US companies are queuing up as the president moves to ease restrictions on travel and trade, raising hopes of warmer relations and an end to the embargo
President Barack Obama is poised to offer an olive branch to Cuba in an effort to repair the US's tattered reputation in Latin America.
The White House has moved to ease some travel and trade restrictions as a cautious first step towards better ties with Havana, raising hopes of an eventual lifting of the four-decade-old economic embargo. Several Bush-era controls are expected to be relaxed in the run-up to next month's Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago to gild the president's regional debut and signal a new era of \"Yankee\" cooperation.
The administration has moved to ease draconian travel controls and lift limits on cash remittances that Cuban-Americans can send to the island, a lifeline for hundreds of thousands of families.
\"The effect on ordinary Cubans will be fairly significant. It will improve things and be very welcome,\" said a western diplomat in Havana. The changes would reverse hardline Bush policies but not fundamentally alter relations between the superpower and the island, he added. \"It just takes us back to the 1990s.\"
The provisions are contained in a $410bn (£290bn) spending bill due to be voted on this week. The legislation would allow Americans with immediate family in Cuba to visit annually, instead of once every three years, and broaden the definition of immediate family. It would also drop a requirement that Havana pay cash in advance for US food imports.
\"There is a strong likelihood that Obama will announce policy changes prior to the summit,\" said Daniel Erikson, director of Caribbean programmes at the Inter-American Dialogue and author of The Cuba Wars. \"Loosening travel restrictions would be the easy thing to do and defuse tensions at the summit.\"
Latin America, once considered Washington's \"backyard\", has become newly assertive and ended the Castro government's pariah status. The presidents of Brazil, Chile, Dominican Republic, Ecuador and Guatemala have recently visited Havana to deepen economic and political ties. Brazil's president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, is expected to tell Obama on a White House visit this week that the region views the US embargo as anachronistic and vindictive. Easing it would help mend Washington's strained relations with the \"pink tide\" of leftist governments.
Obama's proposed Cuba measures would only partly thaw a policy frozen since John F Kennedy tried to isolate the communist state across the Florida Straits. \"It would signal new pragmatism, but you would still have the embargo, which is the centrepiece of US policy,\" said Erikson.
Wayne Smith at the Centre for International Policy, Washington DC, said: \"I think that the Obama administration will go ahead and lift restrictions on travel of Cuban Americans and remittance to their families. He may also lift restrictions on academic travel.
\"There are some things that could be done very easily - for example it's about time we took Cuba off the terrorist list. It's the beginning of the end of the policies we have had towards Cuba for 50 years. It's achieved nothing, it's an embarrassment.\"
Wayne Smith, a former head of the US Interest Section in Havana, famously said Cuba had the same effect on American administrations as the full moon had on werewolves.
Cuban exiles in Florida, a crucial voting bloc in a swing state, sustained a hardline US policy towards Havana even as the cold war ended and the US traded with other undemocratic nations with much worse human rights records.
To Washington's chagrin, the economic stranglehold did not topple Fidel Castro. When Soviet Union subsidies evaporated, the \"maximum leader\" implemented savage austerity, opened the island to tourism and found a new sponsor in Venezuela's petrol-rich president, Hugo Chávez.
When Fidel fell ill in 2006, power transferred seamlessly to his brother Raúl. He cemented his authority last week with a cabinet reshuffle that replaced \"Fidelistas\" with \"Raúlistas\" from the military.
Recognising Castro continuity, and aghast at European and Asian competitors getting a free hand, US corporate interests are impatient to do business with Cuba. Oil companies want to drill offshore, farmers to export more rice, vegetables and meat, construction firms to build infrastructure projects.
Young Cuban exiles in Florida, less radical than their parents, have advocated ending the policy of isolation. As a senator, Obama opposed the embargo, but as a presidential candidate he supported it - and simultaneously promised engagement with Havana.
A handful of hardline anti-Castro Republican and Democrat members of Congress have threatened to derail the $410bn spending bill unless the Cuba provisions are removed, but most analysts think the legislation will survive.
Compared to intractable challenges in Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Middle East, the opportunity for quick progress on Cuba has been called the \"low-hanging fruit\" of US foreign policy.
That Obama has moved so cautiously has frustrated many reformers. But after decades of freeze, even a slight thaw is welcome, and there is speculation that more will follow.
President Kennedy imposed an economic and trade embargo on Cuba on 7 February 1962 after Fidel Castro's government expropriated US property on the island. Known by Cubans as el bloqueo, the blockade, elements have been toughened and relaxed under succeeding US presidents. Exceptions have been made for food and medicine exports. George Bush added restrictions on travel and remittances.
The sanctions regime
• No Cuban products or raw materials may enter the US
• US companies and foreign subsidiaries banned from trade with Cuba
• Cuba must pay cash up front when importing US food
• Ships which dock in Cuba may not dock in the US for six months
• US citizens banned from spending money or receiving gifts in Cuba without special permission, in effect a travel ban
• Americans with family on the island limited to one visit every three years.
