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

Eurozone unemployment rate remains at record high - business live
China sets air pollution goals
Best pictures of the day - live
Bad weather delays Mohamed Morsi's arrival for trial in Cairo
Norfolk helicopter crash: four crew killed in US training exercise
Bad weather makes for (some) good headline puns
Former Miss Venezuela Monica Spear and British ex-husband shot dead in robbery
India train fire kills nine passengers
India cracks down on US embassy club in diplomatic row
Nigerians turn on comic over rape 'joke'
CES 2014: Why wearable technology is the new dress code
CES 2014 opens its doors - video
US air force helicopter crashes in Norfolk, killing at least four people
Pill class action: about 600 Australian women express interest in joining case
Temperatures climb towards 50s as heatwave grips Western Australia
Pink and Australia – an enduring love affair | Andrew P Street
Castro is Cuba's saviour - for now: from the archive, 8 January 1959
Barnaby Joyce yet to sell land next to coal seam gas exploration site
Manus guards who mocked detainee committed ‘appalling breach of trust’
Supplying lifeboats to asylum seekers may rile Indonesia, Australia warned
Oil and propane train derails and catches fire in Canada
Geoengineering could bring severe drought to the tropics, research shows
West coast shark cull sparks fears of more attacks on swimmers
Salmonella scare closes Melbourne restaurant after diners fall ill
North Korea sets March date for poll that may offer clues to power shift

Eurozone unemployment rate remains at record high - business live

Posted: 08 Jan 2014 02:11 AM PST

Latest data shows jobless rate remained at 12.1% across the euro area in November

Graeme Wearden

China sets air pollution goals

Posted: 08 Jan 2014 02:10 AM PST

Provinces ordered to reduce dangerous PM2.5 particles by 5-25% annually in response to public anger over pollution

Best pictures of the day - live

Posted: 08 Jan 2014 02:09 AM PST

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

Mee-Lai Stone

Bad weather delays Mohamed Morsi's arrival for trial in Cairo

Posted: 08 Jan 2014 02:02 AM PST

Bad weather delays Morsi's flight from Alexandria to Cairo, where he was due to face charges of inciting killing of protesters

The judge in the trial of Egypt's former Islamist president on charges of inciting murder has ordered the hearings be adjourned until 1 February after bad weather prevented Mohammed Morsi from reaching the Cairo court.

Security officials say the helicopter that was to fly Morsi from a prison near the Mediterranean city of Alexandria to the court in Cairo could not take off because of fog on Wednesday.

Morsi and 14 others are on trial for inciting the killing of protesters outside a Cairo presidential palace in December 2012, when at least 10 people wee killed and hundreds wounded.

It's one of three trials that Morsi faces. Charges in all three carry the death penalty.

The army-backed authorities brought two new cases against Morsi last month, accusing him of conspiring against Egypt with the Palestinian group Hamas, Lebanon's Hezbollah and the Shia Islamist government of Iran, and separately charging him over a mass jail break during the 2011 uprising against Hosni Mubarak.

Norfolk helicopter crash: four crew killed in US training exercise

Posted: 08 Jan 2014 01:56 AM PST

Craft from US base at RAF Lakenheath goes down on low-level mission, scattering live ammunition over marshes

Police investigating a US helicopter crash on the Norfolk coast that killed four crew members and scattered live ammunition over a nature reserve said the incident occurred during an training exercise involving a second US helicopter.

Chief Superintendent Bob Scully, from Norfolk police, said the aircraft were HH-60 Pave Hawk helicopters. Speaking at a press conference at the scene, in the village of Cley-next-the-Sea, he said the second helicopter was not thought to have caused the crash.

But he added it was too early to speculate. "The two aircraft were involved in some training activity," Scully said.

"The most immediate aircraft to provide assistance was the other aircraft. It will be a matter for the [air] investigation to establish whether there was any causal link. My understanding was apparently not but we don't know. We should allow them to carry out the full investigation."

The crashed aircraft had flown from the US airbase at RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk.

Norfolk police would hand over responsibility for the crash site to US and UK military air investigators after the coroner had examined the bodies of the four unnamed crew members, Scully said.

The crash site, about the size of a football pitch, was on "difficult terrain in the marsh", was scattered with live ammunition and would remain cordoned off for at least another day, he added.

The main A149 road between Cromer and Hunstanton, which runs alongside the crash site, has been closed.

Scully said: "The crashed aircraft did contain ammunition. That ammunition is not of any great significance – it is bullets, if you will – but those are scattered about the site, so the site is hazardous to members of the public. So we will be working with the military to ensure public safety by restricting access to that area.

"The debris is not on the beach but there are some bits of debris that are vulnerable to high tide. The majority of the debris is on the marsh.

