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Protesters clash with police in Kiev
Czech Republic: outgoing government opposes amendment to civil service law
Few listened to a young Greek woman before she died. Will we listen now? | Alex Andreou
The dog lovers and the con artist
Daniel Christie has died, family of king-hit victim announce
The Downton bill is for all daughters
My father was a wartime spy
Central African Republic president's resignation brings joy and fear
Dial C for corruption: Delhi's anti-graft hotline deluged with calls on first day
Bischoff deaths: bodies of mother and daughter returned from Bali
Towbacks may breach international law, UN refugee agency cautions Abbott
Japanese whaling ship close to Australian waters, activists claim
British woman dies in a snowmobile accident in Canada
The fog of culture wars is obscuring the facts ... but that's the point
Senior Christie officials were warned over George Washington bridge closure
Renoir found at flea market returned to museum by Virginia court
Best pictures of the day - live
Privacy concerns raised as Google+ makes it possible to send email via name search
West Virginia chemical spill triggers nausea and vomiting among residents
Supreme court will hear broadcasters' appeal against online TV service Aereo
British father dies trying to rescue children from drowning in Australia
Privacy oversight board briefed Obama on NSA surveillance reform
Unreliant Robin |
Is eating pizza with a fork and knife wrong? | Poll
The Chris Christie scandal proves it: strong leaders are dangerous | Jonathan Freedland

Posted: 11 Jan 2014 02:08 AM PST

At least 10 people hurt after police tried to disperse crowd protesting over jailing of three activists

At least 10 people, including a former interior minister, have been injured in clashes between riot police and protesters outside a court building in Ukraine's capital, Kiev, according to witnesses.

Police using teargas and batons tried to disperse a crowd of a couple of hundred people in the early hours of Saturday morning who were protesting over the jailing of three activists.

Yuri Lutsenko, a minister in the government of the jailed opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko, was among the injured after being hit in the head. Police said they had no information about anyone being injured.

About six miles away, several thousand people have set up camp in central Kiev to protest against President Viktor Yanukovich's decision to abandon a trade agreement with Europe in favour of closer co-operation with Russia.

Protests began in late November and increased significantly in early December after riot police violently broke up a student demonstration in Kiev's main square.

Czech Republic: outgoing government opposes amendment to civil service law

Posted: 11 Jan 2014 02:00 AM PST

Civil service global roundup: Niger public officials must take medical tests and China's pension reforms prove divisive

Czech Republic: outgoing government opposes amendment to civil service law

The outgoing Czech government has come out against a draft amendment to the civil service law put forward by the social democrat party.

The outgoing prime minister Jiri Rusnok said the draft legislation is basically unapplicable, and at odds with the constitution with regard to employees' rights.

The social democrats, who will form a part of a new coalition government, disagreed with this, saying that the amendment was carefully prepared.

China: proposed pension reforms prove divisive

The pension scheme for civil servants may undergo reform to bring it in line with schemes for other citizens, after criticism from the public over the privileged nature of pensions for government officials.

Under the current system officials do not need to contribute to the China's pension pool, but receive higher annuities than those working in business or farming, who do input into the pool.

Civil servants say this is offset by their wages, which are generally lower than those of their peers in business.

Scotland: top civil servant denounced SNP council leader as 'militant'

Sir William Kerr Fraser, then permanent secretary at the Scottish Office criticised the now deputy leader of Edinburgh City Council in a 1984 confidential memo, according to newly released files.

Steve Cardownie met Fraser to discuss the impact of Margaret Thatcher's Tory government banning unions from GCHQ. In a confidential note written later to then Scottish secretary Sir George Younger, Fraser called the union leaders "militants" and said the "principal spokesmen for the unions delivered largely political harangues".

Niger: governor orders annual medical tests for civil servants

Governor Babangida Aliyu gave a directive for a mandatory annual medical check-up for all civil servants after a member of his staff died at work recently.

Aliyu said her death could have been avoided, and that mandatory medical checks were necessary because increasing numbers of people neglected their health.

Ireland: Stormont civil servants urged to be friendly with Dublin

Northern Irish civil servants were encouraged to build friendships with their counterparts in the Republic of Ireland in 1977, a confidential memo has revealed.

The message from A J Robinson, private secretary in the Department of Finance, said that the central secretariat of the civil service had asked senior staff to maintain and improve contacts with the Republic.

The memo added that if public servants were attending any important or unusual meetings in Dublin they should first contact the British Embassy.

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Few listened to a young Greek woman before she died. Will we listen now? | Alex Andreou

Posted: 11 Jan 2014 02:00 AM PST

Irini Triantafyllou, a smart, involved young woman was killed in an accident. Five years ago she wrote of her hopes and dreams

On Wednesday, a coach carrying a group of young students, travelling along a Greek motorway near Malgara, collided with a truck. Many were injured, two women died. Angeliki Granitsa, 21, and Irini Triantafyllou, 23, two smart, involved young people were taken from their families and friends [Greek-language report]. The brighter the candle, the thicker the darkness that follows it being extinguished seems.

Irini (which, in Greek, means "peace") wrote an essay about the situation in Greece when she was 18 – just before the crisis hit properly – which appeared in a local paper. I have translated an abridged version of her piece. Few listened while she was alive. Will we listen now?

"My dreams are the basis of my revolution. So, allow me to dream. In any case, the reality you offer is not very tempting.

"Trapped by exaggerated demands, unnatural ambition and consumerism, you have forgotten the value and power of a human touch, a word of praise, a chat with a mate. When was the last time you really communicated with a friend? When was the last time you spoke, without shame, about your problems?

"You have become introverted, in order to protect yourselves from others' troubles. Because you have so many of your own, you cannot take more weight. You have become lonely people looking for electronic friendship. Your schedule consists of work and solitude on weekdays; then forcing yourself into superficial pleasure on a Saturday. You strive to improve your external appearance in gyms and health farms, then undo your work by eating and drinking excessively. You feel little responsibility or solidarity toward friends and family. You reduce your political activity only to that which benefits you.

"And in the midst of this confusion you have the time – and nerve – to criticise us. In your eyes, we are the selfish, lazy, thoughtless generation. In your eyes, we are ignorant of history and devoid of ideals. In your eyes, we do not show proper respect for national holidays and do not understand your revolutionary past. We are the ill-fated 'tomorrow' of this country, in the care of which you fear to hand over the world. (Since when could anyone hand over or receive total chaos?)

"So, while you crown yourselves with the libellous congratulations of your past, allow me to dream.

"I dream of neighbourhoods with narrow streets and warm people. Joy and sorrow and hands that embrace you and make the smallest things seem large and the largest things seem small. I dream of educating myself, 'becoming a person' like my grandmother says; educating myself so I can open my mind and open my soul's eyes and look at the world and people through them.

"I dream of exercising my chosen profession on merit, without having to kiss dirty hands or beg politicians. I dream of having my own family and passing to them the principles and values that my parents gave me.

"I dream of having around me people who love me and whom I love freely and by choice.

"I dream of not being ashamed to be a citizen, not bowing to anyone, loving beauty easily and living without suspicion.

"I dream of using language to call a spade a spade, rather than hide behind my words.

"I dream of using those co-ordinates to create my very own world, which will be both tiny and great. I have closed my ears to accusation and sympathy, to your pretend revolutions. And I work – I work to make my dreams a reality.

"My revolution has begun … Can you hear it?"

