Victim sues Irish Catholic church leader Sean Brady over role in Brendan Smyth secret tribunal

Ireland's most senior Catholic cleric tonight faced down calls to resign after revealing that he was at a secret tribunal where sex abuse victims were made to take an oath of silence.

Cardinal Sean Brady said that he had attended two meetings in 1975 concerning Father Brendan Smyth, a notorious paedophile, where two of Smyth's victims signed an affidavit promising to discuss their claims only with a specified priest.

Brady is now being sued, both as an individual and in his role as Catholic primate of all Ireland, by one of Smyth's female victims who alleges she was abused for five years.

In an affidavit submitted to Dublin's high court, Brady is accused of failing to report the victims' formal signed complaints to the Irish police and of failing to take adequate steps to ensure that Smyth did not continue to assault children.

But the cardinal defended his role in the investigation, stating his actions were part of a process that removed the shamed cleric's licence to act as a priest.

"Frankly I don't believe that this is a resigning matter," Brady said.

The tribunal was held behind closed doors in 1975. Smyth was accused of sexually abusing two 10-year-olds, but the church did not inform the gardai about the allegations at the time. It was only in 1994, after a documentary about Smyth, that the church admitted it had known about his paedophilia and moved him around Ireland, Britain and the US, where he continued to abuse children.

Smyth died in jail 13 years ago, while serving 12 years for 74 sexual assaults on children.

Brady's disclosure heaps further ignominy on the Vatican, which has had a week of damaging stories about the church's treatment of child sex abuse victims and their allegations.

New incidents are reported on an almost daily basis across Europe, as are official investigations into historic allegations, with each development eroding the church's credibility and moral authority.

Not even the pope has escaped the taint of scandal. Last weekend, a Vatican spokesman took the unprecedented step of denying that Benedict was complicit in the cover-up of a sex scandal while he was archbishop of Munich.

Victim support groups in Ireland, which have repeatedly savaged church and state authorities for their conduct, condemned Brady and called for him to resign. The co-founder of Irish Survivors of Child Abuse, Patrick Walsh, said: "The church was more interested in protecting its reputation than anything else. The cardinal needs to examine his conscience about this. He needsto take stock of his position. In 1975 he was just a priest acting as a secretary and he was not the decision maker. But he knew what was going on."

The Catholic Information Office in Ireland confirmed that Brady had been the recording secretary at one meeting and had interviewed the victims at another. The oath, it said, was to "respect the confidentiality of the information process".

Brady had passed the reports "as instructed, and as a matter of urgency" to Bishop [Francis] McKiernan "for his immediate action".

The cardinal's behaviour will do little to reverse the perception that the church does not take the issue of child sex abuse seriously enough, despite Vatican efforts to show that the problem is not solely confined to its institutions nor is it as widespread as people believe.

A front-page article in today's L'Osservatore Romano argued that sexual abuse of minors was "more common amongst lay and married people than among celibate priests" – a reply to one archbishop's view that celibacy may be one of the causes of paedophilia in the priesthood.

The bishop of Alessandria, Giuseppe Versaldi, who wrote the article, said that Pope Benedict was actively leading the "battle" against paedophilia., despite his image as "an academic who is only interested in writing books."

His remarks echo those of the Vatican official charged with investigating sexual abuse allegations, who suggested that many abuse claims were not paedophilia.Monsignor Charles Scicluna, of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said of the 3,000 cases referred to his office during a nine-year period, only a tenth were paedophilia "in the truest sense".

Interviewed for the Italian newspaper, Avvenire, he said: "About 60% of the cases chiefly involved sexual attraction towards adolescents of the same sex, another 30% involved heterosexual relations, the remaining 10% were paedophilia in the truest sense of the term, based on sexual attraction towards pre-pubescent children. The cases of priests accused of paedophilia in the true sense have been about 300 in nine years."

The 300 cases were "still too many", but he urged people to recognise that the phenomenon was not as widespread as they believed.

Scicluna said a full trial, "penal or administrative", had occurred in 20% of these cases. Old age often prevented the accused from standing trial, or administrative and disciplinary provisions such as a ban on hearing confession acted as a substitute. Half of the trials ended in dismissal, while the remaining half saw the accused requesting dispensation from the priesthood.

Scicluna insisted that the Vatican had never encouraged a cover-up of child sex abuse, while also admitting that, "perhaps out of a misdirected desire to protect the good name of the institution some bishops were, in practice, too indulgent towards this sad phenomenon".

He added: "I say in practice because, in principle, the condemnation of this kind of crime has always been firm and unequivocal."

Bad week for the Vatican

• Catholic hierarchy in the Netherlands pledge an independent, external inquiry into abuse at several church-run institutions.

• Austrian priest quits, admitting he abused or molested up to 20 children.

• Archbishop of Vienna says priestly celibacy may be the cause of paedophilia.

• The pope is "distraught" over the sex abuse scandal in Germany. The country's most senior Catholic apologises to victims and church authorities promise to hold an investigation.

• Swiss Catholic church launches inquiry into 60 claims of sex abuse.

• Papal spokesman denounces attempts to implicate the pope in a sex abuse cover-up and rejects accusations of a culture of secrecy.

• An Italian academic compares the secrecy over sex abuse to omerta – the Mafia code of silence – and says more involvement of women in the church might have prevented the scale of the cover-up.

• An Irish bookmaker slashes the odds, from 12 to 1 to 3 to 1, of a papal resignation amid the continuing controversy and a "cascade of bets".

Attacks that killed at least 35 people was a show of force ahead of Nato summer push in and around city facing Talibanisation

A series of fatal bomb attacks in Kandahar was a warning to Nato forces that the Taliban is ready to challenge a coming offensive to take control of the area, a spokesman for the militants said today.

Insurgents let off a series of bombs yesterday evening in an apparent attempt to repeat their coup of June 2008 when bombers destroyed part of the city's prison, releasing hundreds of Taliban prisoners. The ministry of interior said at least 35 people were killed and 57 wounded in the latest attacks. The dead included 13 police officers and 22 civilians.

A Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousef Ahmadi, said the bombings showed that the militants were still capable of carrying out major attacks despite the build-up of foreign troops before the push by Nato this summer. "With all the preparations they have taken, still they are not able to stop us," he told Associated Press.

In Kandahar, residents said the city was struggling to return to normal life. "People are afraid because this shows the strength of the Taliban in Kandahar," said Abdul Karim, owner of a construction company in the city. "They have close links to city officials and target whatever they want."

The governor of Kandahar province, Tooryalai Wesa, said two car bombs and six suicide bombers on motorbikes and bicycles struck near the city prison, police headquarters and a wedding hall.

The provincial police chief Sardar Mohammad Zazi said the attacks in different parts of the city appeared designed to distract soldiers and police from the militants' main target – the prison.

Wesa demanded that more troops be sent to a city already in the process of being reinforced, with 300 US military police on regular patrols since August.

Nato generals say Kandahar and its outlying districts will be the focus of intense military efforts in June and July as General Stanley McChrystal, the US commander in Afghanistan, pursues his strategy of trying to secure the more populous south of the country. Afghanistan's second city has suffered from a creeping Talibanisation as insurgents have grown in influence.

The militants, when unarmed, move unhindered around the city, using its backrooms to carry out their trademark swift justice and occasional executions.

Some of the few foreigners and aid workers there have predicted the city's eventual fall, not through military offensives but through the emergence of insurgents as Kandahar's main power brokers. Most analysts agree that reversing that trend will require an overhaul of a local government that is riddled with corruption.

In a recent interview, Brigadier General Craig King, the Canadian soldier in charge of planning future operations in the province, said improvements in governance would be more important than military operations during the summer push.

But changing the way Kandahar is governed faces an obstacle, Ahmed Wali Karzai, the Afghan president's half-brother who heads the Kandahar provincial council. Many Kandaharis believe he is involved in the province's drugs and criminal networks – charges he has always denied.

Despite pressure on the president to send his half-brother away most diplomats are pessimistic about that happening, with some even fearing that his removal would further destabilise the city.

Wen Jiabao warns US on currency and defends China's place on world stage, saying his conscience is clear on climate deal

The Chinese prime minister, Wen Jiabao, today launched a robust defence of his country's place on the world stage, including a sharp rebuttal of what he called "baffling" criticism of his country's role at the Copenhagen summit.

Acknowledging "serious disruption" in ties with the US and rising criticism of Chinese assertiveness on the climate, currency, trade and other issues, the premier said he wanted to set the record straight.

"Some say China has got more arrogant and tough. Some put forward the theory of China's so-called 'triumphalism'. You have given me an opportunity to explain how China sees itself," Wen said.

In a press conference marking the close of the annual meeting of the National People's Congress, China's rubber-stamp parliament, Wen said the country was still developing and would never seek hegemony even when fully modernised, but had always sought to uphold its sovereignty and territorial integrity. He said China was a "responsible" nation that took an active part in international co-operation on major issues.

In the angry aftermath of the Copenhagen climate conference, China was accused of wrecking a deal by blocking emission reduction targets for 2050 and failing to send its most senior delegates to key meetings. In his most detailed public comments yet about the conference, Wen responded to critics.

"My conscience is untainted despite rumours and slanders from outside," he said. "It still baffles me why some people are trying to make the issue about China. Climate change is about human survival, the interest of all countries, and issues of equity and justice in the international community."

He accused foreign leaders of a shocking breach of protocol in their attempt to press him, with advance warning, into an unscheduled meeting after a welcome banquet. "Why was China not notified of this meeting? So far, nobody has explained. it is still a mystery to me," he said.

The final deal was the best that could be achieved in the difficult circumstances, he said, promising China's support for the Copenhagen accord.

Asked about other areas of friction, particularly with the US, the premier responded: "The responsibility for the serious disruption in US-China ties does not lie with the Chinese side but with the US."

He cited Barack Obama's recent meeting with the Dalai Lama, the announcement of US arms sales to Taiwan and disagreements over exchange rates and trade. "We are opposed to the practice of engaging in mutual finger-pointing or taking strong measures to force other countries to appreciate their currencies. That is not in the interest of reform of the renminbi's exchange rate regime," the premier said.

