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

Lord Birt and Greg Dyke questioned by MPs about the BBC: Politics live blog
Annual Westminster dog show – in pictures
Asian markets jump ahead of Yellen testimony - live
Indigenous life expectancy gap needs to be closed quicker, says Tony Abbott
Silvio Berlusconi corruption trial begins in Naples
Norwegian voting patterns are a warning to leftwing parties elsewhere | Henning Finseraas and Kåre Vernby
Fears over human rights in Cambodia as crackdown on protests continues
A newspaper correction to savour...
NSW launches Bollywood-style tourism campaign to lure Indian middle class
Afghanistan launches polio vaccination drive after Kabul's first case since 2001
US envoy to meet controversial Indian politician Narendra Modi
Victoria looks to Newcastle for clues to post-Toyota future
Bin Laden death images subject to purge, emails reveal
Victoria fire threat could last several more weeks despite downgrade
Healthy food rating website pulled by staffer married to industry lobbyist
Baby girl killed by dog in Lancashire
Julia Roberts's half-sister found dead in Los Angeles
Toyota fallout continues as Abbott faces first day of parliament - as it happened
Why do people believe women aren’t funny?
Toyota shutdown: Tony Abbott says he was powerless to prevent exodus
New feminist versions of classic fairy tales: From the archive, 11 February 1971
Farmer of genetically modified canola ‘recklessly tainted neighbour’s crop'
Government targets asylum seekers with graphic campaign
Ear one minute, gone the next: Fidel Castro's hearing aid Photoshopped out
Unaffordable cities: Berlin the renters' haven hit by green fog of eco-scams

Lord Birt and Greg Dyke questioned by MPs about the BBC: Politics live blog

Posted: 11 Feb 2014 01:31 AM PST

Andrew Sparrow's rolling coverage of all the day's political developments as they happen, including the Commons culture committee taking evidence on the future of the BBC, MPs debating the impact of cuts on inequality and former GCHQ chief Sir David Omand being questioned by the home affairs committee

Andrew Sparrow

Annual Westminster dog show – in pictures

Posted: 11 Feb 2014 01:31 AM PST

The Westminster Kennel Club dog show is a two-day, all-breed benched show that takes place at both Pier 92 and 94 and at Madison Square Garden in New York City

Asian markets jump ahead of Yellen testimony - live

Posted: 11 Feb 2014 01:26 AM PST

Janet Yellen, the first woman to chair the Fed in its 100-year history, is due to testify to lawmakers today

Jennifer Rankin

Indigenous life expectancy gap needs to be closed quicker, says Tony Abbott

Posted: 11 Feb 2014 01:15 AM PST

Prime minister will tell parliament of mixed picture, with progress on child mortality but no improvement in employment

Daniel Hurst

Silvio Berlusconi corruption trial begins in Naples

Posted: 11 Feb 2014 01:09 AM PST

Former Italian PM accused of giving €3m to senator from anti-corruption party in effort to undermine government in 2006

Italy's former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi faces his latest trial starting on Tuesday in Naples for allegedly bribing a senator to join his party's ranks, even as he attempts to retain a leading political role.

The billionaire tycoon - who lost his parliamentary immunity when he was ejected from the senate last year over a tax fraud conviction – is not expected at the hearing and is not obliged to attend under Italian law.

The 77-year-old is accused of giving €3m(£2.5m) in 2006 to Sergio De Gregorio, then a senator from the anti-corruption Italy of Values party, to join his People of Freedom party and help undermine the centre-left government in power at the time.

A former Berlusconi aide, Valter Lavitola, is also on trial for being the alleged intermediary for the bribe.

The trial is in Naples as it was the seat occupied by De Gregorio, who is collaborating with investigators. The two first hearings in the trial on Tuesday and Wednesday are expected to be largely procedural.

Among the issues on the table will be a request from the senate speaker, Pietro Grasso, to be considered a plaintiff in the trial – a move that has proved hugely controversial among Berlusconi's supporters.

A new judge is also due to be named as the current one has declared a conflict of interests – she is married to a prosecutor who worked in another trial in which Berlusconi was convicted for having sex with an underage 17-year-old prostitute and abuse of office.

The list of witnesses for the trial includes former prime minister and former European commission president Romano Prodi, as well as two former senators expected to say they were offered bribe money by Berlusconi.

