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Australian elections 2013: results as they come in - live

Posted: 07 Sep 2013 01:46 AM PDT

Australians have cast their votes. Follow the results of the 2013 election live

Katharine Murphy

Australia Election Widget

Posted: 07 Sep 2013 01:36 AM PDT

Australia Election Widget

Sugar intake must come down, says WHO – but UK likely to resist

Posted: 07 Sep 2013 01:02 AM PDT

British government's advisory committee, some of whom receive funding from food industry, sceptical about link with obesity

The World Health Organisation is set to recommend a cut in the amount of sugar in our diets in the coming months, following reviews of the scientific evidence of the link with obesity – but any proposed lower limit for sugar will have to overcome scepticism among scientific advisers to the British government.

Next year, the government's scientific advisory committee on nutrition (SACN) will report on carbohydrates, including sugar, in people's diet. Its members, some of whom receive funding from industry, are thought to be sceptical that the sugar is a cause of obesity.

The chairman of the SACN working group on carbohydrates, Professor Ian Macdonald, from Nottingham University, has been on the Mars and Coca-Cola European advisory boards, although he has stepped down from both for the duration of the inquiry.

The professor is the academic lead for his university's "strategic relationship" with Unilever, which owns ice-cream brands as well as margarine and weight-loss products. Unilever's Dr David Mela sits with him on the SACN carbohydrate group and the two are also on the government's calorie reduction expert group, which advises food companies and health groups involved in the Department of Health's Responsibility Deal, aimed at improving public health in England.

Macdonald does not believe his links to Mars and Coca-Cola are a problem. "I have explained my associations with industry to the Department of Health and they are quite happy with the relationships," he said. "I think it's a more balanced view than some of the views of my nutritional colleagues and also than some of the industrial views. Some of the industrial people can't see what they're doing wrong. That's not right – they do need to start helping people to consume sensible amounts of food and be less sedentary than they are at the moment."

However, Macdonald voiced scepticism about some of the claims of the anti-sugar lobby. "But as far as sugar goes, it's difficult to know where to start because there are people who believe it is the cause of all of our problems. [Professor] John Yudkin started this in the 1960s with [his book] Pure, White and Deadly and other people have picked it up at intervals beyond. The consumption rates are a bit higher than they were in the 1960s, but not excessively so. Consumption hasn't trebled."

The belief that the industry should be at the table is common to many of those in the field of nutrition in the UK. The British Nutrition Foundation's director, Professor Judy Buttriss, is also on the calorie reduction group. The foundation takes funding from British Sugar and Tate & Lyle among others, arguing, as some doctors do over drug company funds, that the money has no influence on their scientific independence.

In other quarters concern over sugar in the diet and particularly in sweetened soft drinks has been growing. Health campaigners, worried about rising rates of obesity-related disease such as diabetes and heart problems, have targeted the so-called empty calories in sugar and say that sweetened soft drinks deliver calories without filling people up. The industry says the problem is caused by all of us eating too much of every type of food – not just sugar – and doing too little exercise. It frequently cites studies by industry-funded scientists to make the point.

The WHO's nutrition guidance expert advisory group (NUGAG) is updating its recommendation that sugar should not account for more than 10% of the calories in our diet. That was passed in 2003 only after a fight with the sugar industry. As the Guardian revealed at the time, the US sugar industry threatened to put pressure on the US government to withdraw American funding from the WHO if the restrictions went ahead.

A number of experts think 10% is now too high in the context of rising obesity. The WHO commissioned a review of the scientific evidence on sugar and weight gain to inform NUGAG's discussions from Professor Jim Mann's team at the department of human nutrition and medicine at the University of Otago in New Zealand. It was published in January in the British Medical Journal.

The BMJ paper says that people get fat from eating sugar because they take in too many calories, rather than any intrinsic effect on the metabolism of the sugar itself. But, it says, "when considering the rapid weight gain that occurs after an increased intake of sugars, it seems reasonable to conclude that advice relating to sugars intake is a relevant component of a strategy to reduce the high risk of overweight and obesity in most countries".

Speaking to the Guardian, Mann said that sugar "unquestionably contributes to obesity", although he thinks some anti-sugar campaigners have gone too far. "We've got to try to find the happy medium. I don't think sugar is the cause of all evil. It's an important factor and if we're eating more sugar and less fat then we need to take note of it."

Sugar is energy-dense. People who gave up sugar as part of a trial and were told to consume the same amount of calories from starchy carbohydrates such as bread and potatoes could not do it, Mann said. "They really didn't like it. They felt full. They weren't complaining about anything to do with addiction – they just felt stuffed with food."

Soft drinks containing sugar are not energy-dense in the same way, Mann argues, "but it seems that probably the body doesn't sense calories that come from sugary drinks, so that if one has a Coke with all the vast amount of sugar that it contains you don't register that you've had all these calories".

Sugary drinks, Mann believes, contribute to obesity in younger people, but not in the over-50s, who drink fewer. "But if you look for instance at New Zealand, where I am – Pacific youth for example, who are among the fattest people in the world – sugary drinks probably contribute an enormous amount, as indeed in American youth. How much it contributes to British youth I'm not quite sure but it probably is a significant contributor to youth of all nationalities."

Sugar Nutrition, which used to be called the Sugar Bureau and is funded by the industry, seized on the review's finding that it is the calories consumed that make people fat, rather than something about sugar itself. "Therefore products containing sugars should be consumed within an individual's energy-balanced diet and not in addition, in order to maintain a healthy body weight," it said in a statement.

The UK still officially uses an 11% limit on sugar set 22 years ago by the SACN's predecessor on the basis of tooth damage, although the NHS Choices website refers to 10%. Sugar Nutrition says that "numerous groups" including the European Food Safety Agency and UN Food and Agricultural Organisation have reviewed it since and found no health reason for any limit. "These expert reviews have concluded that the levels of sugars currently consumed are not implicated in any of the lifestyle diseases such as obesity, diabetes, coronary heart disease or cancer," it said.

However, the European Heart Network report in 2011 on diet, physical activity and the prevention of heart disease recommended a sugar limit of less than 10% and set a tentative ambition of reaching 5% in the future.

Mike Rayner, director of the British Heart Foundation health promotion research group at Oxford University and an adviser on the report, believes obesity is caused by too many calories from all kinds of foods. Nevertheless, he is a leading light in the campaign for a soft drinks tax, which would affect consumption.

