Desperate hunt for living in Sumatra after quake

? Hundreds trapped under rubble
? Rescuers struggle to reach stricken city

A major rescue operation was under way after a devastating earthquake struck the Indonesian island of Sumatra, leaving hundreds and possibly thousands of people buried in rubble and a major city cut off from the outside world.

Although disaster relief officials said the number of confirmed deaths was between 100 and 200, they warned that the figure was likely to rise, with the head of the country's crisis centre saying at least 1,000 may have been killed.

Indonesia's government dispatched teams of rescue workers to the stricken region. International aid agencies were preparing to launch a major relief effort as tens of thousands of people spent a night in the open in pouring rain after their homes were damaged.

Health minister Siti Fadilah Supari said: "This is a high-scale disaster," adding that he believed it was more powerful than the earthquake in Yogyakarta in 2006, referring to a city on the Indonesian island of Java where 3,000 people died.

Today'smagnitude 7.6 earthquake ? which came less than 24 hours after another fatal quake off the South Pacific island of Samoa ? struck at 5.16pm. Its centre was reported to be around 30 miles offshore from Padang, a city of 900,000, at a depth of around 53 miles.

There was immediate widespread panic in the city. "The earthquake was very strong," said a woman called Kasmiati, who lives on the coast. "People ran to high ground. Houses and buildings were badly damaged. I was outside, so I am safe, but my children at home were injured," she said before her mobile phone went dead.

Fears that a catastrophe might have occurred were raised after Indonesia's vice-president, Jusuf Kalla, told a news conference in Jakarta that homes, hotels, mosques, schools, shops and other buildings had been destroyed in Padang, the largest city in western Sumatra.

Television footage from the city showed scenes of devastation, including the foot of a buried body sticking from rubble.

"We have received a report from the mayor of Padang that the death toll is 75. But many others are trapped in collapsed shops, building and hotels." Kalla added: "It is definitely higher than that. It's hard to tell because there is heavy rain and a blackout."

Officials with Indonesia's National Search and Rescue Agency, who were attempting to reach the scene last night, said they had also received reports that many homes had been destroyed, with early reports suggesting that between 500 and 1,000 houses had collapsed.

Priyadi Kardono, a spokesman for Indonesia's National Disaster Management Agency, said it had also received eyewitness accounts of destruction in the nearby town of Pariaman, to the north of Padang, as well as in Padang itself. Fears that the death toll could rise rapidly were raised by Rustam Pakaya, head of the health ministry's crisis centre, who said that in addition to known fatalities, thousands more people could be buried in the rubble, though officials later suggested the number still trapped in the city was as low as 100. Two hospitals in Padang were reported to be among the collapsed buildings, said Rustum, adding that a field hospital was being prepared to help survivors. Several hotels were also said to have been seriously damaged, while a shopping mall was badly hit.

The first emergency medical relief ? a team of 40 doctors from Jakarta ? was expected to reach the area .

Rescue efforts, however, have been hampered by the disruption of electricity and telecommunication lines, which have thrown Padang into darkness. All roads into the city were also reported to have been blocked by landslides.

In a further blow the airport at Padang was described as "inaccessible" by a pilot from the state airline who attempted to reach it and was forced to turn back. According to one report the roof of the airport had caved in.

While most of the early attention has focused on the large, sprawling city of Padang, concern was mounting over the fate of towns and villages in the surrounding countryside. In the town of Maninjau, further inland, a resident, Hafiz, told local media he had watched houses being buried in a landslide when a hill collapsed.

The earthquake in Sumatra came 24 hours after a huge tsunami struck Samoa at dawn on Tuesday ? triggered by an earthquake measuring between 8.0 and 8.3 ? which also flattened villages and swept cars and people out to sea, killing at least 100 people and leaving dozens missing. Survivors fled the churning water for higher ground on the South Pacific islands.

Shocks from the Sumatran earthquake could be felt in high buildings in Jakarta, several hundred miles away. It was also felt in neighbouring Singapore and Malaysia.

An eyewitness to the destruction in Sumatra was Malaysian student Fashareena Nazir, who is studying at the Universitas Andalas medical faculty, which was damaged in the earthquake.

"There were rumbles and a loud noise, like a bang," she told Malaysia's Bernama news agency after walking three miles to safety. The 23-year old described seeing neighbours' houses on fire and ground caving in or disappearing before her eyes.

Another severely damaged location was reported to be Padang's Industrial Technic Academy. A lecturer there, Erwinsyah Sipahutar, told local television that hundreds of students evacuated the campus as the quake broke most of the windows.

"We were shaken like matchsticks," Erwinsyah said.

Another resident of Padang, called Adi, later told Metro Television there was devastation all around him. "For now I can't see dead bodies, just collapsed houses. Some half-destroyed, others completely. People are standing around too scared to go back inside. They fear a tsunami," said Adi. "No help has arrived yet. I can see small children standing around carrying blankets. Some people are looking for relatives but all the lights have gone out completely."

In Pariaman ? closer to the centre ? one resident, Yuliarni, told TV One news: "The shaking was the worst I had ever felt. Houses have collapsed, the lights and electricity were cut off ? People were fleeing to higher ground and some were hurt."