There is growing pressure for revaluation from the US and Europe, where many analysts argue that the renminbi is massively underpriced. Chinese experts have also argued that a rise in the currency would be in the country's own interests.

Wen told reporters: "I understand some countries want to increase their exports – what I don't understand is the practice of depreciating one's own currency and attempting to press other countries to increase theirs, just to improve exports. In my view that is a protectionist measure."

He went on to warn the US on its own currency, as he did at his last news conference. China holds more US treasury debt than another country.

"If I said I was worried [about the US dollar] last year, I still want to make the same remark this year," he said. "We cannot afford any mistake, however slight, when it comes to financial assets ... I hope the US will take concrete steps to reassure investors."

Turning to domestic issues, the prime minister warned that China faced "an extremely difficult task" in promoting steady and fast growth while restructuring the economy and managing inflationary expectations. Inflation, corruption and unfair income distribution taken together would be "strong enough to affect social stability and even the stability of state power," he said.

The government is seeking to gradually withdraw from the massive stimulus that helped to see China through the global slump, particularly given soaring property prices and rising inflation, which hit 2.7% in the year to February. But it must do so without damaging confidence.

The premier warned of the risk of a double-dip in the global economy and said that while the domestic economy had stabilised, many Chinese businesses were still reliant on the stimulus measures.

100,000-strong anti-government rally calls for Thai PM to dissolve parliament

Tens of thousands of red-shirted protesters rallied in Bangkok to press for the Thai government dissolve parliament or face further demonstrations at key sites in the city.

The protesters, many from the impoverished north and north-east, want the prime minister, Abhisit Vejjajiva, to call new elections, which they believe will allow their political allies to regain power.

The crowd was estimated by police at more than 100,000. The demonstrations have been building for two days as caravans of protesters poured into the city. The demonstrators stressed they would use only peaceful means.

Many back the former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted by a 2006 military coup for alleged corruption and abuse of power. They believe Abhisit came to power illegitimately with the connivance of the military and other members of the traditional ruling class who were alarmed by Thaksin's popularity, particularly among the poor.

"We're demanding the government give up its administrative power by dissolving parliament and returning power to the people," said a protest leader, Veera Musikapong. "We're giving the government 24 hours."

The protesters, formally known as the United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship, said they will march on key locations in the city if the government fails to respond, including the headquarters of the 11th Infantry Regiment, where Abhisit has been living in recent days.

In his weekly radio address this morning, Abhisit indicated that he had no plans to dissolve the legislature. "Dissolution and calls for resignations are normal in a democratic system. But we have to make sure the dissolution of parliament will solve the problem and won't make the next election troublesome," he said.

The PM denied rumours that a military coup was possible and said he would not impose a state of emergency that would give the army broad powers to deal with the protests. "This government has no intention to crack down on the protesters because that doesn't benefit anyone," he said.

One protest leader, Jatuporn Prompan, described their campaign as "the biggest war by the common people in the country's history". A force of 50,000 soldiers, police and other security personnel was mobilised in the capital area.

The march is regarded by some as the last chance for Thaksin to return to Thailand. Forcing the government out of power, loyalists say, could pave the way for his pardon and return.

Thaksin, who lives in Dubai, faces a two-year prison term for abuse of power. But he remains popular among the poor who are thankful for the cheap medical care, low interest loans and other measures his government enacted to alleviate poverty.

"Deep inside I wish Thaksin could come back. If he returns, grass-roots people will be taken care of thoroughly," said Buakham Bunthai, a herb seller who travelled from the northern province of Chiang Mai. He said Thaksin's universal healthcare scheme had saved his mother's life. "Some villagers told me I'm crazy. I'm willing to be crazy today for their prosperity in the future," he said.

Thailand has been in constant political turmoil since early 2006, when demonstrations accusing Thaksin of corruption and abuse of power began. In 2008, when Thaksin's political allies came back to power for a year, his opponents occupied the prime minister's office compound for three months and seized Bangkok's two airports for a week.

Recent polls in Bangkok indicate that a large segment of the population, irrespective of their political beliefs, is fed up with the protests, which have battered the economy, including the lucrative tourism industry.

The Red Shirts' last major protest in Bangkok last April deteriorated into rioting that left two people dead and more than 120 injured. The army was called in to quash the unrest.

Many embassies have warned their citizens to stay away from areas of the city where violence could erupt.

Tamil National Alliance says ahead of elections it is ready to accept self-rule in north and east provinces

Sri Lanka's main ethnic Tamil party has dropped its demand for an independent state and said it is ready to accept regional self-rule, following the defeat of separatist Tamil Tiger rebels in a 25-year civil war.

The Tamil National Alliance, which backed the rebels, said ahead of parliamentary elections that it would accept a "federal structure" in the north and east provinces with power over land, finance and law and order.

Formed in 2001, the alliance acted as a proxy for the Tamil Tigers until their military defeat by government forces last year. It has 22 members in the outgoing 225-seat parliament.

Tamils have long complained of discrimination at the hands of the island's majority Sinhalese, but Sri Lankan authorities have rejected any self-rule, saying it would be a prelude to secession.

The president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, called the 8 April parliamentary vote in an apparent attempt to consolidate his political dominance after winning re-election as president in January, in a ballot called two years ahead of schedule. The opposition leader, former army chief Sarath Fonseka, has been detained on sedition allegations.

The Tamil alliance, which supported Fonseka in the presidential election but plans to contest the parliamentary vote on an independent platform, demanded resettlement, housing and livelihood programmes for the nearly 300,000 Tamil civilians displaced in the last stages of the civil war, about 100,000 of whom are still in refugee camps.

Some of the displaced civilians live with relatives and friends while others have been sent back to their villages without proper shelter or means to make a living.

The alliance also asked the government to permit the return of nearly 1 million Tamils who fled to Europe and India as refugees. It wants the government to demilitarise former rebel-held areas and dismantle high-security zones where troops occupy thousands of acres of private land and houses.

Between 80,000 and 100,000 people were killed during the civil war.

Row over SS veterans' parade in Latvia puts the spotlight on Tory links to eastern Europe's far right Nazi sympathisers

The number three bus in Riga winds from the mouth of the river Daugava, past the lovely old centre of the city to the miles of Lego-brick, Soviet-era blocks in Plavnieki.

At the foot of one of them, Natalija is sitting at one table and Maksimam at another in the Tris Pelmeni cafe, eating herring with onions and drinking beer while ice melts down the windows and the radio relays a highly charged ice-hockey game between Dinamo Riga and Ska St Petersburg. Old ladies pick through the snow with shopping, men rummage through rubbish bins and boys with shaven heads fly the Russian flag from cars screeching through the slush.

This weekend, there is also a widespread sense of anger. In this ethnic Russian suburb of the Latvian capital, there is disbelief at the prospect of a commemoration to be held this Tuesday by veterans and supporters of the Latvian Legion of the wartime SS.

Natalija's uncle "was killed by the fascists", she says, yet "still the Latvians allow a parade of the SS of Adolf Hitler!".Maksimam, younger, hunches the collar of his leather jacket, sips his drink and says he cares little what the old people get up to – but spits at the idea of an SS ceremony.

In a nod to ethnic allegiance, he is supporting St Petersburg in the ice-hockey contest against his home town. Many of his fellow ethnic Russians, who form the majority in the capital but a minority nationwide, are doing the same.

A few miles away in the city centre, rows of young Latvians greet the end of the match, a sensational 3-1 away win for Riga, at the Folk Klubs Ala, with beers and cheers for a stab at the Russian foe on his own terrain.

Here the view of Tuesday's controversial commemoration is very different. A boy called Uldis thinks "it's correct to allow those who fought for Latvia to honour the dead". The idea they were Nazis is "bullshit – they were defending our country".

Battered by recession and emerging from the harshest winter in 30 years, Riga is bitterly divided over an annual commemoration that has also become an international controversy. Ever since David Cameron pulled the Conservative party out of the centre-right coalition in the European parliament to align the Tories alongside rightwingers such as Latvia's Fatherland and Freedom, which helps organise the SS event, an unexpected spotlight has shone on this corner of eastern Europe.

The foreign secretary, David Miliband, has called such links "sickening". The Tory chairman, Eric Pickles, has accused critics of recycling "old Soviet smears" about the Latvians. And the annual SS veterans' march has become for many a disturbing symbol of rightwing extremism within the European Union.

The ramifications of the row that electrified British politics and Brussels have now been felt in Riga. Tuesday's events have been banned by the courts – citing security reasons – at the behest of the pro-Russian Harmony party which controls Riga.

The party's chairman, Janis Urbanovics, told the Observer that "although the legionnaires themselves decrease with time, the problem is increasing. After independence, this country became so preoccupied with hating Russia that it is not coming to terms with what happened during German occupation. We need that in order to draw a line under the past".

Juris Dobelis, a parliamentary deputy for the Fatherland and Freedom party, will be there in defiance of the ban. "A soldier is a soldier and all soldiers are equal," says Dobelis. The units that fought here "were young men of 19 mobilised to fight other young men 19 years old. If politicians want to make speeches about that, it's not our concern. We have seen commemorations in London and Moscow – this is ours." The Latvian Legion fought, he insists, "for the liberation of Latvia from the Soviet Union", and in support of the Wermacht "as liberators only for a moment".

Therefore, "we will go as a party", says Dobelis, a man with a manner of iron, "with veterans of 90 years old, to church at 10am. After church we go to the monument and by afternoon we shall be 70km away at the Lestana cemetery" – where the SS dead are buried.

Janis Atis Krumins's father was an SS legionnaire and he will be there, too. Krumins is a member of Daugava Vanagi – Hawk of the Daugava – founded in 1945 by 12,000 legionnaires in a British POW camp at Zedelgem in Belgium "to support the veterans and families of the dead, scattered into exile during Soviet occupation", says Krumins.

