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

Heads of GCHQ, MI5 and MI6 appear before intelligence committee – live
Markets await ECB interest rate decision - business live
Typhoon Haiyan bears down on Philippines
Population quiz: how well do you know the world?
Belfast police arrest four men after car chase
UK spy chiefs to face MPs over mass surveillance
Fear and Loathing in La Liga by Sid Lowe – review
Japanese politician causes uproar by giving letter on Fukushima to emperor
Why I'm asking for a review of the supervision of Britain's security services | Clive Soley
Obamacare mocked at Country Music Association awards
Sochi Olympic torch launched into space - video
Pakistan frees Pervez Musharraf from house arrest
Lythronax argestes: 'King of Gore' joins T rex family tree
Asylum seeker children on Manus Island may not have a legal guardian
Iran foreign minister optimistic as nuclear talks resume
Tajikistan president Rakhmon re-elected in landslide
East Timor takes swipe at US and Australia over spying claims
Olympic torch blasts into space
UN climate talks: Labor calls Coalition an 'embarrassment on the world stage'
Asylum seeker children: official record of incidents affecting them incomplete
Greek riot police evict last ERT staff
The Rolling Stones by Gered Mankowitz - in pictures
Driver charged with manslaughter over death of girls
An extra six months to live: babies can now expect to reach 82 in Australia
Daniel Ortega moves to quash Nicaragua's presidential term limits

Heads of GCHQ, MI5 and MI6 appear before intelligence committee – live

Posted: 07 Nov 2013 01:40 AM PST

• Sir Iain Lobban, Andrew Parker and Sir John Sawers give evidence to MPs from 2pm
• David Miranda continues high court challenge to detention
• Sarah Harrison leaves Russia for Berlin
• Live coverage throughout the day
• New readers start here
• What do the NSA Files mean for you?

Paul Owen

Markets await ECB interest rate decision - business live

Posted: 07 Nov 2013 01:36 AM PST

European Central Bank to consider cutting borrowing costs in response to eurozone's falling inflation and record joblessness, as Greek riot police storm HQ of former state broadcaster

Graeme Wearden

Typhoon Haiyan bears down on Philippines

Posted: 07 Nov 2013 01:34 AM PST

Most powerful storm to hit the western Pacific this year expected to make landfall on Friday between Samar and Leyte

Authorities have grounded ferry services and called in fishing boats as an approaching super typhoon, the most powerful to hit the western Pacific this year, has gained strength on a path set for the central Philippines.

With centre winds of 133 miles per hour and gusts of up to 155mph, typhoon Haiyan, rated a category-five storm (the most severe) was moving west/northwest at 18mph in the Pacific Ocean on Thursday. It was expected to make landfall on Friday between the central islands of Samar and Leyte.

"I have issued a call to prepare for the worst," said Ben Evardone, a member of Congress representing Eastern Samar province, one of the areas likely to be hit.

"We have mobilised all LGUs [local government units] and all resources for any contingency. There were already forced and pre-emptive evacuations in some danger areas," he said.

Areas in the path of the storm were already experiencing strong winds and heavy rains, he said.

The coastguard has warned deep-sea fishing boats to seek shelter or return to port. Schools and some offices are shut and power and communication lines switched off.

Officials have used bullhorns to tell residents of coastal and upland villages to move to safer areas, while some people were tying their houses on stable posts. Trees were being trimmed and boats dragged onto shore.

The state weather bureau raised storm alerts on coconut-growing Samar and Leyte. Officials in a dozen other central provinces also began stockpiling food, water and other relief supplies.

In September, typhoon Usagi, also a category-five storm, battered the Philippines' northernmost island of Batanes before wreaking more damage in southern China.

An average of 20 typhoons hit the Philippines every year. In 2011, typhoon Washi killed 1,200 people, displaced 300,000 and destroyed more than 10,000 homes.

Bopha, the strongest storm to hit last year, flattened three coastal towns on the southern island of Mindanao, killing 1,100 people and destroying crops, property and infrastructure worth $1.04bn.

Population quiz: how well do you know the world?

Posted: 07 Nov 2013 01:30 AM PST

Pit your wits against Hans Rosling, the data Jedi whose unique presentations have shed fresh light on the way we view the world. He sent us nine questions to test your knowledge

Maeve Shearlaw

Guardian readers

Belfast police arrest four men after car chase

Posted: 07 Nov 2013 01:28 AM PST

Officer fired shot in Donegall Road area during arrest of four men suspected of being armed

Four men are in custody following a security operation in Belfast in which police fired a number of shots.

The arrests came after the police received a phonecall about armed men trying to enter a house in the south of the city.

When officers arrived in the Donegall Road area they chased a car, forcing it to stop by blocking a road. An officer drew his gun and fired, the Police Service of Northern Ireland said.

None of the four men in the car were injured during the shooting, the PSNI added.

The Donegall Road between City hospital and Roden Street was cordoned off during the arrests. The incident has also been referred to Northern Ireland's police ombudsman.

Henry McDonald

UK spy chiefs to face MPs over mass surveillance

Posted: 07 Nov 2013 01:26 AM PST

Heads of MI5, MI6 and GCHQ expected to use committee hearing to condemn NSA leaks and justify scale of operations

The three heads of the British intelligence agencies are to make an unprecedented public televised appearance in front of the intelligence and security committee of MPs where they will seek to justify the scale of their surveillance activities.

