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Iranian women turn to the 'maison' for shopping and sanctuary
The best pictures of the day
New York bikers chase family in Range Rover after road confrontation – video
US government shutdown begins as Congress fails to reach deal – live
GTA Online launch – live coverage
Nobel literature prize: odds slashed on Jon Fosse following surge in bets
How to eliminate river blindness: lessons from Colombia
Google's new EU concessions in search will put rivals' logos into results
France pressured to remember WW1 soldiers executed for 'cowardice'
The Daily Mail's attack on Ralph and Ed Miliband is classic red-baiting | Martin Kettle
Ten best photographs of the day
Jellyfish clog pipes of Swedish nuclear reactor forcing plant shutdown
What factors determine where it's best to live when you get old?
Italy's latest coalition crisis is a morbid symptom of deeper political malaise | Alberto Toscano
US stock markets recover losses in spite of federal shutdown
Winter Olympics 2014: US skater Ashley Wagner slams Russia's anti-gay law - video
Is mass government surveillance 'the greatest human rights challenge of our time'? | Poll
South Korea stages huge military display - video
How the last US government shutdown almost cost Clinton the presidency
Exhausted owl takes refuge on HMS Illustrious flight deck
Good riddance, Turkish school oath – but reforms don't go far enough | Kaya Genç
Guys and guns, boys and toys | Amanda Marcotte
Rhino poaching hits new record in South Africa
Bahrain opposition activists convicted of spying for Iran

Iranian women turn to the 'maison' for shopping and sanctuary

Posted: 02 Oct 2013 05:26 AM PDT

Despite laws to discourage women from western frivolities, underground boutiques flourish in Tehran to feed Iranian obsession with fashion

Over cups of black cardamom tea, a group of young women try on glamorous high-fashion dresses and discuss which ensemble would be best for Friday's mehmouni, or party.

The women are in an Iranian maison – "house" in French – a private retail space of a type often located in the proprietor's home, making way for headscarves to come undone, revealing blonde highlights and carefully crafted hairdos. Manicured nails, groomed eyebrows, and faces full of thick make-up all go to show the extent to which Iranian women will go to look good everyday.

Tucked away behind closed doors, maisons cater to a middle- and upper-class clientele, providing a more comfortable shopping experience than do publicly accessible boutiques. They also afford Iranian women a prime opportunity to generate income in a patriarchal society where they are discouraged from working or have to struggle to secure a decent job. Many women involved in the retail business start out selling from home to avoid the expense of renting a store. With its relatively low startup costs, the maison scene facilitates the emergence of new fashion talent, as well.

"All over the place, every week you hear new names and especially young ladies who don't even have that much money," says Dorsai, who ran Moonlight, a custom clothing design business, from 2004 to 2009. "They start with a few garments. They sell them to their friends and family from home and gradually their business grows. It's a new revelation for Iranian women – making an income and being a bit more independent."

Dorsai ran Moonlight from her home in northern Tehran. Now living abroad, she frequently travels back to Iran and stays connected with the maison scene. Comfort, in her view, is the number one benefit that derives from selling and shopping for clothes in a domestic setting. "Iran is an Islamic country, so women have to kind of suffer in heat to have hejab all the while when they are out," she says. "The best part of working at home is you and your costumers are free."

Moonlight specialised in everyday clothing for women looking for fashionable styles of Islamic dress. After studying at the London College of Fashion, Dorsai came back to Iran with ideas about how to spruce up the traditional dowdy manteau – a long, form-concealing coat, customarily black. She used bright, rich colours and embellished garments with characteristically Persian patterns inspired by the fabled architecture of Isfahan and clothing styles from the Safavid and Qajar periods.

Dorsai promoted her designs by advertising in local magazines and making calls to existing customers. Much of the time, maisons grow by word of mouth. "My customers themselves, they were my best advertisers. Around town they looked good, different, and people asked them where they got their manteaus," she says.

Doing her own sewing at first, Dorsai eventually hired a staff of five male tailors to quickly produce her in-demand manteaus, which sold for 40,000 to 120,000 tomans (roughly $50 to $150 at the time). Due to sanctions' effect on fabric imports, the prices varied over the years. Overall, maison prices at the high end are similar to those at boutiques, especially for custom-made designs like those at Moonlight.

Since last year, Parinaz has owned the maison Günes, which means "sun" in Turkish. As an Iranian of Turkish decent, she decided to make her brand stand out by selling clothes only from Turkey. The items in her line, mostly fancy party dresses and youthful urban wear, used to come to Iran through a qhachaqhchi, or smuggler, who brought them illegally across the Turkish border – a well-trafficked smuggling route. The last such transaction fell through, however, when the qhuachaqhchi failed to deliver. "Half of our clothes did not arrive," says Parinaz. "It is a hard thing to do. These are the risks." Now, she will travel to Turkey to bring the clothing back herself and run the possibility of paying a fine at the airport.

Due to the failed deal and the rising rent of the office space in northern Tehran where her maison was originally located, Parinaz recently moved Günes into her home. She and her husband remodeled their house to keep store operations separate from their personal space. Anyway, she says, she is serving fewer customers as women cut back on luxury purchases – another issue that can be traced back to the effect of sanctions.

"Most of the famous maison holders that I know are either single or widowed ladies who are doing this business to support themselves," says Neda, who sings and plays the tambour in a traditional music ensemble. She is a client of the Ferdows Collection, whose proprietor, Narciss Akbary, makes clothing in a style that melds modern bohemian and traditional eastern, in vogue among Tehran's monied intellectuals and artists. Her collection, which she both designs and produces in India, features bright tunics, long dresses, harem pants, and scarves adorned with Indian prints.

For the last five months, Akbary has sold her Ferdows line out of a branded boutique located in northern Tehran's Alborz Mall. The mall is currently being remodeled, and Akbary's store is one of just a few that remains open on its upper level. She plans to temporarily move her sales operation back home, and rent a new storefront once the mall starts filling up again. Having previously sold out of her home for about eight years, she still appreciates the advantages of operating in a private residence.

"The house has no problems," she says. "In Iran, people really like to socialise. When you go to a store, you have to buy something and leave and you can't socialise. When you go to a home, you can drink tea, eat your pastry, and talk to your friend. It's cooler in temperature. They can take off their headscarf, look at the clothes, buy some clothes, and it's very fun."

