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

Tony Abbott expects free trade pact with China in the next 12 months
Tony Abbott clashes with senators over West Papua comments
US debt ceiling deadlock worries markets - live
Is Buddhism a religion? | Michael McGhee
Binyamin Netanyahu riles Iranians with fashion faux pas over jeans
Syria crisis: US and Russia push for peace talks next month
Why Australia should fear a US government default
Typhoon Fitow hits China after evacuation of 574,000 people
Getting angry can be the best way to get ahead
Binyamin Netanyahu: occupation is not cause of conflict
Tony Abbott paid back money claimed for Peter Slipper's wedding
The daily quiz, 7 October 2013
Synthetic drugs banned under broad new NSW legislation
Most female doctors suffer sexual harassment, say researchers
Kenya terror attack: corruption wasn't to blame | Amina Mohamed
World Bank 'gambling assets' by investing in private water firms
Loneliness of the Nobel poet: from the archive, 7 October 1977
Syria's chemical weapons destruction on track, US and Russia agree
Pakistan: bomb kills anti-polio officials
World Bank cuts China growth forecasts
Libya tackles US over 'kidnapping'
Sydney celebrates the International Fleet Review – panoramic picture
China warns US, Japan and Australia: stay out of territorial disputes
Solar challenge draws cars built neither for comfort nor for speed
No threats made against West Papuans in Australian Bali consulate, Dfat says

Tony Abbott expects free trade pact with China in the next 12 months

Posted: 07 Oct 2013 01:25 AM PDT

The prime minister told reporters in Bali that Australia "will get the best deal we can"

Tony Abbott clashes with senators over West Papua comments

Posted: 07 Oct 2013 01:20 AM PDT

PM claims things are 'getting better, not worse' in West Papua, in response to questions about protest incident at consulate

Katharine Murphy

US debt ceiling deadlock worries markets - live

Posted: 07 Oct 2013 01:12 AM PDT

FTSE 100 drops 50 points amid European market selloff, after US Treasury secretary Jack Lew warns that Congress is 'playing with fire' over America's ability to keep borrowing

Graeme Wearden

Is Buddhism a religion? | Michael McGhee

Posted: 07 Oct 2013 01:00 AM PDT

In the first part of a new series, we examine why many consider Buddhist practices to be philosophical rather than religious

What first attracted me to Buddhism in the years that followed my slow abandonment of formal Christianity wasn't anything intellectual but had to do rather with imagination, with images of liberation. I was struck by the serenity of the figure of the Buddha, its representation of self-possession and calm. There was danger there, the temptation towards a too-easy and precipitate appropriation of a demeanour that depended upon arduous and sometimes unappetising struggle. Nevertheless, Buddhism was attractive and it seemed to be a way of rediscovering something that seemed to be missing, without requiring an entrance fee in the form of religious or metaphysical belief.

I suppose that what was missing was "spirituality". But this raises the question of whether "spirituality" can be extricated from those belief-commitments. Some commentators have pointed out that there is no shortage of metaphysical beliefs in the Buddhist traditions and that its practices and rituals are embedded in worldviews of some complexity and sophistication. They wonder whether Buddhist practices really can be extracted from this environment without damage to their identity, whether the Buddhisms to be found in the contemporary west have become deracinated, cut off from the necessary nourishment of their cultural and metaphysical roots. It may well look like this. Thus, people attest to the therapeutic value of meditation and the NHS is more comfortable with a mindfulness-based psychotherapy than one that makes use of the Christian practice of prayer because it is an efficacious technique with measurable health benefits and it is not "religious". Clients don't need a background of religious belief in order to settle down to a spot of meditation.

Some contemporary groups go out of their way to insist that Buddhism is not "religious" and what they seem to imply is, again, that engaging in its practices doesn't depend upon the belief-subscription. These same groups, however, are also quite traditional in their language and their rituals and this should give us pause as we consider this charge of deracination. It is true that many contemporary Buddhist practitioners have done the same de-mythologising job as a previous generation of Death of God theologians who were themselves accused of rendering the New Testament into an inoffensive and pallid humanism.

But it is one thing to seek to liberate Buddhist practice from unsustainable or unbelievable worldviews and another to reduce it to a mere technique, even one that is therapeutic. The usual culprit is the calming technique that makes it easier to carry out the bombing run or makes one a more sharply predatory capitalist. The reason one might want to say that meditation has been reduced to a technique is that it has lost its essential rootedness as a practice of ethical preparation.

