Lord Goldsmith at the Iraq war inquiry LIVE

Follow the action as the former attorney general gives evidence to the Chilcot panel

12.40pm: Sir Roderic Lyne asks about a trip Goldsmith made to Washington in February 2003 to discuss the legality of the war.

Goldsmith says all the people he met were "speaking with one voice". They were very clear that what mattered to them was that they would not "concede a veto". That is why they would not have accepted a resolution which said that there would have to be another security council decision, because that would have meant that war could have been vetoed by another permanent member of the security council.

Lyne suggests that Goldsmith had to take the Americans' word for what had ben intended in the 1441 negotiations.

Goldsmith says by the time the resolution was concluded it contained many indicators as to the use of force. That meant there did not have to be a statement referring to "all necessary means" (the UN code for war) in the text.

Lyne asks why Goldsmith did not consult the French about their interpretation of 1441.

Goldsmith says he could not have done that. If the Iraqis had found out, it would have been hugely damaging.

Lyne asks why he did not raise this with the French confidentially. Goldsmith says that would not have been possible.

In other words, he seems to be saying it would not have been possible to trust the French to keep a secret.

12.37pm: Prashar asks about the letter Straw sent to Goldsmith in February responding to the draft legal advice. Straw criticised the Foreign Office lawyers for their "dogmatic" approach to international law.

Goldsmith says he "had some sympathy" with what Straw was saying.

Prashar asks if Goldsmith was aware of ministers having different views.

Goldsmith says he wasn't.

Lyne asks if Goldsmith ever discussed the legality of war with Robin Cook or Clare Short.

No, says Goldsmith.

12.34pm: Goldsmith says:

It would have been better if legal advisers are invovled in policy formulation rather than at the end.

He says that is why he tried to insert him into the policy-making process, but offering advice.

12.30pm: Prashar asks Goldsmith if he thought he should have been offere advice earlier.

Goldsmith says he thinks he had been involved.

He says there were two occasions when he offered advice when it was not asked for: in July 2002 (see 11.18am), and at the end of January 2003 (see 12.16am).

12.29pm: Prashar asks Goldsmith if he was happy to disagree with the Foreign Office legal advisers.

Goldsmith says that he respected the Foreign Office legal advisers, but that he disagreed with them. They were not disagreeing about the revival argument. They were disagreeing about what 1441 required in the event in a material breach by the Iraqis.

12.20pm: Lady Prashar asks what Goldsmith knew about the views of the Foreign Office lawyers.

Goldsmith says he knew what Michael Wood and Elizabeth Wilmshurst thought, but that he did not necessarily know what their colleagues thought.

Prashar asks about a note that Jack Straw sent to Michael Wood, the Foreign Office legal adviser, saying that he he did not accept Wood's views about the legality of war. Goldsmith sent a reply to Straw because he was not happy with what Straw had written.

Goldsmith says:

I did not like the tone of what appeared to be a rebuke.

He says he often told government lawyers that they needed to tell lawyers what they needed to hear, what they wanted to hear.

Prashar says Straw talked about the "uncertainty" of international law in his note to Wood.

Goldsmith says he did not agree with this. The interpretation of the law might be uncertain, but the law itself was not, he says.

Prashar asks about something Wood said in his written statement to the inquiry yesterday. Wood asked whether a reasonable case was sufficient to justify war.

Goldsmith says he disagrees. A "reasonable case" was used to justify Kosovo and Operation Desert Fox in 1998, he says.

12.16pm: They're back. Lyne asks if Goldsmith reported back to Blair after his meeting with Greenstock.

Goldsmith says Greenstock had made some good points but that he had not fully persuaded Goldsmith. Goldsmith heard reports suggesting he was persuaded. So he wrote to Blair saying that he was not.

Goldsmith says that he and the Foreign Office lawyers agreed that the revival argument existed. But the issue was whether 1441 meant that there would be be a decision for the revival argument to come into play, or whether there would just have to be a discussion.

At this stage, Goldsmith says, he was telling Blair that the revival argument could not justify war without a second resolution.

12.06pm: They've stopped for another break. I can't say I blame them; the last hour has been very heavy-going. But we've learnt a couple of things.

? Lord Goldsmith said that Tony Blair suggested that Goldsmith was free to make up his own mind about his legal advice when the two men met in January 2003. (See 10.40am)

? Goldsmith defended his decision to let ministers comment on his draft advice. He said that this was something that he had often done in private practice and it meant that he could properly consider all the issues. (See 10.40am)

12.02pm: Goldsmith says the Americans thought that they did not need a UN resolution in the first place. They thought they were entitled to decide themselves that Iraq was in material breach of earlier resolutions.

Goldsmith says he was told by American officials that there only "red line" was that they must not concede the need for a further decision. Otherwise, they were not too worried about the wording of 1441, he suggests, because they thought they already had the legal right to go to war.

11.56am: Lyne says he wants to turn to the position adopted by the US and the UK while 1441 was being negotiated.

The UK wanted to include words saying that "false statements" by Iraq constituted a material breach and that that would allow member states to use "all necessary means" to enforce compliance, Lyne says. But the UK and the US failed to get these words - which would have authorised war - into the final text of 1441.

Goldsmith says the fact that that phrase was not included did not mean that 1441 did not authorise force.

