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Australia could be left climate change policy vacuum
German consumer confidence hits six-year high, as French budget awaited - live
Dumb and Dumber To: first pictures arrive from the set
Blue is the Warmest Colour release 'should be cancelled', says director
China sentences man to death for killing toddler in parking row
Syria crisis: UN chemical weapons inspectors return
Nairobi mall siege over, says Kenyatta
Indonesia sends 'loud and clear' message to Julie Bishop on asylum
Hassan Rouhani tells UN: Iran poses no threat to the world
Ted Cruz launches anti-Obamacare marathon speech
Pakistan quake death toll rises sharply
Robert Harris on An Officer and a Spy: 'I have no desire to be taken seriously by the literary establishment' - video interview
Telstra to cut 1,100 staff by June in overhaul of its operations
The daily quiz, 25 September 2013
Bhuttos urge army to help restore democracy: From the archive, 25 September 1980
Binyamin Netanyahu writes off Iran president's nuclear speech as a ploy
Palmer United party wins its first Senate seat in Tasmania
Fremantle revels in the Dockers' purple patch
Tony Blair warns: don't let Assad off the hook on chemical weapons
Taxi driver accuses Bill Shorten of planting leadership debate question
Trident: this £100bn Armageddon weapon won't make us one jot safer | Simon Jenkins
Hundreds of kilograms of ephedrine seized in Melbourne - video
Doctors concerned by 48-hour turnaround target for asylum seekers
Take heart: combating climate change can happen at the individual level
Consumer boycott ban: does senator Richard Colbeck hate orangutans? | David Ritter

Australia could be left climate change policy vacuum

Posted: 25 Sep 2013 01:30 AM PDT

New Senate likely to wave through carbon tax repeal but minor parties are sceptical of the Coalition's Direct Action plan

Australia could be left without any policy to combat climate change with a new Senate likely to wave through the repeal of Labor's carbon tax but sceptical of the Coalition government's alternative $3.2bn Direct Action plan unless Tony Abbott makes major policy concessions.

Labor and the Greens remain determined to block the carbon tax repeal in the existing Senate, which sits until next July, but after that the Coalition appears likely to get the necessary six of eight independent and minor-party votes that will hold the balance of power in the new Senate.

But winning the necessary six votes in favour of Direct Action – which offers competitive government grants to reduce greenhouse emissions – could be much more difficult.

The Liberal Democratic party's David Leyonhjelm, set to win a Senate seat in NSW, told Guardian Australia he was "agnostic" about the science of global warming but "even if it is eventually confirmed government spending in Australia will not make the slightest bit of difference".

He said he would be voting for the carbon tax repeal and against Direct Action "unless the government offers some very significant concession that will make a big difference to the economy, for example lowering the company tax rate from 30% to 25%, or making a big reduction in the personal income tax rate, or possibly abandoning the alcopops tax and both of the last two increases in tobacco tax."

The government has already delayed a return to a budget surplus and any of the LDP's tax propositions would blow a large hole in government revenue.

Family First's Bob Day, set to take a seat in South Australia, said his party did not accept the science of global warming and would vote for the repeal and against Direct Action.

Clive Palmer, whose Palmer United party candidate in Tasmania, Jacqui Lambie, has been confirmed as the party's second senator – the party may win a third spot in Western Australia – said his senators would vote for the repeal but his party "needed more information" on Direct Action.

But the mining magnate, who is waiting for federal government environmental approval for his $8bn coalmine, rail and port project in Queensland's Galilee basin, added: "The evidence shows 97% of carbon emissions are natural and 3% are human so we probably need to look at what is happening in nature."

The DLP senator John Madigan has said he will vote for the repeal but he is concerned about the burden Direct Action puts on taxpayers. During the election campaign he proposed an entirely different approach.

"Instead of imposing a tax we should instead have a penalties scheme, whereby a company must, for example, reduce pollutants from 100% to, say, 75% within a defined time period, which is then broken down into yearly reduction targets," Madigan said.

"If that company fails to adhere to its annual target it must pay a financial penalty that would come straight out of its back pocket, not the consumer's."

The South Australian independent senator Nick Xenophon has said he won't vote for the carbon tax repeal until the Coalition agrees to change Direct Action to incorporate the intensity-based emissions trading scheme proposed by Frontier Economics.

The Motoring Enthusiasts party's likely Victorian senator, Ricky Muir, is declining to comment on policy until he has more information.

And if the PUP does win its third Senate seat in Western Australia, where the battle for the final Senate spot is between it, Labor and the Sport party, the prime minister will need the mining magnate's three votes to achieve the necessary six out of eight votes on every piece of legislation, unless he decides to negotiate with Labor or the Greens.

The Coalition is likely to have 33 seats in the new Senate, meaning it will need six of the likely eight crossbench votes to achieve the 39 votes needed to pass legislation in the 76-seat Senate.

Leyonhjelm said he was opposed to Abbott's planned "green army" to do environmental cleanups while working for the dole and to the carbon farming initiative – a Labor policy the Coalition intends to continue and expand – which he said was just a scheme to "pay farmers to plant trees they can't cut down for 100 years".

Abbott has said the carbon tax repeal will be his first piece of legislation when parliament resumes. He vowed to call a double dissolution election if it was blocked in the Senate.

But with a more friendly Senate just months away it is much more likely he will wait until next after July to remove Labor's tax – a move the power industry says means household power bills are unlikely to come down until July 2015.

Lenore Taylor

German consumer confidence hits six-year high, as French budget awaited - live

Posted: 25 Sep 2013 01:24 AM PDT

Germans are 'almost euphoric' about spending, reports GfK, in the latest sign of a revival in Europe's biggest economy.

Graeme Wearden

Dumb and Dumber To: first pictures arrive from the set

Posted: 25 Sep 2013 01:00 AM PDT

As the Dumb & Dumber sequel gets under way almost two decades on from the original, Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels have tweeted the first pictures from the shoot

• Jim Carrey on board for Dumb and Dumber sequel

Taxi Driver 2. Godfather Part 4. Jaws 6. These are the great movie reunions the world has been breathlessly awaiting. Now, to add to Scorsese and de Niro, Coppola and Pacino, and Spielberg and that rubber shark, we can add the names of Jim Carrey, Jeff Daniels and the Farrelly brothers. A tweet from Daniels – who, incidentally, has just won an Emmy award for The Newsroom – has brought with it an on-set picture to mark the start of shoot for Dumb & Dumber To.

