World news and comment from the Guardian | guardian.co.uk

NSA files – live coverage of all developments and reaction
Asian stock markets push higher as rally continues - live
Argentinian editors fear threat to press freedom from media law
Pirate Bay's PirateBrowser web browser reaches 1m downloads
India pushes to change WTO subsidy rules so it can stockpile food
Australian bushfires: fears Blue Mountains fires will merge
Bushfire arrests: all five have been 'young people', police chief says
Gravity director Alfonso Cuarón says he knew of film's scientific flaws
Grace of Monaco director calls Harvey Weinstein re-edit a 'pile of shit'
How Europe could face its own shutdown | Jan-Werner Mueller
David Cameron hails nuclear power plant deal as big day for Britain
Yachtsman describes horror at ‘dead’, rubbish strewn Pacific Ocean
Direct Action: Coalition could bring in parts of its plan without legislation
Chinese professor sacked amid free speech crackdown
Hinkley nuclear power station gets go-ahead as coalition signs off EDF deal
Austerity plans could see Ireland scrap 83 councils – but will it help?
A shutdown over healthcare? Australians have seen it all before | Ian Mylchreest
Palmer outspent Labor in final week ad blitz, analysis reveals
Australian bushfires: NSW premier calls a state of emergency – in pictures
Mexico condemns US over alleged NSA hacking of ex-president's emails
Scott Morrison defends decision to call asylum seekers 'illegals'
Stop badger cull immediately, says Natural England science expert
Listening to the voices from Kenya's colonial past | Caroline Elkins
Unreported World: China's Lonely Hearts – review
Questions about Englishness raise more problems than they can solve | David Edgar

NSA files – live coverage of all developments and reaction

Posted: 21 Oct 2013 01:40 AM PDT

Welcome to our hub for all Edward Snowden, NSA and GCHQ-related developments around the world, as controversy over revelations leaked by the whistleblower continue to make headlines

Paul Owen

Asian stock markets push higher as rally continues - live

Posted: 21 Oct 2013 01:38 AM PDT

World equity markets hit highest level since 2008 on economic optimism, and predictions that the Federal Reserve's stimulus programme won't be slowed this year

Graeme Wearden

Argentinian editors fear threat to press freedom from media law

Posted: 21 Oct 2013 01:33 AM PDT

The Guardian has enjoyed plenty of support from editors across the world for publishing its series of revelations on the NSA's global surveillance network leaked by Edward Snowden.

The support has been impressive. It includes editors from the US, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Poland, Austria, Israel, India, Argentina and Australia.

All of them expressed in different ways their concerns about government interference in the exercise of press freedom.

And none was as heartfelt as that by Ricardo Kirschbaum, editor-in-chief of the newspaper, Clarín, based in the Argentinian capital, Buenos Aires.

In October last year, I reported that the Global Editors' Network had raised the alarm about a decision by the administration of Argentina's president, Cristina Kirchner, to seize control the paper's publisher, Grupo Clarín.

Her attempts to do so were enshrined in a controversial media law that has been the subject of a long-running legal battle. In August this year, The Guardian's Latin America corespondent, Jonathan Watts, reported that the country's supreme court was due to deliver its verdict within weeks.

But two months have passed and the latest news, yet again, is that the court's ruling is weeks away.

The dispute centres on Kirchner's desire to curb monopolies and create a more plural media landscape. But publishers, editors and journalists - and not just those working for Grupo Clarín - believe she is aiming to dismantle and tame a critical press.

Under the proposed law, media ownership would be capped. For example, no company would be able to control more than 35% of the broadcast market.

This would mean Grupo Clarín being forced to dispose of more than 130 broadcasting licences and it would therefore lose a huge chunk of its revenues.

Currently, the group is Argentina's biggest newspaper publisher with seven titles and a news agency. It owns the second most popular TV channel, three provincial channels and 10 radio stations plus 158 broadcasting licences and a 60% control of the cable market.

But Kirschbaum, in an email to this newspaper, says the government controls (directly or indirectly) 80% of the Argentine media.

Kirchner believes the breaking up the Clarín group, and other big media corporations, would aid democracy.

On Clarín's behalf, Kirschbaum argues that her real aim is to control the media. In this he is supported by other non-Clarín papers, such as La Nación and Perfil.

Kirschbaum, quoted in the Daily Telegraph last week, said: "Clarín Group is suffering constant and ferocious harassment on the part of the government…

"They [the government] are not only looking to silence the Clarín group, but any voice that is out of line with the official discourse."

Roy Greenslade

Pirate Bay's PirateBrowser web browser reaches 1m downloads

Posted: 21 Oct 2013 01:31 AM PDT

Filesharing site claims 0.5% of its visitors are now using the software, which helps people evade ISP blocks

Filesharing site The Pirate Bay has clocked up more than 1m downloads of its PirateBrowser web browser in the two months since it launched in mid-August.

The desktop application was released as a response to the growing number of ISPs blocking access to The Pirate Bay and other filesharing site, although it was also pitched as an anti-censorship tool.

The 1m milestone was revealed by TorrentFreak, which notes that although The Pirate Bay hasn't said how many of those people are actively using PirateBrowser, it's currently accounting for 0.5% of the site's visitors.

"I guess that a lot of people want to see the websites their governments and courts are trying to hide from them," one of The Pirate Bay's admins tells TorrentFreak, which in the absence of official stats, estimates that the browser has "hundreds of thousands" of active users.

PirateBrowser is based on the FireFox Portable Edition web browser, adding Tor client Vidalia to anonymise data connections and the FoxyProxy proxy-management plug-in. When it launched, The Pirate Bay described it as "a simple one-click browser that circumvents censorship and blockades and makes the site instantly available and accessible".

The Pirate Bay is blocked by ISPs in an increasing number of countries, including the UK, where Sky, Virgin Media, TalkTalk, O2 and Everything Everywhere were ordered by the high court to stop their customers accessing it in April 2012, after a case brought by music industry body the BPI.

PirateBrowser may not be the most popular tool used to get around such blocks and visit The Pirate Bay, however. In May this year, the site claimed that 8% of its page views were already coming through its dedicated proxy IP-address.

