Saddam was not imminent threat, says Goldsmith

Former attorney general admitted to changing his mind over necessity of further justification for military action

Lord Goldsmith at the Iraq war inquiry - live

Lord Goldsmith, the government's attorney general at the time of the Iraq war, has told the Chilcot inquiry that he believed in 2002 there was no imminent threat from Saddam Hussein's regime that would have justified the use of force against him.

While he told the inquiry this morning that he believed a second UN resolution would have been "safer" to justify military action, he admitted he eventually concluded that a further reinforcement to the earlier resolution 1441 was not necessary.

Goldsmith has told the inquiry he changed his mind "for good reasons" but has not spelled them out, nor yet been asked by the inquiry what they were.

The change appears to have happened in late February 2003, just before the war, when he told the prime minister's advisers that there was "a reasonable case" that a second UN resolution was not needed. This was sufficient to constitute a "green light," he said. His previous advice had been preliminary.

The former attorney general spoke of the government as his "client". He said the prime minister had told him at a meeting shortly before the war: "'I do understand that your advice is your advice.' He accepted it was for me to reach a judgment and he had to accept that."

Goldsmith told the inquiry that he subsequently learned, over lunch with the French ambassador to London, that the French government did not believe it was necessary either. In the run-up to the war, the French president, Jacques Chirac, had made clear that France would not support a new resolution.

Goldsmith has also told the inquiry that in his judgment regime change was not a legitimate basis for the invasion.

He told the inquiry he had not attended cabinet meetings or cabinet committees discussing the possibility of war during 2002 and that he gleaned information about possible allied military plans from the press. He said "it would have been better" if he had attended cabinet; his judgement would have been important once the government's course of action had been agreed.

Goldsmith said: "My judgment was that there was not an imminence of threat that would justify us resorting to the use of force."

He said that he did not think his advice was welcome to the prime minister. Smiling, he told the inquiry: "I don't know, you'd have to ask Mr Blair that." The former prime minister is to appear before the inquiry on Friday.

He told the inquiry that he had told the then defence secretary, Geoff Hoon, that he was wrong to say that there was a clear basis for military action.

Goldsmith told the inquiry that the three justifications for the use of force against Iraq would have been self-defence, to avert a humanitarian catastrophe or authorisation by the UN.

He said he did not agree with the US policy of pre-emption. "The self-defence argument did not apply. There was no immediate threat," he said.

Goldsmith added that he was frustrated by the government's decision not to declassify some documents ? a frustration clearly shared by Sir John Chilcot, chairman of the inquiry.

The former attorney general told the panel: "What I was anxious to do was to reach correct legal advice. I also had some concerns about public statements being made about what our position would be."

Ulster parties on 48-hour deadline

British and Irish governments will press ahead with own plans if DUP and Sinn Féin fail to agree on policing and justice

The main Northern Ireland political parties have been given 48 hours to reach an agreement salvaging the power-sharing assembly or the British and Irish governments will press ahead with their own plans.

Gordon Brown, the British prime minister, said today that no overall deal had yet been agreed on Northern Ireland taking charge of its own policing and justice systems but a "pathway" to agreement had been laid down by the British and Irish governments.

The Stormont assembly is in crisis over disagreements between Sinn Féin and the Democratic Unionists over the devolution of policing and justice powers from Westminster.

Brown was in Northern Ireland for a third day and missed prime minister's questions in the Commons. Speaking this afternoon at Hillsborough Castle alongside the Irish taoiseach, Brian Cowen, he said three days of intensive negotiations between the main parties had seen progress.

The party leaders had been given 48 hours to hammer out a deal, Brown said. "We believe we have proposals that make for a reasonable deal on devolution of policing and justice; we believe we have proposals that make for a reasonable settlement on all the outstanding issues.

"If we judge that insubstantial progress has been made we will publish our own proposals."

Sinn Féin has threatened to pull out of the devolved administration without a swift transfer of law and order powers. But the DUP has insisted on first resolving outstanding issues such as the management of loyalist parades.

