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

Japan's Nikkei makes biggest annual gain since 1972 - live
We need to talk about TED | Benjamin Bratton
Second explosion in city of Volgograd - video
Michael Schumacher 'undergoes second operation' after skiing accident
Best theatre of 2013, No 2: Chimerica
Samba machine a welcome boost for people living with HIV in rural Malawi
2014 in film preview: thrillers
2013: the year in music – interactive
Volgograd: many dead in second explosion in Russian city
Japanese 'Snoopy' island created by volcanic eruption
Girl killed and five injured in single-vehicle car crash in Hunter region
Four Al-Jazeera journalists arrested in Egypt for broadcasting 'false news'
WikiLeaks party members reported to have met high-ranking Syrian officials
Thousands of Romanian children stay at home while parents work abroad
Where in the world to invest for a happy new year
Global public water alliance must not be allowed to evaporate
GP co-payments: extend idea to emergency departments, says adviser
Chinese police shoot eight dead in alleged terrorist incident in Xinjiang
Tory activists call to extend restrictions on Romanians and Bulgarians
Antarctic rescue mission: Australian icebreaker forced back by blizzard
FireReady bushfire app sent out false alerts, users complain
Australian Winter Olympics chef de mission confident about athlete safety
Japan confronts mochi rice-cake death-trap with technological solution
16 dead in explosion at Russian station
Harold Simmons, Texas billionaire and influential Republican donor, dies at 82

Japan's Nikkei makes biggest annual gain since 1972 - live

Posted: 30 Dec 2013 01:44 AM PST

The Nikkei hit a fresh six-year high on the last day of trading in 2013, marking a 57% rise over the year

We need to talk about TED | Benjamin Bratton

Posted: 30 Dec 2013 01:30 AM PST

Science, philosophy and technology run on the model of American Idol – as embodied by TED talks – is a recipe for civilisational disaster

In our culture, talking about the future is sometimes a polite way of saying things about the present that would otherwise be rude or risky.

But have you ever wondered why so little of the future promised in TED talks actually happens? So much potential and enthusiasm, and so little actual change. Are the ideas wrong? Or is the idea about what ideas can do all by themselves wrong?

I write about entanglements of technology and culture, how technologies enable the making of certain worlds, and at the same time how culture structures how those technologies will evolve, this way or that. It's where philosophy and design intersect.

So the conceptualization of possibilities is something that I take very seriously. That's why I, and many people, think it's way passed time to take a step back and ask some serious questions about the intellectual viability of things like TED.

So my TED talk is not about my work or my new book – the usual spiel – but about TED itself, what it is and why it doesn't work.

The first reason is over-simplification.

To be clear, I think that having smart people who do very smart things explain what they doing in a way that everyone can understand is a good thing. But TED goes way beyond that.

Let me tell you a story. I was at a presentation that a friend, an astrophysicist, gave to a potential donor. I thought the presentation was lucid and compelling (and I'm a professor of visual arts here at UC San Diego so at the end of the day, I know really nothing about astrophysics). After the talk the sponsor said to him, "you know what, I'm gonna pass because I just don't feel inspired ...you should be more like Malcolm Gladwell."

At this point I kind of lost it. Can you imagine?

Think about it: an actual scientist who produces actual knowledge should be more like a journalist who recycles fake insights! This is beyond popularisation. This is taking something with value and substance and coring it out so that it can be swallowed without chewing. This is not the solution to our most frightening problems – rather this is one of our most frightening problems.

So I ask the question: does TED epitomize a situation where if a scientist's work (or an artist's or philosopher's or activist's or whoever) is told that their work is not worthy of support, because the public doesn't feel good listening to them?

I submit that astrophysics run on the model of American Idol is a recipe for civilizational disaster.

What is TED?

So what is TED exactly?

Perhaps it's the proposition that if we talk about world-changing ideas enough, then the world will change. But this is not true, and that's the second problem.

TED of course stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, and I'll talk a bit about all three. I Think TED actually stands for: middlebrow megachurch infotainment.

The key rhetorical device for TED talks is a combination of epiphany and personal testimony (an "epiphimony" if you like ) through which the speaker shares a personal journey of insight and realisation, its triumphs and tribulations.

What is it that the TED audience hopes to get from this? A vicarious insight, a fleeting moment of wonder, an inkling that maybe it's all going to work out after all? A spiritual buzz?

I'm sorry but this fails to meet the challenges that we are supposedly here to confront. These are complicated and difficult and are not given to tidy just-so solutions. They don't care about anyone's experience of optimism. Given the stakes, making our best and brightest waste their time – and the audience's time – dancing like infomercial hosts is too high a price. It is cynical.

Also, it just doesn't work.

Recently there was a bit of a dust up when TEDGobal sent out a note to TEDx organisers asking them not to not book speakers whose work spans the paranormal, the conspiratorial, new age "quantum neuroenergy", etc: what is called woo. Instead of these placebos, TEDx should instead curate talks that are imaginative but grounded in reality. In fairness, they took some heat, so their gesture should be acknowledged. A lot of people take TED very seriously, and might lend credence to specious ideas if stamped with TED credentials. "No" to placebo science and medicine.

But ... the corollaries of placebo science and placebo medicine are placebo politics and placebo innovation. On this point, TED has a long way to go.

Perhaps the pinnacle of placebo politics and innovation was featured at TEDx San Diego in 2011. You're familiar I assume with Kony2012, the social media campaign to stop war crimes in central Africa? So what happened here? Evangelical surfer bro goes to help kids in Africa. He makes a campy video explaining genocide to the cast of Glee. The world finds his public epiphany to be shallow to the point of self-delusion. The complex geopolitics of central Africa are left undisturbed. Kony's still there. The end.

You see, when inspiration becomes manipulation, inspiration becomes obfuscation. If you are not cynical you should be sceptical. You should be as sceptical of placebo politics as you are placebo medicine.

T and Technology

T – E – D. I'll go through them each quickly.

So first technology ...

We hear that not only is change accelerating but that the pace of change is accelerating as well. While this is true of computational carrying-capacity at a planetary level, at the same time – and in fact the two are connected – we are also in a moment of cultural de-acceleration.

