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office said: "We can confirm the death of a British national in the Democratic Republic of Congo on 25 August 2010. We are providing consular assistance to the family at this distressing time."