Irini's family donated her organs. "Take whatever you need, with all my heart," said her mother [Greek-language report]. A series of life-changing operations are being hastily arranged: two young people suffering from keratoconus, a condition that slowly destroys eyesight, will receive Irini's corneas. Maybe, when they open their eyes, they will see the world with as much clarity and courage as she did. Maybe, when we open ours, we will too.

Alex Andreou

The dog lovers and the con artist

Posted: 11 Jan 2014 01:00 AM PST

The dog-training club was the core of the community. So how did they let their most trusted member con them out of 40 grand?

The City of Belfast Dog Training Club meets in a community centre in the Castlereagh Hills. At 27 years old, Tracey Douglas is the youngest of the trainers. She sets the scene. "If you see, there's a wee kitchen. Kathryn Adair would be there, waiting to greet people, saying, 'Ooh, you're for the puppy class.' She was always very warm, very welcoming."

Suzanne Cassells is a bright and brisk redhead in her early 30s. She helps Tracey run the last training session of the evening. "Some nights can be challenging, but Kathryn was always there to reassure you," she says. It is more than 18 months since Adair's conviction for fraud, and still everyone feels a profound sense of disbelief. "She was the face and the heart of the club," Suzanne says. Alex Douglas, 53, is Tracey's father and chair of the club. "We've had so long to think about it," he says, "but even now I wonder, did she just befriend us all to do this? Or were we good friends first? Were we being groomed?"

The members of the City of Belfast Dog Training Club are lucky in being part of a close community. Liz Young is in her 40s, the owner of a local dog-walking business. Following an operation on a sarcoma, she has a dressing on her face, which makes her self-conscious. She sounds apologetic. "When it all came out, I was actually a bit relieved that there were other people involved." Discovering they were in the same boat helped soften the feelings of vulnerability and shame. Sharing information also helped bring Adair to justice. Ted (not his real name) is in his early 60s, a senior committee member and the longest-serving trainer at the club. Ted did more than anyone to help build the case against Adair, yet he does not want to be identified: "I prefer to remain anonymous, and goodness knows how many unknown ones there are, suffering in silence."

Adair was 36 when she first visited the club in 2003 with her cousin Jill. "Her cousin had come to train a jack russell," Tracey tells me. "Then one day Kathryn came with her big, beautiful Bernese mountain dog." The dog, Benson, soon became a club favourite, always found lying in a corner while Adair busied herself offering tea and biscuits. "A lot of dogs can get hyper around children, but Benson let the kids pet him," Suzanne says. Bernese mountain dogs are big, almost the size of a St Bernard. In pictures, they are often seen pulling carts filled with smiling children. Benson became something of a local celebrity. His brown and white face appears, open-mouthed, on the label of Brandy dog food. Benson died at the age of nine, which is old for a Bernese.

Was the dog Adair's secret weapon? If Benson was so well-loved, did that blind people to Adair's lies and schemes? Not one person accepts the idea. Adair was Adair, I'm told. She was special. "She was the face and the heart of the club," Suzanne says.

"I think it all started over the dog," Alex says. "But we don't know that. We can trust nothing."

Alex lives in an ordinary semi on a street near Stormont. The moment I touch the bell, the dogs begin barking. Tracey answers the door with her Australian shepherd, a kind of outsized, fluffy collie, but the barking continues until I am safely inside the house. I find out why when I peer through the curtains to the back. There are 16 labradors in a compact series of kennel runs, entirely filling the small garden. "If you keep looking, they'll keep barking," Tracey tells me. The moment the curtains close, the dogs fall silent, but a strong smell lingers. Next to the window is a portrait of a labrador signed by Adair. "Kathryn was an excellent artist," Tracey says. Alex is a respected labrador breeder. It was his experience as a breeder that led to his introduction to Benson.

The Castlereagh Hills lie to the south-east of Belfast. There is no real centre, just endless housing developments. Alex used to drive for a living. In the past, he has driven President Clinton's security detail, Janet Jackson and Norman Wisdom. He has a relaxed, reassuring way as he takes me on a tour. As the road curves away, there are glimpsed views down to the harbour or to the lopsided brick of the Black Mountain. Kathryn Adair grew up in an area named Four Winds at the highest point of Castlereagh. It is well named. The wind is biting cold on a December afternoon. Alex points out the neat, 1960s house where Kathryn lived with her widowed mother, Meta. According to Kathryn, when her mother died in 2007, she inherited the house and her brother, Colin – a manager for the Ulster Bank, like his late father, Tom – inherited cash. Alex remembers Meta fondly. He met her in 2002, a little before Kathryn joined the club. A woman he knew hoped to mate her bitch with Benson, and Alex came to help. The attempt was unsuccessful.

It was Adair's next attempt to breed Benson, in 2005, that ended in disaster. "That's the story, anyway," Alex says. "It's supposedly where all her own money went." He recounts the tale as Adair told it to him. "There were seven pups born, and four survived, though they became ill. For some reason, they were taken to a vet in Newry, and from there to another clinic across the border. Kathryn was handing out thousands to help pay the fees, because she felt sorry for them, she said." Adair told the club she ended up spending £18,000, saving just two of the puppies. Now that he knows more about Adair, Alex is sceptical about the story.

In autumn 2010, the City of Belfast Dog Training Club held its annual general meeting and discussed options for the £8,000 the club had built up over 20 years. Adair was a member of the committee. She waited a week, then appealed for emergency funds, though not in person. "She had spoken to Alex," Tracey says, "but she couldn't face speaking to everyone as a group, as I remember. So Alex put it to the committee for her, because she was too scared to talk to people, so upset and stuff."

I speak to the committee members in the room used for the weekly training sessions, gathered in a circle on plastic stacking chairs. Daphne (not her real name) was the club treasurer at the time. She would hate to be identified, she says; not everyone in her family knows the story, even now. She bent over backwards to spare Adair's feelings. "When I put the loan through, I said to Alex, 'We are letting everyone know Kathryn's business. So we'll put it down as something else.' We put it through – may God forgive me – as a deposit on savings." As she speaks, she begins to cry. She remembers Adair borrowed £5,600 and asked for it to be delivered in cash to Belfast bus station. "She had been up in Ballycastle and I met her on Glengall Street and handed over the money and it was, thank you very much, thank you very much, and all the rest of it," Daphne says. "And then, a while after that, she was looking for about £1,200."

Adair needed money as a result of a family feud. Or so she claimed. Daphne shakes her head: "She only told us that. We don't know." The money was to pay taxes, to release her mother's money from an offshore bank. I wonder that a story of feuds and secret bank accounts never raised suspicion? "You have to appreciate the trust that Kathryn had," Alex says. "She could have told you the sky was pink and you would have believed her."

Club photos show a tall woman with short blond hair and a ready smile. Adair is pictured receiving a gift-wrapped package from Alex on her 40th birthday. She poses at the club's annual summer show in a red anorak with a big Bernese dog badge on her breast. Other pictures from local magazines and charity prospectuses show Adair with local Brownies, donating books to schools. Or working with the SOS Bus, a charity that helps vulnerable youngsters on Belfast's streets. Or attending the Ulster People of the Year Award with fellow charity workers. This is the Adair who was loved and respected by everyone at the club. She had endless time for others, though Tracey now wonders that she was quick to change the subject if anyone strayed too close to questions about her own feelings. She was tireless and selfless, and seemed uninterested in money. "There was no sign of that sort of thing," one member says, a sentiment echoed by Liz Young. "She insisted the money meant nothing to her."

