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Luc Besson opens luxury Paris multiplex
Chinese growth figures cheer stock markets - live
Human trafficking: stories from the frontline
Another brick out of the editorial wall as journalists sell subscriptions
Laos plane crash: rescuers struggle to find bodies - video
Guardian Australia scoops two Walkley nominations for journalistic excellence
Boris Johnson: UK should have its own free-trade agreement with China
Gravity writer Jonás Cuarón dives into big budget Atlantis film
Edward Snowden: I brought no leaked NSA documents to Russia
Indian treasure hunt sparked by holy man's dream
Treasury defends decision to keep its advice to Joe Hockey secret
Yeti DNA: has the mystery really been solved?
Lamb Island residents see chance of nationhood arrive
Stockholm's homeless now accept donations - by debit card
Bushfires in Australia: a guide to volunteer fire services
Facebook lifts teenage sharing restrictions amid cyberbullying fears
Victorian prison death rise blamed on overcrowding and tougher sentencing
Former ICC prosecutor condemns trials of Kenyan leaders
NSW bushfires: properties destroyed, man dies amid worst fires in a decade
First giraffe born at Australia Zoo – video
Bill Shorten on bushfires: 'Our thoughts are with the people of New South Wales' – video
Australians are getting off their bikes, new research shows
Bill Shorten's Labor frontbench - the full list
Bushfires in New South Wales: your pictures
NSW bushfires: Tony Abbott says Canberra will pay half cost of rebuilding

Posted: 18 Oct 2013 02:06 AM PDT

Twelve-screen cinema in exclusive shopping mall will offer patrons champagne and caviar

• Luc Besson: 'Why I couldn't give up making films'
• Luc Besson: Guardian/BFI interview

French director-producer powerhouse Luc Besson has entered on a new venture: a luxury cinema offering gourmet food to patrons. His EuropaCorp studio has opened a multiplex just outside Paris, in a bid to put it on the same footing as other French studios such as Pathe and Gaumont.

The 12-screen cinema is located in the newly-built Aeroville shopping mall near Charles de Gaulle airport and already contains a string of boutique names. EuropaCorp CEO Christophe Lambert said the company had invested over $16m in the facility, which contains a live performance space, two luxury cinemas with a VIP lounge where gourmet food retailer Petrossian will serve caviar and champagne, an Imax screen, and eight standard cinemas.

The multiplex opened with a red-carpet premiere of Besson's latest film, The Family, in which Robert de Niro plays a mobster trying to hide with his family in a small French village. Lambert said Europa is aiming to open seven more cinemas by 2020.

More on Luc Besson

• Luc Besson: 'Why I couldn't give up making films'
• Luc Besson: Guardian/BFI interview

Andrew Pulver

Chinese growth figures cheer stock markets - live

Posted: 18 Oct 2013 02:04 AM PDT

Relief as Chinese GDP rises by 7.8% in last quarter, the fastest growth of 2013

Graeme Wearden

Human trafficking: stories from the frontline

Posted: 18 Oct 2013 02:04 AM PDT

On anti-slavery day, activists and campaigners nominate those who have made a positive impact on tackling the problem

Friday is world anti-slavery day, dedicated to raising awareness of people trapped in forced labour, manifestations of which are often referred to as modern-day slavery. To mark the day, we asked campaigners and activists around the world to nominate examples of campaigns or individuals that have had a positive impact on fighting human trafficking.

The Nepali trade union federation – ensuring safe migration

Vittorio Longhi says: In Nepal the majority of migrants move through private recruitment agencies. These have offices throughout the country, even in the remotest areas, in the countryside, where they take advantage of ignorance and naivety. Contracts often turn out to be bogus or will tie someone to high-debt burden or labour they are forced to accept.

In 2008 the General Federation of Nepalese Trade Unions (Gefont) started the safe migration campaign, sending representatives from village to village to provide information on the safest way to emigrate.

''We cannot stop this flow of migrants leaving, because our economy is too weak and we depend on remittances," says the general secretary of Gefont, Umesh Upadhyaya, "but we must do what we can to make work safe.''

Nepali unions create links with other organisations to accompany their workers. There is a specific agreement with Malaysian wood trade unions so that registered Nepali workers are followed individually. And in Hong Kong the organisation of construction workers has united locals and migrants.