Forget the misbegotten Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd, the 2003 "prequel" - this is the real deal. The stars have aligned: for some reason, the Farrelly brothers have nothing better on than to revisit their 1994 debut, while Carrey – not exactly washed up, but considerably less ubiquitous than a decade ago – has found time in his busy schedule of kiddie book writing. Ironically, it's Daniels who appears to have the least reason to do it: what with his white-hot TV presence, and sense that he was relatively dispensable first time around. (Hence the casting of Randy Quaid in the Daniels-esque bozo role in the Farrellys' followup, Kingpin.)

Still, it's all good for D&D mavens, as the project looked dead earlier this year, after the poor performance of The Incredible Burt Wonderstone, in which Carrey had a small role; Warner Bros bailed, but Universal stepped in. Peter Farrelly gave some plot details to Digital Spy in 2012 – "the story revolves around the fact that one of them may have sired a child. They want to go and find the child because he's having a kidney problem and he wants to ask him for one of his kidneys" – and some other key cast will be back, including Canadian ice hockey Hall of Famer Cam Neely, who played the thuggish Sea Bass in the original.

The main thing is, it's bound to be funny, isn't it? After a 20 year break, there's no way the magic won't still be there. How much are you looking forward to it?

Andrew Pulver

Blue is the Warmest Colour release 'should be cancelled', says director

Posted: 25 Sep 2013 12:53 AM PDT

Abdellatif Kechiche, the director of the Cannes hit, has expressed unhappiness about the impact of negative publicity on his own reputation and his film's legacy

• Read Peter Bradshaw on the film
• Comment: why Blue is too moving to be porn

The director of the Palme d'Or-winning erotic epic Blue is the Warmest Colour, Abdellatif Kechiche, has questioned whether the film's release should be cancelled in the wake of a turbulent wave of controversies surrounding its making.

Kechiche told Telerama he had experienced but a "brief moment of happiness" when his movie, which is based on a graphic novel by Julie Maroh, triumphed in Cannes in May. Since then, the project has been mired in mixed publicity after stars Adèle Exarchopoulos, 19, and 28-year-old Léa Seydoux said they would never work with the Franco-Tunisian film-maker again after a "horrible" shoot during which he allegedly ranted and raved at them as he sought to achieve optimum realism for the acclaimed lesbian-themed romantic drama.

"I think this film should not go out; it was too sullied," Kechiche told Telerama, adding that the allegations against him had left him feeling "humiliated, disgraced. I felt a rejection of me; I live like a curse".

Exarchopoulos and Seydoux complained during an interview with the Daily Beast at the Toronto film festival that they had been put through a gruelling 10-day shoot for the 10-minute love scene at the centre of the film and were forced into a continuous one-hour take - during which the director refused to allow his stars to simulate blows - for a separate fight scene. Kechiche now believes his stars' comments will make it impossible for audiences to view the offending scenes "with a clean heart and a watchful eye". He said: "In advance, they will ask: 'Did this man not harass the girls? Did they not cherish [the experience], too, and they do not dare say it?"

The comments, which were translated from the original French by the Hollywood Reporter, mark something of a turnaround for Kechiche, who earlier this month made an angry defence of his methods during Blue is the Warmest Colour's press tour in Los Angeles. "How indecent to talk about pain when doing one of the best jobs in the world!" the 52-year-old was reported to have said. "The orderlies suffer, the unemployed suffer, construction workers could talk about suffering. How, when you are adored, when you go up on red carpet, when we receive awards, how we can speak of suffering?" Seydoux, on the same press tour, broke down in tears as she said: "I have given a year of my life to this film. I had no life during this shoot. I gave everything. I have not criticised the director. I'm just complaining about the technique. It was my dream to work with him because, in France, he is one of the best directors."

Blue is the Warmest Colour was a huge critical hit at this year's Cannes film festival, where it became the first example of a Palme d'Or being awarded to both the director and its two lead actors. In the wake of its the film was also criticised by Maroh, author of the award-winning 2010 graphic novel on which the film is based. She described Kechiche's three-hour drama as "ridiculous" and branded it "porn", also expressing disappointment at the absence of lesbian actors from the adaptation.

Blue is the Warmest Colour is due to open on 25 October in the US and 15 November in UK cinemas.

• News: Blue is the Warmest Colour actors say filming lesbian love story was 'horrible'
• News: Blue Is the Warmest Colour director hits back after actor complaints
• News: Blue Is the Warmest Colour sex scenes are porn, says author of graphic novel

Ben Child

China sentences man to death for killing toddler in parking row

Posted: 25 Sep 2013 12:48 AM PDT

Beijing court finds Han Lei, 39, guilty of hurling two-year-old girl to the ground in an argument with her mother

A Chinese court has convicted a man of intentional homicide and sentenced him to death for hurling a toddler to the ground because of an argument with her mother over a parking space.

The Beijing court system said in a statement that Han Lei, 39, grabbed the two-year-old from her carriage and threw her to the ground.

The girl was severely injured and died days later in a hospital. Han fled the scene on 23 July but was caught by the police the following day.

The Beijing No 1 intermediate people's court sentenced Han to death and a second man who drove him away from the scene to five years for attempting to cover up a crime.

Syria crisis: UN chemical weapons inspectors return

Posted: 25 Sep 2013 12:43 AM PDT

• Ake Sellstrom's team to resume investigation into attacks
• Islamist rebels reject western backed opposition
• Obama calls for tough security council resolution
• Iran offers nuclear negotiations

Matthew Weaver

Guardian readers

Nairobi mall siege over, says Kenyatta

Posted: 25 Sep 2013 12:34 AM PDT

Kenyan president defiant after siege and announces three days of mourning for 67 killed in al-Shabaab attack on Westgate mall

The four-day siege at Kenya's Westgate shopping mall is over, the country's president declared on Tuesday night in a statement of defiance against the terrorist threat to the east African nation.

