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

Lucy Mangan: Dear Richard Dawkins, stop with the tweeting already. We atheists need you more than ever now

Posted: 09 Nov 2013 01:00 AM PST

Atheism has plenty of adherents, but few internationally respected people we're happy to have speak for all. It's high time Richard Dawkins stepped back up to the plate

'Bin Laden has won, in airports of the world every day. I had a little jar of honey, now thrown away by rule-bound dundridges. STUPID waste," was the heartfelt message posted this week on Twitter by Richard Dawkins, evolutionary biologist, author, emeritus professor of New College, Oxford, and world-famous proselytiser for atheism.

It's a good thing that, in addition to the chance to fire off any first, furious half-thoughts that cross our minds, Twitter has given us the expression *headdesk*. Even the most rigid secularist can find a crumb of comfort in that karmic rebalancing.

To channel Twitter's love of brevity for a moment, Dawkins is doing my nut in. The tweets are bad enough; everything about this one, in fact (not just a jar of honey, the world's most inoffensive foodstuff, but a little jar, up against the world's mightiest hate figure), contriving to stuff more bathos into 140 characters than most novelists manage in a lifetime, then adding a dash of arrogance by thinking this an ideal time to try to make his new coinage for modern jobsworths take flight. (Pardon the pun! LOLZ!) And it comes after a flurry of (primarily Islamosceptical) others that, as a Dawkins devotee ever since I read The Selfish Gene, leaves me deploying another few Twitterisms. Namely, WTF? WTFF? FFS.

Atheism has plenty of adherents, but few internationally respected people we're happy to have speak for all. Douglas Adams and Christopher Hitchens are lost to us for ever (unless, y'know, we're wrong about a couple of key issues). Stephen Fry's still around, but too busy. And my personal choice, Stephen Colbert, insists on remaining Catholic. We can't afford to lose the most cogent and indefatigable of them all.

Religion (or non-religion) needs marketing, like everything else. Atheism has been coasting for a while, as that dismal bus ad ("There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life") proved, managing to be both pusillanimous and patronising in an even shorter space than the average tweet. But after all, potential converts to Islam were presumably deterred by the prospect of being rotated by various parts of the media (even before Dawkins lent a hand) through a variety of roles from terrorist to benefit scrounger. And Catholicism was bringing itself down with one vile child abuse scandal after another, and further alienating followers and potential followers with its disapproval of gay marriage and acceptance of women in the church. Life was sweet.

But now Catholics have got a new, improved pope, keen to emphasise the centrality of love and charity to faith, instead of policing private sexual matters while offering lifetimes of succour to the worst of sinners. The Anglicans have performed the ecclesiastical equivalent of a Tesco price match and produced an archbishop who condemns corporate greed, is pro-marriage in all its forms, and generally seems to chime with the public mood better than anyone had dreamed.

Secularists must start fighting harder for market share, especially now that Dawkins is shrinking it with every tweet. At the risk of playing Sinead O'Connor to his Miley Cyrus: professor, please stop. Otherwise, it's all, well, *headdesk*

Lucy Mangan

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German Revolution, 1918-19 - a picture from the past

Posted: 09 Nov 2013 12:44 AM PST

The roots of German Revolution of 1918-19 lay in the defeat in the First World War

Jim Powell

Remembrance: Finding our lost boys

Posted: 08 Nov 2013 11:15 PM PST

A box of letters written home by two great-uncles who were killed in the first world war set Madeleine Bunting on a two-year odyssey. By the end, she had made more sense of her family – especially her grandmother – and of herself

In the autumn of 1913, a handsome boy of 15 had just left school in London and gone to boarding school in Heidelberg to improve his German. His father was German and he had a large extended German Jewish family. Jack's exuberant letters home tell of his escapades: toboganning, skating and practical jokes on the teachers.