Films and details of campaigners and journalists may breach Human Rights Act
Police are targeting thousands of political campaigners in surveillance operations and storing their details on a database for at least seven years, an investigation by the Guardian can reveal.
Photographs, names and video Âfootage of people attending protests are Âroutinely obtained by surveillance units and stored on an \"intelligence system\". The ÂMetropolitan police, which has Âpioneered surveillance at demonstrations and advises other forces on the tactic, stores details of protesters on Crimint, the general database used daily by all police staff to catalogue criminal intelligence. It lists campaigners by name, allowing police to search which demonstrations or political meetings individuals have attended.
Disclosures through the Freedom of Information Act, court testimony, an interview with a senior Met officer and police surveillance footage obtained by the Guardian have Âestablished that Âprivate information about activists Âgathered through surveillance is being stored without the knowledge of the people monitored.
Police surveillance teams are also Âtargeting journalists who cover demonstrations, and are believed to have Âmonitored members of the press during at least eight protests over the last year.
The Guardian has found:
• Activists \"seen on a regular basis\" as well as those deemed on the \"periphery\" of demonstrations are included on the police databases, regardless of whether they have been convicted or arrested.
• Names, political associations and photographs of protesters from across the political spectrum - from campaigners against the third runway at Heathrow to anti-war activists - are catalogued.
• Police forces are exchanging information about proÂtesters stored on their intelligence systems, enabling officers from different forces to search which political events an individual has attended.
Lawyers said tonight they expect the Guardian's investigation to form the basis of a legal challenge against the use of police surveillance tactics.
Liberty, the human rights group, is challenging the police surveillance tactics in a judicial review at the court of appeal. But police appear not to have disclosed to the court that they were transferring private details of campaigners to a database.
Corinna Ferguson, Liberty's legal officer, said: \"A searchable database containing photographs of people who are not even suspected of criminal activity may well violate privacy rights under article 8 of the Human Rights Act. It is particularly worrying if peaceful protesters are being singled out for surveillance.\"
Police surveillance footage from the climate camp demonstration in Kent last August, obtained by the Guardian, reveals how journalists are monitored as well as the often clumsy nature of the Âsurveillance.
It shows police are interested in the names, clothing, whereabouts, and personal details of protesters and journalists. Three members of an ITV news crew, a Sky News cameraman and several photoÂgraphers were among members of the press monitored as they left the camp. Later in the day journalists at a protest against the Kingsnorth coal-fired power station, were followed by Âsurveillance officers to a McDonald's restaurant. Police filmed them as they used the restaurant's Wi-Fi Âconnection to file their material.
Kent police have already apologised after official complaints about the incident and intrusive stop and searches of journalists covering the demonstration.
The National Union of Journalists has been assured Âthat members of the press were not being Âtargeted after it took concerns to the Home Office and senior police Âofficers. The union documented at least eight Âprotests since last March where its Âmembers were \"routinely\" photographed and filmed by police. Several journalists said police officers they had never met knew their names. \"We have put this to police and the Home Office several times but they have always denied the practice or sought to avoid answering the question,\" said Jeremy Dear, the union's general secretary. \"With this evidence there is no credibility in doing so any longer.\"
Police have not disclosed the number of activists on the database. But court testimony by surveillance officers has confirmed the existence of a large intelligence system which, according to one officer, contains \"thousands\" of campaigners.
Overt surveillance by police forward intelligence teams (Fits) or evidence Âgatherers (EGs) is designed to record potential criminal activity and gather Âuseful intelligence. Pioneered by the Met's public order branch in the late 1990s, the technique is used regularly across the country. Surveillance officers use Â\"spotter cards\" to identify activists. Police have always denied surveillance is conducted for the purposes of storing information on a database.
Information released by Scotland Yard under the Freedom of Information Act has revealed that while raw surveillance material is stored in a warehouse, material on certain individuals \"is added to a corporate intelligence database\". Scotland Yard's disclosure, in response to questions from NUJ lawyers , stated \"generally, records are retained for seven years\".
Superintendent David Hartshorn, from the Met's public order branch, conceded law-abiding campaigners were being added to the database. He said individuals on the system included people convicted or suspected of public order offences.
But he added \"people we have seen on a regular basis involved but may not have been charged or arrested\" were also stored on the database. He added that the data was reviewed every year. \"In relation to what we can keep on databases, we are governed quite strictly on that. Obviously you've got the Data Protection Act but also, in terms of intelligence, we have to justify what we are able to keep.\"
Rising sea levels pose a far bigger eco threat than previously thought. This week's climate change conference in Copenhagen will sound an alarm over new floodings - enough to swamp Bangladesh, Florida, the Norfolk Broads and the Thames estuary
Scientists will warn this week that rising sea levels, triggered by global warming, pose a far greater danger to the planet than previously estimated. There is now a major risk that many coastal areas around the world will be inundated by the end of the century because Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets are melting faster than previously estimated.
