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

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• GDP data expected to show strongest UK growth since recession - business live
• Thai protesters gather outside cabinet meeting in Bangkok
• Terry Gilliam's The Zero Theorem: first official trailer hits web
• Craig Thomson accused by escort of lying over use of union credit card
• Los Angeles: a city that outgrew its masterplan. Thank God
• Microsoft rules out ‘back door’ access to MPs’ electronic communications
• Pete Seeger dies aged 94
• Angry Birds leak: why app developers should guard their users' privacy | Dan Nolan
• Vulernable to climate change, Cameroon tackles the problem head-on | John Abraham
• Central African Republic: 'Without help, our country would be in flames' | Martin Plaut
• Navy entered Indonesian waters after wind, tide distractions: Tony Abbott
• Mohamed Morsi due back in court on jailbreak charges
• Commission hears of hungry boys eating grass at Salvation Army home
• Maules Creek coalmine blockade – in pictures
• Children locked in cages at Salvation Army home, abuse inquiry told
• Labor party resists push to bring back building industry watchdog
• US marine faces retrial over killing of Iraqi civilian
• Whose turn to pat koalas? Court told of knife threat at Adelaide wildlife park
• Navy's Indonesia incursions like catch dropped in cricket, says Tony Abbott
• Illiteracy persists among Afghan troops despite US education drive
• SPC Ardmona cry for help: Tony Abbott talks down federal assistance
• Peter Cosgrove announced as governor general by Tony Abbott - video
• Scientists shed light on origins of 1,500-year-old plague - video
• H7N9 bird flu: Chinese provinces halt live poultry trade
• Australian anthems: Cold Chisel – Khe Sanh

GDP data expected to show strongest UK growth since recession - business live Posted: 28 Jan 2014 01:12 AM PST The UK may have grown by as much as 0.8% in the last quarter of 2013, which would mean the fastest growth in a calendar year since 2007. Graeme Wearden

Thai protesters gather outside cabinet meeting in Bangkok Posted: 28 Jan 2014 12:50 AM PST Anti-government demonstrators assemble outside army club as PM Yingluck Shinawatra meets ministers in state of emergency About 500 anti-government protesters have gathered outside the army club compound in Bangkok, where the prime minister, Yingluck Shinawatra, was holding a weekly cabinet meeting as the two sides traded threats. The government has issued an ultimatum to protest leaders that they face arrest by Thursday if they do not give up areas they have taken over in the Thai capital as the protests drag into their third month. "The people want to talk to the prime minister because she says she is the people's prime minister ... but we want the premier to listen to us ... to our side of the story," a protest leader, Puttipong Punnakun, said. There were no reports of any violence nor any sign of security forces trying to disperse the protests. The government declared a state of emergency last week that in theory gives it sweeping powers but which it has so far shown no sign of implementing. Another protest leader, Suthep Thaugsuban, said his supporters would shut down the government body overseeing the emergency decree within 24 hours. Ten people have so far died in the unrest, most recently on Sunday, when a protest leader was shot. There are fears violence could escalate in the latest flare-up of an increasingly divisive dispute that started eight years ago. Yingluck is Thailand's fifth prime minister since her brother, Thaksin Shinawatra, was toppled by the military in 2006 and went into exile. Yingluck will meet members of the election commission later to discuss her plans for a national election on 2 February. The commission wants a month-long delay, saying the country is too unstable to hold an election. Thailand Thaksin Shinawatra Asia Pacific theguardian.com © 2014 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Terry Gilliam's The Zero Theorem: first official trailer hits web Posted: 28 Jan 2014 12:31 AM PST Latest sci-fi fantasy parable from Twelve Monkeys director sees trailer release ahead of UK appearance in March • The Zero Theorem: Venice 2013 - first look review The first trailer for Terry Gilliam's low-budget futurist parable The Zero Theorem has hit the web, though bootlegs have been viewable for a while. The Zero Theorem, starring Christoph Waltz, debuted at Venice last year to decidedly mixed reviews: our critic Xan Brooks described it as "a sagging bag of half-cooked ideas, a dystopian thriller with runaway dysentery, a film that wears its metaphorical trousers around its metaphorical ankles". Waltz plays a mysterious functionary called Qohen Leth, who spends his days attempting to solve the "zero theorem" through the data processing apparatus installed in his ruinous house. Matt Damon, Tilda Swinton and Ben Whishaw are among the notable faces who pop up. But what of the trailer? It certainly makes The Zero Theorem look like a bizarre, thrown-together confection, and indeed it is. Gilliam has lost none of his enthusiasm for visual spectacle, though in truth the film barely hangs together. The UK public will get a chance to see it on 14 March, when it goes on release - but despite Gilliam's track record, the film doesn't yet appear to have a US release planned. • Terry Gilliam saddles up for seventh tilt at Don Quixote film Terry Gilliam Christoph Waltz Science fiction and fantasy Venice film festival Festivals United States Andrew Pulver theguardian.com © 2014 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Craig Thomson accused by escort of lying over use of union credit card Posted: 28 Jan 2014 12:11 AM PST Former Sydney escort tells court Thomson was a regular client who paid for her services on at least six occasions