Within two years, the outbreak of war had transformed this schoolboy into a young officer (he lied about his age to enlist) and a few weeks after he arrived in France he was dead, killed in the battle of the Somme. His German cousin was killed in the same battle, fighting on the other side. Two years later, his clever older brother, Norman, was also dead. Their little sister Nancy, my grandmother, was devastated along with the rest of her family.

These are the kinds of stories that thousands of families have buried in their history and as the centenary of the first world war arrives next year, there will be four years of public commemorations. But it's the personal significance, the emotional weight of this all too common tragedy that has drawn me into a compelling journey over the last two years. Each family can tell its own story of how it has carried that grief over the last century and how it has shaped characters and relationships in succeeding generations. Many of those stories are lost and hard to piece together. But completely unexpected for me was the power of the story of these two young men and their bereaved family, and how it resonated with me – making more sense of my grandmother, but also of myself.

It began with reading a shoebox of letters from Norman and Jack, which my grandmother had kept for more than 80 years. There were more than 150, some on smart, headed paper, some on notebook pages, written with stubs of pencil. They start with Jack's schoolboy pranks in Heidelberg in late 1913 and end with Norman's last letter in March 1918, asking for a copy of Shelley and assuring his anxious mother that his posting in the trenches "has become almost a fairy bower and is approached by rustic arches and surrounded by flower beds".

What sprung off the pages were two vivid and distinct characters. Jack is the impatient and quick-witted one, poking fun at his dull German cousins but enjoying the cakes they sent. He revels in the idiosyncrasies of his teachers, baiting them to the delight of his classmates. He is deeply affectionate to his parents, assuring them that he kisses their photograph at night "even if there are people watching" and including messages to his two younger sisters. As he embarks on army training, his eager bravado is palpable and he opts to join the machine gun corps – "They call it the suicide club," he writes airily.

At last, in January 1916, the waiting is over and Jack is leaving his training camp "for an unknown destination"; he has been put in charge of four machine guns, yet is short of his 18th birthday. He issues instructions home for new boots, a waterproof sheet, a lamp, field glasses and a camera. The constant requests from the two brothers for supplies – cakes, butter, razors, soap, blankets, mouth organs and books – must have entailed dozens of shopping trips and hundreds of parcels over the four years of war.

In 1916, Jack wrote to Norman, then in Gallipoli: "Tonight I am going up [to the front] to stay for some time and tomorrow we are going to end the war, at least we think so, and my division is in the firing line. At present it is rather rotten up in the trenches because they keep on retaliating against our bombardment with beastly heavy stuff. Our trench mortars are wonderful things. I don't know if you had any of the football variety in Gallipoli but you should see the mess they make of the Hun's wire, it simply rolls it up and lays it aside." He died the following day. His sergeant wrote to his parents to praise Jack's remarkable courage.

Norman's letters, by contrast, are long and descriptive as he writes of his experiences in three theatres of war – Gallipoli, Egypt and France – between 1915 and 1918. He gives vivid accounts of the utter chaos of Gallipoli where he shelters under flimsy awnings in shallow holes in the ground, exhausted and starving. In Egypt he is restless, bored by the remote posting and agitated that he might never experience the glory of battle. Finally, he is in Flanders and recounts horrific battles where he struggles with the mud, rats and deafening roar of the guns. On one occasion, he is stranded in no man's land for days and watches the wounded groaning where they lie. Interspersed with accounts of the trenches are affectionate notes to his younger sisters and his nanny, with cartoon drawings, jokes and promises of presents. Threaded through the letters is a constant attempt to care emotionally for his family at home, with reassurances and anecdotes.

During quieter periods, Norman talks of the books and magazines he is reading and the essays he is trying to write; he writes of poetry, music, politics, art, philosophy, religion and ideas. Gradually disillusionment sets in; in 1916 he talked of Jack's noble death but within 18 months he has become bitterly angry at Beaverbrook's warmongering Times and lambasts the incompetence of the generals and the politicians. By 1918, he is calling for a revolution in England such as Russia has just experienced. Towards his own life, he develops a chilling fatalism and requests that on his gravestone they engrave: "Tis all a chequer-board of nights and days/Where destiny with men for pieces plays."