He added that the investigation by the US and UK military was likely to take a considerable time.

A statement from the 48th Fighter Wing of RAF Lakenheath said: "US military officials are co-ordinating the recovery efforts with the UK police and the Ministry of Defence.

"The aircraft, assigned to the 48th Fighter Wing, was performing a low-level training mission along the coast when the crash occurred."

A spokesman added that the RAF understood the crash had happened at 6pm on Tuesday.

Residents spoke of hearing a "heavy and very unusual" sound overhead as the helicopter, which specialises in recovering troops from war zones, plummeted into marshland at the Norfolk Wildlife Trust Cley Marshes nature reserve.

Details of the four crew members would not be released until next of kin had been informed, police said, adding that no one in the surrounding area had been injured.

Bernard Bishop, a Norfolk Wildife Trust warden based at Cley, said his house overlooked the crash site and he had never seen anything like it.

"I heard the helicopter flying overhead and watched from my back garden," he said.

"It was very quickly obvious something serious was wrong. The search-and-rescue crews quickly arrived and it was my job to escort them over the marsh.

"The conditions are very difficult because the marsh has flooded twice in recent weeks, so that's hampering their efforts to recover the bodies and make the helicopter safe.

"There's only one track in and out of the crash site, which is also restricting their movements. It's just awful. I've never known anything like and never seen so many people here at one time."

Matthew Weaver

Bad weather makes for (some) good headline puns

Posted: 08 Jan 2014 01:34 AM PST

Bad weather, widespread flooding in Britain and the "polar vortex" in the United States, makes for dramatic film footage and pictures.

The story is serious. People have been killed in both countries. Thousands have suffered in varying ways, and even when the floods retreat they will go on suffering.

Despite that, some newspapers tend to treat such events as opportunities for light-hearted punning headlines. Some are rather good, such as the simple (and effective) one in the Daily Star on Monday: "UK's in deep trouble!"

Here is a selection of other weather story puns this week: "Where ark thou Noah?" (Daily Star), "For cod's sake, when will the rain end?" (Metro), "Cod awful" (The Sun), "You ain't nothin' but a found dog" (billed as a "cheery tale from battered Britain" in the Daily Mirror), and "Giant waves destroy the rocks of ages" (a superb Daily Telegraph heading today over a picture of a collapsed rock formation off Portland, Dorset).

But the stand-out headline is on The Sun's front page today: "Hell freezes over". A town called Hell in Michigan, where temperatures fell to -40 ̊C, was a subeditor's gift.

Roy Greenslade

Former Miss Venezuela Monica Spear and British ex-husband shot dead in robbery

Posted: 08 Jan 2014 01:15 AM PST

Mónica Spear, a telenovela actor and former beauty queen, dies with ex-husband in robbery that also injures five-year-old child

A Venezuelan beauty queen and her British ex-husband were shot and killed after their car broke down on a roadside near Puerto Cabello on Monday night.

Mónica Spear, who won the Miss Venezuela crown in 2004, and Thomas Berry, a travel company boss from London, according to his Facebook page, are believed to be the victims of an attempted robbery or kidnapping in one of the world's most dangerous countries.

Their bodies – along with their injured five-year-old daughter Maya, who is now receiving hospital treatment – were found in a Toyota Corolla that had apparently broken down on the way from Puerto Cabello to Valencia.

Reflecting the high profile of Spear, President Nicolás Maduro made a statement on the killing, saying it reflected wider problems. "It is very sad to hear of the loss of this young woman … It is a problem of social violence," he said.

After giving up her beauty crown, Spear became a successful TV presenter and telenovela, or soap, actor.

The couple divorced in 2013, but remained on good terms and kept close ties with Venezuela. Berry's Irish father lives in Caracas, where he was a professor of mathematics at Simón Bolívar University for several decades before his retirement.

Spear had returned to Venezuela from her new home in Miami for a working holiday. In an earlier interview, she said she had moved to the US due to fears of crime in her home country. Spear was due to return to Miami later this week.

Her recent tweets suggest she had been enjoying the trip. Berry's Facebook photos show the couple have travelled extensively.

Police are investigating the deaths and have sealed off the area. According to the local broadcasters Globovision and Union Radio, detectives are working on the assumption that the car's engine malfunctioned, forcing them to wait by the road for the arrival of a tow truck. Opportunistic thieves then attempted to rob them and started shooting when the couple resisted.

Local reports said Berry, 39, was shot in the chest while his former partner suffered multiple gunshot wounds. Their bodies were taken to a morgue in Valencia, which is about 110 miles west of Caracas.

The couple's daughter is in a stable condition after treatment for a bullet wound to her leg. Her grandparents were said to be with her in hospital.

Spear's death has shocked her many fans. Her Twitter account has more than 355,000 followers, many of whom posted messages of condolence to her family and expressed anger at the killers.