The commemoration provokes anger, Krumins says, "because whoever wins the war is considered to be in the right. Justice belongs to the victor, and the Soviet victor's history demands that legionnaires be considered war criminals, the Red Army as heroes. For the Russians, whoever fights against communism is a fascist".

Their gesture will be contested on the streets and at a conference – addressed today by the director of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, Efraim Zuroff – run by Latvia's Anti-Fascist Committee, LAK. LAK was founded by a beekeeper named Josepf Koren, who describes himself as "not Russian but Jewish and born anti-communist" after his and his wife's families were persecuted by the Soviets.

"We don't say all veterans are war criminals," says Koren, "but at least 25% of the Latvian Legion were recruited from the Latvian police who were involved in the murder of Jews and other Latvians, and the SS Legion should not be permitted a celebration of itself in the centre of our city."

This event has become a political football in contemporary Latvia – a young country bitterly and deeply divided between ethnic Latvian and Russian communities and political parties – on all sides, even among Tuesday's mourners: "The second world war is with us today," says Mr Dobelis. "We have many senior former officers of the KGB and Red Army living in Latvia."

The country's foremost public historian, Valters Nollendorfs, has problems with both sides of the argument, defending the Legion as distinct from the Third Reich but chastising Latvian politicians "for not coming to terms with the Holocaust".

"The elite that runs this country knows that people who volunteered or were drafted by the Germans were among the murderers of the Jews." On the other hand, "you cannot take away the context of a year of Soviet occupation. When does resistance to the Soviets end and collaboration with the Nazis begin?" Successive occupations "dealt a terrible blow to Latvia's sense of being, pitting brother against brother, literally".

Arturis Punte's two grandfathers fought on opposite sides, one for the Legion, the other for the Red Army. Arturis calls himself "a Russian Latvian in Europe", and it is a relief to meet him in a bistro for which he is translating the menu into Russian. Punte is a poet, but is best known in Latvia for his Orbita project, which became the first Russian arts group to win the Latvian literary medal.

"We try to translate between the cultures, literally and figuratively," he says, "to forge an objective Latvian narrative we can all share. Both sides manufacture folklores of fake heroism based on bad history, and the ceremony of 16 March just reflects the fact that the establishment can't say clearly what happened here – everyone is always looking for someone else to be the guilty ones in the traumas that this place has been through."

In Riga, while the rest of Europe debates the danger of far-right extremism in the present, and the likes of Juris Dobelis commemorate a dubious past, the increasingly urgent priority is reconciliation.

Imedi TV broadcaster provokes panic with report claiming Russian attack in progress

Switching on their TV sets at 8pm on Saturday, Georgians were greeted with incredible news – Russia had invaded. The pro-government Imedi TV station reported that Russian tanks were once more trundling into Georgia. Not only that, but the country's pro-western leader Mikheil Saakashvili had been murdered, the station said.

For the next half an hour there were scenes of absolute panic, as the mobile network collapsed, Georgians spilled on to the streets, and friends and relatives desperately tried to reach each other and seek out information. In fact, they needn't have bothered.

The report, it turned out, was a hoax. The Kremlin hadn't invaded and Saakashvili, it emerged, was very much alive. Not since Orson Welles persuaded Americans that the Martians had landed, during his hysteria-sparking War of the Worlds radio broadcast, had a whole nation been so duped.

Today furious opposition politicians denounced the TV stunt as dangerous and irresponsible. Angry residents in the capital, Tbilisi, gathered outside the offices of Imedi TV, hours after the report flashed erroneously around the world. Saakashvili, however, was unapologetic. He declared that the threat of Russian attack remained "very realistic".

Zaza Gachechiladze, editor-in-chief of the Georgian Messenger newspaper, said: "People were completely shocked. I was driving to my friend's party when I got a phone call telling me to turn on the TV.

"I rushed upstairs. There was Dmitry Medvedev saying that Russia was intervening in Georgia. I didn't notice this was old footage from August 2008. I immediately started looking for my children."

Gachechiladze said it took him 10 minutes to establish the story was, as he put it, "bullshit". He added: "It was a very cruel simulation. One lady whose son was in the army had a heart attack and died. Another pregnant lady lost her baby. Many children were taken to hospital suffering from stress. It was horrible what happened, actually. It is a criminal act that should be punished."

Over in Moscow, Russia's state news agency, Interfax, flashed news of the apparent invasion and Saakashvili's demise. British and American correspondents abandoned their dinner parties, phoned their editors in London, and began hunting for their flak jackets. It was left to David Cracknell, a seasoned former senior reporter on the Sunday Times now working for the Georgian government, to kill the story. He sent journalists a laconic SMS. It read simply: "Not true."

But for many Georgians the threat of a Russian invasion remains hauntingly real, given the five-day conflict of August 2008. Georgian tanks attempted to seize back the rebel province of South Ossetia, prompting a punitive pan-Georgian Russian invasion. Russian troops continue to occupy breakaway Abkhazia and South Ossetia – a short drive away from Tbilisi, down a scenic mountain valley lined with walnut trees and orchards.

Relations with Russia have scarcely improved since Vladimir Putin, Russia's prime minister, notoriously told Nicolas Sarkozy during the Russo-Georgian conflict that he planned to hang Saakashvili "by the balls". Few observers, however, expect Russia to launch another attack since it achieved most of its geopolitical goals last time.

They included thwarting Georgia's attempts to join Nato, humiliating Saakashvili and – by proxy – his backers in the US, and avenging the west's decision to recognise Kosovo, a move Moscow bitterly resents. (Russia got its own back by recognising South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent. So far, though, only Venezuela, Nicaragua and the tiny Pacific guano island of Nauru have followed Moscow's lead.)

Nearly two years on, Georgia's unhappy war with its mighty neighbour continues to divide Georgians and polarise society. Saakashvili insists his South Ossetian offensive was a desperate response to a long-planned and already under way Russian assault. Georgia's opposition accuses Saakashvili of criminal recklessness. It says that since coming to power in the 2003 Rose revolution Saakashvili has turned from liberal reformer to nationalist autocrat.

It is no coincidence that Imedi TV's extraordinary broadcast came days after Georgia's opposition leader, Nino Burdzhanadze, held talks in Moscow with Putin, and called for the restoration of ties. Announcing that Russia had bombed Georgian airports and seaports, the 30-minute bulletin said that Burdzhanadze had taken power. The broadcast appears to be an ill-conceived dig at Georgia's opposition, before important elections for a mayor of Tbilisi in late May.

Georgia's interior ministry conceded that the broadcast had caused "great panic". Cinemas in Tbilisi emptied as parents called their children home. However, Georgy Arveladze, the head of Georgia Media Production Holding which owns Imedi, said the aim of the broadcast had been to show the "real threat" of how events might unfold. The station said it had indicated the broadcast was a scenario – but the distinction appears to have been lost on most viewers.

Russia and its state-controlled media have long portrayed Saakashvili as a dangerous tie-chewing maniac. Today gleeful Kremlin politicians seized on the TV channel's stunt to ram home their view that Georgia's leader was indeed deranged. Russia's envoy to Nato, Dmitry Rogozin, dubbed it "criminal", and said the western military alliance should have nothing to do with Georgia's erratic president.

Imedi TV used to be Georgian's main independent TV station. Saakashvili, however, took the channel off the air after falling out with its owner, the oligarch and opposition presidential candidate Badri Patarkatsishvili. After Patarkatsishvili's death in exile in England in 2008, Sakaashvili handed the station over to a government supporter. It now regularly screens pro-government opinion.

Mother says Jamie Paulin-Ramirez had been in contact with fellow American 'Jihad Jane'

A second US woman who converted to Islam has been arrested in connection with an alleged attempt to kill a Swedish artist, days after terror charges were revealed against a woman dubbed "Jihad Jane".

Jamie Paulin-Ramirez, 31, from Colorado, was among seven people arrested in Ireland last week over the alleged plot to kill Lars Vilks, who depicted the prophet Muhammad as a dog in a sketch.

Her mother, Christine Mott, said Paulin-Ramirez was lonely and had "got sucked in" to extremism. Paulin-Ramirez announced last year that she had converted to Islam and moved to Ireland with her six-year-old son.

Irish police refused to discuss the case. Three are of those arrested are still in custody.

Paulin-Ramirez's arrest is one of four developments in the last week involving Americans and alleged terror activities abroad. The al-Qaida spokesman Adam Gadahn appeared in a video; Sharif Mobley, of New Jersey, tried to escape his detainment in Yemen; and Colleen LaRose, who allegedly went by the name Jihad Jane to recruit others online to kill Vilks, was named in a federal terror indictment.

Mott said Paulin-Ramirez had told her family they would go to hell if they didn't follow her steps and began wearing headscarves, and later a hijab.

"It came out of left field," she said. "I knew she was talking to these people online ... What caused her to turn her back on her country, on her family and become this person? I don't know how or why. All I know is she was in contact with this Jihad Jane."

Mott said she and her daughter were "enemies ... We couldn't even speak to each other." When Paulin-Ramirez had discussed jihad with her stepfather, George Mott, who has been a Muslim for more than 40 years, she told him "she'd strap a bomb for the cause", Mrs Mott said.

Last week an indictment was unsealed accusing LaRose of plotting to murder an unnamed Swedish man in order to frighten "the whole Kufar [nonbeliever] world". According to FBI agents who tracked her from at least July last year, she was potentially a dangerous would-be terrorist intent on martyrdom and using the aliases Jihad Jane and Fatima LaRose.

There is mounting anxiety in the US about the incidence of American citizens engaging in jihadist activities. It is a phenomenon of homegrown terrorism that has previously been considered rare in the country.

In December last year FBI agents and their Pakistani colleagues interrogated five young American Muslims who were suspected of being on their way to Afghanistan to fight with the Taliban against US-led forces. Earlier in December another US citizen, David Headley, was charged with helping to plan the Mumbai attacks that killed 166 people in 2008.