Stuart Dredge

India pushes to change WTO subsidy rules so it can stockpile food

Posted: 21 Oct 2013 01:29 AM PDT

India says paying farmers higher prices will help boost food security, but critics say it will hurt poor producers elsewhere

India is pushing hard for a change to global trade rules that would allow governments in developing countries more leeway to pay poor farmers above-market prices for food for national stockpiles. Critics warn, however, that such a policy shift – which India is pursuing in the name of food security – could end up hurting poor producers in other parts of the world.

The proposed rule change was officially put forward by the G33 coalition of developing countries last November, but India is widely acknowledged to be the driving force behind the bid. Debate on the issue is heating up as negotiators prepare for the World Trade Organisation's (WTO) next high-level meeting, which is due to take place in Bali in December.

Officials in India, which is home to about one-quarter of the world's hungry, insist that the rule change is essential to the country's development.

"The farmers [need] some sort of a price guarantee," says Jayant Dasgupta, India's ambassador to the WTO. "If you can't give this price guarantee, then many of the farmers who are on the margins may quit farming … Food production will go down, lands will lie fallow, and the unemployment problem will increase."

In August, India's parliament voted to expand the country's wide-ranging agriculture subsidy programme significantly. The new food security act, which took effect in September, aims to provide subsidised rice, wheat and millet to two-thirds of the country's 1.2 billion people.

But if India pays its farmers above-market prices to build those stockpiles of grain, then analysts say the scheme is likely to cause the country to breach its subsidy limits at the WTO. That would leave it open to challenges from other countries, which could sue India under the WTO's dispute settlement body for violating its subsidy commitments.

Ten years ago, India spent nearly $15bn on domestic farm support (in the 2003-04 market year). The country hasn't reported any subsidy data to the WTO since, but analysts say that the figure has certainly grown (pdf).

The WTO rules on farm subsidies are designed to prevent domestic policies from distorting the price of food on the international market. India claims that the food it procures for its stockpiles is intended for domestic consumption, but analysts say that once those stocks are released into the market, they could very well be shipped overseas. Critics warn that a flood of cheap food imports from India could threaten the livelihoods of farmers in other countries, who may suddenly be forced to compete with the heavily subsidised Indian grains.

Relatively rich developing countries such as Indonesia, China and the Philippines are rumoured to support India's request, but opposition to the proposed rule change is strong and widespread.

"It is ironic that this proposal comes under a title of 'food security'," Michael Punke, the US ambassador to the WTO, told a meeting of trade officials in April. "Even if it did contribute to food security for the two or three countries that can afford the costs to support such a system – and this is debatable – it will certainly create volatility and insecurity for the vast majority of others."

Even within the G33 coalition, which officially submitted the proposal last year, opinions are now divided.

"Providing market price support to a large number of farmers is not [in the interest of] food security for everyone," said Aisha Moriani, a trade official from Pakistan, which is a G33 member. "It can lead to unsustainable production and also affect the competitiveness of other producers. If the world's biggest rice exporter is seeking exemptions which will destroy small farmers in the rest of the world, I think that's a very unreasonable request."

But the true economic impact of the proposed change may not be so clear cut, says Jamie Morrison, a senior economist at the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation and co-author of a recent analysis, published by the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (pdf), on the potential impacts of the Indian-backed proposal.

"It's not necessarily the case that it will be bad for food security in other countries," says Morrison. "A lot comes down to the way in which the scheme is designed [and] how it's implemented … Taking a little bit more time with this, I think, would make a lot of sense."

Paige McClanahan

This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Australian bushfires: fears Blue Mountains fires will merge

Posted: 21 Oct 2013 01:15 AM PDT

Fire service chief warns three major fires blazing around Sydney could join to threaten the entire Blue Mountains region; state of emergency as more than 50 fires burn across the state.

Helen Davidson

Nick Evershed

Bushfire arrests: all five have been 'young people', police chief says

Posted: 21 Oct 2013 01:12 AM PDT

'Look after your children, understand where they are if you can, know who they're with,' Andrew Scipione tells parents

Nick Evershed

Helen Davidson

Gravity director Alfonso Cuarón says he knew of film's scientific flaws

Posted: 21 Oct 2013 01:05 AM PDT

Film-maker says explanations for discrepancies were removed at an early stage to help the film's watchablity

• Gravity's science exploded by top astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson

Gravity director Alfonso Cuarón revealed he was aware of his film's scientific inaccuracies from an early stage, but had decided to drop scenes explaining them away from an early draft as he felt they were "irrelevant".

The Mexican film-maker was responding to a string of tweets from astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson who had pointed out a number of flaws, including the fact that all the spacecraft in the film were on the same plane of orbit, and that Sandra Bullock's coiffure appeared unaffected by zero-gravity.

Speaking to the Hollywood Reporter, Cuarón said that "most of [Tyson's] comments are things that we're aware of". Commenting specifically on the fact that the Hubble telescope, the International Space Station and a Chinese space station were on the same orbit in the film, the director said: "When we started having experts read the script and while working with them, they explained [the problem] to us ... We did a draft explaining why everything was on the same plane and the screenplay was like 30 pages longer (because of the explanation), and it was interesting, but at the end, irrelevant for the fiction we were trying to tell. So we took all that out of the draft."

Cuarón went to say: "We tried to be as accurate as we could within the framework of our fiction. In the end, it's fiction and it's an emotional journey more than anything else."

Fortunately for Cuarón, Tyson signed off by saying he was a fan of the movie – "if you must know, I enjoyed #Gravity very much". The US public clearly shares his approval, as Gravity has now taken over $170m (£105m) at the North American box office on its third week of release, for a worldwide total of $284m (£175m) so far.

Andrew Pulver

Grace of Monaco director calls Harvey Weinstein re-edit a 'pile of shit'

Posted: 21 Oct 2013 01:02 AM PDT

Olivier Dahan complains that a second version of the Grace Kelly biopic has been created by the US distributors, saying the situation is 'catastrophic'

• Grace of Monaco: watch Nicole Kidman as Grace Kelly in world exclusive trailer for new biopic

The director of an Oscar-tipped biopic which stars Nicole Kidman as Grace Kelly has attacked plans by Harvey Weinstein to edit the film as a "pile of shit".

Speaking to French newspaper Liberation in comments translated by the Hollywood Reporter, Olivier Dahan stridently defended his right to release Grace of Monaco, which details a period in Kelly's marriage to Rainier III, prince of the tiny European state, in its original form. Weinstein, who is famed for his cutting room proclivities, recently delayed the film's debut in cinemas on the basis that it is not yet ready to be viewed.