Los Angeles: a city that outgrew its masterplan. Thank God Posted: 28 Jan 2014 12:00 AM PST In the first of our regular series of dispatches from around the world, this longtime LA resident argues that his city's endless variety should be a key part any new metropolis's design In drawing up our blueprint for a new metropolis, what can we learn about its layout from sprawling, stateless Los Angeles – whose grotesque size and dizzying variety of form surely repudiate the very notion of an ideal city? As soon as you think you've identified how it looks, how it acts, the condition to which it aspires, or even which nation or culture it belongs to, the opposite conclusion inevitably rushes up to confront you mere minutes down the road. This lack of definition makes it no easy place to write about, and the challenge has reduced many an otherwise intelligent observer to the comforts of obscurantism and polemic. Nobody understands Los Angeles who thinks about it only through the framework of its entertainment industry, its freeways, its class divisions, or its race relations. I don't even pretend to understand Los Angeles, but living here I've undergone the minor enlightenment whereby I recuse myself from the obligation of doing so. My own time in LA has, in fact brought me to see many other world cities as theme-park experiences by comparison, made enjoyable yet severely limited by the claims of their images. San Francisco has long strained under the sheer fondness roundly felt for it, or at least for an idea of it, never quite living up to how people imagine or half-remember it in various supposedly prelapsarian states of 20, 40, 60 years ago. New York has similarly struggled with perceptions of it as the ultimate expression of the urban, and even lovers of Paris come back admitting that Paris-as-reality seems hobbled by Paris-as-idea. I look around my own neighborhood of Koreatown and wonder what set of ideas could ever accommodate it. In its officially just under three, but in practice over five, of the densest square miles it churns business and culture brought straight from not just South Korea but southern Mexico as well. It all happens in and amid the sometimes incongruously grand structures of what they used to call the Ambassador District, an area swanky enough by the standards of 1930s and 40s America that it hosted Academy Awards ceremonies back then. I have a hard time imagining Koreatown emerging quite so robustly in any city contained by a vision. Hold it up as a paradise or denounce it as a wasteland; LA doesn't care either way. You can see how little serious partisanship this city inspires by examining its relationship with San Francisco 400 miles to the north, or with New York across the country. Those outside Los Angeles, including San Franciscans and New Yorkers, assume some rivalry must exist between these major American cities, yet most Angelenos I know look forward to their their trips to NYC and would no sooner entertain the notion of a rivalry with San Francisco than they would a rivalry with Disneyland. "According to folk wisdom, Los Angeles grew without a plan," write David Gebhard and Robert Winter in An Architectural Guidebook to Los Angeles. "This is nonsense." Indeed, the city's growth, which went farther and faster than any other US metropolis in the 20th century, may even have involved more urban plans than most, albeit sometimes in visual conflict, philosophical disagreement, or total incompatibility. None, fortunately, imposed upon the place a unifying concept besides the gauntlet it throws down before the individual. When a city frees itself from any shape or nationality in particular, you must come up with your own strategies to engage with it. When in Los Angeles, you can't simply do what the Angelenos do, for the Angelenos as a whole do no one thing in particular, and you certainly can't continue doing what you did in whichever "real" city you came from. While some here do fulminate about the ever-slipping prevalence of the English language, the ever-densifying and diversifying population, and the slow breakdown of the automotive infrastructure (once the engine, as it were, of the mythical but still vaguely expected "twenty minutes to everywhere"), most of them won't live to see the Los Angeles of thirty years hence, much less the LA of the majority of the 21st century. The city wouldn't do well to build for their desires, and actually seems, in the