It is traditional to distinguish forms or aspects of meditation in terms of what calms the egocentric or the communal passions and to say that this prepares the practitioner for the essential Buddhist experience of enlightenment or awakening. Now one of the temptations of former Christians is to think that what they might find in Buddhism is some kind of transcendent experience. But this seems too much like nostalgia for God. If there is any kind of transcendence in Buddhism it is a matter of transcending ego-centric self-enclosure. The calming of the passions that Buddhism is interested in is the calming that reduces the dominance of those self-interested feelings that prevent one from seeing what is staring one in the face: one's own real condition and that of others. One is surrounded by the real world but is too preoccupied to notice it.

In that case Buddhist practice becomes a form of ethical preparation, reducing the forms of self-preoccupation that impede a concern for justice. This aspect of Buddhism has led some commentators to say that it is more like a philosophy of life than a religion. This contrast with religion relies too heavily on the assimilation of religion to religious belief and it neglects the ceremonial and ritual and community-building aspects of the various religions, including Buddhism.

More positively, though, thinking of Buddhism as a philosophy brings it into dialogue with the ancient conception of philosophy, one of whose essential components was precisely what was called spiritual practice or exercise, the various ways in which one is able to liberate oneself from illusion and make oneself better capable of ethical action and, of course, the ethical refusal to act. It is worth noting that the ancient philosophers tried to live in communities and one can think of a philosophical community, whether instantiated in a Christian congregation, a Buddhist sangha, a humanist group, as serving to protect and support the conditions for that undeluded perception of the world from which issues moral action.

Michael McGhee

Binyamin Netanyahu riles Iranians with fashion faux pas over jeans

Posted: 07 Oct 2013 12:50 AM PDT

Israeli PM's interview on Iran-US thaw overshadowed by mistakenly saying iranians are banned from wearing jeans

The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, may have sought to win over Iranians in an interview with British Persian-language television, but a casual assertion that they were banned from wearing jeans won ridicule from some of his audience on Sunday.

Netanyahu has watched with concern a diplomatic drive by the new Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, to build closer ties with the US and other western powers and achieve an easing of sanctions on Tehran over its nuclear programme.

But his statements in an interview with the BBC Persian television on the need for Iran to end its uranium enrichment programme were somewhat overshadowed by his comments on Iran's restrictions on fashion.

"I think if the Iranian people had freedom, they would wear jeans, listen to western music, and have free elections," Netanyahu said in the interview, which was dubbed into Farsi and released late on Saturday.

The statement drew a barbed reaction from Iran, where, although women are required to cover their hair and wear loose clothing in public, jeans are not forbidden and are worn. Much western music is illegal, but people find a way to listen to it at home.

Dozens of Iranians published pictures of themselves on Twitter on Sunday wearing jeans and addressed their posts to Netanyahu's official Twitter account, saying he was out of touch with Iranians.

"Mr. Netanyahu, here is a shop selling weapons of mass destruction in Iran," one popular tweet read, showing a picture of a denim shop originally published by an Iranian semi-official news agency. "Netanyahu, three days ago I bought a pair of jeans," another Iranian user tweeted.

Twitter is blocked by a government filter in Iran, but many use special software to cirumvent the block.

Netanyahu also said in his interview that the people of Iran and Israel had a "deep friendship into modern times" that had been destroyed by Iran's theocratic government. He criticised the censorship of social media and satellite channels inside Iran as well as the government's treatment of women and gay people.

"This is not what the Persian people deserve," Netanyahu said.

He said the election that had brought Rouhani to power was not free, and that the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, holds the real power over the nuclear programme. Iran denies it is seeking nuclear weapons, and says its nuclear programme is purely peaceful.

"I would welcome a genuine rapprochement, a genuine effort to stop the nuclear programme – not a fake one. Not 'harfe pooch'," Netanyahu said, using a colloquial Persian phrase meaning "empty words".

Syria crisis: US and Russia push for peace talks next month

Posted: 07 Oct 2013 12:42 AM PDT

• Kerry and Lavrov set date for Geneva talks
• Assad proposes Germany as a peace-broker
• US praises Syria after it started destroying chemical weapons
• 6th October deaths underline Egypt's bitter divisions

Matthew Weaver

Guardian readers

Why Australia should fear a US government default

Posted: 07 Oct 2013 12:34 AM PDT

If the USS America goes down, little HMAS Australia will find it tough not to get sucked into the vortex

Greg Jericho

Typhoon Fitow hits China after evacuation of 574,000 people

Posted: 07 Oct 2013 12:29 AM PDT

Typhoon strikes Fujian province with winds of up to 94mph before weakening to tropical storm

A typhoon has hit south-east China, with powerful winds and heavy rains leaving two people dead, power cuts and flights and train services cancelled.

Typhoon Fitow struck Fuding city in Fujian province, with winds of up to 94mph (151kph) early on Monday morning, then slowed before weakening to a tropical storm, the National Meteorological Centre said.

The homes of more than half a million people had been evacuated and fishing boats were called back to shore while authorities issued a red alert – the highest warning – on Sunday as the typhoon approached.