"The problem with sugar is its calories really and it's easily digestible," he said. "And it tends not to come with anything particularly useful, so sugary drinks are problematic because they are an easy way of getting calories – not because it's sugar but because it's calories. I know there is a difference of opinion. I think nutritionists are rather squabbling over how many angels you get on the side of a pin."

Simon Capewell, professor of clinical epidemiology at Liverpool University, argues there is evidence that taxes on foods with high fat, sugar and fat content will work. But, he says, "industry is doing all it can to stop that happening, including funding scientists. The tactics of the Big Food and Big Soda multinationals are thus very similar to those employed by Big Tobacco. How much longer will society tolerate industry profiting from making children obese?" he asked. "These obese children then face premature deaths, deaths which are 100% preventable.

"Regulation and taxation both work. All we need now is a UK government which is genuinely committed to promoting the public's health, rather than supporting their industry friends' profits."

Sarah Boseley

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Australian election exit polls suggest big win for Tony Abbott's Coalition

Posted: 07 Sep 2013 12:34 AM PDT

Sky News/Newspoll survey suggests Tony Abbott's opposition Coalition will win 97 seats, with Labor dropping to only 51

Oliver Laughland

Picture desk live: Australian election 2013 - the best photos of polling day

Posted: 07 Sep 2013 12:29 AM PDT

Guardian Australia rounds up the most eyecatching images of the election day 2013

Australian election 2013 - polling day as it happened

Posted: 07 Sep 2013 12:27 AM PDT

For live election coverage head over to Katharine Murphy's results blog. Millions of Australians went to the polls to cast their vote in the 2013 federal election.

Helen Davidson

Nasa launched robotic probe to the moon - video

Posted: 07 Sep 2013 12:05 AM PDT

NASA launched its Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (Ladee) robotic probe to the moon on Friday. The probe, designed to investigate dust and gases surrounding the lunar surface, took off from a site in Virginia, only the second Nasa moon launch away from Cape Canaveral









Caring for John: an unusual marriage

Posted: 07 Sep 2013 12:00 AM PDT

Sara and John married in 1973. They split up years ago but now he's sick and has moved back in – and it's a different kind of love this time round

When Sara Clethero was 25 she fell in love with a man twice her age. The fact that he was a Catholic priest, and had taken a vow of celibacy, proved to be a temporary stumbling-block. One thing to which she gave little thought was that one day, when she was still relatively young, he would be elderly.

Forty years on, that one-time priest, John Challenor, is nearly 90, has a degenerative condition related to Parkinson's, and is increasingly infirm. Sara, 65, has a busy career in music, runs a charity in her spare time, and is about to embark on a PhD. And all this is juggled around life as John's carer. But if you're thinking that Sara should have seen it coming, you are wrong. The couple separated more than 25 years ago.

They are clearly close, committed, and in tune with one another. Although John has all his cognitive abilities, he has difficulty speaking; Sara explains for him, fills in the blanks, helps the conversation flow. She knows about his foibles and understands his needs. He lives in a downstairs bedroom at her house in Birmingham; her room is upstairs. They haven't been married conventionally for a long time and yet it's clear there is still a strong bond. "Caring for John is a privilege and has brought us closer together," says Sara. "We have a huge amount in common including a daughter and a long history. We've been a big part of one another's lives. We've got the same sense of humour and the same way of looking at things. Though one part of our story is over, I feel very lucky to be able to accompany him on another part of his journey."

Too many people, Sara believes, allow themselves to be limited in their relationships by modern definitions of what constitutes love and commitment. "The problem is that in English we have just one word, 'love', to mean many different things – sexual love, family love, friendship and, most potent of all, a deliberate decision to act for the good of someone else, which the Greeks call agape." In Sara's terms, eros has given way, over time, to agape. "The idea that all love is eros is incredibly shallow. Connections are much more nuanced than that. We've oversimplified love and over-romanticised it – and that doesn't help any of us. In many ways, caring for John is my act of defiance: I'm simply not prepared to be defined by a so-called broken marriage. Our relationship is much more complex. And when he needs me – and when I need him, because these things are far from simple on either side – we're still there for one another."

Sara and John were married in 1973, in a blaze of tabloid publicity because he was a liberal Catholic priest who had spoken out against the church ban on birth control, to the horror of his bishops, and had now found illicit love. The wedding was held an Anglican church after John had been relieved of his priestly duties and then further defied church authorities by settling into to married life down the road from the conservative Catholic community of which he had been a member, the Oratory in Birmingham.

A daughter, Zoe, arrived in 1976. By now, John was a teacher and Sara had qualified as a social worker. She took five years off to look after their daughter and then decided to pursue a new career as a singer. "John was marvellously supportive, as he always has been at every stage of our relationship, including now."

Around the time Zoe finished primary school, though, Sara and John began to acknowledge that the eros period of their life together was over. It was, says Sara, a deeply painful realisation. She moved with Zoe to Brussels, where she had been offered a job and John moved to Cardiff. They thought about divorce. "We went to see a lawyer but his attitude was, why do it? A lot of people assume that when you split up you have to get divorced, but you don't. For us it would just have meant money for lawyers and a piece of paper we didn't need."

For years, the couple lived apart but never lost contact. "In so many ways you can't split up from the other parent of your child if you're parenting that child together," says John.

"There were always arrangements to be made for Zoe, and John and I always supported one another so we could do our work and get to see lots of our daughter," says Sara.

She was touring a lot and John, who had taken early retirement from teaching, was writing and editing a magazine. Zoe was at university.

Then, a few years ago, John decided to return to Birmingham, where Sara still had a house, and became a lodger in her home. So he was there when, one day a couple of years ago, she got a call to say he had fallen down a staircase in a bookshop and been taken to hospital. "He recovered, but there were more falls," says Sara. "Something clearly wasn't right."

John was diagnosed with PSP – progressive supranuclear palsy – which is an as yet incurable degenerative brain disease. "My first thought," he says, "was Dignitas. I thought it was the way forward. I wouldn't be a burden to anyone and it would all be easily taken care of."

But Sara was appalled. "When John started talking about going to Zurich, and saying the time had come, I was horrified. I thought it was an easy way out, and that there were far more sophisticated and fulfilling ways of approaching the problem of his ill-health.