"I'm so sad for my Venezuela, my condolences for Mónica Spear's family. Rage and impotence are what I feel right now," wrote Venezuelan salsa singer Oscar D'León.

The minister for communications, Delcy Rodríguez, tweeted her condolences and promised the "full weight of the law" would be used to find the perpetrators.

Venezuela has one of the highest murder rates in the world with more killings than the United States and Europe combined, according to one estimate.

The Venezuelan Violence Observatory said the rate had risen fourfold in the past 15 years. The NGO estimates that 24,763 killings occurred in 2013, pushing up the homicide rate to 79 per 100,000 inhabitants.

The government says the rate is about half this level, though that would still make Venezuela more dangerous than many warzones.

Polls consistently show violent crime to be the main concern of voters. President Maduro has declared it his top priority, but several previous campaigns to improve public safety have failed to halt the worsening of the situation.

Henrique Viloria, a radio host, who announced the deaths, said the government needed to pay more attention to the issue of crime and place less emphasis on handing out electronic goods – a reference to the military-imposed discounts at shops before Christmas.

Jonathan Watts

Virginia López

India train fire kills nine passengers

Posted: 08 Jan 2014 01:07 AM PST

Fire started early on Wednesday hours after train left Mumbai on 48-hour journey to the Himalayan foothill town of Dehradun

Fire and smoke engulfed three cars of an Indian passenger train early on Wednesday, killing nine people as they slept in the latest tragedy to hit the country's vast railway network.

Authorities were trying to determine what caused the fire to break out before dawn, just hours after the train left Mumbai on a 48-hour journey to the Himalayan foothill town of Dehradun, Western Railways spokesman Sunil Singh said.

TV channels broadcast images of flames leaping out of the windows and lapping at the metal sides of the cars.

The fire spread through three of the train's coaches before it was noticed by a guard at a railway post, who alerted railway authorities.

"We made the train stop immediately," railway official Shailendra Kumar said. Because there was no road access for firefighters, "passengers and train staff used fire extinguishers on the train to douse the fire, but it did not subside".

Firefighters eventually put out the blaze at a stop further along the track at the Maharashtra town of Gholvad.

The affected cars, blackened and charred, were unhooked from the rest of the train so it could continue its journey north.

The tragedy happened less than two weeks after another train fire killed 26 people in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh.

Accidents are common on India's rail network, one of the world's largest, with 23 million passengers daily travelling on about 11,000 passenger trains. Most collisions and fires are blamed on poor maintenance and human error.

Fires were involved in at least eight of the 100 or so accidents that killed 185 people in 2012, according to a 2013 safety review submitted to the Indian parliament.

The railway ministry on Wednesday promised about $8,000 (£4,900) in compensation to the families of those killed on the Mumbai-Dehradun Express.

India cracks down on US embassy club in diplomatic row

Posted: 08 Jan 2014 01:00 AM PST

India says US embassy must cease commercial activities benefiting non-diplomats, after Indian envoy's arrest in New York

India has told the US to stop allowing non-diplomats to visit a social club at its Delhi embassy, in an escalation of a row over the arrest of an Indian diplomat in New York.

Hundreds of expatriate Americans use the American Community Support Association club, which has a bar, swimming pool, restaurant and beauty parlour within the embassy premises. The club has been in existence for decades.

A government source told Reuters the embassy must cease all commercial activities benefiting non-diplomatic staff on its premises by 16 January.

Meanwhile, the Press Trust of India reported that India had informed the US that embassy cars would not be immune to penalties for traffic violations

India is furious at the arrest, handcuffing and strip-searching of its deputy consul in New York, Devyani Khobragade, whom prosecutors accuse of underpaying her nanny and lying on a visa application.

The row has affected diplomatic relations, with one high-level visit postponed and a visit scheduled for next week by the US energy secretary, Ernest Moniz, looking doubtful.

Khobragade, who was arrested on 12 December, is due to appear in court next Monday.

India says the social club's facilities operate tax-free because they are located in the embassy grounds.

"The provision of such facilities to non-diplomats and not paying taxes is clearly not in accordance with the Vienna convention," the government source said. "You can't have these facilities inside and not pay taxes and allow non-diplomats."

A US embassy spokesman was not immediately available for comment.

India had already curtailed privileges offered to American diplomats to bring them in line with the treatment of Indian envoys to the US. Since December, the US ambassador in Delhi can be subjected to airport frisking and most consular staff have reduced levels of immunity.

Concrete barriers were removed from a road near the embassy last month, apparently in retaliation for the loss of a parking spot for the Indian ambassador in Washington.

Known as the American Embassy club, the social centre is located on embassy grounds and along with the American Embassy School is the heart of Delhi life for the families of many expatriate employees of US corporations in India.