Low-lying areas including Bangladesh, Florida, the Maldives and the Netherlands face catastrophic flooding, while, in Britain, large areas of the Norfolk Broads and the Thames estuary are likely to disappear by 2100. In addition, cities including London, Hull and Portsmouth will need new flood defences.
\"It is now clear that there are going to be massive flooding disasters around the globe,\" said Dr David Vaughan, of the British Antarctic Survey. \"Populations are shifting to the coast, which means that more and more people are going to be threatened by sea-level rises.\"
The issue is set to dominate the opening sessions of the international climate change conference in Copenhagen this week, when scientists will outline their latest findings on a host of issues concerning global warming. The meeting has been organised to set the agenda for this December's international climate talks (also to be held in Copenhagen), which will draw up a treaty to replace the current Kyoto protocol for limiting carbon dioxide emissions.
And key to these deliberations will be the issue of ice-sheet melting. The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) - when it presented its most up-to-date report on the likely impact of global warming in 2007 - concluded that sea-level rises of between 20 and 60 centimetres would occur by 2100. These figures were derived from estimates of how much the sea will increase in volume as it heats up, a process called thermal expansion, and from projected increases in run-off water from melting glaciers in the Himalayas and other mountain ranges.
But the report contained an important caveat: that its sea-level rise estimate contained very little input from melting ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland. The IPCC forecast therefore tended to underestimate forthcoming changes.
\"The IPCC felt the whole dynamics of polar ice-sheet melting were too poorly understood,\" added Vaughan. \"However, we are now getting a much better idea of what is going on in Greenland and Antarctica and can make much more accurate forecasts about ice-sheet melting and its contribution to sea-level rises.\"
From studying satellite images, scientists have watched the sea ice that hugs the Greenland and Antarctic shores dwindle and disappear. Sea-ice melting on its own does not cause ocean levels to rise, but its disappearance has a major impact on land ice sheets. Without sea ice to prop them up, the land sheets tip into the water and disintegrate at increasing rates, a phenomenon that is now being studied in detail by researchers.
\"It is becoming increasingly apparent from our studies of Greenland and Antarctica that changes to sea ice are being transmitted into the hearts of the land-ice sheets in a remarkably short time,\" added Vaughan. As a result, those land sheets are breaking up faster and far more melt water is being added to the oceans than was previously expected.
These revisions suggest sea-level rises could easily top a metre by 2100 - a figure that is backed by the US Geological Survey, which this year warned that they could reach as much as 1.5 metres.
In addition, in September, a team led by Tad Pfeffer at the University of Colorado at Boulder published calculations using conservative, medium and extreme glaciological assumptions for sea-level rise expected from Greenland, Antarctica and the world's smaller glaciers and ice caps. They concluded that the most plausible scenario, when factoring in thermal expansion due to warming waters, will lead to a total sea level rise of one to two metres by 2100.
Similarly, a commission of 20 international experts, called on by the Dutch government to help plan its coastal defences, recently gave a range of 55cm to 1.1 metres for sea-level rises by 2100. \"Equally important, this commission has highlighted the fact that sea-level rise will not stop in the year 2100,\" said Professor Stefan Rahmstorf of Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. \"By 2200, they estimate a rise of 1.5 to 3.5m unless we stop the warming. This would spell the end of many of our coastal cities.\"
This point was backed by Dr Jason Lowe of the Hadley Centre, the UK's foremost climate change research centre. \"It is still not clear exactly how much the sea will rise by the end of this century, but it is certain that rises will continue for hundreds of years beyond that - even if we do manage to stabilise carbon dioxide emissions and halt the rise in atmospheric temperature. The sea will continue to heat up and expand. In addition, the Greenland ice sheets will continue to melt,\" he said.
This latter effect could, ultimately, have a particularly destructive impact. Scientists have calculated that if industrial emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases eventually produce a global temperature increase of around 4C, there is a risk that Greenland's ice covering could melt completely. This could take several hundred years or it might require a couple of thousand. The end result is not in doubt, however. It would add around seven metres to the planet's sea levels. The consequence would be utter devastation.
Such a scenario is distant, but real, scientists insist. However, at present, the most important issue, they argue, is that of short-term sea-level rises: probably around one metre by 2100. When that occurs, the Maldives will be submerged, along with islands like the Sunderbans in the Bay of Bengal, and Kiribati and Tuvalu in the Pacific. The US - which has roughly 12,400 miles of coastline and more than 19,900 square miles of coastal wetlands - would face a bill of around $156bn to protect this land. Cities such as London would require massive investments to provide defences against the rising waters. Others, such as Alexandria, in Egypt, would simply be inundated.
Rising oceans will also contaminate both surface and underground fresh water supplies, worsening the world's existing fresh-water shortage. Underground water sources in Thailand, Israel, China and Vietnam are already experiencing salt-water contamination.