We invest our energy in futuristic information technologies, including our cars, but drive them home to kitsch architecture copied from the 18th century. The future on offer is one in which everything changes, so long as everything stays the same. We'll have Google Glass, but still also business casual.

This timidity is our path to the future? No, this is incredibly conservative, and there is no reason to think that more gigaflops will inoculate us.

Because, if a problem is in fact endemic to a system, then the exponential effects of Moore's law also serve to amplify what's broken. It is more computation along the wrong curve, and I don't it is necessarily a triumph of reason.

Part of my work explores deep technocultural shifts, from post-humanism to the post-anthropocene, but TED's version has too much faith in technology, and not nearly enough commitment to technology. It is placebo technoradicalism, toying with risk so as to reaffirm the comfortable.

So our machines get smarter and we get stupider. But it doesn't have to be like that. Both can be much more intelligent. Another futurism is possible.

E and economics

A better 'E' in TED would stand for economics, and the need for, yes imagining and designing, different systems of valuation, exchange, accounting of transaction externalities, financing of coordinated planning, etc. Because states plus markets, states versus markets, these are insufficient models, and our conversation is stuck in Cold War gear.

Worse is when economics is debated like metaphysics, as if the reality of a system is merely a bad example of the ideal.

Communism in theory is an egalitarian utopia.

Actually existing communism meant ecological devastation, government spying, crappy cars and gulags.

Capitalism in theory is rocket ships, nanomedicine, and Bono saving Africa.

Actually existing capitalism means Walmart jobs, McMansions, people living in the sewers under Las Vegas, Ryan Seacrest … plus – ecological devastation, government spying, crappy public transportation and for-profit prisons.

Our options for change range from basically what we have plus a little more Hayek, to what we have plus a little more Keynes. Why?

The most recent centuries have seen extraordinary accomplishments in improving quality of life. The paradox is that the system we have now –whatever you want to call it – is in the short term what makes the amazing new technologies possible, but in the long run it is also what suppresses their full flowering. Another economic architecture is prerequisite.

D and design

Instead of our designers prototyping the same "change agent for good" projects over and over again, and then wondering why they don't get implemented at scale, perhaps we should resolve that design is not some magic answer. Design matters a lot, but for very different reasons. It's easy to get enthusiastic about design because, like talking about the future, it is more polite than referring to white elephants in the room.

Such as…

Phones, drones and genomes, that's what we do here in San Diego and La Jolla. In addition to the other insanely great things these technologies do, they are the basis of NSA spying, flying robots killing people, and the wholesale privatisation of biological life itself. That's also what we do.

The potential for these technologies are both wonderful and horrifying at the same time, and to make them serve good futures, design as "innovation" just isn't a strong enough idea by itself. We need to talk more about design as "immunisation," actively preventing certain potential "innovations" that we do not want from happening.

And so…

As for one simple take away ... I don't have one simple take away, one magic idea. That's kind of the point. I will say that if and when the key problems facing our species were to be solved, then perhaps many of us in this room would be out of work (and perhaps in jail).

But it's not as though there is a shortage of topics for serious discussion. We need a deeper conversation about the difference between digital cosmopolitanism and cloud feudalism (and toward that, a queer history of computer science and Alan Turing's birthday as holiday!)

I would like new maps of the world, ones not based on settler colonialism, legacy genomes and bronze age myths, but instead on something more … scalable.

TED today is not that.

Problems are not "puzzles" to be solved. That metaphor assumes that all the necessary pieces are already on the table, they just need to be rearranged and reprogrammed. It's not true.

"Innovation" defined as moving the pieces around and adding more processing power is not some Big Idea that will disrupt a broken status quo: that precisely is the broken status quo.

One TED speaker said recently, "If you remove this boundary ... the only boundary left is our imagination". Wrong.

If we really want transformation, we have to slog through the hard stuff (history, economics, philosophy, art, ambiguities, contradictions). Bracketing it off to the side to focus just on technology, or just on innovation, actually prevents transformation.

Instead of dumbing-down the future, we need to raise the level of general understanding to the level of complexity of the systems in which we are embedded and which are embedded in us. This is not about "personal stories of inspiration", it's about the difficult and uncertain work of demystification and reconceptualisation: the hard stuff that really changes how we think. More Copernicus, less Tony Robbins.

At a societal level, the bottom line is if we invest in things that make us feel good but which don't work, and don't invest in things that don't make us feel good but which may solve problems, then our fate is that it will just get harder to feel good about not solving problems.

In this case the placebo is worse than ineffective, it's harmful. It's diverts your interest, enthusiasm and outrage until it's absorbed into this black hole of affectation.

Keep calm and carry on "innovating" ... is that the real message of TED? To me that's not inspirational, it's cynical.

In the US the rightwing has certain media channels that allow it to bracket reality ... other constituencies have TED.

• This article first appeared on Benjamin Bratton's website and is republished with permission. It is the text of a talk given at TEDx San Diego

Benjamin Bratton

Second explosion in city of Volgograd - video

Posted: 30 Dec 2013 01:10 AM PST

At least 14 people have been killed and 23 injured in a suspected suicide bombing on a trolleybus in the Russian city of Volgograd

Michael Schumacher 'undergoes second operation' after skiing accident

Posted: 30 Dec 2013 01:08 AM PST

Former F1 world champion is fighting for his life in hospital after accident in French Alps on Sunday

Michael Schumacher has undergone a second operation following a skiing accident in the French Alps, German and French media have reported.

French doctors in Grenoble will give an update on the condition of the Formula One legend at 10am on Monday.

Schumacher, 44, was airlifted to Grenoble after falling heavily and hitting his head while skiing on the unmarked slope at the Méribel resort with friends and his 14-year-old son.

Overnight, various reports in the French and German media have claimed that Schumacher had been operated on twice after suffering a brain haemorrhage and had been put into a 48-hour artificial coma.

The hospital issued a statement on Sunday night describing his state as "critical". He was in a coma on arrival at the hospital suffering from "severe brain trauma" and had undergone surgery, the statement said. French media reports said that Schumacher, whose family is at his bedside, had also had a brain haemorrhage.