De Gregorio has told investigators he received €2m in cash and €1m for his political movement "Italians in the World".

Berlusconi's lawyers Michele Cerabona and Niccolo Ghedini are expected to argue that corrupting the senator would have been impossible since every lawmaker can vote freely, whatever their party affiliation.

Berlusconi this year will also be appealing his prostitution and abuse of power convictions, as well as one for leaking a confidential police wiretap in an attempt to damage a centre-left political rival.

The three-time former prime minister was forced out of parliament for the first time in his 20-year political career in November following a tax fraud conviction.

While Berlusconi does not have to go to prison because of his age, a court in April will decide whether he has to do a year of community service or house arrest for that crime and he has lost his parliamentary immunity.

The ban from parliament has not prevented Berlusconi from seeking to remain a powerful force, however.

While some of his former proteges have switched to the new centre-right party in a ruling coalition with the prime minister, Enrico Letta, Berlusconi is rallying support for his re-founded Forza Italia (Go Italy) party.

He is unrepentant despite his frequent run-ins with the justice system, dismissing charges against him as politically motivated, and he still enjoys the support of six or seven million Italians according to polls.

Berlusconi has vowed a robust campaign ahead of the European elections in May and on Saturday he declared that the euro was "a foreign currency" for Italians.

In a phone-call to supporters this weekend, he got confused about where he was calling and joked that it must be the fault of "some leftwing secretary".

But after 20 years of "Berlusconism" and a two-year economic crisis, there are indications that the attention in Italy is shifting away from Berlusconi.

The main political interest now is on the centre-left – the rivalry between Letta and the ambitious new head of the Democratic Party, 39-year-old Matteo Renzi.

Norwegian voting patterns are a warning to leftwing parties elsewhere | Henning Finseraas and Kåre Vernby

Posted: 11 Feb 2014 01:05 AM PST

If the number of voters in an election increases, new rightwing groups do better – but new left groups fare worse

Low levels of citizen participation in politics have long been seen as a serious democratic problem, and a possible relationship between turnout and election outcomes is a prominent topic of discussion in political science. The most frequent claim is that left-of-centre parties benefit from higher levels of turnout since many of them are disproportionately supported by groups on the lower end of the socioeconomic scale, such as the unemployed or low wage earners.

In a recent study, we showed that Norway is one country in which changes in turnout are likely to be a mixed blessing for the left. In Norway, the anti-immigration Progress party on the right competes with Labour for support from those in lower socioeconomic groups, while the voter profile of the Socialist Left fits the "new left" label. Thus, we would expect that a sudden shift in voter turnout due to more voters from lower socioeconomic groups showing up at the polls would benefit the Labour party and the Progress party, while the Socialist Left party would suffer.

In two-party systems, this relationship between turnout and election outcomes has received some empirical support, yet the evidence is not conclusive. In multiparty systems, the evidence is less clear and a potential relationship is likely to depend on the specifics of the party system and party competition in each country. In particular, most western European countries have witnessed the establishment and subsequent growth of new left and new right parties. Electoral support for new left parties does not come primarily from the lower socioeconomic groups that have been the main constituency of traditional social-democratic parties. By contrast, support for hard right parties often does. Thus, to the degree that increases in turnout imply that more people from lower socioeconomic groups are voting, we would expect some left-of-centre parties to benefit, while others would suffer, and similarly on the right.

The key empirical challenge in this type of research is to isolate the effect of turnout from the myriad other factors that operate in an election. In order to do so, we study the introduction and removal of a reform of early voting, which made it possible to vote early at the local post office. The reform reduced the costs of voting and led to a massive increase in early voting. In fact, survey data estimates suggest that the reform increased total turnout by about two percentage points.

The reduction in the costs of voting was larger in rural areas, and in line with this we found that increases in turnout were larger in rural areas. Moreover, we found that individuals with lower levels of education were mobilised by the reform, in particular in rural areas. The characteristics and the geographical impact of the reform allows for a research design where we examine the trends in turnout and election outcomes before and after the reform, and how the trends depend on the type of municipality. Since the reform affected turnout more in rural areas, but had little impact in urban population centres, we can use this variation to estimate the impact of turnout on party vote shares.