Coastal farmland will be wiped out, triggering massive displacements of men, women and children. It is estimated that a one-metre sea-level rise could flood 17% of Bangladesh, one of the world's poorest countries, reducing its rice-farming land by 50% and leaving tens of millions without homes.
Such destruction would not be caused merely by rising sea levels, however. Other effects of global warming will also worsen the mayhem that lies ahead: in particular, the increase in major storms. \"When we talk about the dangers of future sea-level rises, we are not talking about a problem akin to pouring water into a bath,\" added Dr Colin Brown, director of engineering at the Institution of Mechanical Engineering. \"Climate-change research shows there will be significant increases in storms as global temperatures rise. These will produce more intense gales and hurricanes and these, in turn, will produce massive storm surges as they pass over the sea.\"
The result will be the appearance of the super-surge, a climatic double whammy that will savage low-lying regions that include Britain's south-eastern coastline, in particular East Anglia and the Thames Estuary, along with cities such as London, Portsmouth and Hull, which are rated as being particularly vulnerable to sea-level rise.
In addition to these hotspots, the country will also face massive disruption to its transport and energy systems unless it acts swiftly, according to a report - Climate Change, Adapting to the Inevitable - published last month by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. Many rail lines run along river valleys that will be flooded with increased regularity while bridges carrying trains and lorries often cross shipping lanes and may have to be redesigned to accommodate rising water levels.
\"Power supplies will also be affected,\" added Brown. \"The Sizewell B nuclear plant has been built on the Suffolk coast, a site that has been earmarked for the construction of several more nuclear plants. However, Sizewell will certainly be affected by rising sea levels. Engineers say they can build concrete walls that will keep out the water throughout the working lives of these new plants. But that is not enough. Nuclear plants may operate for 50 years, but it could take hundreds of years to decommission them. By that time, who knows what sea-level rises and what kinds of inundations the country will be experiencing?\"
Most scientists believe Britain remains relatively well placed to combat sea-level rises. \"The government has been fairly far-sighted over this issue, with projects such as Thames Estuary 2100 being set up to prepare flooding defence projects,\" said Professor Robert Nicholls, of Southampton University.
This does not stop the controversy, however. In its report, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers warned that many areas would have to be abandoned because they are simply too expensive to protect. In particular, large areas of the Norfolk coastline would be left to be inundated, a massive loss of human habitat.
But this approach represents an abrogation of national duty to many people - particularly those whose homes will be destroyed, individuals such as Martin George, former chairman of the Broads Society. \"A country that has the technological know-how to extract oil and coal from below the North Sea should surely be capable of finding a way to protect a concrete sea wall against the effects of climate change. We should do our damnedest to safeguard our heritage,\" he said.
• Additional research by Lisa Kjellsson
• Thermal expansion. All bodies expand when they are heated, and that is true for the water that covers 70 per cent of the planet. The oceans are expanding - upwards. It is estimated this increase in volume will raise levels by 10-40 cms.
• Melting glaciers and mountain ice caps - outside Greenland and Antarctica - are also adding water to rivers that flow to the oceans. However, these remain a modest source of sea-level rise. Possibly around 10 cms.
• The Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets represent vast reserves of frozen fresh water. The former would add 7m to sea levels if melted completely; the latter would bring a further 60m rise to the levels of the world's oceans.
Abdullah advocates attack on foreign navies if they halt arms smuggling
One of the UK's most influential Islamic leaders, who has helped counter extremism in the country's mosques, is accused of advocating attacks on the Royal Navy if it tries to stop arms for Hamas being smuggled into Gaza.
Dr Daud Abdullah, deputy director-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, is facing calls for his resignation, after it emerged that he is one of 90 Muslim leaders from around the world who have signed a public declaration in support of Hamas and military action.
Abdullah, who led the MCB's boycott of Holocaust Memorial Day, was a member of the Mosques and Imams National Advisory Board, the body endorsed by the government that trains imams and was set up to curtail the activities of extremist clerics. In January, he briefed the home secretary, Jacqui Smith, and communities secretary Hazel Blears on the situation in Gaza and its likely impact on social cohesion in the UK.
There were calls last night for the government and the MCB to condemn Abdullah's actions. \"The British government should stop funding organisations such as the MCB and supporting events such as Islam Expo, which hosts scholars from Saudi Arabia and Pakistan who hold extremist views,\" said Irfan Al Alawi, international director of the Centre for Islamic Pluralism.
\"If the MCB is serious about tackling extremism, it should immediately expel extremists such as Daud Abdullah from its own ranks,\" said Ed Husain, co-director of the Quilliam Foundation, a counter-extremism thinktank. \"The man is a fanatic.\"
Abdullah's name appears as a signatory to a declaration in Istanbul last month that describes Israel's recent military campaign as \"the manifest victory which Allah has granted us in the land of Gaza\". It opposes the \"so-called Arab peace initiative\" and the Palestinian Authority and issues a series of obligations to the \"Islamic Nation\", calling on it to \"carry on with the jihad and resistance against the occupier until the liberation of all Palestine\".