A top brain surgeon from Paris, Gérard Saillant, rushed to the hospital to attend to the former grand prix driver. Saillant, an expert in brain and spine injury, is a close friend of Schumacher, having operated on him when he broke his leg at Silverstone in 1999.

A skier with Schumacher's group raised the alarm within minutes of the accident, which occurred just after 11am in bright and sunny weather. "The skier alerted mountain rescue just a few hundred metres below where he fell," said the director of Méribel Alpina, Olivier Simonin, in charge of security and skilifts at the site.

Two rescuers arrived quickly and called in two others to help evacuate Schumacher who had been wearing a helmet. Schumacher remained conscious after the fall and was initially helicoptered to the nearest hospital at Moûtiers. But doctors had then him flown to Grenoble, which has a specialised trauma unit.

Simonin said it was not known whether Schumacher hit his head on a rock. "All we know is that he hit his head," he said.

The hospital announcement was the first since a terse statement in the afternoon released by Schumacher's manager, Sabine Kehm. She confirmed the accident and said that nobody else was involved in the fall.

"Michael fell on his head when he was on a private skiing trip in the French Alps. He was taken to hospital and is receiving professional medical attention. We ask for understanding that we cannot give out continuous information about his health," the statement said.

Méribel director Christophe Gernignon-Lecomte had earlier described Schumacher as being "in shock, somewhat shaken, but conscious" when the emergency rescue team reached him. He also said Schumacher's head injury was "not serious", but a resort spokesman said later that Méribel officials were waiting for a more comprehensive medical report.

Gernigon-Lecomte said Schumacher owned a chalet in the valley and knew the resort and the pistes of Méribel well. "It was something habitual for him," he said.

Messages of support for Schumacher have been pouring in since the gravity of his condition became apparent last night.

Fellow racing driver Romain Grosjean wrote on Twitter: "All our thoughts to Schumi and his family! Hope you will recover soon." . Felipe Massa put a picture himself hugging the seven-time F1 champion on Instagram: "I am praying for you my brother!! I hope you have a quick recovery!! God bless you Michael."

Jenson Button tweeted: "My thoughts are with Michael Schumacher at this tough time. Michael more than anyone has the strength to pull through this."

Tennis legend Boris Becker, football star Lukas Podolski, tennis player Sabine Lisicki , Dallas Mavericks' German basketball forward Dirk Nowitzki and cricketer Michael Vaughan were among the many athletes who also expressed their support.

German media have been mostly careful not to speculate on Schumaher's condition. One article in Die Welt speculated that the F1 driver may have misjudged the situation because he was racing his own son, but was criticised on social media by many, including fellow German driver Nick Heidfeld .

Several newspapers have reminded readers of Schumacher's lucky escapes in the past. Schumacher's first title-winning season was marked by the tragic death of Ayrton Senna, but the German often got away with near misses. He survived crashes unscathed in 1995 and 1998. In 2001, Schumacher broke his lower leg during a training accident in 2001. In February 2009 he had to postpone his comeback after a motorcycle crash, in which he fractured his skull.

Felix Gorner, a racing reporter from RTL television channel, said that the latest accident could only be understood within the context of Schumacher's history as a F1 driver. "He wanted the adrenaline rush, he needed to test his own limits", he said, pointing out that the other hobbies Schumacher had taken up included motorbike racing and skydiving. His former manager Willi Weber had described Schumacher as an "adrenaline junkie".

French media initially said on Monday that the sportsman's cranial trauma was not life-threatening. However, by early evening, that prognosis changed. Some French fans of Schumacher gathered in the afternoon outside the hospital, as they waited in vain for news. Olivier Panis, a former Formula One driver from Grenoble, came to the hospital twice during the day but was unable to see the German driver.

When he fell, Schumacher was skiing close to one of the chic resort's most difficult pistes in the Three ValleysHe was skiing off-piste between the pistes La Biche and the more difficult runs of Mauduit, named after the former French skiing champion George Mauduit. The slope, devoid of trees, where he and his son were skiing, is at an altitude of 2,100 metres, close to the luxury resort of Courchevel. The pair were about 20 metres away from the marked slope when Schumacher tumbled, according to Simonin.

Anne Penketh

Philip Oltermann

Best theatre of 2013, No 2: Chimerica

Posted: 30 Dec 2013 01:00 AM PST

Michael Billington: Lucy Kirkwood's thrillingly ambitious play tackled global politics, multinational corporations and was bursting with big ideas

Michael Billington

Samba machine a welcome boost for people living with HIV in rural Malawi

Posted: 30 Dec 2013 01:00 AM PST

A machine that makes viral load testing quicker and easier has improved life for HIV patients in a remote rural area of Malawi

Mercy Banda looks away as a blood sample is taken from her arm. Banda, 33, is HIV positive and is having her viral load tested at the Namitambo health clinic in Chiradzulu, southern Malawi. She should know the results in a couple of hours. In the past, when blood samples were sent away to the district hospital about 40km away – or even to Blantyre, Malawi's commercial centre – it would have taken more than a month. That's if the sample wasn't lost on the way to the hospital, or in the health facility, which would conduct hundreds of tests every week.

But that was before the arrival of a simple amplification-based assay (Samba) machine. Developed by the University of Cambridge to offer viral load testing, CD4 counts and early infant diagnosis, the device should improve HIV services for the population in this poor, rural community.

The Samba machine was developed by Dr Helen Lee, research director of the diagnostics development unit at Cambridge's department of haematology. It is manufactured by Diagnostics for the Real World, a spinout company based in California, set up by Lee. Field trials took place in Malawi and Uganda last year in collaboration with the NGO Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), which is implementing a three-year project to test new ways of treating HIV in remote settings, funded by the global health initiative Unitaid.

Namitambo received its machine in August. "The Samba machine makes the job easier," says Jeffrey Golozeria, a nurse at the centre, which has more than 5,000 patients living with HIV on its books. "Previously we were sending viral loads to Blantyre, which could take a minimum of a month, but sometimes three months before we got the results."

The World Health Organisation (WHO) says viral load testing – which detects the level of the HIV virus in the blood – is the best way to monitor the affects of antiretroviral treatment. Regular tests, which are recommended by the WHO, allow health workers to check people are taking their tablets and, crucially, to see if they are working. High viral load levels suggest they may not be, and an assessment can be made as to whether the patient needs to switch drugs. But viral load testing is expensive, and its use in remote areas is limited and time-consuming since tests have traditionally been conducted in hospital laboratories.