main, to have rejected the option, which gives me just enough reason to optimistically believe that it may gear itself to the newest wave of dwellers in the urban world. Those now after stimulating built and social environments, whether they seek them in Los Angeles or elsewhere, have inspired many a sweeping trend piece in the American press about the current revitalisation of central cities. Some of them chalk it up to a generational shift, citing the dissatisfaction so many under-40s felt coming of age in far-flung bedroom communities disconnected from commercial energy, chance encounter, and most types of ambition found among high concentrations of humanity. Having grown up a 45-minute bike ride from the nearest town myself, and knowing others in even less convenient situations, I can understand why so few of my peers feel eager to experience the same as adults, much less to have their own children do so. Yet we might describe the phenomenon not just in terms of the pent-up frustration of a generation but also of a kind of psychological inclination. Notice how often modern video games, when they want to provide rich urban environments, model them after or even attempt to replicate Los Angeles, from the perhaps obvious car racing titles to simulations like the latest iteration of SimCity to, at the highest profile, more than one installment of Grand Theft Auto. No matter their age or their entertainments of choice, I see in those who place themselves in the urbanised and reurbanised parts of Los Angeles a certain skill set that allows them to parse and thus access the city in a way their suburban predecessors couldn't have. When they notice that no single means of transport can get them everywhere they need to go, they figure out how to use them all in combination. When they find themselves surrounded by signs in Korean, they take it as a suggestion that they might need to learn Korean — or Spanish, or Chinese, or whichever language their environment demands of them. They can navigate a city like LA, which even in 1933 the novelist James M Cain wrote issues neither "reward for aesthetic virtue" nor "punishment for aesthetic crime," thanks to their ability to filter experience as they go. They've honed it with such everyday pursuits as finding their way through the vast disorder of the internet, and it enables them to experience the considerable riches of this city while minimising the distractions of its equally considerable inconveniences: the agonisingly long distances, the shabbiness of so much of its built environment, the rapid transit gaps, the innumerable surfaces covered in garish advertising (for the next Grand Theft Auto game, for instance). These frustrations tend to drive out weaker souls for good, whereas the smart new users of Los Angeles, a city which asks no allegiance in the first place, understand instinctively the importance of regular absence. Though my interest in this city has only intensified over time, I find myself leaving more and more often, usually to spend short stretches of time in cities, as close as Portland, Oregon or as far as Copenhagen, which come at or near the top of those "livability" charts on which Los Angeles thus far couldn't dream of ranking. Though I savour every moment in these highly livable cities, even those in which I gaze longingly upon some foreign urban innovation my own city lacks — airport rail connections, robust bike lanes, smooth pavement, streets free of the manifestly insane — rarely do I feel regret as my return flight lands again at LAX. The very lack of defined form and cultural tradition here, the statelessness of the city itself or those who live in it, allows for a distinctive type of vitality that I've felt nowhere else. Many of the millions upon millions who have passed through Los Angeles have, perhaps, proven unwilling or unable to harness it, but newer arrivals seem ready to operate in an environment where the usual expectations about tradition, language, culture, and even time and space don't apply — to exist, in other words, in the 21st century. Los Angeles California Urbanisation Colin Marshall theguardian.com © 2014 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Microsoft rules out ‘back door’ access to MPs’ electronic communications Posted: 27 Jan 2014 11:52 PM PST Officials assured that US agencies do not have unauthorised entry to Australian parliamentary IT operating systems Katharine Murphy