There is a photograph of my grandmother as a teenager in the aftermath of her brothers' death; she seems frozen with a deep, unspeakable sadness. She grew up to be a charismatic but brittle woman; she was a tyrannical mother and only softened as a grandmother in late old age.

But alongside this emotional legacy of tragedy was another, more concrete, commemoration. My great-grandparents decided after the first world war to fund a health clinic for children in the then dire slum of Highgate New Town, in north London, in memory of their sons. It would be for minor operations, convalescence and general outpatient services. It was in operation for 40 years until it was handed over to Camden council in 1967; now the Konstam Family Centre, it has been a nursery ever since.

A year ago, my mother and I went to visit the clinic into which her grandparents had poured their grief. It's a large, handsome building and in the hallway a bronze plaque commemorates the lives of Norman and Jack; the staff had put poppies in the small vase. Old photos were produced, showing the two wards named after Norman and Jack; framed photos of them stood on small tables in the centre of the ward with a vase of flowers – a form of secular shrine.

I detected the hands of both my great-grandparents. Photos of the boiler room, operating theatre and sluice room spoke of my great-grandfather's practicality and attention to detail; the beautiful Indian flowered bedspreads and carved wooden furniture spoke of my great-grandmother's flamboyant taste. She was a dedicated volunteer at the clinic until her death in the 1950s.

But the main revelation was the visitor's book. After the clinic opened in 1924, page after page lists the paediatricians, public health officials and politicians who came from all over the world – Siam, Russia, China, Latin America, the US and Europe. Until the outbreak of the second world war, the clinic was a pioneering model of child healthcare. It was riding a wave of new understanding about the importance of public preventive health, in particular for children whose lives could be unnecessarily blighted by poor health care. It was projects like this clinic that paved the way for the postwar NHS.

I've tracked the story through old ledgers of council minutes and given talks to local history societies where former pupils of the Konstam nursery expressed appreciation of my great-grandparents' generosity, but the most moving point of the two-year odyssey was when my nephew and a friend did a reading of Jack and Norman's letters in a local theatre. Eighty of the surviving family gathered to remember these young men; among those present were six of their nieces and nephews, including my mother. This act of remembrance felt long overdue. And now I find myself thinking of Norman, Jack and their parents frequently; it is as if I have finally met relations – to whom I owe so much – that I have always half-known.

Madeleine Bunting

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The world must unite to save Central African Republic from catastrophe | Archbishop Dieudonné Nzapalaing

Posted: 08 Nov 2013 11:01 PM PST

Sectarian violence has devastated CAR. The international community must not stand idly by while its citizens are murdered

We are in a delicate situation in the Central African Republic, and the tension is mounting. There is a terrifying, real threat of sectarian conflict.

On a recent trip to Bossangoa province, I was shocked to discover that village after village had been deserted. People told us they were afraid of the Séléka rebels, that residents were opting to stay in the forest in inhumane conditions because of the brutality Séléka rebels had inflicted upon them.

As we journeyed along the road, an eerie calm enveloped us. And then we stumbled across a group of young people carrying traditional weapons. When we asked what they were doing, they said: "We're here to protect the village from the Séléka, who have come to pillage, rob, kill and rape."

Our group ventured to another village, where we discovered that everything had been burned: the Catholic and Protestant churches, the mosque – everything had been reduced to ashes.

Some 65,000 people are displaced in Central African Republic (CAR) because there is a lack of security. It is heart-breaking to see people trapped away from home, too afraid to return.

The Séléka is 90% Muslim and 10% Christian. When they enter a town, they head for the Muslim communities, because Séléka chiefs speak only Arabic, not French or Songo, the two national languages. And when they rob villagers, they force members of the Muslim community to store their loot. This is why some residents are fooled into believing there is complicity between the Muslims and Séléka. But it is a far more complicated business than that.