The best pictures of the day

Posted: 01 Oct 2013 09:16 AM PDT

The Guardian's photo team brings you the best from the world of photography today

Roger Tooth

New York bikers chase family in Range Rover after road confrontation – video

Posted: 01 Oct 2013 09:12 AM PDT

A family was chased up New York's Henry Hudson parkway on Sunday after a being confronted by several motorbikes who blocked their way. The 33-year-old driver of a Range Rover, his wife and their two-year-old daughter were pursued by a swarm of high-powered bikes until they became stuck in traffic. The chase ended in violence with the driver being pulled from his vehicle and beaten. Police are investigating the case

US government shutdown begins as Congress fails to reach deal – live

Posted: 01 Oct 2013 09:12 AM PDT

• House and Senate fail to reach deal before deadline
• Estimated 800,000 federal workers told to stay at home
• National parks and museums closed, Nasa affected
• Signs of splits among Republicans over tactics
• Are you a federal worker? We want to hear from you

Tom McCarthy

GTA Online launch – live coverage

Posted: 01 Oct 2013 09:07 AM PDT

Grand Theft Auto Online, the multiplayer component of GTA V, is live – but how is it holding up? Get the latest news here

Keith Stuart

Nobel literature prize: odds slashed on Jon Fosse following surge in bets

Posted: 01 Oct 2013 08:59 AM PDT

'Bigger than average' punts on 100/1 Norwegian days before award forces bookies to suspend betting and cut to 14/1

A late development in the betting on this year's Nobel prize in literature has seen a "dramatic" shortening of odds on an outsider, the Norwegian author and dramatist Jon Fosse, while Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami continued as favourite to win the prize .

Ladbrokes suspended betting temporarily after a sudden flurry of bets on Fosse, who is best-known in the UK as a playwright (his play I am the Wind was described as "cryptically haunting" by Michael Billington when it was staged at London's Young Vic in 2011).

A Ladbrokes spokesman said: "There were quite a few bigger-than-average bets in Fosse's home country of Norway – nothing untoward, but he was well-backed so we cut the odds from 100/1 first to 33/1, and then to 14/1. It was quite a dramatic tumble, especially for an outsider."

He added that bookmakers were more sensitive to sudden movement in odds "with a prize like this. There are lots of contenders and the prices are high, say 100/1. It's a big liability and it can quickly stack up." Bookmakers often suspend trading if unusual patterns of betting occur, in order to recalibrate prices.

Bets are being taken again now by Ladbrokes; Murakami is favourite with odds of 3/1, Joyce Carol Oates is second-favourite, at 6/1, followed by the Hungarian Peter Nadas at 7/1, and South Korean Ko Un and Algerian Assia Djebar, both at 10/1.

William Hill also suspended betting on the prize at the weekend. A spokesman said that the mystery surrounding the decision-making, including the timing of the final selection, meant that it was at risk of "losing a lot of money". Traditionally the Swedish Academy, which awards the Nobel prize in literature, times the announcement for the week before the Booker prize, meaning that the winner could be unveiled next week. A full timetable of science prizes has already been announced.

The Swedish Academy of 18 members – writers, poets, literary scholars and others – decide on the winner after a summer acquainting themselves with the works of the five or so writers in contention. On the Nobel prize website, Peter Englund, permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, said: "We try to contact the person who received the award about half an hour before the decision is announced."

He added that the most-criticised award may have been the prize to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in 1970. "It was very criticised at the time, not in the least from the Soviet side, but also in Sweden."

Liz Bury

How to eliminate river blindness: lessons from Colombia

Posted: 01 Oct 2013 08:58 AM PDT

Colombia recently eliminated this neglected disease through health education and drugs. Sound easy? Here's how other countries can follow suit

My homeland of Colombia recently became the first country in the Americas to wipe out onchocerciasis (river blindness) and the first in the world to be granted 'verification of elimination' status by the World Health Organisation. Colombia rid itself of the neglected tropical disease, that affects millions across 35 countries worldwide, through health education and use of the drug ivermectin.

Eliminating a disease from a nation is complex. It requires community-based health education and sustained, heightened interventions including, increased drug treatments and enhanced monitoring and surveillance. Elimination means that the disease's transmission has been interrupted permanently and health resources can be used for other issues.

For nearly two decades, the Carter Centre's Onchocerciasis elimination programme for the Americas has led the regional campaign and provided technical and financial assistance to each of the six river blindness-endemic countries in Latin America. As a health educator and community organiser for the centre's OEPA, I have worked since 1997 with the ministries of health to stop transmission of river blindness in Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico and Venezuela.

When Colombia's President Juan Manuel Santos made the historic announcement, many river blindness elimination programme partners, including former US president Jimmy Carter and former first lady Rosalynn Carter, travelled to Bogota to recognise the country's political commitment, praise health workers, and congratulate the nation for purging this so-called neglected disease from their borders.

Using medicine to treat the disease

River blindness is a parasitic disease spread by the bites of tiny black flies that breed near fast-flowing streams. It causes unbearable itching, skin lesions, and can ultimately lead to diminished vision and blindness.

That's where the oral drug ivermectin comes in. In the late 1980s, research proved that ivermectin is a safe and effective drug that kills the microfilariae, causes symptoms to diminish, and helps control the spread of the disease. We now know that in heavily endemic areas semi-annual or quarterly doses help accelerate the interruption of the disease's transmission. In 1987, the pharmaceutical company Merck pledged to donate ivermectin, packaged as Mectizan, as much as needed for as long as necessary to fight the disease worldwide.

Getting Mectizan to people in at-risk communities required the dedication and hard work of many health promoters. In Colombia, throughout the year these workers travelled thousands of miles to reach isolated, formerly endemic area Lopez Micay first sailing by sea and then navigating rough, fast flowing rivers to supervise the distribution of Mectizan and encourage community participation. Political insecurity and armed conflict in the region further complicated the mission as health workers took personal risks to successfully accomplish an already difficult job. Colombia, together with its partners OEPA and Pan American Health Organisation, a regional body of the WHO, eliminated river blindness using a strategy of biannual community-wide administration of ivermectin to people in the affected area.