Rights groups express concern at the rising number of juveniles as young as 12 who are held behind bars and 'treated like terrorists'

With more than 300 Palestinian children being held in Israeli prisons, human rights groups and Palestinian officials are increasingly concerned about the actions of the Israeli military.

The Israeli group B'Tselem said that security forces had "severely violated" the rights of a number of children, aged between 12 and 15, who had been taken into custody in recent months.

The family of one 13-year-old boy from Hebron who was arrested on 27 February by a military patrol and detained for eight days have brought a legal case against the authorities. The teenager, Al-Hasan Muhtaseb, described how he had been interrogated without a lawyer late into the night, forced to confess to throwing stones, made to sign a confession in Hebrew that he couldn't read, jailed with adults and brought before a military court. He was only released on bail eight days later, after considerable legal effort by several human rights groups. As he had signed a confession, he still faces a possible indictment for throwing stones – a charge that usually brings several months in jail but carries a maximum penalty of 20 years' jail.

Although most international attention focuses on diplomatic sparring in the Middle East, it is cases such as this teenager's arrest that are the reality for Palestinians living under Israeli military occupation. The surprise about the teenager's experience is not that it is exceptional, but that it is a common occurrence.

As of the end of February, 343 Palestinian children were being held in Israeli prisons, according to Defence for Children International (DCI), which took up the Muhtaseb case. Israel routinely prosecutes Palestinian children as young as 12 and the Israeli legal system treats Palestinians as adults when they turn 16, but Israelis become adults only at 18. Ill-treatment and torture of Palestinian children are "widespread, systematic and institutionalised", DCI said in a report last year.

Al-Hasan Muhtaseb was arrested early in the afternoon as he and his 10-year-old brother Amir were walking home through Hebron, in the occupied West Bank, after visiting their aunt.

"Two soldiers came to us and told us: 'Come over here.' We went to them," said Al-Hasan, a slight boy, neatly dressed, who barely looks his 13 years. "They took my brother and I don't know where they took him. I was sent inside the station and I never saw him after that."

They were detained separately. Amir was released later that night, deeply traumatised. "He was in a very, very bad psychological state," said his father, Fadel Muhtaseb, 45. "He had wet himself. He was terrified." The boy said he had been held with his eyes covered by a hat in a room where there was also a dog, which he could hear panting.

Al-Hasan was interrogated at an Israeli military post in Kiryat Arba, a Jewish settlement in Hebron. "I was asked: 'Did you throw stones? Did you hurt the soldiers or hit their vehicles? How close were you to the soldiers? Why were you throwing stones?'," he said. Eventually he had admitted throwing stones, although in an interview last week Al-Hasan said it was untrue: on that day he had not thrown stones, although earlier in the week he had.

He had been made to sign a statement in Hebrew, a language he doesn't speak or read. He was blindfolded and taken to Ofer military prison, where he arrived at 3.30am. "There were no other children," he said. "I was afraid." Three days after his arrest he appeared at a military court. But his father, who works as a tiler, could not afford the 2,000 shekels (£350) bail. "My father told them he couldn't pay this much money," said Al-Hasan. His father, who sat next to him through the interview, burst into tears.

Last Sunday the boy was freed under a bail arrangement in which his father faces arrest if his son does not appear at the next summons. "Even if he were throwing stones, he is only 13," said Fadel. "They treated him like a terrorist. They claim they are democratic and human, but they are not."

The Israeli Defence Force defended the arrest, saying Israeli troops were acting to prevent violence. Both boys are now incontinent and Amir has been hospitalised. "He wakes up in the middle of the night screaming," said Fadel. "We try to comfort him, but he's getting worse and worse."

The Palestinian Authority highlighted the case of the two Muhtaseb brothers, saying Israel was breaching international law and has recently seemed to take a stronger stance against the more routine challenges of the occupation, including the effect of the West Bank barrier. Israeli security forces have warned of a broader crackdown if the protests escalate.

Paul Rea, 24, believed to have got lost and frozen to death on one of the coldest nights of the winter at Pas de la Casa

A British man has been found dead in a ski resort after apparently getting lost on one of the coldest nights of the Andorran winter.

The body of Paul Rea was discovered on Thursday afternoon covered in snow near a river close to the resort of Pas de la Casa, in the Pyrenees.

Rea, 24, who was on holiday with friends, was last seen on Wednesday evening in the bar district of the resort, which lies on the French border. He is believed to have wandered off, become disorientated and frozen to death, police said.

A police spokesman told the Spanish news agency Europa Press that the body was found near the entrance to the Envalira tunnel, a major road artery, and showed "no signs of violence". Officers were alerted to the discovery by a tunnel worker.

"We are aware of the death of a British national in Andorra on March 11," a Foreign Office spokeswoman said. "Next of kin are aware. We are providing consular assistance."

A postmortem examination was carried out on Friday and Rea's family have travelled to the resort.

The Diari d'Andorra newspaper said Rea went missing on one of the harshest and coldest nights of the winter. Last week, parts of north-eastern Spain were hit by the heaviest snowstorm in decades, cutting off many areas and blocking the border.

Rea is the second tourist fatality in Pas de la Casa in recent months. Last December the body of a Spanish holidaymaker, 30-year-old Igor Mate García, was found near the tunnel entrance. An investigation found that he died of hypothermia after drinking high amounts of alcohol.

Ethiopian ambassador says the BBC World Service has endangered its credibility with claims that western aid money was diverted to buy weapons

The row between Bob Geldof and the BBC escalated into a diplomatic dispute yesterday as the Ethiopian ambassador called for an apology from the World Service after it reported claims that aid money meant for famine victims had been spent on weapons.

Peter Horrocks, director of the World Service, has said he fully supports the report, which featured one former Ethiopian rebel saying 95% of the money that flowed into famine-hit Tigray in 1985 was spent by the TPLF militia on guns.

A second man claimed that the TPLF (Tigrayan People's Liberation Front, now the ruling party of prime minister Meles Zenawi) had made a fortune selling sand disguised as grain to the aid agencies.

Live Aid founder Geldof and other leading charities have also demanded that the BBC retract the claims and have called for its reporter, Martin Plaut, to be fired.

Now ambassador Berhanu Kebede has told the Observer that he expects a full apology from the BBC, which has "destroyed its credibility in Africa".

"Frankly, it's a ridiculous report. They have not looked at this person they interviewed, who had left the TPLF before 1985. Anyone knows that a liberation movement depends on the support of the people to win. How could they starve their people or snatch bread from their mouths?

"To question the integrity of organisations like Band Aid, the Red Cross, Christian Aid, it is laughable. If the BBC want to investigate something from 25 years ago, they should have talked to a lot more people who were there.

"In Ethiopia, people on both sides laugh at this idea. They know it would have been a suicide mission to divert the aid money and let people starve; it makes no sense and it is unacceptable. For the BBC's own credibility, it has to apologise for this disgrace."

Horrocks is to have a meeting with the aid agency heads this week, and has said it was absolutely in the public interest to examine the claims being made.

Former prime minister builds network of Christian allies as he prepares to launch a religious 'offensive' in North America

Tony Blair is preparing to launch a "faith offensive" across the United States over the next year, after building up relationships with a network of influential religious leaders and faith organisations.

With Afghanistan and Iraq casting a shadow over his popularity at home in Britain, Blair's focus has increasingly shifted across the Atlantic, to where the nexus of faith and power is immutable and he is feted like a rock star.

According to the annual accounts of the Tony Blair Faith Foundation, a UK-based charity that promotes cohesion between the major faiths, the foundation is to develop a US arm that will pursue a host of faith-based projects. The accounts show that his foundation has an impressive – and, in at least one case, controversial – set of faith contacts. Sitting on some £4.5m in funds as of April last year, mostly gathered through donations, it is now well placed to make its voice heard.

The foundation's advisory council of religious leaders includes Rick Warren, powerful founder of the California-based Saddleback church. It attracts congregations of nearly 20,000 and is reportedly one of the largest in the US. Warren, who has addressed the UN and the World Economic Forum in Davos, has been named one of the "15 world leaders who matter most" and one of the "100 most influential people in the world".

His influence was confirmed in December 2008 when Barack Obama chose him to give the invocation at his presidential inauguration. But the decision angered many liberals, who see Warren as an opponent of gay rights and abortion on demand; a prominent alliance with Warren is likely to attract similar attacks on the former British prime minister.

Also on the council is David Coffey, president of the Baptist World Alliance (BWA), a Virginia-based network of churches that spans the globe and is particularly active in the US.

Another initiative has been to team up with the Belinda Stronach Foundation in Toronto. Unknown in the UK, Stronach, daughter of a Canadian billionaire, is hugely influential in Canada where as a philanthropist, businesswoman and former politician she has served in both the Conservative and Liberal parties. Attractive and barely into her 40s, media commentators have dubbed her "bubba's blonde", a reference to her friendship with Bill Clinton.

According to the accounts, Blair intends to open an office in Toronto to develop the relationship.

His desire for North America to be the focus of his faith-based operations was confirmed by the decision to hold his foundation's inaugural event in May 2008 in New York, for the "charity's key partners and religious stakeholders".

The accounts also shine a light on the close connections the foundation now enjoys with major political institutions in the US. "With the Washington-based Centre for Interfaith Action, the foundation supported a meeting of major international organisations active in faith-based approaches to combating malaria (plus the White House, World Bank, UN, World Health Organisation) to co-ordinate international efforts," the accounts state.

That Blair, a charismatic politician driven by faith, should be at home across the Atlantic is no surprise to political analysts. "He comes across as confident and persuasive," said Professor Shawn Bowler, of the University of California at Riverside. "He does not talk like a modern robo-candidate in the way so many US political figures do." Unlike in the UK, Blair's religious fervour is seen as a strength. "Blair is very open about his faith and that plays a lot better in the US than in Britain," Bowler said.

But the overtly religious dimension has drawn criticism. "The Tony Blair Faith Foundation is a fundamentally flawed concept," said Terry Sanderson, president of the National Secular Society. "If religion is constantly at the fore, then the old suspicions and hatreds will continue to fester."