Padang lies on one of the world's most active faultlines, where the Indo-Australian and Eurasian plates are colliding, and had been named by geologists in Indonesia as the most likely location to fall victim to a major earthquake or tsunami. It is the same faultline that was responsible for the devastating Indian Ocean tsunami that killed more than 220,000 people on Boxing Day 2004.

The zone's other segments have already cracked, including a large portion off Aceh, at the northern tip of Sumatra, which triggered the 2004 tsunami.

"Padang sits right in front of the area with the greatest potential for an 8.9 magnitude earthquake," Danny Hilman Natawidjaja, a geologist at the Indonesian Science Institute, warned in February. "The entire city could drown" in a tsunami triggered by such a quake, he warned then.

Backpackers' gateway

Padang is a sprawling city of 900,000 residents on the west coast of Sumatra. Described as friendly, noisy, bustling and dirty, Padang is a popular jumping-off point for backpackers and surfers hoping to reach the Indian Ocean islands of Mentawai, the hills and national parks beyond the city, and other destinations in Indonesia and Malaysia. The city itself has few attractions besides Taplau beach, with its beautiful sunsets and hundreds of food stalls, and Bungus bay, popular with swimmers and locals in the evenings.

Arriving from the relative comfort of the mainland makes for a rough landing, writes the Lonely Planet. "Despite the urge to hide from the smell of kerosene and diesel exhaust, you'll find that the locals are genuinely friendly and curious about the few foreigners who find their way into town ? a sprawling, noisy place circumnavigated by tripped-out opelet [minibus] blasting squeaks-and-beeps techno music."

Jo Adetunji

SFO to decide on BAE prosecution

? Arms giant given deadline to plead guilty in deal
? Company firmly denies all allegations of wrongdoing

The Serious Fraud Office is expected imminently to announce whether it will take the politically momentous decision to seek to prosecute BAE over bribery allegations. The UK arms giant failed tonight to meet a deadline to settle the case or face the courts.

Sources close to the SFO said that the agency would decide what to do tomorrow or Friday. After months of fruitless negotiation, BAE had been given a deadline by the SFO to plead guilty in a negotiated plea deal which would at last draw a line under a six-year investigation into the company's behaviour.

Both sides were refusing to reveal their hand tonight in what appears to be a high-stakes poker game between Britain's biggest arms firm and the agency entrusted with eradicating foreign bribery.

Richard Alderman, the agency's director, has been widely reported as in a determined mood, and ready to see the company in court. His personal credibility and that of the SFO are on the line.

SFO sources said discussions were still going on privately between SFO case controllers and lawyers from Allen & Overy and Linklaters, who are both representing BAE in the negotiations. BAE sources carried on insisting they "did not recognise any deadline".

A capitulation by BAE this week would be a turnaround for the agency, whose reputation was damaged three years ago when it was forced by Tony Blair's government to halt its investigation into BAE's Saudi arms deals. A decision to prosecute would not be the end of the story. Alderman would have to gain the formal consent of Lady Scotland, the attorney general, to press charges. This power is due to be abolished, but still exists. Her decision could take weeks or longer, and history suggests she may be lobbied by BAE or by members of the cabinet.

The last attorney general faced with the prospect of prosecuting BAE was Lord Goldsmith. He helped to force a closedown of the SFO's Saudi investigation in 2006 after an effective lobbying operation by BAE. His behaviour caused controversy about the politicisation of the role of the government's supposedly independent chief law officer.

After the Saudi investigation was squashed, the SFO was allowed to continue investigating BAE's deals in four other countries: Tanzania, the Czech Republic, South Africa, and Romania. BAE has denied all wrongdoing.

If criminal charges are brought, they are likely to involve at least the cases in Tanzania and the Czech Republic, where sources say the most progress has been made. BAE was refusing to comment last night.

The SFO first took up the task of trying to investigate BAE after the company's network of secret offshore "slush funds" was disclosed by the Guardian in an award winning series of investigations by the newspaper.

The fraud agency's confidence that it could get results was increased last week when, in a legal first, the bridge construction firm Mabey & Johnson agreed a deal to plead guilty to corruption concerning foreign contracts. It paid more than £6m in penalities, replaced a number of directors and promised to turn over a new leaf. The deal included reparations to Ghana and other countries where it admitted bribes were paid to officials and politicians.

The Mabey deal was the first successful corruption prosecution of any size borught by a British government agency since laws were passed more than seven years ago, explicitly banning foreign bribery.

It was seen as a template that BAE could be prepared to follow, of confession followed by relative leniency. But BAE until now has insisted that it was prepared to "allow the ongoing investigations to take their course".

Labour wars with News International

Relations between Rupert Murdoch's News International and the government disintegrated today during 24 hours of recriminations over the move by its flagship paper, the Sun, to switch allegiance to the Conservatives.

Gordon Brown moved quickly to deny any political damage, saying: "It is the people who decide elections." But on one occasion the prime minister was clearly tested, tearing at his ear piece when he made an irritated and overly hasty departure from one TV interview, prompting aides to clarify later it had not been an angry "walkout". Senior party figures were buoyed by new YouGov polling that showed support for Labour had gone up. Conducted after Brown's setpiece speech and before the Sun's pronouncement, the party climbed by six points within five days, halving the Conservatives' lead, according to the polling

Throughout the day in Brighton, senior figures made colourful put downs of the Sun's switch. Tony Woodley, joint leader of the Unite union, was cheered as he used a speech to the conference hall to rip up a copy of that morning's edition, while Labour's deputy leader Harriet Harman told the conference hall Labour would not be "bullied" by the paper.