"I find the whole idea of people killing themselves when they're surrounded by people who love them a really difficult concept to deal with. John wanted to tidy things up but I just thought: why? Life isn't simple, and death certainly isn't simple. I thought it would be much more honest to embrace the complexity than to just see him shuffle off in what seems like a neat way, but actually may be anything but."

So John was persuaded to allow Sara to assemble a team of carers to look after him while she was out working. She also found a respite home where he could go when she was abroad, as she sometimes is. "John finds respite care hard. I really respect that he copes with going there because he knows it's allowing me to do my work and giving me the space I need."

For Zoe, who lives on the other side of Birmingham, there are obvious benefits to the way her parents live. "Of course I'm very aware that this is helping Zoe, because in cases where couples split up, the burden of caring for an ill parent, especially for an only child, will often fall to the child," says Sara. "So in caring for John, I'm also caring for Zoe, and that's vitally important to me as well."

Now, a new chapter in John and Sara's reltionship is about to begin – they will be grandparents when Zoe's first child, a girl, is born this month. When I arrive, it's the first thing John wants to talk about.

"I've suggested Lucy for the name," he says.

Sara is excited too about the baby, though she's worrying about how to fit being a grandmother into her packed schedule. Of one thing, though, she is certain. "It's going to be a wonderful moment for John when he meets his grandchild," she says.

"And it's something that definitely wouldn't have happened if we'd let him go to Zurich."

Joanna Moorhead

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Tony Abbott surrounded by pro-refugee protesters in Sydney

Posted: 06 Sep 2013 11:31 PM PDT

• Opposition leader faces anti-asylum activists as he visits school in Barton
• Rudd faces protests in Brisbane

Female genital mutilation: 'Mothers need to say no'

Posted: 06 Sep 2013 11:15 PM PDT

Faduma Ali, 86, still remembers the pain of being circumcised at eight. Horrific as it was, she allowed her own daughters to go through the same ordeal. But when it came to her granddaughters, she decided to step in and stop it

"As a little girl I would go looking for the cutters and ask them when it was my turn," Faduma Ali says. "I thought it was exciting. I wish I had known then what I know now."

It's almost eight decades since Faduma underwent female genital mutilation (FGM), sometimes known as female circumcision, in Somalia. Today, sitting in her daughter's lounge in north London, she says it has left her with a lifetime of pain and medical problems. Yet despite her own agony she felt powerless to resist the societal pressure driving the tradition, and insisted her own daughters have it done too.

But when her granddaughters faced the same fate, she knew something had to change. And as an older woman, her voice carried more weight. Faduma told her daughter not to let her granddaughters be cut. "Women can eradicate this," she says. "Mothers are responsible for refusing the practice."

Campaigners say that a tangled mix of family pressure, cultural traditions and religious motivations make FGM – illegal for almost 30 years in the UK – hard to eradicate. It has been documented in 28 countries in Africa and in a few countries in Asia and the Middle East. The practice involves removing all or part of the external female genitalia (including the clitoris, labia minora and labia majora – and in some cases the narrowing of the vagina), and is usually carried out before the age of 15. As well as the risk of bleeding to death or infection, a terrifying array of physical and psychological problems can follow.

Today 30,000 girls in the UK are said to be at risk of this form of mutilation, while 66,000 live with the consequences of it. Yet no one has ever been prosecuted for carrying out or abetting the practice (which carries a maximum prison sentence of 14 years).

This, say campaigners, is because children are unwilling to speak out against their families and communities and that is why Faduma, along with her daughter, Lul Musse, and granddaughter, Samira Hashi, have agreed to explain how – even in a loving and close-knit family such as theirs – such a custom can be perpetuated.

Samira, 22, is translating for her grandmother, who explains that growing up in the suburbs of Galkayo, a city in south Somalia, being "cut" was not just something she looked forward to, but insisted upon. "Everyone had it done," says Faduma, 86. "If you didn't, you were shunned. I saw it as something exciting."

She was under no illusions about how painful it could be, however. "I saw it being carried out – most girls would try and run away. But it was part of our way of life. My grandmother and mother had had it done, so it seemed natural."

Faduma's father, who was in the Somali military, was not convinced. "He had a city attitude because of his travels," says Faduma. He told her grandmother, with whom Faduma lived, that she was not to be cut. But Faduma convinced her grandmother to take her while he was away.

The cutter had no medical qualifications and performed the operation in the open air, without sterilisation or pain relief. Faduma was eight.

"There were four of us," Faduma recalls. "But because I was the bravest I was told to go first.

"My grandmother and the other girls' mothers held me down and the woman cut me with a knife. It's like someone is cutting your finger off without pain relief. My blood was shooting into her face and eyes."

Next, the wound and her vagina were sewn up, leaving her a hole the size of a match head through which to pass urine and menstrual blood. With no medical equipment, three thorns were used in place of stitches. Yet her ordeal was far from over.

"They gave you milk and waited to see if you could urinate," she recalls. "If not, they cut you open a little more. For two weeks it is agony."

Afterwards, she says, she boasted to her friends she had been cut, but never realised it would have such severe complications. "The minute you have it done you have problems," she says. "When you have your period, it is very painful and when you have children it is very painful."

Female genital mutilation, says Faduma, was intended to guarantee virginity before marriage by ensuring sex would be frightening and painful for girls. Giving birth, however, was nothing short of torture. Faduma had 10 children, but her first labour lasted five days with midwives forced to "cut me everywhere" to get the baby out.

Yet when her daughters turned seven, Faduma could not shun the custom. "Without it, my daughters would not have been allowed to marry," she says. "There was not a girl in sight who hadn't had it done."

Now 52, Lul agrees: "You couldn't go to school without it, or people would laugh at you," she recalls. Her operation was in a hospital under anaesthetic, aged seven. "I tried to run from the operating table, but my mum and her friend held me down."

The operation, she says, had a devastating effect on her life and affected her marriage. "When you have sex it is very painful and you don't feel any pleasure. You will never enjoy sex."

Giving birth was excruciating and complicated for Lul. Yet, amazingly, this did not affect her decision to have her own daughters cut. But her mother stepped in. "I was sick of it," Faduma says, firmly. "Times had changed. Women were freer and had more power."

She told her daughter not to do it. Yet Lul says she would have rebelled had they stayed in Somalia. "I would have done it even though my mother said no. All men wanted circumcision. If your daughters weren't cut they would say they are like hookers."