Obligation six declares that Muslims must seek to open the crossings in Palestine so that \"money, clothing, food, medicine, weapons and other essentials\" can enter Gaza and Palestinians \"are able to live and perform the jihad in the way of Allah Almighty\".
It warns: \"The closure of the crossings, or the prevention of the entry of weapons through them, should be regarded as high treason in the Islamic Nation, and clear support for the Zionist enemy.\"
The most contentious obligation instructs Muslims to attack foreign navies. In January, Gordon Brown offered Royal Navy resources to help monitor events in Gaza and to stop weapons being smuggled into the territory.
But, according to the Istanbul declaration, there is an obligation for \"the Islamic Nation to regard the sending of foreign warships into Muslim waters, claiming to control the borders and prevent the smuggling of arms to Gaza, as a declaration of war, a new occupation, sinful aggression, and a clear violation of the sovereignty of the Nation\". It continues: \"This must be rejected and fought by all means and ways.\"
Husain accused Abdullah of \"betraying the Palestinian people\". He added: \"As well as potentially endorsing terrorism against British troops, Abdullah shows total disregard for human life.\"
A spokesman for the MCB, which says it speaks for about 400 mosques and Muslim organisations, declined to comment. Abdullah did not respond to repeated requests for an interview.
Two other prominent British Muslims ' names also appear as signatoriesto the declaration: Mohammed Sawalha, an organiser of Islam Expo, the huge annual gathering of Muslims in east London, added his name to the list; and Sheikh Rashid al-Ghannoushi of the Tunisian an-Nahdhah party, who resides in the UK, also signed.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Communities and Local Government said: \"We are aware of the conference held in Istanbul last month and are very concerned that the statement from the event calls for direct support for acts of violence in the Middle East and beyond. We are also aware that a senior member of the MCB may have been a signatory to this statement. If it is proven that the individual concerned had been a signatory, we would expect [the MCB] to ask him to resign and to confirm its opposition to acts of violent extremism.\"
The British press are appalled by Barack Obama's present of 25 DVDs for Gordon Brown. But could there be a message in the president's selection?
Well, what would you buy Gordon Brown? He's not a man known for pleasure - rather as the sort to take an before heading straight back to work, so it must be hard. But Barack Obama can't have predicted the scornful response of the Daily Mail when he decided to pick Gordon up a few DVDs.
In return for a pen holder carved from the timbers of the sister ship of and a first edition of a seven-volume biography of Winston Churchill, the Mail is appalled that \"Barack Obama, the leader of the world's richest country\" gave Brown a box set of 25 DVDs selected by the American Film Institute. These, it says, include Raging Bull, Casablanca, Psycho and The Graduate. It is, the Mail says, \"\".
Yet another example of the British press's apparent mission to feel snubbed by Obama on Gordon Brown's behalf - and obsession with the (at best, bittersweet). Was it only yesterday a commentary in the Times of the Browns giving the Obama's daughters Top Shop dresses (with matching necklaces) when all their parents gave the Brown boys were models of the presidential helicopter Marine One? Yes it was.
Still, it's difficult to resist reading political messages into these films. Like Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront, could Brown have been \"\" if the US Congress had shown a little more interest in his ? Like Luke Skywalker on the Millennium Falcon, is Brown's history of support for light-touch financial regulation in the City of London now ?
The 25 films also include two from the end of the Great Depression: the Grapes of Wrath (recommended to Obama a while back) and the Wizard of Oz. Perhaps there is something here. A in the Journal of Political Economy argued it could be read as monetary allegory: in this interpretation the yellow brick road (a return to which is not US policy).
Among the rest are three of Obama's five personal favourites, according to his : Casablanca, The Godfather and Lawrence of Arabia (omitted are the second Godfather film and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest).
Obama is, incidentally, really, really pleased with the pen holder and books. The White House even put out saying so. It tells us the president thanked the prime minister and \"noted the pen set is being displayed on the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office and the books are in the president's personal study adjoining the Oval Office\".
Maybe Brown's office will each time he watches one of the 25. The Mail's full list is . Please add your own cinematic/political interpretations below.
Protest allegedly happened as president waved to crowds from an open-top car in the Iranian city of Urumiye
When the Iraqi journalist, Muntazar al-Zaidi, hurled his shoes at the then-US president, George Bush, in December, Iranian officials declared him a hero and hailed his gesture as a mark of Islamic courage.
They were presumably less impressed this week when Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was similarly targeted during a visit to the north-western city of Urumiye.
Ahmadinejad found the shoe on the other foot as he waved to the crowd from an open-top car on his way to give a speech at a local stadium.
An Iranian website, Urumiye News, reported that a shoe was hurled at the president as his convoy drove through a central square. Security guards waded into the crowds but failed to find the culprit.
A hat was also thrown in Ahmadinejad's direction before his car sped away.