1441 did contain the "revival argument", Goldsmith says. Members states knew this. That is why they wanted the inclusion of a "firebreak", saying that Iraq had one final chance (and that immediate military action was therefore not justified).

11.47am: Lyne asks about a meeting Goldsmith had with Greenstock about the January draft advice.

Goldsmith says he wanted to hear Greenstock's comments on the negotiating history of 1441 and on what the text meant.

Lyne asks if Greenstock mentioned the fact that the French and the Chinese had tried to get an explicit provision in 1441 saying it was up to the security council to decide on the use of force.

Goldsmith says Greenstock told him this was the key difference betwen the UK/US and the rest of the security council. Greenstock told him that the French and the Chinese had "lost". In other words, there was no requirement for a "decision" from the security council if Iraq were in breach of its obligations.

Lyne asks if this meant that they "implicitly" accepted that a second "decision" would not be necessary. Goldsmith suggested that they did.

But, Lyne says, in their "explanations of vote", the French, the Russians and the Chinese said 1441 meant there would be a two-stage process. They were trying to press for the security council having to take a second decision, Lyne says.

Goldsmith says the French, the Russians and the Chinese had fought had for a resolution saying there would have to be a second decison. But they did not get this. 1441 just said the security council would have to "consider" the issue.

11.40am: Lyne asks when Goldsmith gave Blair his first advice.

Goldsmith says his advice remained "preliminary" until February because he was still carrying out his research. On February 27 he met some of Blair's advisers in Downing Street and told them that a reasonable case could be made that a second UN resolution was not necessary and that that was enough to constitute a "green light".

Lyne asks about the draft advice presented in January. (See 8.34am). What did Goldsmith give Blair in January.

Goldsmith says this was "draft, provisional advice".

Was it a lengthy document, Lyne says.

Yes, says Goldsmith. He set out the arguments at length so that those involved could respond. Greenstock replied.

Did he personally hand it to Blair, Lyne asks.

Yes, says Goldsmith.

How did he react?

Goldsmith says that Blair told him:

I do understand that your advice is your advice.

Lyne asks if it was normal for Goldsmith to offer draft advice.

Goldsmith says that this was something he had done in private practice.

Who else saw the document, Lyne asks.

Goldsmith says Jack Straw saw it. Straw got it from Number 10.

11.30am: Lyne asks what discussions Goldsmith had in December about offering advice on 1441.

Goldsmith says the request for advice came from the Foreign Office legal adviser, Michael Wood. In a document, he set out the two rival arguments: the one saying a further UN resolution was required to justify war, and the one saying a second resolution was not required.

Goldsmith says that after he received the Wood letter he told Jonathan Powell, Blair's chief of staff, that he needed to clarify some points in relation to the 1441 negotiating history. At that point he agreed to produce some draft advice.

Lyne asks why Goldsmith discussed this with Powell, not Wood.

Goldsmith says he was channelling his request through Powell, not asking him directly for the information.

Goldsmith says that he wanted to understand what was meant by "full assessment" in 1441 and that he wanted to resolve some other textual points.

Lyne says he's puzzled as to why Goldsmith was raising this with Powell.

Goldsmith says he thinks Downing Street asked for the meeting. He wanted to talk to Jeremy Greenstock, the British ambassador to the UN, and to American officials.

Lyne asks if Powell said when Goldsmith would have to produce final advice. Did they tell him not to produce his advice "too soon".

Goldsmith says the inquiry should ask Blair.

Lyne says Blair was not at the meeting.

Goldsmith says Blair's advisers would know what he thought. But he cannot recall exactly what he was told at that meeting.

11.28am: Goldsmith is explaining what 1441. He says it amounted to saying "this is the last straw". He adds: "No pun intended." (He's thinking of Jack.) Then he apologises. He says the issue is too serious to joke about.

11.21am: They are back. Goldsmith says he had a conversation with Straw after 1441 was adopted. At that stage he had not had "instrutions". He says he wants to explain the phrase so that it is not misunderstood. "Instructions" is legalese for a request to advise, he says.

Goldsmith says it was not necessary for him to give advice "until it mattered". This was not uncommon in government, he says.

11.18am: Here, courtesy of the Press Association, is the full quote from Goldsmith when he was talking about the letter he sent to Blair in the summer of 2002 saying Blair would need a UN resolution to justify war.

I did it of my own volition because I knew that the prime minister was going to see president Bush in the United States. I knew that one of the topics of conversation at least was going to be the Iraq issue because that was obviously very much on the international agenda at that stage. And I didn't want there to be any doubt that in my view the prime minister could not have the view that he could agree with president Bush somehow, 'let's go without going back to the United Nations' ... I wasn't asked for it. I don't frankly think it was terribly welcome ... I do believe that it may have well been one of the contributing factors to the prime minister, to his great credit, persuading president Bush that he must go down the United Nations route.

Goldsmith was asked why his letter was not welcome. He replied:

You will have to ask Mr Blair that.

11.08am: Here are the main points so far.

? Sir John Chilcot said that he was "frustrated" about not being allowed to publish classified government documents. Lord Goldsmith also said there were documents relating to his evidence which he would like to see published but which the government has refused to declassify. (See 10.24am)

? Goldsmith said that when he told Tony Blair in 2002 that Blair would need a UN resolution to justify war against Iraq, his advice was "not terribly welcome". (See 10.29am)

? Goldsmith said that he orginally thought it would be up to the UN security council - not individual governments - to decide whether Iraq was in material breach of UN resolutions. (See 10.09am)

? ...