The provincial flood relief agency in Zhejiang, which neighbours Fujian, said 574,000 people had left their homes by Sunday evening and 35,800 vessels returned to shore. Fujian's government said 177,000 people had been moved to safety and nearly 30,000 fishing boats called back.

The typhoon cut power in towns and counties in Zhejiang province while high-speed rail services in the region were suspended. At least 27 flights out of Wenzhou airport in Zhejiang were cancelled on Sunday, according to the official Xinhua news agency.

The typhoon dumped torrential rain across the south-east seaboard, with rainfall of up to 29cm (8in) in some parts, driven by gusty winds.

Getting angry can be the best way to get ahead

Posted: 07 Oct 2013 12:00 AM PDT

From Sir Trevor McDonald to Malorie Blackman and Diane Abbott, the Black Child awards offer up a procession who have made it, in spite of those who tried to keep them down

How to keep the migrant spirit going when the instinct is to get cosy, I asked last week. All sorts of ways that people stay motivated to better themselves. Some are laudable, others less so. One presented itself this week: cussedness.

When I grew up, the taunt was that migrants had a chip on their shoulders. Usually it was the refuge of the scoundrel, electing attack as the best form as defence. But chips aren't all bad. Sometimes chips come in handy.

I was at the House of Commons last Thursday. Every year Diane Abbott MP hosts the London Schools and the Black Child awards, designed to recognise and encourage those who have excelled, often against terrible odds. There were high-flying students who had been forced to bury loved ones in the run-up to their exams; dogged clever types who achieved phenomenal results while coping with illness or family difficulties. They never make the papers, but then good news rarely makes the papers. In another life they would be used as a counterbalance to all the negative stuff we read about underachievement and halfwits making gang signs on YouTube. But this is the life we have.

A procession of people rose to hand out awards and advice, and quickly a theme emerged; we might call it the Sod You phenomenon. First, we saw Sir Trevor McDonald. He was on tape, revealing how he was motivated to rule the roost at ITN after rising to diplomatic editor, being taken to one side by a friendly type and being told he could expect to rise no further. "Sod you," Sir Trev might have said. Off he went to become the kingpin. There was Malorie Blackman, the children's laureate, whose teacher said she would never pass English language. "I'll show you, you old cow," was her reaction.

Abbott recounted the tale of the teacher who said she was wasting her time applying to Oxbridge. Tidjane Thiam, chief executive of Prudential, told of the adviser who laughed at the idea that he might study at the elite Ecole Polytechnique in France.

When my probationary period was extended on my first local paper, I fought to be formally offered the job: but only so I could tell them to stick it. In the event I forgot, but that's not the point.

Hugh Muir

Binyamin Netanyahu: occupation is not cause of conflict

Posted: 06 Oct 2013 11:53 PM PDT

Hardline speech fuels suspicion PM is unwilling to agree to dismantle settlements and withdraw from West Bank

The Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyhau, has said there will never be peace with the Palestinians until they recognise Israel as a Jewish state, and has dismissed Israel's military occupation of Palestinian land and the growth of Israeli settlements as the root cause of the conflict.

In an uncompromising speech, Netanyahu insisted the Palestinians must abandon their core demand of the right of refugees to return to their places of origin. "Unless the Palestinians recognise the Jewish state and give up on the right of return there will not be peace," the prime minister said in an address at Bar-Ilan University on Sunday.

But, he added, even such recognition by the Palestinian leadership would be insufficient. "After generations of incitement we have no confidence that such recognition will percolate down to the Palestinian people. That is why we need extremely strong security arrangements and to go forward, but not blindly," he said.

The tone of Netanyahu's speech will dismay those on both sides and in the international community who believe that renewed peace talks, brokered by the US, represent possibly the last chance for a deal to create a Palestinian state and end the decades-old conflict.

It will fuel suspicion that, despite his professed readiness to engage in peace talks, Netanyahu is unwilling to make an historic agreement involving Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank, dismantling settlements and sharing Jerusalem as the capital of both states.

The prime minister's speech was delivered at the same venue where Netanyahu first acknowledged the need for a two-state solution to the conflict in 2009. That address was hailed by many commentators as a significant breakthrough by the Israeli leader, and was vehemently attacked by rightwingers as a dangerous concession.

In Sunday's speech, Netanyahu dismissed Israel's 46-year-long occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza as the root cause of the conflict, saying it was based in Arab rejection of Jewish immigration to what was Palestine.

"When anyone is asked what is the source of the conflict, the standard answer is the occupation, the territories, the settlements. They say that the Israeli takeover of Judea and Samaria [the biblical term for the West Bank] following the [1967] Six-Day war to a large extent created the conflict, and I ask whether that is true," he said.