Staff at Namitambo believe the Samba machine, which they say is quick and simple to use, could change that. Preparation of the blood sample is conducted in one part of the machine, while amplification and detection is performed in another, using a closed disposable cartridge that avoids contamination and contains all the necessary reagents. The cartridges do not need to be stored in a fridge, which are rare in rural centres, and stay fresh for about a year. Up to four samples can run simultaneously in the Samba, and an average of 12 samples are tested each day at a cost of about $17 (£10) each (compared with upwards of $25 in other settings).

The machine uses electricity, but batteries lasting up to eight hours are set to switch on automatically if the power goes off.

Chiradzulu is the first district in Malawi to receive Samba machines. There are two in the district, but plans are in place to install a machine in seven other health centres in the region. Unitaid has given an $8m grant to Diagnostics for the Real World to speed up manufacturing and get the machines out on the market.

A Samba 2 machine is now being developed and could be rolled out next year. It should be even simpler to use. "It's good to have Samba machines in rural areas like this," says Golozeria. "It's better for patients."

Liz Ford

2014 in film preview: thrillers

Posted: 30 Dec 2013 01:00 AM PST

Thrills, spills and - hopefully - not too much bellyaching about our pick of 2014's upcoming thrillers

• 2014 preview: comedy
• 2014 preview: Oscar hopefuls
• 2014 preview: science fiction
• 2014 preview: romance
• 2014 preview: drama

Monuments Men

George Clooney gets the gang (Matt Damon, John Goodman, Bill Murray) back together for the greatest of capers - protecting works of art from the Nazis. Based loosely on Robert Edsel's book about the real life Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives programme, the trailer suggests the director/star has gone all Boys' Own on this one. Funny old gang of recruits mind - we can buy Clooney and Damon as rogues on a mission, but Murray and Goodman look more Dad's Army than Dirty Dozen. January 1

Gone Girl

Gillian Flynn's best-seller gets a big-screen adaptation. Ben Affleck plays Nick Dunne, a struggling journalist implicated in the disappearance of his wife (Rosamund Pike), who went missing on the day of their fifth wedding anniversary. Set in recession-hit small town America, Gone Girl is a mystery of grit and steel. It'll need someone experienced in delivering black-hearted thrillers to direct. Step forward Mr. David Fincher. 3 October (US)

Bypass

George McKay (How I Live Now, Sunshine on Leith, For Those in Peril) stars in a north-east set thriller from writer/director Duane Hopkins. Hopkins - whose first film, Better Things, was shortlisted for the Guardian's first film award in 2009 - has kept plot details quiet, but early word on the film has it as an exploration of how easy it is to maintain your morality when times get tough. From the look of recent production stills (grim pedestrian subways, dank council estates, McKay looking haunted): really not that easy. TBC

Sabotage

David Ayer - director of End of Watch, writer of Training Day - plonks Arnie in a police procedural. The Governator plays DEA agent John "Breacher" Wharton, the head of an elite squad of supercops who are picked off by one-by-one after dipping into the proceeds of a multi-million drug bust. The cast is full of rough and tough - Sam Worthington, Terrence Howard and Josh Holloway are among the crooked coppers. Ayer's getting good at mixing the macho with the meaningful. Think The Expendables, with an extra brain cell or two. April 11

Fury

Ayer again, this time with Brad Pitt in a tank in the middle of world war II. Pitt plays "Wardaddy", commander of the eponymous Sherman tank, who runs into a spot of bother when he and his crew are left outnumbered and outgunned behind enemy lines. The film faced a real-world battle when residents of Shirburn in Oxfordshire were faced with the sight of actors dressed as Nazi officers fighting on Rememberance Sunday. Shirburn grumbled, Ayer apologised, the tanks rolled on. November 14

Unbroken

Angelina Jolie's biopic of champion runner and world war II hero Louis Zamperini, who competed in the 1936 Olympics before enlisting in the air force, being shot down over Oahu, surviving on albatross and small fish for 47 days, then being taken as a prisoner of war by the Japanese after finally reaching land. Rising star Jack O'Connell (Starred Up, United, This is England) plays Zamperini, Domhnall Gleeson and Garrett Hedlund are his shipmates in an adventure scripted by the Coen brothers. Could well drift towards Oscars in 2015. December 25

A Most Wanted Man

A stellar cast (Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Rachel McAdams, Robin Wright) lead out the latest John le Carré adaptation. The book swings on the arrival of a Chechen refugee in Germany, who claims to hold the key to a large fortune in a foreign bank. Director Tomas Alfredson took Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy from book to film in grim, determined style. Anton Corbijn, the man behind Control and The American, will shoulder the pressure of creating a similarly rich world for Le Carré's parable on extraordinary rendition and Bush-era anti-terrorism. January 19

I, Frankenstein

Take a chunk of Mary Shelley, a pinch of Boris Karloff, then stitch on some Arnold Schwarzenegger-style antics and CGI devils. Then, oh the horror, out comes I, Frankenstein. This fantasy action romp casts Araon Eckhart as Frankenstein's monster (here christened Adam), battling the denizens of the underworld who want to harness his power and raise up the dead. Bill Nighy plays the king of the demons; Miranda Otto the gargoyle queen. "The story is an extrapolation of what Mary Shelley did" explains writer Kevin Grevioux, lest there be any doubt. January 29

Need for Speed

Can intrepid Aaron Paul outrun the long shadow of Breaking Bad and become a fully fledged movie star in his own right? That's the implicit, behind-the-scenes set-up of Need For Speed, based on a series of video games and flashing its lights at the existential American road movies of the early 1970s. Paul - best known for his role as Walter White's meth-head soux-chef on the award-winning TV series - stars as an angel of vengeance racing cross-country to right some wrongs. Imogen Poots and Dominic Cooper go along for the ride. March 14