Federation of Former Slaves – brick kiln solidarity

Kevin Bales says: In the state of Odisha, an estimated 200,000 low-caste and impoverished families are taken to south India each year and enslaved to work at brick kilns for six months. They work up to 15 hours a day and are given food, but no pay, returning to Odisha penniless when the brickmaking season ends. Odisha's perilous economic conditions means it continues to happen each year.

But this year, some of the workers finally got paid after organising themselves during the off-season. Later this month they will hold a "freedom" convention.

When the emerging Federation of Former Slaves – themselves former brick kiln workers – heard about this they decided to created a gesture of solidarity and hope.

They created a painting that depicts communities getting organised, demanding their rights, and overcoming the agents of slavery. Children painted a tree of freedom, showing employment, health, food, land, human rights and schooling as the fruits of independence .

The villagers of Odisha are just beginning to get organised to resist traffickers and slavery. These inspirational canvases help communicate that those who are now free stand ready to help.

Stop the Traffick: My advice is to get involved

Samuel Fitzgerald says: I started a voluntary role in the research team of Stop the Traffik in 2011. This involved taking part in call-up sessions in the southwest London region. The work involved calling up known so-called massage parlours – we found names and numbers in phoneboxes and the back of local papers – and posing as a potential customer to gain information about the services and more importantly the women and girls working there.

Sometimes the results were vague, but more often than not they were shocking to volunteers not used to such scenarios or conversations. Any indications that trafficking was potentially being used or encouraged would be sent to the relevant authorities.

I was amazed by the devotion and resilience of both the permanent and voluntary members of the organisation. The process also opened my eyes to a side of living in a big city I and perhaps most people would otherwise overlook.

The Salvation Army – repatriating trafficked children in Malawi

Alec Leggat says: In Malawi, children as young as 10 can be trafficked to work long hours on farms as house girls or in local bars. This can often lead to prostitution. Boys working on farms tend large herds of cattle for 10-hour shifts. They are fed one meal of maize porridge a day, not clothed properly and don't go to school. They don't get paid.

In 2006 the Salvation Army set up a residential centre in Mchinji for children rescued from exploitative labour

For a few months at the centre they attend the local school, live in a caring environment, play with their peers and prepare to be reunited with their family. Children learn vocational skills such as bike maintenance, tailoring, carpentry and gardening. These skills help them become productive members of their family when they return home, reducing the likelihood they will be trafficked again.

Community development officers recruit teams of volunteers to raise awareness and report cases of children suspected of being trafficked. As a result of sensitisation to child trafficking, village heads introduced new rules – enforced by the fine of a chicken – to deter parents from allowing children to be trafficked.

Anti-slavery International – Niger School project

Jakub Sobik says: Anti-Slavery International and its Nigerian partner organisation Timidria provide education in communities that recently emerged from slavery in six remote villages in northern Niger.

Education isn't usually allowed for people from the slave-caste so this is the first time anyone from these communities has had access to formal education. Over 400 children attend the schools.

Since the schools project began, community leaders have reported that these six villages are now considered to have risen up. The so-called slave-owning masters no longer regard them as under their control or enter the villages.

Recent school inspection showed an end of year test pass rate of 88% in comparison to the national average pass rate of less than 60%.

Students and families are taught of the risks of early and forced marriage, and as a result none of the girls or women from these villages have been forced into marriage or sold as wahaya.

Ecpat youth group: There are people I can talk to who understand me

Debbie Beadle says: The Ecpat UK youth group is a peer support community of young women and girls who are victims of trafficking in the UK. The group meet on a weekly basis. This helps them build resilience, recover from their experiences and understand their rights.

Jackie was trafficked from Nigeria for sexual exploitation when she was 14. She was controlled through the use of juju, a traditional west African belief, which involved some of her blood and hair being taken in a terrifying ceremony performed by a witch doctor. Jackie was forced to have sex with adult men when she was brought to the UK. The false documents she was using led to her arrest by police at the airport en route to Spain where her trafficker was intending to re-exploit her.

Jackie was referred to social services and joined the Ecpat UK youth group. At first Jackie was very traumatised and scared of everybody. She was also very frightened of the juju curse she believed she was under. By coming to the youth group she met other young people who had been through a similar experience to her.

By learning from others in the group Jackie became more confident. She agreed to work with the police and testify against her trafficker who was sentenced to a long spell in prison. Jackie is now a lot happier, she is in college studying social work and is working part-time. Jackie says: "I feel happy when I come to the group. I feel comfortable and there are people I can talk to who understand me"

Kalayaan – the original UK overseas domestic worker visa

Kate Roberts says: Migrant domestic workers have historically and internationally been recognised as vulnerable to abuse. At Kalayaan we often see workers, mainly women, who are paid little or nothing for years yet who have been working seven days a week for more than 16 hours a day. They are hit or verbally abused for a small mistake. They do the work because they can't see any other way for their families back home to survive.