Community role

While Mectizan has been crucial, a major contributor to elimination strategy has been the marshalling of large networks of health workers and community volunteers to teach their neighbours how to prevent the disease. With the support of community leaders, artistic troupes, schools, and women's groups, each of the national river blindness elimination programmes integrated various creative activities: staging plays for the community, crafting fly puppets in primary school classes, displaying posters and murals in public spaces. These activities inspired, engaged, and educated people to take charge of their health.

In Colombia, one of the challenges was to reach an at-risk population with limited literacy skills. We found that visual teaching tools such as slideshows, image flashcards, table games, memory exercises, and flipcharts called 'Naicionito' proved to be particularly effective ways to educate various segments of the population at small community gatherings.

Health education remained a critical intervention even after Mectizan treatments were stopped in 2008. Continued community-based communications ensured people understood that they had been successful in wiping out the disease and that their community had begun three years of post-treatment surveillance to confirm if transmission of the parasite has stopped and elimination could be declared.

Colombia also has shown us that education doesn't have to stop at the door of this one disease, but can contribute to a community's overall health and wellbeing. We were fortunate in our Colombia campaign to have devoted experts staying in Lopez Micay for long periods of time who motivated an enthusiastic response from the community. Together, the staff and the residents devised innovative strategies to enhance the quality of life such as creating community vegetable gardens and embracing local food to improve nutrition;,devising ways to filter and obtain safe drinking water, and building a healthcentre, a school, and a school cafeteria.

Success in the Americas

The Carter Centre's OEPA, with support from generous donors and partners, works closely with health ministries in each of the river blindness endemic countries in the Americas, and that bond has yielded success. Transmission has stopped in Ecuador, Mexico, and Guatemala, and each country is working to get official elimination verification by the WHO. Only one location — a hard-to-reach area in the Amazon rainforest on the Venezuela-Brazil border — has active disease. The programme coalition expects to halt transmission there in the next few years, and when that happens river blindness will be gone from two continents: North and South America.

OEPA's lessons and successes have also served as an inspiration for a new Carter Centre goal: to eliminate river blindness in the areas we assist in Africa, where nearly all of the world's river blindness remains. Sudan and Uganda have recently reported transmission interruption in key endemic areas, overturning decades of scientific belief that elimination in Africa was impossible.

Alba Lucia Morales Castro is health education adviser with the Onchocerciasis elimination programme for the Americas. She is based in Guatemala City

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Google's new EU concessions in search will put rivals' logos into results

Posted: 01 Oct 2013 08:56 AM PDT

Joaquin Almunia says that new commitments on search could avoid legal action by giving rivals greater visibility via auction

Europe's antitrust commissioner signalled on Tuesday that he will seek a settlement with Google over the search engine's business practices rather than pursuing it through the courts over alleged abuse of its dominant market position.

Under commitments offered by Google, rivals' sites for "vertical" activities such as shopping or maps would appear in Google search results pages with their logo and explanatory text, with their position chosen by an auction system.

That compares with the current setup, where Google's own products such as Google Shopping, Maps and video site YouTube dominate search results, and which triggered the investigation by the European commission beginning in November 2010.

The proposal would apply not just to desktop searches but also to mobile phones, which are a growing source of hits for Google, which has around 90% of the market for search in Europe.

Speaking on Tuesday almost three years after the start of the EC investigation, which could have brought fines worth billions but also entailed years of litigation, Joaquin Almunia, the commissioner for competition, said that Google had made a fresh set of "commitments" on how to respond to the accusations of malpractices. He sounded confident that the case could be wrapped up by spring 2014 with the conclusion of legally binding "commitments'' from the internet giant resolving the dispute.

"Google has now improved the commitments it has offered. We have negotiated improvements until yesterday," Almunia told a meeting of industry experts and lobbyists in the European Parliament. "The new proposal more appropriately addresses the need for any commitments to be able to cover future developments."

He outlined four sets of objections to Google's business conduct, declaring that if left unaddressed, they would force the EU regulator to issue a "statement of objections" and levy huge fines. His group is holding separate investigations – which are still under way – into whether Google's phone subsidiary Motorola abused the patent system, and whether the free pricing on its Android smartphone operating system counts as predatory pricing. The patent inquiry is "well underway", Almunia said.

The main problem for the commission is the way Google is held to exploit its leading market position to promote its own products and services and allegedly compel other websites and software designers to reach binding deals with the search engine affecting and limiting advertising competition.

Almunia said the Google investigation was difficult and complex because it was the first time Brussels had scrutinised the online search market and because the sector was changing at such speed.

A response from Google in the spring was judged inadequate by its rivals, the commissioner said, and intensive negotiations have been conducted since.

"We have reached a key moment in this case," said Almunia. "Now, with the significant improvements on the table, I think we have the possibility to work again and seek to find an effective solution."

If the negotiations went well, he added, a settlement would probably be reached by next spring. If they broke down, the two sides could slide into more serious dispute within a few months.

"We will work with Google during the next weeks to finalise the precise drafting of the proposed commitment text," Almunia said. "The settlement route remains the best choice. I hope the answers we will receive to our questions will confirm this."

Google confirmed that it had made "difficult" concessions in an attempt to defuse the dispute.

Kent Walker, Google senior vice-president and general counsel, said: "This has been a very long and very thorough investigation. Given the feedback the European commission received on our first proposal, they have insisted on further, significant changes to the way we display search results. While competition online is thriving, we've made the difficult decision to agree to their requirements in the interests of reaching a settlement."

Ian Traynor

Charles Arthur

France pressured to remember WW1 soldiers executed for 'cowardice'

Posted: 01 Oct 2013 08:54 AM PDT

Next year's first world war centenary, to be launched by François Hollande, may include a memorial for the 600-650 young men shot by firing squad

They were mostly young, rank-and-file soldiers, exhausted and shell-shocked after months of what was considered the world's must brutal war. One day they simply refused to take part in another raid that involved running out over the top of their trench, ignored orders or refused to get in line for inspection.

Shot by firing squad, often as an example in front of their fellow soldiers, these disgraced, so-called cowards – convicted by military tribunals of crimes such as desertion, disobedience or "abandoning their post in the presence of the enemy" – are now largely seen as traumatised victims of the horror of war. But they are not counted in the first world war memorials dotting France, nor are they considered to have died for their country.