Lord Mandelson, the business secretary, told News International's chief executive, Rebekah Brooks, on the phone on Tuesday night: "You will be regarded as a bunch of chumps, we will not lose sleep over this." Earlier reports said Mandelson had used an expletive beginning with C, but Brooks is said to have rung the business secretary to confirm he called her a "chump".

According to sources at News International, Brooks tried repeatedly to make calls to Brown on Tuesday night to warn of their new editorial line but the prime minister was tied up at an evening reception. Instead Brooks contacted Mandelson to tell him about the Sun's front page ? headlined "Labour's lost it" ? and the business secretary replied that the party would not be "terribly surprised".

Labour sources were bullish this afternoon as Downing Street said the polling showed they were "grinding down" support for the BNP and Ukip votes, something they regard to be key to standing a chance at the next general election. Mandelson welcomed it cautiously, saying "one swallow does not a summer make".

Labour MPs were quick to dissect the likely impact of the Sun's decision on the polls. Liverpudlian Woodley's ridicule of the paper was a function of its limited popularity in the north-west after its coverage of the Hillsborough disaster.

MPs in key marginals report the Mirror to have greater purchase than the Sun.

Ministers believe the timing of the new editorial line is not a positive endorsement of David Cameron, or it would have been made after the Tory leader's own speech.

One senior Labour source said: "The Sun is trying to beef up its declining circulation. It vastly overestimates its influence."

The source also compared George Pascoe-Watson, the paper's political editor, and Trevor Kavanagh, its associate editor, to old-fashioned union leaders, criticising them for "strutting around the Labour conference like old union barons with their block votes of 10m readers".

David Cameron told LBC radio he was "delighted" by the switch. But former deputy prime minister John Prescott said via Twitter: "It will be the Son, Daughter, Uncle, Mother and Friend Wot Win it in 2010. Endorsements from ordinary people NOT media barons."

US relinquishing control of internet

? Icann ends agreement with the US government
? Move will give other countries a prominent internet role

After complaints about American dominance of the internet and growing disquiet in some parts of the world, Washington has said it will relinquish some control over the way the network is run and allow foreign governments more of a say in the future of the system.

Icann ? the official body that ultimately controls the development of the internet thanks to its oversight of web addresses such as .com, .net and .org ? said today that it was ending its agreement with the US government.

The deal, part of a contract negotiated with the US department of commerce, effectively pushes California-based Icann towards a new status as an international body with greater representation from companies and governments around the globe.

Icann had previously been operating under the auspices of the American government, which had control of the net thanks to its initial role in developing the underlying technologies used for connecting computers together.

But the fresh focus will give other countries a more prominent role in determining what takes place online, and even the way in which it happens ? opening the door for a virtual United Nations, where many officials gather to discuss potential changes to the internet.

Icann chief Rod Beckstrom, a former Silicon Valley entrepreneur and Washington insider who took over running the organisation in July, said there had been legitimate concerns that some countries were developing alternative internets as a way of routing around American control.

"It's rumoured that there are multiple experiments going on with countries forking the internet, various countries have discussed this," he said. "This is a very significant shift because it takes the wind out of our opponents."

He added that the changes would prove powerful when combined with upcoming plans to allow web users to use addresses with names in Chinese, Arabic or other alphabets other than Latin. Many countries have lobbied for the shift in recent years, as the expansion of the web reaches out deeper into society and business.

While the issue reached critical mass in emerging economies such as China, it is not the only country that has lobbied for a change. Earlier this year European officials said that they did not think it was proper for America to retain so much control over the global computer network.

Viviane Reding, the EU's commissioner for information society and media, said she was pleased that Washington chose to make the shift.

"I welcome the US administration's decision to adapt Icann's key role in internet governance to the reality of the 21st century," she said. "If effectively and transparently implemented, this reform can find broad acceptance among civil society, businesses and governments alike."

Meanwhile Nominet - the British organisation that handles the day-to-day running of .uk domain names - said that Icann had started a trend for companies with internet influence to appear more open and accountable.

"Putting public interest first will also be a focus for the UK internet community over the coming months as there is growing support for Nominet to develop more of a public interest role," said Nominet's chief executive, Lesley Cowley.

The new agreement comes into force immediately. It replaces the old version which had been in place since 1998 and was scheduled to expire today.

Beckstrom suggested that bringing more countries to the table was the best way of ensuring the long term future of the internet.

"We're more global, period. The chances of the internet holding together just went up, the cohesion just went up," he said. "We expect more active involvement from governments, a higher level of participation from many governments and we're already hearing about more governments joining the team? This was, ironically, a power move from the US."

The books Americans have tried to ban

Author of His Dark Materials trilogy included on American Library Association's 2008 list

The novelist and children's writer Philip Pullman has been showered with awards that include a CBE, a Carnegie Medal and several honorary professorships. This week he notched up a new distinction: he is ranked second in the top 10 books that people have tried to ban across America.