Moments before Brown and Cowen wound up proceedings, tensions between the two main parties apparently reached boiling point, with Sinn Féin's Martin McGuinness venting his anger that the summit had failed to secure a settlement.

Sinn Féin said it was "deeply disappointed" with the outcome of the talks and blamed DUP demands for a concession on Orange parades for blocking an agreement.

McGuinness, the deputy first minister, flanked by party colleagues including party president Gerry Adams, said: "I believe we have displayed extraordinary patience and commitment over the past 18 months as we sought to persuade the Democratic Unionist party to be partners of progress ? the decision by the DUP, at the behest of the Orange Order, to make the abolition of the Parades Commission a pre-condition for the transfer of powers on policing and justice flies in the face of all that."

McGuinness said the demand had made agreement difficult, adding: "Many are speculating that this was the real intention."

His party would study the proposals tabled by the two governments, McGuinness said. "But one thing is certain ? and it is absolutely certain as far as we are concerned ? that citizens' rights and entitlements will not be made subject to a unionist veto or an Orange Order precondition."

Brown said he believed a vote in the assembly could be held as early as March, with powers devolved by May. "The importance of these decisions for the future of Northern Ireland cannot be underestimated. With leadership and courage they can be achieved."

Soros warns of double-dip recession

? Financier says political resistance to more economic stimulus risks return to recession
? Soros says Obama bank reforms do not go far enough and calls for global supervision

The speculator and philanthropist George Soros warned today that growing political resistance to fresh state borrowing risks pushing the global economy into a double-dip recession next year.

Soros said at the World Economic Forum in Davos that the recovery from the worst recession since the second world war was "incomplete" but that fear about sovereign country debt was a barrier to spending designed to boost growth.

"There is a general concern with sovereign debt," Soros said. "It is coming under suspicion and it has a political momentum because there is increasing political resistance to allowing national debt to rise.

"Some countries like Greece do have deficits of 12.5% of GDP [gross domestic product], which is intolerable and has to be reduced. Other countries like the United States and the main European nations have plenty of room to increase their deficits."

Governments around the world have allowed their budget deficits to balloon since the financial crisis broke in 2007, but Soros said more spending was needed.

"I think that since the adjustment process to the recession is incomplete, there is a need for additional stimulus. The political resistance to it increases the chances of a double dip in the economy in 2011 and after that."

The dispute between Gordon Brown and David Cameron over when and how to reduce Britain's budget deficit ? forecast by the Treasury to hit £178bn this year ? is likely to dominate the political debate in the run-up to the election.

Labour has argued, like Soros, that it would be dangerous to tighten policy too soon. The Conservatives believe failure to tackle the deficit swiftly will spook the financial markets and lead to higher long-term interest rates.

With the first day of the World Economic Forum dominated by the debate over re-regulation of the banks, Soros said he was supportive of Barack Obama's plan to limit the size and scope of Wall Street institutions, but said that it "did not go far enough".

He said that even if the reforms were agreed, the problem of banks considered "too big to fail" would remain. "Institutions have to be controlled so that they don't fail. They have to be kept under much closer regulatory supervision."

Soros said the globalisation of finance should be matched by global supervision. Leverage limits and tougher capital regulations would help to reverse the trend of the past few decades. "Deregulation became contagious," Soros said.

The human cost of Haiti's disaster

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

LIVE coverage of Apple product launch

All the details through the day about the rumours, and all the facts from the Apple tablet launch in Yerba Buena

6.17pm: Here's the pic: ... oh, it was from Twitpic which seems to have blocked us. Damn.

6.13pm: There are plenty of other apps; photos, calendar, Google maps, music and the iTunes store. You can watch YouTube, TV shows and movies. In sideways orientation, he says, the on-screen keyboard is almost life-size.

"But there's nothing like seeing it," he says, sitting down on the chair to give an idea of what it's like. "It's so much more intimate than a laptop."

6.11pm: OK, he's got one out from behind a chair - it's smaller and more square than most of the mockups, but otherwise pretty much what we expected: a big iPhone.

The web browser, he says, is "way better than a laptop, way better than a smartphone".