For 10 years until 2012 the UK had a system of protection for migrant domestic workers in place, of which we were rightly proud; this was the original Overseas Domestic Worker visa. It allowed migrant domestic workers to change employers and if they had a full-time job offer as a domestic worker in a different household, to apply to renew their visa. It worked well. When domestic workers came to Kalayaan having escaped, they were often dressed poorly for the weather, without their passports and holding only a plastic bag with all their belongings. We could find a way to support them, help them report abuse to the police, move on and rebuild their lives.

But now it has changed for the worse. The protections were removed in April 2012. Now migrant domestic workers enter on a six-month, non-renewable visa and are prohibited from changing employers. Domestic workers who escape on this visa have few options and as immigration advisers we have to tell them this. Numbers coming to us have dropped as workers disappear underground, vulnerable to further exploitation.

Eaves project for trafficked women – poppy family and reunification

Suzanne Thompson says: The Poppy Project was set up in 2010 after increasingly referrals of trafficked women who were pregnant or who had a young child, sometimes as a result of rape during trafficking. While women may see their pregnancy as the chance for a new beginning and a reason to keep going, trafficked women frequently suffer from complex post-traumatic stress disorder and chronic depression. This can impact on their ability to parent and bond with their child. The project has dedicated workers who offer one-to-one support, group workshops and social events to mothers. Through these the women learn to connect and empathise with their child through play sessions, art therapy, discussions, videos and writing.

Some mothers who were trafficked may have been torn apart from their children and may have had limited contact for many months and often years.

Reunification workers assist women in bringing their child to join them in the UK, and supports the process of rebuilding their relationship. We recently reunited a woman who had not seen her child for 10 years. Her daughter is now a young mother of her own and though Fatima see challenges ahead, she said of the reunification: "She is my daughter, I am her mother but we don't know each other … it took Poppy a long time to get us together – two years we were trying to get her to me. I am so happy."

Eaves was previously known as the Poppy Project. Some names have been changed

Join the conversation

Do you think global initiatives work or are community approaches more successful to disrupt trafficking? Can we really hope to fight anti-slavery without addressing development issues first? We'd also like to hear what you have done to mark anti-slavery day.

Add your thoughts in the comment thread below. You can also contribute on Twitter @GdnDevelopment or using the hashtag #modernslavery. As always, if you have any problems posting a comment, or would prefer to comment anonymously, email us at development@theguardian.com and we'll add your views to the thread.

Maeve Shearlaw

Another brick out of the editorial wall as journalists sell subscriptions

Posted: 18 Oct 2013 01:59 AM PDT

In 1990, while editing the Daily Mirror, I found myself embroiled in a bizarre row with the paper's owner, Robert Maxwell (one of many).

Maxwell had demanded that the paper's reporter covering the Gulf War from Dhahran, Bill Akass, should break off from his journalistic duties in order to sell encyclopaedias to the troops.

Akass, in refusing to do so, was supported by me and the rest of the editorial staff. The notion that journalists should engage in the mucky business of commerce was anathema.

We were far too high-minded, for instance, to sell advertising space. The wall between us and the ad department - between editorial and business - had been built many years before.

But the digital revolution is nothing if not disruptive. So that wall is gradually being dismantled brick by brick.

Plenty of journalists who have launched online news start-ups are only too ready to sell ads nowadays - out of necessity in most cases.

Now comes news of a mainstream US-based magazine, The New Republic, where staff have been selling subscriptions.

According to a Forbes report, the magazine's staffers "have been hawking subscriptions to their friends and family members for the past two weeks as part of an intra-office contest."

Management even offered a prize (an iPad mini) to the person signing up the most new readers at the "special friends-and-family rate" of $20 for 20 issues.

The winner was a senior editor, Julia Ioffe, who sold 55 of the 309 total subscriptions generated by the contest.

As Forbes writer Jeff Bercovici points out, making direct appeals to readers for financial support is increasingly common. Crowdfunding has been around for years.

Joe Pompeo, writing on Capital New York, gives a variety of examples of online sites enjoying a measure of success in persuading people to fund journalism.