The empirical results are consistent with several of our expectations. In particular, the trends in the vote share of the Labour party and the Progress party were significantly stronger in areas where turnout increased. Compared with the average municipality, Labour's vote share decreased by about 0.8 percentage points more in municipalities where turnout did not increase, compared to the most rural municipalities. The Progress party's vote share trend was negative, yet this trend was a lot more pronounced in urban municipalities where there were no positive effects of the reform on turnout.

Similarly, our results for the Socialist Left party are also as expected. They deviated negatively from the municipal trend in those areas where the reform had the most impact on turnout. In particular, their vote share increased about 0.4 percentage points more in urban areas with no increase in turnout, compared with the most rural areas. When we use the reform-induced geographical variation in turnout to estimate the effect of turnout, we find that a one percentage point increase in turnout causes the vote share of Labour to rise by an estimated 0.9 percentage points. The corresponding figure for the Progress party is about 0.8 percentage points. The Socialist Left and the Conservative parties, on the other hand, suffer if turnout increases.

How open to generalisation are our results? Since our research strategy builds on the geographical variation in our estimates, they are directly informative about the effects of changes in turnout on election outcomes in rural areas. Translation to urban areas depends on how different the rural and urban non-voters are. The reform led to a broad decrease in the cost of voting and in this sense it is similar to other reforms that alter the costs or benefits for a broad segment of the population, such as motor voter programmes or compulsory voting.

What about external validity beyond the Norwegian context? The Norwegian case is similar to most other western democracies in that voter turnout is biased against the participation of lower socioeconomic groups. It is also similar to other western multiparty democracies in that there exists a new right party as well as a new left party. Indeed, we find suggestive evidence from the most recent parliamentary elections in western European countries are consistent with some of the patterns we find in the Norwegian case: new right parties do better in elections with a high level of turnout, while new left parties do worse.

• This blog originally appeared on LSE's EUROPP blog

Henning Finseraas

Kåre Vernby

Fears over human rights in Cambodia as crackdown on protests continues

Posted: 11 Feb 2014 01:01 AM PST

Government troops fire live ammunition on peaceful demonstrations, raising concerns of a return to rule by fear

Prak Sovannary tries to put on a brave face. She has just heard that two of 23 men arrested (pdf) during a violent crackdown on garment worker protests in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, last month have unexpectedly been released on bail.

Her husband, Vorn Pao, a prominent activist and union leader, is not one of them. He was beaten by soldiers after undergoing surgery for kidney cancer. Pao warned his wife he was unlikely to survive in prison.

"I just don't understand this court. They already denied bail for all of the 23, but now they have suddenly released these two," she said, attempting to laugh it off. "Even if they give them all bail, they'll probably just arrest them again."

The remaining 21 could be released on bail on Tuesday, but charges against them are expected to stand.

Many believe the 23 are being used as a political tool by the government, through the kingdom's malleable court system, to intimidate protesters and push the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) to end their boycott of parliament, which began after last July's disputed national elections.

After months of protests, which were largely tolerated by the government, human rights in Cambodia have deteriorated rapidly this year. A ban on public assembly has been implemented in the capital, Phnom Penh, and enforced by untrained "public order officers", who are armed with batons and electric cattle prods.

Journalists have been beaten at demonstrations and opposition gatherings have been intimidated by hordes of ruling party supporters.

Pao, whose Independent Democracy of Informal Economy Association represents some of Cambodia's poorest workers in the informal sector, was arrested with nine others, including two other activists, at a demonstration on 2 January outside a garment factory owned by Yakjin Trading, which produces clothes for brands including Gap and Banana Republic.

Videos show Pao calling for calm and trying to negotiate with an elite paratrooper brigade that had been sent to quash the demonstration. But when rocks began to fly, he was seized as a protest leader, beaten and dragged away, his crisp white shirt soaked with blood.

Thirteen more workers and bystanders were arrested the following day, when more clashes between angry Molotov cocktail-throwing protesters and security forces spiralled out of control, leaving at least four shot dead in what rights groups called the worst state violence against civilians in 15 years.

All 23 were charged with intentional violence and property destruction. They were then held incommunicado for nearly a week, reportedly without proper medical care, in the remote prison where 21 of them remain.

"The first time I saw my husband he was just crying. He had been at the prison for a week but no friends, relatives or lawyers had come to visit him and he thought that we had all abandoned him," Sovannary says.