"We have ashamed and defeated our attackers," President Uhuru Kenyatta said in a televised address. "That part of our task has been completed by our multi-agency security team … Kenya has stared down evil and triumphed."

Declaring three days of mourning, Kenyatta said the nation had experienced "immense" losses and praised the solidarity of Kenyans in response to the attack.

Kenyatta said that 61 civilians and six members of the security forces had been killed, with 62 injured. Towards the end of the operation, three floors of the complex collapsed and some bodies – including those of terrorists – remained in the rubble, he said.

"I promise that we shall have full accountability for the mindless destruction, deaths, pain, loss and suffering we have all undergone as a national family. These cowards will meet justice, as will their accomplices, wherever they are."

But while he said "the worst" of the crisis was now over, it was unclear whether Kenyan security forces had finally accounted for all the militants after four days of explosions and gunfire.

Kenyatta also failed to quell intense speculation that a British woman and several Americans may have been among the attackers, saying the information could not be confirmed.

"Intelligence reports had suggested that a British woman and two or three American citizens may have been involved. We cannot confirm the details at present," Kenyatta said. Forensic experts were working to identify the terrorists, he said.

A Kenyan security source, who did not want to be named, said that sporadic blasts heard at the mall during the day were controlled explosions carried out by bomb disposal teams, and that other units had been assisting paramedics to recover bodies.

"After the bombs and the exchanges of fire the whole place is a mess," he said. "There's burned-out shops and debris everywhere."

But that version of events was challenged on Tuesday when al-Qaida-linked jihadist group al Shabaab – which has claimed responsibility for the attack – published a photograph which it claimed showed militants still in control of parts of the mall. Later onlookers were sent scurrying for cover under vehicles outside the mall amid sounds of gunfire. Witnesses also reported seeing Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) personnel on the roof.

Conflicting reports continued about the involvement or otherwise of Samantha Lewthwaite, the British Muslim convert married to 7/7 bomber Germaine Lindsay. Lewthwaite is wanted in Kenya on terrorism charges.

Witnesses reported seeing a white woman among the attackers at the mall. Kenya's foreign minister, Amina Mohamed, said a Briton who has "done this many times before" was one of the attackers, prompting fierce speculation that Lewthwaite was directly involved.

An al-Shabaab spokesman in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, on Tuesday denied a woman had taken part. "It's a groundless lie that a female was among the mujahideen attackers," the spokesman said. "It is all about propaganda disseminated by western media outlets."

A separate source told the Guardian that 10 of the suspected attackers being held by Kenyan authorities are of Somali ethnic origin. The source said the suspects – all men – were found in civilian clothes and claim to have been hiding from the militants. An official involved in the operation said Kenyan authorities were studying CCTV footage of people entering the mall in the hours leading up to the attack.

Three other people, initially suspected as being terrorists but later released, are believed to be members of the same family – a Kenyan man and his two granddaughters, who had been in hiding and texting with police for the past three days. A relative, who asked not to be named, received news of their rescue early on Monday. The family has since been reunited.

A soldier who took part in the ground-floor operations inside Westgate said Kenyan forces were providing covering fire but had met no hostile fire in return as they searched the vast complex room by room.

Smoke was seen billowing from the mall area on Tuesday, which the government said was the result of attackers burning mattresses inside. Witnesses said the smoke was clearly coming from the car park area, prompting theories that the KDF were trying to burn their way into the mall through the roof.

MPs were debating the crisis at Westgate in Kenya's parliament late on Tuesday, with many critical of the government's handling of the crisis and of the security threats posed to Kenya by the situation in Somalia.

"We have a serious problem in Kenya of guns from Somalia," said Boniface Kinoti Gatobu, MP for Buuri. "Unless we pass a resolution here, unless we make a very concrete decision here today, then this will be nothing but a talk show."

As the MPs talked, images of the rescue mission were beginning to emerge. Film footage shot by a freelance journalist showed terrified shoppers leaving the mall with their hands above their heads.

At one point a man was seen crawling on his belly to rescue a woman with two small children – clearly in shock – who had cowered motionless beside a food stall. The footage also showed people with serious injuries and chest wounds being wheeled out on ambulances.

Afua Hirsch

Indonesia sends 'loud and clear' message to Julie Bishop on asylum

Posted: 25 Sep 2013 12:33 AM PDT

Foreign minister emphatic that he will not accept measures to turn back boats if they breach his country's sovereignty

Indonesia's foreign minister has told Australian foreign affairs minister, Julie Bishop, that his country will not co-operate with the Coalition if its asylum-seeker policy violates Indonesia's sovereignty.

In a private meeting at UN headquarters in New York this week, Marty Natalegawa told Bishop that Indonesia did not accept Coalition plans to turn boats back and buy up Indonesian fishermen's boats.

"We have reiterated that Indonesia cannot accept any Australian policy that would, in nature, violate Indonesia's sovereignty," he said, according to Indonesian media.

"I think the message has been conveyed loud and clear and has been understood well."

Natalegawa said Bishop had outlined Coalition proposals to stop people arriving by boat. "She also emphasised that measures should be adopted so that Indonesia's sovereignty is not violated," he said.

Bishop said she had explained to Natalegawa that Australia would be making changes to the law to "take away the product that the people smugglers are currently selling – and that is permanent residency in Australia".

When asked if it would be difficult to change Jakarta's opinion on the matter, Bishop instead criticised the Labor party for leaving "a complete mess in border protection".

"The current laws of the Labor government only encourage people smuggling, so there is a lot of work for us to do," she said.

Bishop denied there was any tension in the meeting. "Not at all. We spoke very warmly, we know each other well," she said.

Indonesia has always given a cool reception to Coalition proposals to turn the boats back to Indonesia, although Bishop told Guardian Australia in May that Indonesian officials had agreed in private to help Australia do so, despite their public protestations at the time.