Barclays chief attacks Obama plan

Speaking on the opening day of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Diamond said the growth in 'large, integrated, universal banks' had been a response to market forces

Barclays' president, Bob Diamond, warned today that Barack Obama's plans to limit the size of banks would hit jobs, growth and global trade.

Speaking on the opening day of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Diamond said the growth in "large, integrated, universal banks" had been a response to market forces in the post-communist world.

"They [the big banks] fulfilled an important function in helping governments and corporates to transfer risk, particularly across borders," Diamond added.

"Did banks get big because they wanted to or were they following their clients, their customers and the markets? Was it for an economic purpose?"

Finding a way of preventing a re-run of the 2007 financial crisis is a key theme of this year's Davos forum and has been given added impetus by last week's White House announcement that the US would put restrictions on the size and the activities of Wall Street banks.

Diamond said there had been the failure of a "couple of banks" caused by poor regulation and ineffective management, particularly around management of risk.

"I have seen no evidence that suggests shrinking banks and making them smaller and more narrow is the issue."

He said it was up to the G20 group of developed and developing nations to establish "an effective regulatory framework to have better managed, integrated, universal banks". Isolated actions by individual governments were not "beneficial" and international co-operation was vital if banks with global operations were to be regulated effectively.

A new era of "narrow" banks would be harmful, Diamond said. "The impact on jobs, global trade and the global economy would be very negative."

UN: UK complicit in possible torture

Human rights report indicates clear evidence of UK role in secret detention of British Muslims

United Nations human rights investigators have concluded that the British government has been complicit in the mistreatment and possible torture of several of its own citizens during the "war on terror".

In a report published today that will make difficult reading for ministers who repeatedly denied the UK's involvement in torture, UN officials have indicated that there is clear evidence of the UK's role in the secret detention overseas of several British Muslims.

The officials say that such secret imprisonment ? or "proxy detentions" ? not only facilitates torture, but may amount to torture in its own right. In one starkly worded passage, they warn that if a state's use of proxy detention had been systematic or widespread it would amount to a "crime against humanity".

There was no immediate comment from the British government.

The 226-page UN report follows the publication two months of ago a dossier entitled Cruel Britannia, from the New York-based NGO Human Rights Watch, whose researchers interviewed several Pakistani intelligence agents who alleged that they had tortured British terrorism suspects on behalf of their UK counterparts. It also follows a series of disclosures in the Guardian about the role played by officers of MI5, MI6 and Greater Manchester police in the detention and questioning under torture of terrorism suspects held in Pakistan and elsewhere.

The UN investigation into torture and rendition across the globe since 9/11 lasted several years and was led by Martin Scheinin, UN special rapporteur on terrorism and human rights, and Manfred Nowak, special rapporteur on torture. In a move that will do little to ease the discomfort of western governments that were the focus of the investigation, the two men and their aides were assisted by members of a UN working party on secret detentions that was first set up in 1979 to investigate the fate of people who were "disappeared" by the Pinochet regime in Chile.

Their report concludes that secret detention "amounts to a case of enforced disappearance" and that it is "a manifold human rights violation that cannot be justified under any circumstances, including during states of emergency".

Listing those cases in which they conclude that a state has been complicit in a secret detention, the authors highlight "the United Kingdom in the cases of several individuals, including Binyam Mohamed, Salahuddin Amin, Zeeshan Siddiqui, Rangzieb Ahmed and Rashid Rauf".

Ahmed, 34, from Rochdale, Greater Manchester, was detained in Pakistan in 2006. MPs have heard that after evidence of his terrorist offences had been gathered he was allowed to fly from Manchester to Islamabad, and that MI6 then suggested to a notorious Pakistani intelligence agency that its officers should detain him as he was a dangerous terrorist.

After MI5 and Greater Manchester police drew up a list of questions to be put to Ahmed, the Pakistani agents who were questioning him ripped out a number of his fingernails. Ahmed alleges he was also beaten, whipped and deprived of sleep. He was later deported to the UK, tried and convicted of terrorism offences and is now serving a life sentence at Full Sutton prison near York.

Salahuddin Amin, 35, from Luton, Bedfordshire, was deported to the UK in February 2005 after spending 10 months in the custody of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI). The UK courts have heard that he was questioned 11 times by MI5 officers, and Amin says he was tortured before each session. Human Rights Watch says it has spoken to Pakistani intelligence officers who broadly corroborate his account. Amin was also tried and convicted and is serving a life sentence at Whitemoor prison in Cambridgeshire.

The British government is attempting to block the disclosure of classified US documents about Binyam Mohamed, leading to speculation that they contain evidence that senior figures in Tony Blair's administration had some knowledge of Mohamed's torture in Pakistan in 2002.

The whereabouts of Rauf and Siddiqui are unknown.

Scotland Yard detectives are investigating MI5's role in the mistreatment of Mohamed and one other unnamed individual.