The film, about Kelly's intervention in a row between Rainier and France's president Charles De Gaulle, had been tipped for a tilt at the 2014 Oscars, but will now miss the deadline for the annual awards ceremony. Dahan said there was no need for a delay because his movie is already finished and does not need recutting.

"The film that I am in the process of finishing is complicated to finalise, although actually, for me, it is finished," Dahan told Liberation. "What's complicated at the moment is ensuring that you, the critics, can review my version of the film and not that of somebody else. It's not over yet. I haven't given up."

Dahan said he was being blackmailed by Weinstein into signing off on a new edit which did not represent his original vision. "It's right to struggle, but when you confront an American distributor like Weinstein, not to name names, there is not much you can do," the director said. "Either you say 'Go figure it out with your pile of shit' or you brace yourself so the blackmail isn't as violent … If I don't sign, that's where the out-and-out blackmail starts, but I could go that far. There are two versions of the film for now: mine and his … which I find catastrophic."

He added: "It's got hardly anything to do with the film. It's only about the money, the release strategy, millions of dollars and stuff like that. It's got nothing to do with cinema. I mean, of course it's about cinema, but the business side. They want a commercial film smelling of daisies, taking out anything that exceeds that which is too abrupt, everything that makes it cinematic and breathe with life. A lot of things are missing."

Grace of Monaco, which also stars Frank Langella, Parker Posey, Derek Jacobi, Paz Vega and Tim Roth, is currently due for release in March 2014, having been delayed from November by The Weinstein Company, which is co-owned by Bob and Harvey Weinstein. Shot in France, Italy and Monaco last Autumn, the film focuses on a period in 1962 when De Gaulle established an economic blockade on the small principality over its status as a tax haven.

Weinstein, a renowned Oscars campaigner who oversaw successful runs for The Artist and The King's Speech in recent years, has labelled the film a "fantastic, and very glamorous" movie that "could be bigger" than Marilyn Monroe biopic My Week with Marilyn. But he also told the Hollywood Reporter last month: "The score wasn't ready, a lot of things weren't ready."

• More on Diana
• More on Grace of Monaco
• Alex von Tunzelmann: Princesses for grownups – Diana and Grace of Monaco
• Grace of Monaco: watch Nicole Kidman as Grace Kelly in world exclusive trailer for new biopic

Ben Child

How Europe could face its own shutdown | Jan-Werner Mueller

Posted: 21 Oct 2013 01:00 AM PDT

Just as the Tea Party has paralysed Congress, an alliance of populist anti-EU parties could force Europe into gridlock

Europeans have been stunned and dismayed by the shutdown and near-default of the United States. Perhaps they even felt some schadenfreude. After all, European leaders have been held to ridicule and contempt for their global brinkmanship over the dysfunctional eurozone in recent years – time and again taking their economies to the cliff, only to pull back just before the markets opened.

Yet Europe might be in for its own version of a shutdown – less dramatic than the US government one, to be sure, but with similar causes. Just as the Tea Party has turned Congress into a paralysed, self-hating institution, an alliance of anti-European Union parties could give Europe its own version of "gridlock" if they win enough of the popular vote in next year's European elections. European elites – and any citizen who cares about the fate of the EU – better start thinking about that scenario.

The US and the EU share one characteristic: they are, in the jargon of political science, "mixed regimes", with a strong separation of powers and numerous checks and balances. This is good news for those who want laws to be based on broad consensus and generally to avoid what James Madison called "public instability". Unlike the Westminster model mixed regimes make it easy for a relatively small number of political players to veto change. They are also less transparent; plus it is harder to hold anyone clearly accountable – blame for politicking can always be shifted around.

Americans have been lamenting "gridlock" for years, but the founding fathers probably wanted things that way – to some extent. What the men at Philadelphia also hoped for was for politicians to become socialised into this system and learn how to work together. Except that the ideal of the gentleman-legislator who cuts backroom deals in the public interest seems plainly an illusion in the age of 24-hour news cycles and constant pressure from interest groups with seemingly unlimited financial and, ultimately, electoral fire-power.

The European parliament – though never exactly a beloved institution – was until recently more likely to live up to the US ideal, for the simple reason that most of its members had at least two things in common: they were broadly pro-EU and they were eager to guard the hard-won powers of the parliament and, wherever possible, expand them.

The parliament has actually become more influential than most Europeans realise, and not just on high-profile issues such as data protection. As the LSE professor Simon Hix has pointed out, approximately 25% of amendments to legislation proposed by the European parliament end up as law – more than in any national parliament.

Blueprints for making the EU more democratic have often focused on giving even more powers to MEPs – on the naïve assumption that the parliament would always automatically be pro-European. But what if it is captured by a European version of the Tea Party, a group that campaigns in the name of the principle that government itself is the problem? The Italian prime minister, Enrico Letta, warned in an interview with the New York Times this week that mainstream, pro-Europe parties must win at least 70% of the seats to avoid a "nightmarish legislature".

Letta's warning sounds very much like the EU establishment confirming the very reasons why populists condemn it: voters are allowed more democracy, as long as it remains a democracy without real choices – or so populists would charge. Hence it is important to be clear where the dangers lie exactly. Not every party that criticises the euro is anti-EU (think of the Alternative for Germany party). However, a significant number of truly anti-EU parties are simply destructive and suffer from fundamental contradictions. They claim democratic legitimacy on the basis of votes they received in elections to the European parliament and at the same time deny that the latter is democratic. They just want to shut the whole thing down (but ideally keep the money and the prestige that comes with the job).

As an illuminating study by Marley Morris has shown, anti-Europeans do little real work in the legislature, preferring to grandstand in plenary sessions – Ukip is a champion of this approach. Many of these parties – concentrated in the Europe of Freedom and Democracy (EFD) group, a kind of International of nationalists – offer no coherent policy platform.

Marine Le Pen's Front National (leading in French polls for the May 2014 European elections) and Geert Wilders' anti-immigration and anti-Islam party in The Netherlands are attempting to forge a pan-European anti-EU alliance. They might campaign more effectively together, but are also likely to make things even more chaotic: some populist parties will want nothing to do with the racism associated with them. On one level this incoherence is a good thing, as is the fact that even within the far right, alliances have regularly broken down.