Before I Go To Sleep

If you're in the market for a refined, British riff on Christopher Nolan's Memento, Before I Go To Sleep may just fit the bill. Adapted from the 2011 bestseller by SJ Watson, this stars Nicole Kidman as Christine, a forty-something amnesiac desperately attempting to piece together the jigsaw of her life with the help of Mark Strong's shadowy doctor. Director Rowan Joffe is our guide through the tale's dark pockets, while the supporting cast finds room for Colin Firth and Anne-Marie Duff. Spring 2014

2013: the year in music – interactive

Posted: 30 Dec 2013 01:00 AM PST

It's been another dramatic year in music – and here you can relive some of the year's biggest stories. Just click on a month to discover what was happening …

Paddy Allen

Karin Andreasson

Volgograd: many dead in second explosion in Russian city

Posted: 30 Dec 2013 12:47 AM PST

At least 14 people killed in trolleybus explosion, the day after 17 died in another suicide attack at the city's railway station

Leonid Ragozin

Japanese 'Snoopy' island created by volcanic eruption

Posted: 30 Dec 2013 12:40 AM PST

Publication of aerial photos of Nishinoshima and its new addition prompt comparisons to cartoon dog

A volcanic eruption in Japan would usually have people living nearby reaching for their protective masks. But the recent formation of an island off the country's Pacific coast, after weeks of volcanic activity, has prompted more enchantment than fear at nature's volatility.

In the weeks since it rose from the sea 620 miles (1,000km) south of Tokyo, the island expanded amid continued volcanic activity, before merging with an existing island to create a new landmass with a remarkable resemblance to a cartoon dog – Snoopy.

The publication of aerial photos of Nishinoshima island and its new addition prompted an outpouring of delight online.

The Kotaku blog noted that @tekken8810, one of many Twitter users who posted visual comparisons, called the island and its canine likeness a "complete match".

User @etienneeshrdlu joked: "Exactly as Nostradamus predicted. A new Snoopy-shaped island rises from the sea near Tokyo," while @astralpouch declared: "Holy crap … Snoopy island … I don't care what they say I'm going over there."

Henceforth, the Japan-based Twitter-sphere deemed, the as-yet officially unnamed landmass would be known as Snoopy island.

Some speculated how long it would be before China claimed sovereignty over the island – a reference to a longstanding dispute over ownership of the Senkaku islands in the East China Sea.

Though meant as a joke, the comments did not entirely miss the mark: Japan plans to build port facilities and transplant fast-growing coral fragments onto Okinotorishima, a pair of tropical islets located even farther south of Tokyo in a resource-rich area of ocean coveted by China.

And Japan's chief government spokesman, Yoshihide Suga, welcomed the prospect that Japan's borders could stretch, if only by a few hundred metres. "If it becomes an island, our country's territorial waters will expand," he told reporters after the island was discovered last month.

By Christmas Eve, the island had expanded to about eight times its size when it was discovered, according to studies by Prof Fukashi Maeno of Tokyo University's earthquake research institute.

A massive undersea volcanic eruption had resulted in the new island linking with Nishinoshima at its two southern corners. In between sits of a pool of reddish seawater – Snoopy's perfectly positioned collar.

Experts said that volcano remains highly active, as red magma continued to rise, raising the possibility that it will lose its endearing shape as it expands.

Uncertainty surrounds the long-term future of the new island, which for now forms part of the Ogasawara chain, also known as the Bonin islands, that are administered by Tokyo despite their distance from the Japanese capital.

Hiroshi Ito, a volcanologist with the Japanese coastguard, said the island could erode after the eruptions cease. "But it could also remain permanently," he told the FNN news network.

The last recorded volcanic eruption in the area occurred in 1974, according to the meteorological agency. Much of the volcanic activity happens under the sea, which is thousands of metres deep at the site of the Izu-Ogasawara-Marianas Trench.

No doubt aware of the media buzz surrounding Snoopy island, Japan's coastguard warned that the area was still very dangerous and told would-be tourists to stay away.

Justin McCurry

Girl killed and five injured in single-vehicle car crash in Hunter region

Posted: 30 Dec 2013 12:02 AM PST

Another young girl with a serious head injury airlifted to hospital in Sydney, police say

Four Al-Jazeera journalists arrested in Egypt for broadcasting 'false news'

Posted: 30 Dec 2013 12:02 AM PST

Egyptian police have arrested four Al-Jazeera journalists, including the TV network's Cairo bureau chief, Mohamed Fadel Fahmy, and a former BBC correspondent, Peter Greste.

The interior ministry accused the journalists of holding "illegal meetings" with the banned Muslim Brotherhood, which was declared last week to be a terrorist organisation.

The military-backed interim government has launched a crackdown on the movement ever since the army ousted the Brotherhood-backed president, Mohammed Morsi, from power in July.

An interior ministry statement accused the journalists of broadcasting "false news" that was "damaging to national security". It said that cameras, recordings and other material had been seized from rooms at a Cairo hotel.

The journalists were said to possess materials that promoted "incitement", such as information about campus strikes by students who support the Brotherhood.

The two other arrested Al-Jazeera staff were identified by the network as Baher Mohamed and cameraman Mohamed Fawzy. All four have been in custody since Sunday evening.

Greste, an Australian, is an experienced foreign correspondent who previously worked for Reuters, CNN and the BBC. He won a Peabody Award in 2012 for a BBC Panorama documentary on Somalia.

Egypt's media have been under pressure since Morsi's overthrow. Several Islamist channels were closed down in the summer and their journalists were temporarily detained.

Sources: BBC/New York Times/Al-Jazeera

Roy Greenslade

WikiLeaks party members reported to have met high-ranking Syrian officials

Posted: 29 Dec 2013 11:40 PM PST

Photo on Twitter appears to show delegates with president Bashar al-Assad as part of 'peace and reconciliation' trip

Oliver Milman

Thousands of Romanian children stay at home while parents work abroad

Posted: 29 Dec 2013 11:01 PM PST

Romanian government says 80,000 families have both parents working abroad, raising questions about impact of EU migration

Tens of thousands of Romanian children are growing up parentless because their mothers and fathers are working abroad, according to new figures which raise questions about the extent and impact of large-scale migration on the eve of new EU rules governing Bulgarians and Romanians.