Sources: Joe Pompeo/Forbes

Roy Greenslade

Laos plane crash: rescuers struggle to find bodies - video

Posted: 18 Oct 2013 01:56 AM PDT

Lao and Thai rescuers search the Mekong river for bodies on Thursday, after a Lao Airlines flight crashed with 49 people on board

Guardian Australia scoops two Walkley nominations for journalistic excellence

Posted: 18 Oct 2013 01:47 AM PDT

Coveted media awards nominate the interactive ‘Firestorm’ and deputy political editor Katharine Murphy

Helen Davidson

Boris Johnson: UK should have its own free-trade agreement with China

Posted: 18 Oct 2013 01:46 AM PDT

Mayor of London says VAT and import duty reform key to breaking down trade barriers between west and east

Britain should negotiate its own free-trade agreement with China if talks between the European Union and Beijing fail to yield one, Boris Johnson has said.

Trade talks between European and Chinese leaders which could pave the way for a free-trade deal are due to open imminently, but the mayor of London recognised there could be difficulties.

Brussels and Beijing narrowly avoided a trade war earlier this year over European tariffs on Chinese solar panels.

At a British Chamber of Commerce event in Hong Kong, Johnson asked the audience what they wanted to change in London to help break down barriers between the west and the east. He was told to reform import duty and sort out VAT claim-back issues at Heathrow airport.

Johnson said: "VAT and import duty – those it seems to me are classically things that can be resolved by growing trade and co-operation between London and China, London and Beijing. We need a proper, thoroughgoing free-trade agreement. If the EU won't do it we can do it on our own."

Johnson's remarks will give succour to Eurosceptic Tory MPs who want more UK trade independence, and they were warmly welcomed by the audience of mainly expat business people.

It is understood the mayor is not calling for unlimited migration or freedom of movement between the two nations, something he has in the past advocated with Australia and New Zealand.

Johnson said: "Free trade would bring greater prosperity in both Britain and China and we should embrace it.

"It would mean better access for British projects to Chinese markets, access that would bring huge benefits to London's economy, creating jobs and growth."

Johnson has been in China since Sunday promoting British products and courting Chinese investment in London.

Last month he called on David Cameron to deliver "serious and proper and substantive" reform of the "intrusive" EU.

The prime minister is committed to renegotiating the UK's relationship with Brussels before putting an in/out referendum on the EU before the British public.

Gravity writer Jonás Cuarón dives into big budget Atlantis film

Posted: 18 Oct 2013 01:36 AM PDT

After the success of the smash-hit space thriller, Jonás Cuarón moves on to writing movie about the legendary lost kingdom

• Gravity blasts off for China release
• Gravity's science exploded by top astrophysicist

Gravity co-scriptwriter Jonás Cuarón, the son of the film's director Alfonso, has been taken on as the writer of The Lost City, a fantasy adventure set in the mythical land of Atlantis, according to Variety.

Few details have been made available for The Lost City, but it is likely to be considered by producing studio Warner Bros as a potential big budget tentpole film as Peter Jackson was set to be involved at one point.

Jonás Cuarón is currently in production on his own directorial project, a Spanish-language thriller called Desierto starring Gael Garcia Bernal, which follows illegal immigrants battling border-area vigilantes as they try to make it into the US. Cuarón's father apparently admired the script so much that he asked him to work on Gravity too.

After breaking box office records on its US release two weeks ago, Gravity's total worldwide take is now over $200m (£124m). It is due to open in the UK on 8 November.

More on Gravity

• Gravity blasts off for China release
• Gravity's science exploded by top astrophysicist

Andrew Pulver

Edward Snowden: I brought no leaked NSA documents to Russia

Posted: 18 Oct 2013 01:12 AM PDT

US whistleblower says he handed over all digital material to journalists he worked with in Hong Kong

Edward Snowden, the source of US National Security Agency leaks, has revealed that he left all the leaked documents behind when he flew from Hong Kong to Moscow and there was no chance of them falling into the hands of Russian or Chinese authorities.

In an interview with the New York Times (NYT), Snowden said he had decided to hand over all the digital material to the journalists he had met in Hong Kong because it would not have been in the public interest for him to hold on to copies. "What would be the unique value of personally carrying another copy of materials onward?"

Snowden disputed speculation that he had run the risk of China and Russia gaining access to the top secret files. He said he was so familiar with Chinese spying operations, having himself targeted China when he was employed by the NSA, that he knew how to keep the trove secure from them. "There's a 0% chance the Russians or Chinese have received any documents."