So unless they truly want a dysfunctional EU, European citizens should think twice before they vote for such parties. They will not get different policies, but paralysis. There are real alternatives – even to austerity – and there is a genuine left-right spectrum of options in the parliament, more so than in many national parliaments. It is democratically legitimate to want to protest – but it is also important to take oneself and one's vote seriously. Shutdown is for political teenagers, not for adults.

Jan-Werner Mueller

This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

David Cameron hails nuclear power plant deal as big day for Britain

Posted: 21 Oct 2013 12:54 AM PDT

Planned reactors at Hinkley will be first to begin construction since Fukushima disaster and will come online in 2023

David Cameron has hailed the UK government agreement with French-owned EDF to build the first new British nuclear power station in 20 years, saying it was a very big day for Britain and would kickstart a new generation of nuclear power in the UK.

The energy secretary, Ed Davey, claimed it was a great deal for consumers and would result in energy bills falling by more than £75 by 2030.

He added: "If we don't make these essential investments … we're going to see the lights going out."

The 35-year deal, struck at £92.50 per megawatt hour, is twice the current wholesale market rate for electricity, and will be attacked by some as a massive subsidy to help another non-carbon fuel, with the funds going to the French taxpayer and the Chinese government, which has a minority stake to build the new plant at Hinkley C in Somerset.

With the deal between the UK government and EDF announced on Monday morning, Cameron said: "This is a very big day for our country: the first time we've built a new nuclear power station for a very long time."

He said the deal would be the first of many "kick-starting again this industry, providing thousands of jobs and providing long-term, safe and secure supplies of electricity far into the future".

The subsidy inherent in the strike price reflects the risk in constructing the plant, uncertainty over the future market and the need to reduce the UK's dependence on carbon fuels, such as coal and gas.

But the deal comes at a politically sensitive time as the government fends off criticism that government-imposed green subsidies are pushing up the price of electricity.

Cameron has rejected a Labour proposal for a 20-month government-imposed freeze on energy prices.

The shadow energy secretary, Caroline Flint, said Labour supported nuclear power, but claimed: "David Cameron is now in the ridiculous position of saying that they can set prices 35 years ahead for the companies producing nuclear power, while insisting they can't freeze prices for 20 months for consumers while much-needed reforms are put in place."

Davey said 57% of the jobs and contracts would go to UK contractors, a way of rebuilding the country's nuclear skills.

The two planned pressurised water reactors at Hinkley Point C will be the first to start construction in Europe since Japan's Fukushima disaster and the first in the UK since the Sizewell B power station came online in 1995.

The new reactors, which will cost £14bn, are due to start operating in 2023 if built on time and will run for 35 years. They will be capable of producing 7% of the UK's electricity – equivalent to the amount used by 7m homes.

In details released on Monday morning, the strike price – the fixed price at which output will be sold – has been set at £89.50 per megawatt hour for electricity produced at the new power station. That price will be fully indexed to consumer price inflation. But the price, at 2012 prices, is dependent on EDF moving ahead with a second plant, Sizewell C, in Suffolk. If it decides not to proceed, another £3/MWh will be added to the strike price for Hinkley, bringing it up to £92.50/MWh.

The reduction reflects the fact that advanced costs for a "first of a kind" nuclear power station are high, but reduce with each successive new plant as economies of scale kick in, the official said. The strike price covers not only the costs of building Hinkley Point C, but all decommissioning and nuclear waste management costs.

EDF was thought to have started negotiations demanding a figure of £100, with the Treasury's gambit being £80.

EDF, which is majority-owned by the French taxpayer and whose investment is likely to be guaranteed by the UK Treasury, will have to start depositing money into a special fund for such liabilities from the start of the project. The government has still not yet completed the process of agreeing a system of storing the waste.

The agreed strike price should allow EDF to make a 10% rate of return on the project. Costs would fall for taxpayer if EDF managed to refinance its package in the future, so sharing the gain.

The strike price is expected to be reviewed 7.5 years, 15 years and 25 years after the commercial operations date of the first reactor as well at the end of the contract term. Protection would be provided for any increases in nuclear insurance costs as a result of withdrawal of HMG cover.

Patrick Wintour

Yachtsman describes horror at ‘dead’, rubbish strewn Pacific Ocean

Posted: 21 Oct 2013 12:50 AM PDT

Ivan MacFadyen says he was shocked by absence of sea life during his 37,000km voyage between Australia and Japan

Oliver Milman

Direct Action: Coalition could bring in parts of its plan without legislation

Posted: 21 Oct 2013 12:42 AM PDT

Greg Hunt says he has 'other options' if emissions reduction bill does not pass parliament as Labor seeks to finalise its strategy

Lenore Taylor

Chinese professor sacked amid free speech crackdown

Posted: 21 Oct 2013 12:42 AM PDT

Peking University denies that dismissal of Xia Yeliang, a prominent pro-democracy advocate, was for political reasons

One of China's most prestigious universities has sacked an outspoken economics professor, raising concerns about the extent of a continuing crackdown on free speech and dissent.

Xia Yeliang, an associate professor at Peking University's school of economics since 2002, was notified on Friday that his contract would not be renewed. Rumours of his dismissal had been circulating for weeks.

In an online statement, the school denied that the 53-year-old economist – a long-time advocate for constitutionalism and democracy – was fired for political reasons, adding that a faculty committee decided to sack him for "poor teaching" in a 30-3 vote. The university said Xia was the school's "worst-ranked teacher for many years in a row", adding that he had been the subject of 340 student complaints since 2006. His contract will expire on 31 January.

Xia rose to prominence in 2008 after helping Liu Xiaobo, the imprisoned Nobel peace prize laureate, draft Charter 08, a petition demanding sweeping reforms to China's authoritarian one-party system. In 2009, he wrote a widely circulated blog criticising the then-propaganda minister Liu Yunshan for overseeing a draconian censorship regime. Liu is now a member of China's highest ruling body, the seven-person Politburo Standing Committee.

He claims that the school sacked him under pressure from high-level authorities.

"[Peking University] kept warning me: I cannot tell foreign media I was fired for political reasons but purely academic ones," Xia told the Washington Post. "Even now, having been fired, I cannot say it is political. In China, they can take harsh measures against you – for example, attacking my family members." Xia's wife works at Peking University.