Pullman's fantasy trilogy, His Dark Materials, has leapt to the top of the target list of would-be censors in the new rankings issued this week by the American Library Association. It tracks cases where individuals or groups have attempted to have books stripped from bookshelves in schools and libraries across the US.

Its newly released rankings for 2008 recorded 513 cases where books were targeted for censorship, of which 74 were successfully banned or restricted. Pullman's trilogy was the second most commonly attacked, a result, the ALA believes, of an organised campaign that the anti-defamation group the Catholic League launched against the film version of The Golden Compass.

Several schools across America faced requests from parents to remove the book. One challenge at a school in Winchester, Kentucky was made on the grounds that the book's main character drinks wine and eats poppy with her meals. Another school in Oshkosh, Wisconsin pulled the trilogy because of its "anti-Christian message".

Reached by the Guardian, Pullman quipped that he was "very glad to be back in the top 10 banned books". But he added: "Of course it's a worry when anybody takes it upon themselves to dictate what people should or should not read. The power of organised religion is very strong in the US, and getting stronger because of the internet."

Almost 4,000 attempts to ban books have been recorded over the past eight years, though the ALA believes the figure is a gross understatement. All cases are voluntarily reported, and many more are likely to go unrecorded, sometimes because librarians have been threatened with dismissal if they sound the alarm. Most would-be censors are parents concerned about their children's reading or members of religious groups. The most common complaint is against books with explicit sexual content or offensive language.

In recent years, the ALA has spotted a growing intolerance towards children's books that deal with homosexuality - a quality most famously displayed by Sarah Palin who tried in the late 1990s as then mayor of Wasilla in Alaska to have Daddy's Roommate, a tale about a gay father, removed from the town library.

Three of the top 10 most challenged books in 2008 had gay or lesbian characters, including the single most censored volume, And Tango Makes Three. The fact that it tells the true story of two gay penguins at the Central Park zoo in New York does not appear to have placated opponents.

Nor does the fact that number eight on the list, Uncle Bobby's Wedding, features a couple of gay guinea pigs. Deborah Caldwell-Stone, acting director of the ALA's office for intellectual freedom that compiles the censorship list, says that children of gay and lesbian couples have found such books valuable. "Kids with same-sex parents are thrilled to find books in school libraries that reflect their lives.

"That's why it's so important to resist censorship. We believe parents do have the right to dictate their children's reading, but that right exists for their children alone and should not be extended to others."

As Pullman's high ranking shows, religion is another major cause of complaints, and within that an important subset are books featuring witchcraft. The subject was put in relief this week when Matt Latimer, a former speechwriter for George Bush, alleged in his new memoir of life in the White House that Bush had refused to grant JK Rowling the Presidential Medal of Freedom because her writing "encouraged witchcraft".

The Harry Potter books have been a mainstay of the ALA's banned list since the late 1990s; in Georgia a Christian missionary is still waging a one-woman battle to have them removed from all state schools.

In the 2008 top 10, two separate volumes were objected to on groups of witchcraft or satanism - Scary Stories and Bless Me, Ultima. In many cases, the censorship bids are lodged by fundamentalist Christian groups that take the Bible's admonition to fight witchcraft literally.

Some of the most cherished books in the American literary cannon have fallen foul of censorship rows by dint of their language or sexual content.

Titles that have made it to the ALA's banned list in recent years include JD Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye (it includes many "fucks"); John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men (for its strong language and political message that riles conservatives); and The Colour Purple by Alice Walker (people have objected to its homosexual theme and offensive language). The left is as capable of censoring as the right. A regular entry is The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn which anti-racists have tried to ban on grounds that Mark Twain uses the word "nigger".

As for Pullman, he confidently expects to be back in the top 10 next year.

His forthcoming book, a novel for adults, is called The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ.

Official 'forced out' of Afghanistan

Peter Galbraith removed from UN post after pressing for inquiry into results heavily favouring Karzai

The most senior American diplomat at the UN mission in Afghanistan has been fired after he failed to secure support for a full and robust investigation into widespread fraud favouring President Hamid Karzai in the August presidential elections.

Peter Galbraith, the deputy UN special envoy responsible for electoral matters, was removed after a dispute with his Norwegian boss, Kai Eide, after Galbraith had taken an outspoken line over alleged vote-rigging in the 20 August election, a position that reportedly angered Karzai.

The spokeswoman for UN Secretary General Ban ki-Moon, Michele Montas, said in a statement yesterday that Ban had decided to recall Peter Galbraith and end his appointment as the UN's deputy special representative. Montas said the secretary-general reaffirmed his full support for Eide.

Arsala Jamal, a Karzai campaign official, said todayhe was aware of Galbraith's removal but called it an internal UN matter.

UN officials had previously acknowledged the dispute between Eide and Galbraith, who left the Afghan capital in mid-September. UN sources said Ban was persuaded to end Galbraith's mission after ministers in Karzai's government said they could no longer work with him. Confimation in New York of Galbraith's removal followed his emailed denial earlier in the day that he had been sacked.

Within hours of the news, a member of the UN's political affairs unit had resigned. Others are likely to follow among the diplomats who liked Galbraith personally and backed his tough approach to officials of the Afghan Independent Election Commission (IEC), who many believe are complicit in attempts to rubber-stamp a Karzai first round victory.