6.10pm: I'm cranking up my BOOM-O-METER (TM) to measure the exclamations coming from the stage, but right now he's talking about the things that a tablet has to do really well to .work Browsing, email, phoptos, video, music, ebooks, games.

"The problem is, netbooks aren't better at anything," he quips, drawing a chuckle from the cloud. "They're slow, they're clunky. They're just cheap laptops."

Here it is: the iPad.

6.08pm: He cracks a joke by showing a slide of Moses, avec tablet, on the big screen. Pacing backwards and forwards on stage - and yes, he's wearing a black turtle neck, blue jeans and trainers - he begins a quick history lesson of some of Apple's mobile systems... laptops, smartphones.

"Everybody uses a laptop and/or a smartphone. And the question has arisen, lately, is there room for a device in the middle? We've questioned this for years ourselves, but the bar is pretty high."

6.03pm: Here he is, just in time for my internet connection to start playing up. The audience stands to welcome him into the room. He starts off by teasing what's coming up - "We want to begin 2010 by introducing a revolutionary and magical new product, but first..." - but then delves into some stats to prove that Apple is the "biggest mobile devices company in the world".

5.58pm: The place is buzzing in a way that I haven't seen at an Apple event for some time: they've really managed to catch the imagination of the crowd without even announcing anything. Often these things have the air of a religious event, but this is slightly different in tone - more of a party than a Moonie ceremony. It's astonishing, really, the way everybody groups behind an idea that's basically speculative.

Anyway, the build-up continues. Apple's chief operating officer, Tim Cook - the man widely tipped to take over the company if and when Steve Jobs steps down - is talking to a sequence of high flying Silicon Valley veterans.

Now the Apple executives are starting to take their seats, but there's still no sign of Jobs himself - though there's a place reserved for him just in front of me.

5.48pm: Annnnd, we're in. I've taken up a seat near the front as a way of scanning the audience to see who's here - always a good indication of precisely what might be announced. The usual Apple crowd are in the room - senior executives including Phil Schiller and Greg Joswiak are gladhanding it at the front, but it's hard to see who else is here as the crowd filters in.

Oh, there's Al Gore (he's an Apple board member), but my eye keeps being drawn to an Antipodean TV presenter in an extremely bright Hawaiian shirt who is standing a few seats away from me talking to an unseen camera.

5.31pm: Bobbie writes: So we've seen what you think Apple are about to unveil. But what am I anticipating? Well, I've been loathe to speculate (as I said in the latest episode of Tech Weekly) but with the event in just a few minutes (we're still outside), I suppose I should throw my hat in the ring.

These are just inferences and hunches, but I'm keeping my expectations low: a tablet computer that's well-built and uses an interface very similar to the iPhone's. I think it will be promoted as a way to download and watch movies, read books and magazines and surf the web. I reckon it will cost at least $600 (probably £450 in Britain) and go on sale in a couple of months. Steve Jobs will claim this is a more important step forward for the way we use computers than the Mac or the iPhone - anf if that pans out, it could end up being because of the content deals Apple has forged.

5.15pm: Bobbie writes: Right, I've arrived at the Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco, where today's event is being held. It's a stone's throw from the city's Moscone convention centre - the usual venue for Apple's January launches. But this is the same place that Steve Jobs made his first public appearance in a year back in September, and a more intimate venue that can hold a few hundred industry insiders, analysts and members of the press.

Not that we're being let in right now, of course: the gaggle is waiting outside as the company carefully controls what's happening.

4.41pm: Time's up! OK, those crowdsourcing predictions are in.
The iGadget will, according to the 10,488 people who voted on it
-weigh 0.9-1.1kg;
-be available only in a single model;
-have a screen of up to 10.3" (diagonally)
-include GSM/GPRS/3G connectivity
-only be on AT&T in the US
-be on O2... or all of O2, Orange and Vodafone in the UK
-use OLED technology for the screen
-be black, like a black iPhone or MacBook
-have USB, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and headphones (others, such as Ethernet, don't get above 10% of votes)
-support Flash playback [I think you're wrong on this, folks]
-introduce a new DRM format for ebooks/newspapers/magazines
-cost £701-£800 in the UK
-be called the iPad, or iSlate [think you're wrong again - my vote is Canvas]

Thanks to everyone who voted. How did it work? We'll see! Not long to go now...