Pete Seeger dies aged 94 Posted: 27 Jan 2014 11:13 PM PST Singer-songwriter inspired folk revival in the US and was blacklisted during McCarthy era for activist views and lyrics

Angry Birds leak: why app developers should guard their users' privacy | Dan Nolan Posted: 27 Jan 2014 11:10 PM PST Dan Nolan: The mobile development community needs to have a discussion about privacy with their users, and figure out what degree of user collection is acceptable to them Dan Nolan

Vulernable to climate change, Cameroon tackles the problem head-on | John Abraham Posted: 27 Jan 2014 11:00 PM PST Though particularly vulnerable to climate change, students in Cameroon are developing innovative technological solutions My research involves not only studying the Earth's climate, but also working to find clean energy solutions that will enable people and regions to have access to reliable electricity without increasing emissions of heat-trapping gases. In support of this effort, I recently traveled to Cameroon, which is on the western coast of Africa. There, in a town near the coast called Buea, I spent two weeks with my family and colleagues, working with a new university (Catholic University Institute of Buea, or CUIB for short) but more about that later. First, readers of this column will note that I take a particular interest in the impacts of climate change that are being felt at regional or national levels. In particular, changes to weather patterns and how those changes are being driven by either natural or human causes is something I care deeply about. Fortunately, there is extensive literature available about observed changes or expected changes to climate and weather in and around Cameroon. For instance, some studies that focus on the impacts of climate change on the water cycle project that increases in rainfall and evaporation from lakes, rivers, oceans, and plants will have impacts that must be considered in future development planning. Another study focused on the impacts that land-use changes and climate change have on Cameroon's forests; the study found future effects will be profound. Loss of forest lands will lead to loss of animal life in particular. More recent work confirms the vulnerability of Cameroon's forests to climate change. Those researchers found that while the people in Cameroon expressed a great deal of understanding and appreciation of climate change, the ability of the country to adapt to climate change was limited. Perhaps the most detailed study regarding Cameroon's susceptibility to climate change was completed by the World Bank, which related agricultural output to climate change, in particular to changes in temperature and precipitation. The authors reported that since a large majority of the poor of Cameroon (and a significant percentage of the national GDP) work in agriculture, Cameroon as a nation is particularly sensitive to some of the changes we expect to see as the world warms. And all of this brings us back to the university CUIB. I traveled there to find out what people on the ground observe. I spoke with the Dean of the School of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Dr. Laetitia Ako Kima. She told me, "Farmers in this region are dependent on rain-fed agriculture and have observed erratic rainfall patterns and intensity which adversely affect agricultural activities and their livelihoods. Effects of this include among others, difficulty in following cropping calendars due to unpredictable and unseasonably long rainy periods, decline in crop yields, high disease incidence and crop losses, increased post-harvest losses and high labour costs, coupled with increasing incidents of HIV/AIDS. These adversely affect their livelihoods, exacerbating already entrenched poverty which prevails at the grassroots level. There is therefore an urgent need for alternative coping strategies to mitigate prevailing circumstances." So, how will a country like Cameroon plan for climate change and how do universities like CUIB contribute to those plans? First, we must recognize that climate change is a global problem. Emitted greenhouse gases do not abide by borders, nor do their impacts. In fact, as we've seen elsewhere, Cameroon is another country that has largely not caused the problem but may be impacted more significantly than other nations. The reason for this is threefold. First, since Cameroon's annual temperatures are confined to a small range, the biological systems are less capable of adapting to changes that modify the range. Second, Cameroon is heavily dependent on agriculture, which, in turn, depends on climate. Finally, Cameroon's limited financial resources make adaptation particularly difficult. Of course, Cameroon can, and will, play their role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. However with a high unemployment rate and with challenges related to electrical power production and distribution, what can this country realistically achieve? This was one of the questions I asked as I sat down with the Dean of the School Engineering, Dr. Asong Zisuh and his students. I quickly learned that innovative ideas from the young and entrepreneur-minded scientists and engineers might serve as a role model for us all. Dr. Asong Zisuh told me, "The mission of CUIB (the entrepreneurial university) is to prepare servant leaders with moral and spiritual values to contribute to the sustainable development of their communities. Students are required to undertake entrepreneurial projects on issues related to sustainable development. Ongoing student projects in the the School of Engineering include: construction of wind turbines to generate clean and renewable electricity; construction of a solar drier to help conserve local farm products; drawing building plans for local housing that incorporate energy conservation practices; developing concepts for sustainable management of solid and liquid waste by local councils; biogas production for small scale use; and production of briquettes from bio-residues." All of these very advanced and innovative ideas have been generated by enthusiastic undergraduate students. The young, it seems, express tremendous courage because they don't know what cannot be done. By this naïveté, they are sometimes able to accomplish what we old folks think is impossible. The motivation for these environmental-conservation and climate change projects is not only related to the need to curb greenhouse gas emissions, but also to meet the growing