Bridie Jabour

Hassan Rouhani tells UN: Iran poses no threat to the world

Posted: 25 Sep 2013 12:32 AM PDT

Iranian president addresses UN general assembly and says the world is 'tired of war' and US should not threaten force in Syria

Iran's new president, Hassan Rouhani, declared that "peace is within reach" on Tuesday, in a hotly anticipated speech at the United Nations in which he offered immediate negotiations aimed at removing any "reasonable concerns" over his country's nuclear programme.

Rouhani argued that in return, Iran wanted the international community to recognise its right to enrich uranium, the issue that has been at the heart of the diplomatic impasse over the past 11 years.

He did not go into details and a meeting with Barack Obama did not materialise. The White House said it offered to arrange a discussion in the margins of the general assembly but said that Rouhani's office deemed it was "too complicated".

In his speech however, Rouhani said he had "listened carefully" to Obama address earlier in the day. He concluded that if Washington did not give in to the influence of "warmongers", then the US and Iran "can arrive at a framework to manage our differences".

The framework Rouhani suggested for dealing with the stand-off over Iran's nuclear aspirations offered a trade between increased Iranian transparency and international recognition of Iran's right to enrich.

"Our national interests make it imperative that we remove any and all reasonable concerns about Iran's peaceful nuclear programme," he said, adding that Iran "is prepared to engage immediately in time-bound and result-oriented talks to build mutual confidence and the removal of mutual uncertainties with full transparency."

On the other hand, he said that the country's mastery of the technology had reached such an "industrial scale", and so could not longer be reversed. So the world should instead recognise Iran's basic right to carry out all parts of the nuclear fuel cycle.

In his UN speech earlier in the day, Obama made clear that the US saw the Iranian nuclear programme as a much more immediate and serious threat to its core interest. He responded to the overtures of the newly-elected leadership in Tehran by putting Kerry in charge of the coming critical weeks of intense negotiations.

"Given President Rouhani's stated commitment to reach an agreement, I am directing John Kerry to pursue this effort with the Iranian government, in close coordination with the European Union, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia and China," the president said.

The move mirrored Rouhani's decision to put his own foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, in charge of the talks, breaking from the practice of the past eight years of abortive negotiations of assigning them to senior officials. The foreign ministers of all seven countries are due to meet for the first time at the UN on Thursday.

"Directing secretary Kerry to lead this, signals that the negotiations may be elevated to the foreign minister level, which would be very good news," said Trita Parsi, the head of the National Iranian American Council, and the author of a book on US-Iranian negotiations, A Single Roll of the Dice.

"This means that far greater political will is being invested into the diplomatic process, which in turn increases the cost of failure. That is exactly what is needed to overcome the political obstacles to a deal." Obama acknowledged the difficulties ahead. "The roadblocks may prove to be too great, but I firmly believe a diplomatic path must be tested," he said.

Obama offered Rouhani an important symbolic gesture, making the first official US acknowledgement of the CIA's well-documented role in the ousting of Iran's democratically elected government in 1953. "This mistrust has deep roots. Iranians have long complained of a history of US interference in their affairs, and America's role in overthrowing an Iranian government during the cold war," he said.

The reference to the CIA's part in the ousting of Mohammad Mosaddegh, Iran's democratically elected leader, marked a first official admission of that role, and represented an important gesture to Rouhani. It will be seen in Iran as a diplomatic victory and belated acknowledgement of a long-festering Iranian sense of injustice. The coup, supported by both the US and the UK, paved the way for the dictatorship of the shah, and then the 1979 Islamic revolution against it.

"I don't believe this difficult history can be overcome overnight. The suspicions run too deep. But I do believe if we can resolve the issue of Iran's nuclear programme that can be a major step," Obama said.

The US president expressed optimism about this week's talks. "We should be able to achieve a resolution that respects the rights of the Iranian people, while giving the world confidence that the Iranian programme is peaceful. To succeed, conciliatory words will have to be matched by actions that are transparent and verifiable."

Thursday's talks involve Rouhani's foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, Kerry, the UK foreign secretary, William Hague and foreign ministers from Russia, China, France and Germany.

Much will depend on how far Rouhani is prepared to go to remove the "reasonable concerns" about Iran's nuclear intentions. If that involves Iran's acceptance of strict limits on the degree of enrichment allowed and a stricter regime of inspections, there may room for a deal.

However, the vague nature of Rouhani's offer, the accusatory tone of much of the rest of his speech, and the failure to organise a meeting with Obama all served to dampen expectations of an immediate breakthrough.

Diplomats and observers at the UN said it was clear that Rouhani's speech was principally aimed at a domestic audience, particularly Iran's supreme leader, Ali Khamenei and the regime's hardliners who are suspicious of Rouhani's charm offensive in the West.

Julian Borger

Ed Pilkington

Ted Cruz launches anti-Obamacare marathon speech

Posted: 25 Sep 2013 12:25 AM PDT

Tea Party favourite compares fight against law to battle against Nazis during speech in largely empty chamber

Ted Cruz, a conservative senator, is delivering an old-style speaking marathon on Barack Obama's healthcare law, even though fellow Republicans have urged him to back down for fear of a possible government shutdown in a week.

The Texas senator vowed to speak until he was "no longer able to stand", and filled the time in a largely empty chamber, criticising the law and comparing the fight to the battle against the Nazis. He talked about the revolutionary war, the Washington ruling class, his Cuban-born father who worked as a cook and even recited Dr Seuss's Green Eggs and Ham.

"I rise today in opposition to Obamacare," Cruz said at 2.41pm EDT (1841 GMT), and he cast the three-year-old law as a job killer and a "liberal train wreck". Nine hours later he was showing no signs of letting up.

Egged on by conservative groups, the potential 2016 presidential candidate and favourite of the ultraconservative Tea Party movement excoriated Republicans and Democrats in his criticism of Obama's signature domestic achievement and Congress's unwillingness to gut the law. Cruz supports the House-passed bill that would avert a government shutdown and defund Obamacare, as do many Republicans. The bill would keep the government operating until 15 December.

However, they lack the votes to stop the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, from moving ahead on the measure, stripping the healthcare defunding provision and sending the spending bill back to the House. That did not stop Cruz's quixotic speech. During his talkathon, eight Republican senators joined Cruz on the Senate floor, including Rand Paul of Kentucky and Marco Rubio of Florida, both of whom have been mentioned as possible presidential candidates. Cruz yielded to them for questions but did not give up his time controlling the debate.