The event went unreported on mainstream Iranian news outlets but has been hotly discussed on the country's highly active blogosphere. Some pro-Ahmadinejad bloggers have dismissed the reports as rumours spread by \"royalists\" and \"counter-revolutionaries\".
However, Ahmadinejad has been on the receiving end of flying footwear before. A shoe was thrown at him during a students' demonstration at Tehran's Amir Kabir university in December 2006.
Urumiye News said the latest protest came when a disturbance broke out after a vehicle in the presidential convoy struck an elderly man who walked onto the road to try and hand Ahmadinejad a letter. People became angry when the driver failed to stop to attend to the injured man. Eventually an ambulance in the motorcade was forced to take him to hospital after jeering crowds blocked its path.
Ahmadinejad travels frequently to Iran's provinces in a bid to boost his popularity. He commonly receives large numbers of letters requesting financial assistance and other help during such trips.
After Zaidi's protest in Baghdad, Iranian officials paid tribute by holding several public shoe-throwing competitions in which contestants threw footwear at Âcaricatures of Bush. Iran's main shoemaking federation also offered to supply a lifetime of shoes to Zaidi, who remains in a Baghdad jail awaiting trial.
One is a fruit drink made by a boutique company with a clutch of foodie awards and an impeccable ethical brand, which even boasts a halo on its logo. The other is a fizzy pop, famous for rotting teeth, made by a corporate giant almost synonymous with globalisation.
But when it comes to the environmental issue of the moment - the carbon footprint of their products - the bottle of Innocent smoothie comes off worse than a can of Coke. At least at first glance.
Coca-Cola today becomes the biggest global brand to publish the greenhouse gases produced by making, packaging, transporting, chilling, and disposing of their most popular products. The study, done with the government-funded Carbon Trust, shows a standard 330ml can of Coke embodies the equivalent of 170g of carbon dioxide (CO2e), and the same sized Diet Coke or Coke Zero 150g.
Coke's UK business follows Innocent, which helped the Carbon Trust pioneer its footprinting, and whose 250ml bottle of mango and passion fruit smoothie has a carbon footprint of 209g.
Innocent's co-founder, Richard Reed, questions whether it is fair to compare a bottle of crushed fruit and something largely made of water. Reed's defence highlights a wider issue: how to balance the importance of global warming with other attributes of a product - nutrition, helping poor farmers, careful nurturing of soil, or the welfare of animals. Innocent, for example, donates 10% of profits to charity. \"The classical economic response is you implicitly reduce them to a common currency, which leads to money; but my view is these things are just not comparable,\" said Mike Mason, founder of carbon offset company ClimateCare.
Then there is the issue of what you measure: Coke's cans compare well, but a small glass bottle of the same drink has a footprint of 360g, much higher than Innocent's worst-scoring small bottle of crushed strawberries and bananas (230g).
To resolve these dilemmas, ideas are emerging. Innocent talks of \"carbon calories\": it calculates that in a world with massively reduced greenhouse gas emissions the average person could afford to eat and drink 2,900g of CO2e each day - and a smoothie would use just 1% of that total.
Mason advocates future labels saying how much carbon is embodied in every pound spent, allowing consumers to compare the impact of anything from a snack to a car.
\"Putting an absolute emission on crisps and Aston Martins doesn't tell you very much; using CO2 per pound ... you could grade everything from cars to Coke on the same scale,\" said Mason.
In the meantime, footprinting can achieve a lot: helping companies understand where energy use and so emissions come from, and so how to reduce both, say supporters.
Innocent has, over two years, reduced the impact of some recipes by nearly a quarter, moving to 100% recycled bottles, buying green electricity, and obsessing about details like stacking more bottles on each transport pallet. \"The number of pallets to move is massively reduced, so that's fewer trucks and less carbon,\" says Reed.
Under pressure to cut costs, and from retailers, brands like Coke, Walkers crisps and Cadbury's chocolate are now slowly taking up the cause. Coke hopes to make savings, including using thinner and more recycled packaging, designing more efficient fridges, and encouraging consumers to recycle more.
\"When I say to my wife the carbon footprint of a Coke is 170g, it doesn't mean anything,\" says Sanjay Guha, President of Coca-Cola Great Britain and Ireland. \"But if I use it to explain to her [that] if she was going to recycle one aluminium can that can reduce the footprint by [up to] 60%, then I have found a way to connect with consumers, to make this encouraging for them to do.\"
· This article was amended on Monday 9 March 2009. Further information about footprinting was added to the online version of this article.
Gerry Adams calls terror attack 'wrong and counter-productive' as republican dissidents allegedly claim responsibility
A newspaper tonight received a call from a man claiming to be from the Real IRA taking responsibility for the murder last night of two soldiers shot dead in Northern Ireland, the first terrorist attack in the province for more than a decade.
A journalist at the Dublin-based Sunday Tribune's office in Belfast said that the newspaper took a call claiming responsibility for the attack by the Real IRA's Antrim brigade. The caller used a recognised codeword.