"The conflict, if I have to choose a date when it began in earnest, began in the year 1921, on the day Palestinian Arabs attacked the immigrants' house in Jaffa. This attack, of course, had nothing to do with the territories or settlements. It was against the immigration of Jews to the Land of Israel.

"Then came the partition plan in 1947, with the suggestion of an Arab state alongside a Jewish state. The Jews agreed, the Arabs refused. Because the issue was not then the question of a Palestinian state – the issue was and remains the Jewish state. Then 19 years later came the stranglehold around us aimed at uprooting us. And why? After all, then there was no occupation."

The Palestinians say that their goal in peace talks is an end to the Israeli military occupation and the establishment of an independent state with East Jerusalem as its capital. They say they have long recognised the state of Israel, but formal recognition of it as a Jewish state would be to deny the existence and rights of the 20% of Israel's population that is Palestinian and to effectively abandon the right of return.

Peace talks resumed in July and are scheduled to last until next spring but are said to be progressing slowly. The US secretary of state, John Kerry, said last month that talks would intensify and "American participation should be increased somewhat in order to try to help facilitate [progress]". His comments strongly suggested that the two sides were making little headway.

Harriet Sherwood

Tony Abbott paid back money claimed for Peter Slipper's wedding

Posted: 06 Oct 2013 11:41 PM PDT

Prime minister has repaid more than $1,700 in travel costs claimed to attend weddings of two party colleagues

Katharine Murphy

The daily quiz, 7 October 2013

Posted: 06 Oct 2013 11:30 PM PDT

The 2014 Giro d'Italia route is unveiled today. To mark the occasion, take your own tour of Italy with these questions

The daily quiz

Synthetic drugs banned under broad new NSW legislation

Posted: 06 Oct 2013 11:30 PM PDT

Lesiglation exempts herbal items but concern that the new laws could criminalise plants such as the golden wattle, Australia’s floral emblem.

Oliver Milman

Most female doctors suffer sexual harassment, say researchers

Posted: 06 Oct 2013 11:01 PM PDT

More than half of female Australian GPs suffer sexual harassment from patients, according to study

Kenya terror attack: corruption wasn't to blame | Amina Mohamed

Posted: 06 Oct 2013 11:00 PM PDT

My country has changed much in recent years – it's unfair to place the Westgate attacks on a 'spectrum of banditry'

It was difficult to read Giles Foden's article squarely blaming the attack on the Westgate mall in Nairobi on alleged inadequacies of the Kenyan government and, as he puts it "rampant corruption" (Behind terror is corruption, 24 September). The Kenyan military led the operation to free hostages and kill or capture those who had trapped them, and we are proud of the professionalism and determination of our forces.

Foden says: "In Kenya crime and terrorism are deeply linked, not least by the failure of successive Kenyan governments to control either." And he continues: "These attacks are part of a spectrum of banditry, with corruption at one end, terrorism at the other, and regular robbery in the middle."

Make a brief comparison with other terrorist attacks. The disasters of 9/11 or the more recent Boston marathon in the US and 7/7 in the UK – both highly developed countries – could hardly be blamed on corruption, so why Kenya? We do not recall Foden blaming corruption within the security agencies involved.

"A lot of money has gone into commercial property, and particularly the building of supermarkets. But without governance it all looks very shaky," says Foden. But he seems unaware of how much Kenya has changed in the past decade. The country's first truly free and fair multiparty election only took place in 2002, and since then the country has been transformed by a new constitution that gives power to all communities. Less than 10 years ago we introduced free primary education, now over a million children a year go to school.

Judicial reform, in some cases supported by international experts and donors – including the US and UK – has put the courts out of the political influence that once was common. Anti-corruption campaigns by government and civil society, the requirement for open tenders for government contracts, and the development of a lively media, have transformed the country.

This is not to say Kenya is perfect – far from it. A multinational forensic investigation currently under way – including with British agents – will examine the tragedy and assess the government's response to it. It shows the extent of our openness that we allow foreign security forces to share in an investigation we could probably manage ourselves.

At the same time, we will strive to be as open as possible in our actions against al-Qaida and its regional ally al-Shabaab in the coming months, without compromising the security of our country and the safety of our military personnel.

It is important that there is responsible international reporting. In this age of budget cuts in the international media there are too few foreign journalists with expert experience of Africa living in and reporting from the continent. Kenya suffered a terrible tragedy at Westgate. As information is released in the coming days and weeks, it is crucial – for the sake of the victims and the survivors – that reporting reflects the Kenya of today, and that we are judged by today's reality, not memories of a Kenya past.

Amina Mohamed

World Bank 'gambling assets' by investing in private water firms

Posted: 06 Oct 2013 11:00 PM PDT

Activists lobby World Bank to disinvest amid concerns over access to poorest communities and conflict of interest

Civil society groups are pressuring the World Bank to disinvest from private water companies, saying that privatising ownership and management of this natural resource has failed to improve access to clean drinking water.