Ahead of the 90-minute hearing on Thursday afternoon, the former head of GCHQ Sir David Omand claimed the effectiveness of the committee itself was as much on show as the spy chiefs themselves.

The session, subject to a two-minute TV delay to avoid secrets inadvertently being broadcast, was agreed before news of mass surveillance by the UK and US were leaked by Edward Snowden, the former US National Security Agency contractor. It will feature the head of MI6, Sir John Sawers, his MI5 counterpart, Andrew Parker, and Sir Iain Lobban, head of the secretive Government Communication Headquarters.

Apart from a test of the system of parliamentary accountability, the session is likely to be a forum for the heads of the agencies to condemn the leaks, and justify the scale of its intelligence operations in the digital age.

Lobban has mounted a strong defence of his staff, saying they "spend their lives protecting the security of Britain and the safety of British citizens".

Omand accused the former Guardian journalist Glen Greenwald and other reporters of "dodging around the issue of damage to public security".

He asserted: "As a result of the revelations we know less about the people who are trying to harm us and we are therefore less safe."

He urged journalists to to be honest about the damage, but that they justify this because of the greater public good. If there was such an admission, it would be possible to have a debate, he said.

"I have argued for a long time that the government should have been more open about the purpose of intelligence and the general ways in an internet age you have to go about accessing intelligence. That debate is perfectly reasonable."

He rejected as nonsense claims in the Guardian that one reason why the intelligence agencies had argued against the use of intercept evidence in court trials was because it wished to keep secret the scale of its intelligence gathering.

Omand said he was proud of the British collaboration with American intelligence agencies, saying: "We have the brains, they have the money". He added that it was an open matter of debate about how GCHQ was funded by the US.

He was sure, he said, that the committee would have had detailed briefings on the scale of GCHQ's activity, but in private.

"The ISC has now been reconstituted. It is now a proper committee of parliament. They have got new powers. They are on show this afternoon every bit as much as the three heads of agencies. They have to demonstrate they can satisfy the need for oversight and satisfy parliament that they are doing a job that in other areas of government can be done by much more open means."

Greenwald challenged the performance of the ISC, saying: " I think the system has failed to exercise meaningful accountability up to this point because there was a huge suspicionless system of mass spying that the British and American people had no idea had been built in their name. But I think that system can bring about real accountability if there is the political will."

He challenged claims that the Guardian's journalism had damaged national security, saying no evidence has yet been produced to justify these assertions.

In a speech to the defence industry, reported by the Sun newspaper, Lobban said his agents had "definitively saved the lives" of British troops abroad.

"I'm fiercely proud of GCHQ's people, past and present," he said.

In a sign of the nervous attitude, Richard Barrett, the former head of counter-terrorism at MI6, insisted the ISC session would not lead to fireworks. "This session will be one that is collaborative rather than confrontational. I don't think that the parliament in the UK thinks that the intelligence agencies have been up to no good. I think that quite rightly they believe that they've been properly regulated and following the law as it applies to them.

"I don't think we'll get a whole load of questions that are aggressively put and seeking to trip up the heads of the agencies."

The ISC has said the session will cover "the terrorist threat, regional instability and weapons proliferation, cyber security and espionage" but not ongoing operations or cases. The committee will question the chiefs on the work of the agencies, their current priorities and the threats to the UK.

Patrick Wintour

Fear and Loathing in La Liga by Sid Lowe – review

Posted: 07 Nov 2013 01:26 AM PST

Historic gripes and humiliating defeats form the backbone of the rivalry between Real Madrid and Barcelona. But is the story of El Clásico as simple as it seems?

These are sad days for Spain. There are no jobs and recession has sapped confidence. A proud nation is slipping down the global rankings. Little surprise, then, that Spaniards reach out for something their country is very good at – football. World Cup and European championship victories aside, this largely reduces down to FC Barcelona and Real Madrid. Two superpower clubs, two cities and two styles meet every time 22 men play in what is known everywhere as El Clásico. The world watches, intrigued by the rivalry and dazzled by the skill.

But the simplistic story of opposites is usefully questioned in Sid Lowe's Fear and Loathing in La Liga. These hugely wealthy clubs have much in common. To start with they are owned by their member-fans, or socios, making them much more than toys for billionaire wealth extractors from the Middle East or Russia. Both deliver spectacularly exciting football. Both are famously bad at losing. And both revel in their rival's misery.

Both clubs are also bound up with the idea of a nation. If Real Madrid was once deemed the epitome of Spanish "virility" under General Franco's dictatorship – and had a kind of ambassador role – Barcelona is the "national team" of Catalonia, a nation without a state. Never mind that the stars often come from abroad. Barcelona built its Camp Nou stadium for fans who wanted to watch László Kubala (who had escaped Hungary dressed as a Russian soldier while his wife swam the Danube), and Real Madrid's most legendary team starred Argentine Alfredo Di Stéfano. Leo Messi (pictured) and Cristiano Ronaldo, Argentine and Portuguese respectively, are today's heroes.

Lowe is the Guardian's Spanish football writer, a man with deep knowledge and 135,000 Twitter followers. He is also a proper researcher. He works the pitch, covering all positions – from match-day commentator, to back-room interviewer, to state archive-trawler. His list of interviewees – from Di Stéfano to Cruyff, Zidane and Beckham – is a Who's Who of six decades of football. And his re-runs of past epic matches make you seek out grainy YouTube videos. Was Di Stéfano really better than Pelé?