The UN report contains warnings that inquiries into these two cases may not be sufficient to meet the UK's obligations under international law, however, saying that the British government and other states would face claims of responsibility "when the state received claims that someone had been subjected to torture or other ill-treatment, or an enforced disappearance, or otherwise received information suggesting that such acts may have taken place but failed to have the claims impartially investigated".

The UN report adds: "According to the European court, authorities must always make a serious attempt to find out what happened and should not rely on hasty or ill-founded conclusions to close their investigation or as the basis of their decisions."

The report details the role of many other governments in the kidnapping and secret detention of terrorism suspects. Among those highlighted alongside the UK are the US, Algeria, China, Iran, Sudan and Zimbabwe.

The Foreign Office described the report as "unsubstantiated and irresponsible" and maintained that the authors had not substantiated their claims during meetings with FO officials. "As far as allegations against the UK are concerned, the report contains no new information and repeats unproven allegations as if they were fact. The UK's position on secret detention is clear: we oppose any deprivation of liberty that amounts to placing individuals beyond the protection of the law."

Despite the FO's assertion that there is no evidence to support the UN's allegations, the attorney general has asked Scotland Yard detectives to investigate a number of cases.

A spokeswoman for Reprieve, the legal charity that represents Binyam Mohamed, said: "The findings make uncomfortable reading for states like the UK who ? despite their public condemnation of such practices ? are revealed as complicit in war crimes like kidnap, secret detention, and torture.

"Worryingly, the report indicates that the UK intelligence services lack the oversight that would prevent crimes like complicity in torture from recurring in the future."

Whoops! Apple tablet details leaked

Terry McGraw likely to anger Steve Jobs by revealing previously unknown facts about the Apple tablet on live TV

Apple is notorious for the levels of secrecy it keeps around new products - and never more so than with the impending launch of its tablet computer, which has seen the company clamp down and let only a select few pieces of information leak out.

Why? Because Steve Jobs is (in his words) "a big bang guy": building anticipation and appetite is part of the marketing game.

So what will Jobs - whose temper has been likened to a flamethrower - make of the latest leak, which came courtesy of the boss of US publishing company McGraw-Hill?

In an interview on American business news network CNBC, Terry McGraw - the chairman, president and chief executive of the company - let slip a few choice pieces of data that were previously unknown.

"Yeah, very exciting," he told the programme, when asked about his company's link to the Apple product. "They'll make their announcement tomorrow on this one."

All well and good - but then McGraw went on to offer some new details.

"We have worked with Apple for quite a while - the tablet is going to be based on the iPhone operating system, and so it will be transferrable. So what you're going to be able to do now... we have a consortium of ebooks - we have 95% of all our materials that are in ebook format on that one - so with the tabloid you're going to open up the higher education market, the professional market. The tabloid, the tablet is going to be just really terrific."

McGraw calls it both the "tablet" and "tabloid", so it's not clear whether either is the actual product name (something you bet on being called the iPad). And the involvement of various publishers was already widely reported, too. But the fact that it runs on the same system as the iPhone? That's new, and letting it out early is not something that Jobs is likely to take lying down.

The human cost of Haiti's disaster

Photographer and filmmaker David Levene spent a week in Port-au-Prince

Richest 10% are 100 times better off

? 1980s income gap still not plugged, say analysts
? Brown says equality panel report a 'sobering' read
? Datablog: get the numbers behind this story

A detailed and startling analysis of how unequal Britain has become offers a snapshot of an increasingly divided nation where the richest 10% of the population are more than 100 times as wealthy as the poorest 10% of society.

Gordon Brown described the paper, published today, as "sobering", saying: "The report illustrates starkly that despite a levelling-off of inequality in the last decade we still have much further to go."

The report, An Anatomy of Economic Inequality in the UK, scrutinises the degree to which the country has become more unequal over the past 30 years. Much of it will make uncomfortable reading for the Labour government, although the paper indicates that considerable responsibility lies with the Tories, who presided over the dramatic divisions of the 1980s and early 1990s.

Researchers analyse inequality according to a number of measures; one indicates that by 2007-8 Britain had reached the highest level of income inequality since soon after the second world war.

The new findings show that the household wealth of the top 10% of the population stands at £853,000 and more ? over 100 times higher than the wealth of the poorest 10%, which is £8,800 or below (a sum including cars and other possessions).

When the highest-paid workers, such as bankers and chief executives, are put into the equation, the division in wealth is even more stark, with individuals in the top 1% of the population each possessing total household wealth of £2.6m or more.

Commissioned by Harriet Harman, minister for women and equality, the National Equality Panel has been working on the 460-page document for 16 months, led by Prof John Hills, of the London School of Economics.

The report is more ambitious in scope than any other state-of-the-nation wealth assessment project ever undertaken.

It concludes that the government has failed to plug the gulf that existed between the poorest and richest in society in the 1980s. "Over the most recent decade, earnings inequality has narrowed a little and income inequality has stabilised on some measures, but the large inequality growth of the 1980s has not been reversed," it states.

Hills said: "These are very challenging issues for any government because the problems are so deep-seated."

"But we hope that by doing this work, policy makers have now got information they never had before, to try and get at the roots of some of those problems."

Harman said the issues raised meant the government needs to "sustain and step up" action introduced by government over the past 13 years, such as children's centres and tax credits. "It takes generations to make things more equal," she told Radio 4's Today programme.

