Mandelson warns Labour faces 'fight of its life'

Business secretary wins standing ovation at the Labour conference for highly personal speech in which he claims the general election is still 'up for grabs'

Lord Mandelson attempted to breathe life into a subdued Labour conference today by insisting that the party could, like him, return from apparent oblivion and triumph again.

The business secretary, in his first speech since his surprise return to government last year, admitted his own trepidation at being invited back into government as he set out his vision for a Labour fourth term.

"Electorally, we are in the fight for our lives," he told Labour activists. "But if I can come back, we can come back."

"I came into politics to help remake the Labour party as a party of government. My relationship with Gordon was formed when people said we'd never form a government again.

"It made us not just modernisers but fighters ? and certainly not quitters. That spirit still burns as brightly within us now as it did then."

He admitted that he had been surprised as the rest of the Labour party when Gordon Brown asked him to return to government last October.

"My network of informants had let me down," he joked.

Announcing an extension of the car scrappage scheme, Mandelson pledged his full, undivided attention and loyalty to the prime minister until the party was back on top.

Turning his fire on the Tories, Mandelson said David Cameron had been "pursuing a strategy, not of real change, but change to its presentation".

"The image-making department has done its work and done it well," he said. "Who am I to criticise?"

But he warned: that is not change, it's the same old Tory policies."

Reflecting on his own return to government, Mandelson said: "When the prime minister asked me to return to the cabinet last year I felt a lot of things: shock, surprise, apprehension. Returning to the goldfish bowl and all my friends in the media," he joked.

"I've been in the movie before and the sequel and didn't like the ending but the pull of coming back was just too much."

The peer said the Labour party was "in my bones".

" I love this party even if not everyone in the party loves me," he said.

He admitted he had been "careless with the views and feelings of others" but he said the reason for that was because he was "in a hurry to be in government to help the hard-working people of this country".

He told them: "I know that Tony [Blair] said our project would only be complete when the party learned to love Peter Mandelson. He may have set the bar too high though I am trying my best.

"But the fact is our project is far from complete," he said.

Insisting the general election was still "up for grabs", Mandelson added: "We may be the underdogs, but if we show the British people that we have not lost the fighting spirit and appetite for change which has defined this party throughout its history then we can and will win.

"Win for our party, win for our country, win for the British people."

Mandelson was rewarded with a standing ovation and cheers.

G20 officer to be charged with assault

Sergeant Delroy Smellie faces up to six months in prison if found guilty of attack on woman

A police officer who allegedly struck a woman during the G20 protests in London a woman is to be charged with assault, the Crown Prosecution Service said today.

A CPS spokeswoman said Sergeant Delroy Smellie would be charged with assault of Nicola Fisher and he will appear at Westminster magistrates court on 16 November. He faces up to six months in prison if found guilty.

Smellie, a member of the Metropolitan police's territorial support group, was suspended from duty two months ago after footage emerged of him near the Bank of England, apparently hitting Fisher, 35, with the back of his arm.

He was also shown appearing to strike her on her legs with a baton as she attended a vigil for the newspaper seller Ian Tomlinson, who had died the previous day. She said the incident left her with severe bruising.

A CPS spokeswoman said: "The Crown Prosecution Service has decided that there is sufficient evidence to charge Police Sergeant Delroy (Tony) Smellie with the offence of assault by beating of Nicola Fisher on 2 April, 2009 at a demonstration in the City of London.

"The CPS reviewed a file of evidence provided by the Independent Police Complaints Commission following their investigation into Ms Fisher's allegation. A summons has been served on Sgt Smellie."

The CPS said there was not sufficient evidence to charge him for a second assault, against another female protester.

Fisher gave evidence to the home affairs select committee last month, which has hosted one of two parliamentary inquiries into policing of the G20 protests. There has been five independent IPCC investigations following the G20 protests in April.

Prosecutors have also been asked to consider whether the Met officer who attacked Tomlinson should be charged with manslaughter. A CPS spokeswoman said that case remained under review and a decision would not be taken for a few months.

"We have been asked to look at whether the officer involved should be charged with any offence, and no decision has currently been taken," she said.

Tomlinson was attempting to find a route home from work through the protests when he was struck by police near the Bank of England. Video footage revealed that he had his hands in his pockets and was walking away from lines of police.

Three of the independent IPCC investigations into the G20 protests relate to alleged assaults on women. The commission has received 282 complaints about the police at the G20 event, 135 relate to the use of force and 79 relate to police tactics.

Dollar faces eclipse, warns Zoellick

'The United States would be mistaken to take for granted the dollar's place as the world's predominant reserve currency,' Zoellick said

America must brace itself for the dollar to be usurped as the world's reserve currency as US dominance wanes in the wake of the financial crisis, World Bank president Robert Zoellick warns today.