After an investigation, on 6 February, the Asian Human Rights Commission called for the charges to be withdrawn and the detainees released.

While young people have been heavily involved in the protests, many of the first to flood the capital were middle-aged and elderly people, often bearing specific grievances against the government of Prime Minister Hun Sen, who has ruled for 29 years.

Despite impressive economic growth, land grabs, rampant deforestation, impunity, stagnating wages and widespread corruption have long dogged Cambodia. But the resurgence of a confident and uncompromising political opposition turned what had fuelled small, disparate protests into a mass movement demanding change.

The numbers swelled when garment workers went on strike and joined the protests in late December after a hike in their minimum wage to $95 (£58) fell below their desired target of $160. The government clampdown followed, ostensibly to restore "social order".

"[The government] is now basically going back to the old days where they ruled by fear … [But] they should remember the message from the July election … and treat the people differently, instead of oppressing [them] and expecting that they are going to take it lying down," said Ou Virak, president at the Cambodian Centre for Human Rights.

In the past month, CNRP leaders have been summoned to court, human rights activists bundled into police vans, and "Freedom Park" – the capital's designated protest space – occupied by military police.

Rupert Abbott, Amnesty International's researcher on Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, described the situation as a crisis. "All of [this] together has to be seen as an orchestrated attempt to bring an end to what was an overwhelmingly peaceful movement calling for changes and greater responsibility for human rights," he added.

Global unions have announced a worldwide day of action in support of the detainees before a bail appeal hearing this week, while local unions have threatened another mass walkout.

Meanwhile, Sovannary has vowed to stay strong while lobbying for the charges against her husband – who faces up to five years in prison - to be dropped. "From my point of view, even if my husband is released, I will continue to support him to be a human rights defender … If we are still afraid of the government we will never get what we want."

Kevin Ponniah

This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

A newspaper correction to savour...

Posted: 11 Feb 2014 12:48 AM PST

An excellent newspaper correction has just been published by the US title, the Newark Star-Ledger.

You need just a smidgeon of context first. Michael Drewniak is press secretary to New Jersey's beleaguered governor Chris Christie, who is embroiled in a political scandal. One of the other people involved is David Wildstein, an official with the New York and New Jersey port authority.

Both men are upset with the port authority's executive director, Patrick Foye, and the Star-Ledger appears to have wrongly attributed what they said about him. So here is the paper's po-faced and punctilious correction.

"An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated Drewniak referred to the port authority's executive director as a 'piece of crap.' While Drewniak did call him a 'piece of excrement,' it was David Wildstein who referred to the executive director as a 'piece of crap.'"

Hat tip: Poynter

Roy Greenslade

NSW launches Bollywood-style tourism campaign to lure Indian middle class

Posted: 11 Feb 2014 12:45 AM PST

It's time to have a hug in Sydney: Indians are being encouraging to visit their relatives Down Under

Michael Safi

Afghanistan launches polio vaccination drive after Kabul's first case since 2001

Posted: 11 Feb 2014 12:39 AM PST

Health ministry acts after girl diagnosed with disease in one of three countries where polio remains endemic

Afghan officials have launched a polio vaccination campaign after a young girl from Kabul was diagnosed with the disease – the capital's first case since the fall of the Taliban in 2001.

Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria are the only countries in the world where polio remains endemic. But the number of cases have declined significantly in Afghanistan in recent years.

Dr Kaneshka Baktash, spokesman for the Afghan public health ministry, said on Tuesday that a three-year-old girl from eastern Kabul had contracted polio and was partially paralysed. He said the girl had been diagnosed in Pakistan, where she was brought by her family after falling ill.

Baktash said the ministry had launched a vaccination campaign across the capital and in the area where the girl was living.

US envoy to meet controversial Indian politician Narendra Modi

Posted: 11 Feb 2014 12:38 AM PST

US softens position towards politician considered favourite to become India's next prime minister

The US ambassador to India, Nancy Powell, is to meet the politician who could become India's next prime minister, Narendra Modi, signalling a softening of the US position since the Hindu nationalist was denied a visa over religious riots.

Modi's Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) is considered the favourite to form a government after a general election due by May. He is also the chief minister of Gujarat state, where in 2002, Hindu mobs killed at least 1,000 people, most of them Muslims.