The 30-year-old said he had previously been reluctant to disclose that he no longer had the files for fear of exposing the journalists – Glenn Greenwald and Ewen MacAskill of the Guardian, and the independent filmmaker Laura Poitras – to greater scrutiny.

Snowden conducted the interview over the past few days, communicating from Russia, where he has been granted a year's asylum, with an NYT journalist in the US via encrypted email. He took the opportunity to try to quash several of the most widely aired criticisms of his actions.

Snowden insisted that he decided to become a whistleblower and flee America because he had no faith in the internal reporting mechanisms of the US government, which he believed would have destroyed him and buried his message for ever.

One of the main criticisms levelled at Snowden by the Obama administration has been that he should have taken up an official complaint within the NSA, rather than travelling to Hong Kong to share his concerns about the agency's data dragnet with the Guardian and other news organisations. But Snowden dismissed that option as implausible.

"The system does not work," he said, pointing to the paradox that "you have to report wrongdoing to those most responsible for it". If he had tried to sound the alarm internally, he would have "been discredited and ruined" and the substance of his warnings "would have been buried for ever".

Snowden's comments go to the heart of the dichotomy within the Obama administration's policy towards whistleblowers. It has introduced new protections for whistleblowers uncovering corruption and inefficiency, including a presidential order that extends the safeguards to the intelligence services. But contract workers, such as Snowden, are not protected by the executive order, and the government has pursued official leakers with an aggression rarely seen before.

Eight leakers, including Snowden, have been prosecuted under the 1917 Espionage Act – more than twice the number under all previous presidents combined.

Snowden singled out one of those eight, Thomas Drake, a former senior NSA executive who turned whistleblower after he became alarmed about the agency's choice of tools for intelligence gathering. Drake, who was prosecuted but had all the charges dropped, was in Moscow last week to honour Snowden with an award.

The author of the NYT article, James Risen, is himself at odds with the Obama administration. Risen uncovered the original warrantless wiretapping of phone calls by the Bush administration, for which he won a Pulitzer prize. He is under intense pressure to divulge the name of one of his sources at the criminal leak trial of Jeffrey Sterling, a former CIA agent who is another of the Espionage Act eight. Risen is refusing to reveal his source, and is likely to appeal right up to the US supreme court.

Snowden said it was a report on the wiretapping programme Risen uncovered that first piqued his curiosity.

He said he was shocked when he came across a copy of a classified report from 2009 dealing with the NSA's warrantless wiretapping under Bush. "If the highest officials in government can break the law without fearing punishment or even any repercussions at all, secret powers become tremendously dangerous."

He said his main objection to the NSA dragnet of data was that it was being conducted in secret. "The secret continuance of these programmes represents a far greater danger than their disclosure. It represents a dangerous normalisation of 'governing in the dark', where decisions with enormous public impact occur without any public input."

Snowden would not discuss the conditions of his life in Moscow. His father, Lon Snowden, returned to the US this week from a visit to see him and reported that "he's comfortable, he's happy, and he's absolutely committed to what he has done".

Ed Pilkington

Indian treasure hunt sparked by holy man's dream

Posted: 18 Oct 2013 01:05 AM PDT

Digging begins under 19th-century fort after Hindu swami Shobhan Sarkar told of treasure trove by dead king in a dream

Archaeologists have begun digging for treasure beneath a 19th-century fort in northern India, after a Hindu holy man said a king appeared to him in a dream and told him about the cache.

The treasure hunt began after Hindu swami Shobhan Sarkar relayed his dream to a government minister who was visiting the swami's ashram last month.

The swami said the spirit of King Rao Ram Baksh Singh, who was hanged in 1858 after rising up against British colonial forces, told him to take care of the 1,000-ton treasure worth almost £30bn hidden under the fort in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.

Indian geological and archaeological officials who surveyed the area on Sunday found evidence of metal about 20 metres underground, district magistrate Vijay Karan Anand said.

The Archaeological Survey of India said it would begin digging under a temple contained within the ruins of the old fort.

A host of interested parties have already lined up to stake a claim to the treasure, believed to be in gold, silver and precious gems. One of the king's descendants, Navchandi Veer Pratap Singh, said: "If gold is really found there, we should get our share."

Uttar Pradesh state authorities, as well as local officials, also said they had a right to the wealth.

"The treasure trove should be used for the development of the state," local lawmaker Kuldeep Senger said. Uttar Pradesh, with a population of 200 million, is one of the poorest and least developed states in India.