4.20pm: OK, even The Onion - America's finest, and in some senses most accurate - news source has had to bow to the will of tablet frenzy. (Once Doonesbury had gone, it was inevitable.) Frantic Steve Jobs Stays Up All Night Designing Tablet it reports that

"Claiming that he completely forgot about the much-hyped electronic device until the last minute, a frantic Steve Jobs reportedly stayed up all night Tuesday in a desperate effort to design Apple's new tablet computer. ....Middle-of-the-night sources reported that Jobs then began work on double-spacing his Keynote presentation and increasing the font size to make it appear longer."

Reliable enough for me - at least as good as Jason Calacanis. Who is still insisting on his Twitter feed that he really is a beta tester, with all sorts of "new" details - wireless charging, facial recognition, Farmville where you shake the tablet to plant seeds. Oh, Jason. You're either so right, in which case nobody with a secret will ever trust you again, or so lying, in which case nobody hearing you will ever trust you again.

3.58pm: OK, it can't sensibly be called the iPad - that's already been taken and it's on Apple's site. Don't all rush to look. (CA)

3.51pm: Bobbie writes (again): Morning all, or I suppose I should say good afternoon to those reading in the UK. Whatever time zone you're in, the one thing I do know is that it's early here in San Francisco, and I've just had my cornflakes.

If Apple launches are among the most hyped in the world, then this is the zenith of the company's hype curve: years in the making, it has built up an insane head of steam in the last couple of months. Various reports suggest it's going to revolutionise the newspaper and publishing industries, become a major gaming platform and even sport a 3D display. By this point, frankly, even if Steve Jobs gets on stage and announces that the tablet is able to communicate with alien life forms, I'm not sure it will be enough.

3.48pm: ZOMG APPLE HAS A PATENT. Something like that: according to Patently Apple, the fruitily-named company has a new patent on a tablet. Which comes with a helpful illustration that looks like this:

What do we think? Is that a tablet or what?

3.38pm: Our very own Jemima Kiss, presently occupied mothering, adds: "Anticipating that 'magazines & newspapers' tab being added to the iTunes Store..." Score 5: insightful.

3.26pm: Just to reiterate, once Bobbie Johnson gets to the fabulous Yerba Buena centre in San Francisco he'll begin liveblogging all the colour. In the meantime, there's this picture by John Gruber of its exterior yesterday.

3.09pm: Bets! Paddypower is offering you odds on various names. It's almost painful. Here we go: iTablet 1/2; iPad 3/1; iSlate 3/1; iBook 12/1; iPage 33/1; iPaper 33/1; iCan 33/1; tons of other daft ones including EtchaSketch 40/1 or worse.

Now, remember the rule: bookies make money. So what's the chance that any of those is the name? Pretty much close to zero. (Mine isn't there, though it is in our crowdsourcing contest for the iGadget's details - which is still open for another 50 minutes. Pile in!)

2.08pm: Now, the publisher Condé Nast is going to have some ebook/magazine content on the iGadget (our holding name for this half hour - we'll work through others later). Among its publications is Wired. And hey, whaddyaknow, Wired.com has some interesting angles on what's coming up - which is presented as stuff they know, rather than "comment", which is itself very unusual for an American publication:

"HTML5 and iTunes will form the centerpieces of Apple's new content strategy. The new iTunes content will not be packaged as apps sold through the App Store, though Apple will likely provide a tablet app for displaying new content created with this new platform, and developers will still be free to create apps. Instead, HTML content will be presented similar to the way iTunes currently presents enhanced music and video content."

"The focus is going to be on content creation and participation," a technologist with close ties to Apple told Wired.com. "If the tablet is going to be an answer to things like the Kindle, which are purely about consumption, what you're going to see is Apple is going to be full-blown about creation."