Sources say Galbraith was furious that the IEC first voted to apply a set of standards to its count that would have excluded tens of thousands of fraudulent votes, only to reverse the decision the next day, apparently following political pressure.

The recall of Galbraith would have required the agreement of the Obama administration and has come as a surprise following the earlier demand by Obama's own envoy to Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke, that Karzai respect the proper election process.

Further damning US criticism of the Karzai administration emerged in the leaked confidential report prepared by the US commander in the country, General Stanley McChrystal, which warned that corruption within the Karzai government was as big a threat as the Taliban.

The exit of Galbraith would appear to further reduce Obama's scope for manoeuvre in Afghanistan at a time when he is facing calls from his military commander, General Stanley McChrystal, for up to 40,000 more soldiers.

Obama was expected to meet his top advisers on Afghanistan yesterday, including Vice President Joe Biden, secretary of defence Robert Gates, secretary of state Hillary Clinton, national security adviser General James Jones, Chairman of the joint chiefs Admiral Mike Mullen, and the CENTCOM commander General David Petraeus. The meeting was to include a discussion via video conference with McChrystal, whose grim assessment of the war was leaked last month. The meeting is the first of five scheduled for the coming weeks.

Galbraith's removal comes just days after reports that the US and its allies would accept Karzai remaining as president even if the investigation into voter fraud meant his share of the vote fals below 50%, which election rules had stipulated Karzai was required to win to avoid a run off with his closest rival foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah.

Speaking yesterday Abdullah, who alleges fraud took place on a massive scale, expressed concern that Galbraith had been pushed out for campaigning to prevent electoral fraud. "If the firing of Mr Galbraith was on some technical issue, I have no say in it," he said. "If the issue was based on the fact that he was for a vigorous look into the issue of fraud, in that case, I would say that he has been talking on behalf of the people of Afghanistan."

Galbraith was formerly the US ambassador to Croatia and helped negotiate the end of the war in that country. He also served as director of political, constitutional and electoral affairs for the UN transitional administration in East Timor from 2000 to 2001. Outspoken in his criticism of the conduct of the US war in Iraq during the Bush administration, he resigned from government to write The End of Iraq: How American Incompetence Created a War Without End.

Gallery removes Brooke Shields nude

Gallery takes down photo of actor when she was 10, made-up and nude, after advice from Met's obscene publications squad

? Adrian Searle on the naked Brooke Shields photograph row

A display due to go on show to the public at Tate Modern tomorrow has been withdrawn after a warning from Scotland Yard that the naked image of actor Brooke Shields aged 10 and heavily made up could break obscenity laws.

The work, by American artist Richard Prince and entitled Spiritual America, was due to be part of the London gallery's new Pop Life exhibition . It has been removed from display after a visit to Tate Modern by officers from the obscene publications unit of the Metropolitan police.

The exhibition had been open to members of the Tate today before opening to the public tomorrow. A Tate spokeswoman confirmed that the display had been "temporarily closed down" and the catalogue for the exhibition withdrawn from sale. The work had been accompanied by a warning, and the Tate had sought legal advice before displaying it.

The decision by officers to visit Tate Modern is understood to have been made after police chiefs saw coverage of the exhibition in today's newspapers, rather than as a result of complaints.

Officers met gallery bosses and are also understood to have consulted the Crown Prosecution Service as to whether the image broke obscenity laws.

A Scotland Yard source said the actions of its officers were "common sense" and were taken to pre-empt any breach of the law. The source said the image of Shields was of potential concern because it was of a 10-year-old, and could be viewed as sexually provocative.

The work has been shown recently in New York, without attracting major controversy, where it gave the title to the 2007 retrospective of Prince's work at the Guggenheim Museum.

The Pop Life exhibition also includes works from Jeff Koons's series Made in Heaven, large-scale photographic images that depict the artist and the porn model La Cicciolina having sexual intercourse.

There are also works by Cosey Fanni Tutti, who, as part of her artistic practice, worked as a porn and glamour model in the 1970s and then displayed some of the resulting images in an exhibition at the ICA in 1976.

Spiritual America is a photograph of a photograph. The original ? authorised by Shields's mother for $450 ? had been taken by a commercial photographer, Gary Gross, for the Playboy publication Sugar 'n' Spice in 1976. Shields later attempted, unsuccessfully, to suppress the picture.

Prince used the image as the source material for his own 1983 piece; he placed it in a gilt frame and displayed it, without labelling or explanation, in a shopfront in a then rundown street in Lower East Side, New York. The title comes from a photograph by Alfred Stieglitz from 1923 of a gelded horse.

Prince has described the image as resembling "a body with two different sexes, maybe more, and a head that looks like it's got a different birthday."

In an essay in the exhibition catalogue Jack Bankowsky, co-curator of the exhibition, describes the image as of "a bath-damp and decidedly underage Brooke Shields ? When Prince invites us to ogle Brooke Shields in her prepubescent nakedness, his impulse has less to do with his desire to savour the lubricious titillations that it was shot to spark in its original context ? than with a profound fascination for the child star's story."

The Metropolitan police said: "Officers from the obscene publications unit met with staff at Tate Modern ? The officers have specialist experience in this field and are keen to work with gallery management to ensure that they do not inadvertently break the law or cause any offence to their visitors."