Yet these clubs will always be greater than their greatest players. Just ask Diego Maradona, a mere bit-part player in the Barcelona story. David Beckham, who epitomises the marketing-led galácticos strategy that brought first glory and then ruin to Real Madrid, is also nothing more than a footnote in a much larger tale.

Lowe is a slayer of myths. In his hands, Barcelona's heroic identity as an anti-Franco club, victim of constant injustice and "fascist" referees, loses much, though not all, of its shine. "We imagine ourselves halting that pack of tanks, responding to their bullets with our anthems and song, laughing in the face of the fascist ire," said Oleguer Presas, the most radical of Barcelona's former players. But did Barcelona, as a city, suffer in the Spanish civil war while Madrid became Franco's capital? Of course not. It was Madrid that held out bravely against Franco's fascist-inspired nationalists for two and a half years. Barcelona fell first. In comparative terms, it barely managed to resist.

Yet nor can Real Madrid fans innocently claim it was never associated with the regime. Franco may have sequestered the club, and its five European Cups in a row, for his own purposes, but the fans did not rebel – unlike those at Barcelona who came to elide their team's losses with Franco's animosity to their language, politics and culture. Polls show the fan base really is politically skewed. Spanish lefties are twice as likely to prefer Barcelona, while voters for the rightwing People's party are three times more likely to back Real Madrid. Both clubs are, of course, far broader than this implies. Spain coach Vicente del Bosque – a former Real Madrid player and coach, but son of a jailed trade unionist – hardly fits the stereotype.

Historic gripes and humiliating defeats form the backbone of the rivalry. Did Real Madrid snatch Di Stéfano from Barcelona's grasp? Yes, though Barcelona played even dirtier to grab Kubala. And the notorious "stolen" games? Poor refeering was indeed a factor, but also both Madrid's patrician expectation of victory and Barcelona's historical sense of victimhood require losses to be explained away. The perceived villainy of referees is not dimmed by time, from that of Emilio Guruceta, whose penalty decision in a 1970 Clásico saw 30,000 cushions hurled on to the Camp Nou grass, to Reg Leafe and Arthur Ellis overseeing the 1960 games in which Barcelona knocked Madrid out of "their" European Cup.

Of the several other books that cover similar ground, Richard Fitzpatrick's El Clásico (Bloomsbury) falls for some civil war myths but is excellent on the clubs' fans – the extreme fringes toy with a real political identity but are essentially based on a shared philosophy of violence. Often there is a telling gap between the players' vision of events and that of the fans or club propaganda departments. Real Madrid players in the 1950s and 1960s didn't think of Barcelona as their biggest rival: that honour was held by Atlético de Madrid. Real's main aim was winning European cups – of which it has nine. The vast majority of native Catalan Barcelona players such as Xavi Hernández or Carles Puyol, meanwhile, are happy to don the red shirts of Spain.

There are conspicuous silences and manipulations in the narratives presented by both clubs. Who knew that Real Madrid was founded by two Catalans, or that former president Rafael Sánchez Guerra was jailed by Franco for "military rebellion"? And why was a recent Barcelona board member also a member of the Francisco Franco foundation? If football is proxy war, then truth is the first casualty. And if politics is a serious business, channelling it through football populism is fraught with danger.

Clásico hysteria reached a crescendo during José Mourinho's three years coaching Real Madrid. Faced with opponents who were, as he admitted, the best club team for several decades, Mourinho (Portuguese and a former Barcelona employee) unsurprisingly played on the clash of cultures. Yet these two clubs need each other. Barcelona boss Sandro Rosell says Catalan independence would not see his club leave the Spanish league. And "If Barcelona didn't exist, we would have to invent them," says Madrid's multimillionaire chairman Florentino Pérez. What you can never do is tell them that it is just a game.

Jonathan Derbyshire

Japanese politician causes uproar by giving letter on Fukushima to emperor

Posted: 07 Nov 2013 01:24 AM PST

Taro Yamamoto faces criticism after handing note to Emperor Akihito at garden party in breach of strict protocol

A novice Japanese lawmaker who wanted to draw attention to the Fukushima nuclear crisis has caused an uproar by doing something taboo: handing a letter to the emperor.

The ruckus began at an annual autumn Imperial Palace garden party last week. As Emperor Akihito and his wife, Michiko, greeted a line of guests, the outspoken actor-turned-lawmaker Taro Yamamoto gave the emperor the letter – a gesture considered both impolite and inappropriate.

Video of the encounter, repeatedly aired on television, shows the 79-year-old emperor calmly taking the letter, written on a folded "washi" paper with ink and brush, and briefly talking with Yamamoto. An apparently wary Empress Michiko gently pulled her husband's elbow from behind. The chief steward, who was standing next to Akihito, grabbed the letter the instant the emperor turned to him.

Yamamoto's action drew criticism from both ends of the ideological spectrum and left many Japanese baffled by what they consider to be a major breach of protocol: reaching out to the emperor in an unscripted act.

The controversy shows how the role of Japan's emperor remains a sensitive issue, nearly 70 years after Akihito's father, Emperor Hirohito, renounced his divinity following Japan's defeat in the second world war and became a symbol of the state.

Many conservatives still consider the emperor and his family divine – "the people above the clouds" – and believe a commoner should not even talk to him. Decades ago, commoners were not even allowed to look directly at the emperor, but today Akihito does meet ordinary people, including those in disaster-hit areas in northern Japan.