The attack at an army base in Co Antrim - in which the gunmen exploited a pizza delivery and were said to have \"executed\" soldiers lying on the ground after the initial attack - comes days after the Northern Ireland police service's chief constable, Sir Hugh Orde, said there was a growing threat of violence from dissident republicans. A huge police manhunt is now under way.
Speaking earlier today before the claim of responsibility, the Sinn Féin leader, Gerry Adams, called the attack \"wrong and counter-productive\" and, in an unprecedented statement, said his party had a \"responsibility to be consistent ... the logic of this is that we support the police in the apprehension of those involved in last night's attack\".
It was not until a vote at a special meeting of Sinn Féin in early 2007 that the party ended decades of opposition to the province's Protestant-dominated police force.
Gordon Brown condemned the killings as \"cowardly\", and vowed that they would not stop the peace process: \"No murderer will be able to derail the peace process,\" he said.
Soldiers at the entrance to the Massereene army base in Antrim, 16 miles north of Belfast, were attacked last night by gunmen lying in wait in a vehicle as a pizza delivery was being made at 9.40pm. The gunmen were obviously aware that soldiers followed a regular routine on Saturday nights, when as many as 20 separate orders were made for pizza to be delivered. They waited until the troops emerged through the gates to pick up the food.
Reports said the gunmen raked the base with automatic fire then shot the soldiers as they lay injured on the ground. Two other members of the military were injured and two pizza delivery men, were also hurt, one of them, a 32-year-old Polish national, was in a critical condition.
It emerged today that the soldiers who were shot were dressed in desert fatigues and were due to leave on an early flight this morning for deployment to Afghanistan.
The names of the dead soldiers have been withheld until all their relatives have been informed. The soldiers were due to fly out of RAF Aldergrove, just a few miles away from their base in the early hours of today.
The plane, which had four empty seats, had to be held up until investigating police officers had finished interviewing soldiers about the attack.
Unionists said the attack brought Northern Ireland to a \"defining moment\" in its history. Unionist politicians will be studying the response from Sinn Féin, which may determine the prospects of the fragile power-sharing executive that has former enemies running Northern Ireland together.
Speaking about last night's attack, Adams said: \"Those responsible have no support, no strategy to achieve a united Ireland. Their intention is to bring British soldiers back on to the streets. They want to destroy the progress of recent times and to plunge Ireland back into conflict ... the peace process was built against the odds and not least because of the willingness of republicans to take risks and to be strategic and long-sighted.
\"There should be an end to actions like the one in Antrim last night. The popular will is for peaceful and democratic change.\"
Sinn Féin's Martin McGuinness, deputy first minister of Northern Ireland, said: \"I was a member of the IRA, but that war is over now. The people responsible for last night's incident are clearly signalling that they want to resume or re-start that war. Well, I deny their right to do that.\"
Last night's attack was the first time British troops had been killed in Northern Ireland by terrorists since 1997. The last soldier to die before the IRA's second ceasefire was Private Stephen Restorick. More than 500 British soldiers died during nearly 40 years of conflict in Northern Ireland, known as the Troubles.
Chief Superintendent Derek Williamson said: \"There is no doubt in my mind that this was an attempt at mass murder.\"
The scene of the attack is the current home of the 38 Engineer Regiment, which has only been based at Massereene barracks since August.
Nationalist and unionist politicians arrived at the scene of the shooting this morning on the outskirts of Antrim Town to condemn those responsible for the worst act of terrorism in the province since the Omagh bomb.
At midday, hundreds of churchgoers from churches across Antrim gathered at the police cordon near the murder scene to hold a prayer service. Traffic was halted as congregations from the Roman Catholic, Church of Ireland, Presbyterian and Methodist churches came together to pray for the victims.
Ian Paisley Jr, a member of the Northern Ireland Policing Board and Democratic Unionist assemblyman for North Antrim, said the province had reached a \"defining moment\".
He said: \"For the last 10 years people believed things like this happened in foreign countries, places like Basra. Unfortunately it has returned to our doorstep. \"
In a swipe at Sinn Féin, who accused Sir Hugh of exaggerating the threat from dissident republican terrorists last week, Paisley added: \"If this shooting is attributed to dissident republicans, then it was no exaggeration.\"
Sir Hugh told the policing board the threat level from anti-ceasefire republicans was \"severe\" and the highest since he had taken over running the police service.
Paisley's party colleague and Northern Ireland's first minister, Peter Robinson, today postponed a visit to the US alongside McGuinness, his deputy. Condemning the murders and the attempted murders, Robinson said they were a \"terrible reminder of the events of the past\".
Signalling the DUP's determination not to let the attack destabilise the province's power-sharing coalition, the first minister added: \"These murders were a futile act by those who command no public support and have no prospect of success in their campaign. It will not succeed.\"
Speaking at the scene of the murder, Mark Durkan, the leader of the nationalist SDLP, said: \"We know [the dissidents] are opposed to peace and we know their capacity to attack, threaten, disrupt and even kill.