Then again, that might mean it's just the introduction of iLife '10. Shudder.

1.30pm: The Wall Street Journal has claimed that book publishers are in 11th-hour negotiations about the business model for books - that it's pushing prices up, rather than down, and that there will be a 30-70 Apple-publisher split.

That could mess things up for Amazon - it's been pushing prices on ebooks down, but publishers haven't liked that at all. Is the Kindle going to become the Diamond Rio of ebook readers?

1.00pm: Remember the old days, when the FA Cup final simply began on the TV screen when the referee's whistle blew? Not any longer - these days you follow the teams pretty much from the moment they awake (or pour out of last night's bars). And so it is with technology: Apple's expected announcement today of its iSlate/iPad/iBook/iTablet/Canvas/Palette is the sort of event which generates more news than can be consumed locally.

So, let's get underway. First, there's the oopsie moment by Terry McGraw, chief executive of McGraw-Hill, who 27/01/2010 11:00 AM

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".

The 226-page UN report follows the publication two months ago of 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."

Aliens can't hear us, says astronomer

Fainter broadcasting signals and digital switchover mean Earth will soon be undetectable to extraterrestrials

Human beings are making it harder for extraterrestials to pick up our broadcasts 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. The theory is that elsewhere in the galaxy other civilisations would probably be 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 that 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 that 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 said. 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."

Jon Gaunt wins right to free speech challenge

Radio presenter and columnist Jon Gaunt given permission for human rights challenge to censure of TalkSport comments

The radio presenter Jon Gaunt won his battle today to take the media regulator Ofcom to a judicial review over a live interview in which he called a councillor a "Nazi".

Gaunt's legal team argued before a high court judge that by finding him in breach of the broadcasting code Ofcom had breached his right to freedom of expression under the Human Rights Act.

Ofcom ruled last year that Gaunt had overstepped the mark in November 2008 when he called an interviewee ? Michael Stark, the head of children's services at Redbridge council ? a "Nazi", "health Nazi" and "ignorant pig" over plans to ban smokers from fostering children.

Gaunt, who was himself taken into care as a child, made the remarks after Stark suggested his upbringing had "obviously had an effect" on him. Gaunt later apologised for his language, but TalkSport fired him 10 days later after the interview was broadcast.

After a high court hearing lasting two-and-a-half hours, Mr Justice Stadlen decided that the case had sufficient merit to be heard fully at a two-day judicial review.

As a self-styled shock jock and the presenter of the SunTalk internet radio show, Gaunt is an unlikely advocate of human rights legislation.

"Some people say I'm a hypocrite," he said after the hearing. "But it's only when your freedom is being curtailed that you realise how important it is. It goes back to Magna Carta ? as an Englishman, I have a right to say what I feel."

He criticised Ofcom as an unnecessary regulator that curbed freedom of expression. "We don't need Ofcom, we have got an off switch," he said. "We have an draconian, unelected, expensive to run quango of do-gooders who can stand there and say 'this is good taste and decency'. We don't need them... We have the law of the land. If I say something, you can sue me."

Gaunt also found an unlikely backer in Shami Chakrabarti, the director of Liberty, whom he once branded "Britain's most dangerous woman".

Chakrabarti attended today's hearing, and said afterwards that the case was a very significant test of free speech in Britain.

"This is not about one journalist and one politician," she said. "There is a big principle here. People do not have the right not to be offended. It's a very dangerous right to assert."

She said it was "a chilling moment" when Ofcom's barrister argued that Gaunt's interview did not represent "political speech". "Ofcom needs to wear its power with a little more humility," she added.

An Ofcom spokesman said after the hearing:"Ofcom's role is to decide whether a particular broadcast is in breach of generally accepted standards in the Broadcasting Code.

"In this particular broadcast, Ofcom decided that Jon Gaunt went too far with offensive language and a bullying style.

"The judge made it clear he was not making a decision on the case but simply referring it to a full hearing because it met the low threshold of arguability."

In court today, Gaunt's barrister, Gavin Millar QC, said the presenter's choice of language did not merit censure by Ofcom.