Speaking ahead of the World Bank/IMF annual meetings in Istanbul, Zoellick said that it was time for a "responsible globalisation", in which decision-making is more fairly shared between the old economic powers and fast-growing developing countries such as China and India.

Ever since the post-war Bretton Woods agreement, which cemented the dollar's ascendancy over sterling, Americans have been able to rely on borrowing cheaply from the rest of the world as governments banked on the dollar as a safe bet. But Zoellick said the greenback's status could now be under threat from the growing strength of the Chinese renminbi and the euro.

"The United States would be mistaken to take for granted the dollar's place as the world's predominant reserve currency. Looking forward, there will increasingly be other options to the dollar," Zoellick told an audience at Johns Hopkins University in Washington .

From now on, he said, confidence in the US currency - and its economy - would have to be earned. "The future for the United States will depend on whether and how it will address large deficits, recover without inflation that could undermine its credit and currency, and overhaul its financial system."

Zoellick's comments came as Beijing launched the first renminbi-denominated bond available to outside investors, as it gradually makes its currency more exchangeable on international markets.

"I expect China will inevitably be drawn outward," he said. "Over 10 to 20 years, the renminbi will evolve into a force in financial markets." Several countries, including China and Russia, have repeatedly raised what they see as the problem of excessive dollar hegemony.

G20 as a steering group

Zoellick predicted that the tumultuous events of the credit crunch would eventually lead to a radically different world economic order. He welcomed the expanded role of the G20 group of nations, agreed by leaders at their summit in Pittsburgh last week; but warned against excluding bodies such as the World Trade Organisation and the International Monetary Fund, which have a much broader membership.

"The G20 should operate as a 'steering group' across a network of countries and international institutions," he said.

Claire Melamed, head of policy at Action Aid, said the decision made at Pittsburgh to move the focus of world economic decision-making away from the G8, with its out-of-date makeup, including Italy and Canada but not China and India, could reverberate for decades.

"I think the shift from the G8 to the G20 on economic issues has the potential to be hugely significant, breaking not just the power of the US, but that particular group of countries that have had everything their own way for so long," she said.

Developing country governments have blamed the US, with its deregulated financial markets and decade-long borrowing binge, for dragging the world to the brink of the abyss over the past twelve months. Zoellick said all countries will have to learn to rely less on rampant American consumption to drive growth in the world economy.

"A more balanced and inclusive growth model for the world would benefit from multiple poles of growth," Zoellick said. "With investments in infrastructure, people, and private businesses, countries in Latin America, Asia, and the broader Middle East could contribute to a 'New Normal' for the world economy." Leaders in Pittsburgh also agreed to transfer some of the voting rights of over-represented rich countries at the IMF, to under-represented developing economies; but detailed negotiations about how the balance of power will change - and which countries will agree to give up some of their votes - will go on until 2011.

At this week's meetings in Istanbul which will be attended by chancellor Alistair Darling and Bank of England governor Mervyn King, the World Bank is likely to ask donor governments for more funding to mitigate the impact of the credit crunch on the world's poorest countries.

The IMF, meanwhile, is expected to give more details of how it will spot future crises and urge governments to take preventative policy measures - tasks set for it by the G20 last week.

Iran warns Israel after missile tests

Show of defiance comes days before key talks in Geneva on Tehran's uranium enrichment programme

Iran has warned Israel not to dare attack it after Tehran defiantly test-fired long-range missiles capable of hitting targets across the Middle East and beyond.

"If this happens ? which, of course, we do not foresee ? its ultimate result would be that it expedites the last breath of the Zionist regime," the Iranian defence minister, Ahmad Vahidi, said on state television today.

Israel, where the Yom Kippur fast, the holiest day of the Jewish year, was being observed, made no comment. But it has repeatedly warned that it will not tolerate a nuclear Iran.

Vahidi's remarks came hours after the missile trials raised tensions ahead of pivotal talks on the country's nuclear programme in Geneva on Thursday.

Iranian media said the Revolutionary Guards Corps had tested the Shahab-3 and Sajjil rockets, with ranges of up to 1,240 miles. State-funded Press TV said "the projectiles accurately hit their designated targets".

The White House reacted with caution. "Of course, this is just a test, and obviously there is much work to be done before it can be built and deployed. But I see it as a significant step forward in terms of Iran's capacity to deliver weapons," CNN quoted Gary Samore, special assistant to the president on nonproliferation, as saying.