Bankers agree to strict bonus rules

? Darling gets agreement to G20 rules a year early
? 'Claw back' allowed if performances backfire

Britain's five biggest banks have agreed to publish the total pay of their most important staff and spread bonus payments over three years, following an agreement hammered out todaywith Alistair Darling aimed at stopping excessive deals.

The agreement was reached after the chancellor summoned the directors responsible for setting bank pay to a meeting to demand they accept the principles on bonuses set out by the G20 at the Pittsburgh summit last week.

But despite agreeing to the principles ? which prevent guaranteed bonuses of more than one year and allow "claw back" on bonuses paid out on performance that has turned sour ? the banks are not restricting the size of the bonus pools they distribute later this year.

Nor does the agreement outline any promise to name the 20 highest earners at banks, the move suggested by the City minister, Lord Myners. But it does require banks to publish an annual report on compensation and a total figure for the pay of senior executives and those who have a "material impact" on the risks taken by the institutions.

The banks also appear to have signed up to a pledge not to pay bonuses unless they have enough capital to keep running their businesses.

But much of what they signed up to today is already in the Financial Services Authority's new code on pay, which comes into force on 1 January next year.

Shadow chancellor George Osborne said: "We have always said that the ideal approach to the bonus issue is the international one. However the proof will be in the pudding when we see the scale of the bonuses that are paid out at the end of this year.

"We are clear that taxpayer support and guarantees should be used to build up bank balance sheets, not the bank accounts of bankers."

Barely a year since the banking crisis forced the government to pump billions of pounds into the system to shore up the sector, the investment banking divisions of many firms are experiencing record years and are on track for record bonus payouts.

The chancellor, who told the Labour party conference on Monday he would legislate to curb bonuses, wanted to persuade the banks to implement the G20 principles now and not wait until next year.

He also wanted to attend tomorrow's informal meeting of European finance ministers in Gothenburg with an outline of his agreement with the banks, allowing him to be the first major finance leader to secure a clampdown.

Darling told the BBC he wanted to end "excessive" payments. "I hope that we cannot only change the way in which bonuses are paid, we can perhaps begin to change the whole culture and get things back on an even keel again," he said.

Christine Lagarde, the French finance minister who has taken a harder line on bonuses than Darling, is believed to be holding a meeting with French banks tomorrow .

While Darling has held regular meetings with bank bosses, those at today's meeting were primarily the non-executive directors who chair the remuneration committees. It is thought that Sir Mark Moody-Stuart represented HSBC, Sir Richard Broadbent represented Barclays, Wolfgang Berndt represented Lloyds Banking Group and that Royal Bank of Scotland was represented by its HR director, Neil Roden.

Darling met the banks along with Lord Turner and Hector Sants, chairman and chief executive respectively of the FSA.

Even though it did not attend the meeting, Standard Chartered, listed in London but with its major businesses overseas, has also agreed to the changes. Santander, which owns Abbey, is not immediately included as it is based in Spain. The government will now try to get the agreement of other UK and international banks ? some of the City's biggest bonus payers.

In a rare joint statement, the five banks pledged to work with the FSA in adopting pay reforms. "In a competitive and international business it is right to make sure that our staff are appropriately and competitively rewarded for sustainable, long-term performance," the banks said.

Between 40% and 60% of a top executive's bonus will need to be deferred over three years and at least 50% of the bonus will need to be paid in shares.

Oxford to campaign for US-style scholarships

Elite universities should adopt Ivy League-style scholarships worth thousands of pounds ? with some funded by wealthy alumni ? to prevent money becoming a barrier to going to university, Oxford University's new vice-chancellor has said.

Oxford University will campaign for an American-style university funding system under which students from the poorest homes will qualify for large bursaries to ensure they are not put off doing a degree by higher fees, Andrew Hamilton said.

He described a "needs-blind" funding system and admitted that even the £10,550 bursary currently offered to Oxford undergraduates, one of the most generous in the UK, needed improvement. But his comments will fuel speculation that the top universities also want to charge American rates for degrees. Ivy league institutions can demand up to $50,000 (about £31,000) a year.

Hamilton, formerly provost of Yale, was named as Oxford's 296th vice-chancellor last June. He takes up his post today and will be installed as vice-chancellor in an official ceremony on Tuesday.

He insisted it was too early in his appointment to set out the university's position on fee charging, but argued that any move to raise the current £3,225 a year cap on fees would have to be matched with a big expansion of financial support for students.

In his first official interview, Hamilton said: "We must take great care not to fail the students [by] allowing a degradation of the quality of education that is provided by the great universities of Great Britain. But also not to fail them in the commitment that the great universities must make to any student who has the academic credentials, the academic potential to attend. The commitment that we must make to them [is] that they will attend Oxford irrespective of their economic circumstances."

He added: "Oxford has a very generous bursary offer, but obviously as this debate unfolds we've got to reinforce that and quite frankly improve it. Particularly as any discussion of a change in fee might or might not occur."

He warned that looming funding cuts would make the debate about whether to raise tuition fees more urgent. "Financial sustainability is, without any question, going to be one of the biggest challenges for us."

But his emphasis on improving bursaries before raising fees is a departure from many of his vice-chancellor colleagues who are lobbying for tuition charges to be raised under a government-commissioned review of student finance, due to be launched in the next few weeks.