The escalating situation in CAR has led to the imam of Bombari, the president of the Protestant community, and I to form what we have called a platform for peace. We have visited many villages and our message is clear – we want co-existence. Muslims and Christians must learn to live together in peace.

Irrespective of a person's faith, our group defends everyone, because all humans are sacred. We will not allow rebels to shatter our history of co-existence.

The African-led peacekeeping force, Misca, had been charged with disarmament and weapons collection, but it patrolled with the Séléka. This meant that if the rebels started abusing people, the Misca would withdraw, leaving the civilian population at their mercy. The Séléka would then loot, steal, rape, torture and commit summary executions.

With the support of aid charities such as Cafod, we want to draw global attention to our plight and encourage the international community to mobilise and demand a return to peace and security in CAR.

That is why I agreed to go to Europe to give evidence at the UN human rights council. The first thing we need is to disarm the rebels and then we must work with communities on peace and reconciliation, letting them know that it is possible to once again live together in peace.

Let us not forget that CAR is surrounded by other countries, with millions of inhabitants. If it becomes a sanctuary for terrorists, narcotics traffickers, jihadists and bandits, our neighbours will be affected too. To avoid this deadly contagion, we need to act now.

We want the elections to take place, but CAR's civil service has been destroyed – civil records no longer exist, so we have to reconstitute these and carry out another referendum and conduct a census. We hope this will happen before 2015, so we can be assured of credible and uncontested national polls to guide us further along the path of democracy.

CAR is part of the international community, and this community must not allow citizens to be murdered, tortured and maltreated while standing by and watching with indifference.

My faith allows me the privilege of visiting places others cannot. I try to comfort those who are suffering, to let them know I will not allow them to be forgotten, that their voice can carry and humanity can hear them. We have to act now.

Archbishop Dieudonné Nzapalaing of Bangui is president of Caritas Central African Republic.


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Royal Marines general calls for lenient sentence in Afghan 'execution'

Posted: 08 Nov 2013 10:32 PM PST

Major-General Julian Thompson says he feels for Marine A 'as though a member of the family has transgressed'

Maldives voters finally go to the polls to end political impasse

Posted: 08 Nov 2013 09:59 PM PST

Two previous attempts to hold presidential elections since September have failed over doubts about the voters register

MPs face fines for lodging invalid expenses claims

Posted: 08 Nov 2013 09:09 PM PST

Federal government responds to public outcry over expenses by imposing 25% surcharge on claims that have to be repaid

Top US navy intelligence officers suspended as bribery scandal widens

Posted: 08 Nov 2013 08:33 PM PST

Vice-Admiral Ted Branch and Rear Admiral Bruce Loveless have also been cut off from access to classified material

Leeds shooting: one man killed, one seriously injured

Posted: 08 Nov 2013 07:48 PM PST

Police believe attack on two men at a house in the Wortley area was 'targeted and isolated'

Asylum seeker boat: Australia backs down in standoff with Indonesia

Posted: 08 Nov 2013 06:29 PM PST

Passengers on boat at the centre of impasse will be taken to Christmas Island after all, Scott Morrison says

Philippines: 'bodies in the streets', with many feared dead in typhoon Haiyan

Posted: 08 Nov 2013 06:03 PM PST

Reports from worst-hit areas suggest the death toll will rise significantly as storm's passing reveals scale of damage

China's leaders in closed-door meeting to establish direction of economy

Posted: 08 Nov 2013 05:21 PM PST

The conclave which begins in a Beijing hotel on Saturday has been billed as the great unveiling of reforms

It has been billed as the great unveiling of unprecedented reforms. But the Chinese public will not know what the future holds until their leaders' closed-door meeting concludes on Tuesday. In truth, they may not really find out for years, say experts.

The conclave which begins in a Beijing hotel on Saturday – the third gathering of the Communist party's top brass since Xi Jinping took power almost a year ago – will establish the direction for the world's second largest economy.