David Miliband, Britain's foreign secretary, condemned the launches but added: "This missile test is part of an annual provocation. It's very important that we are not distracted from the central issue of this week ... the meeting on Thursday between Iran and representatives of the international community. Iran needs to show it is serious about obeying the international rules, no more, no less. That is the test that counts this week."

Tehran claims the Shahab-3 missile can reach Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, as well as US bases in the Gulf.

Thursday's encounter between Iranian officials and senior diplomats from the US, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China, is seen as a final attempt to find a compromise on Iran's uranium enrichment programme, which Tehran is expanding despite a succession of UN security council resolutions calling for it to be halted.

The stakes have been raised by the revelation last week that Iran is secretly building an enrichment plant under a mountain near the holy city of Qom.

Tehran denied there was any link between the missile tests and Iran's nuclear activities. Hassan Qashqavi, a foreign ministry spokesman, told a news conference: "This is a military drill which is deterrent in nature. There is no connection whatsoever with the nuclear programme."

At the weekend, western officials said Iran would now have to do far more than suspend enrichment to avoid potentially devastating economic sanctions.

"The bar is now higher," a British official said. "If you think of it in terms of a deficit of trust, Iran's deficit has just got much bigger ... they will have to do much more now to convince the world they do not have a weapons programme."

The hunt for other nuclear sites in what western officials suspect may be a complete shadow nuclear programme is already under way.

Nuclear analysts say it would have been almost impossible for Iran to divert uranium fuel to the Qom facility from its conversion plant in Isfahan without being seen by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which constantly monitors Isfahan.

They believe Iran could be hiding a second, covert conversion plant, capable of turning milled uranium ore ? known as yellowcake ? into uranium hexafluoride gas.

That form allows the most fissile isotope, uranium-235, used for power generation and weapons, to be purified in the massed centrifuges of an enrichment plant.

Western officials say there are other suspect sites around Iran, and the Iranian government will be told it must give IAEA inspectors access to the sites if it is to escape punitive measures.In the absence of Iranian concessions on Thursday, a debate will begin among the six nations in the negotiating group over what kind of sanctions to impose.

The US, Britain and France are seeking to win a consensus on "biting" sanctions, particularly on Iran's oil and gas sector, by the end of the year.

Back to Hollywood Babylon

Roman Polanski behaved badly in 1970s Hollywood. He wasn't alone

The arrest of Roman Polanski takes us all back to the movie business's not-so-secret history of shame, the "Hollywood Babylon" era which lasted from the beginning of the 20th century to around the 1970s ? or maybe longer. It tended to involve sexual misdemeanours, crazy and illegal behaviour, drugs, murder, and biddable reporters who could be flattered, bamboozled and bought off ? with pressmen and moguls all incidentally subscribing hypocritically to the view that homosexuality was detestable, despite gay men and women in closets all over town.

In the modern era of OJ Simpson and Michael Jackson, and fanatically vigilant celebrity snoopers and weberazzi, coverups are harder to manage. However, formidable PR agent Pat Kingsley still managed to keep the public in blissful ignorance of Tom Cruise's more flavoursome ? though entirely legal ? eccentricities, until Cruise sacked her.

The luridly visible tip of the iceberg famously includes the 1921 trial of Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle for rape and murder ? he was acquitted, but languished in unemployment and disgrace for almost the rest of his life. There is also the still unsolved murder in 1922 of silent movie star William Desmond Taylor. In 1928, Joan Crawford drunkenly ran over a woman in her car and attempted to bribe her arresting officer; MGM publicity fixer Howard Strickling reportedly went to the victim's hospital bed with $10,000 in cash to persuade her not to press charges.

In our less shockable, more jaded era, scandal makes less of a stir. Robert Downey Jr was arrested in 1996 for possessing heroin, cocaine and a handgun in his car and finally spent four months in prison for breaking parole. Rob Lowe was videotaped in 1998 in an Atlanta hotel room having sex with two women, one of whom was 16, though Lowe claimed that he did not know this at the time. The careers of both men survived. However, actor Robert Blake ? who played Perry Smith in the 1967 film version of Capote's In Cold Blood ? was arrested for the murder of his wife in 2001, acquitted, but found liable for the death in a civil suit brought by her children.

Nonetheless, Roman Polanski's case in 1977 surely has to be the high-water mark of Hollywood Babylon: an abysmally shaming offence ? sexually molesting a 13-year-old girl who had been plied with champagne and Quaaludes ? for which Polanski effectively forfeited the public sympathy he'd earned after his wife Sharon Tate was murdered in 1969 by the Charles Manson gang.

Since then, the woman involved has settled a private suit with Roman Polanski and expressed forgiveness; Polanski's lawyers have for their part suggested that his original trial was in any case flawed and, until Saturday's sensational arrest, it had been assumed that there was no enthusiasm in the United States for raking up the case.