"It is my hope, my fervent hope, that the voices of dissension within the Republican conference will stop firing at each other and start firing" at the target of the healthcare law, Cruz said, a clear acknowledgment of the opposition he faced.

The issue has caused turmoil in the Republican party, exacerbating the divide between Tea Party conservatives and Republican incumbents who have repeatedly voted against the healthcare law but now find themselves on the defensive. Republican senators said defunding Obamacare would simply not happen with a Democratic president and Democrats controlling the Senate.

Democrats calculate that the public will blame Republicans for any interruption in government services or benefits, as it did in 1995-96 in the last shutdown confrontation that resembles the current one.

Both parties are using the healthcare reform issue to try to gain an edge in the 2014 elections when control of both houses of Congress will be at stake.

The Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, and the No 2 Senate Republican, John Cornyn of Texas, opposed Cruz's tactic, and numerous Republicans stood with their leadership rather than Cruz.

Delaying tactics could push a final vote into the weekend, just days before the new fiscal year begins on 1 October. That would give the speaker, John Boehner, and House Republicans little time to come up with a new temporary spending bill needed to avert a partial government shutdown.

McConnell told reporters that if the House did not get a Senate-passed bill until Monday, lawmakers there would be in a tough spot.

Dick Durbin, the Senate's No 2 Democrat, said Democrats favoured a spending bill that would keep the government running until 15 November, which would force Congress to work sooner on a more sweeping piece of legislation – known as an omnibus spending bill – that he hopes would reverse some automatic spending cuts known as sequestration.

Despite Cruz's effort, Reid set a test vote for Wednesday on a motion to move the measure ahead.

Outside conservative groups that have been targeting Republican incumbents implored their members to call lawmakers and demand that they stand with Cruz and his attack on Obamacare.

"This is the ultimate betrayal," the Senate Conservatives Fund said of McConnell and Cornyn – two lawmakers up for re-election next year – in an email on Tuesday morning.

Pakistan quake death toll rises sharply

Posted: 25 Sep 2013 12:06 AM PDT

Provincial official puts death toll from magnitude 7.7 quake in Awaran district in Baluchistan at 210, with 375 people injured

Rescuers are struggling to help thousands of people injured and left homeless after their houses collapsed in a massive earthquake in south-western Pakistan as the death toll rose to 210, officials said.

The magnitude 7.7 quake struck in the remote district of Awaran in Pakistan's Baluchistan province on Tuesday afternoon. Such a quake is considered major, capable of widespread and heavy damage.

The tremors were felt as far away as New Delhi, the Indian capital, some 740 miles (1,200km) away.

A provincial official, Zahid bin Maqsood, put the death toll at 210 and said 375 people had been injured, while a spokesman for the provincial government, Jan Mohammad Bulaidi, put the death toll at 216 – the conflicting figures likely to be due to the difficulty in contacting local officials and people in the remote region.

In the densely populated city of Karachi on the Arabian Sea and Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province, people ran into the streets in panic when the quake it, praying for their lives.

The Pakistani military said it was rushing troops and helicopters to Awaran district and the nearby area of Khuzdar. Local officials said they were sending doctors, food and 1,000 tents for people who had nowhere to sleep as strong aftershocks continued to shake the region.

Most of the victims were killed when their houses collapsed. Pakistani television showed pictures of the area: walls of the mudbrick homes had collapsed and people were gathered outside because they had no houses to sleep in.

Baluchistan is Pakistan's largest province but also the least populated and most impoverished. Awaran district has about 300,000 residents.

The area where the quake struck is at the centre of an insurgency that Baluch separatists have been waging against the Pakistani government for years. The separatists regularly attack Pakistani troops and symbols of the state, such as infrastructure projects.

Baluchistan and neighbouring Iran are prone to earthquakes. A magnitude 7.8 quake centred just across the border in Iran killed at least 35 people in Pakistan last April.

Robert Harris on An Officer and a Spy: 'I have no desire to be taken seriously by the literary establishment' - video interview

Posted: 25 Sep 2013 12:00 AM PDT

Robert Harris talks to Richard Lea about his latest novel, An Officer and A Spy

Richard Lea

Elliot Smith

Telstra to cut 1,100 staff by June in overhaul of its operations

Posted: 24 Sep 2013 11:55 PM PDT

Network technicians, media operations team and customer service managers targeted in attempt to remove duplication

Telstra is cutting 1,100 staff as part of a restructure of its operations business.

The cuts will be made by June next year, and will affect network technicians, members of its media operations team and management in its customer service division.

The chief operations officer, Brendon Rile, said the restructure would remove complexity and duplication in Telstra's business.

Telstra flagged big job cuts in May when it announced it would conduct an overhaul of its operations.

"At the time, we said we expected there to be impacts on jobs from these changes and, after reviewing the business over the last few months, today we briefed our people on the expected impacts," Riley said.

"Always when there are implications for people's jobs it is difficult and this is no exception.

"We will work through a careful consultation process with our people and we will do so with the utmost respect and sensitivity."

The cuts will reduce Telstra's operations workforce by 6%.

They include losses of fixed network technicians in NSW, the ACT, Victoria, Tasmania and Queensland; a review of the media operations team; and restructure of the customer service delivery team.

Riley said the reduction in workforce numbers did not change the telco's absolute commitment to continue to improve service for its customers.

"We are seeing reductions of roles in declining businesses, due to evolving technologies and the restructuring of our industry, and growth in other areas such as NAS [network applications and services division]," he said.

Telstra cut 700 jobs out of its Sensis division in February.

The daily quiz, 25 September 2013

Posted: 24 Sep 2013 11:30 PM PDT

Mark Cavendish, airports and The Simple Life appear in today's Paris-themed quiz marking fashion week

The daily quiz

Bhuttos urge army to help restore democracy: From the archive, 25 September 1980

Posted: 24 Sep 2013 11:30 PM PDT

The army should look around and see the oppression, and determine whether they are on the side of the people or of the oppressors, Nusrat and Benazir Bhutto say

The leaders of the Pakistan People's Party have said that they would consider helping a military government bring the country back to democracy only if General Zia ul-Haq was first deposed.