Yu Zhengsheng, a senior leader, has pledged that the meeting of the central committee will set out "unprecedented" reforms. State news agency Xinhua said it would "unleash China's new round of reform, which is expected to steer the country into an historic turning point".

Such talk has encouraged speculation about substantial economic and financial reforms and even comparisons with the third plenum of 1978 – when Deng Xiaoping closed the door on Maoism and set China on its current course. Ever since, third plenums have been regarded as particularly significant. Another of the meetings, in 1993, ushered in major reforms to state owned enterprises (SOEs).

On Tuesday, Xinhua will issue a dispatch as the meeting closes, giving the first indication of the leadership's plans.

"What's going to come out is a political communique that does not have significant details about how they are going to implement it," said Damien Ma, a fellow at the Paulson Institute.

Rather, it is designed to set out a clear direction and create some momentum, wrote Barry Naughton of the University of California, San Diego on the Asia Society's China File website.

Few doubt the need for drastic changes. While China's economic boom has lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty, few believe the current course of development is sustainable. Growth is slowing, inequality has soared and issues such as pollution and corruption have led to increasing resentment.

Reformers hope that the plenum will signal progress not only on financial liberalisation, but also on land reform, changes to the household registration system that limits the welfare rights of rural migrants living in cities, and possibly the curbing of powerful SOEs.

The problem is that implementation will be challenged by those who have prospered in the current system, noted Feng Chongyi, an expert on Chinese politics at the University of Technology, Sydney.

"The Chinese know that the current system is 'power-elite capitalism' or 'party-state capitalism'. They talk about good things, but good reforms will be disturbed to serve the interests of that narrow interest group," he warned.

"Financial reforms are relatively easy ... [issues like curbing SOEs] are very difficult even within the party," said Tao Ran, director of the Centre for Economics and Governance at Renmin University.

But Ma noted: "You have to combine the communique with what is expected [in terms of] a more comprehensive plan on tackling corruption. I think its an open secret that those are intimately linked."

The clean-up campaign "is a way to get rid of what everyone talks about: these vague, abstract 'vested interests'", he said.

He suggested that references to 1978 were germane because it suggested using pilot schemes to incubate reforms, as in the eighties.

The recent low-key launch of the Shanghai free-trade zone makes some sceptical about how much energy the leadership will put behind such initiatives. While it was initially lauded as a major development, details remain unclear and premier Li Keqiang did not attend the opening ceremony.

Kerry Brown, executive director of the China Studies Centre at the University of Sydney, noted that while 1978 is now universally recognised as a turning point, many of the early changes were incremental and began at the grassroots.

"The problem with this kind of plenum is that it's not seen as being historically important until years after it has happened," he argued.

Cheng Li and Ryan McElveen of the Brookings Institution wrote this week that pessimism was sensible but argued that the leadership had a real sense of urgency and a collective understanding of the need for "big, bold and broad" reforms to gain public support.

"Will President Xi and his team prove the pessimists wrong at the Third Plenum? They must – their political relevance depends on it," they warned.

Tania Branigan

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Daniel McDonald, cadet in Skype sex affair, kicked out of army

Posted: 08 Nov 2013 04:56 PM PST

Officer cadet who filmed himself having sex and broadcast it to others dismissed for conduct 'incompatible' with Army values

Iran deal hopes rise as foreign ministers arrive

Posted: 08 Nov 2013 04:47 PM PST

UK, US, French and German representatives visit as Kerry and Ashton 'discuss draft statement' with Iranian counterpart Zarif

John Kerry, William Hague and foreign ministers from France and Germany all made unplanned flights to Geneva on Friday in an attempt to seal a nuclear deal with Iran and end a decade-long impasse with the country.

There were also reports on Friday night that the Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, was flying in, despite earlier official denials that he would attend. The convergence on Switzerland of ministers from major world powers was meant to boost negotiations that have been under way since Thursday among senior officials.