Xia's expulsion comes amid a nationwide crackdown on even moderate forms of dissent. Since the summer, Communist party-backed media have launched a united charge against "western values"; authorities have detained scores of outspoken bloggers and activists for "spreading online rumours" and organising small-scale demonstrations.

Last month, 136 faculty members at the Wellesley College, Massachusetts, which is planning an academic partnership with the university, protested against Xia's expected dismissal in an open letter to its president, Wang Enge. "We believe that dismissing Professor Xia for political reasons is such a fundamental violation of academic freedom that we, as individuals, would find it very difficult to engage in scholarly exchanges with Peking University," it said.

Xia has been a visiting professor at Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley.

"I'd like to make a call to universities nationwide," Xia tweeted to his 36,000 followers on Sunday night. "If your honorable university doesn't believe that I'm qualified for a teaching post, please give me an administrative position at your library. Peking University's School of Economics has once more emphasized that the termination of my contract has nothing to do with politics, so please don't worry about the hire."

Jonathan Kaiman

Hinkley nuclear power station gets go-ahead as coalition signs off EDF deal

Posted: 21 Oct 2013 12:32 AM PDT

Building to commence on Britain's first nuclear power station in 20 years as government hands subsidy to French company

Britain is to embark on building its first nuclear power station for two decades on Monday as the coalition hands a multibillion subsidy to France's EDF with help from a state-owned Chinese firm.

The two planned pressurised water reactors at Hinkley Point C, Somerset, are the first to start construction in Europe since Japan's Fukushima disaster and the first in the UK since the Sizewell B power station came online in 1995.

The new reactors, which will cost £14bn, are due to start operating in 2023 if constructed on time and will run for 35 years. They will be capable of producing 7% of the UK's electricity – equivalent to the amount used by 7m homes.

After months of delay, the news came as the coalition has come under intense pressure over rising electricity bills. British Gas and SSE have both announced price rises for customers of close to 10% and Ed Miliband's promise to freeze energy bills has struck a chord with voters. There are expected to be further rises announced by the big six energy companies this week.

Over the weekend the archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, waded into the row over energy prices, warning that the latest wave of hikes looks inexplicable. Welby, a former oil executive, insisted the big six energy companies had an obligation to behave morally rather than just maximising profit.

"They have control because they sell something everyone has to buy. We have no choice about buying it," he told the Mail on Sunday. "With that amount of power comes huge responsibility to serve society."

The guaranteed subsidies promised by the government for Hinkley Point C will lead to accusations that ministers are loading a further cost on spiralling energy prices by again requiring British taxpayers to subsidise nuclear power. The coalition counters that similar subsidies are going to other carbon-free industries such as renewables and that the country needs the energy security and steady base load that nuclear provides. Gas prices, although relatively low, are predicted to rise.

Britain is taking a sharply different route to Germany, which has decided to phase out nuclear power, and Italy, which has scrapped a planned nuclear programme. France, traditionally the nuclear enthusiast, has pledged to cut atomic power to 50% of its electricity mix from 75% today.

The strike price – the guaranteed rate to be paid for electricity produced at the Somerset site – will be announced as £92.50 on Monday, following two years of complex negotiations. That is nearly twice the market price of energy. The price is guaranteed for 35 years and will rise in line with inflation.

EDF was thought to have started negotiations demanding a figure of £100, with the Treasury's gambit being £80.

The price will fall to £89.50 if EDF presses ahead with a second plant at Sizewell, Suffolk. Chancellor George Osborne removed another obstacle last week when he announced that Chinese firms would be allowed to invest in civil nuclear projects in the UK.

Ministers will come under twin attack from green groups, both for endangering safety and providing subsidy, as well as from enthusiasts for shale gas for failing to put their faith in cheap gas, currently nearly half the cost of nuclear.

The energy secretary, Ed Davey, is preparing to counter green groups by arguing that onshore or offshore wind could not fill the energy gap created by the decommissioning of the first wave of power stations. By some estimates, Hinkley Point C will generate the equivalent output of 6,000 onshore wind turbines.

EDF's longtime partner, China General Nuclear Power Group, possibly in combination with China National Nuclear Corporation, is expected to have a 30% to 40% stake in the consortium, with Areva taking another 10%, according to French weekend newspaper reports. The deal is thought to provide a 10% return on EDF's investment.

The coalition policy is being led by the Liberal Democrats – the party that had, in principle, opposed nuclear power right up until its party conference in September. The deal is a huge gamble for both the government and EDF, since projecting the state of the electricity market and wholesale prices 35 years ahead is fraught with risk.

Michael Fallon, the Conservative energy minister, signalled another review of the green subsidies imposed on energy firms, but Davey said: "It only takes a GCSE in maths to recognise that green subsidies are not pushing up prices. It is a fact that 47 % of energy prices come from wholesale prices and they have risen 50% in five years."

Patrick Wintour

Austerity plans could see Ireland scrap 83 councils – but will it help?

Posted: 21 Oct 2013 12:00 AM PDT

• Proposed councils reductions from 114 to 31
• Since 2008 councils have seen staff reductions of 9,000 people
• Nearly €1bn (17%) cut from local authority outgoings

Over the period of 1995 to 2007 in Ireland public sector employment rose sharply, primarily in the areas of health (up 73%) and education (up 42%).

Excluding health and education, the increase in employment was 5% – low in comparison to a 45% rise in the overall labour force. The local government sector was one part of the public service which did not see massive increases in employment levels or in its budgets during these years. However, it has suffered the most during the economic downturn.

Since 2008 councils have seen staff reductions of 9,000 people (or 24%) and nearly €1bn (17%) has been cut from the outgoings of local authorities.

The government is now proposing even deeper cuts. In the Putting People First policy document of October 2012 it was announced that further cost savings of €420m (£355m) will be sought. Local councils across Ireland are at breaking point in trying to preserve a decent level of frontline services from a significantly decreased revenue stream.

Veteran Dublin city councillor, Dermot Lacey, notes: "The cutbacks have put a huge strain on the ability of the council to deliver services, particularly in the housing area. Social housing programmes have been abandoned and so we are seeing ever-lengthening housing lists."

Despite the pressures imposed through harsh economic realities the local government sector has responded speedily to the state's financial crisis. Significant efficiency gains have been made without commercial rates being increased. The primary innovations initiated by councils to achieve greater efficiency have come through changed workplace practices, shared services, depot rationalisation and process re-engineering facilitated through ICT and online service delivery.