"We can confirm the appointment," a US embassy spokesman said. "This is part of our concentrated outreach to senior political and business leaders which began in November to highlight the US-India relationship."

The meeting, which could happen as soon as this week, will be the highest profile encounter between US officials and Modi since the US state department revoked his visa in 2005 over the riots, which erupted after some Hindus were killed in a fire on a train.

The United States and India have developed a close commercial and strategic relationship over recent years and they share almost $100bn (£60bn) of annual trade. The United States sees India as a regional counterweight to China.

Underscoring growing economic ties, the US carmaker Ford is due to open a plant in Gujarat this year. General Motors already has a production facility there.

But the India-US friendship is often problematic, with disputes over market access and a recent row over the behaviour of an Indian diplomat in the United States damaging sentiment in both countries.

The change in the US position on Modi is likely to anger rights groups and members of the Muslim community who say Modi allowed or even actively encouraged attacks on Muslims in the 2002 riots.

Modi has always denied the accusations, and a supreme court inquiry found no evidence to prosecute him.

Britain became the first European country to end an informal boycott on meeting Modi, which had been in place since the riots. Other European countries followed suit last year.

The US consul-general met Modi two years ago, and Republican lawmakers recently visited Gujarat and invited him to the United States. However, as of last year the US state department said it had not moved to reconsider its stance on the visa.

In January, the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, a government agency which recommended that a visa be denied to Modi in 2005, told Reuters it had not changed its position.

Powell will travel to Gujarat's capital, Gandhinagar, to meet Modi in his office, an aide of the candidate told Reuters. It was not clear what would be discussed, but the meeting could happen on Thursday or Friday, a Gujarat official said.

The Hindustan Times newspaper cited a BJP leader as saying the talks would focus on bilateral ties and not Modi's US visa, which is a sensitive subject among his supporters.

Senior BJP leader Yashwant Sinha, who is seen a possible candidate for finance minister in a Modi government, was last year quoted by media as saying India should cancel Barack Obama's visa to India if he did not come to Delhi to hand over a visa to Modi.

India and the United States are working to repair the damage done to ties by the recent row over the arrest and strip search of an Indian diplomat in New York, which led to the cancellation of high-level visits and the downgrading of privileges for US envoys in India.

Adding another irritant to the relationship, on Monday, the United States said it would take India to the World Trade Organisation to gain a bigger foothold for US manufacturers in its fast-growing solar products market.

Opinion polls show Modi's BJP has the edge in the election race but is unlikely to get a majority and may struggle to win enough seats to form a stable coalition government.

Victoria looks to Newcastle for clues to post-Toyota future

Posted: 11 Feb 2014 12:29 AM PST

Could the regeneration of Hunter region in wake of steelwork closures offer hope for beleaguered state

Bridie Jabour

Bin Laden death images subject to purge, emails reveal

Posted: 11 Feb 2014 12:24 AM PST

US military chief ordered his subordinates to destroy any photographs of Osama bin Laden's body or give them to the CIA

Eleven days after the killing of Osama bin Laden in 2011, the US military's top special operations officer ordered subordinates to destroy any photographs of the al-Qaida founder's corpse or turn them over to the CIA, according to a newly released email.

The email was obtained under a freedom of information request by the conservative legal group Judicial Watch. The document, released on Monday by the group, shows that Admiral William McRaven, who heads the US Special Operations Command, told military officers on 13 May 2011 that photos of Bin Laden's remains should have been sent to the CIA or already destroyed. Bin Laden was killed by a special ops team in Pakistan on 2 May 2011.

McRaven's order to purge the bin Laden material came 10 days after the Associated Press asked for the photos and other documents under the US Freedom of Information Act. Typically, when a freedom of information request is filed to a government agency under the Federal Records Act, the agency is obliged to preserve the material sought – even if the agency later denies the request.

On 3 May 2011, the AP asked Special Operations Command's Freedom of Information/Privacy Act Division office for "copies of all e-mails sent from and to the U.S. government account or accounts" of McRaven referencing bin Laden. McRaven was then vice-admiral.

A response on 4 May 2011 from the command's FOIA office to the AP acknowledged the Bin Laden document request and said it had been assigned for processing. AP did not receive a copy of the McRaven email obtained by Judicial Watch.

The Department of Defense FOIA office told the AP in a 29 February 2012 letter that it could find no McRaven emails "responsive to your request" for communications about the bin Laden material.