Daphne says, "The third time she came up to us for about £2,300 and Alex came to me and said, 'What have we got?' I said, 'We could do her for about £900.' But I had money in my house, so I could make it up. Alex said, 'Are you sure?' And I said, 'Yes.' At that time, my husband had gone into hospital. He had cancer. He was in hospital 12 days and he died."

People who love dogs share a connection that overcomes differences of age and education. This is what Alex, Daphne, Tracey and Suzanne share, not much else, but it is a deep bond. Adair must have felt secure. She was not content to borrow just from the club; she also approached individual members, swearing each one to secrecy. Liz says, "She told me I was the only one she would ever trust." This brings nods from around the room: everyone was told the same line. No one is wealthy. But they are careful people, natural savers. Plus Adair seemed to have a gift for appearing on doorsteps just when people might have a little extra. Daphne continued to lend her money, using her late husband's life policy. Adair ultimately took her for a little short of £20,000. Alex gave her £5,000 after being made redundant. Another club member received insurance money on the death of his father. His wife had already lent Adair several thousand, he says, "So when she came round to talk about the money she owed us, I was ready to rip her head off. But at the end of it I'm sitting and writing her a cheque, and I'm happy to do it."

At her trial, Adair returned to the story of Benson's pups and the struggle to save their lives. It is unusual for the stud owner to pay vet fees in such circumstances. Adair had told the club she felt sorry for the pups, but at her trial she gave a different account. She said the owner of the bitch pressured her to pay the fees. Over the years, however, they remained in contact and several years later he supplied her with a new Bernese mountain dog, Finlay, a grandchild of Benson's from one of his surviving daughters. He also seems to have continued to ask Adair for money. In court, this shadowy Bernese breeder was referred to only as Mr A. The man was questioned by the police but never charged, nor publicly identified. But in Adair's account, he was the real crook.

"She tried to say she was a stupid wee girl," Liz says. Alex agrees: "She tried to plead naivety, of not being streetwise. But the judge saw through that. She was too well educated." The fact that both her father and brother were bank managers became a factor in her trial, as did her grammar school education and her degree in fine art. She was a talented artist who raffled vouchers at the club's summer show that could be redeemed for one of her famous pet portraits.

As Alex grew worried about the club's money and his own redundancy cheque, Adair sought to reassure him. He believes he spoke to Mr A. "I had a few calls from a guy claiming to be a financial adviser, though you could never get him when you wanted him. He would speak just long enough to confirm, 'Yes, Kathryn is one of our clients, oh sorry, I've got to go now, I'm just being called into court.'" Ted tells the same story. "I spoke to him. Or I spoke to a person. But when you phoned the number, morning, lunchtime, whenever, you never got an answer. It was a pay-as-you-go mobile that was turned off and only used to call you."

Alex, Ted and Daphne finally compared stories and discovered Adair had borrowed £40,000 from the club and its members. As they approached the annual summer dog show in July 2011, Alex and Daphne confronted Adair at her home. They saw no sign that she was enjoying the money. The house was cold. The kitchen seemed bare. Daphne remembers: "She was in floods of tears. Alex had driven us up, and as we left, I said, 'She'll be all right, she won't do anything daft?' Because, honestly, we were worried."

The annual dog show held on the Billy Neill fields in Castlereagh is one of the key events in Northern Ireland's dog calendar. Liz had not visited the club in several years, but went to the show to find Adair, who was proving hard to reach. She wasn't there. "And then I found that you all wanted to speak to her as well," Liz says. "When I saw the look on everyone's faces, I didn't have to say anything." Liz had lent Adair £17,500. It was Liz and Ted who pushed the club to go to the police. When the day came, Alex joined them. Liz says, "I spoke to a friend in the police, and she spoke to her dad who was in the fraud squad, and they arranged that we went down to Musgrave Street." This is Belfast's central police station. "They said, don't just go down to your local police station, because they won't do anything about it. They'll say it's like a loan or something like that. So we went down to speak to someone in the fraud squad."

It was only when the club considered bringing bankruptcy proceedings that a solicitor's search discovered Adair's cousin, Alora McMullan, had already initiated proceedings a year earlier. But in December 2010 the McMullans were suddenly repaid. It turned out that Adair's brother had forestalled the bankruptcy by remortgaging his mother's old house, repaying the McMullans and, it transpired, Adair's work colleagues. When Ted learned this, he went to speak to Victor Corbett, who owned the newsagent's where Adair worked. "So I went up, knock, knock. And his wife is saying, 'He's not here for the minute.' So I say, 'Perhaps I can talk to you?' And she says, 'It's about Kathryn Adair, isn't it? She's doing more people.' Or some line like that." By remortgaging the house, the Adairs paid a total of £63,000 back to Kathryn's victims. The news that she had continued taking money prompted Victor to put Ted in touch with another neighbour from the Four Winds. "That was how I met Liz McFarland," Ted says. "So that's how we knew the width of it."

Adair's house in Four Winds has been sold. A quarter of a mile down the road is a strip mall of low-rise shop units in front of a parking lot. The first shop is empty but still has a sign indicating it was once Corbett's Newsagent. Adair worked behind the counter at Corbett's, and when the shop closed, she moved to the Mace supermarket three doors down. Adair started in the newsagent's at 15 years old. Despite three A-levels, a degree and her family's banking tradition, she was still working for the Corbetts in her 40s. Alex parks in front of the Mace, still open late in the evening. I search out the packs of Brandy dog food and take a look at what I assume is Benson's face, though it may be Finlay – he took over the Brandy job when his grandfather died.

Liz McFarland is a small vigorous woman, a widow of just two years. Many of Adair's victims prefer not to be identified, but Liz no longer cares. "My Brian's gone now, so it doesn't matter." Liz had known Adair for 30 years, but she thought of her as a loner, in sharp contrast to the dedicated charity worker who posed for photographs in the newspapers, or the bubbly woman of the dog club. "Kathryn never had any friends," Liz says. "She just went about with her mother to these art exhibitions, which is how I met her. She got my husband into exhibiting his paintings."

Following her old strategy, Adair appeared at Liz's door when Brian was ill. She chatted with the couple for two and a half hours, but it was only when she was alone with Liz that she began crying. "I asked her what it was about and she said she needed money." Adair took £7,000. "Then she came back a week later and I lent her another six. And I hadn't told my husband. Then, at the end of the month, she phoned me: she wanted another seven something. This time I did tell my husband. I said I'd loaned her the six. He said, 'What, hundred?' I said, 'No, thousand.' And he lost his reason. So I never told him about the rest."

Liz joined forces with the dog club. They built a website, stopthefourwindsfraudster.com, but the police told them they could not use it, nor could they distribute the flyers they had printed. "A few posters might have made a huge difference to the number of people that came forward," Ted says. Nevertheless, they tracked down another dozen victims ready to make statements, bringing the total to 18. The sums involved were far higher than anyone had imagined.

In two years, Adair had taken in excess of a quarter of a million pounds. She had gone out of her way to target older people and the bereaved. But the story that she had fallen out with her brother's family seemed wide of the mark. In court, at least, they came to support her each day. Her old grammar school headteacher and even her ex-employer gave character statements. At that point, the club members hit a low. "You could see by Kathryn's face in court that she thought she was getting off," one says. In his summing up, the judge commented that the charges were specimen. No one doubts there were more victims. A few, at least, had died. If Adair had persisted in her plea of not guilty, she would have received five years in prison. On the last day of the trial, however, she changed her plea and was sentenced to three years and told she could expect to serve 18 months.