At Oxford, bigger bursaries and scholarships will be funded from a drive to encourage alumni to fund the next generation of students, in an echo of the Ivy League of top universities in America.

Hamilton was recruited from Yale partly on his fundraising record. Born in England, he has spent 28 years in America, at Yale and Princeton universities.

Oxford graduates should expect to give money back, when they can afford it, to "ensure future students will have the same opportunities that they had when they were here", he said.

He said that universities would have to diversify their funding sources to become less dependent on the government as spending is cut. Options include improving alumni donations, higher fees and more collaboration with industry.

'No evidence' of Iran nuclear arms

Mohamed ElBaradei says Iran was 'on the wrong side of the law' but rejects British intelligence claims

The UN's chief weapons inspector, Mohamed ElBaradei, said today he had seen "no credible evidence" that Iran is developing nuclear weapons, rejecting British intelligence allegations that a weapons programme has been going on for at least four years.

The claims and counter-claims came on the eve of a potentially decisive meeting in Geneva between diplomats from six world powers and an Iranian delegation about Tehran's nuclear ambitions.

Iran insists its programme is for peaceful purposes, and that there is nothing illegal about a uranium enrichment plant under construction near the city of Qom, the existence of which was revealed last week. Iranian leaders say they did not have to inform the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) until six months before the first uranium was processed.

But ElBaradei, the outgoing IAEA director general, publicly disagreed today, saying Iran had been under an obligation to tell the agency "on the day it was decided to construct the facility". He said the Iranian government was "on the wrong side of the law".

However, ElBaradei rejected British intelligence claims that Iran had reactivated its weapons programme at least four years ago. By making the claims the UK broke with the official US intelligence position that Iranian work on developing a warhead probably stopped in 2003. They said that even if there was a halt, as reported in a US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) two years ago, the programme restarted in late 2004 or early 2005.

British officials had been privately sceptical about the NIE finding since its publication in 2007, but this was the first time they had made detailed allegations about Iran's weapons programme.

BND, the German intelligence organisation, this year provided evidence in a court case saying it believed weapons work in Iran had continued after 2003. A leaked internal memo written by the IAEA also found that Iran probably had "sufficient information" to build a bomb, and that it had "probably tested" a high-explosive component of a nuclear warhead.

ElBaradei has angrily rejected claims from Israel, France and the US that he had suppressed the internal IAEA report, saying all relevant and confirmed information had been presented to member states.

Tomorrow's talks will take place in a secluded villa on the edge of Geneva. The Iranian delegation will be led by its chief nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, who at a similar meeting in Switzerland last year delivered a lecture more than two hours long about recent Iranian history and the global balance of power. But he refused to discuss Iran's nuclear programme.

Iranian officials say its programme remains non-negotiable, despite five UN security council resolutions calling for Iran to suspend enrichment. Western negotiators say they will push for a date for an IAEA inspection of the Qom uranium plant, and further concrete steps from the Iranian government to restore international confidence in the peaceful purpose of its programme. Failing that, multilateral talks will start on the imposition of more sanctions.

The Kremlin said today that the Russian position on sanctions would depend on the degree of Iranian cooperation with the IAEA. However, Russia and China are expected to resist the far-reaching measures aimed at Iran's energy sector being promoted by the US, Britain and France.

Georgia started Russia war, says EU

? EU investigation says Tbilisi launched indiscriminate assault on South Ossetia ? Inquiry accuses both sides in five-day conflict of breaking laws of war

An investigation into last year's Russia-Georgia war delivered a damning indictment of President Mikheil Saakashvili today, accusing Tbilisi of launching an indiscriminate artillery barrage on the city of Tskhinvali that started the war.

In more than 1,000 pages of analysis, documentation and witness statements, the most exhaustive inquiry into the five-day conflict dismissed Georgian claims that the artillery attack was in response to a Russian invasion, accused both sides of violations of the laws of war, indicated that war crimes had been perpetrated against Georgian civilians and rejected Russian claims of "genocide" in the breakaway Georgian province of South Ossetia.

The EU-commissioned report, by a fact-finding mission of more than 20 political, military, human rights and international law experts led by the Swiss diplomat, Heidi Tagliavini, was unveiled in Brussels today after nine months of work.

"There is no way to assign overall responsibility for the conflict to one side alone," the report found.

But the conclusions will discomfit the western-backed Georgian leader, Saakashvili, who was found to have started the war with the attack on Tskhinvali, the South Ossetian capital, on the night of 7 August last year, through a "penchant for acting in the heat of the moment".

The war started "with a massive Georgian artillery attack", the report said, citing an order from Saakashvili that the offensive was aimed at halting Russian military units moving into South Ossetia.

Flatly dismissing Saakashvili's version, the report said: "There was no ongoing armed attack by Russia before the start of the Georgian operation ... Georgian claims of a large-scale presence of Russian armed forces in South Ossetia prior to the Georgian offensive could not be substantiated ... It could also not be verified that Russia was on the verge of such a major attack."

While concluding the Georgians fired the first shots, the report said the attack was the culmination of months and years of rising tension and provocations for which both sides bore the blame.

Intended to settle intense finger-pointing over the conflict, the report predictably unleashed a fresh bout of charge and counter-charge between the Russians and the Georgians.