The World Bank is subsidising private profiteering from an essential resource by lending public money to private corporations that manage or run water utilities but have failed to improve services, says Corporate Accountability International (CAI), a Boston-based advocacy group that focuses on corporate abuse and represents an international coalition of water activists.

"The World Bank Group's reputation and assets are being gambled. Millions of people's lives are being imperiled," CAI said last month in a letter to the World Bank president, Jim Yong Kim.

The group has been lobbying the World Bank for more than 17 months to end investments by its banking arm, the International Finance Corp (IFC), in private water corporations, and has stepped up the pressure since April.

In its 2012 report, Shutting the spigot on private water: the case for the World Bank to divest, CAI laid out what it called a litany of failures by private corporations, particularly multinationals, that have failed to expand water supplies to benefit the world's poorest. Private ownership or management of water utilities, encouraged by and funded by the IFC, has diverted money critical for maintaining water systems into shareholder dividends, executive pay packages and corporate taxes, it said.

IFC officials concede that not all contracts with private companies for water utilities have proven successful, especially the early World Bank forays in the 1990s, and that privatisation is not the only solution for improving the delivery of potable water.

But 2010 World Bank research into public-private partnerships for urban water utilities reached more nuanced conclusions about a sector fraught with political problems, IFC water specialist Patrick Mullen said.

Its research found that private operators have improved the efficiency of water systems and the quality of service, though there were no clear-cut benefits on tariffs or access to water. The biggest contribution from private participation came from efficiencies, such as reducing the amount of water lost through leaky pipes and better bill collection, which produces rising revenue streams. More money allows water utilities to make capital improvements and further upgrade systems, leading to more hours of service and better quality water and better municipal health, it said.

"Ideologically, we are not pressing one ownership or the other. We are just trying to support effective water utilities, whether they are public or privately held," Elena Bourganskaia, IFC global head of water and municipal infrastructure, said.

Disagreements

One disagreement between the World Bank and the CAI, which represents a coalition of 75 individuals and activist groups worldwide, centres on the way the World Bank leverages its resources to attract private capital to invest in developing economies.

CAI sees no appropriate role for private company management or ownership of water utilities and hence opposes World Bank funnelling investment toward the sector.

Kim, on the other hand, has said the public sector cannot raise enough capital to finance the infrastructure investment needed, so the World Bank must attract private sector money if it is to help countries develop.

Another area of disagreement focuses on the role of water as a scarce natural resource essential to life. CAI and water activists view water as a commodity that should be provided without profit for the wellbeing of all. The World Bank takes a more pragmatic approach based on who can deliver safe drinking water effectively to the most people.

Both sides agree, however, that expanding access to safe drinking water is a high priority. About 2.5 billion people – roughly a third of the world – have inadequate supplies, multiplying the risks of water-borne diseases from dysentery to typhoid and cholera, according to World Bank and World Health Organisation data.

Poor sanitation and limited access to water lowers a country's annual gross domestic product (GDP) on average by 1.5%, and India lost output is $54bn (£33bn), nearly the entire annual GDP of Canada, the World Bank estimates.

Litany of failure

CAI, which grew from a US-based coalition that boycotted Swiss-based Nestlé in the 1970s for marketing baby formula to poor countries, lists a range of problems it sees from privatising water:

• Private-sector ownership leads to higher water rates because companies face additional costs compared with a municipality. They must pay corporate taxes and shareholder dividends and they spend unproductive time negotiating contracts with government officials

• Infrastructure investment to improve and expand service frequently falls short

• Conflict of interest occurs when the IFC advises governments to divest from public water, then lends money to the private company bidding on the contract, and takes an equity stake in that same company

• Public accountability is reduced if water oversight boards are appointed and financed by the private water company.

Private sector role

The World Bank survey of public-private partnerships concludes that while privatisation is fraught with political risks and a high degree of uncertainty, it does have a valuable role to play in introducing competition to improve performance in water utilities, which often are huge inefficient bureaucracies.

In June, Kim responded to the concerns of civil society groups. He said while it was keen to examine any problems with private participation in World Bank water projects, "we do not believe that our work disproportionately emphasises private ownership".

The World Bank invested $4bn in public sector water improvements in fiscal year 2011, dwarfing the $96m in financing from the IFC for private-sector ventures, it said. Its total portfolio that year was $57bn, making water roughly 7% of its investments.

"Neither the public nor the private sector alone can meet the challenge of ensuring that everyone has sustainable access to water and sanitation services. Rather both the public and private sectors have to learn from each other to maximise delivery," Kim said.