Shared services are seen as key to not only achieve efficiency gains but also to enhance the quality and range of services available to citizens and businesses. Shared service projects are being developed through individual business cases in the areas of payroll, human resources, IT backoffice and accounts payable.

Innovation through technology is also bearing fruit and, for example, South Dublin county council launched Source, an online service which both archives and provides access to digitised history and heritage materials. Source is the world's first linked double digital archiving project based on DSpace open source software. It is also the first multi-file type digital archive developed or implemented by an Irish public library service.

The headline act of Putting People First is the proposal by government to reduce the number of local councils in Ireland from 114 to 31. This is to be achieved through the complete abolition of all town councils (Ireland will be reduced to a one-tier local government system) and mergers and amalgamations in Limerick, Waterford and Tipperary. Already, Ireland has the second most disconnected system of local government in Europe in terms of the number of councils to population and the population per councillor (second to the United Kingdom).

It is difficult to reconcile removing 73% of the existing councils, creating even greater distance between the citizen and the council and calling it Putting People First. While councillor Lacey supports aspects of the policy document, he believes that the key challenge 'is to break forever the strangulating control of the Department of Environment, Community and Local Government in the Custom House'. However, there is little prospect of this happening.

A draft Council of Europe report from February 2013, Local Democracy in Ireland, concluded: "The new policy paper (Putting People First), although it praises decentralisation in spirit, does not appear to provide many concrete steps in that direction. Some of the actual steps proposed go in the opposite direction."

Regrettably, there is next-to-no debate in Ireland about local government but any discussions which are taking place are being swamped by a particular narrative which arrogantly states big is better, cheaperand more efficient.

These claims are being made in support of abolitions and mergers in spite of the fact that international evidence refutes the notion that a smaller number of larger local authorities yield improvements, savings and efficiencies. Instead the evidence from other jurisdictions that have been down this road points to the fact that structural reform and the redrawing of local authority boundaries is not a cost-free exercise and frequently result in dis-economies of scale.

Since 2008, austerity has been the only game in town in Ireland and in terms of local government we are witnessing a programme of rationalisation, cost-cutting and reductionism disguised as reform.

Aodh Quinlivan is a lecturer in politics at the Department of Government, University College Cork.

Yannick Cabrol is a former Economic Development officer at Waterford County Council.

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A shutdown over healthcare? Australians have seen it all before | Ian Mylchreest

Posted: 20 Oct 2013 11:42 PM PDT

Ian Mylchreest: Back in the 70s, Canberra saw a similarly savage battle over the provision of public healthcare. So what can Obama learn from the Australian experience?

Ian Mylchreest

Palmer outspent Labor in final week ad blitz, analysis reveals

Posted: 20 Oct 2013 11:31 PM PDT

Clive Palmer and the Australian Salary Packaging Association both spent up big for a say in the Australian political process

Katharine Murphy

Australian bushfires: NSW premier calls a state of emergency – in pictures

Posted: 20 Oct 2013 11:29 PM PDT

Blazes continue to burn through the state as rural fire service chief warns three big fires could join together, endangering the entire Blue Mountains

Mexico condemns US over alleged NSA hacking of ex-president's emails

Posted: 20 Oct 2013 11:23 PM PDT

German report says details were in a document leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden

Scott Morrison defends decision to call asylum seekers 'illegals'

Posted: 20 Oct 2013 11:19 PM PDT

Minister under fire for directing public servants to refer to asylum seekers who arrive by boat as 'illegal maritime arrivals'

Immigration Minister Scott Morrison says he is simply calling "a spade a spade" by directing public servants to refer to asylum seekers as "illegal".

"I'm not going to make any apologies for not using politically correct language to describe something that I am trying to stop," he said.

Morrison has come under fire for telling immigration staff that boat arrivals must be called "illegal maritime arrivals", and asylum seekers in detention must be called "detainees" instead of "clients".

The immigration minister is unrepentant.

"I'm not going to engage in some sort of clever language to try and mask anything here," he said. "I'm going to call a spade a spade."

Morrison said his directive simply concerned the way asylum seekers arrived.

"People who have entered Australia illegally by boat have illegally entered by boat," he said.

"I've never said that it is illegal to claim asylum. That's not what the term refers to. It refers to their mode of entry."

Labor immigration spokesman Richard Marles accused Morrison of demonising asylum seekers in what he said was a return to the inflammatory rhetoric of the Howard era.

"This is an area where language is bullets: it is really important that we are careful about what language we use and that we depoliticise this area of policy," Marles said.

"Those who come by boat are not the enemy. In terms of calling a spade a spade, people who seek asylum here are asylum seekers."

Stop badger cull immediately, says Natural England science expert

Posted: 20 Oct 2013 11:00 PM PDT

Prof David Macdonald warns extending duration 'would make the outcome even less predictable and even more unpromising'

The controversial badger cull taking place in Gloucestershire should be stopped immediately, says the lead scientist on the board of Natural England, the organisation charged with making the decision.

NE, the nation's official protector of nature, will rule Monday on whether the night-time badger shoots can be significantly extended, following the revelation that marksmen fell far short of their initial legal targets.

The intervention by David Macdonald, chair of NE's science advisory committee and one of the UK's most eminent wildlife biologists, is a heavy blow for the environment secretary, Owen Paterson, and the National Farmers' Union, who argue that killing badgers to curb tuberculosis in cattle is scientifically justified and necessary.

The badger cull is also being jeopardised by a legal threat launched on Saturday.

Macdonald, a professor at Oxford University, said: "My personal opinion as a biologist [is] not to continue the cull. One could not have significant comfort that the original proposals would deliver gains to farmers. Extending the cull would make the outcome even less predictable and even more unpromising."

A 10-year trial of badger culling found that killing too few badgers over too long a period of time caused TB infections to rise rather than fall, since fleeing badgers spread the disease further afield, an effect called perturbation.

The new pilot cull in Gloucestershire was licensed by NE to kill 70% of the badger population in a specified area of the county in no more than six weeks, but the shooting of free-running badgers managed just 30% in that time.

Backed by Paterson, the cullers have now applied to NE for an eight-week extension to the killing.

Macdonald said: "Perturbation has undoubtedly been caused in Gloucestershire already and an extension by six to eight weeks is likely to worsen the perturbation even more."

He noted that the original, decade-long, trial carried out culls over periods of eight to 11 days to minimise perturbation.