The Special Operations Command is required to comply with rules established by the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff that dictate how long records must be retained. Its July 2012 manual requires that records about military operations and planning are to be considered permanent and after 25 years, following a declassification review, transferred to the National Archives.

Last July, a draft report by the Pentagon's inspector general first disclosed McRaven's secret order, but the reference was not contained in the inspector general's final report. The email that surfaced on Monday was the first evidence showing the actual order.

In a heavily blacked-out email addressed to "gentlemen", McRaven told his unnamed subordinates: "One particular item that I want to emphasise is photos; particularly UBLs remains. At this point – all photos should have been turned over to the CIA; if you still have them destroy them immediately or get them" a blacked-out location. UBL refers to Bin Laden.

At the time the inspector general's report came out, a spokesman for the Special Operations Command referred questions back to the inspector general.

A CIA spokesman said at the time that "documents related to the raid were handled in a manner consistent with the fact that the operation was conducted under the direction of the CIA director", then Leon Panetta. The CIA statement also said "records of a CIA operation such as the raid, which were created during the conduct of the operation by persons acting under the authority of the CIA director, are CIA records".

In a letter on 31 January this year to Judicial Watch in response to its request for all records relating to McRaven's "directive to purge", the Pentagon's office of general counsel said it had been able to locate only document – Raven's redacted email.

The Judicial Watch president, Tom Fitton, said on Monday the email "is a smoking gun, revealing both contempt for the rule of law and the American people's right to know".

Victoria fire threat could last several more weeks despite downgrade

Posted: 11 Feb 2014 12:11 AM PST

34 houses have been destroyed in state's latest emergency as CFS warns that scorching conditions set to last

Healthy food rating website pulled by staffer married to industry lobbyist

Posted: 11 Feb 2014 12:06 AM PST

The assistant health minister's chief of staff stopped nutritional information on packaged food and drinks being made available

Baby girl killed by dog in Lancashire

Posted: 11 Feb 2014 12:01 AM PST

Two arrested on suspicion of child neglect in Blackburn after 11-month-old dies after being mauled by a dog

An 11-month-old girl has died after being mauled by a dog, police have said.

Two people, a 24-year-old man and a 20-year-old woman, have been arrested on suspicion of child neglect and are in police custody.

The unnamed victim was taken to Royal Blackburn hospital from a home in Emily Street at 11pm on Monday and later died.

The dog was seized from the address by Lancashire police.

Officers are continuing to carry out inquiries at the scene.

Detective Superintendent Simon Giles said: "This is a tragic incident and specially trained officers are offering support to the wider family. A full investigation is under way."

Police have yet to confirm the breed of dog involved. The relationship between the baby and those arrested has not been confirmed. It is believed the girl was not at her home address at the time of the incident. Nobody else was injured during the attack.

Julia Roberts's half-sister found dead in Los Angeles

Posted: 10 Feb 2014 11:52 PM PST

Actor's family 'shocked and devastated' after police say Nancy Motes, 37, died from possible drug overdose

The half-sister of Oscar-winning actress Julia Roberts died from a possible drug overdose, according to the Los Angeles County coroner's office.

Nancy Motes, 37, was found dead in a bathtub full of water at a Los Angeles residence on Sunday, Captain John Kades, spokesman for the coroner's office, said on Monday.

Prescription drugs were found at the residence, which was not Motes's home. Kades said nothing has been ruled out, including an accidental drug overdose or a suicidal overdose. He added that indications of a suicide note had been found at the residence.

An autopsy for Motes was scheduled for Monday, but an actual cause of death may take as long as eight to 10 weeks to be determined, pending a toxicology report.

Motes is the half-sister of Roberts and her brother, Eric Roberts, also an actor. Julia Roberts, 46, who has been nominated for a best supporting actress Oscar for her role in August: Osage County, did not appear at the Oscar nominees luncheon hosted by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences on Monday.

Representatives for both Julia and Eric Roberts did not respond for comment.

In a statement to People magazine, the Roberts family said they were "shocked and devastated" by Motes's death.

"It is with deep sadness that the family of Nancy Motes … confirms that she was found dead in Los Angeles yesterday of an apparent drug overdose," the family said.