India is also preparing to take steps against the embassy school, which it suspects may be employing staff in violation of visa requirements, the government source said.

Nigerians turn on comic over rape 'joke'

Posted: 08 Jan 2014 12:35 AM PST

Basketmouth's comments spark debate about sexual violence in country with high prevalence of abuse against women

The Nigerian comedian Basketmouth has come under fire on social media after posting a joke about the difference between dating "white girls" and "African girls". In a nutshell, white women put out after a couple of dates, but African women keep holding out, so on the ninth date a bit of rape is required.

Funny? No. Instead, most Nigerian and other African commentators found it offensive. Basketmouth was trivialising rape in a country suffering from an epidemic of sexual violence.

"Show me a man who is insensitive to rape and I'll show you a man who is capable of rape&hellip," tweeted the Nigerian novelist Chika Unigwe.

Basketmouth had his defenders, who went the usual route of calling those who criticised him over-sensitive, or humourless, or saying they perhaps missed some grand satirical intention.

The comedian himself eventually claimed that he was trying to flag up an important social issue: "I would never in a thousand lifetimes encourage rape, I broadcasted a joke that many clearly misunderstood and have found offensive and I sincerely apologise, the intention however was to highlight an unfortunate trend and the ridiculously flawed comparison between money & the worth of a woman."<

But his full apology only came after a half-hearted first attempt, and he has form – a year ago he entertained a British crowd with a charming granny-rape joke.

Basketmouth is just one in a pantheon of international stand-up comedians to use the rape of women as a subject for a cheap laugh (British 'comic' and tax avoider Jimmy Carr has been mining this seam for years). But in Africa he is a lightning conductor – he's the one with the big profile, who chose to shout out his rape joke to his one million Facebook fans. He's the big goofy team mascot for those Nigerian men who think women are teases and there for the taking. #basketmouthgate, as nobody called it, opened up a whole debate about the subject of rape in Nigeria and beyond.

There is no doubt that rape is a problem in Nigeria. When writer Elnathan John spoke about marital rape, he was attacked by angry men for daring to suggest that a woman could withhold sex once the ink on the marriage contract was dry.

On Twitter this week he said: "There is a reason Basketmouth makes so many people laugh with female rape jokes. We condone it. It is not yet a big deal here… All rape is abominable, but I tell you if men got raped as often as women, there would be no celebration of rape jokes."

Victim-blaming is widespread in Africa and much of the world – an Indian judge recently said that a Dalit woman who was brutally raped had indicated her sexual availability by going out of her house after dark. Across many countries in Africa, so called mini-skirt laws are being debated – the implication being that men are animals and women pieces of meat who should know better than to flash the flesh at their predators.

What happens in Nigeria is that women are often raped. They are raped in their homes by their husbands, on dates with men who think that a meal or a few drinks have purchased her consent; they are raped in police custody; they are raped by their teacher, professor or fellow students when they're trying to get their education.

The state colludes with this by failing to collate coherent statistics about rape and sexual violence, rendering these crimes invisible – or at least until some buffoon raises his head above the parapet to joke about them.

It seems that perpetrators can often get away with rape, but that critics jumping on a rape joke by a comedian is beyond the pale for some. Get a sense of humour and stop messing with our fun, was the general message from Basketmouth's apologists, mostly men. Nigerian-British blogger Mia Farraday (a pseudonym) was one of Basketmouth's biggest detractors on Twitter. "I made a fuss about this quite deliberately. Not because I've never heard a rape joke before or because I'm a secret Basketmouth hater… It's because Nigeria has a real and present rape epidemic and because our sense of humour about everything is often detrimental."

Writer and former Basketmouth fan from Zimbabwe Barbara Mhangami addressed a strong blog post to him after the joke was made public. In it, she says:

"From an early age girls are taught to view themselves from the negatives that are heaped on them because men rape. It is girls' fault that men are depraved. We teach them not to walk alone after dark, not to be alone with boys, to wear 'decent clothes. Yet after all this, many are still raped. Why is that, Mr Basketmouth? BECAUSE BOYS AND MEN ARE NOT BEING TAUGHT THAT RAPE IS NOT A JOKE!"

Of course, rape culture diminishes men as well as women. A woman is passive, a thing, without agency – but a man is, says the rape culture model, a flesh-covered skeleton with a penis and a bunch of uncontrollable impulses. Yes, most of humanity are capable of gross abuses of power if they are conditioned to them and feel they have the backing of the crowd – what is wrong can seem like the norm, or even funny or enjoyable.