Other North American faith-based initiatives endorsed by the foundation include the New York-based Global Nomads Group, which brings together young people through video conferences "to discuss the global issues that affect their lives", and the Faiths Act Fellowship, which selects "30 young leaders aged 18-25, drawn from the different faiths from the US, UK and Canada, to embark on a 10-month journey of interfaith service".

Blair's status is such that he is now called on to sprinkle stardust at religious gatherings, such as a speech he delivered at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington. Even his autobiography, The Journey, for which he was paid a £4.6m advance, appears to be aimed at the US market. "Tony Blair is an extremely popular figure in North America," said Sonny Mehta, his publisher. "His memoir is refreshing, both for its candour and vivid portrayal of political life."

So embedded is he that Blair regularly crops up in Washington society diaries. Last September, the former Republican vice-president, Dick Cheney, was dining in the same restaurant. Blair got top billing in the gossip columns.

The New Yorker's theatre critic has divided US theatregoers with a furious assault on Irish writer Martin McDonagh's hit new play

Controversial playwright Martin McDonagh is used to creating headlines in Britain and Ireland with his dark tales laced with black humour and flowing with stage blood.

So his attempt to crack the American market with his first play set in the US has caused an understandable stir on Broadway, where Christopher Walken has been persuaded to play the lead role. But trying out an American setting as opposed to an Irish one is proving a challenging exercise.

The play, A Behanding in Spokane, has a typically bleak and violent McDonagh premise: an ageing killer, played by Walken, is looking for a severed hand that he lost many years ago, then he meets a couple of con artists in a dingy hotel room who tell him they have the precious appendage.

Some reviewers have judged that McDonagh – whose other plays include The Lieutenant of Inishmore and The Pillowman and who also directed and wrote the hit film In Bruges, starring Colin Farrell – fails to understand the American psyche as well as he does that of his fellow Irishmen. "He seems to have lost his hitherto unerring sense of direction in the busy, open country of the United States," wrote Ben Brantley in the New York Times. USA Today called it: "...hardly McDonagh's most fully realised effort". Then there was the New Yorker. In an extraordinary and withering review, the magazine's theatre critic, Hilton Als, laid into the play for being overtly racist. "I don't know a single self-respecting black actor who wouldn't feel shame and fury while sitting through Martin McDonagh's new play," began Als's review, which is probably one of the most negative pieces of theatre criticism produced by the magazine in recent years.

Als, who is black, took umbrage at the play's use of racist insults by Walken's character, who is openly and proudly prejudiced. "A Behanding… isn't in the least palatable; it's vile, particularly in its repeated use of the word 'nigger'," Als wrote. He then went on to compare the play's lone black role, Toby – played by Anthony Mackie, the star of The Hurt Locker, to the racist caricatures of black Americans that populated American cinema in the 1920s and 1930s. "The caricature he [McDonagh] presents in Toby, the young black male, as a shucking, jiving thief can't be excused," he wrote, before lamenting that he believed that Mackie and other black actors have to take such roles in order to get higher-profile work. "The sad fact is that, in order to cross over, most black actors of Mackie's generation must act black before they're allowed to act human," Als wrote.

Als appears to be the only major critic who reacted to the play's racial themes so viscerally. Few other reviews paid its use of racist language much attention, instead focusing on Walken's performance, which has been widely praised amid early whispers of Tony awards. But Als's remarks certainly hit home with the play's British producer, Robert Fox. "It was absolutely vindictive. Although Hilton Als's comments are meaningless in the scheme of things, because the show is doing very well, I think his remarks were entirely inappropriate and irresponsible," Fox told the Observer.

Fox said he thought Als's criticism was in itself an injection of racism where none was merited. "It was racist in that it was racially intolerant to write those things. He doesn't identify himself [in the review] as a black writer. I think it is extraordinary. I know people who have written to the New Yorker about it already. It is completely out of order," Fox said.

Als did not reply to emails or an interview request from the Observer. Nor did the theatre or Mackie have an official reaction. "We have no comment, nor does Anthony Mackie," said a spokeswoman for the production.

Some Broadway experts, however, agreed that, while the work does contain racially provocative material, it is unlikely to cause widespread offence, especially with audiences there to see Walken. "I can understand why an African-American may approach the play with a little reticence, but I don't think that is McDonagh's intent," said Dan Bacalzo, managing editor of Theatremania, a top New York theatre website.

Bacalzo defended McDonagh's right to put racist language in the mouths of one of his characters as he tries to take on American themes. "For Americans race is more important than class, so the material is appropriate for him to tackle when dealing with America," he added.

Film will focus on unhappy childhood of DJ and comedy performer who died in 1995

He created a character called Cupid Stunt and told a filthy joke about Margaret Thatcher on Radio 2. But now the late Kenny Everett is in line for the latest in showbusiness establishment accolades – a BBC4 drama biopic.

The BBC is developing a 90-minute film called Number One in Heaven about Everett, who died of an Aids related illness in 1995 aged 50.

Written by playwright Tim Whitnall – best known as the author of hit stage play Morecambe, about comedian Eric Morecambe – the as-yet uncast biopic promises to focus on Everett's troubled childhood at his Catholic secondary school on Merseyside where he was picked on for his diminutive size and his effeminacy.

"He was so small it is hard to think of finding an actor who can play him," Whitnall told the Guardian. "It is possible he could be played by a woman in fact, which is something he may have appreciated. I knew him and I loved him – in fact the title refers to the moment I first saw him when he was dancing in Heaven nightclub."

Everett, born Maurice Cole in Seaforth, Lancashire, started his professional life as a pirate DJ for Radio London and Radio Luxemburg before joining Radio 1 in the mid 1960s. He befriended the Beatles and accompanied them on their 1966 tour of the US.

His TV work included stints for Thames TV from 1978 to 1980 and for the BBC between 1981 and 1988, where he is thought to have first coined the term "the Beeb" to refer to the corporation. Among his comic creations were the punk Sid Snot and the American chatshow host Cupid Stunt, whose catchphrase was: "It's all done in the best possible taste."

Regarded in the 1980s as a supporter of prime minister Thatcher, Everett once appeared at a Young Conservatives conference waving enormous foam hands and saying "Let's bomb Russia" and "Let's kick Michael Foot's stick away". However, friends of Everett now question whether he was in fact a supporter of the Conservatives.

The BBC confirmed that it is working on the film but declined to comment further. It is expected to be made by the BBC's in-house film department, where it will be overseen by BBC Films executive producer Jamie Laurenson.

• Production from tar sands will rise to 4m barrels a day by 2025
• Shareholders seek review of environmental impact of tar sands

The £250bn cost of developing Canada's controversial tar sands between now and 2025 could be used to decarbonise the western economy by funding ambitious solar power schemes in the Sahara or a European wide shift to electric vehicles, according to a new report released today.

The same amount of investment would also help the world to hit half of the Millenium Development Goals in the 50 least-developed countries, says the research from The Co-operative and conservation group, WWF, which is released to coincide with a new film, Dirty Oil, being premiered in 25 cinemas around the UK today. It is a hard-hitting documentary narrated by Canadian actor, Neve Campbell.

The moves are all part of a concerted effort to put shareholder and public pressure on BP and Shell which are at the forefront of extracting oil from the carbon-intensive tar sands of Alberta.

The Co-op claims its task has gained urgency by BP unveiling plans last week to speed up new tar sands projects through a tie-up with Devon Energy.

"The sums of money being invested in tar sands developments are enormous and difficult for the average person to grasp," says Paul Monaghan, head of social goals at the Co-op.

"This report (The Opportunity of the Tar Sands) puts things into perspective and demonstrates not only the scale of the problem, which could take us to the brink of runaway climate change, but also the opportunity being lost. It is literally a matter of life and death that these enormous oil titans are re-steered to much more sustainable paths," he adds.

The production of tar sands is estimated by critics to emit three times more greenhouse gases than conventional oil production. It is estimated that tar sands production will increase from its 1.3m barrels a day to at least 4m barrels by 2025.

A resolution has been put down by the Co-op and other shareholders to be taken at the BP annual general meeting next month alongside a similar one for Shell asking for a review of the economics and environmental impact of tar sands.

The Co-op and WWF say the combined cost of all tar sands – £250bn – could be used for clean power projects such as the Desertec scheme linking solar plants in North Africa to a "supergrid" which could produce 15% of Europe's electricity by 2050.

Average volume of sales increased by 22%, with South America and south-east Asia seeing the biggest rises

The worldwide arms race has accelerated, most dramatically in South America and south-east Asia, despite the economic and financial slump, according to a report published today.

The average volume of arms sales increased by 22% over the past five years, compared to the previous five-year period, says the report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). The last two of these years were marked by worldwide economic turbulence which has far from stabilised, yet the arms trade is booming, it finds.

The report does not give the cost of the arms trade because most governments no longer release the figures. Britain stopped publishing the cost of its arms sales last year.

The US remains the world's top arms exporter, accounting for 30% of the total, followed by Russia (23%), Germany (11%), and France (8%).

Britain, with 4%, saw a fall in the volume of its exports, as the delivery of 72 of its Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft to Saudi Arabia was only just getting under way in the period covered by the report.

Germany's arms exports have risen by more than 100%, mainly because of sales of armoured vehicles, says the report.

Arms sales to South America rose by 150%, raising the spectre of an arms race in the region. Last year Venezuela received $2.2bn (£1.4bn) in credit from Russia for the purchase of air defence systems, artillery, armoured cars, and tanks.

Mark Bromley, SIPRI researcher and Latin America expert, said: "We see evidence of competitive behaviour in arms acquisitions in South America. This clearly shows we need improved transparency and confidence-building measures to reduce tension in the region."

In south-east Asia, arms sales to Indonesia and Malaysia increased significantly, while Singapore became the first country in the region to be among the world's top 10 arms importers, since the end of the Vietnam war.