According to the Romanian ministry of labour, family and social protection, there are now more than 80,000 families in Romania in which both parents are working abroad while their child or children stay at home, with 35,000 more families in which one parent is overseas.

Those are just the official numbers; few parents inform the authorities about their intention to go abroad and many believe the real number could be significantly higher.

"This is a big issue for Romania," said Stefan Darabus, Romania director for the international NGO Hopes and Homes for Children, which runs programmes in the rural north of Romania to help children left behind by their parents. "In the cities and countryside, poverty and job opportunities take these parents overseas, but the children left behind are strongly affected by their absence."

"Those who grow up without the love or security of their parents are going to be negatively affected later in life," he added. In the southern Bucharest neighbourhood of Ferentari, one of the poorest areas of the Romanian capital, around two dozen young children sit in a classroom during lunch, colouring in pictures of fruit bowls and playing while a teacher looks on.

The children vary in age from five to 10 years old, but they all have something in common: they all have one or both parents overseas.

Cristina, one of the children, says her mother is in Spain looking for work. She has been gone a month this time already, but in the past she has been away much longer, she says. Her father is no longer in the picture. "Mum doesn't want to stay away long. She just went there to make money for me and my sister," said Cristina, a nine-year-old who lives with her grandmother when her mother is away. Many find themselves missing regular emotional or physical support as they grow.

"These children are in a very vulnerable situation, being deprived of their parents' affection, care and support," said Andreea Biji, a psychologist who works for Save the Children, which runs the classroom-based programme in Ferentari as well as programmes in 15 counties across the country.

Some Romanian parents have taken their children overseas with them, but for many this is not an option. "In France my husband earns €600 to €700 a month, which is a lot over here but not much over there," said Vasile Luminita, a 28-year-old mother of five whose husband has been working on a construction site in France for the last 18 months. "It is hard. Many times we have considered all moving but he stays in a very small room and sends the money back to give us a better life in Romania."

Luminita says the separation is hardest on her older children. "They understand the situation but it is hard for them always to see their father leaving," she said, cradling her two-month-old son, who has yet to see his father.

For some children in Romania growing up without their parents in their daily lives has come to seem normal.

Fourteen-year-old Amira Dumitru's mother left Romania when she was 11 months old to find work overseas. She now lives in Jordan and returns once a year to spend time with her daughters.

"I don't find it strange to grow up without parents [Dumitru's parents divorced before she was born, and her father lives elsewhere in Bucharest] – in my class alone there are three or four others like me," said Dumitru, sitting in the apartment she shares with her grandmother in the suburbs of Bucharest.

Dumitru says she is lucky, in that her grandmother raised her and her sister well and makes sure she gets good grades at school. When she is at the homes of friends who have both parents present she feels she is missing out on something, although she says she is not sure exactly what it is.

In recent years the Romanian government has tried to push through changes to better manage the situation of children left behind, especially those in more unstable environments. "Things have become better – there are now daycare centres where kids can be looked after and other support services," said Nicolae Gorunescu, the executive manager for the government child protection agency in Bucharest's District 6.

He said the government had recently introduced a law whereby parents not only had to register before going overseas to work but a judge had to approve of the chosen guardians. "The problem is a lot still don't tell the authorities that they are leaving. We have seen cases of teenagers being taken in by social services because they are fending for themselves, with just a few hundred euros sent home by their parents," he added.

Kit Gillet

Where in the world to invest for a happy new year

Posted: 29 Dec 2013 11:01 PM PST

Opinions vary, but the economic forecast for 2014 is generally optimistic. We asks the experts for tips on the growth areas

The start of the new year is a time to focus on making a few changes in your life. And for savvy investors that should mean an opportunity to rejig your portfolio. The past year has been good for stock markets, with the FTSE 100 rising by 15%; the wider FTSE All-Share going up by 17%; and the US S&P 500 soaring by 27%. Predicting how markets will perform in 2014 is difficult. "But there are plenty of optimists who believe further gains can be made by picking the most promising regions as economic recovery takes hold," says Adrian Lowcock from financial adviser Hargreaves Lansdown. Here are some expert tips.

The UK

Most analysts and fund managers believe there is still potential to make money from UK shares as economic conditions improve. Some are even predicting that the FTSE 100 will hit a new all-time high in 2014, surpassing the 6950 it reached at the height of the dotcom boom in December 1999.

Guy Foster from stockbrokers Brewin Dolphin forecasts that the FTSE 100 will reach 7400 by the end of 2014. Capital Economics, meanwhile, says that the FTSE 100 could hit 7200, while analysts at Citigroup expect the index to reach 8000 next year as fears about a break-up of the eurozone recede while conditions for companies improve. However, not all experts share this optimism.

Jason Hollands from investment adviser Bestinvest sounds a note of caution. "Household debt has been rocketing while the amount people are saving has slumped against a backdrop of ultra-low interest rates," he says. "Even a small rise in interest rates could prove a shock for the economy and the market." Brian Dennehy of FundExpert.co.uk adds: "If the over-valued US stock market slumps it could bring most, if not all, global markets down with it. Also, if bond markets end a 30-year bull run, then all markets could take fright."

To spread risk you could invest through a pooled fund holding a variety of UK shares and sectors. Hollands recommends Liontrust Special Situations, which invests across a range of small, medium-sized and large companies, while Patrick Connolly from financial advisers Chase de Vere favours Cazenove UK Opportunities, Investec UK Special Situations and Rathbone Income.

Europe

Europe is the region most widely tipped to outperform in 2014, according to a survey by the Association of Investment Companies, despite it including plenty of out-of-favour countries such as Greece and Ireland. "All of the negative sentiment surrounding the eurozone doesn't change the fact that many of its companies are performing well, making profits and have large amounts of cash on their balance sheets," says Connolly.

He adds that 50% of European company revenue comes from outside of Europe. Lockcock says: "As the fear of euro-collapse recedes, European fund managers have been increasingly turning towards companies which are more likely to benefit from a recovery in Europe."

However, Connolly warns that European shares are the most vulnerable to shocks in the global economic recovery, and a huge debt burden remains. If you want to take a punt on Europe in 2014, Mike Green, Investment Service Manager at Cavendish Online, says a good pick is Ignis European Smaller Companies. "This has performed consistently well," he says. Meanwhile Lowcock likes Threadneedle European Select and Henderson European Special Situations.