Challenging rape culture is about calling out the men, one by one, who joke about or belittle women, and violence against them. It's about looking one man in the eye – your colleague, your family member, your friend – looking directly at them and explaining why one flippant comment can add to the weight of ALL the comments, which in turn diminish women as humans, which in turn makes it easier for a man to do what he can to them without their conscience reacting.

And this time, on Twitter at least, Nigeria fought back. Its women, and many of its men, called bullshit on Basketmouth, they hit him where it really hurts – in the wallet – by threatening to boycott his shows and by alerting his sponsors to his joke.

As Nigerian TedxEuston organiser Patrick Anigbo put it: "Well done to my people for rejecting this scourge totally. And those few thousands that did not get it, I hope you have learnt today."

Several Twitter users even suggested that Basketmouth should use his platform to educate his fans about rape culture – or even become an anti-rape activist. So, Basketmouth, the ball's in your court. But the ball is also in the court of every citizen of Nigeria and any other country where rape culture reigns.

More from the Africa network: What if it was your daughter?

CES 2014: Why wearable technology is the new dress code

Posted: 08 Jan 2014 12:29 AM PST

Other highlights of this year's International Consumer Electronics show in Las Vegas include a fridge you can text

If you laid all the wristbands, smartwatches and head-mountable cameras at the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) end to end, they would probably run the length of the Las Vegas strip, where the show is in full swing.

But what the firms showing off "wearable" technologies this year would dearly love to know is: will anyone buy them? Because if wearables – devices with computer chips that can monitor your heart rate, steps taken, and even location – don't take off, then the consumer electronics industry will have to fall back on its reliable sellers: big TVs, tablets and PCs.

Or it might just grab your attention with this year's other surprise: household appliances you can text – so you can ask your washing machine how it's getting on.

CES opened its doors on Tuesday to thousands of visitors hoping to see the future products that they will be using and, perhaps, wearing.

The huge Convention Centre is home to thousands of companies touting their wares – or, in many cases, wears. The biggest fad right now is for wearable devices that measure some sort of detail about you, and log it. Sony announced a "SmartBand" allied to a "LifeLog", which head of mobile sales Dennis van Schie explained would "capture more quantifiable information about your life, because you never do one activity in isolation".

Netatmo meanwhile offered "smart jewellery" which monitors your skin's ultraviolet exposure and sends it to a smartphone app. The Wellograph is a smartwatch with a heart monitor that also tracks your movement. And for the truly fitness-obsessed, Runphones has a sweatband which tracks your performance when running.

Also on show was Samsung's Galaxy Gear, a smartwatch released last September to general indifference. Pebble, which raised $10.2m to build a smartwatch in 2012 – and delivered it in 2013 – announced the Steel, a new version with a multicoloured screen and metal surround.

There's no sign yet though that anyone is actually buying them in significant numbers. "The market for smartwatches is getting crowded before there is even a real market of smartwatches," commented Ben Bajarin, analyst at Creative Strategies.

But Ben Wood of CCS Insight says this is a necessary evolution. More than $100m has been invested in wearables through crowdfunding sites, which he cites as evidence of their huge potential: "Technology companies are feeling their way in the dark, but we expect innovative features to appear first on wearable devices that will be integrated into smartphones and other consumer electronics devices."

He cautions though that "many wearable devices will have their five minutes of fame at shows like CES before disappearing into oblivion".

Certainly last year's $100 "smart fork" from Hapilabs, which promised to monitor how much you ate (but mystifyingly hasn't become commonplace), has been supplanted by this year's star – a Bluetooth-enabled toothbrush from Kolibree, which will tell your phone how "efficiently" you've been brushing your teeth, and for how long. "Personal health and wellbeing will be important factors in all wearable devices as consumers try to rationalise buying 'gadget bling' under the pretext of it improving their health and fitness," said Wood.

The other CES staple that could be laid along the length of the Las Vegas strip is TVs. In previous years, attenders have been bombarded by 3D TV, Google TV, and "smart" TV – none of which have grabbed the popular consciousness. This year it is the turn of 4K TV, which promises to offer four times the resolution of HDTV.

The problem now is finding content for such super-detailed screens. Netflix's boss, Reed Hastings, announced that series two of House of Cards, starring Kevin Spacey, will be streamed in 4K – for those with a special version of the Netflix app, and a suitable TV. The World Cup final will also be broadcast in 4K, though it is unclear how many broadcasters will be able to transmit it.

Meanwhile two of the world's largest TV makers, the South Korean companies LG and Samsung, vied to be first to show off the biggest – and smallest – curved screens. Samsung flaunted an 85in LCD set which starts off flat but with the touch of a button curves in from the shorter sides.

But when Transformers director Michael Bay was brought on stage to enthuse about this real-life transformer, it turned instead into a scene from another of his films – Armageddon – as the teleprompter failed and Bay, unwilling to improvise, simply walked off.