She believes it is up to men to take a stand. "This has to be a man's campaign. Until men say stop, that this is not part of our religion and not part of our culture, it will still go on."

For Samira, the very idea of this kind of mutilation is incomprehensible. Brought up in London, she was working as a model when she was approached by BBC3 to present a documentary about Somalia. Visiting the war-torn country, she met women who planned to have their daughters cut and saw a six-year-old girl who had been recently subjected to FGM. "I just didn't understand how a mother who had gone through this pain could have it done to her children. I don't blame the women, I blame the society that doesn't stop it."

Since the film came out last year, Samira has been touring schools with Save the Children to highlight issues facing Somalia. "One thing I have learned is that while people may say we are moving on, it still continues."

Although Muslim, Jewish and Christian communities carry out FGM, mainstream spiritual leaders from all three religions have denied that the practice stems from religion. Samira believes the desire to control women's sexuality lies behind it.

"I think women here are scared their daughters will become too westernised and not get married – that they will have boyfriends and go out, and this is why they have it done."

Yet the subject, she says, is rarely discussed. "I go into schools with a high number of Somali girls, and they always seem shocked that it is part of our history and culture. We need women to talk about their experiences, men to talk about their marital experiences, clerics to explain it is not linked to religion and doctors to talk about the problems it causes. Then things will change – when we discuss what FGM is really doing."

Homa Khaleeli

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Nasa's moon mission Ladee spacecraft blasts off successfully

Posted: 06 Sep 2013 11:13 PM PDT

Moon mission the first to blast off from Virginia site as it sets off on month-long journey to reach lunar orbit

Nasa's newest robotic explorer rocketed into space late on Friday night in an unprecedented moonshot from the state of Virginia.

The Ladee spacecraft, which is charged with studying the lunar atmosphere and dust, soared aboard an unmanned Minotaur rocket a little before midnight.

It was a change of venue for Nasa, which normally launches moon missions from Cape Canaveral, Florida. But it provided a rare light show along the east coast of the US for those blessed with clear skies.

The Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer, or Ladee, is taking a roundabout path to the moon, making three huge laps around Earth before getting close enough to pop into lunar orbit.

Unlike the quick three-day Apollo flights to the moon, Ladee will need a full month to reach Earth's closest neighbour. An Air Force Minotaur V rocket provided the ride from Nasa's Wallops flight facility.

Ladee, which is the size of a small car, is expected to reach the moon on 6 October.

Scientists want to learn the composition of the moon's delicate atmosphere and how it might change over time. Another puzzle, dating back decades, is whether dust levitates from the lunar surface.

The $280 million moon-orbiting mission will last six months and end with a suicide plunge into the moon for Ladee.

The spacecraft has three science instruments as well as laser communication test equipment that could revolutionise data relay. Nasa hopes to eventually replace its traditional radio systems with laser communications, which would mean faster bandwidth using significantly less power and smaller devices.

"There's no question that as we send humans farther out into the solar system, certainly to Mars," that laser communications will be needed to send high-definition and 3-D video, said Nasa's science mission chief, John Grunsfeld, a former astronaut who worked on the Hubble space telescope.

It was a momentous night for Wallops, which was hosting its first deep-space liftoff. All its previous launches were confined to Earth orbit.

Nasa chose Wallops for Ladee because of the Minotaur V rocket, comprised of converted intercontinental ballistic missile motors belonging to the Air Force. A US-Russian treaty limits the number of launch sites because of the missile parts.

All but one of Nasa's previous moon missions since 1959, including the manned Apollo flights of the late 1960s and early 1970s, originated from Cape Canaveral. The most recent were the twin Grail spacecraft launched two years ago. The military-Nasa Clementine rocketed away from southern California in 1994.


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Kevin Rudd faces protests as he votes in Brisbane

Posted: 06 Sep 2013 11:13 PM PDT

• Asylum seeker activists held placards and yelled: 'Refugees are welcome here!'
• Abbott faces protests in Sydney

Gabrielle Chan

Election 2013: Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott cast their votes - video

Posted: 06 Sep 2013 11:09 PM PDT

Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott cast their votes as Australians went to the polls to elect a new government

Smoothies and fruit juices are a new risk to health, US scientists warn

Posted: 06 Sep 2013 10:59 PM PDT

Scientists say potential damage from naturally occurring fructose in apparently healthy drinks is being overlooked

Fruit juices and smoothies represent a new risk to our health because of the amount of sugar the apparently healthy drinks contain, warn the US scientists who blew the whistle on corn syrup in soft drinks a decade ago.

Barry Popkin and George Bray pointed the finger at high fructose corn syrup in soft drinks in 2004, causing a huge headache for the big manufacturers, including Coca-Cola and Pepsi.

"Smoothies and fruit juice are the new danger," said Popkin, a distinguished professor at the department of nutrition at the University of North Carolina, in an interview with the Guardian.

He added: "It's kind of the next step in the evolution of the battle. And it's a really big part of it because in every country they've been replacing soft drinks with fruit juice and smoothies as the new healthy beverage. So you will find that Coke and Pepsi have bought dozens [of fruit juice companies] around the globe."

In the UK, Coca-Cola owns Innocent smoothies while PepsiCo has Tropicana. Launching Tropicana smoothies in 2008, Pepsi's sales pitch was that the drink would help the nation to reach its five a day fruit and vegetable target. "Smoothies are one of the easiest ways to boost daily fruit intake as each 250ml portion contains the equivalent of 2 fruit portions," it said at the time.

However, Popkin says the five a day advice needs to change. Drink vegetable juice, he says, but not fruit juice. "Think of eating one orange or two and getting filled," he said. "Now think of drinking a smoothie with six oranges and two hours later it does not affect how much you eat. The entire literature shows that we feel full from drinking beverages like smoothies but it does not affect our overall food intake, whereas eating an orange does. So pulped-up smoothies do nothing good for us but do give us the same amount of sugar as four to six oranges or a large coke. It is deceiving."

Nine years ago the two scientists had identified sugar-sweetened soft drinks, full of calories and consumed between meals, as a major cause of soaring obesity in developed countries. But they argue that as people change their drinking habits to avoid carbonated soft drinks, the potential damage from naturally occurring fructose in fruit juices and smoothies is being overlooked.