The City of Belfast Dog Training Club welcomed the sentence. The judge took time to read their victim statements, and he delivered a verdict that club members felt reflected the gravity of Adair's crimes. The sense of relief is palpable. At the same time, however, everyone still feels they are short of answers. Why did Adair target them? In her last month in prison, Adair wrote to the club members, but they are disappointed with the apology. "It was a boilerplate letter with no feelings whatsoever," Ted says.

Adair was declared bankrupt in prison. The final settlement was 5.2p in the pound, meaning that Alex got something over £270, Liz Young got a little over £900. There is speculation that if Adair's family had not hushed up the first round of frauds, she would have been stopped earlier. There are more conspiratorial rumours, too. Might the money be stashed in bin bags in a loft somewhere? One club member says, darkly, "Knowing the way things are over here, that amount of money doesn't disappear without it turning up somewhere else."

The members of the dog club find it hard to accept that upwards of a quarter of a million pounds was blown in two years by a man who struck up a relationship with a lonely, unmarried woman who lived for her dogs. Some believe that Adair may have been in thrall to her renegade Bernese breeder, yet all of them see her as the brains, the manipulator who picked out each of her victims, returning to them until they were bled dry. Liz McFarland says, "The day she was arrested, she took £3,000 off the wee barber in Newton Park. He met her that morning and she was arrested at 4.30 that afternoon. She wrecked his business, and the rumour is that he borrowed it off people who would have wanted their money back pronto. So he had to close the shop and run."

Adair was recently seen out walking Finlay. The stories she told continue to reverberate through the Castlereagh Hills, breeding suspicion and fresh rumours. Adair is a shadowy figure; her motives are unclear. She made her victims meet her in car parks, garage forecourts and bus stations, and again and again she walked away with envelopes full of money. The City of Belfast Dog Training Club worked together to bring Kathryn Adair to justice. But it doesn't feel like a victory. Adair was once the heart and soul of their club. Perhaps it is just the effect of a cold winter night in Castlereagh, but sitting with the members in the hall, it feels as though the heart is broken.

Nicholas Blincoe

Daniel Christie has died, family of king-hit victim announce

Posted: 10 Jan 2014 11:26 PM PST

18-year-old had been in hospital with critical injuries since assault in Kings Cross, Sydney, on New Year's Eve

The Downton bill is for all daughters

Posted: 10 Jan 2014 11:15 PM PST

Liza Campbell is campaigning to end male primogeniture – so girls born into the aristocracy can inherit. Why does that matter? Because whatever her walk of life, no girl deserves to be treated as lesser than her brothers

When will men stop thinking it's OK to subjugate women? This question kept straying across my mind as I sat in the chamber of the House of Lords last month, listening to the committee stage of Lord Lucas's equality (titles) bill. As a member of the Hares, a group lobbying to end male primogeniture, I had been campaigning all year to introduce female equality into that peculiar backwater of English life – the aristocracy.

Many peers are unhappy that the Lucas bill aims to end the historic discrimination against first-born girls, in the same way that the Succession to the Crown Act 2013 has made the royal family lineage gender-neutral. The Duchess of Cambridge's pregnancy had concentrated people's thoughts on the issue and I felt a pang of disappointment when Prince George was born. With the world's cameras in London, the arrival of a girl would have sent out a fantastic message about the value of women. Unlike the Queen, who came to the throne thanks to a regal man drought, a Cambridge daughter would have been our future queen simply because she was the first born.

Lucas's bill has become known as the "Downton bill" because the initial plot in Downton Abbey is the predicament of the Earl of Grantham. His nephew and heir dies aboard the Titanic, leaving his lordship in a tight spot because he has only managed to breed daughters. Thankfully, a distant cousin, middle-class (alas), but male (huzzah) materialises to save the dynasty. These are not curious details of a bygone era – the custom of male partiality has remained unchanged since its mediaeval beginnings and is still rigidly enforced.

What does this mean in reality? Take the 14th Earl of Northesk. His only son killed himself at the age of 21, so when Northesk died in 2010, he left a widow and three daughters. Having no male cousins, Lady Sarah Carnegie, the eldest, petitioned to inherit the title. There were no huge estates, just a desire to carry the family flame. She offered the crown office documents stating the title "could pass to whomsoever inherited the late earl's property" – her, in this case. However, last year the title went to Patrick Carnegy, an eighth cousin who had to trace his ancestry back to the 17th century to find any connection to the Northesks. This man, so distantly related that even his surname was spelled differently, was deemed to have a claim superior to the earl's own daughter.

By the same token, the current Lord Braybrooke had eight daughters in a futile bid for the "right" chromosomes, but when he dies, a fourth cousin will parachute in over all eight. In response to the Braybrooke story, Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, told parliament he was sympathetic to attempts to "tackle the gender bias in hereditary titles" and it is important that the Commons now pushes the matter forward because elsewhere this year, women fighting their corners have been ignored and rebuffed.

In Karnataka, India, a group of Brahmin women failed to get a "subordination" clause struck from family law land deeds and in Lesotho, Senate Masupha, the acting ambassador to Rome and first-born child of a chief, was barred from succeeding her father. Lesotho's constitutional court declared that not allowing daughters to inherit the role, based on Lesotho's customary law, was not discrimination and therefore not unconstitutional. These are just a tiny sample of the snubs tens of thousands of girls live with around the world.

"Why the hell should we care what happens to posh girls?" I hear you say. The answer is simple. In 1981, we signed the UN convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women, which bans "any distinction, exclusion or restriction made on the basis of sex which has the effect or purpose of impairing or nullifying the recognition, enjoyment or exercise by women … of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural, civil or any other field". Whatever their walk of life, no daughter deserves to be treated as secondary to her brothers.

"We should just get shot of the peerage altogether," I hear you say. The answer to that is also simple. The Downton bill deals with the here and now. The peerage exists. At some point in the future, it may well not but, until then, daughters continue to be born into it and if people can campaign for women's rights everywhere else, how is it acceptable to turn a blind eye to one particular section because of reflexive antipathy? Surely that is bigotry in its subtlest form.

Whatever your opinion, we don't seem to be in recovery from the title habit yet. Many would cheer if the Queen said: "Arise, Sir Becks." But why can a man honoured in this way elevate his wife to Lady, while a dame – the knight's equivalent – cannot elevate her husband? By the same token, why can't a gay knight elevate his civil partner? Why does the spousal honour remain the preserve of heterosexual men? The Hares campaign wishes to address all these anomalies.

Back in the Lords, the Lords Dubs, Jopling and Clancarty have expressed strong and eloquent support for the Downton bill. Lord Pannick's amendment for immediate gender neutrality upon enactment has won approval. If you don't allow the poshness to distract you, the bill is simply about equality; the logic unassailable. That is, until Lord Caithness and Lord Trefgarne, a former consultant to the Gaddafi government, intervene. They have clearly misheard the phrase: "There is no wrong time to do the right thing." The entire chamber seems to cringe each time they interrupt to drench the bill's clauses in atavistic pomposity. They even manage to split hairs about the word heirs.

I had to think long and hard when asked to join the Hares – so named because the very same Trefgarne grumbled that the Succession to the Crown Act would inevitably "set the hares running" in the peerage.