Nor was the idea of a curving screen received with undiluted enthusiasm. "Like a lot of concept demos at CES, the bendable TV is more a novelty with little practical application," remarked David Katzmaier, who has reviewed TV sets for the website CNet since 2002. "The housing [of the device] is larger than a typical TV, and I can't begin to imagine how much it would cost." Samsung hasn't released pricing.

LG too offered a curved TV, prompting US head of new product development Tim Alessi to announce that "our curved screens, impossibly thin screens, are the future of televisions offering unrivalled immersive pictures."

One theme that keeps returning to CES, year after year, is the "connected home". The "internet fridge" made its regular appearance, this time from LG, whose US head of appliance brand marketing, David VanderWall, proclaimed: "You can text the fridge to find out what you need to buy" – though he skimmed past the detail of how your fridge will know what's inside it.

Washing machines too will answer to your texts, he explained: "For the first time you'll be able to text your washing machine 'What are you doing?' and it'll let you know how it's getting on." He explained: "You no longer need to learn machine commands. Just speak naturally and your oven will understand you. Simply text it to find out what you need for a recipe."

Will we have smart ovens by Christmas that will know how to cook turkey while we watch football on 4K TVs, monitoring our sofa habits with wristbands? At least two of them look unlikely. But CES is always about the promise – not necessarily the product.

Samuel Gibbs

Charles Arthur

CES 2014 opens its doors - video

Posted: 08 Jan 2014 12:17 AM PST

Las Vegas welcomes thousands of visitors to 2014's Consumer Electronics Show on Tuesday

US air force helicopter crashes in Norfolk, killing at least four people

Posted: 08 Jan 2014 12:07 AM PST

Investigation begins after chopper from US base at RAF Lakenheath crashed while on low-level training over marshes

An investigation has begun after four crew members were killed when a US military helicopter crashed during a training exercise near a Royal Air Force base on the east coast of England.

A 400m area was cordoned off by police following the incident, which happened at about 6pm on Tuesday near the Norfolk village of Cley-next-the-Sea. Local people were told to stay clear.

The incident involved a HH-60 Pave Hawk helicopter, a derivative of the better-known Black Hawk aircraft, whose primary role is the transport of special forces.

The US Air Force (Usaf) said that the aircraft was flying from a US airbase at RAF Lakenheath, Suffolk, to the south of the crash site, and had been taking part in a low-level flying exercise when it came down in marshland.

A Pentagon official in Washington later confirmed that the four crew members were presumed dead.

The aircraft was carrying munitions at the time of the crash and police said they were investigating the nature of the weaponry, which may pose a risk to the public.

Norfolk police assistant chief constable Sarah Hamlin said: "I would like to pass on my condolences to the family, friends and colleagues of those US Air Force personnel who have sadly lost their lives in this tragic incident.

"Emergency services, the military, partner agencies and volunteers have been working through the night to deal with this difficult situation on our coastline and I would also like to thank them for their professionalism and resilience.

"As our inquiry moves on today and the recovery of the aircraft begins, I would urge the public to stay away from the area – the cordon and road closures are in place to allow our experts to carry out these processes safely and there is no risk to members of the public if this section of marshland is avoided."

A second helicopter from RAF Lakenheath was also in the area at the time of the crash and set down on the marshes to try to assist. It remains at the scene while the investigation continues.

Inquiries into the cause of the crash, as well as the recovery of the wreckage and the second aircraft, are expected to take a number of days to complete, due to the geography and the munitions from the crashed helicopter. The Usaf will be involved in the inquiry.

A police spokesman said that an environmental assessment would also take place.

A 400m cordon has been placed around the crash site and the A149 road through Cley is closed.

Details of the four crew members will not be released until next of kin have been informed. It is not believed that anyone in the surrounding area was injured, police said.

The base is home to the Usaf's 48th Fighter Wing, also known as the Liberty Wing, which is integral to US air strength in Europe, and has been involved in anti-terrorism operations around the world.

Local reports said residents had heard F-15 planes flying over the scene of the crash, in the vicinity of a nature reserve run by Norfolk Wildlife Trust.

Dozens of emergency vehicles from the fire brigade, coastguard and police were involved in an operation at the scene on Tuesday night, while the Royal National Lifeboat Institution earlier sent out three lifeboats in response to initial reports of a crash in the area.

Peter and Sue McKnespiey, who run Cookies crab shop in the nearby village of Salthouse, live near the crash site.

She said: "We heard the helicopter come over very fast and very low. I don't know about engines, but I am used to the sound of helicopters, and this sounded very heavy and very unusual.

"My gut instinct was there was something wrong. We've now heard four people have died and it's just awful. I keep hoping the helicopter I heard isn't the one that crashed. I think the whole village will be devastated when it realises what's happened."