All sugars are equal in their bad effects, says Popkin – even those described on cereal snack bars sold in health food shops as containing "completely natural" sweeteners. "The most important issue about added sugar is that everybody thinks it's cane sugar or maybe beet sugar or HFC syrup or all the other syrups but globally the cheapest thing on the market almost is fruit juice concentrate coming out of China. It has created an overwhelming supply of apple juice concentrate. It is being used everywhere and it also gets around the sugar quotas that lots of countries have."

In a survey of sweeteners in US food products between 2005 and 2009 for a paper published in 2012, Popkin and colleagues found that fruit juice concentrate was the fifth most common sugar overall and the second most common, after corn syrup, in soft drinks and in babies' formula milk.

More studies need to be done before governments and health bodies around the world will take notice. There are only two really good long-term trials – one in Singapore and one by Harvard, he says. "But all the long term studies on fruit juice in anything show the same kind of effect whether it's a smoothie or natural [juice] and whether it's a diabetes or weight gain effect," Popkin added.

Further evidence supporting the theory came last week from a study published by the British Medical Association. Researchers from the UK, USA and Singapore found that, in large-scale studies involving nurses, people who ate whole fruit, especially blueberries, grapes and apples, were less likely to get type 2 diabetes, which is obesity-related, but those who drank fruit juice were at increased risk. People who swapped their fruit juice for whole fruits three times a week cut their risk by 7%.

Most of the attention from those concerned about growing obesity levels among children is still on soft drinks with added sugar, such as colas and lemonade, which are consumed in enormous quantities. In 2012 we drank nearly 227 litres of liquid each in the UK, according to the industry, which says 61% of those had no added sugar. Excluding water brings the "no added sugar" total to 54%. Fruit juices and smoothies are also included in the total. We each drank 17.6 litres of those.

British health campaigners are calling for a soft drinks tax in the UK. In January Sustain published its Children's Future Fund report, saying that £1bn a year could be raised from a tax of 20p a litre and invested in children's health programmes. It has been backed by more than 60 organisations and the first children's commissioner, Al Aynsley-Green, gave his support. In February the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges also called for the tax in its obesity report.

The British Soft Drinks Association says that consumption of soft drinks containing added sugar has fallen by 9% over the last 10 years, while the incidence of obesity has risen by 15%. "Obesity is a serious and complex problem requiring concerted action by a wide range of organisations as well as by people themselves. Soft drinks companies recognise the role they have to play," it said. Companies were reducing the calorie content of their drinks. PepsiCo, it said, had only advertised the no added sugar variants of its soft drinks since 2005.

Innocent Smoothies claims that people who drink juice have better diets and lower rates of obesity than others, although the studies it cited had funding from the juice industry.

"Smoothies are made entirely from fruit and therefore contain the same amount of sugars that you would find in an equivalent amount of whole fruit," it said in a statement.

Meanwhile, efforts by the soft drinks companies to grow the market continue. Coca-Cola in the UK this year declared its ambition to increase the market by £2.1bn by 2017, identifying six "moments" in the day when we could be persuaded to buy more soft drinks, including fruit juice and smoothies for breakfast and soft drinks for children when they come home from school. Sales of sweetened Coca-Cola, containing nine teaspoons of sugar in a standard can, still outstrip those of Diet Coke and Zero Coke combined.

"Unless Coca-Cola drastically reduces its marketing for sugary drinks, its strategy to reach more people more often will mean that it pumps record levels of sugar into our diets," said Charlie Powell, campaigns director of Sustain.

"This is a business model that is unhealthy and unsustainable, perfectly highlighting the 'profit versus public health' conflict of interest endemic in the sugary drinks industry."

Coca-Cola argues that taxes do not change behaviour and that sugar should not be vilified. In a statement, it said: "We believe that rather than single out any ingredient, it is more helpful for people to look at their total energy balance. This is because obesity and weight gain are caused by an imbalance in calories consumed and burnt off. Our products should be enjoyed as part of a sensible, balanced diet and healthy lifestyle that includes regular physical activity.

"For those that are watching their calorie intake, we offer a wide range of low or no calorie options, which represent more than one third of our sales."

In an article this year in the journal Pediatric Obesity, Bray and Popkin review the issue 10 years on from their famous paper. "The concern with HFCS in our diet has led to a reduced proportion of HFCS in beverages compared to other sugars," they say, but add "this is a misplaced shift … fructose remains a major component of our global diet. To date, to the best of our knowledge every added amount of fructose – be it from fruit juice, sugar-sweetened beverages or any other beverage or even from foods with high sugar content – adds equally to our health concerns linked with this food component."

Sarah Boseley

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Australian spies and police will not intimidate journalists – attorney general Mark Dreyfus

Posted: 06 Sep 2013 09:40 PM PDT

Attorney general tells Guardian security agencies and police will act strictly in accordance with their mandates and the law

Paul Owen

Toronto: 12 Years a Slave premieres to ecstatic reactions and Oscar lockdown

Posted: 06 Sep 2013 08:04 PM PDT

Steve McQueen's account of a free man sold into slavery wins awards buzz, a standing ovation, and praise for its director from producer/star Brad Pitt

The bookmakers of Toronto had better be ready. For when their doors open on Saturday they'll likely find 2,000 people queued round the block to place money on 12 Years a Slave winning the best picture Oscar. That's the capacity of the Princess of Wales theatre, where the premiere of the film took place last night, to gasps, audible tears, a smattering of appalled walk-outs, and a prolonged standing ovation. To those best picture bets, the majority of the crowd will presumably add best director for Steve McQueen, best actor for Chiwetel Ejiofor, best supporting actor for Michael Fassbender, best supporting actress for Lupita Nyong'o, as well as the full slate of technical nods.

12 Years a Slave met with ecstatic reviews when a sneak preview debuted at the boutique film festival in Telluride last week, but its overwhelming reception in Toronto is likely the crucial second step in what looks certain to be a triumphant awards campaign.

McQueen's third feature as director, following 2008's Hunger and 2011's Shame, 12 Years a Slave is very faithfully adapted from the memoir by Solomon Northup, a free man living with his family in relative affluence near New York, who in 1841 was duped, drugged, abducted and sold into slavery. John Ridley adapted the book for the big screen, McQueen's wife - who he thanked on stage before the premiere - was the person who originally suggested it as a source.