My dilemma was that, on one hand, I am one of those who, by accident of birth, finds herself the daughter of an earl and has insider knowledge of the framework the bill is trying to overhaul. On the other hand, I don't use my title and am deracinated from that life. Yet a refusal to help struck me as the worst sort of inverted snobbery. If I had feminist principles at all, then I should be prepared to help clean up my own backyard. Yes, the peerage is a privileged anomaly but that doesn't mean it can treat its women as minor members.

Why do these men find a male cousin from another galaxy preferable to their own daughters? It is because property is power. During the Lords committee debate, Baroness Deech pointed out that titles are a matter of property (so as well as the UN convention, we also stand in contravention of the European convention on human rights).

The determination of men to keep property in all its forms is hard to shake. Until the late 19th century, women in the UK legally surrendered any property on marriage. Powerful stories have been created to support this male desire to annex and hold on to property – the most potent being that women lose their name on marriage and cannot carry their family name in their own right or pass it to their children. This is all smoke and mirrors. Thankfully, enlightened men know it and out of 364 people in our support group, 115 are men.

This summer, the prime minister publicly complained about the Open golf tournament being held at Muirfield because of its men-only policy. At least with a golf club, women can keep away if they don't like the game. There is no such choice with family.

So what price, if any, do these posh girls pay? Let's look at Isabella Blow, fashion muse, spiritual mother to Lady Gaga and eldest daughter of Sir Evelyn Delves Broughton. A sister arrived, followed by Johnny, the heir. At the age of two, playing beside a pool with his sisters, Johnny fell in and drowned. Her parents' hopes of replacing their lost boy were dashed by the birth of a third girl and the marriage later collapsed. As the eldest, Isabella grew up convinced she was blamed for Johnny dying on "her watch". At the time of the accident, she was five. Her future successes never fully assuaged the profound sense of her own pointlessness and was exacerbated when her millionaire father died leaving his daughters £5,000 each in his will. Eventually, she became determined to die. In 2007, after three years of failed attempts, she succeeded.

In my own family, we were brought up in comfort but not security. When I was 17, my father said: "Always wear your safety belt because your face is your fortune." It was his way of preparing me for the fact that neither I nor my sisters would be featuring in his will. Our experience is by no means unique. As a girl, the message is: "You are loved, but you are chaff."

Like all patriarchal structures, the peerage has relied on the difficulty for its daughters to voice dissent. Like Isabella Blow, most women internalise their sense of being superfluous to requirements. To complain is a betrayal. This particular quandary is not the preserve of one social class.

Take the horrific practice of genital mutilation. Why have there been no convictions in this country? Is it because mutilations are performed by family insiders?

Female supporters of patriarchy are known as "doorkeepers". Unenlightened women don't even realise they are doorkeepers. Certainly, the older women in my childhood unquestioningly supported the traditions that discriminated against their own daughters. The existing reality is like living in a room decorated in densely patterned wallpaper. Anyone picking the wallpaper gets told off, but anyone who dares to carry on picking discovers that the original decorators papered over the windows. And the bloody doors.

The other reason for my joining the Hares is because I believe everything is connected. Every struggle for women's rights should be supported; every infringement resisted. The thread loops from Saudi women daring to "damage their ovaries" by defying the driving ban, to those demanding that newsreaders call "dis-honour" killings what they are: premeditated murder. It connects the women of the Safe project in Kenya, who educate against genital mutilation, to Jane Austen on our banknotes.

I realised the Hares were making progress when dinosaur peers started hurling insults – it told us our opponents had no rational counter-argument. If you do wish to sneer, please be consistent and sneer too at the Brahmin women, Senate Masupha and all the rest.

My father was a wartime spy

Posted: 10 Jan 2014 11:15 PM PST

Rupert Wilkinson's father was accused of deserting his family during the second world war when they were interned by the Japanese. As Churchill's man in Manila, he was serving his country – so did he really forget his wife and children?

In 1941 I was a "G-man detective" and had a wooden pistol to prove it, even though, aged five, I had no idea what the "G" stood for. It was actually "government" man, meaning FBI agent, a popular career among American boys I grew up with in prewar Manila. I didn't learn until after the war that my father, Gerald Wilkinson, the dynamic young manager of a British sugar firm, had been in the same line of business.

Commercial enterprise was his passion, but he also worked for the British Secret Intelligence Service (later MI6). He spied on Japanese businessmen in the Philippines doing the same thing as him (espionage) and tracked Japanese military movements. Before Pearl Harbour was hit on 7 December 1941, he warned of an imminent Japanese attack somewhere in the Pacific, but American military muddles and service rivalries prevented his warning getting through to the US Navy.

On Christmas Eve 1941, as Japanese soldiers closed in on Manila, my father surprised me by appearing in the uniform of a British army major. Later that day, after hasty arrangements, he left us – my mother Lorna, my older sister Mary June, aged eight, and me. My mother drove with him to the docks and said goodbye, not knowing when and how they would meet again.

He took a launch across Manila Bay to the fortress island of Corregidor, the US Army's last holdout in the Philippines. Here he joined the US Philippine commander, General Douglas MacArthur, as his British liaison officer. Before Corregidor fell to the Japanese, MacArthur was taken off by motorboat and then plane to Australia. Gerald Wilkinson and other staff followed him in a submarine, creeping under the Japanese ships.

The rest of us went into Santo Tomás Internment Camp, an old Dominican university turned prison for "enemy aliens". Conditions there were good at first, apart from intense overcrowding in the sex-segregated dormitories: beds 18 inches apart.

Neutral friends (Swiss and Irish) sent in extra food and other items, money circulated, little shops sprang up. The guards mostly left us alone, relying on an internee government to keep order.

Two years later, though, as the war turned against the Japanese, they sealed off the camp. Rations were cut again and again, and soldiers stole from our food reserves. Our calorie intake plunged below 900 a day.

As our hunger intensified, recipe-writing became an obsession. My mother became desperately thin, more so than Mary June or me, but we never heard her complain. The worst affected were older people, especially men. In the last few weeks, one or two were dying each day from heart failure caused by malnutrition.

On 3 February 1945, the camp was joyously liberated by a "flying column" of MacArthur's returning army. Two months later our troopship docked at Los Angeles – and there was Gerald Wilkinson, resplendent in a lieutenant-colonel's uniform (he had been promoted), laughing and hugging us.

Now head of British Far East Intelligence in New York, he had wangled special permission to board our ship to meet us. After a summer with American friends, we sailed to England where we lived at first with my mother's parents while my father made trips back to the US and the Philippines to rebuild his company.

But his war did not end there. In February 1946, at a public inquiry into the Pearl Harbour disaster, MacArthur's intelligence chief, Major General Charles Willoughby, denounced Gerald Wilkinson as an intelligence amateur who had "attached himself to us, leaving his wife and children to fend for themselves" in a Japanese prison camp.

Willoughby had two reasons to dislike my father. His intelligence reports had exposed Willoughby's failure to predict a Japanese attack and Willoughby, who was fervently anti-British, saw my father as Churchill's spy on MacArthur's staff. About that he was right. My father did indeed report to Churchill on MacArthur's plans, including his political ambitions.

Deeply upset by Willoughby's charge of deserting his family, Gerald went after him. Under threat of a law suit, he got Willoughby to sign a promise not to repeat his charges, while his allies in the press ridiculed the attack. Willoughby's charge, though, was close to the bone.

Back in December 1941, as the Japanese closed in on Manila, the British government had been desperate to get Gerald out in case his intelligence fell into enemy hands. Putting him on MacArthur's staff solved the problem.