Social mobility was "essential" for the economy, she said. "The government should take action to ensure everyone has a fair chance."

The panel found "systematic differences in equality panel economic ­outcomes" remained between social groups, and said many would find the "sheer scale of inequalities" in outcomes "shocking".

Inequality in earnings and income is high in Britain compared with other industrialised countries, the report states.

A central theme of the report is the profound, lifelong negative impact that being born poor, and into a disadvantaged social class, has on a child. These inequalities accumulate over the life cycle, the report concludes. Social class has a big impact on children's school readiness at the age of three, but continues to drag children back through school and beyond.

"The evidence we have looked at shows the long arm of people's origins in shaping their life chances, stretching through life stages, literally from cradle to grave. Differences in wealth in particular are associated with opportunities such as the ability to buy houses in the catchment areas of the best schools or to afford private education, with advantages for children that continue through and beyond education. At the other end of life, wealth levels are associated with stark differences in life expectancy after 50," the report states.

It echoes other recent research suggesting that social mobility has stagnated, and concludes that "people's occupational and economic destinations in early adulthood depend to an important degree on their origins". Achieving the "equality of opportunity" that all political parties aspire to is very hard when there are such wide differences between the resources that people have to help them fulfil their diverse potentials, the panel notes.

Researchers analysed the total wealth accrued by households over a lifetime. The top 10%, led by higher professionals, had amassed wealth of £2.2m, including property and pension assets, by the time they drew close to retirement (aged 55-64), while the bottom 10% of households, led by routine manual workers, had amassed less than £8,000.

Harman acknowledged in the report that the "persistent inequality of social class" was a large factor in perpetuating disadvantage, adding that the government would begin to address this with the new legal duty placed on public bodies to address socio-economic inequality, included in the equality bill.

The report follows research published by Save the Children which revealed that 13% of the UK's children were now living in severe poverty, and that efforts to reduce child poverty had been stalling even before the recession began in 2008.

The Hills report also found that: ? Divisions between social groups are no longer as significant as the inequalities between individuals from the same social group; inequality growth of the last 40 years is mostly attributable to gaps within groups rather than between them.

? White British pupils with GCSE results around or below the national median are less likely to go on to higher education than those from minority ethnic groups. Pakistani, Black African and Black Caribbean boys have results at the age of 16 well below the median in England.

? Compared with a white British Christian man with similar qualifications, age and occupation, Pakistani and Bangladeshi Muslim men and Black African Christian men have an income that is 13-21% lower. Nearly half of Bangladeshi and Pakistani households are in poverty.

? Girls have better educational outcomes than boys at school and are more likely to enter higher education and achieve good degrees, but women's median hourly pay is 21% less than men's.

The significance of where you live is another theme. The panel says the government is a "very long way" from fulfilling its vision, set out in 2001, that "within 10 to 20 years no one should be seriously disadvantaged by where they live". The paper notes "profound and startling differences" between areas. Median hourly wages in the most deprived 10th of areas are 40% lower than in the least deprived.

Aliens can't hear us, says astronomer

Fainter broadcasting signals mean Earth will soon be undetectable to extraterrestials

Human beings are making it harder for extraterrestials to pick up conversations and make contact, the world's leading expert on the search for alien life warned yesterday.

At a special meeting on the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (Seti), the US astronomer Frank Drake ? who has been seeking radio signals from alien civilisations for almost 50 years ? told scientists that earthlings were making it less likely they would be heard in space.

Astronomers assumed that a standard technique for any alien intelligence trying to pinpoint other civilisations in the galaxy would involve seeking signals from TV, radio and radar broadcasts, Drake told the meeting at the Royal Society in London.

Scientists on Earth have been using this method, without success so far, to find evidence of intelligent aliens and it is thought that elsewhere in the galaxy other civilisations are probably doing the same.

An example of this interstellar eavesdropping is dramatised in the Jodie Foster film Contact. Based on a novel by the US astronomer Carl Sagan, it tells the story of an alien civilisation that makes contact after picking up TV broadcasts from Earth.

"The trouble is that we are making ourselves more and more difficult to be heard," said Dr Drake. "We are broadcasting in much more efficient ways today and are making our signals fainter and fainter."

In the past, TV and radio programmes were broadcast from huge ground stations which transmitted signals at thousands of watts. These could be picked up relatively easily across the depths of space, astronomers calculated.

Now, most TV and radio programmes are transmitted from satellites which typically use only 75 watts and have aerials pointing toward Earth, rather than into space.

"For good measure, in America we have switched from analogue to digital broadcasting and you are going to do the same in Britain very soon," Drake added. "When you do that, your transmissions will become four times fainter because digital uses less power."

"Very soon, we will become undetectable," he added. In short, in space, no one will hear us at all.

What is true for humans would probably also be true for aliens, who may already have moved to much more efficient methods of TV and radio broadcasting. Trying to find ET from their favourite shows was going to be harder than we thought, Drake said.

Most scientists at the meeting said they were sure that life existed on other worlds.

Lord Rees, president of the Royal Society and the Astronomer Royal, said it should soon be possible to detect planets no bigger than Earth orbiting other stars and determine whether they had continents and oceans.

"Although it is a long shot to be able to learn more about any life on them, then it's tremendous progress to be able to get some sort of image of another planet, rather like an Earth, orbiting another star. And were we to find life, even the simplest life, elsewhere that would clearly be one of the great discoveries of the 21st century.