Hollywood in the 70s was a lurid time, and no one thinks that Polanski's behaviour was atypical. Those mega-stars of the LA film and music scene were not exactly known for checking the birth certificates of the young women admitted to the poolside parties and backstage bacchanals. Just before his political triumph in 2003 as the new governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger apologised for "offensive" behaviour after being faced with a number of different sexual harassment lawsuits from 1975 to 2000.

The culture of sexual behaviour in 70s Hollywood was entirely different ? even for those considered then and now to be the respectable good guys. In his classic history of the period, Easy Rider, Raging Bulls, author Peter Biskind includes this startling description of the personal stress suffered by Steven Spielberg during the troubled shoot of Jaws:

Spielberg was under an enormous amount of pressure. He brought his own pillow with him from home, and put celery in it, a smell he found comforting. He had no time for anything but work. A female friend of a friend was brought out from LA for recreational sex. She slept with him, and left. It felt like the production would never end ?

Many readers of Biskind's book have pondered that passage since it was published in 1998. The book is packed with racy anecdotes about bad behaviour, yet this is not presented as one of them: just a throwaway remark about how the new alpha-males of the movie world dealt with work pressures. No one has ever alleged that Steven Spielberg engaged in any illegal activity. Yet given that the encounter did not happen spontaneously, what exactly did bringing this "female friend of a friend out from LA for recreational sex" involve precisely? And do we see in that passage a hint of the attitude which was to metastasise into the casual exploitation and arrogance which underpinned the Polanski affair?

Either way, the director's arrest is a reminder of a nasty, seedy time.

Free Polanski, say France and Poland

Diplomatic war brewing as politicians and filmmakers lobby for release of Oscar-winning director after arrest on 1978 US warrant

Blog: Hollywood unites in Roman Polanski's defence

A diplomatic war was brewing today over the arrest of the filmmaker Roman Polanski, who was detained in Switzerland on a decades-old warrant relating to the rape of a 13-year-old girl in 1977.

France and Poland urged Switzerland to free the 76-year-old director on bail and said they would be lobbying the US government all the way up to the secretary of state, Hillary Clinton.

Frédéric Mitterrand, the French culture minister, said the arrest was proof of the "frightening" side of America.

"In the same way as there is a generous America which we love, there is also a certain kind of America which is frightening, and it is this America which has now shown us its face," he said.

Reports this afternoon said the director had refused to voluntarily go to the US to face charges, raising the prospect of a long and drawn-out legal saga.

Despite being held in Swiss custody for two nights, Polanski remains "totally combative and determined to defend himself", one of his French lawyers said.

Hervé Temime told France Info radio a request for bail would be made today and that he would be "surprised and disappointed" if permission was not granted.

"We are going to start by requesting he be let out of detention, which should in theory happen today," said Temime. "There is no reason ... to keep Roman Polanski in prison.

"I hope we can very quickly bring to an end this situation which seems to me to be totally grotesque."

Polanski is in good spirits, his agent said today. "His voice is strong ... he's very anxious to get this resolved and go home," Jeff Berg told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

Berg said the film director's arrest on a 1978 US warrant as he arrived in Switzerland from France was a surprise because he has had a house in the country for more than a decade.

"It is surprising because Roman, for the last 12, 15 years, has lived in Switzerland. He has a home; he travels there; he works there," he said.

"His presence there is well-known, as it is through much of Europe, so this came kind of as a shock, given the fact that he was invited to Zurich to receive a lifetime achievement award."

Polanski, the director of Chinatown and Rosemary's Baby, had travelled to Switzerland to accept an award at the Zurich film festival. The event's organisers expressed "great consternation and shock" at his detention.

He has hired the Swiss lawyer Lorenz Erni, of the Eschmann & Erni firm, to fight any extradition charges.

The Oscar-winning director Andrzej Wajda and other Polish filmmakers have appealed to the US, Swiss and Polish authorities for the Paris-born Polanski to be freed.

Jacek Bromski, head of the Polish Filmmakers Association, said Polanski had spent all of August at his house in the German-speaking village of Gstaad, south-west Switzerland, working on his latest movie, The Ghost.

"Nothing happened" to him during that time, Bromski said, adding that in the eyes of the public, Polanski has already "atoned for the sins of his young years".

Polanski has strong links with Poland, having moved to the country with his Jewish family as a child shortly before the second world war.

His mother died in a Nazi concentration camp but he avoided capture and spent his youth in Poland before moving to the west.

The director has held French citizenship for many years and is married to the French singer and actor Emmanuelle Seigner.

He has spent much of his life in France since fleeing the US in 1978 but regularly visits countries that do not have extradition treaties with the US.