As the talks closed on Friday night, officials were saying that the negotiations had been productive and that they would resume again on Saturday morning.

Kerry put off a planned trip to Morocco and Algeria to focus on the Geneva talks, while Iranian journalists were told to delay flights back to Tehran.

The focus of the talks shifted from formal sessions at Geneva's Palace of Nations to impromptu meetings at the European mission hosted by the EU foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton. Kerry, Hague, the French foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, and his German counterpart, Guido Westerwelle, gathered there. After night fell, Ashton and Kerry met the Iranian foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, for three-way discussions that western officials described as the key session of the talks so far.

The officials said Kerry's arrival did not signal that a deal was ready to be signed but rather that the issues dividing the sides had risen to a level that only foreign ministers, in consultation with their heads of government, could resolve.

The aim of the talks is to agree a joint statement laying out a roadmap towards a peaceful resolution of the nuclear standoff. Iranian officials said a draft of the statement had been completed by the time Ashton, Kerry and Zarif met at the EU mission.

According to Zarif and western officials, it was to include details of an interim deal that would slow down Iranian uranium enrichment and relax some sanctions, providing time to work out a more comprehensive, long-term agreement. The outline of that goal would also be sketched out in the joint statement, on Iranian insistence. Zarif has said he does not want to negotiate piecemeal accords without knowing what the end point of the process would be.

Kerry arrived in Geneva in the early afternoon after a stormy meeting with the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, who made clear that he rejected the intended interim deal with Iran on the grounds that it represented a step towards dismantling sanctions without a total halt to Iranian enrichment.

Western officials said Netanyahu's remarks were aimed at his own rightwing supporters and that his vocal opposition would eventually make it easier to "sell a deal" to the Tehran leadership and Iranian public.

The White House said President Obama called Netanyahu on Friday to smooth things over. "The president provided the prime minister with an update on negotiations in Geneva and underscored his strong commitment to preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, which is the aim of the ongoing negotiations between the P5+1 and Iran," according to a White House description of the call. "The president and prime minister agreed to continue to stay in touch on this issue."

On arriving in Geneva, Kerry said he had come at Ashton's invitation to help close the deal with Iran.

"I want to emphasise there are still some very important issues on the table that are unresolved. It is important for those to be properly, thoroughly addressed," the US secretary of state said. "We hope to try to narrow those differences, but I don't think anybody should mistake that there are some important gaps that have to be closed."

Fabius, who arrived two hours earlier, said he had made the impromptu trip "because these negotiations are difficult but important for the regional and international security".

He said: "It is a question of reaching an agreement which represents a first solid step in addressing the international concerns over the Iranian nuclear programme. There has been a lot of progress, but so far nothing has been finalised."

Majid Takht-Ravanchi, an Iranian deputy foreign minister, confirmed in the afternoon that a draft agreement had been drawn up and would be discussed at the crucial meeting involving Ashton, Kerry and Zarif.

"The text is ready and the initial negotiations about this text will be made in this trilateral meeting," Takht-Ravanchi was quoted as saying by the semi-official Mehr news agency.

He added: "We have announced that banking and oil sanctions should also be discussed in the first step."

If that is true, and Iran is insisting on such large-scale sanction relief as part of the first step, it would signal a serious obstacle to agreement. Senior US officials have made it clear they do not think major oil and banking sanctions should be part of an initial confidence-building accord.

Meanwhile, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirmed that its head, Yukiya Amano, would visit Tehran on Monday in an attempt to accelerate parallel long-running talks between Iran and the agency aimed at clearing up allegations about past Iranian nuclear work.

Iran has claimed the allegations are based on forged evidence, but western intelligence claims that until at least 2003 Iran had a large-scale programme to create weapons. The IAEA has frequently complained that the previous Iranian government did not co-operate with its investigation, but agency officials have said since the election of reformist president Hassan Rouhani in June that the situation has improved.