SIPRI Asia expert Siemon Wezeman said: "In 2009, Vietnam became the latest south-east Asian state to order long-range combat aircraft and submarines." He added: "The current wave of acquisitions could destabilise the region, jeopardising decades of peace."

China was the world's biggest arms importer over the past five years, with 9% of the total, followed by India, South Korea, the UAE and Greece, traditionally a big weapons importer and now immersed in a serious economic crisis.

Combat aircraft accounted for 39% of major US weapons sales over the past five years, and for 40% of Russian arms sales, according to today's report.

The report also warns that deliveries of combat aircraft could fuel an arms race in the Middle East, north Africa, South America and south Asia. Meanwhile, Pakistan is importing the first batch of 300 combat aircraft from China and an early warning aircraft from Sweden.

In a unique experiment in democratic transparency, Barack Obama – a BlackBerry owner, and the first American president to use email while in office – has agreed to copy G2 in on his otherwise highly confidential electronic communications. Each week, we present a selection from recent days:

To: David Axelrod
Subject: Re: Re: Postponing Asia/Australia trip for final push on healthcare reform

Thanks for your revised schedule. Just to be clear – we're putting off a meeting with the Indonesian president on co-operation against terrorism in order to hold a public rally in St Louis called Affordable Healthcare: Really Actually Not A Socialist Plot To Destroy America, and delaying nuclear non-proliferation talks in Australia so I can have a series of meetings with egomaniacal "centrist" Democrats to persuade them that free kidney dialysis is unlikely, on balance, to lead to the immediate wholesale abandonment of the US constitution? Sounds fine. I mean, it wasn't what I dreamed of when I decided to run for president, I guess. Kind of embarrassing to have to tell all that to the foreign heads of state, when you think about it, but – yeah. OK.

BHO

To: Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, President of Indonesia
Subject: Postponing my trip

Hey, SBY: Just wanted to let you know that, unfortunately, I'm going to have to postpone my trip to Asia and Australia for a few days. I'm afraid I've come down with a bit of a cold – seems to be going round at the moment! Also, we've got the builders in, so everything's a bit hectic. So, anyway, those are the only reasons really! Sorry about that, and I look forward to seeing you in a few days!

Warmly, Barack

To: VPOTUS
Subject: Shower antics

Joe, you know how we're denying this claim by Eric Massa that Rahm once confronted him in the House and Senate gym shower room, while they were both naked, and jabbed him in the chest and yelled at him because he wasn't going to vote in favour of my budget? I just wanted to check that Gibbs can go ahead and officially deny this follow-up rumour I'm hearing, about how you like to head over there and snap towels at congressmen's backsides? That kind of horseplay would obviously be COMPLETELY unacceptable, so I'm assuming there's no chance that it's – wait, wait. What am I saying? Of course it is. Ah, jeez. Look, don't worry about replying to this email.

BHO

Bang Goes the Theory | Dispatches: Children Of Gaza | Panorama | Man V Food

Bang Goes the Theory

7.30pm, BBC1

Too old for Blue Peter, missing Tomorrow's World, and longing for a Clarkson-free Top Gear? Chuck all the above in a blender and you end up with this: pop science with a youthful grin. Served chilled. Tonight, Jem Stansfield aims to trump Jeremy Clarkson's land speed record for fire extinguisher-propelled go-karting. It's fast all right, but what it needs is a bit of oomph after it tails off at 30mph. "Nothing like a bit of second-stage thrust!" squeals co-presenter Liz, disconcertingly. Can he pull it off?

Dispatches: Children Of Gaza

8pm, Channel 4

Jezza Neumann's film captures the human consequences of political actions, in this case the aftermath of Israel's assault on Gaza at the end of 2008. He follows the lives of three children for a year. Nine-year-old Amal has shrapnel lodged in her skull, which requires an operation that can only be performed in Israel. Ibraheem is an 11-year-old from a family of fishermen who helps his uncles fish in the permitted two-mile strip of sea. And Omsyate, also 11, struggles with her new life, living in a tent after her house was bulldozed and her little brother was shot dead. Panorama

8.30pm, BBC1

Are The Net Police Coming For You? refers to the government's proposals to tackle web piracy by slowing down or cutting off the internet connection of persistent offenders. The UK's "creative industries" claim it costs them £400m a year, but critics accuse the government of pandering to a powerful business lobby. Jo Whiley hears the well-rehearsed arguments; the X Factor's Louis Walsh reckons someone has to pay for it somewhere, while the people's troubadour Billy Bragg says, "The music industry is thriving. It's the record industry that is dying."

Man V Food

9pm, Good Food

A new show in which food fanatic and heart-attack-waiting-to-happen Adam Richman scours the US for the biggest food-eating challenges. He starts off in search of the Sasquatch, a burger almost as fantastical as the mythical beast it's named after: "4lb of burger, over 1 ¹/₂lb of toppings and a 2lb homemade bun the size of a barstool cushion." It's the kind of food only Homer Simpson could manage and Richman has to eat the whole thing in an hour, something only four people have ever achieved – although they don't say whether or not they actually survived.

The savage "exemplary" sentences handed out to young Muslims (Sent to jail for throwing a single bottle, 13 March) need to be viewed in the broader context of the "war on terror", which itself has turned out to be a euphemism for a more shadowy war on Islam. While the government's huge assault on our basic civil liberties has affected a wide range of citizens (prayers for the fallen at the Cenotaph, calling out "rubbish" at a party conference, silent prayer in Trafalgar Square), it has impacted mainly on the Muslim community.

The absurdly high-profile assaults on Muslim households are designed to send a clear message to a vulnerable group. They should be seen within the context of the illegal attack on Iraq, the government's acquiescence in the incarceration of over a million Gazans, and the calamitous neglect of Afghanistan post-2002. The attitudes inherent in all these actions seem designed to create a climate of contempt that can only oil the wheels of extremism, defeating the very object the government proclaims – at the expense of the daily loss of young lives and the huge waste of economic resources.

Future historians may well trace the dramatic decline of this country in economic, political, social and democratic terms to this disastrous failure to relate these repressive attitudes to the ongoing creation of a negative climate that can only be self-destructive.

Roger Iredale

Yeovil, Somerset

• On reading the report on the arrest and conviction of many young Muslims over the January 2009 demonstrations against the massacre in Gaza, a number of uncanny similarities strike one with the situation in Palestine. The first is the reported police brutality in response to low-level violence, where the Israeli security forces use similar methods.

The second parallel is the behaviour of the legal systems. Israel's overlooks the war crimes in Gaza reported by Judge Goldstone, but is keen on arresting and holding without charge boys of 10, and treating boys of 12 who throw stones as terrorists. Meanwhile, the London courts seem as keen to throw young Muslims in jail, as Gordon Brown is prepared to bend the legal system after the election so as to not inconvenience those responsible for ordering and managing the massacres in Gaza. Certainly, if Britain set out to create Muslim radicalism, it could do no better.

Professor Haim Bresheeth

University of East London

• After acknowledging Mosab al-Ani's excellent character, Judge John Denniss is quoted as saying: "I'm going to give you this [prison] sentence to deter other people.". I thought fair sentencing was supposed to work on the "punishment fits the crime" principle. If so, Judge Denniss badly needs reminding of this, or better, early retirement. I was at the demo and that bottle never got near the Israeli embassy.

Judith Kazantzis

Lewes, East Sussex

• Bruce Kent is wrong: there is "absolute outrage". What kind of country are we living in when police force themselves into private houses in the middle of the night and arrest and handcuff members of the public because they were rowdy at a political demonstration? I have written to my MP, but what can I expect from the chair of the Conservative party, when the response to these cases from Labour, Tory, Lib Dem and even the Greens has been all but inaudible?

Frank Welsh

Balsall Common, West Midlands

• "... protests against the attack on Gaza ... 50,000 demonstrators ... Muslim and Christian ..." And plenty of Jews, including Israelis.

Vivien Lichtenstein

Jews for Justice for Palestinians

• Richard Hamilton's political point-scoring in juxtaposing maps of the UN partition plan and Israel and Palestine today is more than "pretty obvious" (Spot the difference, G2, 3 March). It's disingenuous. I don't approve of the occupation of the West Bank, but the Arab States rejected the partition plan in 1947, invaded Israel and did nothing to create an independent Palestine when they could have done so. And Gaza, though blockaded, is not occupied.

Jeremy Beecham

Vice-chairman, New Israel Fund UK

Suggestion comes as the EU's external border agency, Frontex, prepares to assume extra powers

Deportation flights should carry human rights monitors to check on the safety of failed asylum seekers who have been forcibly removed, a senior EU commissioner has recommended.

The suggestion comes as the EU's external border agency, Frontex, prepares to assume extra powers to charter aircraft, buy equipment and explore satellite technology to survey the union's frontiers.

Research by the Warsaw-based agency on the use of drones – unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) – to patrol frontiers is being closely followed in Britain, the UK Border Agency (UKBA) has confirmed. Although the UK is not in the Schengen agreement, which removed most EU internal borders, it is closely involved with Frontex. The Home Office minister Meg Hillier was present when the EU Justice and Home Affairs Council meeting supported reinforcing the agency's remit.

The research projects and extra capabilities Frontex is taking on include:

• Hiring aircraft to pick up failed asylum-seekers from EU states in order to improve coordination of deportation flights to Africa, Asia and South America.

• Harmonising the workings of Automated Border Control (ABC) gates that check travellers' biometric passports, to encourage information sharing between intelligence databases. ABC gates are in use at several UK airports.

• Developing training programmes to "lay the foundation of a culture of border guards" that respects human rights.

• Testing surveillance systems such as UAVs, remote sensing equipment and satellites to forestall illegal immigration.

Frontex, established in 2005, has been active in coordinating naval patrols in the Mediterranean and Aegean seas to intercept boatloads of migrants attempting to enter the EU. Its annual budget is €80m and it has a staff of around 230.

The latest development will see its role enlarged. Frontex liaison officers could be stationed in states such as Turkey that are commonly used by migrants as hopping-off points to enter Europe.