The investigators criticised and condemned Russian conduct and policy in the months and yearsleading up to the war and its behaviour since. But on the issues of who started what when, the report was unequivocal. The Georgian offensive against Tskhinvali was not justified under international law.

"It is not possible to accept that the shelling of Tskhinvali with Grad multiple rocket launchers and heavy artillery would satisfy the requirements of having been necessary and proportionate."

The Russians had moved mercenaries and paramilitary forces into South Ossetia in apparent preparation for armed hostilities before Saakashvili's disastrous offensive, which triggered a Russian invasion and left his country partitioned. But the proper Russian reponse to the artillery barrage came ? by land, sea and air ? 12 hours after the Georgian action.

The report concluded that South Ossetian irregular forces violated the rules of war in attacks on Georgian villages and that Russian peacekeeping forces "would not or could not" control them. Russian claims of Georgian "genocide" in South Ossetia were dismissed and Russian claims that Georgians had killed 2,000 civilians were found to be wildly exaggerated. The report put the figure of civilian dead at 162 on the South Ossetian side.

The secession of South Ossetia and Abkhazia from Georgia was branded illegal and Russian recognition of the two "states" in breach of international law.The report found that Moscow had been assiduously preparing the secession by, among other things, a policy of "passportification", illegally distributing Russian passports on a mass scale among the breakaway populations.The mission also found that western blunders spurred the warmongers. A "series of mistakes, misperceptions, and missed opportunities on all sides" internationally contributed to the breakout of war. It traced the conflict back to the early 90s and the fallout from the collapse of the Soviet Union and accused the Kremlin of abusing its status as a "great power" to coerce "a small and insubordinate neighbour."

The Russian forces in South Ossetia failed to stop irregulars conduct a campaign of ethnic cleansing against Georgian villages, entailing looting, rape, hostage-taking, and arbitrary arrest.

Key excerpts from the report on the five-day Russian-Georgian war:

"On the night of 7-8 August 2008 ? heavy fighting erupted in and around ? Tskhinvali in South Ossetia [and] soon extended to other parts of Georgia. It caused serious destruction, reaching levels of utter devastation. Altogether about 850 persons lost their lives, more than 100,000 civilians fled their homes. "

"The Russian side justified their military intervention by their intention to stop an allegedly ongoing genocide of the Ossetian population by the Georgian forces, and also to protect Russian citizens residing in South Ossetia and the Russian contingent of the Joint Peacekeeping Forces deployed in South Ossetia."

"The shelling of Tskhinvali by the Georgian armed forces during the night of 7 to 8 August 2008 marked the beginning of the large-scale armed conflict in Georgia, yet it was only the culminating point of a long period of increasing tensions, provocations and incidents. Indeed, the conflict has deep roots in the history of the region, in peoples' national traditions and aspirations as well as in age-old perceptions or rather misperceptions of each other, which were never mended and sometimes exploited."

"There is the question of whether the use of force by Georgia in South Ossetia ? was justifiable under international law. It was not [under existing stability accords with Moscow]."

"Georgian claims of a large-scale presence of Russian armed forces in South Ossetia prior to the Georgian offensive ? could not be substantiated."

"It seems that much of the Russian military action went far beyond the reasonable limits of defence. This holds true for all kinds of massive and extended action ?

Israel to free 20 Palestinians for Shalit video

Government says it will free 20 female prisoners for proof kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit is 'alive and well'

Israel said today it would release 20 female Palestinian prisoners and in return the Islamist movement Hamas would hand over a recently recorded video of a soldier captured near Gaza more than three years ago.

The agreement suggests progress behind the scenes in the effort to secure the release of Gilad Shalit, who was captured by Palestinian militants, including some from Hamas, in June 2006. German intelligence officers have been mediating in the case since July, along with Egyptian officials.

Israel's security cabinet agreed that the women prisoners would be released in return for "updated and unequivocal proof regarding the well-being and status of Gilad Shalit".

The names of the prisoners to be released will be published in case there are objections within Israel and they are then likely to be released on Friday. Of the women, 19 are from the West Bank and one from Gaza. Some are supporters of Hamas, others are linked to the rival Palestinian factions Fatah and Islamic Jihad.

The Israeli government said it was a "confidence-building measure" and part of "indirect negotiations".

In the past letters and audio recordings from Shalit, now 23, have been handed over, but the Red Cross has not been allowed to visit him. He is believed to be alive and held by Hamas in Gaza.

"It is important that the entire world knows that Gilad Shalit is alive and well and that Hamas is responsible for his well-being and fate," said Israel's prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu.

A German mediator had seen the video of Shalit and believed it was genuine and was recorded after Israel's war in Gaza in January this year, Israeli officials said. It is thought to be about a minute long.

Israel has launched a series of military raids in Gaza over the past three years that have left hundreds of Palestinians dead and has imposed a severe economic blockade, in part it says because Shalit is still being held.

Hamas said it would release Shalit in return for the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails, but the two sides have failed to reach an agreement on a deal.

The female prisoners due to be released were serving sentences of less than two years and were not convicted of direct involvement in the killing of Israelis.

More than 7,000 Palestinians are held in Israeli jails, nearly 400 of them without charge.

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