Emerging markets

Some emerging markets could stage a comeback, say experts. Thomas Becket, chief investment officer at PSigma investment managers, points towards China as offering opportunity for investors next year, as it is "under-valued, under-appreciated and under-owned".

India is the favourite for Dennehy. "There is an election next year, and a sense that a pro-business government might take power, a unique positive.

"Also, the new boss of their central bank has pleasantly surprised observers with an outline of much-needed reforms, and India has a huge youthful population which can spur economic growth over the long term."

Edward Bland, director and head of research at Duncan Lawrie Private Bank, also picks India for 2014. "It will be a very interesting year that could potentially set the course for the next decade," he says.

However, Darius McDermott, from execution-only brokers Chelsea Financial Services, favours Brazil, believing it could benefit from hosting the World Cup. "The feelgood factor may lift both spirits and the market in the short term," he says.

Investors should see all emerging markets as a long-term growth story rather than offering potential for swift gains, stresses Kerry Craig, global market strategist at JP Morgan Asset Management. "The next year might still be rocky for many of these economies, but there is no denying their importance in global growth," he says.

To spread your bets among different emerging market economies you could opt for a fund such as Schroder Global Emerging Markets or JP Morgan Emerging Markets, says Connolly.

Japan

Its market stormed ahead in 2013 and many experts believe it will continue to thrive. Last month marked the first anniversary of Shinzo Abe's election as prime minister, and it was his economic recovery plan, dubbed Abenomics, that put Japanese shares among the best performers over the past year.

However, shares remain about 50% below their peak in December 1989, suggesting there is further room for growth. Becket says: "Next year we think it could be the year of the Asian equity; a continuation of Japan's stock market renaissance.

"You almost certainly won't get the fireworks that we enjoyed in 2013, but there is absolutely no reason that markets can't appreciate by a further 15%." McDermott also favours Japan and likes GLG Japan Core Alpha, while Becket likes Lazard Strategic Japanese Equity.

Harriet Meyer

Global public water alliance must not be allowed to evaporate

Posted: 29 Dec 2013 11:01 PM PST

A UN-founded organisation devoted to defending public water services needs to resolve internal tensions if it is to stay afloat

Over the past 30 years, there has been an almost religious commitment to the privatisation of water on the part of the World Bank, international donors, and many UN agencies. Millions are spent each year by these institutions on pro-privatisation conferences, workshops and publications, not to mention loans and grants to make it happen.

It is refreshing, therefore, to know that there is at least one UN institution committed to improving public water provision. Founded by UN-Habitat in 2009, the Global Water Operators' Partnerships Alliance (Gwopa) is a platform for bringing together public water operators from around the world.

The agency's mandate is to build public sector capacity, while at the same time creating "solidarity, learning, friendship, cultural experience, career development and integrity" across municipalities and countries. Many innovative north-south and south-south linkages have emerged, and public water is better off because of it.

Participation in Gwopa is also open to organised labour, NGOs, community groups and academics, as evidenced at the agency's second congress, which took place last month in Barcelona.

This is a small, pro-public ship on a rough, pro-private ocean, but it is an important institution that has the potential to create meaningful networks, conduct critical research, and build links between governments, unions and communities.

These kinds of "public-public partnerships" are not new, of course. They've been happening on their own for decades. Nor are they the only interesting trends taking place in efforts to retain, reclaim and reimagine public water. From grassroots struggles to rebuild traditional water systems in rural Mexico to worker co-ops in Bangladesh to the remunicipalisation of water services in Paris, the shift (back) to public water systems is gaining global momentum.

And no wonder. Research has shown that public water can outperform private companies even on their own narrow financial terms, not to mention doing a better job with equity, participation and public education. No public service will ever be perfect, but there is growing understanding of what makes public water work, how we might make it better, and the variety of ways of getting there.

As a UN institution, Gwopa is uniquely placed to advance this agenda and help break down the geopolitical barriers that can make it difficult for public utilities to work with each other across borders. For this reason alone, it is an institution worth fighting for.

Gwopa has its internal tensions, however. From the outset, the association has been open to private water companies, represented by Aquafed, a federation of the largest water multinationals in the world. Gérard Payen, former CEO of Suez's water division, represents this group at Gwopa, and was recently reappointed to the steering committee for another four years.

Gwopa documentation also talks about the need for "commercially viable" water services and tends to use the same narrow financial performance indicators as private companies, encouraging market-based operating principles.

The agencies that fund Gwopa appear to reinforce these trends, with one senior aid representative at the Barcelona congress suggesting she "does not care if the water providers [involved in the alliance] are public or private, as long as they get the job done".

There is also creeping commercialisation evident in some of the public water utilities working within Gwopa, many of which think and operate like private companies (for example by seeking private contracts outside their own country). This serves to blur the lines between public and private.

These are not insignificant strains. Gwopa must decide what it means by "public water" and how it wants to evaluate successful public performance. It must be open to critical self-reflection and offer water providers something other than run-of-the-mill rhetoric about the need for more market-oriented management.

Public water is different to private water, and Gwopa must figure out where it stands on this debate if it is to make an innovative contribution to water policy and practice.

Ultimately, the vast majority of the world's water systems remain in public hands, and many more are being put back into government hands. What we really need is 20 Gwopas to engage with this reality; for now, one effective one will do.

• David McDonald is co-director of the municipal services project, and professor of global development studies at Queen's University in Canada.