In an interview, Mrs Nusrat Bhutto, and her daughter, Benazir, said: "People in the army should look around and see the oppression, and determine whether they are on the side of the people or of the oppressors. They must determine which side of the historical barrier they want to stand on."

Any general who was prepared to act as a revolutionary force and lead the country quickly back to democracy would "go down in history as the redeemer of the people," she said.

Miss Bhutto dismissed General Zia's recent private promises made to Mr Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi, a senior member of the PPP central executive committee, that elections would be held within six months if Mr Jatoi would agree to become prime minister of an interim government.

"Zia is a liar," Miss Bhutto said. "He has lied on the holy book about holding elections. . . . His record is one of broken promises."

However, she said if another general had made the offer, things might be different. "If it was a matter of opening the doors of dialogue through another general, certainly it would have been considered, but with Zia, with his sordid record of terrible crimes, it is out of the question."

General Zia deposed her father, Mr Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, in a coup in 1977, and executed him last year.

Miss Bhutto hinted that there were signs of an alliance between the PPP and other political parties, with the aim of ousting General Zia. She said most of the banned parties had cooperated recently in lawyers' demonstrations against the military regime, which were held in Lahore and Karachi, and the PPP was now watching to see if they joined General Zia's Cabinet. It would be a positive sign if they refused.

"The main grievances of PPP workers against other political parties fall into two categories: they believe it is the other political parties who invited Zia to seize power, and then that they goaded and helped Zia to take the decision to execute the Prime Minister."

Miss Bhutto said: "Today in Pakistan there are three laws: martial law, common law and Islamic law. We have three laws, yet no one can find any justice." General Zia's talk of Islam was "painful to the people of Pakistan, who know he has betrayed Islam."

Binyamin Netanyahu writes off Iran president's nuclear speech as a ploy

Posted: 24 Sep 2013 11:09 PM PDT

Israeli prime minister says the world should not be taken in by Hassan Rouhani's less confrontational approach at the UN

Joel Greenberg

Palmer United party wins its first Senate seat in Tasmania

Posted: 24 Sep 2013 10:54 PM PDT

Final election result confirms that former soldier Jacqui Lambie will become a senator in July 2014

The fledgling Palmer United party has its first confirmed member of parliament – a new senator from Tasmania.

Former soldier and war veteran advocate Jacqui Lambie will enter the Senate in July 2014, the final Tasmanian Senate election result has confirmed.

The Liberals' Richard Colbeck and David Bushby were returned at the election, as were Labor senators Carol Brown and Catryna Bilyk.

The Australian Greens senator Peter Whish-Wilson, who took over from former leader Bob Brown when he retired in 2012, also retained his seat.

About 10% of Tasmanian voters cast their ballots "below the line", allocating every preference.

Fremantle revels in the Dockers' purple patch

Posted: 24 Sep 2013 10:21 PM PDT

Freo have made the AFL grand final for the first time in their history, and anticipation in the city has hit fever pitch

If you don't follow AFL, you would think that some strange purple cult has taken over Fremantle.

The city's AFL team, Fremantle Dockers, will contest their first ever grand final this weekend, against Hawthorn. "The streets have been painted purple, front yards and balconies have purple flags and balloons. I've seen purple cappuccino froth, purple beer, even dogs have been dyed purple," says Fremantle's deputy mayor, Josh Wilson. "The purple fever has reached heights I've never seen before."

Since the club's creation 19 years ago, the Dockers have enjoyed little success. Often languishing near the bottom of the ladder, their track record combined with the loud purple colours of their jersey and a 'unique' team song (best described as very bad sea-shanty rock), mean the team and their loyal fans were often ridiculed by the rest of the competition.

"We have all developed a healthy streak of black humour about the Dockers," laughs Wilson. "I remember people chanting 'one in a row' at the early games." But he says the club's lack of on-field success has never cost them support in the seaside town. "The Freo people are good humoured, patient and incredibly loyal."

Fremantle restaurateur Nunzio Gumina regularly hosts the team and counts among the Dockers' most dedicated fans. In the club's first year he traveled to every single game, home and away. "Personally, I'm still in a state of shock," says Gumina. "It's been 19 years of pain and suffering."

Gumina was among the 43,000 Dockers fans packed into Subiaco Oval on Saturday night to see Fremantle destroy the Sydney Swans in the preliminary final. Egged on by a sea of rabid purple fans creating a wall of noise, the team's performance left Gumina, and many other supporters, in tears.

"I was thinking bloody hell, are we are going to be in the grand final? I was in awe of what was happening," he says. "The players know what all the fans have been though and it was as if they were saying this is payback for it all."

For Fremantle fans, the worst ribbing has always come from supporters of the state's other (and much more successful) AFL team, the West Coast Eagles, who have won three premierships to Freo's zero. "They are so bloody arrogant, those Eagles," says Gumina. "We had nothing when we started and they always treated us like we invaded their territory."

Professor Beth Hands, a die-hard Dockers fan and director of institute health research at Fremantle's Notre Dame University, says that the relationship with the Eagles has been important in shaping the club's identity.

"We are the battlers and they are the chardonnay set," she says, explaining that Dockers' fans view their 'underdog' label as a source of pride. "Our supporters seem to be from a more lower socioeconomic background. The club has attracted the sort of fans that really like supporting the underdog."

Certainly one of the jokes doing the rounds of Perth at the moment is that chardonnay stocks are high due to the Eagles failure to thrive in the finals, whilst bottle shops are running out of longneck beers.

Wilson agrees that the town's working class history has helped shape the Dockers' image. "Even though Freo has changed and become gentrified, the city still has a working class base," says Wilson.

"I mean they chose the name Dockers when they formed, clearly aligning with that port worker history here. A marketing person would say, 'God why would you choose that?' But I really like that about the club."

Perhaps nothing encapsulates the spirit of the club more than their midfielder Michael 'Mickey' Barlow, a player rejected by other AFL clubs before Fremantle finally gave him a chance, only to then break his leg in a horrific injury. He then came back to become one of the teams most important players. Or Hayden Ballantyne, an undersized forward with a huge mouth who punches above his weight each week.