There is no specific law, but people are not supposed to talk freely to the emperor, touch him or hand him something without permission. Taking a mobile phone picture of the emperor or his family also is considered impolite.

An upper house committee is discussing whether to discipline Yamamoto and a decision is expected this week. The 38-year-old lawmaker, who was elected in July as an independent, has apologised for troubling the emperor but rejected calls to step down.

Yamamoto, an anti-nuclear activist, said he wanted to make an appeal to the emperor about the crisis in Fukushima and its possible health impact on residents and workers cleaning up the power plant, which suffered three meltdowns after it was devastated by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

Neither Yamamoto nor the palace has released the letter's contents. If Yamamoto sought the emperor's assistance, he may have violated a law requiring cabinet approval for such requests.

Yamamoto denied any intention to use the emperor for political purposes – a possible infringement of the postwar constitution, which relegates the emperor to a non-political, ceremonial role.

"My behaviour was indiscreet for a place like the garden party," Yamamoto said at a news conference on Tuesday. "I just wanted the emperor to know the reality. I was frustrated by not being able to achieve any of my campaign promises yet."

Liberals criticise Yamamoto for turning to the emperor for help rather than upholding democratic principles as an elected lawmaker. Some worry that Yamamoto's ploy reinforced the idea that the emperor is Japan's most trusted public figure, and fear that could play into conservative efforts to give the emperor more powers.

Others criticise Yamamoto as an amateur and populist politician who has set back the anti-nuclear movement, said Koichi Nakano, a political scientist at Sophia University in Tokyo.

Why I'm asking for a review of the supervision of Britain's security services | Clive Soley

Posted: 07 Nov 2013 01:00 AM PST

The Edward Snowden revelations highlight the need for a system of oversight that keeps pace with technological change

There should be no doubt about the importance of our security services in times of serious terrorist threats, but just as we should be clear about who and what we are against, we should also be clear about what we are defending.

That is the cause of freedom – and freedom requires the vigilance of the political and legal processes that we have put in place to supervise and control those who carry out surveillance on our behalf. It also depends on good investigative journalism. That is why I think the Guardian was right to report an edited version of Edward Snowden's revelations. I suspect a jury in the UK would not convict Snowden in the face of a public interest defence, and that alone is reason enough to review the control of the security services.

The Snowden revelations challenge parliament to examine the accountability of these services, and I believe two areas of that supervision need particular attention. The first concern is that acts of parliament set up to define the limits of surveillance are overtaken by technological innovation, almost before the acts are on the statute book. I hope the debate that I initiate in parliament today will give us an opportunity to look at how legislation can be updated on a regular basis, in a way that ensures government and parliament are able to maintain effective oversight.

Combining a select committee process that scrutinises the implications of technological change for the security services with legislative follow-up may be part of the answer. One of the gaps in our current parliamentary system is that we do not have a select committee looking specifically at the advances in technology and their immediate impact on current legislation – and this does not just apply to the security services. A serious review of the way our legislative system can address the impact on our laws of significant technological change could be beneficial.

There is a related issue about the future of the world wide web. It would be a tragedy if excessive intrusion by the US and UK gave more excuses to those governments seeking to restrict access to the internet, claiming self-defence with all that implies for the dissemination of news, views and social media.

My second area of concern is the ministerial and parliamentary system of oversight. It would be churlish not to recognise the changes to supervision that have taken place in recent years. Opening an email or tapping a phone requires a warrant in the UK. But what of citizens in another democracy? And what about an ally such as Germany's Angela Merkel?

Would a British prime minister know if we had been given access to information gained by one of our key allies, like the US? The "five eyes" (US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) have been sharing information for decades, and all data gathered by GCHQ's Tempora system will be available to these countries. What oversight does our parliament have of this shared system?

The sharing of secret intercepts is an important part of the protection of Britain and our allies, but little is known about the way such systems are accountable. The supervisory systems of these five allies are all different and we also share information with Nato allies. One of the gaps in our accountability system concerns the sharing of data.

There are a number of human rights principles that should govern communication data. Some of them are obvious, like legality, but necessity and proportionality are also important and difficult to assess. It is proportionality that appears to have been seriously lost in the activities of the NSA in the US.

Finally, the willingness of MI5 and MI6 chiefs to speak in public ought to be more readily followed by GCHQ. Visits to these establishments ought to be high on the agenda of members of both houses of parliament.

Balancing freedom and security is never easy but it is the essential task for any parliament.

Clive Soley

Obamacare mocked at Country Music Association awards

Posted: 07 Nov 2013 12:56 AM PST

Country music stars Brad Paisley and Carrie Underwood perform Obamacare By Morning, a song sniping at the Democrats' public health initiative

At the Country Music Association awards in Nashville, effectively the Grammys for country music, superstar hosts Brad Paisley and Carrie Underwood performed a song skit mocking Obamacare, the Democrats' public health initiative that has proved hugely unpopular amongst conservatives.

Paisley, feigning a strained back, was attended to by Underwood who suggested he try Obamacare: "I started signing up last Thursday and I'm almost done!" They then launched into Obamacare By Morning, a spoof of George Straight's country classic Amarillo by Morning, attacking the initiative's slow service and inefficiency.

It's not the first time Paisley and Underwood have performed political material at the awards – after country singer Hank Williams Jr was fired from ESPN's Monday Night Football for a rant that equated Obama with Hitler, the pair backed Williams by performing the theme from the show with him on stage at the 2011 awards ceremony.