The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, wants to see the director reunited swiftly with his family, Mitterrand said.

Polanski pleaded guilty to the assault in 1977 but jumped bail and fled the US the following year to avoid a lengthy prison sentence.

He has spent more than three decades in exile in Paris, refusing to return to the US even when he won an Oscar for The Pianist in 2003.

Zurich police said he had been detained in the city on Saturday night at the request of the US justice department and was in custody awaiting extradition.

"There was a valid arrest request and we knew when he was coming," Guido Balmer, of the Swiss justice ministry, said. "That's why he was taken into custody."

Polanski was 44 and already a twice Oscar-nominated director when he had sex with Samantha Gailey, a 13-year-old model he had hired for a photoshoot, at Jack Nicholson's home in Los Angeles in 1977.

He claimed the sex was consensual, saying the girl was "not unresponsive", but Gailey said he drugged her with painkillers and champagne before carrying out a "very scary" assault.

In recent months, Polanski's lawyers have been seeking, through the US courts, to have the rape charges against him dropped after saying new evidence had emerged in a documentary to show he was the victim of "judicial misconduct" at his original trial.

The documentary showed a former Los Angeles deputy district attorney admitting discussing the case with the trial judge while it was ongoing.

Ramblers tell Charles to take a hike

Walkers claim the Duchy of Cornwall's plans for 1,200 new homes will turn it into an isolated 'ghetto' cut off from countryside

After his embarrassing bust-up with architects, Prince Charles is facing another row ? this time with ramblers who are angry at his latest plans for his model town development in Dorset.

The Duchy of Cornwall, the private estate that helps to fund the prince's activities, has applied for planning permission to build another 1,200 homes, a primary school and more business premises at Poundbury.

But though a central tenet of Poundbury is to be walker-friendly, ramblers claim the Duchy is turning the development into an isolated "ghetto" with residents hemmed in by busy roads and unable to get easy access to the surrounding countryside.

Members of the Ramblers, formerly the Ramblers' Association, claim they have tried to negotiate with the duchy but have been rebuffed and are now calling on Dorset people to formally object to the latest plans. If they still get nowhere, the Ramblers will consider taking direct action to try to further embarrass the prince into stepping in.

In recent months the prince has been in the headlines for his hands-on involvement in architecture and planning in Britain.

Most notable, as revealed in the Guardian, was an attempt to have the French architect Jean Nouvel removed from a £500m office and shopping complex beside St Paul's Cathedral.

Poundbury, an "urban extension" to Dorchester, is currently home to 1,500 people but is only a third finished and by 2025 it is due to have 2,200 homes.

In its mission statements, the duchy claims at the heart of the Poundbury project is "the importance of pedestrian friendly public space". It says it "gives priority to people, rather than cars" and aims to "create a walkable community".

In Charles's words: "The masterplan was based upon placing the pedestrian, and not the car, at the centre of the design."

But even if pedestrians can get around Poundbury itself, the ramblers say they are struggling to get out of the place. The main problem is access to Maiden Castle, an iron age fort that was first laid out in 600BC and is considered by English Heritage as the finest in Britain.

While the castle is close to Poundbury, there is no easy route to it.

In its Poundbury development brief, prepared to guide future decisions on the project, West Dorset district council said that better pedestrian links to Maiden Castle ought to be created.

The duchy owns almost all the land between Poundbury and Maiden Castle and leases it to a tenant farmer. It is suggesting two routes from Poundbury but the Ramblers say these are "circuitous and unpleasant" and involve having to walk alongside or actually on busy roads. The tenant farmer is against the more direct route the Ramblers prefer, and the duchy says it cannot force him to change his mind.

Peter Evans, who is leading the fight for the Ramblers, said: "We have tried to open negotiations with the duchy and their tenant farmer, and have put compromise proposals to them, but without success."

Another campaigner, Dave Green, who lives in a cottage surrounded on all sides by duchy land, said: "We were keen to avoid confrontation but the duchy doesn't seem to want to negotiate. We can only conclude they don't take rural access seriously."

Green said the routes the duchy wanted were so awkward that Poundbury people would simply end up driving to Maiden Castle, parking there and then taking a walk.

The South Dorset Ramblers have set up a campaign website and also plan to target shoppers at the market in Poundbury. If nothing is done, they may consider direct action, like a mass trespass.

A second group, the Poundbury Strollers, is also objecting to the duchy's proposals. Brian White, one of its leaders, said there was a feeling that the duchy was making a great deal of money by developing its land at Poundbury, but was not giving much in return.

That Poundbury is not some sort of rural idyll is shown in the reasons the tenant farmer John Hoskin gives for not wanting greater access across the land he works.