"In the 21st century, in a heated debate with a politician, to call them an ignorant pig is not the stuff of an intervention by a regulator," he told the court.

"It's not offensive material of the sort to justify invention by a regulator ? it's a very sad day for free speech if that justifies intervention by a regulator."

David Anderson QC, acting for Ofcom, said it was inappropriate to invoke the human rights act in the case of Gaunt's interview.

"It degenerated to a point where it was not an interview at all," he said. "There was a succession of insults, people lost their tempers.

"To suggest a dialogue of that kind is entitled to a high degree of protection is just wrong."

He said Gaunt's show had attracted 203 complaints over the course of 138 programmes, with 53 prompted by the interview with Stark.

The judge concluded that Gaunt's case was "arguable" and granted permission for it to be taken further.

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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.

Lebedev sells Aeroflot stake in $575m deal

London Evening Standard owner makes cash move during Independent negotiations, but talks of Russian investments

The Russian businessman and London Evening Standard owner Alexander Lebedev is to sell his stake in the Russian airline Aeroflot for $400m (£247m), a cash-raising move that comes as he holds talks over the purchase of the Independent.

Lebedev reached agreement with Aeroflot's board late on Tuesday night, he told the Guardian today. The board agreed to purchase Lebedev's 25.8% share of Aeroflot, which is held by his National Reserve Corporation. Lebedev was Aeroflot's biggest private shareholder.

Independent News & Media confirmed last month that it was in exclusive non-binding talks with Lebedev over the sale of the Independent and Independent on Sunday.

Talks over the future ownership of the two London-based papers are due to conclude by 15 February. The company's pension deficits and printing deals appear to be the final negotiating points.

Speaking to the Guardian today, Lebedev dismissed any link between the sale of his Aeroflot shares and a possible imminent purchase of the Independent and the Independent on Sunday. However, he joked: "With that kind of money I could probably buy all of the newspapers [in Britain]."

Instead, Lebedev said he had reached a "gentleman's agreement with the Russian government to invest the money in various social and development projects".

These included low-cost housing, a building society for ordinary savers, and factories for his agricultural businesses that grow high-quality, low-cost potatoes.

Lebedev said he had also agreed to order and buy new Russian-made aircraft for his budget airline, Red Wings. He said he would also boost the capital of his National Reserve Bank and make it more "transparent". According to the Russian financial newspaper Kommersant, he is also selling his 26% in Ilyushin Finance, an air leasing company, to the Russian state bank VEB for $175m.

The sale of Lebedev's Aeroflot stake is likely to dispel lingering questions about his liquidity and his ability to buy the Independent, following a bruising 18 months in which Russia's oligarchs have seen their fortunes shrink dramatically. Lebedev suggested today that his assets and investments are worth around $3bn.

Last year Lebedev was briefly unable to pay salaries for journalists working on his Novaya Gazeta newspaper after his German-based airline, Blue Wings, was temporarily grounded. The airline has recently encountered fresh financial problems and was grounded again this month by the German regulator.

The price paid by the government for the stakes in Aeroflot and Ilyushin was at a 20% discount to their current market valuation by Ernst & Young, Lebedev said.

He acknowledged that he had clashed in the past with Aeroflot's board of directors, and said that one government director had told him last night "with a laugh" that it would now be easier to take decisions without him.

The website of Novaya Gazeta ? known for its fearless criticism of the Kremlin ? was inaccessible for much of today following a "powerful and pre-planned" attack by unknown hackers yesterday. The title, which Lebedev co-owns with Mikhail Gorbachev and its editorial team, is the latest in a series of liberal publications in Russia to come under DDOS attack.

Staff today would not speculate on the identity of the hackers. But they said that the sheer scale of the attack ? with more than a million hits a second on the server ? suggested this was done by a "highly sophisticated" state agency unhappy with the paper's editorial direction.

"We are not talking about a couple of students here," Nadezhda Prusenkova, spokeswoman for the paper, said.