"I suspect there could be life and intelligence out there in forms that we can't conceive. And there could, of course, be forms of intelligence beyond human capacity, beyond as much as we are beyond a chimpanzee," he added.

Boris Johnson to quit Met police post

Conservative mayor tells London assembly he will relinquish role 'in view of the changes that are coming to the MPA'

Boris Johnson, the London mayor, confirmed today that he intends to stand down as chair of the Metropolitan Police Authority.

Johnson's decision to step down from the role after just 15 months prompted accusations that he was "chickening out" of a manifesto commitment to take personal charge of the MPA.

His decision is part of a mayoral mini-reshuffle, announced today, which will also see him relinquish the reins as chair of London's waste and recycling board.

Johnson told the London assembly this morning that he is proposing to hand over the reins of the MPA to Kit Malthouse, his deputy mayor of policing, who is also the MPA's vice-chair.

This was amid "the changes that are coming to the MPA and the reforms that are under way", said Johnson, who insisted he would remain the "democratic component" for London policing.

The mayor's aide denied that Johnson's comments on forthcoming reforms was a reference to the mayor's expectation of a Tory win at the next general election.

Johnson told the assembly: "I do believe that the Metropolitan Police Service is doing a fantastic job and I am very content that crime is coming down.

"I think in view of the changes that are coming to the MPA, in view of the reforms that are under way, it would be a good thing if we changed the chair of the MPA, and I am proposing to stand down."

He added: "I can reassure you and reassure members of the MPA that my links with the commissioner [Sir Paul Stephenson] are as strong and as robust as ever."

Jenny Jones, who also sits on the London assembly as a Green party member, accused the mayor of going back on his word.

"The mayor made a clear commitment to Londoners in his election manifesto to personally take charge of the police authority. He has now gone back on his word, realising that being both mayor and chair of the MPA is just too much for one person to do properly.

"It was an ill thought-out promise, and one that showed his lack of experience. The Met are facing difficult times ahead, with budgets being cut in all areas. The chair of the MPA needs to take the time to understand this complex organisation to provide effective leadership.

"Boris Johnson has not really been involved from the beginning and perhaps feels it is time to stop pretending."

Johnson's office rejected suggestions that the mayor was stepping down from the respective committees to reduce his workload.

The mayor was said to want to spend "more time at the coal face" now he has put the "right structures and policies" in place at the MPA.

In a bid to take "party politics" out of the MPA, the mayor wants a non-elected member of the MPA, Reshard Auladin, to become Malthouse's vice-chair.

Johnson faced criticism from government ministers when he forced out the former Scotland Yard chief, Sir Ian Blair, within days of becoming MPA chair in October 2008. The mayor exercised his right to become MPA chair following new legislation.

David Cameron's Conservatives have pledged to scrap police authorities across England and Wales and replace them with individuals chosen by the public if they form the next government.

The shadow home secretary, Chris Grayling, said in November that the Tories had their sights on ensuring Johnson would become the "elected commissioner" of the Met under Tory proposals.

Malthouse provoked controversy last September when he declared that he and Johnson "have our hands on the tiller" of the Met and have an electoral mandate to influence what it does.

He asserted that the Johnson regime had "elbowed the Home Office out of the picture" and would no longer act as a rubber stamp to whatever the force proposed, insisting: "We do not want to be a passenger on the Met cruise."

Johnson also has his sights on promoting another Conservative from the London assembly, James Cleverly, whom he appointed as youth ambassador just a year ago.

Johnson wants Cleverly to replace him as chair of the Waste and Recycling Board, where he would oversee an £84m budget and "drive forward ambitious plans to end London's poor record on recycling".

The member for Bexley and Bromley recently told the Guardian he was considering putting himself forward as a Tory prospective parliamentary candidate.

Karzai told to tackle Afghan corruption

West wants president to tackle fraud, UK ambassador takes larger role and former Taliban are given rehabilitation chance

Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, is under intense western pressure to take more serious action against corruption at the start of a critical conference in London about his country's future.

Donor nations rejected an anti-­corruption plan presented by Karzai's government last week as half-hearted, and asked him to come up with more ambitious measures for the Lancaster House conference, where his leadership will be seen as central in determining whether the war with the Taliban is winnable.

The extent of doubts over his qualities became clear with the publication of classified memos sent by the US ambassador in Kabul, Karl Eikenberry, to Washington in November. In the diplomatic cables, published by the New York Times, he said Karzai "is not an adequate strategic partner" and "continues to shun responsibility for any sovereign burden".

"Sending additional forces will delay the day when Afghans will take over, and make it difficult, if not impossible, to bring our people home on a reasonable time­table," Eikenberry wrote on 6 November. "An increased US and foreign role in security and governance will increase Afghan dependence, at least in the short term."

The depth of these reservations will inevitably damage attempts by more than 70 state delegations to demonstrate international resolve and unity.

Nato announced a radical overhaul of its own Afghan operations, naming Mark Sedwill, Britain's ambassador in Kabul, as its civilian representative. Sedwill's enhanced role will give him the power to co-ordinate most of the reconstruction and development work across Afghanistan. Sedwill, 45, will be one of the most powerful figures in Kabul, and at the centre of an often uneasy relationship between Nato and Karzai.