demand for energy amidst huge supply shortages. Cameroon is a tropical country that receives a significant amount of daily sunshine and experiences a high generation rate of bio-residues, especially from agricultural activities. Thus, harnessing these available and inexpensive opportunities is required for the sustainable and economic development of the country. Retrospectively, for someone like myself who works everyday on climate change, the slow progress can be demoralizing at times. I know that humans have the capacity to solve our climate and energy problems, we only lack the will. When I see what is happening at a small Cameroonian university that almost no one has heard of, I get encouraged. Maybe, just maybe, innovators like I've met at CUIB will be the change agents needed to preserve our future. Let's hope that's the case and let's support their efforts. Climate change Climate change scepticism Cameroon Climate change John Abraham theguardian.com © 2014 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Central African Republic: 'Without help, our country would be in flames' | Martin Plaut Posted: 27 Jan 2014 11:00 PM PST Muslim and Christian leaders join forces on European peace mission, as concern grows over influence of Chad and Sudan Monsignor Dieudonné Nzapalainga leans forward, frowning. His bulky frame fills the hotel armchair as the latest news agency copy is read to him. "That's bad. Very bad," he says quietly. The Reuters reports describes a convoy of more than two dozen vehicles carrying heavily armed Seleka rebels leaving Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic (CAR), and heading north. The news fills the city's archbishop with gloom. "They needed to be held accountable for what they had done. We cannot have impunity," he says wearily. His friend and companion on this London visit, the imam Oumar Kobine Layama, representing the country's Muslim minority, nods in agreement. The Central African Republic descended into chaos in March last year, when the mainly Muslim Seleka rebels ousted President François Bozizé. Archbishop Nzapalainga appealed for help from the international community on the Global development site in November, warning that the country was teetering on the edge of catastrophe. Then 65,000 had fled from their homes. Today the total is nearer 1 million, almost a quarter of the population. The archbishop and the imam have been touring European capitals, seeking support for their benighted country. In France they met President François Hollande; in London they are being received by Lady Warsi and a handful of officials. The religious leaders are appealing to the British government for political support to try to halt the killings. "In particular," their letter to the prime minister, David Cameron, reads, "we call on the United Kingdom to support EU efforts in a full deployment of Eufor" – the European rapid reaction force. The UN has warned repeatedly of the danger of a full-scale genocide in CAR. Nzapalainga says this is a real threat, with Christian and Muslim youths roaming the streets, seeking revenge for previous atrocities. "The two groups are at war," warns Kobine. "And they are led by bandits." Has the presence of 1,600 French and 4,000 African forces done anything to improve the situation? Yes, both men agree. "If it was not for them the whole country would have been in flames," the archbishop says. But the situation is complex. Chadian forces are among the African troops who comprise the bulk of the peacekeepers in and around Bangui. They have been closely allied with the Seleka and have been accused of joining them in attacks on Christian communities. The archbishop and the imam fear the rebels will re-form in the remote north-east and reopen their campaign. They say 10 generals who led the rebellion came from Chad, although they describe them as mercenaries rather than Chadian army officers. But both agree that Chad and Sudan have repeatedly intervened in CAR's affairs. "We have a soft belly," says Nzapalainga. "Everyone takes advantage of us." The real problem is that, seen from Paris, CAR is of only secondary importance compared with Chad. France has had a particular penchant for the Chadians since the former colony came out in support of General de Gaulle during the second world war. A French military base is situated in eastern Chad, with troops ready to serve across Africa. But the religious leaders remain hopeful that the situation can be salvaged. A week ago, Catherine Samba-Panza, a respected businesswoman with a reputation for independence, was elected to serve as head of state by the transitional parliament. She is the country's first woman president and the archbishop warns she will not succeed without international support. "Civil servants have not been paid for the last five months," he says. "The army needs to be rebuilt so that we can protect ourselves." Clearly there is much to be done, but the omens are not all bad. The US is threatening sanctions against those involved in religious-based violence. Germany, for the first time in years, is contemplating sending troops into an African conflict. The defence minister, Ursula von der Leyen, said on Sunday her country could not "look the other way when murder and rape are a daily occurrence, if only for humanitarian reasons". Even Britain, which has ruled out providing ground troops, is willing to provide financial and political support to these endeavours. Ending the violence will require international as well as African resolve, particularly if Chadian and Sudanese interference in the Central African Republic is to be ended. But it will also need goodwill among the Christian and Muslim communities. "We are doing what we can," Kobine says. "We have trained 30 religious leaders on dialogue and conflict resolution. Now we must train many more." It is a small beginning in a vast and troubled land, but the first seeds of peace must be planted somewhere and the archbishop and the imam are doing what they can. Conflict and development Central African Republic Africa François Hollande European Union Europe Sudan Middle East and North Africa France Chad Martin Plaut theguardian.com © 2014 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Navy entered Indonesian waters after wind, tide distractions: Tony Abbott Posted: 27 Jan 2014 10:54 PM PST The prime minister says the navy's on-water operations close to Indonesia are complex and even elite professionals make errors Katharine Murphy