In application documents, Hoskin says he has had problems in the past with people "straying". He says his fences have been cut, his sheep have been worried by dogs, electric fences and batteries have been stolen ? and he has even had padlocks on his gates glued shut.

A spokesman for the Duchy of Cornwall said it wanted to work with local people on rural access. "The proposals for the next phase of development at Poundbury do include routes to Maiden Castle, this is in line with the Poundbury brief and masterplan.

"But we also have to ensure the pedestrian access is managed so as to minimise any adverse effect on the use of the land for livestock and sheep grazing.

"With this in mind we have to take into account the needs of the tenant farmer and the  operational requirements of the farm. We believe the current proposals are a good compromise and would offer much enhanced enjoyment of the countryside by residents of Poundbury and Dorchester."

Apple and Orange seal iPhone deal

Will Orange spark an iPhone price war?

O2's exclusive deal to support Apple's iPhone in the UK is to come to an end, after Orange announced today that it would also be selling the handset later this year.

In a brief statement, Orange said it had agreed a deal with the Californian computer company to start selling the iPhone in Britain.

"Orange UK and Apple have reached an agreement to bring iPhone 3G and 3GS to Orange UK customers later this year," it said. "Orange, which has the largest 3G network covering more people in the UK than any other operator, will sell iPhone in all Orange direct channels including Orange shops, the Orange webshop and Orange telesales channels, as well as selected high street partners."

The network did not reveal pricing plans or exact dates, but it has already put in place a website where potential customers can register their interest.

The deal comes as O2's two-year exclusive to provide service for the iPhone in Britain comes to an end.

While the move was seen at the time as something of a risk - particularly since Apple is believed demanded a slice of revenues from sales and even monthly contracts - it has largely been seen as a success for the company, with O2 gaining more than 1m iPhone subscribers as Apple pushed on to sell more than 20m units worldwide.

In fact, Britain is one of the few countries where the supply of iPhones is still limited to a single network. While the situation is mirrored in America, where telecoms giant AT&T still has exclusive iPhone rights, the handset is available from different providers - or even unlocked - in a number of other countries.

The Californian technology company is hoping that branching out to new networks will help it sell more handsets, while Orange is desperate to enhance its offerings ahead of a proposed merger with the UK arm of T-Mobile. That move would create the UK's largest mobile network, and would mean that the iPhone - often seen as an elite, high-end product - would be available to more than 49 million mobile users across Britain.

Cage fighter pleads guilty over £53m robbery

Admission follows Old Bailey jury's failure to reach verdict in original trial concerning Britain's biggest cash robbery

A former cage fighter who was extradited from Morocco to face trial, today pleaded guilty to three charges linked to the £53m Securitas robbery in Tonbridge, Kent, in 2006.

Paul Allen, 30, of Chatham, Kent, admitted conspiracy to kidnap, conspiracy to commit robbery and conspiracy to possess a firearm, the Crown Prosecution Service said.

Allen was flown back to the UK under police guard in January 2008 four days after five men were convicted for their role in Britain's largest cash robbery.

Posing as police officers, the gang got away with what was described as a "king's ransom", in February 2006. But they left behind £153m because they could not fit any more into their lorry. The manager of the depot, Colin Dixon, and his family were kidnapped at gunpoint. The story of the raid is to be made into a Hollywood film.

Allen was due to be retried at Woolwich crown court in south-east London after an Old Bailey jury failed to reach a verdict in January.

But the father of three admitted the charges today.

Allen's agreed basis of plea said that he did not handle or obtain any firearms used for the raid. He said he was working for his friend and fellow fighter Lee Murray, who is now in prison in Morocco.

Roger Coe-Salazar, chief prosecutor for Kent, said: "The Securitas robbery was meticulously organised and we have never had any doubts that Paul Allen played a pivotal role in the planning and execution of it."

Four days after the robbery Allen fled to Morocco where he was hoping to live on his share of the proceeds, prosecutors said. In a spending spree Allen and Murray bought villas, drugs and jewellery, and spent thousands of pounds on plastic surgery for their partners.

After he was caught, Allen spent 20 months in Rabat jail before being extradited. Murray, whose father was from Morocca, claimed Moroccan nationality to avoid extradition.

At the original trial prosecutor Sir John Nutting QC said the men planned and executed the raid with "military precision".

The raiders, seen in CCTV footage wearing balaclavas and holding guns including a shotgun and an AK-47 assault rifle, threatened to kill staff in the depot if they did not co-operate.

Stuart Royle, 49, Lea Rusha, 35, Jetmir Bucpapa, 26 and Roger Coutts, 30, each received minimum prison terms of 15 years. Emir Hysenaj, the inside man, was jailed for 20 years. Charges against Michelle Hogg, who worked on the prosthetic masks for a fortnight, were dropped after he agreeed to testify against the men.