Residents of the impoverished Daundia Khera village, who have no access to electricity, said they have long known about the treasure from stories told by their elders. "Everyone in the village knows about it," said 60-year-old Vidyawati Sharma, who learned the stories from her father-in-law.

Locals have found silver and gold coins in Unnao district, about 50 miles (80km) south-west of the state's capital, Lucknow, according to the swami's disciple, Om Ji. No one knew exactly wherethe treasure was until the late king visited the swami in his sleep, he said.

Authorities set up barricades as thousands of people descended on the village. People were offering prayers at the temple within the fort's ruins.

Locals also said they hoped Swami Sarkar's vision turned out to be real, as he "is revered as God in this area because he has done a lot for this place,", schoolteacher Chandrika Rani said.

Indian officials are also unearthing another treasure trove found two years ago in a 16th-century Hindu temple, and have barred the media and public from the excavation site in the southern state of Kerala.

The discovery made the Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple the richest known religious institution in India, with bagfuls of coins, bejewelled crowns and golden statues of gods and goddesses. The supreme court has ordered a full inventory of the treasure. The former royal family that has remained the temple's trustees since India's 1947 independence has said the treasure belonged to the Hindu deity, Vishnu, who is also known in the region as Padmanabhaswamy.

Treasury defends decision to keep its advice to Joe Hockey secret

Posted: 18 Oct 2013 12:59 AM PDT

Labor vows to fight for release of documents, saying lack of transparency could set a precedent for Coalition government

Lenore Taylor

Yeti DNA: has the mystery really been solved?

Posted: 18 Oct 2013 12:41 AM PDT

A geneticist says samples from suspected yetis match an ancient polar bear, but other scientists are urging caution

• Quiz: can you tell the mythical creatures from the real ones?

Tales of the yeti, the "Abominable Snowman" of the Himalayas, have been recorded for centuries. Mountaineers tell of coming face-to-face with a hairy, ape-like creature that walks on two legs. There have been blurred photos and even the odd shaky home video. But no one has ever come close to identifying what this mythical creature might be, or even if it is indeed real.

Today, news websites were filled with tales that this mysterious creature may have been identified. Bryan Sykes, a geneticist at the University of Oxford, had obtained DNA from some hair samples from suspected yetis and had pulled back a corner of the curtain from this enduring mystery, identifying the animal and putting the mystery to rest.

Well, sort of. "The principle purpose of the project is not to find the yeti – though it can be interpreted that way and usually is – but really it's to do a systematic study on what material is alleged to have come from a yeti, because that's never been done," Sykes told the Guardian.

One leading theory behind the strange creatures known as yetis (or bigfoots or sasquatches, depending where you are in the world) is that they are surviving relic populations of hominids, an ancient relative of humans, somehow isolated but clinging on to life. To test out what might be possible, Sykes worked with colleagues at the University of Lausanne to put out a call for people claiming to have samples from these sorts of creatures.

"I'm as curious as anyone to know what these creatures might be and I saw an opportunity to do a proper scientific study because of the advances in the analysis of hair samples," said Sykes. "I've been able to develop a protocol to get good DNA from a single hair shaft, no roots required. I've been going around museums and also getting samples sent in from mummies and stuffed animals and putting them through the analysis of mitochondrial DNA."

In the latest analysis, he looked at hairs from two animals, one found in the western Himalayan region of Ladakh and the other from Bhutan, 800 miles away. The objective, he said, was to give the samples a thorough scientific examination. "These creatures are under the umbrella of cryptozoology and the last 50 years have been off-limits to science – it's been handed over to a more eccentric fringe over the last 50 years."

Sykes examined a gene in the mitochondrial DNA from the hair samples. Mitochondria are the tiny powerhouses in biological cells, turning food into the type of energy required for the body to carry out its functions. They are passed down from mothers and have a small genome that can be examined to map out the how a specimen might be related to other specimens.

Specifically, Sykes's team looked at the 12S RNA gene, something that has already been analysed in all known mammalian species. By comparing his samples with those in GenBank, the international repository of gene sequences, Sykes was able to identify the animals that the hair might have from. "In the case of these two yeti samples that we're talking about, they matched a sequence in the GenBank from a polar bear jaw found in Svalbard, which is at least 40,000 years old." This was around the time that the polar bear and the related brown bear were separating into different species.