Country music has a chequered history with right-wing politics. In 1969, Merle Haggard's satirical Okie from Muskogee featured the lines "We don't smoke marijuana in Muskogee. We don't take our trips on LSD. We don't burn our draft cards down on Main Street. We like living right and being free"; his words were enthusiastically taken at face value by a whole stratum of country fans. Lee Greenwood, John Rich, and Williams Jr all campaigned for Mitt Romney at the last election cycle. But megastar Toby Keith has called himself a 'conservative Democrat', and the Dixie Chicks became liberal darlings following their denunciation of George W. Bush and the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Elsewhere at the awards ceremony, Taylor Swift was presented with the one-off Pinnacle award, given to those who take country music to a wider global audience, whose only previous recipient was Garth Brooks in 2005; Paisley and Underwood thanked her "for never once humping a teddy bear", a dig at Miley Cyrus and her infamous VMA performance. Swift didn't win the top category of entertainer of the year however, which went to the aforementioned George Strait. Winning two awards each were Swift, Blake Shelton, Keith Urban, Tim McGraw and Florida Georgia Line, while Luke Bryan won single of the year for his crossover hit Cruise, featuring rapper Nelly.

Ben Beaumont-Thomas

Sochi Olympic torch launched into space - video

Posted: 07 Nov 2013 12:48 AM PST

The torch for the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi before it blasted into space with a three-man crew of astronauts from a launch site in Kazakstan on Thursday

Pakistan frees Pervez Musharraf from house arrest

Posted: 07 Nov 2013 12:34 AM PST

Former president is now free to move around Pakistan but cannot leave the country

Pakistan has freed former President Pervez Musharraf from house arrest after he received bail earlier this week.

Prison official Wajad Ali said security officers were withdrawn from Musharraf's home on the outskirts of Islamabad on Wednesday night.

Musharraf is now free to move around Pakistan, although the former leader's lawyer has said he is still barred from leaving the country pending the court cases against him.

A court granted Musharraf bail Monday in a case involving his alleged role in the death of a radical cleric killed during a raid on a mosque in Islamabad in 2007.

That paved the way for his release after the necessary paperwork.

Musharraf has been granted bail in three other cases against him.

Lythronax argestes: 'King of Gore' joins T rex family tree

Posted: 07 Nov 2013 12:30 AM PST

Discovery of Lythronax argestes pushes back story of the dinosaur group that led to Tyrannosaurus rex by 10m years

A newly-discovered dinosaur, which has been christened "King of gore" by the scientists who have studied it, is the oldest known member of the dinosaur group that gave rise to the mighty Tyrannosaurus rex.

The 80m-year-old fossil of Lythronax argestes was found in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in the desert of southern Utah. The two-legged carnivorous beast was eight metres long and weighed around 2.5 tonnes. It had a head full of sharp teeth and lived during the Late Cretaceous period, between 95m and 65m years ago.

Lythronax, which derives from the Greek words lythron (gore) and anax (king), had a short, narrow snout, forward-pointing eyes and a wide back to its skull – similar in shape to its later relative T rex. The second part of the animal's name, argestes, is derived from the Greek poet Homer's south-west wind, a reference to the geographic location of the fossil.

Palaeontologists had thought that this type of tyrannosaurid dinosaur only evolved around 70m years ago, but the Lythronax discovery pushes the earliest appearance of these creatures back at least 10m years.

"The width of the back of the skull of Lythronax allowed it to see with an overlapping field of view – giving it binocular vision – very useful for a predator and a condition we associate with T rex," said Dr Mark Loewen, a research associate at the Natural History Museum of Utah and a lead author on the study, which is published in the journal PLOS ONE.

Dr Corwin Sullivan at the Institute of Vertebrate Palaeontology and Palaeoanthropology in Beijing, who was not involved in the study, said: "It's always great to meet a new Cretaceous tyrant, and Lythronax might just be a particularly noteworthy one. Despite being the oldest known tyrannosaurid, it's by no means a primitive member of the group, which tells us two interesting things: that tyrannosaurids started their evolutionary radiation sooner than we thought, and that a fair bit of their early record is still missing."

The animal lived in a place scientists call Laramidia, an island of swampy, subtropical land that stretched from Mexico to Alaska. It formed on the western side of a sea that flooded the central region of North America between 95m and 70m years ago.

That sea isolated the western and eastern portions of the North American continent for millions of years, and scientists think that separation allowed different species to evolve in different places, each in relative isolation. Lythronax is the earliest member of the tyrannosaurid group found from Laramidia.

Co-author Prof Randall Irmis, also at the Natural History Museum of Utah, said that Lythronax and other tyrannosaurids diversified between 95m and 80m years ago, at a time when North America's interior sea was at its widest extent.

"The incursion of the seaway onto large parts of low-lying Laramidia would have separated small areas of land from each other, allowing different species of dinosaurs to evolve in isolation on different parts of the landmass," he said.

Isolation of populations of organisms often leads to their evolving into new forms – such as the finches discovered by Charles Darwin that evolved into numerous different species on the various islands of the Galapagos. The separation of Laramidia into numerous different regions might have similarly assisted the diversification of the tyrannosaurids. While Lythronax and its closest relatives are found in Utah and surrounding regions, new lines arose in the north including animals such as the slender-snouted Daspletosaurus and eventually Tyrannosaurus, which is known primarily from Montana in the US and Alberta in Canada, and its nearest relatives, which spread to Asia via Alaska.