Murray, the ringleader, was one of the world's leading cage-fighters, earning £30,000 a bout at events, the Old Bailey heard. He planned the hold-up months after he suffered a near-fatal stab wound outside a party in the West End of London.

Cane Patterson, another man named in court as taking part in the heist, is still at large. He is suspected of being the robber who, disguised as a police officer, was the first one to force his way into the depot on the night of the heist. Patterson is now believed to be in hiding in the West Indies.

Police recovered £21m of the stolen haul.

Honduras under martial law amid 'rebellion'

Interim leaders empower police to break up 'unauthorised' meetings as ousted president Manuel Zelaya urges supporters to march

Honduras's interim leaders suspended key civil liberties last night in response to "calls for insurrection" by ousted president Manuel Zelaya, empowering police and soldiers to break up "unauthorised" public meetings, arrest people without warrants and restrict the news media.

The announcement came just hours after Zelaya called on supporters to stage mass marches today to mark the three-month anniversary of the 28 June coup that ousted him. Zelaya described the marches as "the final offensive" against the interim government.

Zelaya, who surprised the world when he sneaked back into the country last Monday and holed up in the Brazilian embassy, is demanding he be reinstated to office, and has said that the government of interim president Roberto Micheletti "has to fall".

The government announced the decree in a nationwide broadcast, saying it was "to guarantee peace and public order in the country and due to the calls for insurrection that Mr Zelaya has publicly made".

The measure empowers police and soldiers to arrest without a warrant "any person who poses a danger to his own life or those of others", although unlike martial law, it requires that anyone arrested be turned over to civilian prosecutors.

The Honduran constitution forbids arrest without warrants except where a criminal is caught in the act.

The measure also permits authorities temporarily to close news media outlets that "attack peace and public order".

The media restrictions appear aimed at pro-Zelaya radio and television stations that ? while subject to brief raids immediately after the coup ? had been allowed to operate freely, openly criticising the government and broadcasting Zelaya's statements.

But under yesterday's order, authorities may now "prevent the transmission by any spoken, written or televised means, of statements that attack peace and the public order, or which offend the human dignity of public officials, or attack the law".

The decree states that the country's national telecommunications commission, known as Conatel, is authorised "through police and the armed forces ? to immediately suspend any radio station, cable or television network whose programming does not comply with these regulations".

Pro-Zelaya television station Channel 36 warned yesterday that restrictions on the news media were coming, and said they were part of a pattern by the interim government of curtailing constitutional rights.

The government had previously bragged about the democratic atmosphere in the country, citing outlets such as Channel 36 as proof. The station continued broadcasting without interruption last night.

The interim government also expelled personnel from the Organisation of American States looking to set up a mediation effort and gave Brazil a 10-day ultimatum to either hand over Zelaya or give him political asylum and get him out of the country.

John Biehl, an OAS special adviser, told reporters in the capital, Tegucigalpa, that he and four other members of an advance team ? including two Americans, a Canadian and a Colombian ? were stopped by authorities after landing at the international airport yesterday. Biehl, who is Chilean, said he was later told he could stay, but the others were put on planes leaving the country.

"A high-ranking official told us we were expelled, that we had not notified [the interim government] that we were coming," he said.

Biehl said he was in Honduras to set up a visit by the OAS secretary general, José Miguel Insulza, who he said would arrive "at the appropriate time".

Micheletti had previously said the OAS was welcome to come, but had suggested that representatives began arriving today.

The foreign minister, Carlos Lopez, said the team's arrival had not come "at the right time ? because we are in the middle of internal conversations".

Talks between Zelaya and Micheletti's representatives have produced no results.

A Micheletti spokesman warned Brazilian authorities yesterday to "immediately take measures to ensure that Mr Zelaya stops using the protection offered by the diplomatic mission to instigate violence in Honduras".

The Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, immediately rejected the missive, saying his government "doesn't accept ultimatums from coup-plotters".

At least 140 dead in Philippines storm

At least 140 people have been killed and scores are missing after tropical storm brings worst flooding for four decades

The Philippines called today for international help as it sought to deal with the aftermath of a tropical storm that triggered the deadliest flooding in the country for 40 years.

At least 140 people were confirmed dead and another 32 were missing after the weekend flooding in and around the capital, Manila. Officials fear further bad weather could compound the situation.

Gilbert Teodoro, the defence secretary, said help from foreign governments would augment relief work already started by army troops, police and civilian volunteers.

He said welfare agencies had begun to provide food, medicine and other help to more than 115,000 people in government-run emergency shelters.