Bill Amos, a professor of evolutionary genetics at the University of Cambridge, cautioned that forensic samples of DNA, such as the ones being examined by Sykes, were always difficult to deal with. First off, scientists needed to be careful about the true source of the samples. The sorts of people who might go looking for yetis, said Amos, might have also have been up to the Arctic and encountered polar bears at some point, leaving open the possibility that their clothing had been contaminated with polar bear hairs.

"We are always aware of hoaxes and things in this kind of area and you have to take Brian Sykes's word that the hairs came from somebody who genuinely believed they had seen a yeti or found a footprint [and kept it safe]," said Amos. "Equally there are people who quite like a good story and clever somebody might have planted some hairs or given them to some villagers and told them: 'Why don't you say this comes from a footprint?' The evidence is as strong as the veracity of the links. From Brian Sykes back to the hair is fine. Where the hair comes from and how it got there, I would be more sceptical about."

Amos said he was sceptical that the samples found in the Himalayas were those of polar bears but the idea there might be an unknown type of white bear in the region was not out of the question. "What a large bear up there would find to feed on is another matter," he said. "I guess it could be looking at domestic cattle but most species do leave quite a lot of evidence around. If there was anything like a medium population of 20-50, which is the minimum number that most people think would allow a viable population, why aren't these things being seen more often by people out looking for snow leopard pelts and all the rest of it? There is very little these days that is so remote that you don't get actually appreciable numbers of humans with binoculars out there."

Amos was not involved in the analysis of the hairs but said that, from what he had heard, he was "90% convinced that there is a bear in these regions that has been mistaken for a yeti. The scientific approach is fine. It would have been nice if [Sykes] had been able to get some nuclear DNA and been able to say a bit more."

Sykes said the results had been submitted to a journal for peer review, so other scientists will be able to examine the results more closely as soon as they are published. He is aware of the limitations of his analysis, saying that there was only a limited amount that could be learned with the hair. "It's 40 years old and not much DNA there really. The next best thing to do is to get an expedition together to find one and see what one is like in the wild and to see if any aspects of its behaviour are more likely to be identified as a yeti. And genetically to find out how much polar bear is in this animal. It might be a hybrid or a new species of bear. But we can't tell all this from one hair sample."

Alok Jha

Lamb Island residents see chance of nationhood arrive

Posted: 18 Oct 2013 12:00 AM PDT

Barton and Margaret Bulwinkel could be monarchs, as island of 400 inhabitants off Brisbane votes on secession from Australia

Paul Farrell

Stockholm's homeless now accept donations - by debit card

Posted: 18 Oct 2013 12:00 AM PDT

Stockholm's homeless are accepting payments through smartphones after a campaign led by tech startup iZettle. By Samuel Gibbs

Samuel Gibbs

Bushfires in Australia: a guide to volunteer fire services

Posted: 17 Oct 2013 11:56 PM PDT

As a huge, sparsely populated country prone to devastating fires, Australia has had to harness the goodwill of volunteers to tackle the menace of the annual bushfire season

Oliver Milman

Facebook lifts teenage sharing restrictions amid cyberbullying fears

Posted: 17 Oct 2013 11:54 PM PDT

Change to privacy settings to let teenagers share posts with anyone will leave them more vulnerable, say safety groups

Facebook is facing a backlash from campaigners after announcing it will allow millions of teenagers to open up their profiles to strangers.

The social networking site announced that users aged from 13 to 17 would now be able to switch their settings to share posts with anyone on the internet, rather than just their "friends" or "friends of friends".

Children's groups and internet safety experts denounced the move, saying it could leave young people more vulnerable to cyberbullying.

Anthony Smythe, the managing director of BeatBullying, told the Times: "We have concerns that this age group can now share information in the public domain. Something they think might not be harmful now may come back to haunt them later. This is a move in the wrong direction."

The newspaper said Jim Gamble, the former head of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (Ceop), had also expressed concern that the move could make youngsters more vulnerable.

Facebook, which has more than 30 millions users in Britain, argued that it was offering more choice to tech-savvy teenagers. It also stressed that initial privacy settings for under-18s would automatically be programmed so posts are seen only by friends.

"We take the safety of teens very seriously, so they will see an extra reminder before they can share publicly," the company headed by Mark Zuckerburg said in its announcement.

Facebook said last week that it was removing privacy settings so anyone could search for a user's profile.

A spokesman for the National Crime Agency (NCA), which has recently assumed responsibility for cybercrime, said: "It's important that children and young people manage their online use and understand the consequences of what they share online, especially with anything that is available publicly.