Mohamed Morsi due back in court on jailbreak charges Posted: 27 Jan 2014 10:42 PM PST Ousted Egyptian president accused of breaking out of jail in one of several prosecutions launched under military rule Patrick Kingsley

Commission hears of hungry boys eating grass at Salvation Army home Posted: 27 Jan 2014 10:38 PM PST Witness says he ate raw potatoes and describes how children who wet their beds were made to sleep on the veranda outside

Maules Creek coalmine blockade – in pictures Posted: 27 Jan 2014 10:31 PM PST Guardian Australia: more than 120 people on Tuesday blockaded entries to the $767m Maules Creek project, near Boggabri, and attached themselves to bulldozers. These are their photographs

Children locked in cages at Salvation Army home, abuse inquiry told Posted: 27 Jan 2014 10:14 PM PST Two-week hearing in Sydney to be told of corporal punishment, sexual abuse and one boy being forced to 'eat his own vomit'

Labor party resists push to bring back building industry watchdog Posted: 27 Jan 2014 09:59 PM PST Tony Abbott seizes on revelations of corruption in the construction industry as evidence of the need for a 'tough cop on the beat' Daniel Hurst Katharine Murphy

US marine faces retrial over killing of Iraqi civilian Posted: 27 Jan 2014 09:50 PM PST Sergeant Lawrence Hutchins twice had conviction quashed while others were jailed over death of retired policeman in 2006

Whose turn to pat koalas? Court told of knife threat at Adelaide wildlife park Posted: 27 Jan 2014 09:23 PM PST The visitors were waiting to pat the koalas when the 34-year-old man allegedly became aggressive and assaulted the victim

Navy's Indonesia incursions like catch dropped in cricket, says Tony Abbott Posted: 27 Jan 2014 09:11 PM PST The prime minister says even people who are at the top of their game can occasionally make a mistake