It is feared the death toll could increase significantly as rescue workers come to terms with the scale of the disaster, which happened when tropical storm Ketsana tore through the northern Philppines on Saturday. Teodoro estimated that 435,000 people had been displaced by the storm.

He told a press conference the official death toll excluded a reported 95 deaths in Antipolo City, east of Manila, and in Marikina City and Quezon City, two of the northern municipalities of metropolitan Manila.

Ketsana brought more than a month's worth of rain in 12 hours, swamping towns, sparking landslides and leaving neighbourhoods in Manila under water.

Amateur video footage showed cars swirling like driftwood in the floodwater. Stranded passengers waited to be rescued on the roof of one vehicle.

The government declared a "state of calamity" in metropolitan Manila and 25 storm-hit provinces, allowing officials to use emergency funds for relief and rescue.

Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, the president, today opened up the presidential palace as an emergency centre for victims.

She said the storm and flooding were "an extreme event" that "strained our response capabilities to the limit but ultimately did not break us".

Joselito Mendoza, the governor of Bulacan province, north of the capital, said: "People drowned in their own houses."

Ronald Manlangit, a 30-year-old resident of the Manila suburb of Marikina, said: "We're back to zero. Suddenly, all of our belongings were floating. If the water rose farther, all of us in the neighbourhood would have been killed."

Footage taken from a military helicopter yesterday showed survivors marooned on top of half-submerged buses and roofs in suburban Manila.

Some were clinging to power lines while others plodded through waist-high waters.

Berlusconi repeats Obama 'tan' comment

Obama's wife Michelle also called 'tanned' by Berlusconi in latest gaffe at rally of conservative supporters

The Italian prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, has repeated his reference to Barack Obama's "tan" ? and this time made a wisecrack about Michelle Obama's skin colour, too.

Berlusconi told a Milan rally of conservative supporters yesterday that he was bringing greetings from the United States from "What's his name? Some tanned guy. Ah, Barack Obama!"

He added: "You won't believe it, but two of them went to the beach, because the wife is also tanned."

Last week photographs showed Michelle Obama greeting many leaders at the G20 summit in Pittsburgh summit with a kiss but stiffly holding out her arm for a handshake when she came to greet Berlusconi.

Pictures show Berlusconi gazing at Mrs Obama's gown, instead of her face, and holding his arms out as if in delight at what he sees, while the US president looks on, apparently not amused.

Berlusconi has been on the defensive over a sex scandal that erupted last spring after his wife complained that the 72-year-old prime minister was infatuated with young women and announced she was divorcing him.

Prosecutors in the southern Italian city of Bari are investigating as a suspect in a cocaine investigation a local businessman who has said he sent some 30 young women to dinners and parties at Berlusconi's Rome palazzo and Sardinian villa. The businessman told investigators he paid the women's expenses and in some cases extra money in case they had sex with the prime minister.

Berlusconi was unaware of these arrangements, the businessman said. The prime minister, who is not under investigation in the scandal, has denied ever paying for sex.

At yesterday's rally, Berlusconi also said that the cordial relationship between the US and Italy was intact. He delivered a backhanded compliment to the US president when referring to Obama's use of a teleprompter in public speeches: "He's not reckless like those of us who say what comes to mind. We all asked ourselves: 'Does he know what he's doing, or is he just someone who knows how to read well?'

"But he's all there, in a big way, and that should make us all happy and satisfied because we need the greatest democracy, the greatest country, to be in trustworthy hands," Berlusconi said.

Guardian Daily: Labour fights back

Michael White reports on Labour's last-ditch conference before the next election. Political editor Patrick Wintour examines the party's Operation Fight-back. Climate Secretary Ed Miliband is enthusiastic, but blogger Paul Richards reckons many MPs and delegates have not turned up.

Victory for Angela Merkel and her right wing alliance in Germany's national election. The Guardian's Berlin correspondent Kate Connolly has been telling us about the main issues during the election campaign and our European editor Ian Traynor analyses the impact of the Chancellor's election success.

As Iran ramps up it's show of defiance with missile tests, diplomatic editor Julian Borger discusses the potential repercussions ahead of an important meeting this Thursday in Geneva between Iranian officials and the UN security council.

The Guardian recently gave half a dozen political household names the chance to turn the table on their TV interviewers. Hear Ann Widdecombe, George Osborne, Vince Cable and William Hague interview Jon Snow, Andrew Marr, Stephanie Flanders and Emily Maitlis respectively.

24 hours in pictures

A selection of the best images from around the world

Islamic prayers on Capitol Hill

Members of a Harlem mosque travel to Washington for a mass prayer service to inspire America's beleagured Muslim community