"Robust reporting mechanisms and education messages are vital and we continue to encourage users to report any concerns they have to Facebook, or if their concerns are linked to someone's inappropriate sexual behaviour, to the NCA.

"The NCA welcomes the announcement made by Facebook in relation to the default sharing setting for teens joining Facebook being changed to 'friends', instead of 'friends of friends'.

"This will help young people understand the need to manage their privacy settings carefully and to control who they share their information with."

The spokesman said Ceop, which is part of the new crime agency, had a strong working relationship with Facebook and worked with it "to ensure children and young people are as safe as they can be when using the platform".

Victorian prison death rise blamed on overcrowding and tougher sentencing

Posted: 17 Oct 2013 11:52 PM PDT

Violence, self-harm and assaults on staff soar as human rights advocates warn state is ‘heading down the path of California’

Oliver Milman

Former ICC prosecutor condemns trials of Kenyan leaders

Posted: 17 Oct 2013 11:52 PM PDT

David Crane says international criminal court prosecutors have ignored political realities and created a lose-lose situation

A former chief prosecutor of the international criminal court has condemned its cases against Kenya's president and vice-president, warning that the indictments could damage the fledgling international justice system.

David Crane, the US lawyer who built the case against Liberia's former president Charles Taylor, said his successors at The Hague had ignored political realities in pursuing the Kenyan prosecution, which he said "could be the beginning of a long slide into irrelevance for international law".

Uluru Kenyatta, Kenya's president, is due to stand trial next month at the ICC, the first time a sitting head of state will have done so. Along with his deputy, William Ruto, whose separate but related trial has already begun, Kenyatta is accused of masterminding the violence that killed at least 1,300 people in the wake of a disputed election at the turn of 2007-08.

Last week the African Union passed a resolution calling for immunity for all serving African heads of state.

"I would never have indicted or gotten involved in justice for the Kenyan tragedy," said Crane, a former chief prosecutor of the special court for Sierra Leone, a precursor to the ICC. "It's placed them in a situation where they are damned if they do or damned if they don't."

The African Union has called on the Kenyan leaders not to attend hearings at The Hague until the UN security council, which oversees the ICC, has responded to its recent demands.

France is working on a UN resolution that would defer the Kenyan cases for 12 months, according to a senior diplomat in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.

Human rights groups have said giving in to AU demands for immunity would set a terrible precedent that would encourage heads of state to trample constitutional term limits, cling to power and rig elections. "It's become a lose-lose situation," said Crane.

Crane said the cases he built during three years of investigations in west Africa from 2002-05 had taken into account local politics as well as the law. "Politics is the bright red thread of modern international law, a successful prosecution must factor in the international stage."

After ad hoc tribunals dealt with the fallout from civil wars in the Balkans and west Africa, as well as the genocide in Rwanda, the ICC got a permanent home in the Netherlands and issued its first arrest warrants in 2005.

Under the Argentinian lawyer Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the prosecutor's office pursued high-profile African leaders, including Sudan's Omar al-Bashir – who has ignored the warrant – and a number of alleged warlords in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Crane said Moreno-Ocampo had a "political tin ear" and had been overly ambitious in his indictments.

When Kenya came close to a civil war and as many as 400,000 people lost their homes after a contested election result in 2007, mediators brokered a deal under which a national tribunal was meant to be set up to try the guilty. The ICC stepped in as a court of last resort when the Kenyan parliament could not agree on a local alternative.

Moreno-Ocampo became a celebrity in Kenya, with minibus taxis named after him, but his initial popularity waned, and this was exacerbated by his decision to name Kenyatta and Ruto, political rivals whose supporters had fought during the violence, among the indictees. The pair united in a "coalition of the accused" and won elections this year in a campaign that portrayed the ICC as a colonial throwback.

Moreno-Ocampo was replaced last year as chief prosecutor by Gambia's Fatou Bensouda.

Crane said the ICC should have used the threat of its intervention to nudge for reform rather than launching prosecutions that the Kenyan elite would never support.

"It's a question of some justice versus no justice," he said. "If it's perceived that Kenyatta and Ruto have won then we're thrown back to the pre-Taylor era in Africa."

Daniel Howden

NSW bushfires: properties destroyed, man dies amid worst fires in a decade

Posted: 17 Oct 2013 11:31 PM PDT

A 63-year-old man has died while battling a fire at his Central Coast home. Firefighters from interstate travel to NSW to help as fires continue to burn across the state.

Helen Davidson

Nick Evershed