The extension ruling will be taken by NE executives, who have already given a three-week extension to the badger cull in Somerset, where a higher proportion of badgers – 59%– were killed in the initial six weeks.

A second significant intervention also came on Sunday from the former environment minister Huw Irranca-Davies, who appointed the NE's chair, Poul Christensen.

Irranca-Davies, now a shadow environment minister, has written to Christensen saying that granting the Gloucester cull extension would destroy the credibility of the wildlife watchdog.

He wrote: "The hard-won reputation of Natural England for sound impartial and evidence-based advice which can support but also challenge policy makers is on the line. NE has built its reputation on scientifically robust, evidence-based and impartial advice to government, and a willingness to challenge government policy which departs from your core aim to safeguard England's natural wealth for everyone."

"This is not an attack on Natural England but an attempt to help it do the right thing, in the face of unprecedented pressure from political leaders," Irranca-Davies told the Guardian.

He said he was seeking reassurances from NE on the protection of "the integrity of the advice which government ministers rely on from NE".

He said seeking an eight-week extension "departs from any pretence whatsoever at having any scientific underpinning".

A Conservative attempt to scrap NE this year was blocked by the Liberal Democrats, according to Nick Clegg who said in September of the environment: "[It is] one area where we've had to put our foot down more than any other. It's an endless battle; we've had to fight tooth and nail."

Macdonald said: "It is tremendously important that a body like NE exists to offer independent advice – it is a jewel in the crown of the protection of nature. It is vital that the institution, which works tirelessly and diligently, is not only treasured but strengthened."

A spokeswoman for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said: "Natural England is the licensing authority and any decisions on whether to extend the licences will be made by them." NE declined to comment.

TB infections in cattle have risen in the last 10 years and in 2012 cost taxpayers £100m and led to the slaughter of 28,000 cattle.

Macdonald said: "This causes affected farmers extraordinary stress and blight. [But] economically, the culls are extremely punishing for the farming community, who bear the costs. Extending the cull would make this worse."

Damian Carrington

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Listening to the voices from Kenya's colonial past | Caroline Elkins

Posted: 20 Oct 2013 11:00 PM PDT

The culling of imperial archives led me to turn to oral history. But for many scholars, the official myths of the British Empire persist

'Africans make up stories." I heard this refrain over and again while researching imperial history in Kenya. I was scarcely surprised when it came from former settlers and colonial officials living out their days in the country's bucolic highlands. But I was concerned to find that this position took on intractable proportions among some historians.

At the time of decolonisation, colonial officials destroyed and removed tons of documents from Kenya. To overcome this, I collected hundreds of oral testimonies and integrated them with fragments of remaining archival evidence to challenge entrenched views of British imperialism.

My methods drew sharp criticism. Revising the myths of British imperial benevolence cut to the heart of national identity, challenging decades-old scholarship and professional reputations.

Some historians fetishise documents, and historians of empire are among the most hide-bound. For decades, these scholars have viewed written evidence as sacrosanct. That documents – like all forms of evidence – must be triangulated, and interrogated for veracity using other forms of evidence, including oral testimonies from colonised populations, mattered little.

Instead, many historians rarely questioned the official archive, nor the written, historical record. Instead, they reproduced a carefully tended official narrative with either celebratory accounts of empire, or equally pernicious, by turning their collective heads away from the violence that underwrote Britain's imperial past and towards more benign lines of inquiry. Either way, their document-centred histories served as excuses for liberal imperial fictions.

In spite of postcolonial criticism, these views have lingered. That such methodological conservatism has persisted is stunning in the face of archival discoveries, and the lack thereof.

During the course of the recent Mau Mau case in London's high court – where five claimants filed a suit against the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) for systematic torture in Kenya's detention camps – the British government made a massive document discovery. Some 300 boxes of previously undisclosed files that had been spirited away from Kenya at the time of decolonisation were found in Hanslope Park. Alongside them were countless boxes of files from 36 other colonies, removed at the time of imperial retreat.

The Hanslope Park files have recently moved to the National Archives. Their contents, however, have been less than satisfying. The FCO has not been fully transparent in the release process. Some 170 boxes of "top secret" files are missing. Moreover the FCO has released information that it holds additional files – thousands of linear feet – in Hanslope Park. These files – some of which are clearly related to potential litigation from Northern Ireland, Cyprus, Malaya and elsewhere – well-exceed the 30-year rule. There is no indication that they will be released anytime soon. Even if they were, it would take over 300 years based upon the pace of release of the "migrated archives" for them to see the light of day. Even then, I would have zero confidence in government transparency.

One thing is certain: official British archives have been culled and withheld. Still, oral history sceptics persist, and some historians cling to documents as the only source of evidence.

There is one caveat, however. Some recent publications that eschew oral histories include multiple citations of oral testimonies from members of the British military and colonial service, held in the archives of the Imperial War Museum. This leaves one to wonder if hiding under the sheep's clothing of methodological rigour is the abiding wolf of racial paternalism. Are we to believe that Africans make up stories, but European testimonies are reliable sources of evidence? If the Mau Mau case taught us anything, it's that African oral testimonies are neither meaningless nor fictional. Instead, like all forms of evidence, they must be triangulated and read with other sources to determine their significance to the past and present.

It is not possible to write imperial histories from documents alone. The scale of archival erasure and the withholding of documents is so vast that such a pursuit is irresponsible. Only through a greatly expanded methodological and theoretical toolkit can historians begin to interrogate the history of 20th-century British Empire. Without it, we run the risk of reproducing carefully tended official myths of Britain's past.

Caroline Elkins

Unreported World: China's Lonely Hearts – review

Posted: 20 Oct 2013 11:00 PM PDT

In a country with millions of surplus bachelors, the biggest problem facing Chinese men is finding Miss Right

There's a nice irony about a scene in Unreported World: China's Lonely Hearts (Channel 4). Three Chinese people look at pictures of women on the internet. She's cute, one says. But this one's spotty, her skin isn't white enough, another has ugly teeth. They grade the women – A, B or C – depending on how marriageable they are. "Doesn't it worry you that you're treating these women like objects?" asks the horrified English film-maker. Where's the irony? The graders, the objectifiers, are women. And the English reporter, the objector, is a man: Marcel Theroux.