The Socialist president François Hollande, who has promised that next year's first world war centenary commemorations will be one of the "great events" of his leadership, is under increasing pressure to restore the good name of hundreds of French soldiers executed by their own army during the war. But the rehabilitation of soldiers shot by firing squad remains one of the most sensitive and controversial memorial issues surrounding the 1914 Great War in France. A report handed to the ministry of veterans' affairs on Tuesday presents a number of options to Hollande, warning of the difficulty of either doing nothing or issuing a blanket pardon to everyone who was shot.

The report, by the historian Antoine Prost, part of a scientific team preparing the French centenary, said that about 600-650 men were shot in France for issues relating to military disobedience, with about 100 more shot for spying or crimes such as murder. Most of the "disobedient" soldiers shot "to set an example" were executed in the early period of the war between 1914 and 1915. The report said many weren't "cowards", but just "cracked" from one day to the next.

About 40 soldiers shot by firing squad had already been pardoned after the war. Those cases often seemed absurd, including one soldier shot for disobedience in 1915 after asking for a pair of trousers to replace his tattered rags in the cold of the trenches and refusing to put on the blood-soaked, torn uniform of a dead-soldier which was offered to him.

The report warned that a blanket pardon of every single person shot and recognition that they had all "died for France" would be problematic because some were convicted for crimes such as murder or rape. Others were shot for espionage, which was just as tricky. The report warned that re-considering each case individually would be difficult 100 years later as 20% of the dossiers had been lost.

Perhaps the option most likely to be taken up by François Hollande is the suggestion of a historic speech in which he could rehabilitate the dead by stressing that "most – but not all – were shot in conditions that were often hurried and arbitrary". The report said this would need to be accompanied by the construction of a memorial at which to remember them and an education drive.

In 2006, Britain amended the armed forces bill to allow for the forgiveness of offences such as cowardice and desertion during the war. About 300 British and Commonwealth soldiers were shot on the orders of the British army during the first world war.

Hollande will launch France's vast first world war centenary commemorations programme at the Elysée next month.

Angelique Chrisafis

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The Daily Mail's attack on Ralph and Ed Miliband is classic red-baiting | Martin Kettle

Posted: 01 Oct 2013 08:44 AM PDT

I sympathise with Ed – the Times ran a scurrilous piece denouncing my father's politics soon after his death

It's never nice to see one's late father's reputation attacked. This week it happened to Ed Miliband when the Daily Mail launched a tirade against his father Ralph as a "man who hated Britain". David Cameron was right to say that anyone in Ed Miliband's position had a right to feel upset.

Where Cameron is wrong, however, is in not acknowledging that the attack on Ralph Miliband – and by implication on his son – is of a very particular kind. This isn't just an attack that says "Your dad was bad, not good." It wasn't yah-boo name calling. The attack on Miliband is much more scurrilous.

It is political. It is a classic piece of red-baiting.

Red-baiting has gone a bit out of style recently. Socialists and communists are less of a threat than they were once perceived to be, especially during the cold war, when it was common – including sometimes in this country – for people on the extreme left of politics (and sometimes the extreme right too) to be blacklisted from jobs, promotions and honours. Academics were some of those who were particularly targeted.

The Mail's attack on Ralph Miliband and his sons is red-baiting. It says Ralph Miliband was a Marxist and a believer in socialist revolution and cannot therefore be trusted or treated with any respect. The Mail glibly elides the LSE and Leeds University professor's views with some of the greatest crimes of the 20th century – Stalin's purges and gulags, the Soviet invasion of Hungary, the persecution of dissidents – all of which Ralph Miliband rightly deplored.

The objective is to smear not just Ralph but his son. The aim is to stop Labour getting into government (the Mail has form in this respect, having helped bring down the 1924 Labour government by publishing the forged Zinoviev letter).

I immediately recognised what Ed Miliband must have felt when the Mail published its article. When my father Arnold Kettle, a lifelong and moderately prominent communist (which Ralph Miliband was not, as far as I am aware) and a professor (which Miliband certainly was), died in 1986, his obituary was published in several papers. A few days later, the late Bernard Levin, the most celebrated columnist of the age (and a sometime Mail columnist before he moved to the Times) wrote a column denouncing any commemoration or honour of a man who had supported communism and the Soviet Union.

It was pretty vicious stuff, made more raw by the fact that it appeared so soon after my father's death (at least the Mail allowed Ralph Miliband 19 years in his grave before they turned their guns on him). My mother was very upset, as were a lot of my father's friends. Several of them wrote to the Times in protest, and their letters were published. My mother, who was not someone to let a thing rest, even invited Levin to lunch so that she could explain where he had got it wrong. To his credit, Levin accepted.

Many years on, I don't feel angry about what Levin did. I actually agree with some of what he wrote and it's a debate that needs to be had. But I also think it is very easy to underestimate the extent to which the wartime anti-fascist left, including the communists, felt that they were living through a life and death struggle – which of course they were. They believed that it was the appeasers, like the Mail, who were the traitors, and it is not hard to see their point of view.

But I can still remember that feeling when I read the Levin piece. I felt that my place in the world wobbled a bit. I felt a bit of a target myself.

It is surprising how quickly the sense of insecurity washes through you at a time like that. My family is not Jewish (as Miliband's is, and as Levin's was, in fact) but the attack gave me a little insight into the sense of impermanence that the Mail's attack on this Jewish immigrant's son probably also stirred.

Compared with Ed Miliband, I got off pretty lightly. Levin wasn't trying to attack me, in the way that the Mail is unquestionably seeking to attack Ed.

But both the attack on my dad and the one on Ralph Miliband are nothing more nor less than old-fashioned red-baiting. Not many people would call me a red these days. But in a fight like this you revert to instinct. And in this fight I'm 100% on Ed Miliband's side.

Martin Kettle

Ten best photographs of the day

Posted: 01 Oct 2013 08:34 AM PDT

Each day the picture editor of the Guardian brings you a selection of photo highlights and today the focus is on children around the world

Fiona Shields

Jellyfish clog pipes of Swedish nuclear reactor forcing plant shutdown

Posted: 01 Oct 2013 08:34 AM PDT

Oskarshamn nuclear power plant cleared of jellyfish cluster but biologists warn closures of this kind are becoming more common

A huge cluster of jellyfish forced the Oskarshamn plant, the site of one of the world's largest nuclear reactors, to shut down by clogging the pipes conducting cool water to the turbines.