\"They need to understand that this is not an attack on the British army but the Irish people who have voted for and value above all else peaceful politics and democratic accommodation.\"
Since the summer security chiefs have been warning that dissident republicans were reorganising and upping their ability to launch attacks. Five PSNI officers have been wounded in separate gun and bomb attacks in Derry, Tyrone and Fermanagh. All police officers are once again wearing flak jackets.
There have also been a number of failed bomb attacks, one of which took place last month when the security forces found a 300lb (136kg) car bomb in Castlewellan, Co Down.
Security sources said the device \"spooked\" army technical officers and the wider security community because it was fitted with a type of sophisticated, secondary anti-handling device that they had not come across before.
Sir Hugh will hold a security summit later this week with his counterpart in the Irish republic, the Garda commissioner, Fachtna Murphy. Top of the agenda will be the dissidents' escalating campaign of violence.
• Confidential report attacks 'illegal' house demolitions
• Government accused of damaging peace prospects
A confidential EU report accuses the Israeli government of using settlement expansion, house demolitions, discriminatory housing policies and the West Bank barrier as a way of \"actively pursuing the illegal annexation\" of East Jerusalem.
The document says Israel has accelerated its plans for East Jerusalem, and is undermining the Palestinian Authority's credibility and weakening support for peace talks. \"Israel's actions in and around Jerusalem constitute one of the most acute challenges to Israeli-Palestinian peace-making,\" says the document, EU Heads of Mission Report on East Jerusalem.
The report, obtained by the Guardian, is dated 15 December 2008. It acknowledges Israel's legitimate security concerns in Jerusalem, but adds: \"Many of its current illegal actions in and around the city have limited security justifications.\"
\"Israeli 'facts on the ground' - including new settlements, construction of the barrier, discriminatory housing policies, house demolitions, restrictive permit regime and continued closure of Palestinian institutions - increase Jewish Israeli presence in East Jerusalem, weaken the Palestinian community in the city, impede Palestinian urban development and separate East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank,\" the report says.
The document has emerged at a time of mounting concern over Israeli policies in East Jerusalem. Two houses were demolished on Monday just before the arrival of the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, and a further 88 are scheduled for demolition, all for lack of permits. Clinton described the demolitions as \"unhelpful\", noting that they violated Israel's obligations under the US \"road map\" for peace.
The EU report goes further, saying that the demolitions are \"illegal under international law, serve no obvious purpose, have severe humanitarian effects, and fuel bitterness and extremism.\" The EU raised its concern in a formal diplomatic representation on December 1, it says.
It notes that although Palestinians in the east represent 34% of the city's residents, only 5%-10% of the municipal budget is spent in their areas, leaving them with poor services and infrastructure.
Israel issues fewer than 200 permits a year for Palestinian homes and leaves only 12% of East Jerusalem available for Palestinian residential use. As a result many homes are built without Israeli permits. About 400 houses have been demolished since 2004 and a further 1,000 demolition orders have yet to be carried out, it said.
City officials dismissed criticisms of its housing policy as \"a disinformation campaign\". \"Mayor Nir Barkat continues to promote investments in infrastructure, construction and education in East Jerusalem, while at the same time upholding the law throughout West and East Jerusalem equally without bias,\" the mayor's office said after Clinton's visit.
However, the EU says the fourth Geneva convention prevents an occupying power extending its jurisdiction to occupied territory. Israel occupied the east of the city in the 1967 six day war and later annexed it. The Palestinians claim East Jerusalem as the capital of their future state.
The EU says settlement are being built in the east of the city at a \"rapid pace\". Since the Annapolis peace talks began in late 2007, nearly 5,500 new settlement housing units have been submitted for public review, with 3,000 so far approved, the report says. There are now about 470,000 settlers in the occupied territories, including 190,000 in East Jerusalem.
The EU is particularly concerned about settlements inside the Old City, where there were plans to build a Jewish settlement of 35 housing units in the Muslim quarter, as well as expansion plans for Silwan, just outside the Old City walls.
The goal, it says, is to \"create territorial contiguity\" between East Jerusalem settlements and the Old City and to \"sever\" East Jerusalem and its settlement blocks from the West Bank.
There are plans for 3,500 housing units, an industrial park, two police stations and other infrastructure in a controversial area known as E1, between East Jerusalem and the West Bank settlement of Ma'ale Adumim, home to 31,000 settlers. Israeli measures in E1 were \"one of the most significant challenges to the Israeli-Palestinian peace process\", the report says.
Mark Regev, spokesman for the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, said conditions for Palestinians living in East Jerusalem were better than in the West Bank. \"East Jerusalem residents are under Israeli law and they were offered full Israeli citizenship after that law was passed in 1967,\" he said. \"We are committed to the continued development of the city for the benefit of all its population.\"