Benedict Cumberbatch plays Solomon's first, more progressive owner; Michael Fassbender - McQueen's longterm collaborator - his much less benevolent second. Slave shares much of the aesthetic (particularly the unflinching violence) that distinguished McQueen's earlier films, yet here the splashy tech setpieces have been cast aside. This is a film in the service of both its story and a hero who's much more unequivocally sympathetic than those from Hunger and Shame. The odd flash of McQueen's installation-origins remains - a burnt piece of paper in the pitch black night, its embers dying like shrinking larvae - but this is also accessible and immediate; a winning mix of mainstream and arthouse.

After the final credits rolled, McQueen returned to the stage with his cast and crew, including Brad Pitt, who as well as producing through his Plan B label, also plays a sympathetic carpenter. Of the decision to back the project, Pitt said: "Steve was the first to ask the big question: why have there not been more films on American history of slavery? It took a Brit to ask it ….  And I just have to say: if I never get to participate in a film again, this is it for me."

The premiere is likely also it for the festival, just one day in. If the notion that 12 Years a Slave won't win the best picture Oscar seems absurd to those who've seen it, the idea that it wouldn't take the audience award - the sole honour at the Toronto film festival - is plain insane.

Catherine Shoard

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Microsoft and Yahoo voice alarm over NSA's assault on internet encryption

Posted: 06 Sep 2013 05:25 PM PDT

Tech companies say they were unaware of top secret programs but warn they present 'substantial potential for abuse'

Two of the world's biggest technology companies, Microsoft and Yahoo, expressed deep concern on Friday about widespread attempts by the US and UK intelligence services to circumvent the online security systems that protect the privacy of millions of people online.

Microsoft said it had "significant concerns" about reports that the National Security Agency and its British counterpart, GCHQ, had succeeded in cracking most of the codes that protect the privacy of internet users. Yahoo said it feared "substantial potential for abuse".

Google said it was not aware of any covert attempts to compromise its systems. However, according to a report in the Washington Post on Saturday, the company said that it had accelerated the encryption of information in its data centres in a bid to prevent snooping by the NSA and the intelligence agencies of other governments.

Documents obtained by whistleblower Edward Snowden and published jointly by the Guardian, the New York Times and the nonprofit news organisation ProPublica on Thursday show that agents at GCHQ have been working to undermine encrypted traffic on the "big four" service providers, named as Hotmail (the Microsoft email service now known as Outlook), Google, Yahoo and Facebook.

Yahoo responded with a strongly worded statement on Friday. "We are unaware of and do not participate in such an effort, and if it exists, it offers substantial potential for abuse. Yahoo zealously defends our users' privacy and responds to government requests for data only after considering every applicable objection and in accordance with the law," a spokesman said.

A Microsoft spokesperson said: "We addressed these issues in our blog on July 16. We have significant concerns about the allegations of government activity reported yesterday and will be pressing the government for an explanation."

Tensions between tech firms and US authorities have been escalating. On Monday Microsoft and Google will file their latest legal briefs in a joint attempt to force the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance court to allow them to disclose more information about the requests for confidential information they receive.

A spokesman for Google said: "The security of our users' data is a top priority. We do not provide any government, including the US government, with access to our systems. As for recent reports that the US government has found ways to circumvent our security systems, we have no evidence of any such thing ever occurring. We provide user data to governments only in accordance with the law."

Facebook was not immediately available for comment.

In a blogpost Ron Bell, Yahoo's general counsel, said: "Our legal department demands that government data requests be made through lawful means and for lawful purposes. We regularly push back against improper requests for user data, including fighting requests that are unclear, improper, overbroad or unlawful. In addition, we mounted a two-year legal challenge to the 2008 amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and recently won a motion requiring the US government to consider further declassifying court documents from that case."

The revelations over the agencies' assault on encryption were greeted with consternation by technology industry groups.

Ed Black, president of the Washington-based Computer and Communications Industry Association said the NSA had a "tragic case of myopia" and had put all internet users' data at risk.

"By secretly embedding weaknesses into encryption systems in order to create a 'back door' for surveillance access, the NSA creates a road map for similar cyber-incursions by others with less noble intentions," Black said in a statement.

But on Friday, the office of the director of national intelligence (ODNI), which oversees the US's intelligence agencies, said it should "hardly be surprising that our intelligence agencies seek ways to counteract our adversaries' use of encryption".

In a statement issued on Friday, the ODNI said the stories were "not news" but warned that they threatened national security.

"The stories published yesterday, however, reveal specific and classified details about how we conduct this critical intelligence activity. Anything that yesterday's disclosures add to the ongoing public debate is outweighed by the road map they give to our adversaries about the specific techniques we are using to try to intercept their communications in our attempts to keep America and our allies safe and to provide our leaders with the information they need to make difficult and critical national security decisions," said the ODNI.

The latest revelations come as experts warn the private sector is becoming increasingly distrustful of the NSA and its allies. Speaking to federal technology website Nextgov.com, Christopher Finan, a former White House and Pentagon official who worked in cyber offence research, said the NSA revelations were underming relations with the private sector.

Private industry has long counted on the NSA's cybersecurity expertise. "NSA has postured itself as a neutral arbiter who could provide these capabilities to the private sector and really didn't necessarily want much in return," said Finan. "I don't know if they can present themselves as the same honest broker now that we're seeing the enormous quantities of data that they are actually taking in."

Dominic Rushe

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G20: Australia leaves world's media puzzled over silence

Posted: 06 Sep 2013 05:09 PM PDT

Foreign minister Bob Carr cancels media briefing at the end of the summit, with Australia about to assume presidency

Australia has failed to hold a closing press conference at the G20 leaders' summit even though it is taking over the presidency of the group for 2014.

Other leaders addressed the world's media at the end of the two-day summit in St Petersburg, but foreign minister Bob Carr initially delayed and then cancelled his appearance.

Puzzled foreign journalists were left to ask Australian reporters whether Carr would be talking at any point.

A spokesman for the minister later justified the decision not to hold an official media briefing by stating: "Australia is represented in the joint statement issued at the end of the conference."

Australia was criticised earlier in the week for sending Carr to Russia instead of prime minister Kevin Rudd, who has been campaigning in the federal election.

Australia takes charge of the G20 from December, and is currently the president of the UN security council.