And it's not just the folk up the road at the Eagles who Fremantle have something to prove to this weekend. The AFL media, dominated by press from the eastern states, have been caught short by the club's success and have had to brush up on their Dockers knowledge, (not to mention it is not that long ago that even the footy commentators couldn't pronounce the name of the town properly.)

Last week's announcement that only one Dockers player was included in the All-Australian side only cemented Fremantle fans' perception that their beloved team is still underestimated by the rest of the competition.

But come Saturday, the Purple army will descend on the MCG and the Hawks won't know what to do with these maniacal fans. There are no more seats left on any planes out of Perth heading to Melbourne, whilst total strangers with nothing in common but a love for Freo are car-pooling across the Nullarbor. One old high school friend of mine is flying from Burma to Melbourne for just three nights to experience the day we can't believe is finally here.

Like many fans, Beth Hands is not concerned if Freo don't take the premiership this time around. "For some reason winning is not a biggie. It's more about the fact we got there," she says. "If we put up a good fight that will be fantastic."

After 19 long years, a strong fighting spirit is something Freo can be relied upon to produce.

Sophie McNeill

Tony Blair warns: don't let Assad off the hook on chemical weapons

Posted: 24 Sep 2013 10:12 PM PDT

Former prime minister says sticking with US and enforcing the international community's will in Syria are paramount

Taxi driver accuses Bill Shorten of planting leadership debate question

Posted: 24 Sep 2013 10:05 PM PDT

Driver claims he heard Labor contender on the phone telling someone what to to ask him and rival Anthony Albanese

A taxi driver has accused Bill Shorten of setting up a planted question for the first debate between himself and rival Labor leadership hopeful Anthony Albanese.

The first question in the debate asked the candidates what sort of prime minister they would be. Albanese responded first, telling the audience he would be an infrastructure prime minister.

Then Shorten answered: "If I was to be prime minister I'd like to be known as the prime minister for the powerless, the disempowered, the people who don't have a voice in our society."

Later that evening a taxi driver called in to radio station 2GB and told the host Steve Price that he had earlier given a ride to Shorten and three other Labor people, including Richard Marles. Along with a complaint that Shorten was rude, "intimidating" and didn't tip, the taxi driver, David, said the Labor powerbroker made a phone call.

David told the Daily Telegraph that Shorten told the person on the other end of the line: "Hey big boy, ask me this – Albo will be fine with it … ask us the type of prime minister we would like to be remembered as."

On Wednesday morning Shorten acknowledged that he had taken a phone call from a party member who was attending the debate and hoping to ask a question. Shorten said the caller wanted to discuss what topics might be covered.

"I had a question the day before which members seemed to be interested in, about what kind of prime minister I would like to be and I mentioned that," he said. "I thought that was a good, positive topic to give both of us the chance to talk about the future and our own individual passions. And that's a good thing."

Shorten dismissed the allegations of rudeness, saying he and the other passengers had been "totally polite".

"We did query which way the driver was going at one stage and he wasn't happy. I actually apologised at the time if he had taken offence," said Shorten.

"We got out of the cab thinking he was rude to us, and he went off thinking the opposite. That's the way it goes."

Albanese's office told Guardian Australia that they did "absolutely not" know of any debate questions in advance.

Helen Davidson

Trident: this £100bn Armageddon weapon won't make us one jot safer | Simon Jenkins

Posted: 24 Sep 2013 09:59 PM PDT

The consensus among the three main parties on Trident merely illustrates that the defence lobby scares politicians stupid

It must rank as the daftest, costliest question in British politics. How many Trident submarines does Britain need? Medieval schoolmen sharpened their brains by counting angels on pinheads. British policymakers sharpen theirs by counting warheads on missiles. They know it is irrational but the money, the language, the whiz-bangs, the uniforms turn their heads and dazzle their minds. Ordinary guns and soldiers they can understand. They slash their costs with ease. But cut nuclear weapons? That would be risky.

Every time I dip into the Trident debate I am reminded of Great War generals gulping on chateau champagne while the trenches filled with blood. David Cameron was confronted with a bold option on taking office: whether to cut back on Labour's glamour sea and air projects, many already out of date, and invest in the army instead. He flunked it. In the case of Trident, he muttered that his "real concern" was a threat from North Korea. It was mad.

Last spring there were signs that Labour's Ed Miliband might summon up the guts at last to challenge the "independent deterrent", given that its submarine replacement would consume a third of defence procurement for a decade. The press was briefed that he was "set to scrap Trident strategy". He too flunked it. There was no mention of the most expensive project on the Treasury books in his speech yesterday.

Earlier this month the Liberal Democrats mooted a scheme to keep submarines, but with their warheads locked up ashore. The idea had emerged to cut costs from within the Ministry of Defence, where a former minister, Nick Harvey, spoke of the "frankly almost lunatic mindset" among nuclear strategists. The idea was crushed by the union of former defence secretaries and service chiefs, led by Lords (George) Robertson and (Michael) Boyce. They dismissed it as "hare-brained".

The entire debate is hare-brained. Nobody can explain when, where or how these terrible weapons would be deployed and used, despite the essence of deterrence being credibility. (Yet we want to bomb Syria for using far less drastic chemical ones.) They bear no reference to any plausible threat to Britain that could possibly merit their use. Meanwhile their possession by Britain is a blatant invitation to nuclear proliferation, making opposition to an Iranian bomb hypocritical.

Yet Labour, like the Tories, is supporting a Trident renewal programme that is set to consume £20 billion and rise to a reputed £100bn over 20 years. Even current defence chiefs have been careful to excuse themselves from this debate, saying it is "for politicians to decide" on the deterrent, and for the Treasury to pay for it outside the defence budget (which the Treasury refuses).

The mesmerising effect of "the bomb" on Labour recalls the party's ancient fear of being thought weak on defence. It was seen in Nye Bevan's shift from "no first use" to deriding disarmament as an "emotional spasm" that would send Britain "naked into the conference chamber". Labour's defence establishment ever since has striven to be more hawkish than any. In 1997 Tony Blair duly bought fighters, frigates and carriers in the greatest splurge of uncontrolled defence spending in peacetime.