Dr Thomas Holtz, an expert in tyrannosaur evolution at the University of Maryland, said Lythronax represented a previously unknown phase of tyrannosaurid evolution, which would lead palaeontologists to rethink their ideas about the history of these giant dinosaurs. "Prior to its discovery it seemed that we could trace the origin of the truly giant, massive-toothed, broad-snouted forms such as T rex and Tarbosaurus bataar through medium-sized, smaller toothed, less-rounded snouted tyrants, such as Daspletosaurus of 75m years ago. Lythronax shows that Daspletosaurus is not on the main line to Tyrannosaurus, and represents its own branch of the family tree.

"Instead, Lythronax shows that the massive-toothed round-snouted forms go quite far back in the tyrant lineage. This means that the extremely powerful puncture-and-pull feeding apparatus of T rex was already well developed by 80m years ago, rather than arriving late on the scene."

Sullivan said he was intrigued, but not yet fully persuaded, by the suggestion that the high sea levels around Laramidia stimulated the diversification of tyrannosaurids. "That kind of geographic splitting can certainly create opportunities for speciation, so it's a plausible mechanism, but I'd like to see a more extensive and fine-grained review of the evidence than Mark and his coauthors could cram into their paper – one that gets into the nitty-gritty of where the basins were, when the marine barriers between them would have appeared and disappeared, and what lived in them."

Dr Dave Hone

Alok Jha

Asylum seeker children on Manus Island may not have a legal guardian

Posted: 07 Nov 2013 12:19 AM PST

Law change in 2012 means immigration minister is no longer responsible for minors sent offshore

Paul Farrell

Oliver Laughland

Iran foreign minister optimistic as nuclear talks resume

Posted: 07 Nov 2013 12:17 AM PST

As negotiations begin in Geneva, Mohammad Javad Zarif says 'only a few more steps' needed to reach agreement

Iranian negotiators are entering new round of nuclear talks with major powers in Geneva, insisting they are optimistic that a deal is possible in the course of the two-day meeting.

Iran's foreign minister, Muhammad Javad Zarif, said the negotiators only needed to make "a few more steps" to reach agreement, but it would "not be a disaster" if a final accord had to be left to a subsequent round.

Speaking to France 24 in Paris on his way to Thursday's talks, Zarif said: "I believe it is possible to reach an agreement during this meeting, but I can only talk for our side, I cannot talk for the other side."

"I believe we've come very far in the last three rounds, so we [only] need to make a few more steps," said the foreign minister. "We are prepared to make them in Geneva. But if we can't take them in Geneva, we'll take them in the next round."

An unnamed senior US official, talking to journalists on the eve of talks agreed that an interim deal was within reach.

"I do see the potential outlines of a first step," the official said. "I do think it can be written on a piece of paper, probably more than one. I hope sooner rather than later. I would like to stop Iran's programme from advancing further."

The official said the aim of a first deal would be to "put some time on the clock", freezing Iran's nuclear progress and buying time for negotiations on a more comprehensive and enduring agreement.

Zarif will be meeting the EU foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, and senior diplomats from the US, UK, France, Germany, Russia and China. Ashton's spokesman, Michael Mann, said: "The nuclear talks are complex and have entered a serious phase."

"The E3+3 and Iran have agreed to keep the talks confidential in order to focus on the substance."

At the previous round of talks three weeks ago – the first since the election of President Rouhani – all sides hailed what they described as a new, positive atmosphere.

Sources involved in the October talks in Geneva have said that Iranians were pursuing a short-term deal, involving a trade-off between curbs on the level of its uranium enrichment and sanctions relief, at the same time as reassurance that a long-term settlement would guarantee the country's right to carry out enrichment in principle and a complete lifting of sanctions, while Iran would agree to undergo stringent inspections.

Iran would stop producing 20%, medium-enriched, uranium – the immediate proliferation concern as it can relatively easily be converted into weapons-grade material – but would not send its existing stockpile out of the country. That could be converted into reactor fuel, which is more difficult to enrich further.

"Clearly the Iranians want to make progress quickly. They want to see tangible results and compensation. This has been a clear theme. They are not prepared to give things away in return for nothing," said Suzanne Maloney, an Iran expert at the Brookings Institution in Washington. "There is a limit to the patience of the Iranian establishment and Rouhani needs to deliver. He needs to be seen as having achieved something for his own people in return for the concessions he might appear to be making at the bargaining table. And that is the real pressure on him and it has to be delivered soon."

Negotiators at all sides in Geneva are concerned that the US Congress could sabotage hopes of a deal by approving new sanctions in midst of talks, and the administration has appealed to senators, currently studying a sanctions bill, to show restraint while the negotiations are under way.

Rouhani's negotiating team has meanwhile come under fire from hardliners in Iran, who have criticised the secretly surrounding Iran's negotiating position. Iran's parliament, the Majlis, has held meetings with Zarif and other members of the country's nuclear negotiating team but details of the the session has not been made public.

Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, threw his weight behind Rouhani's negotiating team on Sunday.

"No one should consider our negotiators as compromisers," he said ahead of the anniversary of the 1979 US hostage crisis. "They have a difficult mission and no one must weaken an official who is busy with work."

Censorship

Many Iranians are not getting a full account of the international controversy over the country's nuclear programme because of severe restrictions on press coverage of the issue, according to the press freedom advocacy group, Reporters Without Borders.