Progress, meanwhile, has been made in improving access to water over the past 20 years. The share of people connected to a public standpipe or protected well or spring had risen to 89% worldwide by 2010, up from 76% in 1990, the UN reports.

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Loneliness of the Nobel poet: from the archive, 7 October 1977

Posted: 06 Oct 2013 11:00 PM PDT

Spanish poet Vicente Aleixandre is awarded the 1977 Nobel prize for literature

The quiet, introspective world of the Spanish poet, Vicente Aleixandre, fell to pieces yesterday after he was awarded the 1977 Nobel Prize for literature.

In his ochre villa in a Madrid backstreet, the telephone rang, the doorbell chimed, and reporters pushed antique furniture out of the way to get near him.

"I am very surprised," the frail, 79 year-old poet said. He sat on a faded armchair in his study crammed from near to ceiling with books, including dusty works of the so-called "1927 generation" to which he belonged.

The generation's leading voice was the poet and playwright, Federico Garcia Lorca, who was murdered by the nationalists at the start of the Civil War in 1936.

Asked about his philosophy of life, Mr. Aleixandre said: "Man was born into this world in fear of a destiny unknown. Society must progress and offer man the means to develop his own destiny."

Mr Aleixandre, whom illness had kept in Spain while most of his contemporaries left the country under the dictatorship of Franco, looked bewildered by the attention suddenly thrust on him.

Asked what he thought were his best works he said: "Poets and writers are not often the best judges of their own works." But he said he considered La Destrucción o el Amor (Destruction or Love), Historia del Corazón (Story of the Heart), and Poemas de la Consumación (Poems of Consummation) among his best.

"Just as life is not static, poetry must be dynamic. It must be continuous evolution. Poetry must be human. If it is not human, it is not poetry."

As he answered questions, in a soft unhurried voice, Mr. Aleixandre looked as if he was summoning all the strength that enabled him to survive illness, Civil War, and loneliness.

Around Mr. Aleixandre were the books that made loneliness bearable. They included works by the Spanish poet, Lope de Vega, the Argentine writer, Jorge Luis Borges, numerous almanacs, the English poets, Byron and Milton.

But he talked on about poetry. "Poetry is a historic constant that does not change," he said. "There are poetic eras that are more productive than others. But it is a medium of expression that endures."

In its Nobel citation, the Swedish Academy said that Mr. Aleixandre had "the strength to survive" in poetry written as he endured tuberculosis, Civil War, and then loneliness. Mr. Aleixandre, born in 1898, the son of a railway engineer, wrote poetry which "illuminates man's condition in the cosmos."

Syria's chemical weapons destruction on track, US and Russia agree

Posted: 06 Oct 2013 10:50 PM PDT

John Kerry reports pleasing progress so far, but Sergei Lavrov warns Syrian opposition must also co-operate

Pakistan: bomb kills anti-polio officials

Posted: 06 Oct 2013 10:21 PM PDT

At least two dead as police protecting vaccination programme come under attack

World Bank cuts China growth forecasts

Posted: 06 Oct 2013 10:11 PM PDT

Slower growth in China and weaker commodity prices will see a slowdown in most of developing East Asia, says World Bank report

Libya tackles US over 'kidnapping'

Posted: 06 Oct 2013 08:48 PM PDT

Demand comes hours after separate failed US military raid on terrorist target in Somalia

Libya has demanded an explanation for the "kidnapping" of one of its citizens by American special forces, hours after a separate US military raid on a terrorist target in Somalia ended in apparent failure and retreat.

In Tripoli the US army's Delta force seized alleged al-Qaida leader Nazih Abdul-Hamed al-Ruqai, known by his alias Abu Anas al-Liby and wanted for the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed more than 220 people.

The New York Times reported that Liby was being held in military custody and interrogated on board a navy ship, the USS Antonio, in the Mediterranean.

But US navy Seals suffered a major setback when they launched an amphibious assault to capture an Islamist militant leader said to be Ahmed Godane, described as Africa's most wanted man and the architect of last month's attack on the Westgate shopping mall in Kenya. The elite Seals were beaten back by heavy fire and apparently abandoned equipment that the Somali militants photographed and posted on the internet.

As dramatic details of Saturday's twin operations emerged, US secretary of state John Kerry insisted that terrorists "can run but they can't hide" , but faced growing questions about America's military reach in Africa and the consequences of unilateral aggression.

Speaking in Indonesia on Monday, Kerry said the seizure of Liby complied with US law, the Associated Press reported. He said the suspect was a "legal and appropriate target" for the US military and would face justice in court. It was important not to "sympathise" with wanted terrorists, Kerry said.