Gerald actually came closer to death than any of us. On one mission, the light plane in which he was a passenger had engine trouble and crash-landed upside down. Miraculously the pilot and Gerald climbed out with only scratches and bruises. But most of his war, first in Australia and then New York, was more comfortable than ours. Glamorous, too: he had personal meetings with Churchill, who took a shine to him, and he rubbed shoulders in New York with Noel Coward and Roald Dahl who were writing "war information" – ie, propaganda.

It was only after my father died in 1965, leaving behind a secret war diary, that we discovered his extraordinary attempts to get closer to us in the camp. Having failed to get us repatriated under a diplomatic exchange, he repeatedly put a quixotic project to MacArthur. He would enlist in the US Army, do special-forces training and then join the Philippine guerrillas via one of the US Navy submarines that supplied them. With his knowledge of the Philippines and the wider war picture, he claimed he could provide encouragement to the guerrillas and link them to the war effort. When that idea was turned down, Gerald hatched what was perhaps the most bizarre event in the history of the Santo Tomás camp. Working with US intelligence, he sent a 20-year-old special-forces operator and frogman, Reg Spear, into the camp.

Two months before the camp was liberated, Spear landed by submarine north of Manila. He carried false papers showing him to be a Canadian engineer exempted from internment to work for a mountain gold-mining company. His cover story was that he needed to consult the company's top engineer, now an internee leader in Santo Tomás. Spear successfully got by the guards and out again. His main mission was to discuss rescue scenarios with the internees' governing committee. But he also had a side commission from Gerald: make contact with our mother.

He was allowed to walk past her outside a dorm. He murmured, "Hang on. Gerald sent me." She was too surprised to make much response.

My mother died in 1992 and we only learned of this event later. She never mentioned the Spear visit but then she did not volunteer much on the camp experience unless asked – not out of trauma but out of modesty. Life was hard near the end of internment: like other parents in the camp, she worried particularly about feeding us. After the war, though, she told a niece that "the camp" was the best thing that had happened to her: it showed she could manage, and she met people she otherwise wouldn't have. My father's diary kept quiet on specific intelligence operations: the Spear story came more recently from Spear himself (who has now died) and other sources.

Gerald never showed guilt about our imprisonment and separation from him. On the contrary, when introducing me to friends, he would sometimes say with pride: "You know, Rupert was a guest of the Emperor."

Central African Republic president's resignation brings joy and fear

Posted: 10 Jan 2014 10:44 PM PST

Residents take to streets to celebrate Michel Djotodia's departure but concerns grow of more sectarian bloodletting

The interim president of the Central African Republic (CAR) has resigned after a disastrous nine-month rule, prompting celebrations on the streets but fresh anxiety about a power vacuum and revenge attacks against Muslims.

The fate of Michel Djotodia, a rebel who became the country's first Muslim leader only to preside over its descent towards civil war, was sealed at a regional summit in neighbouring Chad. The prime minister, Nicolas Tiangaye, with whom he had a fractious relationship, also stepped down.

Djotodia, 65, has appeared impotent amid a cycle of attacks and counter-attacks by Christian and Muslim militias that has left thousands of people dead and forced a million from their homes. He became deeply unpopular, particularly among the nation's Christian majority.

Djotodia's departure leaves the state in the hands of a weak transitional government and facing an uncertain future. The CAR has endured five coups and perpetual instability since gaining independence from France in 1960.

The International Organisation for Migration said it was beginning airlifts on Saturday of foreign citizens who were in danger of being caught up in the sectarian violence. The group said at least 33,000 people from other African nations needed urgent help, with an initial wave of flights scheduled to take home about 800 Chadians from a group of 2,500 sheltering in a camp next to Bangui airport.

The IOM said Niger, Mali, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo also wanted help getting their nationals out. The group is seeking US$17.5m in aid to evacuate people and help them resettle in their home countries.

As news from the summit in Chad reached the CAR capital, Bangui, on Friday thousands of residents took to the streets, dancing, singing, honking car horns, firing into the air and waving flags, handwritten placards and tree branches in celebration. Cheers erupted at a camp for 100,000 displaced Christian civilians at the French-controlled airport.

"Finally we are free!" Carine Gbegbe, 28, who has been living in a displacement camp, was quoted as saying by the Associated Press. "We are going to return home at last."

A 71-year-old woman, standing outside a shop where she said her son had been killed by rebels in March, told Reuters: "It's a new day for Central African Republic. God has heard our crying and our prayers."

International aid agencies working in Bangui described an unsure mood. Renee Lambert, country manager of Catholic Relief Services, was driving back to her office when word came through. She noticed a French military checkpoint had been set up and Congolese citizens, normally seen outside their embassy, had gone inside for their safety. "The immediate reaction was: 'Let's go inside. We don't know what's going to happen.'"

Lambert's staff later reported dancing, singing and celebrations in predominantly Christian neighbourhoods, whereas Muslim areas were much quieter. "My concern is that the Central African Muslim population is going to be the target of very serious revenge attacks," she said.

It is now vital for the right successor to be chosen and for a balanced government to be established in which Muslim voices are represented, Lambert added. "This can be positive but there has to be a clear plan to move forward."

Like many before him in the CAR, Djotodia had a brief and violent reign. He seized power after his Seleka rebel coalition overthrew the then president, François Bozizé, but seemed ill-prepared for the job. The American anthropologist Louisa Lombard, formerly based in the CAR, wrote: "Hearing the stories of his ambition during my research, I almost felt embarrassed on his behalf – he seemed like a Jamaican bobsledder convinced he'd win gold."

Although Djotodia officially disbanded the Seleka, he proved unable to keep them in check. They went on to carry out countless atrocities against civilians, killing, looting and razing villages. The group is largely drawn from the CAR's Muslim minority and the conflict soon became defined along sectarian faultlines.

Last month, a Christian militia backed by loyalists of Bozizé attacked the capital. In the violent aftermath, more than 1,000 people were killed and nearly a million displaced.

France, the former colonial power, has sent 1,600 soldiers in an effort to stabilise the country and an African peacekeeping force has provided thousands of additional personnel. However, violence continues to rack the capital. Muslims suspected of collaborating with Djotodia's rebellion have been stoned to death in the streets and their bodies mutilated.

A frustrated Djotodia responded by saying no one could solve the CAR's myriad problems in just eight months. "I am not God, I hope," he said. "I am a man like you. And this country is vast – 623,000 square kilometres. You could bring an angel from the sky to govern this country and there would still be problems."

But with no sign of an end to the crisis, a majority of the National Transitional Council's (CNT) 135 members arrived in N'Djamena on a Chadian government aircraft late on Thursday, together with leading members of the opposition, for a meeting with the 10-nation Economic Community of Central African States. The council now has 15 days to choose another president.

Romain Nadal, a spokesman for the French foreign ministry, said: "We take note of the resignation. It is up to the CNT to decide what happens now. France does not interfere in any case with this process."

David Smith

Dial C for corruption: Delhi's anti-graft hotline deluged with calls on first day

Posted: 10 Jan 2014 08:00 PM PST

Alarm bells ring for corrupt officials across Indian capital as thousands of citizens join AAP's anti-corruption crusade

An anti-corruption helpline launched in Delhi on Thursday by the new city government received thousands of calls and more than 30 useful leads on its first day, the government has said.