The group said: "Ever since the revelations about Iran's nuclear activities at the start of the past decade, any coverage of this issue has been banned by the many government bodies responsible for monitoring and regulating the media."

"Journalists are constantly censored, not only by the ministry of culture and Islamic orientation and its censorship wing, the press authorisation and surveillance commission, but also by the ministry of intelligence, the Revolutionary Guards, the public prosecutor and the high council for national security.

"They are forbidden to cover all nuclear matters such as the signing of an International Atomic Energy Agency protocol, the negotiations about Iran's nuclear programme with the "5+1" group [China, France, Germany, Russia, United Kingdom and United States], representing the international community, and even nuclear energy's environmental impact and the cost of building nuclear power plants."

In October 2003, the newspaper Entekhab was closed down due to the publication of an article revealing the extent of the internal feud among Iran's many political institutions over the question of whether Iran should sign the IAEA additional protocol. The newspaper's editor, Mohamad Mehdi Faghihi and its political editor, Mohsen Mandegari, were subsequently summoned to the court, Reporters Without Borders said. Other Iranian media organisations have also been chastised for expressing views other than the official line about the country's nuclear programme, including the conservative news website Tabnak.

"Many journalists in different cities have been threatened or arrested on spying charges over the years for referring to nuclear energy issues," Reporters Without Borders said. "This censorship of nuclear coverage violates journalists' freedom to inform and Iranians' right to be informed.

"Journalists have a fundamental role to play as regards informing the public on such sensitive matters, but the Iranian authorities try to suppress all independent coverage of nuclear issues so that only the official version is available."

Earlier this week, Iran's Nobel peace prize laureate Shirin Ebadi launched an appeal, signed by around 100 Iranian activists and campaigners, calling for a national dialogue on nuclear energy.

"The issue of nuclear energy in Iran has always been left to the government of the day, both before and after the revolution, and for this reason is regarded as a political matter," a statement launching the appeal said. "But it is not just a political issue. It also concerns the economy, society and the environment and therefore affects all Iranian citizens.

It adds: "Iranians do not have enough information about the advantages and disadvantages of nuclear energy for their country, although it is a subject of national concern that directly influences people's daily lives. It is why we are subjected to unprecedented sanctions and why our country has been threatened with war."

Julian Borger

Saeed Kamali Dehghan

Tajikistan president Rakhmon re-elected in landslide

Posted: 07 Nov 2013 12:17 AM PST

Emomali Rakhmon wins 83.6% of vote, with closest competitor trailing on 5%, according to electoral commission

Emomali Rakhmon has been re-elected president of Tajikistan in a landslide electoral victory, Tajikistan's electoral commission has reported.

Rakhmon, 61, won 83.6% of the vote, the commission spokesman Adumanon Dodayev said on Thursday. The president's closest competitor trailed with only 5%.

Rakhmon, who has ruled the central Asian country for more than two decades, faced only token opposition; the vocal rights activist Oinihol Bobonazarova was not allowed to register for the election on technical grounds. The government has drawn criticism for its crackdown on dissent and its tight grip on the media.

Tajikistan, which borders China and Afghanistan, has proved to be a strategically important ally for the US and Russia and has allowed coalition troops and cargo to travel to and from Afghanistan over its territory.

East Timor takes swipe at US and Australia over spying claims

Posted: 06 Nov 2013 11:55 PM PST

Xanana Gusmao joins growing chorus of condemnation over network operating out of consulates and embassies in Asia

Olympic torch blasts into space

Posted: 06 Nov 2013 11:50 PM PST

Flame not lit for leg of Sochi 2014 journey that marks first time torch will have gone outside a spacecraft in orbit

Two Russian cosmonauts will take the Olympic torch on its first ever spacewalk to showcase the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi – but for safety reasons, and perhaps to save embarrassment, it will not be lit.

Russian Mikhail Tyurin, American Rick Mastracchio and Japan's Koichi Wakata took the torch with them on Thursday when they blasted off for the International Space Station from the Baikonur cosmodrome, which Moscow rents from Kazakhstan.

Tyurin will hand the torch to fellow cosmonauts Oleg Kotov and Sergei Ryazansky, who are on the orbiting station, when they go on a spacewalk on Saturday.

The Olympic torch has been carried into space twice before, in 1996 and 2000, but it has never been taken outside a spacecraft.

"Our goal here is to make it look spectacular," Kotov said before his own mission began. "We'd like to showcase our Olympic torch in space. We will try to do it in a beautiful manner. Millions of people will see it live on TV and they will see the station and see how we work."

The torch will be brought back to Earth by Russian Fyodor Yurchikhin, American astronaut Karen Nyberg and European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano on 11 November. It then continues the 40,000-mile (65,000km) relay that has taken it to the North Pole on an atomic-powered ice breaker and will reach Europe's highest peak, Mount Elbrus, as well as the depths of Siberia's Lake Baikal.

As well as replacing the gas flame Russian engineers have equipped the torch with a tether. "It was reworked to take it into open space ... just so that it doesn't fly away," said Sergei Krikalev, head of the Cosmonauts' Training Centre outside Moscow.

While the Russian-made red and silver torch is in space, the flame will remain lit on Earth.

The Soyuz craft carrying the three-man crew into space has been emblazoned with the Sochi 2014 logo and a blue and white snowflake pattern.