Liby was captured outside his family home at 6.15am in Noufle'een, a quiet suburb in eastern Tripoli, according to witnesses, but there were conflicting reports over who took him. His brother, Nabih, told the Associated Press that Liby was parking when a convoy of three vehicles encircled his car. Armed gunmen smashed the car's window and seized Liby's gun before grabbing him and taking him away, the report said. The brother said Liby's wife saw the kidnapping from her window and described the abductors as foreign-looking armed "commandos".

But Liby's son Abdullah insisted Libyan forces were involved. Appearing on Tripoli's Nabir TV station, he said: "The people who took my father were Libyan, not Americans – they spoke with Tripoli accents.

"My mother was listening to the voices in the street and could see it all through the window. There were two cars and a bus with blacked-out windows and no number plates."

He said his father was dragged from his car and arrested while it was still moving, and the vehicle, driverless, continued driving empty down the road.

Liby, who was thought to be a computer specialist for al-Qaida and lived in Manchester in the UK during the 1990s, is believed to be 49 and on the FBI's most-wanted list with a $5m (£3m) bounty on his head. Pentagon spokesman George Little said he is "currently lawfully detained by the US military in a secure location outside of Libya".

Liby was expected eventually to be sent to New York for criminal prosecution, the New York Times reported.

Libya's government refused to say whether its forces were involved in the arrest and claimed it had not been informed in advance. A statement from the prime minister, Ali Zaidan, said: "The Libyan government is following the news of the kidnapping of a Libyan citizen who is wanted by US authorities. The Libyan government has contacted US authorities to ask them to provide an explanation."

Thousands of miles away in Somalia, US special forces carried out a raid that was no less audacious but had a very different outcome. It was reportedly planned a week and a half ago in response to the Nairobi attack and came 20 years to the week after an American mission that infamously went awry when Somali fighters shot down two Black Hawk helicopters.

Members of Seal Team Six – the unit that killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden in his Pakistan hideout in 2011 – swam ashore from speedboats before members of the Islamist militant group al-Shabaab rose for dawn prayers, officials and witnesses said. They stormed a two-storey beachside house in Barawe said to be occupied by foreign members of al-Shabaab and battled their way inside, a fighter who gave his name as Abu Mohamed told AP. There was a heavy gunbattle at about 2.30am on Saturday, according to locals in Barawe, about 60 miles south of the capital Mogadishu. Mohamed Hassan, a schoolteacher, said: "Nearly an hour before the morning prayer I heard dogs bark and I got up, but within minutes I heard small gun fire towards the direction of the beach. I raised my ears up as the shooting continued and continued. Soon it became like an exchange of fire. Then I heard one big explosion and two other explosions occurred. I could not go outside so I remained in my room to wait what was happening."

Hassan said the shooting he could hear was that of al-Shaabab's fighters because he understood the US forces were using silencer guns so no one could hear their shooting. "In the morning, we saw people gathering near the house the US forces targeted and there was a lot of blood everywhere. The al-Shabaab fighters told us not to go to the direction of the house. I saw one dead and two others injured but they were not very critical."

No one in Barawe town could have imagined such an attack, he added, and they kept saying only "white soldiers attacking Barawe town". Local residents said late on Saturday that al-Shabaab deployed additional fighters in Barawe to keep guard at the beach where the navy Seals landed.

US officials told AP that the Seals encountered fiercer resistance than expected, so after a 15- to 20-minute firefight, the unit leader decided to abort the mission and they swam away.

A local resident, Haji Nur, said he saw military equipment which al-Shabaab claimed to have confiscated from the soldiers. "I saw in the centre of the town a crowd of people gathering and looked at three rounds of M16 ammunition, one US-made hand grenade and one also a bulletproof jacket."

Al-Shabaab, which has a formal alliance with al-Qaida and claimed responsibility for the Nairobi mall killings that killed at least 67 people, posted what it claimed were pictures of the equipment on the web.

Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Mus'ab, a spokesman for al-Shabaab, said: "Early on Saturday morning, around 2am, white soldiers attacked a house resided in by some members of the Mujahideen leaders in Somalia. They came from a waiting speedboat from warship and as they were approaching the house, our Mujahideen fighters repulsed them. They ran away. We chased them until they have reached the seaside where they urgently boarded their speedboats."

Mus'ab said one al-Shabaab member had died and claimed that the Seals lost a "senior officer". US officials said there were no US casualties in either the Somali or Libyan operation.

A resident of Barawe who gave his name as Mohamed Bile told the AP that militants closed down the town in the hours after the assault, and that all traffic and movements have been restricted. Militants were carrying out house-to-house searches, likely to find evidence that a spy had given intelligence to a foreign power used to launch the attack, he said.

A Somali intelligence official was quoted as saying that Godane, the al-Shabaab leader also known Mukhtar Abu Zubeyr, was the target of Saturday's raid. Mohamed Ansari, a former al-Shabaab member now working with Somalia's counter-terrorism unit in Mogadishu, said: "Godane is the only big fish in Barawe to hunt. Godane as the top leader of al-Shabaab and the only planner of the group's operations is seen as the mastermind of Westgate mall siege in Nairobi."