Since Karzai's difficult re-election last year, troop-contributing and donor countries have put the president under pressure to reform his graft-riddled government, and the president pledged to take on corruption in an address in November.

However, the plan presented last Wednesday to a panel of donor countries and Nato ­powers, the joint co-ordination and monitoring board, was a watered-down version of what he promised, diplomats said.

It did not allow for a permanent independent commission to monitor corruption but only an ad hoc body summoned in extraordinary circumstances. Reformers led by the finance minister, Omar Zakhilwal, were reported to be trying to strengthen the anti-corruption measures in the face of fierce resistance from other cabinet members.

Some Afghan officials are said to resist even the word "reform" in documents to the conference, as it implies the Karzai government is less than perfect. "That is the weak part of the whole process. It's not clear what Karzai will bring to ­London," said a European diplomat involved in the London talks. "A lot will depend on how consistent we [the west] are in pushing him. At the moment, we have no real means of putting pressure on."

Another significant unknown is how far Karzai will go with his opening address in offering peace terms to the Taliban. An international fund (with mostly Japanese, British and American money) will be set up to help finance reintegration of Taliban footsoldiers but Karzai may also address the Taliban leadership in his remarks. He has offered to hold a peace council, a loya jirga, before the next international conference, due in Kabul this spring.

Late last night, the security council said it was removing five former senior Taliban officials from its sanctions list. All five were high-ranking members of the former Taliban government. Four were listed as former foreign minister Wakil Ahmad Muttawakil, former deputy minister of commerce Fazal Mohammad, former Taliban press officer Shams-us-Safa Aminzai and former deputy minister of planning Muhammad Musa Hottak.

It said the fifth, former deputy minister of frontier affairs Abdul Hakim, had renounced the Taliban three years ago and was now a governor of Uruzgan province. All five were put on the UN blacklist in 2001. Diplomats say Russia has traditionally been reluctant to remove any rehabilitated Taliban from the sanctions list, but US and other other western diplomats have been lobbying them to permit de-listings as an incentive for persuading insurgents to support Karzai's government.

A meeting of Afghanistan's neighbours in Istanbul offered a broad endorsement of Karzai's reconciliation and reintegration effort. "More than lip service was paid to the importance of regional co-operation to Afghan stability today," said David Miliband, who attended the Istanbul meeting. The ­foreign secretary claimed the attitude of Pakistan, which has a long history of ties to the Taliban, had been particularly positive. "I think the government is in a completely different position than when I first went to Pakistan three years ago. We've moved from a finger-pointing blame game towards security co-operation."

The London conference will also address dissatisfaction with international backers, who have yet to harmonise efforts. Different nations run the military-civil "provincial reconstruction teams", or PRTs, in different provinces, with considerable duplication and wasted resources.

In his Nato role, Sedwill will co-ordinate the teams, which spend the lion's share of reconstruction funds, but he will not have total control over those funds. That is jealously guarded by donor governments.

A group of eight aid agencies will criticise the PRT system: "The militarisation of aid is putting ordinary people on the frontlines of the conflict. Afghans say that the military places them at greater risk when they build schools and ­clinics which then become targets of armed opposition groups."

A study by Oxfam, called Quick Impact, Quick Collapse: the Dangers of Militarised Aid in Afghanistan, notes: "While it costs approximately $1m a year to support the deployment of one US soldier in Afghanistan, an average of just $93 in development aid has been spent per Afghan per year over the past seven years.

"Far too much aid has focused on 'quick fixes' and Band-Aid approaches rather than on what will produce positive and lasting results for Afghans over the long term,"

Sri Lankan president wins election

Troops surround hotel where opposition candidate Sarath Fonseka is staying

The Sri Lankan president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, has won the country's first election since the defeat of the Tamil Tiger rebels, state television reported today.

Final results have yet to be declared, but Rupavahini Television said that Rajapaksa had decisively beaten the main opposition candidate, Sarath Fonseka, a former army chief.

Earlier, hundreds of troops surrounded the hotel where Fonseka is holed up.

Both men are considered war heroes by the Sinhalese majority for leading the country to victory eight months ago in its long civil war with the Tamil Tiger rebels, but after a bitter falling out Fonseka quit, joined the opposition and challenged the president.

Throughout the campaign, the opposition accused Rajapaksa of plotting to rig the vote and steal the election. Fonseka was unable to vote yesterday because he was not registered. It was unclear whether he had failed to register or had tried and been left off the voter rolls.

Initial results today showed Rajapaksa leading with 3,563,634 votes compared with 2,209,214 for Fonseka, a 23 percentage point difference There are 14 million registered voters, and the overall turnout during yesterday's polling was around 70%.

As the results were being announced, troops surrounded the Cinnamon Lake Hotel. A military spokesman, Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara, said about 400 people, including alleged army deserters, had gathered inside with Fonseka.

"We don't know what's their motive and as a protective measure, we have deployed troops around the hotel and people who go in and come out are being checked," Nanayakkara said, adding that there were no plans to arrest Fonseka.

Jehan Perera, a political analyst in Colombo, called the military presence at the hotel "absolutely unprecedented".

"It reflects the suspicion and the level of mistrust," he said.

Attempts to reach Fonseka were not immediately successful.