Julian Borger
Saeed Kamali Dehghan

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Council of Europe's draft declaration on internet freedom - full document

Posted: 08 Nov 2013 04:20 PM PST

Declaration by the Council of Europe that could limit the ability of 'security agencies' to gather electronic data

A look beyond the Twitter IPO finds rot beneath the gloss of recovery

Posted: 08 Nov 2013 03:22 PM PST

With a $30bn valuation for an unprofitable company, the economy seems to be improving. This is not the case for all

Heidi Moore

Afghan troop deaths up almost 80% in 2013 fighting season, says Pentagon

Posted: 08 Nov 2013 02:36 PM PST

Report says US and coalition deaths down almost 60% in same period, as reduction in troop numbers continues

The wrong conversation: Britain and Europe | Editorial

Posted: 08 Nov 2013 02:35 PM PST

The Tory preoccupation is a damaging distraction that may cast doubt on their fitness to govern wisely in the national interest

That British politics is enduring a period of public disdain is hardly in doubt – although it is worth noting, in passing, that in a recent poll only one voter in eight actually regards the political system as "completely broken". What to do about rectifying the undoubtedly disturbing level of public unhappiness about politics is more debatable – and ought to be widely debated. In this context, however, there are two contrasting ways of looking at the five hours on Friday that the Commons spent debating amendments to James Wharton's European Union (referendum) bill, which obliges the government to hold an EU referendum by the end of 2017.

One view, passionately held on the Conservative backbenches and in parts of the Tory tribe, is that "giving the people a say" on Britain's membership of the EU is precisely the sort of move that can restore public trust in politics in general, and the Tory party in particular. The alternative view, pithily expressed by Ed Miliband, is that five hours talking about Europe rather than the cost of living is exactly the sort of thing that brings politics into disrepute. It was a display, the Labour leader said, of the Tory party talking to itself about Europe when the real issues facing the country lie elsewhere.

In that particular argument, this newspaper sides with Mr Miliband. The EU referendum is undoubtedly a massive issue for many Tories, principally among those who crave the opportunity to vote No to Europe. It is also a major tactical issue across the party more generally as MPs seek to minimise the Ukip effect in their constituencies in 2014-15. And Europe also has a toxic internal significance as the party begins to contemplate its next leadership election when David Cameron steps down, whenever that happens. Would-be successors are already jockeying to appeal to party activists on Europe as a way of promoting their leadership credentials. That process is likely to continue, whatever the political circumstances.

Most other people, by contrast, rank Europe low on the list of agenda issues. They are entirely logical and right to do so. When set alongside pressing issues such as the economy, fairness, public spending, climate change, the state of the schools and the health service, or even immigration, the EU relationship is simply a less immediately important question, especially when the UK is not part of the eurozone. The Tory party's preoccupation with Europe is a damaging distraction. It is in some ways like the US Republican Tea Party's preoccupation with reducing the size of the federal government – a collective obsession which casts genuine doubt on their fitness to govern wisely in the national interest

This is absolutely not to say that everything in the European garden is rosy. No one across the 28 member states can possibly pretend this is the case. Europe remains economically unequal, with its fragile recovery underscored by the ECB's interest rate reduction this week. It continues to grapple with its financial and governance problems but not resolve them. It struggles to make its weight felt in the world. It needs to deliver better. To that end it needs to be more realistic about priorities, not least in the sobering absence of a new German government and with Euroscepticism on the rise in many countries and likely to be reflected in the European parliament elections next May.

European reform is a necessary task, not a hopeless one. Good political leadership would stress the importance of Britain being engaged in these processes, rather than pretending that withdrawal offers a serious alternative – as Nissan's warnings yesterday underline. Both sides of industry grasp this more clearly than the flag-waving political or media classes do. The Tory party does itself no favours by the way it handles the EU issue. In one sense, that's fine by us. But the Tory party's actions are harming the country, and that is not fine at all.