Operators of the plant on the Baltic coast in south-east Sweden had to scramble reactor No 3 on Sunday after tons of jellyfish were caught in the pipes.

By Tuesday, the pipes were cleared of the jellyfish and engineers were preparing to restart the 1,400MWe boiling water reactor, said Anders Osterberg, a spokesman for OKG, the plant operator.

All three Oskharshamn reactors are boiling-water types, the same technology used for Japan's Fukushima Daiichi plant, which suffered a catastrophic failure in 2011 after a tsunami breached the facility's walls and flooded equipment.

Jellyfish are not a new problem for nuclear power plants. Last year, the Diablo Canyon facility in California had to shut its reactor 2 after sea salp, a gelatinous, jellyfish-like organism, clogged intake pipes. In 2005, the first unit at Oskarshamn was turned off temporarily due to a sudden influx of jellyfish.

Nuclear power plants need a constant flow of water to cool their reactors and turbine systems, which is why many plants are built near large bodies of water.

Marine biologists said they would not be surprised if more jellyfish shutdowns occurred in the future.

"It's true that there seems to be more and more of these extreme cases of blooming jellyfish," said Lene Moller, a researcher at the Swedish Institute for the Marine Environment. "But it's very difficult to say if there are more jellyfish, because there is no historical data."

The species that caused the Oskarshamn shutdown is known as the common moon jellyfish.

"It's one of the species that can bloom in extreme areas that … are over-fished or have bad conditions," said Moller. "The moon jelly likes these types of waters. They don't care if there are algae blooms, they don't care if the oxygen concentration is low. The fish leave … and [the moon jelly] can really take over the ecosystem."

Moller said the biggest problem was that there was no monitoring of jellyfish in the Baltic sea to produce the data scientists needed for decisions on tackling the issue.

What factors determine where it's best to live when you get old?

Posted: 01 Oct 2013 08:32 AM PDT

The Global AgeWatch Index has ranked 91 countries on the quality of life of their citizens aged over 60. This visualisation looks at three other factors to see how they contribute to a country becoming good for the elderly

George Arnett

Italy's latest coalition crisis is a morbid symptom of deeper political malaise | Alberto Toscano

Posted: 01 Oct 2013 08:26 AM PDT

As Silvio Berlusconi causes chaos by telling his ministers to quit, there is a despairing sense that this crisis will decide nothing

Crisis is a term that originated in the world of ancient Greek medicine. It referred to that turning point in an illness when the fate of the patient was to be decided. Italy's latest political crisis was triggered by Silvio Berlusconi's most recent survival tactic: to order the resignations from the cabinet of his ministers, in an obvious bid to impede the judicial procedure that would lead to his arrest for tax fraud and dismissal from the Senate. Amid the petty chaos of recriminations, and the parliamentary horse-trading in view of a possible second government under current prime minister Enrico Letta, there is a widespread, despairing sentiment that this particular crisis won't decide anything.

The collapse of Berlusconi's government in 2011 under the shadow of a Greek-style sovereign debt crisis, and the constitution of Letta's improbable coalition government created this spring after post-electoral deadlock, were similar crises. Their sole function was to hold at bay the commandeering of the Italian economy by the Troika (the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund) – which is now again being raised as a possibility.

Neither Mario Monti, the technocrat who served as prime minister from 2011 to 2013, nor Letta have been able to gather any significant support for their plans to adapt Italy to the EU's fiscal restrictions. How could they? Monti introduced balanced budgets into the Italian constitution, effectively neutering its provisions for social need's precedence over market imperatives. The Letta government, bringing his centre-left Partito Democratico (PD) into a doomed alliance with its historical nemesis, Berlusconi, resolved a crisis of governability by intensifying a crisis of legitimacy.

At the time, the victor appeared to be Beppe Grillo and his Five Star Movement. But his refusal to form alliances, while an initial asset in an understandably anti-political climate, appears to have diminishing returns. His irrepressible rants against the establishment often blur into the general climate of political disgust, while his periodic browbeating of Five Star MPs reminds voters of Berlusconi. His stance on alliances is both his strong point and his ultimate weakness, and it would be a surprise to see a repeat of his unexpected surge of 2013, though the rudderlessness of other parties might still play into his hands.

What of the other political forces? Somewhat like the British Lib Dems tarnished by coalition with the Tories, the PD's now imploded alliance with Berlusconi can't have endeared a constituency that will now regard it as having colluded, mainly through staggering strategic incompetence, in Berlusconi's Houdini act. Let's not forget that some of its voters were once communist supporters, and shoring up a corrupt anti-communist tycoon is bound to rankle them.

The odds are that the PD will adopt Matteo Renzi, the mayor of Florence, as leader. By most accounts, Renzi is angling for early elections. His image is that of a Blairite upstart, trying to channel public exhaustion with the political class into a modernisation – which is to say an Americanisation – of the Italian centre-left.

Ever since the ex-PD leader Walter Veltroni started praising President Kennedy as a way to jettison communism, this has been an abiding theme, manifesting itself institutionally in the desperate attempt to engineer a US-style two-party system through breathtakingly inept electoral reforms – the latest one, the "Porcellum" (after porcello, swine), was behind the impasse earlier this year.

On the right, some of Berlusconi's ministers, having done their boss's bidding, now warn about the danger of their party lurching to the extreme right. Meanwhile, attempts are afoot to manoeuvre existing MPs into another rightwing coalition, possibly to shore up a second Letta government.

So Italy's future centres around one man willing to overturn the political system to save his hide; a government agenda with little legitimacy and even less popular support; and mounting disgust which fails to find political expression.

Evidently, this crisis, whatever its short-term outcome, is but an inflection of a much deeper and more complex one, a crisis of political representation with roots in a declining economy. Antonio Gramsci described this phenomenon quite aptly in his prison notebooks: "The old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear."