Fonseka remained popular with the troops he led to victory against the Tamil Tigers after 25 years of civil war, and the government was worried that he might claim electoral fraud and try to rally his former soldiers, Perera said.

The race has been acrimonious from the start, with the general accusing his former boss of entrenched corruption and the president branding Fonseka a dictator-in-waiting. Rights groups have accused Rajapaksa of misusing state resources ? including monopolising coverage on state TV ? to bolster his campaign.

State media interspersed reports of initial returns today with songs and programming featuring Rajapaksa, and the information minister, Anura Priyadarshana Yapa, told the Sri Lanka Rupavahini Corporation that the results so far showed the president "heading for a historic victory".

No major violence was reported during yesterday's polling.

After the polls closed, government officials said they would seek to disqualify Fonseka's candidacy because he was not registered to vote, but the electoral commissioner later issued a statement saying that Fonseka's voting status was irrelevant to his candidacy.

Voting among the Sinhalese majority appeared to be strong, but turnout was sparse in some northern Tamil areas, where the most intense fighting drove hundreds of thousands from their homes.

The minority community had been expected to support Fonseka and play a possibly pivotal role in the results.

Rajapaksa campaigned on his war record and his promises to bring development to the nation. Fonseka promised to trim the powers of the presidency and empower parliament .

Some observers fear that a dispute over the results could lead to street protests and violence.

North and South Korea fire shots at border

North Korea fires artillery near disputed sea border and south says it responded with warning shots

North Korea has confirmed it fired artillery near its disputed sea border with South Korea this morning and said it would continue with its military exercises.

It had earlier designated no-sail zones in the zone, off its western coast. The statement from the general staff of the Korean People's Army said that such drills "will go on in the same waters in the future, too".

Earlier, Seoul's joint chiefs of staff said the north had fired approximately 30 rounds of land-based artillery, prompting the south to fire around 100 warning shots from a base on an island nearby. An officer said the north's shots landed on its own side of the border, while the south fired into the air. No casualties or damage were reported.

A brief skirmish along the line in November is believed to have left one North Korean sailor dead and three others wounded. The border also saw fatal naval clashes in 1999 and 2002.

The incident comes amid recent friction between the two sides but also signs of a potential rapprochement.

Pyongyang accused the south of declaring war after South Korean defence minister Kim Tae-young said last week that his military should launch a pre-emptive strike if there was a clear indication that the north was preparing a nuclear attack.

But earlier this month Pyongyang offered talks on restarting joint tour programmes and on developing their joint industrial complex. It has also signalled it could return to the six-party aid-for-disarmament talks.

It is thought that tightened sanctions in the wake of the country's missile and nuclear tests last year have hit the already struggling economy.

"North Korea may want to return to the six-party talks, but only to ease pressure on itself and gain more economic assistance, which it really needs now," Zhang Liangui, an expert on North Korea at Beijing's Central Party School, told Reuters.

"So North Korea wants to control the pace of contacts with South Korea and the United States. Incidents such as this are a way for it to show that it can control how and when there is any progress."

Pyongyang has said a precondition for returning to the talks would be discussions on a peace deal with the United States to formally end the 1950-53 Korean war, which concluded with an armistice, but not a treaty. It also wants sanctions to be lifted.

Pope John Paul II 'whipped himself'

Claim of self-flagellation boosts case for elevating late pontiff to status of saint

Pope John Paul II self-flagellated regularly to imitate Christ's ­suffering and signed a secret document saying he would resign instead of ruling for life if he became incurably ill, a book claims.

The book ? Why He Is a Saint: the Real John Paul II ? has been written by Monsignor Slawomir Oder, the Vatican official in charge of the process that could lead to sainthood for the late pontiff.

The pope, who died in 2005, was shot and nearly killed in 1981, had several operations including one for cancer, and had Parkinson's disease for more than a decade before his death.

He moved closer to sainthood last month when the pope, Benedict XVI, approved a decree recognising that his papal predecessor had lived the Christian faith heroically.

Citing individuals in the late pope's entourage while he was a bishop in Poland and after he was elected pontiff in 1978, the book says that John Paul II inflicted pain on himself to feel closer to God.

"In his closet, among his vestments, there was hung on a clothes hanger a particular kind of belt which he used as a whip," Oder writes.

When he was a bishop, he often slept on the bare floor so he could practise self-denial and asceticism, Oder writes.

Many saints of the Church, including St Francis of Assisi, St Catherine of Siena and St Ignatius of Loyola, practised flagellation and asceticism as part of their spiritual life.

"It is clear the aspect of penitence was present in the life of John Paul II," Oder told a news conference today. "It should be seen as part of his profound relationship with the Lord."

The book confirms that as his health failed, John Paul II prepared a document stating he would step down instead of ruling for life if he became incurably ill or impaired from carrying out his duties.

The pontiff signed the document in 1989, eight years after the shooting. Its existence had been the subject of rumours but it is published in full in the book.

In the end, the pope stayed on until his death, saying it was for the good of the church. Had he stepped down, he would have been the first Catholic pontiff to do so willingly since 1294 when Celestine V decided he was not up to the job.

The next step towards sainthood for John Paul II will be the recognition of a miracle attributed to him: it involves a French nun who was cured of Parkinson's disease after praying to him.