Helen Terry, 43, another Salthouse resident who said she had heard the helicopter flying over, said: "We assumed it was just heading out to sea for training exercises. It's a daily occurrence and we're quite used to it.

"We live less than half a mile from where it's happened and we didn't hear any bang. The first we heard was when we saw emergency crews rushing to the area."

Cley artist Rachel Lockwood, from the village's Pinkfoot gallery, said: "We had never seen so many police cars and fire engines, so went to have a look.

"The beach road to Cley is sealed off. There are lots of fire engines near the Dun Cow pub at Salthouse. A helicopter is hovering over the marsh with a light beaming down." Cley is a picturesque village one mile east of Blakeney and four miles north of Holt, on the main coast road between Wells and Sheringham.

The US military uses Pave Hawks for combat search and rescue missions during day and night, mainly to recover downed air crew or other isolated personnel such as special forces troopers operating in conflict zones.

The aircraft, which are manufactured by Sikorsky, have seen action in every major conflict involving the US since the 1989 invasion of Panama, although concerns have been expressed in recent years that their frequent use has taken a toll.

Most of the 99 helicopters in the personnel-recovery fleet have developed structural cracks due to overuse but US military budget constraints have disrupted attempts to carry out upgrades, according to a report last month in Forbes.

The 64ft-long Pave Hawk can travel at speeds of up to 184mph (159 knots) and usually carry a crew of two pilots, one flight engineer and a gunner.

All have an automatic flight control system, night vision goggles and an infrared system that enhances night low-level operations. They also have colour weather radar and an engine/rotor blade anti-ice system to help cope with adverse weather conditions. In recent years, the helicopters have been deployed in Iraq, Afghanisation and Libya.

Ben Quinn

Pill class action: about 600 Australian women express interest in joining case

Posted: 07 Jan 2014 11:55 PM PST

Adelaide law firm flags action against makers of Yasmin and Yas, alleging reactions including blood clots and strokes

Helen Davidson

Temperatures climb towards 50s as heatwave grips Western Australia

Posted: 07 Jan 2014 11:24 PM PST

Bureau of Meteorology predicts remote outpost of Emu Creek could reach 52C, but this has been scaled down to the high-40s

Oliver Milman

Pink and Australia – an enduring love affair | Andrew P Street

Posted: 07 Jan 2014 11:20 PM PST

Andrew P Street: The US singer's 2012 album The Truth About Love has been named Australia's biggest selling album for the second year running, and Melbourne is her biggest market in the world. Why do Australians love her so much?

Andrew P Street

Castro is Cuba's saviour - for now: from the archive, 8 January 1959

Posted: 07 Jan 2014 11:00 PM PST

For the moment, Fidel Castro is Cuba's conquering rebel and the living symbol of release from a brutal dictatorship. Batista, too, was honoured in his time, till the cliques ganged up against him

New York, January 7.
Cuba is unlikely to recognise the Soviet Union "or any other dictatorship" as long as it is busy, which it seemed to be to-day, creating a provisional dictatorship of its own. It was Fidel Castro, the conquering rebel, who passed the snubbing remark about the Communists to-day, while his appointed president, Judge Manuel Urrutia Lleo, was dissolving the Congress and the courts and having his Cabinet draft decrees that will abolish all political parties and ban from future office all candidates in the 1954 and 1958 elections held under the auspices of the departed President Batista.

The Cabinet announced yesterday that the country will be ruled by decree for 18 months or two years, by which time - it hopes - Cuba will be ready for free elections and a go at democracy. To complete the uprooting of Batista's tyranny, Dr Urrutia's Cabinet Government has removed all sitting Governors of provinces, all Congressmen, mayors, aldermen, judges, and tax collectors; abolished the so-called urgency courts, whose most urgent function was the arrest and conviction of captured rebels; and has dismissed and arrested the president of the National Bank of Cuba and the president of the Agricultural and Industrial Development Bank. It has also frozen such private bank accounts of Batista's officials as were not already salted away in Switzerland, South Africa, or the United States.

Meanwhile the hero himself, who has renounced all desire for "power" and is content to be the armed forces Chief of Staff, was enjoying a slow approach to Havana as thousands cheered.

For the moment, Castro is the living symbol of release from an interminably brutal and corrupt dictatorship, which was all the more dolorous in that its leader had appeared, not too many years ago, in the liberating image of Castro himself. The press and people of the United States defer only to the Cubans in their excessive celebration of a new Latin American hero; possibly because Castro looks so young and modern, and talks so gallantly: probably because on its face his victory represents the straightforward triumph of truth and heroism in a complicated world. Errol Flynn, the ex-movie buccaneer, who has been fleshed by a bullet in the rebels' cause, said last night that Castro "is the last of the pure idealists."