Seven years ago Chatham House published a debate on the deterrent by a distinguished group of British and US strategists, soldiers and historians. They calmly took apart the bombast and rhetoric, delivering a message of extreme scepticism. It was highly unlikely that the Soviets were deterred from attacking Britain during the cold war. Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser was certainly not deterred from seizing Suez, or General Galtieri from seizing the Falklands.

Even Margaret Thatcher's favourite nuclear strategist, the late Michael Quinlan, pondered the then forecast £10bn renewal cost for Trident. He questioned "the continuing effort and expenditure" and doubted whether a British deterrent "would still have worthwhile credibility". The former head of US strategic air command was equally baffled. The British deterrent relied on US supplies and maintenance. Yet its use was predicated on America proving unreliable in deploying its deterrent against some putative attacker. The British deterrent had to be credible when America's was not. It made no sense.

Reading the Chatham House study today is to realise how deaf politics can be to reason. Gordon Brown justified Trident as merely supplying "Scottish jobs". Blair wanted to be "at the top table", as does Cameron. Yet the New York Times reported in April that the US was pressing Britain to face financial reality, and "either be a nuclear power and nothing else, or a real military partner". If Britons wanted to police the world, they should sustain a well-equipped army, not posture as a nuclear power.

Debates on defence are a miasma of fear, ignorance and fantasy. The cry of the defence lobby, that "you can't put a price on security" is rubbish. There is a price on every sort of security. What makes Trident peculiar is the tendency of the costs involved to rise, and the obscurity of its justification.

The old maxim was never more true – that soldiers prepare for old wars not future ones. They are obsessively conservative. As a result, when not spending on Trident (a cold war weapon), they have induced the government to spend on old-fashioned carriers and manned fighter planes, just when long-distance drones are the weapon of the future.

Yet the wars Britain is expected to fight, wars of political choice, demand equipment and tactics from not just past wars but past centuries. Enemies are immune to nuclear weapons and heavy armour, enemies who hurl grenades and wield Kalashnikovs made in 1947. In today's wars, as in Iraq and Afghanistan, Cameron's expensive procurements are an irrelevance.

Nuclear deterrence is rooted in a balance of terror established briefly during the cold war. In the improbable event of those days returning, the west would stand together under America's nuclear umbrella or it would be doomed. The idea that Britain is made one jot safer by a £100bn Armageddon weapon floating in the Atlantic is absurd.

Yet not absurd to everyone. The idea is the mental construct of a powerful lobby, the British navy, its cheerleaders and its suppliers, with their hands on stupefying amounts of public money and an ability to scare politicians into pandering to their interest. It is that interest, not Great Britain, that they are defending so vigorously. As a result the one policy on which all parties seem to agree is that Britain needs its own nuclear deterrent, which is nonsense.

Simon Jenkins

Hundreds of kilograms of ephedrine seized in Melbourne - video

Posted: 24 Sep 2013 09:47 PM PDT

274 kilograms of ephedrine has been found in bags labelled ''basmati rice''.

Doctors concerned by 48-hour turnaround target for asylum seekers

Posted: 24 Sep 2013 09:46 PM PDT

Tight timeframe means adequate medical assessments are unlikely before refugees are sent offshore, says peak body

Australia's peak physician and paediatrician body has raised "serious" and "significant" medical concerns over the government's targeted 48-hour turnaround target for screening asylum seekers for offshore transfer.

The Royal Australasian College of Physicians (RACP) says that the tight timeframe means it is unlikely that asylum seekers arriving by boat will receive adequate medical assessment, meaning they could face "significant health issues" once transferred.

Speaking to Guardian Australia, the RACP president elect, Professor Nicholas Talley, said it would be "incredibly difficult" to "appropriately and properly asses people who are coming from all sorts of other parts of the world in such a timeframe".

"A number of these people will have acute or chronic illnesses and they need to be assessed," Talley said.

"If they are not properly assessed it will be very difficult to provide appropriate care for them. We put them at significant risk."

Talley added that the 48-hour turnaround period raised significant concerns within the RACP about the effectiveness of inoculations that asylum seekers receive once arriving in Australia.

All asylum seekers arriving in Australia must be immunised, according to the Australian schedule, and the RACP understands the majority will require some immunisation on arrival.

"Many are not fully immunised according to Australian standards," Talley said. "What if they need immunisations, for example, against something like typhoid fever?

"The minimum time for that immunisation to actually work, to protect, is four weeks. If you send them within 48 hours and there's a typhoid outbreak, you're putting these people at risk."

There are now 744 people detained in processing centres on Nauru, including children and family groups, and 822 on Manus Island. The Abbott government has announced plans to increase capacity on Manus by 1,230 places and on Nauru by 2,000 places.

Talley raised particular concerns that moving children to offshore processing centres might result in inadequate medical provision. The concerns echo those of the Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young, who said earlier in the week: "There is no way that the health assessment of children can be done within that type of timeframe."

The RACP was also concerned that the government had not provided adequate "assurances and information" that medical provision in offshore processing centres was fit to meet the needs of detainees.

Talley cited an outbreak of gastroenteritis among 100 asylum seekers on Nauru as well as a fire, which partially destroyed the island's main hospital, as examples of poor healthcare provision offshore.

Guardian Australia contacted the Department for Immigration and Border Protection for comment, which said it was a matter for the minister's office. The minister's office did not respond to a request for comment.

Oliver Laughland

Take heart: combating climate change can happen at the individual level

Posted: 24 Sep 2013 09:38 PM PDT

Bronwen Clune: The Climate Commission came back to life thanks to donations. Good. We need to see ourselves as individuals choosing to fight climate change, backed by the government or not

Bronwen Clune

Consumer boycott ban: does senator Richard Colbeck hate orangutans? | David Ritter

Posted: 24 Sep 2013 08:24 PM PDT

David Ritter: Tasmanian senator Colbeck wants to introduce a law to prevent boycotts of companies led by environmental groups. Such a move is an extraordinary illiberal attack on consumers' rights

David Ritter