The arrival of the torch-bearing Soyuz will briefly swell the space station crew to nine, the most that have been on board the orbital outpost since the last US shuttle mission in 2011.

Wakata, 50, will be the first Japanese astronaut to command a crew on the space station.

UN climate talks: Labor calls Coalition an 'embarrassment on the world stage'

Posted: 06 Nov 2013 11:21 PM PST

Guardian Australia: Labor says decision not to send minister to Warsaw proves Tony Abbott doesn't accept climate change is real

Oliver Milman

Asylum seeker children: official record of incidents affecting them incomplete

Posted: 06 Nov 2013 11:21 PM PST

Immigration Department refuses information request, saying it has difficulty keeping track of minors who are now adults

Paul Farrell

Greek riot police evict last ERT staff

Posted: 06 Nov 2013 11:17 PM PST

Employees had occupied premises of state broadcaster since it was shut down by government five months ago

Greek police say they have removed the remaining former workers from what used to be the headquarters of the now-defunct ERT state broadcaster.

The pre-dawn operation by riot police started shortly after 4am local time Thursday. Only a handful of former workers were in the building at the time, authorities said.

The building had been occupied by the protesting ex-employees for the past five months.

The complex is in the northern Athens suburb of Agia Paraskevi.

Greece's conservative-led government abruptly closed ERT on 11 June and fired all 2,700 staff, citing the need to cut costs due to the country's severe financial crisis.

Sacked workers occupied the building for months, producing unauthorised broadcasts.

The government has since opened another broadcaster named EDT.

The Rolling Stones by Gered Mankowitz - in pictures

Posted: 06 Nov 2013 11:00 PM PST

As the Rolling Stones celebrate their 50th anniversary, veteran photographer Gered Mankowitz is selling his classic pictures of the band

Sarah Gilbert

Driver charged with manslaughter over death of girls

Posted: 06 Nov 2013 10:54 PM PST

Jasmine Allsop, 14, died outside her home with friend Olivia Lewry, 16, after being struck by car in Gosport on Sunday

A 20-year-old man is to face court for manslaughter after two teenage girls were hit by a car and killed.

Samuel Etherington, from Gosport, Hampshire, will appear before Portsmouth magistrates after detectives charged him on Wednesday night.

Police were called to Ann's Hill Road in Gosport at 4.15am on Sunday following reports that a green Honda Civic had hit two girls.

Jasmine Allsop, 14, died at the scene, while Olivia Lewry, 16, died later after being taken to hospital.

Jasmine's mother, Rosemary, has described how she kissed her daughter goodbye after she was awoken by the emergency services attending the accident, which happened outside her home.

Ms Allsop, 37, said she had enjoyed a night in with the two girls before the accident. "I went out and then a neighbour covered me in a blanket. I kissed her – it was four hours before they took her body away because I did not want to let her go.

"I told her she was my angel and I'd loved her since the day she was born. I can remember her big blue eyes staring."

Ms Allsop, who is the mother of a four-year-old, said the death left her numb. "I'm empty inside and lost. I keep expecting her to come through the door.

"Jasmine was a gorgeous, lovely, bubbly character. They were best friends."

An extra six months to live: babies can now expect to reach 82 in Australia

Posted: 06 Nov 2013 10:49 PM PST

Third behind Japan and Hong Kong, Australia remains above Iceland, Canada, NZ and the UK in life-expectancy rankings

Daniel Ortega moves to quash Nicaragua's presidential term limits

Posted: 06 Nov 2013 10:08 PM PST

National Assembly asked to remove provision, already repudiated by court, that bans election twice in a row

Nicaragua's president, Daniel Ortega, is pushing for changes to the constitution that would cement his second term in office by removing provisions that appear to rule it invalid.

Critics have warned that if the change is enacted presidents would be able to serve unlimited consecutive terms in office.

Nicaraguan lawmakers on Wednesday began studying the proposal by Ortega to remove an article in the constitution intended to bar consecutive presidential terms.

The country's highest court has already allowed Ortega to serve a second consecutive term but an analyst said the president probably wanted to remove the wording from the charter to solidify that ruling and undercut criticism of his re-election.

The National Assembly secretary Alba Palacios said she and six other lawmakers had formed a commission to study the proposal that would present its opinion to the full assembly by December.

The constitution article in question prohibits consecutive presidential terms but in 2010 the supreme court overturned the ban, a ruling the electoral commission said was final. The ruling allowed Ortega to run for president for a second straight term in 2011.

If approved "the reform would set a dangerous precedent that could extend the time all elected officials can stay in power", said Danilo Aguirre Solis, a political analyst.

Gabriel Alvarez, a constitutional law expert, said the proposal would only formalise the supreme court's decision, which Ortega's opponents contend was illegal and made by a heavily politicised judiciary.

"It's an unnecessary change because the supreme court has already ruled on that, but I think they are doing it so that those who call [Ortega's government] illegal, spurious, de facto or unconstitutional can no longer label him that way," Alvarez said.

Other Latin American leaders including Hugo Chávez in Venezuela, Rafael Correa in Ecuador and Alvaro Uribe in Colombia have manoeuvered to extend their terms in office.

Ortega first left the presidency in 1990 after losing an election to Violeta Chamorro. He was re-elected in 2006, then won again in 2011 after the supreme court allowed him to run.

Ortega's proposal also seeks to eliminate the required minimum of 35% of the votes a candidate needs to win a presidential election. He proposes that the candidate with the most votes should win as long as the total is at least 5%.