Alberto Toscano

US stock markets recover losses in spite of federal shutdown

Posted: 01 Oct 2013 08:16 AM PDT

Markets fell sharply on Monday but recovered on Tuesday as analysts say debt ceiling presents greater threat than shutdown

US stock markets recovered their losses Tuesday morning even as the biggest government shutdown in close to 20 years began.

All the major US markets opened up after falling sharply Monday as it became clear Washington was at an impasse. Most of the major European and Asian markets were also rising.

The Dow Jones was up 48 points, or 0.3%, to 15,179 after the first hour of trading. The Standard & Poor's 500 rose nine points, or 0.6%, to 1,690. The Nasdaq composite rose 23 points, or 0.6%, to 3,795.

The dollar, however, took a hit — it fell 0.5% against the Japanese yen, to 97.78 yen, while the euro rose 0.1% to $1.3544.

The federal shutdown will send more than 800,000 federal workers home without pay, close national parks – and has been predicted to have a negative impact on the still insipid recovery in the housing market.

In a note to investors, Dan Greenhaus, the chief strategist at broker BTIG, said investors were more concerned over the looming row over raising the US debt ceiling than the shutdown. He said a common view "which has grown considerably in acceptance, is that the House is 'getting it out of their system' now so the eventual debt ceiling debate can be solved more easily."

Greenhaus said a short-term shutdown of one week would have little impact on growth, "but the longer this drags on, the more impactful it will be," he warned. And he added that he was "growing increasingly nervous" about the upcoming debt ceiling debate.

Bruce Bittles, the chief investment strategist at RW Baird & Co, said it was clear that investors were discounting the row and any potential clash over the debt ceiling. "We have been through this several times before. Markets reacted well yesterday, after the initial sell off there was virtually no selling in the US. The assumption is that it won't last that long and that it won't be that damaging to the markets," he said.

Bittles said the larger danger was "complacency".

"Investor complacency is widespread and deep-seated," he said.

He said the Federal Reserve's recent decision to keep up its $85bn a month quantitative easing programme may have underpinned investor confidence but that if the debt ceiling talks collapse, that confidence could be shaken and lead to a selloff.

The Associated Press contributed to this report

Dominic Rushe

Winter Olympics 2014: US skater Ashley Wagner slams Russia's anti-gay law - video

Posted: 01 Oct 2013 08:15 AM PDT

American figure skater Ashley Wagner hopes to be a voice for Russia's gay community at next year's Winter Olympics in Sochi

Is mass government surveillance 'the greatest human rights challenge of our time'? | Poll

Posted: 01 Oct 2013 08:15 AM PDT

Edward Snowden told the EU, 'The surveillance of whole populations rather than individuals threatens to be the greatest human rights challenge of our time'. Do you agree?

South Korea stages huge military display - video

Posted: 01 Oct 2013 08:14 AM PDT

At the ceremony to mark the 65th armed forces day at the Seoul Airbase in Seongnam, South Korea mobilises 11,000 soldiers

How the last US government shutdown almost cost Clinton the presidency

Posted: 01 Oct 2013 07:58 AM PDT

The Guardian's former Washington correspondent recalls how a young intern came to the president's attention during the last federal government hibernation

For US political obsessives, the shutdown of the US government induces a double deja vu. Republicans refusing to budge on the budget; a Democratic president stubbornly defending his programme; the federal government having to go into deep hibernation because it cannot pay its bills – all of it is oddly familiar. Viewers of the West Wing have seen it all before, thanks to the episode they called Shutdown.

But for some of us, that episode itself – with Leo, Josh and Toby pacing around a skeletally staffed White House – brought back memories, for it was based, like so much else of the West Wing, on the real-life events of the Clinton administration, including the two notorious government shutdowns of 1995 and 1996. As it happens, I was this paper's Washington correspondent at the time – and I remember them well.

The shutdowns lasted no more than 28 days, but they had a lasting and, in one case dramatically unforeseen, impact on US politics. They damaged the reputation of one American leader – and set in train a series of events that might have ended up costing Bill Clinton the presidency.

The first impact was on the Republican party. In 1995, it was riding high: landslide victories in the 1994 congressional elections had given it control of the House and Senate. The new House Speaker, Newt Gingrich, interpreted his win as a demand from voters to roll back the state. A humbled Clinton was forced to declare: "The era of big government is over."

But when the Republicans cut off funding and shut down the federal machine things changed. Suddenly the US public realised how much they needed their supposedly hated government and its despised bureaucrats. Emblematic were the military veterans who were now unable to get their benefit cheques. By the time the shutdowns were over, the Republican revolution was stalled – and "government" was seen in a gentler light.

That damaged Gingrich, especially when he let slip that he had forced a shutdown partly because he was affronted that Clinton had seated him at the back of Air Force One on a long return flight to Israel for the funeral of Yitzhak Rabin. The New York Post branded him a cry baby and Gingrich's decline had begun.

Clinton emerged a winner. But the seeds of future trouble had been sown. During the 1995 shutdown, unpaid interns had taken on tasks normally performed by staff who'd had to be sent home. One of those interns brought the president pizza and the two got chatting. Her name? Monica Lewinsky.

Jonathan Freedland

Exhausted owl takes refuge on HMS Illustrious flight deck

Posted: 01 Oct 2013 07:39 AM PDT

Eurasian scops owl that ran out of steam in heat of Yemen revives with help from Royal Navy aircraft carrier crew

A tiny owl was discovered sheltering on board the Royal Navy's helicopter carrier HMS Illustrious. The Eurasian scops owl was found cowering under the ship's crane on the flight deck while the Portsmouth-based warship was off the coast of Yemen during a training exercise.

Leading Airman Mikaele Mua picked up the exhausted bird and passed it on to be looked after by the ship's meteorology forecaster, Lieutenant Chris Patrick, who calls himself an avid twitcher and who belongs to the navy's birdwatching society.

Patrick, 44, from Weymouth, Dorset, said birds of the species would be migrating south towards sub-Saharan Africa around this time of year.

He said: "It was clear the poor little thing had literally run out of steam. It must have seen the ship and took refuge. It looked as though it was simply waiting to die."

He said the small bird would have stood no chance of survival if it had remained out on the deck where the temperature had been averaging more than 40C (104F), and given that strong winds were forecast.

He decided to take the creature to his cabin where he made a comfortable cage, gave it water and tried to feed it small pieces of meat to build up its strength.