Editorial

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Kerry: 'we hope to narrow differences' with Iran in nuclear talks – live

Posted: 08 Nov 2013 02:28 PM PST

• Obama calls Netanyahu with update on talks
• Russian foreign minister Lavrov en route to Geneva
• US secretary of state meets with Iranian foreign minister
• Read the latest blog summary

Paul Owen
Tom McCarthy

Best pictures of the day - live

Posted: 08 Nov 2013 02:21 PM PST

The Guardian's photo team brings you a daily round-up from the world of photography

Mee-Lai Stone

White House ambitions on Iran deal face challenge from hawks in Congress

Posted: 08 Nov 2013 02:16 PM PST

Hopes that US will announce short-team deal Iran nuclear plans could be frustrated by bid to impose new sanctions on Tehran

Spencer Ackerman

Philadelphia police probe Instagram account over witness identification

Posted: 08 Nov 2013 02:07 PM PST

Social-media account 'rats215' posted pictures of witnesses to violent crimes as well as court records and testimony

Texas prosecutor to serve 10 days for innocent man's 25-year imprisonment

Posted: 08 Nov 2013 01:40 PM PST

Ken Anderson, former prosecutor and state judge, won the 1987 conviction of Michael Morton for murder despite evidence

SAC Capital pleads guilty to fraud in $1.2bn settlement deal

Posted: 08 Nov 2013 01:38 PM PST

Hedge fund accepts four counts of securities and one count of wire fraud charges as part of insider trading investigation

Steve Cohen's SAC Capital Advisors hedge fund pleaded guilty to fraud charges Friday as part of a $1.2bn deal to resolve a long-running insider trading investigation.

At a court hearing in Manhattan, SAC general counsel Peter Nussbaum entered the guilty plea to four counts of securities and one count of wire fraud charges, a crucial step toward ratification of the fund's record insider trading accord.

US district judge Laura Taylor Swain said she would wait to decide whether to accept SAC's guilty plea until after a pre-sentencing report was filed.

Under the plea agreement SAC reached with prosecutors, the hedge fund has agreed to pay $900 million in penalties to resolve the criminal case unveiled against it in July.

A federal judge on Wednesday signed off on a separate $900m judgment in a civil forfeiture action filed at the same time against SAC.

Under the civil deal, the hedge fund will only have to pay $284m, after getting credit for $616 million in settlements in related insider trading cases by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

SAC has reserved its right to withdraw its plea if Swain does not impose the penalties negotiated with prosecutors.

Swain scheduled the sentencing hearing for March 14.


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Weatherwatch: A drone's eye view of a hurricane

Posted: 08 Nov 2013 01:30 PM PST

Unmanned aircraft can fly longer than their manned counterparts, making them useful for meteorological missions such as Nasa's Hurricane and Severe Storm Sentinel (HS3) program. The agency is using two Global Hawk drones, originally designed for strategic reconnaissance, to fly 30-hour missions at altitudes of over 55,000 feet.

HS3 explores how hurricanes form and change in intensity. In particular it is examining the role of the Saharan Air Layer, a layer of warm, dry air that often overlies cooler air at the surface of the Atlantic. This may have an inhibiting effect on hurricane formation.

Nasa's Global Hawks can fly safely above a hurricane and watch it evolving with an array of instruments. The High-Altitude Imaging Wind and Rain Airborne Profiler radar, and TWiLite, a laser-based device, both measure wind speed from a distance. The Hurricane Imaging Radiometer detects emissions from the sea-foam generated by strong winds to give an indication of conditions at sea level. There's also a lightning-tracker called ADELE, and HAMSR, which measures the temperature and humidity of the air via microwave emissions.

By combining data from all these instruments, Nasa aims to build up an accurate three-dimensional picture of how a storm develops. The Global Hawks will give a more detailed, close-in picture than satellites, and a longer continuous view than manned aircraft. The mission, scheduled to continue through the 2014 hurricane season, should eventually improve our ability to predict the development and intensity of a hurricane before it even forms.

David Hambling

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