On Friday Carr denied Australia had been too quick to back a US-led strike against Syria as Barack Obama struggled to persuade other world leaders to support punitive military action in response to the Assad regime's alleged use of chemical weapons.

"The position we adopted was correct," the foreign minister said before the second working meeting.

"If the world doesn't respond in a way that's appropriate and proportionate, then other dictators will think they can gas children."

Australia was among the 11 countries that supported a "strong international response to the attack.

"We support efforts undertaken by the US and other countries to reinforce the prohibition on the use of chemical weapons," the countries said.

Only France has vowed to actually join an American intervention.

Most EU nations, along with emerging powers Brazil and India, and others, are reticent about resorting to military action without a mandate from the UN.


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General Medical Council to test EU doctors' proficiency in English

Posted: 06 Sep 2013 04:10 PM PDT

Move prompted by Guardian investigation after German doctor's oversight resulted in patient's death in 2008

Medical regulators are to be given new powers to prevent European doctors treating patients in Britain before they have proved their ability to speak English as a four-year battle to ensure tougher language checks on all overseas medics enters its final stages.

The government is to change the law so that although EU doctors will still join the UK professional register automatically, the General Medical Council (GMC) will have the power to test them before issuing a licence to practise, if concerns over their English have emerged.

About 5,000 European doctors a year apply to register with the GMC. It was unable to say how many caused concern over their ability to speak English. But the GMC made its worries clear when it told a parliamentary committee two years ago of a foreign doctor's husband who had contacted them to register on her behalf because she could not speak English.

The council will also be able to test the English of all those doctors who have worked in Britain for some time but whose language shortcomings have only later arisen during fitness-to-practise investigations. There were 10 such instances last year.

A government-commissioned survey indicated that there were 66 cases in 2011 in England where senior NHS doctors dealt with linguistic concerns about a doctor locally.

The extra UK-wide GMC powers will also affect doctors working in the private sector.

A formal consultation on the changes, which will take effect next year, is being launched by the Department of Health in England .

The new measures are the latest in the fall-out from a Guardian investigation into the 2008 death of Cambridgeshire patient David Gray who was given a 10-fold overdose of a painkiller by German locum Daniel Ubani on his first UK shift.

Subsequent investigations revealed serious failures in NHS checks on doctors' language skills. The incident took more than a year to become public and only did so because two of Gray's sons approached the Guardian following what they saw as inaction by authorities. Between May and September 2009, the Guardian exposed failures in the vetting system for EU and other European doctors seeking work in Britain, which were less rigorous than for doctors from other parts of the world. Before working in the UK, non-European doctors undergo an English test and face a written exam and other assessments by the GMC.

Ubani had withdrawn an application to join a so-called performers list run by the NHS in Leeds when he failed to score sufficiently high marks in an English test and did not provide guarantees he would only work locally.

A few weeks later he joined a list of the NHS in Cornwall, which had less stringent rules on proof of language skills and did not demand doctors committed themselves to working in the area. It became his ticket to work anywhere in Britain.

After the Ubani case and under pressure from regulators and doctors' organisations, ministers have gradually brought in tougher rules. Since April this year, more than 200 senior doctors in NHS commissioning groups in England were made legally responsible for checking the language and communications skills of doctors before they were offered jobs. There is now only one national performers' list instead of 53 regional ones.

Health minister Dan Poulter said: "Overseas doctors make a hugely valuable contribution to the NHS but it is clear that tougher checks are needed. We have already strengthened the way doctors' language skills are checked at a local level. These new powers are an important step in making the system even stronger."

Although much of the registration process is online, European doctors have to attend GMC offices for an identity check and present original documentation.

Communication difficulties could be picked up through the quality of the paperwork, or through telephone conversations or face-to-face conversations, government officials suggest.

Similar measures for nurses and other health professionals are expected to follow as the government seeks to modify EU laws on freedom of movement, currently under review, which have been seen as a problem.

The view with regard to doctors, where poor English presents the highest risk, is that while European doctors' medical qualifications would remain automatically recognised in Britain under EU law, a change to the 1983 UK Medical Act to give the GMC extra powers to double-check their English language skills where necessary would be legal and proportionate.

James Meikle

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Building a better election map

Posted: 06 Sep 2013 03:56 PM PDT

Australian electorates vary greatly in size, which makes it extremely difficult to present election results geographically. We've come up with a solution

I've spent a lot of time thinking about maps this election. Australia has an interesting problem when showing election results on a map – because of our vast landscape, with population centres clustered at the edges, the electorates do not align very well with geography.

Federal seats range from a meagre 30 sq km in the inner city seat of Wentworth to the sprawling 1,587,758 sq km Western Australian electorate of Durack.

Because of this, it's very hard to present at a glance election results in a geographic form.

Here's how the standard election map looked for the 2010 election.

You simply can't see the small electorates at the same scale required to see the entire country. On top of this, because the larger electorates tend towards the Coalition, the map looks mostly blue. If you weren't familiar with the distribution of seats, you'd probably take this to mean a Coalition victory. And, although in 2010 there was a hung parliament, there was the same issue in 2007.

Despite this, news organisations persist with showing the results on a map, election after election. It's still a good way to put seat results in context – where it is, which parts of the country support which party, and so on, although people have had to draw the metropolitan areas separately, or add a zoom function.

While the zoom is good if you need to find your address and corresponding electorate, it still won't show you the results easily at a national level.

There have been a few attempts at building a better election map. Researching the problem lead me to cartograms. Cartograms take a variable such as population or GDP, and use that to reshape the geographic boundaries of an area. For example, academic Mark Newman produced these cartograms of the US election results, resizing counties by the number of votes cast:

Normal

Cartogram


These are great for equalising the area of the map taken up by electorates, and thus you can more easily compare the amount of red and blue. To maintain the relationship between normal geography, you can make it possible to toggle between both views.

Here's an interactive cartogram of Australian electorates I've produced which resizes the seats by population.

Another approach is to make it more abstract, which presents electorates at the same size, but removes most of the geographical association. The 150 hexagons infographic is a great example of this, but it's barely a map anymore.

My colleague Gabriel Dance and I have produced another election map which blends symbols and a normal map of Australia.

Here, we've shown all electorates as circles sized by population and loosely tied to their geographic location. However, each circle isn't allowed to overlap, and so pushes other circles away so all electorates are visible.