After two days, improvements in the bird's condition were apparent as it became more alert and even tried to fly in the cabin.

Patrick said: "I knew the owl needed to eat live food it had caught itself. With no insects or bugs on board HMS Illustrious, it was clear to me I needed to get it ashore as soon as it was fit enough. The opportunity arose when the ship neared the Oman coastline."

After giving the owl a final check, he released it. "The bird looked in good condition when it left and it was heading to shore with the prevailing winds. We all hope it made the journey safely."

Good riddance, Turkish school oath – but reforms don't go far enough | Kaya Genç

Posted: 01 Oct 2013 07:37 AM PDT

The Turkish PM's reform package makes some welcome concessions to Kurds. But Erdoğan is no champion of democracy

One of the most painful activities of my childhood years in Turkey was taking the student oath every Monday morning and Friday afternoon. Barely awake, in the early hours of the morning or after a long week of studying, I had to proclaim loudly: "I am a Turk, honest, hardworking. My principles are to protect the younger, to respect the elder, to love my homeland and my nation more than myself. My ideal is to rise, to progress. May my life be dedicated to the Turkish existence." It concluded with a sentence that expressed the central principle of the education system: "How happy is the one who says 'I am a Turk!'"

That oath is no more. It is gone, just like that, with a decision made by the prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his advisers. When the announcement was made on Monday, I breathed a sigh of relief but that short passage had already made its indelible mark on my consciousness. How can one forget those lucidly formulated principles of a country's founding ideology when forced to shout it twice a week for almost a decade?

The student oath was composed by Reşit Galip, who served as minister of education in 1933, the year the oath was introduced. Galip reportedly visited a school and asked the pupils to repeat his phrases. He then wrote them on a piece of paper, sent it to authorities in Ankara and in a matter of weeks the oath was being repeated in every school in Turkey.

At school the rebellious among us would avoid taking the oath: some would move their lips in sync, while others came to school late to avoid it. But the school administrations took the oath very seriously. The headmaster and his group of dedicated teachers would walk among rows of students to inspect whether it was being recited properly and with the desired level of fervour. On Fridays, when pupils would be impatient to leave for the weekend, the oath would turn into a last barrier between the boring world of education and the freedom that awaited us outside the school gates. "This is not a proper oath, children!", the headmaster would suddenly decide. "You shouted the words too quickly. I want you to shout them slower and louder and with genuine passion or I will make you take the oath as many times as I desire!"

As tedious as I found it, the oath must have irritated pupils of Kurdish and Greek origin most. A friend of a friend would repeat a slightly altered version. "I am a Kurd", he would say: "I have been forced to be dishonest. So I am hard at work on lying."

The removal of the oath was not the only reform introduced in Monday's democratisation package. The most significant change is for headscarved women, who will be allowed to work as civil servants and become parliamentarians. Political organisations like the Peace and Democracy party will be able to receive state funding, and the eight-decade long ban on Kurdish letters (q, w and x) will be abolished. However for many the reforms fell short of expectations and had nothing substantial to offer to the country's Alevis. Erdoğan's decision to postpone more significant reforms to a later date was seen as part of his strategy for next year's local elections. There were also criticisms of the manner in which the package was announced, with some commentators likening the fanfare to Ottoman officials unveiling modernisation in the 19th century.

After witnessing the draconian way in which his government handled the Gezi protests this summer, it is increasingly difficult to see the prime minister as a champion of democracy. But this doesn't change the fact that the lifting of the student oath is great news for pupils. Monday mornings will continue to bring them the realities of school and discipline, but at least they will be spared the embarrassment of shouting the antiquated slogans of a bygone era.

Kaya Genç

Guys and guns, boys and toys | Amanda Marcotte

Posted: 01 Oct 2013 07:30 AM PDT

With America roamed by angry white dudes for whom firearms are a prop for lost power, what sort of message are kids getting?

America has a free-for-all gun culture, which, unsurprisingly, means that America also has a problem with children getting accidentally killed by guns. Specifically, America has a problem with boys in particular getting into accidents with guns, as reported by the New York Times. In its review of the data, the Times found that male shooters fired nearly all guns that were accidentally fired and killed a child. Boys made up 80% of the victims of accidental gun deaths of children. Reporters Michael Luo and Mike McIntire described boys as having a "magnetic attraction of firearms", and added this:

Time and again, boys could not resist handling a gun, disregarding repeated warnings by adults and, sometimes, their own sense that they were doing something wrong.

So, what is it with boys and guns? Presumably, the same thing that defines the relationship of grown men and guns.

Gun-owning is a largely male phenomenon in the US. Forty-five percent of American men own guns while only 15% of women do. Sixty percent of adults with guns in America are white men, even though white men are just one third of the US population. Despite some attempts by gun lobbyists and marketers to try to sell more guns to women, the fact of the matter is that gun-owning isn't really about "safety" and "crime", so much as it's a very costly form of identity politics.

Gun ownership, in America, is a way for white men to assert their power in an era when they're increasingly being forced to share it with women and racial minorities.

The situation is likely only getting more gendered. The total number of gun owners is actually declining, but people who own guns are more likely than ever to be enthusiasts who own four or more guns. The gun enthusiasts contingent is even more likely to see gun ownership as an expression of their identity. While gun marketers periodically try to highlight female gun owners, in an attempt to get away from the identification of gun ownership with aggrieved white men raging against the gradual decline of white male privilege, the fact of the matter is that association is only getting stronger over time.

That's because firearm fanatics themselves can't help but wield the guns like talismans, deadly steel reminders of their resentments of a whole host of 21st-century trends – from increasing cosmopolitanism, to racial diversity, to women's growing power. Angry white dudes wielding guns showed up in droves for "Starbucks Appreciation Day", making a fuss out of how they, with their guns, could dominate the coffee chain that, in reality, represents a turn in American culture towards the urbane.

Just to show how much their display of dominance will not be restrained by the niceties of good taste and basic human decency, the Starbucks in Newtown, Connecticut – the town that recently saw the horrific gun massacre of 26 elementary school children and teachers – was singled out by the guys-and-guns parade. This display actually caused the store to shut down early, rather than be party to the nastiness of it all. Newtown has had its fair share of problems like this, with gun shows defiantly being conducted despite the pain that they cause.