Toyota fallout continues as Abbott faces first day of parliament - as it happened

Posted: 10 Feb 2014 11:49 PM PST

As the government faces its first day of parliament for 2014, the fallout continues over the decision by Toyota to close its doors and unions are in the spotlight with the building royal commission. Follow the events live...

Gabrielle Chan

Why do people believe women aren’t funny?

Posted: 10 Feb 2014 11:38 PM PST

Dean Burnett: Women aren't funny. Many people still believe this despite evidence to the contrary. Why?

Dean Burnett

Toyota shutdown: Tony Abbott says he was powerless to prevent exodus

Posted: 10 Feb 2014 11:32 PM PST

Opposition leader attacks PM, blaming Coalition for Holden exit, which had knock-on effect on Toyota

Daniel Hurst

New feminist versions of classic fairy tales: From the archive, 11 February 1971

Posted: 10 Feb 2014 11:30 PM PST

Snow White now elects to work in the mines with the dwarfs rather than wash their dishes

A group of the women's liberation movement on Merseyside is rewriting fairy tales. The emphasis will be away from wealth, beauty, and youth, and men and women will be shown to have equal opportunities. The team has already rewritten Snow White, who now elects to work in the mines with the dwarfs rather than wash their dishes.

The group complains that fairy stories relegate people to definite "sex role," and women are not expected to determine their destiny. The prince always decides to marry the princess, and there is no possibility of her saying "no."

Self-determining women are always ugly, evil and wicked, as stepmothers, sisters or witches. Passive princesses have superficial pleasures, such as riches and fancy clothes, and women "live" through their husbands. Beauty is their only asset, making them mere objects. In contrast, the men are always active, brave, rich, and handsome, and win against odds.

In the group's altered Snow White, the queen is jealous of Snow White's happiness and liveliness rather than her beauty. The hunter spares Snow White because of his humanity and concern for what she can make of her life rather than because he loves her. After the poisoned apple is dislodged, prince and princess work in the mine and together they build a cottage and live happily ever after, "working together, sharing their lives and their love."

Marriage is not mentioned but one of the group emphasised that in some other tales it would be crucial to mention it. In some stories princesses would probably rescue princes.

The Merseyside group expects to approach a publisher when it has enough material, but consider its work only a small area of what is needed in children's literature.

To read more about the Merseyside Women Liberation Movement's efforts to address gender inequality in fairy stories, click here for an article from July 1981.

Farmer of genetically modified canola ‘recklessly tainted neighbour’s crop'

Posted: 10 Feb 2014 11:24 PM PST

Court told that West Australian Michael Baxter wrecked Steve Marsh's livelihood by compromising his organic certification

Government targets asylum seekers with graphic campaign

Posted: 10 Feb 2014 11:19 PM PST

Elements of the campaign have been launched on Australian Customs and Border Protection website

Oliver Laughland

Ear one minute, gone the next: Fidel Castro's hearing aid Photoshopped out

Posted: 10 Feb 2014 11:17 PM PST

Associated Press deletes photographs of convalescing leader after determining they were doctored by Cuban official picture agency

Unaffordable cities: Berlin the renters' haven hit by green fog of eco-scams

Posted: 10 Feb 2014 11:00 PM PST

Landlords are frequently using loopholes in environmental regulations to 'renovate' properties and push up their rates

Kopenhagener Strasse is a quiet street in the Prenzlauer Berg district, just a few metres east of where the wall used to run. Most of the tenement houses that flank the cobbled street here were built during Berlin's big push for industrialisation in the late 19th century, as a counter-statement to the social segregation that Friedrich Engels had reported from Manchester: let's bring white and blue collar workers under one roof – that was the intention, at least.

These days, the houses on Kopenhagener Strasse are still not too far from meeting that ideal. At No 46, the front house is occupied by students and media professionals. In the set-back building that curves around the communal yard, a nurse and her family live on the same floor as pensioners and artists. Rent is still relatively low: one couple, who have lived here since 1962, are rumoured to pay €100 (£83) a month.

But recently things have changed at No 46. A year ago, the apartment block was bought by Wulf Christmann, an investor who already owns a number of properties around Berlin. Four months later, a letter arrived: urgent renovations including a new central gas heater, triple glazing and upgraded insulation were announced – the kind of green measures the German government is keen to promote, and which local councils thus tend to wave through without hesitation. The catch was hidden at the back of the document: charges amounting to a permanent rent increase of more than 300%.