Illiteracy persists among Afghan troops despite US education drive Posted: 27 Jan 2014 09:00 PM PST Watchdog says $200m project to teach basic reading and writing has reached only about half of the police and army A $200m US aid project designed to make sure the largely illiterate recruits to Afghanistan's security forces can manage basic reading and writing has reached only about half of the police and army, a US government watchdog has said. This means tens of thousands of men on the frontline of the battle against the Taliban cannot read or prepare notes about their enemy, fill in orders for supplies and ammunition or send written reports of battles to headquarters. Nearly 400,000 soldiers and police have attended some form of literacy classes funded by Nato or the US. "Command officials responsible for the literacy training programme roughly estimated that over half of the force was still illiterate as of February 2013," the special inspector general for Afghanistan says in a report on the education challenge. "According to [training] officials, this low level of literacy is likely to persist through the end of the decade." The education ministry estimates that around a third of all Afghans can read and write. But joining the security forces is dangerous and badly paid, meaning that many recruits are from the poorest families, and barely one in 10 can read or write. Because literacy is vital to a modern military or police force, the US decided five years ago to add classes to basic training. They aimed to ensure that all new recruits were able to count, write their own name and read basic words by 2014, and to bring half up to third grade (English year 4) level. "Literate forces are easier to train, more capable and effective, and better able to understand human rights and the rule of law," the report says. "Further, literate soldiers and police can account for equipment and weapons by completing paperwork and reading serial numbers. They can also mitigate corrupt practices by tracking their own pay." In 2009 the police and army were expected to grow only to around 150,000 strong. A rapid expansion to more than twice that size makes the original literacy goals unrealistic and unattainable, the report says, citing commanders from the training mission. An additional problem is the high numbers of dropouts each year, with as many as one in three going absent without leave or deciding not to re-enlist. This means the government has to train tens of thousands of a new recruits each year just to keep numbers constant, and has not always made reading and writing a priority for new soldiers. Last year as fighting and the demand for men escalated, the defence ministry dropped the literacy requirement for new hires between February and July. In the six months before that, half of police hires were sent straight to the field with no literacy training, the report says. The US-managed programme is meant to be in Afghan hands by the end of this year, but officials have struggled to get agreement on the plan from the Afghan government, and ministries have been "slow to fulfil their stated commitments". There is no clear plan for the handover, and no way to monitor the contractors who organise the teaching, the report says. "[The training mission] currently does not verify students' language proficiency, evaluate the effectiveness of instructions, monitor class size and length of instruction, or track graduates after they complete training and join their assigned units," it adds. Nato forces in Afghanistan said on Monday they had brought in tighter controls on literacy training. Funding for the project had been shifted from the US to Nato, and new practices and better oversight had saved more than $19m, the International Security Assistance Force said. Afghanistan US foreign policy United States Emma Graham-Harrison theguardian.com © 2014 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

SPC Ardmona cry for help: Tony Abbott talks down federal assistance Posted: 27 Jan 2014 08:58 PM PST Cabinet prepares to discuss help this week for Australia's last big fruit processor which wants $50m to upgrade its  facilities

Peter Cosgrove announced as governor general by Tony Abbott - video Posted: 27 Jan 2014 08:49 PM PST Prime minister Tony Abbott announces General Peter Cosgrove as governor general designate during a news conference at Parliament House in Canberra

Scientists shed light on origins of 1,500-year-old plague - video Posted: 27 Jan 2014 08:46 PM PST Scientists have sequenced the genome of the pathogen that caused one of the most devastating plagues in human history, shedding light on where the disease came from and how it spread

H7N9 bird flu: Chinese provinces halt live poultry trade Posted: 27 Jan 2014 08:27 PM PST Bans instituted on mainland and Hong Kong culls chickens as infections increase and Chinese new year travel period arrives

Australian anthems: Cold Chisel – Khe Sanh Posted: 27 Jan 2014 08:26 PM PST This 1978 pub rock anthem about a disillusioned Vietnam veteran captured the wanderlust of a generation of Australians Paul Daley

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