Another group, the Armed Citizen Project, decided to start giving away guns to residents of an Orlando, Florida community that just so happened to be a mere 20 miles away from where neighborhood watcher George Zimmerman shot an unarmed black teenager named Trayvon Martin. This pattern of tasteless and defiant behavior goes all the way back to 1999, when the NRA decided to hold its convention in Denver, Colorado – a mere 11 days after the Columbine shooting. Attendees then borrowed the civil rights anthem "We Shall Overcome".

Guns have become the go-to symbol for a certain kind of white male fantasy of victimization. Guns return power in the minds of those who make a false equivalence between the perceived loss of their unearned privileges over everyone else and the actual loss of rights that women, gays, and people of color have historically endured.

White men roaming around with guns, hopped up on fantasies that they are a million Dirty Harrys, ready to reassert the white man's rightful place as the master of America … they are definitely annoying. Unfortunately, they are also dangerous, and not just because some of them tip over into actually pulling the trigger. As the New York Times story powerfully illustrates, the male power fantasy that guns represent intoxicates the very young, as well as adult men.

If grown men are using guns to make themselves feel big and manly, how are young boys – who generally want nothing more than to experience that feeling of being big and manly – supposed to resist? You can scold them all day, but even well-behaved young boys are going to want a taste of that power.

Guns turn grown men into childish idiots who want to believe their expensive and deadly toys give them power. Actual children don't stand a chance.

Amanda Marcotte

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Rhino poaching hits new record in South Africa

Posted: 01 Oct 2013 07:29 AM PDT

Wild rhinos could die out within a decade amid burgeoning demand for horn on black market, report warns

The number of rhinos killed by poachers has hit a new annual record in South Africa, raising worries of a downward population spiral in a country that is home to almost all of Africa's rhinos.

By the end of September, 704 rhinos had been killed by poachers in South Africa, exceeding the annual record of 668 set in 2012, according to data provided by the environmental affairs ministry on Tuesday.

If the trend continues at its current pace, more than 1,000 rhinos could be killed in 2014, putting the species on the brink of a population decline that the ministry has said could lead to the end of wild rhinos in about a decade.

The greatest threat to the estimated 22,000 rhinos in South Africa comes from those trying to cash in on the black market value of their horn, which sells at prices higher than gold.

Many of the poachers come from neighbouring Mozambique and sell the horn to crime syndicates to feed rapidly rising demand in south-east Asia, where the horn is thought by some to cure cancer and lessen hangovers.

"We need people to be ashamed of this. The fact that our rhinos are killed is because there is a market out there. There are people who are coming to steal our heritage," said Fundisile Mketeni, a biodiversity official at the ministry.

He said a baby boom among rhino stocks is softening the blow, while the ministry has mounted a global campaign to shut the doors for illegal exports to countries such as Vietnam, China and Thailand, which are the main consumers of the contraband.

Most of the killings are taking place in the flagship Kruger national park, which borders Mozambique. The park covers an area about the size of Israel and has been the focus of an arms race between poachers and rangers.

The park service has been turning its rangers into soldiers, using drones to patrol airspace and sending out crack units by helicopters once suspected poachers have been sighted.

"The poaching syndicates are determined to carry on with their nefarious acts, using the poverty that is prevalent in Mozambique and South Africa to recruit poachers," said Ike Phaahla, a spokesman with South African national parks.

Up until about 2010, only a handful of rhinos were poached, but the number shot up when rumours circulated that a Vietnamese minister's relative was cured of cancer by the horn. There is no basis in science to support the claim.

In traditional Chinese medicine, the horn was used to treat maladies ranging from rheumatism to devil possession. Now, many newly rich Vietnamese consume it after a hard night of partying.

Rhino horn, once seen as a treatment only for royalty, is being swallowed by a small segment of the Vietnamese population who can afford prices of about $65,000 a kilogram, conservation groups say.

Due to the high costs, much of the so-called rhino horn sold at pharmacies in major cities is fake, with buffalo horn the main substitute.

"There is a small group who have the money for rhino horn. We need to get out scientific evidence to show the people of Vietnam that it doesn't work," Vo Tuan Nhan, vice-chairman of the Vietnamese parliament's science and environment committee, told a seminar in Johannesburg last month.

Bahrain opposition activists convicted of spying for Iran

Posted: 01 Oct 2013 07:22 AM PDT

Government says some of the 50 jailed for links to February 14 movement had been trained by Iran's Revolutionary Guards

Some of the 50 people jailed in Bahrain on Sunday for security offences were also convicted of spying for Iran and had planned "vandalism and rioting" with the backing of Tehran, the Bahraini government said.

The 50 were sentenced to between five and 15 years in jail for links to February 14, an opposition movement seen by the authorities as a terrorist group working to overthrow the government.

The Gulf Arab kingdom, base for the US navy's fifth fleet, has been in political turmoil since protests erupted in 2011 led by majority Shia Muslims demanding full powers for parliament and an end to the Sunni monarchy's political domination.

Bahrain has accused Shia Iran, seen as a regional troublemaker by several Gulf states, of fuelling the unrest, an accusation Tehran has denied.

In a statement, the government said the 50 were charged with founding and operating "a terrorist group with the goal of undermining the rules of the constitution and laws as well as preventing the institutions and public authorities from doing their work".

In addition, some of them were convicted of spying for foreign states and their agents, or seeking to do so, with the aim of carrying out aggressive actions against the kingdom, it said, without specifying how many defendants this involved.

"It has been proved that they have spied for the Islamic Republic of Iran, and have been in touch with senior leadership and members of the Revolutionary Guards and supplied them with information related to the internal situation in the kingdom," the statement said.

"They have received directions from them related to training and preparation for carrying out acts of vandalism and rioting," it said, adding that evidence included video recordings of military training.

The Revolutionary Guards are an elite Iranian military force involved in internal security and defence, with a special unit that seeks to export Iran's revolutionary Islamist ideology.

Sixteen of the defendants were sentenced to 15 years, four to 10 years and 30 to five years in prison

There was no immediate comment from the Iranian government. In February Iran's foreign ministry dismissed a Bahraini allegation that the Revolutionary Guards had sought to set up armed opposition cells in Bahrain.

Aneka Info