I think this is the best combination so far for showing the location of electorates and making the results immediately understandable, and I will be updating it with the 2013 results as they come in.

Nick Evershed

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Security alert at Dartford Crossing

Posted: 06 Sep 2013 03:54 PM PDT

Police close route in both directions and army carries out controlled explosions after reports of a suspicious package

Police reopened the busy M25 Dartford Crossing between Kent and Essex on Friday night, hours after closing it in both directions as part of a major security operation that was put in place following the arrest of a pedestrian and the discovery of an unspecified suspicious item.

A coach was also later stopped outside Dover as part of the investigation, which led to motorists being caught up in nine-mile tailbacks as a result of the closure of the Queen Elizabeth II bridge and both tunnels.

After opening the crossing again more than six hours after it was shut, Kent police announced that inquiries had concluded, and added in a tweet: "No threat and traffic now being moved."

Bomb disposal teams had spent the evening assessing the situation at the crossing, which handles approximately 140,000 vehicles a day and connects the north and south part of London's M25 ring road.

Graeme Brouder, 36, a motorist from Twickenham in south-west London, told the BBC that he saw a man running along the side of cars near the motorway tolls and attempting to get into them at around 4.30pm.

"He came back towards the cars, he went across into the lane next to me, tried to get in the car next to me, he was shouting something – I had my windows up so I couldn't hear him," he said.

"He was shouting at that car, tried to get in that car, ran past mine, tried my doorhandle, and then ran down the lane behind me and he was just shouting at everyone."

Separately, army experts carried out two controlled explosions after a "suspect package" was left at a bookmaker's in Welwyn Garden City, Herts.

People were evacuated from their homes and businesses after reports that a robbery had taken place at Ladbrokes on Cole Green Lane.

Officers also received information that a suspect package had been left at the scene during the incident, which happened at around 4.50pm.

A 100m cordon was put in place around the scene and army experts assessed the package before carrying out two controlled explosions.

A Hertfordshire police spokeswoman said: "No one was injured and the cordons were lifted at around 9.30pm."

Ben Quinn

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Tony Abbott awaits the transformation to nobility that victory brings

Posted: 06 Sep 2013 03:54 PM PDT

The opposition leader has slogged through the unglamorous foothills. Now he can see the summit he believes will change him

This is what victory looks like: an exhausted man cuddling puppies and inspecting a guitar factory. There are no more votes to be mopped up. Tony Abbott is going through the motions.

As a backdrop for a last press conference of the campaign he brought the cameras to Melbourne's Box Hill and "Maton Guitars Hand Made for the World Stage".

Politicians come here. In the hall of fame that is the Maton foyer there's a snap of John Howard with Lee Kernaghan. It's not a meeting of minds. Joe Hockey finds a poster of the Seekers. "Look, Tony, your favourite band."

Hockey plays kid brother. He looks fresh but admits to exhaustion. What does victory feel like? "Climbing Kilimanjaro." The same thing day after day: a long, hard slog to the summit.

Abbott is in the factory talking politics with guitar makers over the roar of the sanding machines. It's hardly likely Abbott PM will miss the factory visits he has made his trademark. How many hundred has he done denouncing the carbon tax? Today he's not hands-on. They don't let him near the guitars.

His eyes are exhausted. His shoes need a polish. He's so tired he seems to be listening to his own voice as the lines come out of his mouth. He spares us nothing: the waste will end; the boats will stop; the carbon tax will be scrapped. He's word perfect.

But for a moment he drops the script. "The great thing about successful prime ministers is that at every stage of their public life they have grown into the role." At the back of his head since he was a schoolboy he has had the idea that power when it comes will transform him.

"If you look at people like John Howard; if you look at people like Bob Hawke; they certainly grew throughout their public life as opposition leader, as prime minister. Whatever faults and mistakes the pair of them might have made, by the time they were in the prime of their life as prime minister they were different, almost ennobled figures from those they had been quite a few years earlier.

"That's what high office does. It's a burden but it also does act to bring the best out of the better people who have got those jobs."

What makes next week, let alone next year, so peculiarly hard to predict, is this romantic notion that a better person will emerge once he gets there: a Tony Abbott that resolves the old contradictions between the principled Catholic and the ruthless populist who has got him where he will be tonight.

Unlikely as Australians might find the prospect, he sees nobility on offer.

At the Pedigree Pal guide dog breeding centre on the banks of the Yarra in Kew, Abbott is not welcomed as opposition leader. Those are the smiles, the turnout of the board plus all staff and a contingent of volunteers that greet a prime minister. All that's missing is the little flag on the car.

"These are all from the one litter, Janice?" asks Abbott, cuddling an eight-week old labrador pup for the cameras. There is a smell of dog piss in the air. No pups disgrace themselves in the arms of the politicians.

We fly to Richmond, west of Sydney. They are backburning in the Blue Mountains and a smoky sunset is beginning. On the military tarmac the press contingents pass each other. We're heading for drinks at Panthers leagues club. They are off to Brisbane to watch defeat.

Slowly through the haze comes Kevin Rudd's car, flag flying and soldiers saluting. The etiquette will be faultless to the end. But the man who clawed his way back to the front seat 10 weeks ago has only a few hours left.

David Marr

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Australian election 2013 – the graphic novel

Posted: 06 Sep 2013 03:47 PM PDT

Paul Owen and David Blumenstein chart the highs and lows of the Australian election campaign – from Kevin Rudd's sensational return to the throne to Tony Abbott's 'sexygate' row, not forgetting Julian Assange on YouTube and Clive Palmer twerking – all in comic strip form

Paul Owen
David Blumenstein

Australian election results: Interactive map

Posted: 06 Sep 2013 03:24 PM PDT

Interactive map showing the results of the 2010 election as circles, clustered around locations

Nick Evershed
Gabriel Dance

The G20 Summit in Saint Petersburg continues as rain hits the UK: the best news pictures of the day

Posted: 06 Sep 2013 03:13 PM PDT

The G20 Summit in Saint Petersburg continues as rain hits the UK: the best news pictures of the day

The Guardian's award-winning picture team rounds up the most eye-catching images

Roger Tooth
Mee-Lai Stone


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Life is Inspiration

Saya senang blogging, untuk sharing apa yang saya fikirkan. Saya menganggap setiap perjalanan hidup memiliki keunikan..

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