Unlike his Libyan counterpart, Somali prime minister Abdi Farah Shirdon welcomed the US intervention. "We have close cooperation with the world, especially the western countries in the fight against al-Shabaab," he said in Mogadishu on Sunday. "We welcome any operation to hunt the terrorist leaders and we are at the forefront. Al-Shabaab is a Somali problem, a regional problem and world problem."

The dual raids were a vivid of expression of how the US has quietly been building its military capacity in Africa. Kerry, who is in Indonesia for an economic summit, said: "We hope that this makes clear that the United States of America will never stop in the effort to hold those accountable who conduct acts of terror. Members of al-Qaida and other terrorist organisations literally can run but they can't hide."

But a diplomatic source focused on Somalia said: "This is knee-jerk stuff and smacks of a massive failure of intelligence. Are extrajudicial killings and covert kidnapping raids the best way of dealing with the problem? Why is the international response so feeble?"

But Dr Adekeye Adebajo, executive director of the Centre for Conflict Resolution in South Africa, said that while it was in the interest of African governments to fight terrorism, he does not "think the heavy-handed and unilateral way the US acts is helpful and it risks causing further instability, especially where there are weak governments like in Libya and Somalia".

Chris Stephen

David Smith

Sydney celebrates the International Fleet Review – panoramic picture

Posted: 06 Oct 2013 08:36 PM PDT

Photographer Peter Murphy captures the crowd at the International Fleet Review at the weekend with this stunning 360-degree panorama

China warns US, Japan and Australia: stay out of territorial disputes

Posted: 06 Oct 2013 08:27 PM PDT

China urges three nations not to make South China Sea or East China Sea rows "more complicated"

Solar challenge draws cars built neither for comfort nor for speed

Posted: 06 Oct 2013 08:18 PM PDT

'The only expectation is that you bring your enthusiasm,' says race director as 40 teams trek across Australia's red heart

If you're travelling any part of the 3000km stretch between Darwin and Adelaide in the next few days, don't be alarmed if you see what appears to be alien reconnaissance craft cruising the roads.

An array of futuristic vehicles with the sunlight dancing upon their saucer-like tops are taking part in the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge, a marathon north-south trek across the red heart of Australia undertaken by 40 teams.

As the name suggests, all of the cars involved in the race must be powered by electricity generated from the sun. Organisers say they welcome "lateral thinking" in designs, hence the car that has a coating so aerodynamic that dirt doesn't stick to it, thereby avoiding that perilous moment when you have to guide what looks like a shiny door wedge on wheels through the car wash.

"One of the unique aspects of the event is that we don't prejudge people's ability, we have a class of cars where the only expectation is that you bring your enthusiasm," Chris Selwood, the event director, told Guardian Australia.

The enthusiasm will be provided by competitors from 23 countries, including a team of native Americans from a tribal reservation in Mississippi, which excelled in a similar race in the US before heading to Australia.

"The on-road component is a big adventure and it's exciting," Selwood said. "But essentially this is a design competition to find the world's most efficient electric car."

The race component, which lasts for four days, has strict rules. The harsh Australian sun could, theoretically, keep the cars running 24 hours a day so a timeframe of 8am to 5pm is set for driving hours.

To ensure that the vehicles run on energy derived from the sun throughout the journey, solar cars are allowed a nominal 5kW of stored energy to run off, around 10% of normal total capacity. They then get as far as they can in the available time, often 600km to 700km, before setting up camp in the outback for the night.

"Early in the morning they'll run off stored energy, mid-morning there will be a balance point of stored energy and energy from the sun and then the middle of the day they will be storing energy as well as using it," Selwood said.

"It's a unique position to go down the Stuart highway in these cars. There are 140-tonne road trains but it's a lightly populated road with straight lines of 40km at a time. Australia's the best place to come out and play with solar car."

Selwood admits the cars aren't built with "the comfort of the driver in mind" but adds the "real heroes" are the people who devise the energy capture and storage.

Long term, this unusual vehicular challenge aims to demonstrate the viability of solar energy as an option for transport. While the popularity of rooftop solar panels has soared among Australian households in recent years, cars, buses and trains are yet to make the switch to solar-powered electricity in large numbers.

"Of course, if you are travelling from Brunswick to the CBD of Melbourne, you probably wouldn't want a huge solar panel on your roof – you'd generally have them on your garage," Selwood said. "If there was the political will, we'd be driving solar cars around our cities now because of the benefits in maintenance. But politicians are too wedded to the status quo.

"At some point, society will have to make the choice between being powered by brown coal or being powered by solar."

Oliver Milman