The helpline, which can be reached on 011-27357169, was created as a top priority by the Aam Aadmi party (AAP). It aims to empower the public to become anti-graft inspectors by giving them advice on how to expose officials who demand bribes.

"People should understand that this is not a complaint number but a helpline, and an official will advise and explain to the public how to conduct a sting operation," AAP leader and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal told a news conference.

"After carrying out a sting operation, members of the public should contact the same adviser, following which a trap will be laid to nab the accused."

Kejriwal said on Thursday 3,904 calls were received by 3pm, and that 38 serious cases of graft had been reported. The helpline was found to be constantly engaged, despite repeated calls by Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Kejriwal, 45, a former tax official and social activist, said the hotline would be open from 8am to 10pm daily and would enable every Delhi citizen to become an anti-corruption crusader by helping to record evidence – audio or visual – against bribe takers.

"The purpose of launching this helpline is to create fear in the mind of every corrupt individual. Such people should fear they could be under surveillance at any time," he said, adding the vigilance department would look into corruption allegations.

The government will place advertisements in newspapers and on radio stations and put up hoardings in the city streets with the helpline number.

Tackling corruption was the AAP's main policy in the runup to the Delhi assembly elections last month, and a dedicated anti-graft helpline was one of the main priorities in the party's manifesto.

The party was formed in late 2012 after a two-year nationwide anti-corruption drive led by Kejriwal's former mentor, Gandhian activist Anna Hazare.

The fledgling party stunned many – including the ruling Congress and Bharatiya Janata party (BJP), the main opposition – in the polls last month, winning 28 of the 70 seats and forming a new city government with outside support from the Congress Party.

Political analysts say the party has tapped into growing middle-class anger with Indian politicians, who are often perceived to be siphoning off public funds instead of providing public services.

Its success in Delhi rang alarm bells for the Congress and the BJP in the runup to a national election due by May, underlining that an increasingly young and urban electorate is fed up with the established parties.

The AAP promised in its manifesto to send corrupt city legislators to jail within a year. Nationally, almost a third of India's lawmakers face criminal charges, but many are shielded by the slow-moving legal system.

The AAP plans to convert the growing public anger over corruption into votes in the national elections.

Bischoff deaths: bodies of mother and daughter returned from Bali

Posted: 10 Jan 2014 07:04 PM PST

Postmortem examinations begin in Queensland to determine what killed Noelene Bischoff and teenage Yvana on holiday

Towbacks may breach international law, UN refugee agency cautions Abbott

Posted: 10 Jan 2014 06:30 PM PST

UNHCR says it urgently wants Australian government to clarify reports of asylum-seeker vessels being forced back to Indonesia

Japanese whaling ship close to Australian waters, activists claim

Posted: 10 Jan 2014 05:43 PM PST

Sea Shepherd Australia says its vessel, the Bob Barker, was chased by Yushin Maru No 3 to the edge of maritime border

British woman dies in a snowmobile accident in Canada

Posted: 10 Jan 2014 05:16 PM PST

Charlotte Mei Ling Lee from Bristol was with her boyfriend, Domynique Tamaire, who was also injured in the incident

A British woman has died in a snowmobile accident in Canada.

Charlotte Mei Ling Lee, 31, from Bristol, was with her boyfriend, Domynique Tamaire, who was also injured in the incident in Quebec.

Messages of support to Tamaire have been left on Facebook. One from Bon Rayment read: "I don't know what to say to you Dom as no words will make this tragedy any better but I wanted you to know that we are thinking of you and send you lots of love.

"I hope you make a speedy recovery from injuries. Thank you for making Charlotte so happy since she met you."

Another, from Annabel Stewart, said: "I'm so sorry she is gone as you made each other so happy. We are all thinking of you and sending you love."

A Foreign Office spokeswoman said it was aware of an incident on 5 January and that it was providing consular assistance.

The fog of culture wars is obscuring the facts ... but that's the point

Posted: 10 Jan 2014 04:59 PM PST

Christopher Pyne's curriculum review is but one engagement in a proliferation culture wars that provide very handy cover

Lenore Taylor

Senior Christie officials were warned over George Washington bridge closure

Posted: 10 Jan 2014 03:52 PM PST

Documents released as 'Bridgegate' scandal grows show Port Authority employees pressed on with policy for two days

Ed Pilkington

Renoir found at flea market returned to museum by Virginia court

Posted: 10 Jan 2014 03:44 PM PST

Paysage Bords de Seine was painted by French Impressionist at a restaurant near the Seine River

A Renoir painting bought for $7 at a flea market but valued at up to $100,000 must be returned to the museum it was stolen from in 1951, a federal judge ordered on Friday.

The 1879 Impressionist painting Paysage Bords de Seine, dashed off for his mistress by the French artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir at a riverside restaurant in Paris, has been at the centre of a legal tug-of-war between Marcia "Martha" Fuqua, a former physical education teacher from Lovettsville, Virginia, and the Baltimore Museum of Art in Maryland.

Judge Leonie Brinkema, in a district court hearing, dismissed Fuqua's claim of ownership, noting that a property title cannot be transferred if it resulted from a theft.

"The museum has put forth an extensive amount of documentary evidence that the painting was stolen," Brinkema said, citing a 1951 police report and museum records.

"All the evidence is on the Baltimore museum's side. You still have no evidence – no evidence – that this wasn't stolen," said Brinkema to Fuqua's attorney before ruling in favour of the museum.

Fuqua bought the unsigned Paysage Bords de Seine for $7, along with a box of trinkets, at a flea market in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia in 2009 because she liked the frame, she said in a court filing. Although the frame carried the nameplate "Renoir 1841-1919," Fuqua was unaware the painting, measuring 5½ by 9 inches (14 by 23 cm), was genuine.

Her mother, an art teacher and painter, urged her to get the painting appraised. Fuqua took it to an auction house, which verified it was as an authentic Renoir.

After media reports about the painting, the Baltimore Museum of Art said it had been stolen.

An appraisal carried out for the FBI said the painting was worth about $22,000 (£13,000).

The painting is soiled and "there is a distinct lack of enthusiasm for paintings by Renoir now considered a more old-fashioned taste," appraiser Ted Cooper said.

It came to the Baltimore museum through one of its leading benefactors, collector Saidie May. Her family bought the painting from the Bernheim-Jeune gallery in Paris in 1926 and it was loaned, along with other works, to the museum in 1937.

May died in May 1951 and the collection was willed to the museum. As its ownership was going through legal transfer, the painting was stolen while still listed as being on loan.

Best pictures of the day - live

Posted: 10 Jan 2014 03:41 PM PST

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

Mee-Lai Stone

Privacy concerns raised as Google+ makes it possible to send email via name search

Posted: 10 Jan 2014 02:55 PM PST

Questions raised as new automatically enabled feature in Google+ lets people send emails to strangers without knowing their email address. By Charles Arthur

Charles Arthur

West Virginia chemical spill triggers nausea and vomiting among residents

Posted: 10 Jan 2014 02:18 PM PST

Spill triggers widespread tap water ban for 'indefinite period' as hundreds experience chemical exposure symptoms

Suzanne Goldenberg

Supreme court will hear broadcasters' appeal against online TV service Aereo

Posted: 10 Jan 2014 02:06 PM PST

Court says Justice Samuel Alito will not participate in case in which ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox want Aereo shut down

British father dies trying to rescue children from drowning in Australia

Posted: 10 Jan 2014 01:12 PM PST

Forty-four-year-old man dies in hospital after getting into difficulties at Burrill Beach, 155 miles south of Sydney

A British man has died while trying to rescue his two children from drowning at an Australian beauty spot.