The suggestion that observers be put on board deportation flights is a response to claims by failed asylum seekers that they have been hit or abused by guards.

Unveiling plans to strengthen Frontex, Cecilia Malmström, the Swedish EU commissioner for home affairs, said: "Safeguards [should be] put in place to make sure that [Frontex] return operations are carried out in full respect of fundamental rights. For example, an independent monitor shall be present during such operations and report … on compliance with EU law."

Some EU states, though not the UK, already allow Red Cross observers to accompany asylum seekers being forcibly returned overseas.

The proposals have to be approved by the European parliament.

The UKBA said it welcomed a greater role for Frontex in coordinating the efforts of EU member states to mount effective returns for failed asylum seekers. Britain has, "on occasion" allowed representatives of the Independent Monitoring Board on board deportation flights as observers. "This is a matter we will keep under review," it added.

In June, Frontext will host a conference and technical demonstration of potential uses of UAV drones for border surveillance. Edgar Beugels, the Dutch head of research and development at Frontex, told the Guardian he expected UK firms and agencies to attend the event, which will be held in Spain. "The UK is very much interested in UAVs," he said.

For the past three years, Frontex has helped coordinate deportation flights of failed asylum seekers. Britain has participated in flights that have removed failed asylum seekers to Nigeria, Pakistan, Kosovo and Georgia.

In its enhanced role, Frontex will be responsible for hiring aircraft for the purpose of joint return operations.

On drones, a UKBA spokesman said: "[We have] followed the development of UAVs for the purpose of border surveillance … The UK Border Agency has no current plans to use drones but we are always open to examination of the potential of innovative technology and do not rule out the use of drones at some time in the future."

A spokesman for the Stop Deportation campaign welcomed deployment of human rights monitors on flights but added: "Frontex's greater role may push accountability to another level away from national governments. It may make it more difficult to challenge deportations."

Representation is a start, and an important one. But equal opportunities should be pursued above the photo opportunities

During a recent playdate, one of my son's white four-year-old friends looked up from Thomas the Tank Engine and pointed out the obvious. "You're black," he told my son. As a parent, these have never felt like particularly teachable moments. Toddlers have plenty of time ahead of them to acquire anxieties, affiliations and attitudes about race. But what they see primarily at their age is not race but difference – a fact that need prompt neither denial nor panic, rebuke nor rectification, unless some derogatory meaning is attached to that difference.

When my son looks to me for a cue, my aim is not to interrogate or chide but to acknowledge and deflect. In the past, I have said: "And what colour are you?" or "And you are white". But this time new material came to mind. "That's right," I told them both. "Just like the president."

This was the long-presaged moment I had been warned to prepare for. My son was born on the weekend that Barack Obama announced his candidacy. Since then, people have been telling me that his presidency would mean great things for my son. Indeed, this was one of Obama's privately stated aims. When his wife Michelle asked what he thought he could accomplish if he became president, he said: "The day I take the oath of office, the world will look at us differently. And millions of kids across this country will look at themselves differently. That alone is something."

True, it is something. But when Thomas is safely back in the station and the moment is over, it is not very much. Because for all the white noise emanating from the Tea Party movement, it has been black Americans who have suffered most since Obama took office. Over the last 14 months the gap between my son's life chances and his friend's have been widening. Unemployment, which has held steady in the rest of the country, is still rising among African Americans and stands at almost twice that of white people. For black teens, unemployment is 43.8%. Meanwhile, foreclosures among African Americans are increasing almost 50% faster than for whites. At this rate, my son will certainly look at himself differently after Obama's presidency – and not in a good way.

This could legitimately be the starting point for an indictment of Obama's presidency. Certainly if a Republican president were behind statistics like this, few liberals would be offering him or her the benefit of the doubt. But like most other criticisms of Obama, particularly regarding the economy, you would have to make the case that another viable contender could have produced better results in the same circumstances. He entered in a moment of freefall. Calling on him to provide a softer landing or a parachute is one thing. Demanding that he suspend the rules of gravity is another.

I think that case could be made, but it is not the argument I'm making here. The fact that the first black president is presiding over deepening racial disparities is just one of the more potent illustrations of how the relationship between identity and electoral representation has become untethered from broader social, political or economic advances and rendered purely symbolic. The corporate model of diversity, which seeks to look different and act the same, has firmly stamped its imprimatur on a kind of politics that owes more to Benetton ads than black advancement. Where we used to seek equal opportunities, we have now become satisfied with photo opportunities – a fact that satisfies some liberals, annoys most conservatives and does little, if anything, for the lives of those whose interests are ostensibly being championed.

"We have more black people in more visible and powerful positions," Angela Davis told me before Obama won the Democratic nomination. "But then we have far more black people who have been pushed down to the bottom of the ladder. When people call for diversity and link it to justice and equality, that's fine. But there's a model of diversity as the difference that makes no difference, the change that brings about no change."

This is not just true for race. India's upper house last week passed a bill to reserve a third of all legislative seats for women. Given that India ranks 99th in the world for female representation, this would make a significant difference to the Indian parliament if it becomes law. The prime minister, Manmohan Singh, described the vote as a "historic step forward toward emancipation of Indian womanhood".

Not necessarily. There is no absolute causal link between gender representation and gender equality. Six of the countries that rank in the top 20 for women's representation are also in the top 20 for per capita rapes. Meanwhile, a global gender gap index, compiled by the World Economic Forum, which assesses how countries distribute resources and opportunities between the sexes, reveals glaring discrepancies. Angola and Nepal, which stand 10th and 17th respectively in terms of representation, are 106th and 110th in terms of equality. Ireland and Sri Lanka, which rank eighth and 16th respectively for equality are 87th and 125th for representation. In 2008, two female party leaders locked horns in elections in Bangladesh, producing the second female prime minster for the country in a decade. According to the WEF, gender inequality in Bangladesh is bad (it is 94th) and getting relatively worse (in 2008 it was 90th).

This does not undermine the campaigns for more diverse political representation but should sharpen the arguments that support them. Representative democracies that exclude large sections of the population are not worthy of the adjective. Nor should the power of symbolism be underrated. Black Americans may have fared worst under Obama, but they are also the most likely to approve of his presidency. A Pew survey released in January showed the highest number of African Americans believing they are better off now than they were five years ago – even though economically they are not.

Moreover, in most cases difference does make a difference. While there may be no black or female experience, evidence suggests that a critical mass of certain groups can have an affect on outcomes. A 2008 study in the Columbia Law Review discovered: "When a white judge sits on a panel with at least one African-American judge, she becomes roughly 20 percentage points more likely to find" a voting rights violation. A 2005 Yale Law Journal study revealed not only that women judges were more likely to find for plaintiffs in sexual harassment cases than men, but that the presence of female judges increased the likelihood that men would find for the plaintiff too.

The fact that five of the 10 countries with the highest female representation are also in the top 10 for gender equality is no mere coincidence. Since the push for parliamentary parity is often part of a larger effort surrounding equal rights, greater representation is more likely to be the product of progressive social change than a precursor to it. The relationship between identity, representation and equality is neither inevitable nor irrelevant, but occasionally contradictory and always complex.

It's comforting to know there are simple words of racial reassurance I can tell my son when he's three. It would be even better to imagine that he would not be in need of that kind of reassurance by the time he reaches 23.

Gary Younge's book Who Are We and Why Does It Matter will be published in June

TNA's decision to refocus on regional autonomy shows rebels' proxy is adjusting to the end of the civil war, say analysts

Sri Lanka's principal ethnic Tamil political party, formed as a proxy for militants fighting for an independent Tamil homeland, has abandoned its demand for a separate state in favour of regional autonomy.

The Tamil National Alliance, which was founded in 2001, said it would accept a "federal structure" for the northern and eastern provinces of Sri Lanka.

Though widely anticipated, the move is of great symbolic significance, and reinforces the sense that the 25-year civil war that killed between 80,000 and 100,000 is definitively over.

The TNA said it would continue to campaign for Tamil rights. "If the Sri Lankan state continues its present style of governance without due regard to the rights of the Tamil-speaking peoples, [we] will launch a peaceful, non-violent campaign of civil disobedience on the Gandhian model," the party said, in its manifesto for forthcoming parliamentary elections on 8 April.

Analysts said the TNA was adjusting to the political reality of the end of the civil war, and its current political weakness.

Last year the Sri Lankan military mounted a series of internationally controversial offensives which drove guerrillas from the Liberation Tamil Tigers of Eelam from their enclaves in the north of the country. The military victory contributed to the re-election of Sri Lanka's president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, in January.

Charu Lata Hogg, of Chatham House, said: "[The announcement] was expected in terms of the TNA moving towards the mainstream. Pragmatism dictates that they drop [the demand for statehood]. There's no internal constituency or international pressure for it."

Alan Keenan, Sri Lanka expert of the International Crisis Group, said: "The positive side is that they are looking to find space within the political system. However they are still many miles away from what [Rajapaksa] has said he would consider."

The coming parliamentary elections are likely to be an opportunity for Rajapaksa to consolidate his power. Aides have said the government hopes to obtain the two-thirds majority that would allow sweeping constitutional changes. Loyalists claim the reforms will streamline the government and increase minority representation. Critics fear the changes will cement an autocratic rule that threatens basic civil liberties.

The court martial of the defeated presidential candidate General Sarath Fonseka is expected to start on Tuesday. Fonseka, the former head of the Sri Lankan armed forces, is charged with participating in politics while in office and violating military procurement procedures.

Anura Dissanayake, a spokesman for the Democratic National Alliance, which is led by Fonseka, claimed the charges were politically motivated.

Despite his detention, Fonseka plans to contest the parliamentary elections.

One Sri Lankan analyst, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the TNA switch was rooted in its current political weakness and its fear that it may lose heavily in the polls. Some Tamils are concerned that the political party will give up too much.

"The TNA cannot ask anything less than what it has asked for," said Manikkawasagara, a former government servant and a Tamil voter from the northern city of Jaffna, who was once an open supporter of the rebels."