The first misgivings here about Castro's intention to seize the sugar interests held by Americans and to nationalise the utilities, were brushed aside yesterday by Castro's published remark that Cuba was "not yet ready for such radical measures." However, when the triumphal fever subsides and he begins to be yet another big shot ensconced in an office in downtown Havana, he will have to meet the challenge under which so many of his predecessors buckled.

Twenty-five years ago, Sergeant Batista - a poor and audacious rebel - gave the Cubans a new lease of freedom when he overthrew the villainous Machado. He built clean hospitals and lots of schools and gave to the tenant farmers so many precious acres and a mule. He, too, was honoured in his time, till the cliques ganged up against him, till he silenced secret cabals with his own secret police and used guns to annihilate the gunmen.

Alistair Cooke

Barnaby Joyce yet to sell land next to coal seam gas exploration site

Posted: 07 Jan 2014 10:46 PM PST

'Santos has told me they are not exploring for gas on my place – they are on the place next door,' says agriculture minister

Lenore Taylor

Manus guards who mocked detainee committed ‘appalling breach of trust’

Posted: 07 Jan 2014 10:36 PM PST

Advocacy groups and politicians condemn Facebook posts about asylum seeker who swallowed nail clippers

Paul Farrell

Supplying lifeboats to asylum seekers may rile Indonesia, Australia warned

Posted: 07 Jan 2014 10:18 PM PST

Expert warns plan could worsen Indonesian relationship while asylum seekers claim rough treatment during turnbacks

Daniel Hurst

Lenore Taylor

Helen Davidson

Oil and propane train derails and catches fire in Canada

Posted: 07 Jan 2014 10:02 PM PST

Homes evacuated after derailment close to US border in New Brunswick but train staff escape unhurt

Geoengineering could bring severe drought to the tropics, research shows

Posted: 07 Jan 2014 09:59 PM PST

Study models impact on global rainfall when artificial volcanic eruptions are created in a bid to reverse climate change

Reversing climate change via huge artificial volcanic eruptions could bring severe droughts to large regions of the tropics, according to new scientific research.

The controversial idea of geoengineering – deliberately changing the Earth's climate – is being seriously discussed as a last-ditch way of avoiding dangerous global warming if efforts to slash greenhouse gas emissions fail.

But the new work shows that a leading contender – pumping sulphate particles into the stratosphere to block sunlight – could have side-effects just as serious as the effects of warming itself. Furthermore, the impacts would be different around the world, raising the prospect of conflicts between nations that might benefit and those suffering more damage.

"There are a lot of issues regarding governance – who controls the thermostat – because the impacts of geoengineering will not be uniform everywhere," said Dr Andrew Charlton-Perez, at the University of Reading and a member of the research team.

The study, published in the journal Environmental Research Letters, is the first to convincingly model what happens to rainfall if sulphates were deployed on a huge scale.

While the computer models showed that big temperature rises could be completely avoided, it also showed cuts in rain of up to one-third in South America, Asia and Africa. The consequent droughts would affect billions of people and also fragile tropical rainforests that act as a major store of carbon. "We would see changes happening so quickly that there would be little time for people to adapt," said Charlton-Perez.

Another member of the research team, Professor Ellie Highwood, said: "On the evidence of this research, stratospheric aerosol geoengineering is not providing world leaders with any easy answers to the problem of climate change."

The study considered what would happen if carbon dioxide levels quadrupled in the atmosphere – the sort of extreme situation in which geoengineering might be seriously considered. Without intervention, temperatures rose by 4C, far above the 2C level considered dangerous by the world's governments.

But the temperature rise was reduced to zero if a massive geoengineering effort took place. The 60m tonnes of sulphur dioxide pumped into the stratosphere each year in the simulation is equivalent to five volcanic eruptions, each on the scale of Mount Pinatubo, the huge 1991 eruption in the Philippines that cut global temperatures by about 0.5C in the following year or two.

The sulphate particles in the model not only reflected incoming sunlight, cutting temperatures, but also absorbed heat rising up from the Earth's surface. This reduced the temperature difference between the lower and upper atmosphere, which is the engine that drives cloud formation and rainfall. The reduction in rainfall seen in the geoengineering model was as big as the increase in rainfall projected if global warming was unabated.

Dr Matthew Watson, a researcher at the University of Bristol and advocate of further research into geoengineering, said: "The researchers chose an extreme climate scenario so we should not be surprised if that, and any geoengineering attempt to counter it, had severe and uneven impacts."

He added: "It remains the case that our only guaranteed way forward is to reduce the record levels of greenhouse gases we continue to pump into the atmosphere. It's vital that scientists continue researching geoengineering; but no government serious about climate change should see it as a quick fix."

Damian Carrington