Police in New South Wales said the tourist, 44, died in hospital after getting into difficulty at Burrill Beach, about 155 miles south of Sydney on Australia's east coast.

Detectives said the man's children were uninjured.

A statement from NSW police force said: "Emergency services were called to Burrill Beach just after midday, where they found a man unconscious.

"The 44-year-old was taken to Milton hospital where he was pronounced dead.

"Officers from Shoalhaven local area command attended and were told the man, a British tourist, got into difficulty after attempting to rescue his two sons who were caught in a rip.

"His sons were not injured."

Australian police will now prepare a report for the coroner.

Privacy oversight board briefed Obama on NSA surveillance reform

Posted: 10 Jan 2014 01:10 PM PST

Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board head says board met president, who is due to announce NSA review results next Friday

Unreliant Robin |

Posted: 10 Jan 2014 01:00 PM PST

"It's a myth that they turned over" (How we made ... the Reliant Robin, G2, 7 January). Really? My two-year love affair with a Reliant Robin ended dramatically on a leafy country road in Berkshire one cold winter's afternoon at the turn of the 1970s when my "plastic pig" suddenly aqua-planed at about 30mph, then somersaulted, ending up in a ditch with me underneath.

My humiliation was complete when another car quickly stopped and I heard the voice of what sounded like a very old lady asking if she could help. More embarrassed than actually injured, I replied "thank you", at which point she single-handedly managed to flip the three-wheeler back the right way up. When I returned to retrieve the car after briefly popping in for a reviving cuppa with friends nearby, its three wheels had all been nicked.
Quentin Falk
Little Marlow, Buckinghamshire

Is eating pizza with a fork and knife wrong? | Poll

Posted: 10 Jan 2014 12:16 PM PST

On Friday, New York mayor Bill de Blasio was photographed eating a slice with a fork and knife. Is eating pizza with a fork incorrect?

The Chris Christie scandal proves it: strong leaders are dangerous | Jonathan Freedland

Posted: 10 Jan 2014 12:01 PM PST

The disgrace of New Jersey's Republican governor shows how political strength can fast become bullying – or worse

You can learn a lot about a country from its scandals. In Britain we have Plebgate, revived today by a police officer's admission that he was lying when he said he'd seen Andrew Mitchell raging at protection officers manning the gates of Downing Street. At the heart of the scandal was class, a posh Tory cabinet minister accused of calling salt-of-the-earth coppers "plebs". What it's about now is the disgrace of yet another once-trusted British institution: the police. Both things say much about this country, about how it's always been and how it is now.

In France the scandale du jour is, naturally, sexual, with President Hollande photographed apparently making overnight visits to the home of an actress. To add to the exquisite Frenchness of the affair, the presidential security detail reportedly arrived to pick him up in the morning bearing a bag of croissants. Press disclosure of the romance hints at changing French attitudes to sex and privacy.

Meanwhile in the US, the great scandal rocking the republic centres on … traffic cones in New Jersey. There's no denying the comic aspects of the trouble now imperilling the state's Republican governor, Chris Christie, and – accounting for wider interest in the story – his presidential ambitions for 2016. It's a tale that could be a Sopranos pastiche, the governor's aides shutting off access to the nation's busiest bridge, creating four days of traffic chaos, just to punish a local mayor who had refused to back Christie's bid for re-election. But this provides more than an amusing insight into the hardball nature of New Jersey politics. It also says something about what we want in our leaders, here as much as in the US – and why we might be getting it wrong.

Start with Christie himself. Political scientists might study his Thursday press conference for years to come. He went long, standing by the podium for a full 108 minutes, deploying a technique familiar to fans of the West Wing. Talk until the reporters are begging for release. That way you can claim you've been candid: after all, you've addressed every possible question.

There are downsides, chiefly the risk of revealing more of yourself than you intended. Christie's performance showed him to be magnificently self-absorbed. He, rather than the people of Fort Lee, whose town was traffic jammed into paralysis, was the real victim, lied to by his "deceitful" staff. To long-serving allies, he all but announced, "You're dead to me". He denied that one key figure, a high school chum, had been anything of the sort. "You know, I was the class president and athlete. I don't know what David was doing during that period of time."

More risky, Christie made the classic error of turning what should be an end to questions into an invitation for more. By insisting he knew nothing of his aides' vengeful traffic scheme – serious because when politicians use government machinery to hurt their enemies it reeks of Richard Nixon – he's put a major bounty on any proof to the contrary.

More dangerous still, he promised that this action was the "exception, not the rule". On that score he is far more vulnerable. Even before "bridgegate", Christie was dogged by stories of punishment inflicted on those who had dared cross him – including a former governor suddenly stripped of police protection and an academic who lost state funding for his research.

This is now Christie's problem: that he will be seen as a bully with a gangster's approach to politics. The irony is that that's not so far from the image the Christie team had been cultivating for the would-be president. Opponents now frantically posting videos of Christie bellowing at and humiliating members of the public did not have to look very hard. Until this week, his team would eagerly post them, on the governor's own YouTube channel, regarding them as a source of pride. They were held to be proof of his tough, no-nonsense style, a refreshing alternative to the timid, focus-grouped political herd. But what was hailed as his greatest strength is now his greatest liability.

And strength is the key word. "Strong leader" is the medal every politician wants on his chest, pinned there by the voters. Those who have succeeded – Thatcher, Blair, Reagan – are those who've been branded strong, while weak is synonymous with failure: step forward, John Major. No matter what else the polls say, Conservative strategists draw comfort from the data showing David Cameron trumping Ed Miliband on the "strong leader" measure.

Yet the Christie affair suggests our desire for strength is a complicated business, that we want it but only up to a point. For a while, Republicans especially liked the fact that Christie seemed more Goodfellas than West Wing, happy to intimidate teachers or tell a disgruntled voter to "keep walking" (unless, one presumes, the voter wanted to get hit). But when that machismo turns into outright abuse of power, at the expense of large numbers of ordinary citizens, it loses its lustre. There is, it seems, a line that separates the muscular, decisive leader from the aggressive bully – a line Christie has crossed, to what could prove his fateful cost.

Perhaps we are already drawing the line in the wrong place. In April, the veteran political scientist and former professor of politics at Oxford, Archie Brown, will publish The Myth of the Strong Leader, suggesting we should cure ourselves of our attraction to the alpha male model of leadership. Once a dominant single individual rules, the way is paved towards "important errors at best, and disaster and massive bloodshed at worst". Brown is struck by Tony Blair's insistence in his memoirs that, when it came to the Iraq war, "the leader had to take the decision" rather than the cabinet. Brown believes this cult of the strong leader has blinded us to the successes of more collegial politicians. He cites Attlee and Truman, noting that one of the latter's greatest achievements was credited to someone else: the Marshall plan.

Strength may be what we look for in a weightlifter, but it's facile to make that the only criterion by which we judge our politicians. Instead, says Brown, we should look for "integrity, intelligence, articulateness, collegiality, shrewd judgment, a questioning mind, willingness to seek disparate views, ability to absorb information, flexibility, good memory, courage, vision, empathy and boundless energy".

While he's doing his professed "soul-searching" Chris Christie might want to run himself through that checklist and see how he's doing. And when the rest of us are next choosing a head of government, perhaps we should do the same.

Twitter: @Freedland

Jonathan Freedland