The women work for an agency called Diamond Love and Marriage. They're searching for a Miss Right to pair with an unnamed client. Mr X is very particular about what he wants: not just clear pale skin and good teeth, but a pointy chin, full cheeks and a good character. Very picky. But he's got plenty of money, and 200 people looking on his behalf in four different cities; he'll find her in the end.

Less hopeful is Li Dongming, a 39-year-old migrant labourer in Beijing. Everything is stacked against him – his age, his salary, the fact he has no property, or Beijing residency status. In China, they don't mess about with small talk, what-kind-of-music-do-you-like nonsense. First-date chitchat goes something this: show me your birth certificate, your visa, your bank balance … mmmm … nah, actually suddenly I'm not single, bog off. What is most stacked-up against Dongming is his country's 35-year-old one-child policy, which has created a massive gender imbalance. By 2020, there'll be 24 million surplus bachelors, and my money would be on Dongming still being one of them.

"How about buy one get one free?" Marcel says, offering himself as part of a Dongming deal to some ladies at the unofficial Sunday marriage market at Beijing's Temple of Heaven park. Bog off, they say. If you were Louis, maybe …

It's a funny, sad, beautiful little film, about a small part of a big problem in China. And a big problem for Li Dongming. Small disclaimer: I know Marcel. He may disagree, but I helped him find his wife. She has pale skin, a lovely pointy chin, but a rather dubious character, I'm afraid.

Sam Wollaston

Questions about Englishness raise more problems than they can solve | David Edgar

Posted: 20 Oct 2013 10:00 PM PDT

The left wants to celebrate nationality. But attending a festival of Englishness made me feel queasy

I spent my Saturday in a south London lecture room festooned with St George's flags, at an event attended by vocal factions of English Democrats and Campaign for an English Parliament. Billed as a festival of Englishness, titled England, My England, the day involved fish and chips and a demonstration of broadsword fencing, and was rounded off with a glass of English ale.

I wasn't the only one to feel a bit queasy about all of this. In fact, the day was not quite what it seemed. It was organised by the left-leaning Institute for Public Policy Research and British Future, whose director, Sunder Katwala, is former head of the Fabians. Its starting point was a piece of IPPR research that confirmed the increase in English residents identifying themselves as English rather than British, and found that those who do are more likely to be anti-European, resentful of the Scots and inclined towards Ukip. Although not framed this way, both the organising groups clearly fear that if the left doesn't address, indeed celebrate, Englishness, it will leave an open goal for the right. Hence the day not being "a conference about" but "a festival of".

Not unsuitably, there was a tone of gentle, self-deprecating irony about much of the proceedings. Several people on the culture panel (two novelists, a poet, Vanessa Whitburn of the Archers and me) challenged the premise of the day. On the comedy panel, it was revealed that, for the English, the top three most characteristic comedy characters – Del Boy, Basil Fawlty and Hyacinth Bucket – are either socially insecure or bad at their job, or both. The sport session applauded the heroic failure of Eddie the Eagle, while suggesting that winning the 1966 World Cup set British football back 20 years. As in Ed Miliband's 2012 speech about Englishness, a general desire to address the topic ("we have been too nervous to talk of English pride and English character") was matched with few policy proposals. The most frequently suggested were a St George's Day bank holiday, an English national anthem, and the exclusion of Scottish and Welsh MPs from voting on matters devolved from Westminster.

There is, of course, a reason for keeping it vague. If you exclude those constitutional and institutional arrangements that apply across the UK (which give us democracy, the rule of law and our hard-won freedoms), and then knock out those heartwarming characteristics that we like to claim as our exclusive possession (as if the Canadians were intolerant, the Finns not fair-minded, the Peruvians indecent), then you are left not with the question of whether there is a meaningful definition of English culture, but the problem of which definition to choose.

Is it the "deep England" of the countryside, the Anglican church or, indeed, the Archers? Or the England of the freeborn radical, the Levellers, Chartists, Tolpuddle martyrs and suffragettes? Is it urban, working-class England in its various, and sometimes contradictory, manifestations, from pubs and the music hall to northern non-conformity (and comedy)? Or love of the language and its literature (and, if so, is that devalued by a more internationalist attitude to art forms that don't bump up against the English incapacity to speak foreign languages)? And is celebrating England as a place that is open and welcoming to outsiders – admirable and often true – really a definition of what is particular to its character?

The truth is that most Englishnesses – including those listed above – are records not of consensus but contest, then and now. Today's working-class culture is what survived a largely English government's assault on its workplaces, its institutions and its communities. The Countryside Alliance was not set up to challenge European or Scottish prejudice against killing small animals, but against urban England. Fans don't complain about the Archers becoming too much like Australian or Brazilian soaps, but too much like EastEnders or Emmerdale. And, of course, the rights of the freeborn English were not won from the French or German governments but from other English people who devoted the full resources of the British state to denying them.

So the problem with the question at the heart of the debate – the ringing, historically charged "Who speaks for England?" – isn't just a natural suspicion of any question to which the answer might be Boris Johnson. It's a matter of which England is being talked about, and whether any of those possible Englands have sufficient coherence to trump both what separates some English residents from others, and the growing divisions within England itself.

Of course, One Nation Englishness could prove a flag of convenience for a campaign against the yawning disparaties of wealth, the hollowing out of local democratic institutions and the demonisation of the poor. Clearly, there have been success stories in reclaiming the union flag and the flag of St George from the far right. But the queasiness about those symbols remains. As was said on Saturday, for many black and Asian people, both flags evoke memories of National Front marches and assaults in the 1970s, and EDL demonstrations today. The idea that, deep down, still, there ain't no black in the union jack is reiterated every time a Conservative leader evokes Enoch Powell's grim dystopia – from Margaret Thatcher's 1978 "swamping" statement via William Hague's 2001 "journey to a foreign land" speech to David Cameron's 2011 warning against the "discomfort and disjointedness" created by immigrants into settled neighbourhoods. And that's before the government started texting suspected overstayers and sending vans round London telling foreigners to go home.

There are bits of Englishness I'm fond of, bits I can leave alone. I love the coastline, but not the cuisine. Just because I live in the West Midlands, that doesn't mean I have to prefer the pre-Raphaelites to the Impressionists, or Elgar to Beethoven. I'm delighted that both technology and migration have given most people a much wider cultural choice. Now let's get down to building a fairer, more just society, not because it's English but because it's right.

David Edgar