The Tamil National Alliance, formed nine years ago, always stopped short of explicitly endorsing separatism, a demand which would have been illegal.

The Tamil Tigers agreed to a federal state in December 2002, but Norwegian-brokered talks collapsed in 2006.

The Lords is for people of all faiths and none: there is no space for reserved benches for the clergy

Over the last few days the 26 bishops who sit in the House of Lords must have been astounded to receive over 50,000 letters telling them their time as legislators is up. Today an ICM poll for Power2010, who organised the write-in, shows that 74% of voters think unelected bishops should have no place in the legislature, and only 21% believe that they should. Even more persuasive is that 70% of Christians want the bishops gone, and only 26% are in favour of keeping them. We are the only western country with theocracy in its law-making. Join the letter-writers at www.power2010.org.uk/reformtthelords.

Failure to reform the Lords, despite the Commons voting for a 100% elected upper house, is just one of Labour's long list of missed opportunities. But a revised plan will emerge shortly to join Labour's manifesto of regrets. Why didn't Labour do Lords reform? It would have taken a year of guerrilla warfare with the ermine, obliterating all other business. What a mistake: all that fidgety "other business" is long forgotten but this would have stood as a monument, fulfilling at last what the Commons has tried to do since 1911.

Maybe 2011 will be the year to do it. This is a trap for the Tories, by no means united on Lords reform. If Cameron votes down the constitutional reform bill in the "wash-up" of unfinished bills when the election is called, he will be voting to prevent a referendum to let people choose electoral reform for the Commons. He will also be voting to keep the present preposterous 92 hereditary peers, with their bizarre blue-blood byelections to replace their dead.

Labour regarded Lords reform as abstruse, nerdy stuff, alienating voters. But Power2010 is proving them wrong, campaigning for wide public involvement in how democracy works. With more than 100,000 votes cast in the campaign's open poll on ideas to change the system, it is pursuing the people's top constitutional reforms. The voters' first priority was proportional representation; then came scrapping ID cards and "the database state"; third was an all-elected second chamber. All candidates will be challenged to support the chosen reforms at the election.

Jack Straw is currently consulting on whether a guaranteed number of women and faith representatives should be included in the new senate. While a women's quota could be fixed in a proportional system, or with women-only seats, the idea of elections among only Christians or Muslims is absurd. If some non-elected places are reserved for the holy men and women of the faiths, their position becomes even more anomalous than at present. This is one of the world's most secular societies, where only 7% ever go to church in a year, only 1.9% on any Sunday. By what logic does religion deserve a reserved space, where votes are tied to outside instructions?

Bishops in the Lords hold great sway over matters of life and death, most recently in organising to prevent right-to-die reform – against the will of 82% of voters. They helped engineer an exemption in the equalities bill to allow religious employers to discriminate against gays and others, though they run a third of all schools and increasing numbers of state-financed services, from hospices to care homes and day centres. Ed Balls, inexplicably, allowed religious schools to opt out of most sex education: children in religious environments probably need open discussion most.

The idea that faith offers some missing moral dimension to politics is offensive. All politics is about moral choices. As individuals there are good, wise and clever people of all faiths and none. Let the religious stand for office alongside everyone else, with no reserved benches that honour their office and their dogma instead of their individual qualities.

Polly Toynbee is the president of the British Humanist Association

Council could raze site of Mandela and Tambo's first black South African law firm to create a park

Chancellor House is a fire-blackened three-storey building in central Johannesburg, inhabited by hundreds of squatters. The only clue to its place in history is a collection of faded newspaper cuttings on the wall of a squalid first-storey room, all of which show Nelson Mandela – for it was here that the former South African president and his friend Oliver Tambo opened the country's first black law firm in 1952.

The brass plate bearing their names that once hung on the door is long gone, and a visitor to Mandela's old office must step past bags of rubbish, tread through shallow puddles and climb stairs in near total darkness.

The buidling is now at the centre of a fierce and emotive debate. City council officials are considering a plan to demolish it and turn the area into an "open urban space", but members of Mandela's family want Chancellor House to be turned into a national heritage site, honouring both the 91-year-old icon and the late Tambo, who was president of the African National Congress from 1967 to 1991.

"I think it would be a very good idea because that was part of his journey," Mandela's daughter Zindzi said. "That would also accurately record the relationship he had with his comrades as colleagues in the legal fraternity."

Tambo once told how, despite white minority rule, he and Mandela practised in the building opposite the magistrates court in Johannesburg. "Chancellor House in Fox Street was one of the few buildings in which African tenants could hire offices. "It was owned by Indians," he recalled. "This was before the axe of the Group Areas Act fell to declare the area 'white' and landlords were prosecuted if they did not evict the Africans.

"'Mandela and Tambo' was written huge across the frosted window panes on the second floor, and the letters stood out like a challenge. To white South Africa it was bad enough that two men with black skins should practise as lawyers, but it was indescribably worse that the letters also spelled out our political partnership."

In 1960, with political tensions rising, Tambo left the country and Mandela was imprisoned during the state of emergency imposed after the Sharpeville massacre. Both men dedicated their lives to the liberation struggle.

Chancellor House was gutted by fire and fell into ruin. It was familiar pattern during the 1990s in Johannesburg's central business district as companies, fearful of crime and urban decay, moved their offices out to the city's northern suburbs. But now efforts are underway to regenerate the city centre.

Mandela's former office is now the home of 38-year-old Dick Macomary. He said he had lived there for 22 years and would be happy to move if the city council relocates him to a new home. In the meantime he earns a living guarding and washing cars parked by visitors to the nearby magistrates court.

"It's very difficult to live here," Macomary said. "There is no lighting, no electricity, no toilet, no water. We are eating in the street, using paraffin. If you want to shit in the night, you have to go far. They should renovate this place and give me a new home."

He said that 364 people lived in the building, including children, with 10 or 15 to a room. "Nelson Mandela is a hero," he added. "If he wants to visit just once, I'll make him a coffee."

South Africa already has several national heritage sites associated with Mandela, including his birthplace and former home in Mthatha, his former houses in Alexandra and Soweto and the prisons on Robben Island and in Paarl.

The City of Johannesburg is seeking to buy the building and is studying options to restore it, demolish it and erect a replacement, or knock it down and create a commemorative park.

"The city has as yet not taken a decision to demolish the building," said council spokesman Virgil James. "Nothing will be done without involving the relevant citizens. A proposal was submitted that, if demolished, the area be turned into an open urban space with some form of memorial to indicate the importance of the site."

Men detained following MoD inquiry into companies allegedly receiving millions of dollars for undelivered armoured buses

Two men have been arrested following a Ministry of Defence inquiry into an alleged multimillion pound fraud in post-invasion Iraq, involving British companies headed by ex-soldiers and a former high-ranking Scotland Yard officer.

One man was detained after he flew into Britain from the Far East, while a second is understood to have been arrested in London and freed on bail.

The arrests, carried out by the fraud squad of the MoD's police force, follow investigations on both side of the Atlantic that were triggered by a Guardian report on fraud on the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) that was installed in Baghdad shortly after the 2003 invasion.

In March 2007 the Guardian reported that a number of British companies were paid millions of dollars for the delivery of dozens of armoured buses to protect Iraqi civil servants from attack by insurgents, although the vehicles had never been delivered.

One company, headed by a former deputy assistant commissioner at Scotland Yard and a colourful ex-army officer, received $5.7m (£2.93m), even though the vehicles never left the factory in Russia where they were due to be manufactured. A second company, headed by another former British soldier, is understood to have received $2.7m for the same "phantom" vehicles.

The deal at the centre of the arrests was negotiated in late 2004, as the CPA was about to hand over responsibility to Iraqis. Amid the growing threat from insurgents, the CPA put out a tender for a fleet of 51 armoured vehicles. The money to pay for the contract came from Iraqi oil revenues which were held by the Trade Bank of Iraq, but under the control of US officials.

The $8.48m contract was won by Zeroline, a Norfolk-based armoured car company run by ex-soldier Peter Tarrant, 66. He subcontracted the sourcing of the vehicles to another British company called APTx, a subsidiary of Alchemie Technology Ltd. Alchemie and APTx were formed soon after the invasion of Iraq by Haslen Back, a former junior officer in the Royal Anglian Regiment. The chairman of APTx is Graham James, 55, a former deputy assistant commissioner of Scotland Yard. James is understood not to have been arrested.

Back, 42, from Suffolk, has lived for several years in Moscow, where he is said to have planned to acquire the armoured vehicles. It is understood that he faced difficulties in obtaining permission to export the vehicles from Russia to Iraq. Although the vehicles were never destined to pass through Britain, British government regulations specified that British export licenses were needed for the armoured vehicles because the principals behind the company were British.

A few weeks before the contract was due to expire in July 2005, however, APTx and Zeroline received their payments from the CPA, without the vehicles ever having been supplied.

After the Guardian reported that this had happened, investigations were launched by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, a US federal agency set up to inquire into fraud, corruption and waste in post-invasion Iraq, and by the MoD's own police.

One man, Massachusetts businessman Benjamin Kafka, 56, a director of Alchemie and head of its North American operations, pleaded guilty to fraud in a US court last April. Kafka has been co-operating with US investigators and is expected to be sentenced shortly. The US authorities are known to have taken a close interest in the British investigation, and have not ruled out further prosecutions.

The MoD police inquiries concentrated on the movement of funds once the payments had been received, as well as a series of documents which were presented to a bank in Britain which released the funds. JP Morgan Chase has confirmed that officials at its Global Trade division in Bournemouth, Hampshire, were shown documents which appeared to suggest that the convoy of vehicles was about to be shipped from Russia. At this point, the bank says, it agreed to make payments totalling $8.48m.

The US authorities in Iraq were unaware that the payment had been made and, six months later, in December 2005, they announced that the contract had been cancelled.

Tarrant has admitted to the Guardian that he had received his payment, although he knew the vehicles were never delivered.