GP co-payments: extend idea to emergency departments, says adviser

Posted: 29 Dec 2013 11:00 PM PST

Rolling out pay-per-visit idea would 'send a price signal to people', Abbott's former health adviser

Daniel Hurst

Chinese police shoot eight dead in alleged terrorist incident in Xinjiang

Posted: 29 Dec 2013 10:43 PM PST

Latest outburst of unrest in troubled western province where Chinese authorities say Islamic militants are active

Tory activists call to extend restrictions on Romanians and Bulgarians

Posted: 29 Dec 2013 10:17 PM PST

Conservative grassroots writes open letter to David Cameron arguing UK is in "exceptional economic circumstances"

Antarctic rescue mission: Australian icebreaker forced back by blizzard

Posted: 29 Dec 2013 09:57 PM PST

Aurora Australis reached as close as 10 nautical miles from trapped ship Akademik Shokalskiy before returning to open waters because of poor visibility

FireReady bushfire app sent out false alerts, users complain

Posted: 29 Dec 2013 09:39 PM PST

Spokesman for state's fire commissioner blames problems on an old version of the $3m smartphone program

Oliver Milman

Australian Winter Olympics chef de mission confident about athlete safety

Posted: 29 Dec 2013 09:06 PM PST

‘We've been given assurances from the highest levels of the Russian government that the security will be very tight,’ says Ian Chesterman

Japan confronts mochi rice-cake death-trap with technological solution

Posted: 29 Dec 2013 08:59 PM PST

Safer recipe promised for traditional mochi, which take several lives each year after the glutinous cakes get stuck in the throats of elderly people

Justin McCurry

16 dead in explosion at Russian station

Posted: 29 Dec 2013 07:57 PM PST

Conflicting reports over identity of bomber after blast rips through Russian building, leaving at least 16 people dead

Sixteen people were killed and another 50 injured after a suicide bombing at a railway station in the southern Russian city of Volgograd that highlighted the region's security vulnerability just six weeks before the Winter Olympics.

The blast ripped through an area between the station entrance and metal frames that had been installed as a precaution against terror attacks.

There were conflicting reports on the identity of the perpetrator: the authorities first indicated that a young woman from the Caucasus may have been responsible, as in previous attacks in Russia over the past decade. But latterly, news agencies reported that it was a man wearing a rucksack who was behind the attack, though he may not have been acting alone.

CCTV video showed a bright flash of light inside the station as the camera, located several hundred metres across the square, shook from the impact. A cloud of smoke emerged seconds later. Pictures on social networks show people trying to help the injured lying on the ice-covered ground in front of the Stalin-era building, its windows smashed by the blast.

Among the fatalities was a 12-year-old boy, whose father survived but lost a leg. Another boy, aged 11, was later reported dead.

Witnesses reported seeing many corpses near the entrance. "I heard the blast and ran towards it," a witness, Vladimir, told Rossiya-24. "I saw melted, twisted bits of metal, broken glass and bodies lying on the street."

According to the latest figures on Sunday night, 37 people were still in hospital, five in a very serious condition.

The emergencies ministry sent specially equipped aircraft to take those with the worst injuries to Moscow hospitals, where they could get better treatment.

Vladimir Putin expressed his condolences and sent a deputy prime minister, Olga Golodets, to the scene. The Russian president also ordered law enforcement agencies to take all necessary measures to ensure security. A federal police spokesman, Vladimir Kolesnikov, said security would be stepped up at rail stations and airports.

Earlier a statement by the Russian national anti-terrorist committee said the explosion was presumed to have been caused by a female suicide bomber, amid reports that the attacker's head had been retrieved. One report identified the perpetrator as a Dagestani woman by the name of Oksana Aslanova, widow of a militant.

A criminal case has been launched under the terrorism and illegal handling of weapons clauses of the Russian criminal code.

Russian media reports, quoting law-enforcement sources, said that the explosion happened after a police officer tried to stop a suspicious young woman near security gates installed to prevent guns and explosives being taken inside the station. Security officials expressed hope that the bomber would be soon identified.

Soldiers found an unexploded grenade at the scene, Vladimir Markin, an investigative committee spokesman, told the news agency RIA. He said the metal frames installed at the entrances of all Russian railway stations and airports – a security measure often ridiculed in the Russian media – had prevented more casualties. A train was due to arrive from Moscow half an hour after the explosion took place.

Volgograd, formerly Stalingrad, is a railway hub on the route connecting European Russia with central Asia. It acts as a gateway to the Caucasus, and is 600 miles from Sochi, the Black Sea city where the Olympics are scheduled to start on 7 February. Russian authorities have insisted there will be no security threats to the event, despite the city lying just west of the restive North Caucasus region. In July Doku Umarov, leader of the remaining Chechen jihadist groups, warned that militants would try to sabotage the Games.

A Russian security expert, Andrey Soldatov, said the attack showed militants operating in the North Caucasus region had "the capability and enough people to stage bombing attacks" on the eve of the Sochi Olympics. "The symbolism is in the fact that the militants are capable of staging attacks beyond the North Caucasus. The tactical significance is that security forces will now have to divert their attention from Sochi to other regions of Russia."

It was unlikely that the Kremlin would need to reconsider security in Sochi, Soldatov added. But it will have to take into account the possibility of attacks taking place elsewhere around the country.Volgograd was the scene of a blast two months ago on a crowded bus, an attack also blamed on a female suicide bomber from Dagestan, a few hundred miles from Volgograd.

On Friday an explosion killed three people near a police station in the North Caucasus city of Pyatigorsk.

In November a man wearing an explosive-packed belt was arrested in the Stavropol area, also southern Russia.

'Black widows'

Militants fighting to create an Islamic emirate in the North Caucasus started using women to conduct bombing attacks in the late 1990s. By the middle of the next decade at least half of the attacks on civilians outside the conflict zone involved women – many of them young widows of militants killed in action. The women have come to be known as the "black widows".

These tactics came into the spotlight during the 2002 attack on the Dubrovka theatre in Moscow, in which 20 out of 41 perpetrators appeared to be women. Two years later, two women orchestrated the simultaneous suicide bombing of two Russian aircraft that killed 90 people.

In 2010, female suicide bombers staged two simultaneous attacks in the Moscow metro. One of them, Dzhanet Abdurakhmanova, was only 17, but already a widow of a Dagestani militant leader. Following an October blast on a bus in Volgograd, the attacker was identified as 31-year-old Naida Asiyalova from Dagestan.

Russia media reported that while living Moscow, Asiyalova had a relationship with 21-year-old Dmitry Sokolov, an ethnic Russian from Siberia, who under her influence converted into Islam and became a prominent explosives expert in the Dagestani insurrection movement. Russian security officials claim he assembled the bomb set off by his fiancee in Volgograd. He was proclaimed dead in November after a skirmish with Russian security forces.

Leonid Ragozin