Ottmar Mayer, a 73-year-old pensioner who lived in the rear building, used to pay around €370 a month for his three-bedroom flat – now he was suddenly looking at over €1,200. "Well people, shouldn't we just accept this very humane offer and finally live in a luxury home like normal people?", he wrote on the apartment block's own blog in September. His sarcasm may have masked a genuine anxiety. A month after writing his blogpost, Mayer died from the result of a long-running heart problem. Neighbours say he had been having trouble sleeping.

In the rest of Europe, Berlin still enjoys a reputation as a renters' paradise. Without an appropriately sized airport and a financial industry to drive up house prices, the German capital has for centuries been a cheap place for Europe's bohemian and artistic avant garde to live.

Mortgages have traditionally been hard to come by in Germany and tenants are still relatively well protected by the law. Accordingly, home ownership rates, already low across Germany, are even lower in the capital: in 2011, 15.6% of Berliners owned their own place, compared with 49.5% in London.

But many Berliners fear that the city's status as young Europeans' destination of choice is destroying what made it so attractive in the first place. Rents in Berlin have risen by 28% since 2007, and are continuing to climb at almost twice the national average. In its monthly report in October, the Bundesbank said that properties in large German cities like Berlin "may currently be overvalued by between 5% and 10%".

One property, an apartment block on Linienstrasse in Berlin Mitte, gives an alarming vision of Berlin's future: its value has multiplied tenfold since 1997. Then sold for the equivalent of €700 ,000, it has passed hands four times since and was last on the market for more than 8m euros.

Stories like Mayer's are neither new or rare. Many elderly men or women who are forced to move out of their three-bedroom flats because of "renovation" measures realise that they can't afford a one-bedroom flat in the same area.

Berlin's social housing stock is falling just as the demand is rising. According to Hanover's Pestel Institute, the German capital needs an additional 500,000 affordable homes, but the city hasn't built new social housing since the early2000s, and at the current rate it would continue losing around 4,500 homes a year.

Currently, the city senate claims to have found funds to support the building of around 1,000 affordable homes this year. But whether they will be in the centre or towards the Brandenburg outskirts, remains unclear.

"The danger for Berlin is not that it will become like London, but that it will become like Paris, with the poor and elderly carted out to the edges of the city", says Andrej Holm, a sociologist who writes a blog on Berlin gentrification.

Unlike some critics of Berlin's growing appeal to tourists, he is happy to admit that Berlin has also benefited from gentrification. Twenty years ago, parts of now trendy Prenzlauer Berg used to have streets without streetlights, apartment blocks that only had outdoor toilets, and flats heated with coal ovens. Now many parts of the area look more modern than those in the old west of the city.

The real threat facing Berlin at the moment, he says, is not gentrification, but "gentrification without a rise in living standards". Incremental reforms of German tenancy law have enabled landlords to force through "energetic modernisations" of their properties and pass down up to 11% of their costs to the tenants. In upcoming areas such as Prenzlauer Berg, Neukölln and Kreuzberg, there have been numerous reports of landlords abusing the "energetic modernisation" rule: flushing out old tenants by announcing expensive renovations, only to then immediately put the flats on the market at a higher price without having made any significant improvements.

Since a number of these cases have gained attention in the media, the German government has promised a crackdown on such practices. The coalition agreement between Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union party and the Social Democrats includes a pledge to bar landlords from signing new leases with rents that are 10% above the neighbourhood average, according to the guide to rental rates, the Mietspiegel (literally meaning "rent mirror"). Another cap would limit the period over which renovation costs can be passed down to tenants to 10 years – currently they can be passed down indefinitely.

Whether such proposals will solidify into legislation remains to be seen. Both investors and gentrification critics like Holm remain sceptical. They predict a gradual decline of the German tendency to favour renting and a growth in home ownership, especially in trendy areas such as Prenzlauer Berg. The poor and the elderly will be unaffected by the new rent cap – what they need is housing which is not at, but well below, the neighbourhood average.

At 46 Kopenhagener Strasse, such measures are likely to come too late at any rate. A few tenants have rejected the owner's renovation measure and may end up facing their landlord in court. But others won't have the stomach, or the financial means, for a big fight. Last weekend at No 46, the first family decided to move out.

Philip Oltermann