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Footballers 'bribed officials to play for China'

200,000 yuan buys international call-up, claims Shangai report, as sports minister says corruption is deeply rooted

Chinese footballers paid to play in international matches, a Shanghai newspaper claimed , as the country's sports minister warned that the roots of corruption ran deep in the game.

The allegations come weeks after the head of the Chinese Football Association and two other officials were sacked and questioned by police over match-fixing.

The state of the game has long been a matter of despair and a source of bitter humour for its followers. Despite China's sporting excellence ? it took more golds in the 2008 Olympics than any other country ? its football team now ranks number 97 in the world.

That position is perhaps unsurprising when, according to the Oriental Morning Post, a bribe of 200,000 yuan (£18,000) could win a footballer a call-up to a match. That is a huge sum, given the low wages earned by most players.

Further down the scale, a single trip to the national youth squad's camp cost 80,000 yuan, while a place at the adult camp cost 100,000 yuan, the newspaper said. It did not say who received the bribes, although football association officials have considerable control over staff and coaching decisions.

An association spokesman told the Associated Press he would need permission from higher ranking officials to comment on the report.

The fresh scandal came as sports minister Liu Peng warned that growing revenue could create new opportunities for corruption.

Despite poor performance and anger at corruption, the 16-team China Super League set a record attendance average of 16,300 a game last season. Nike and Pirelli have made a combined annual commitment of $22m (£13.56m) to sponsor the league.

"China's sports have developed well in the past few years and we are better off now. As the industry grows, there are increasing title sponsorships and advertising revenue so it is becoming a high-risk area for corruption," Liu told a national meeting of sports bureau chiefs.

According to state news agency Xinhua, he added: "We are very sad and deeply shocked by the serious problems exposed recently in football. The roots of the problem go back a long way. It is a warning to us that we have a long way to go to rule out corruption among sports officials."

China Daily said he vowed "no mercy" for those engaged in match-fixing and gambling.

The campaign to curb abuses began last August but took off in earnest after China's president, Hu Jintao, voiced concerns about the sport late last year.

Last month more than 20 sports officials were detained on suspicion of charges including bribing or threatening players and referees to determine the outcome of games. That was followed by the arrest and dismissal of officials including football association head Nan Yong, who had earlier condemned match-fixing as a "cancer" which needed to be eradicated ruthlessly.

Lang Xiaonong, a former official with the football association, told China Daily the problems were structural. "A small number of top officials made all the decisions on Chinese soccer and determined the destiny of the sport. There was not enough discussion nor democratic decision-making, let alone democratic supervision," he said.

The latest revelations have further depressed supporters. "I have felt more and more disappointed as more and more scandals have come out," said 29-year-old Ma Rui from Beijing, who has been following football for over a decade.

"Even North Korea's team is now better than ours. When I watch its team playing I feel it is very pure, but there are too many things like money and business involved in Chinese football."

He added: "There is still hope. What Chinese football needs most is a good environment and I believe that could be created, depending on how tough they are in clearing it up this time. Exploding these scandals is a good thing."

Pete Doherty 'stupid or publicity hungry'

Rock star fined £750 for possession and chastised by magistrate after taking bag of drugs to December hearing

The rock star Pete Doherty was accused by a judge today of being either stupid or publicity hungry for dropping a bag of heroin as he left court after a previous hearing.

Doherty was arrested when he dropped a bag containing nine wraps of heroin while walking out of Gloucester crown court last month, having admitted driving offences.

Today, his lawyer, Bruce Clark, said the problem was that the Babyshambles singer had too many suit jackets and had forgotten to check his pockets.

"My client was in a rush to get to court. He was handed a coat in the morning and he didn't check the pockets.

"My client has many suits and did not know there was anything in the pocket. He had been in and out of court twice before the package fell out of his pocket. He feels very stupid ? but he accepts responsibility.

"He is currently receiving treatment to get him off the drugs and he wasn't aware he would find drugs in his suit pocket. This was no mickey take, it was a mistake."

District judge Joti Boparai, sitting at Gloucester magistrates' court, said Doherty was either very stupid for dropping the drugs in court or he was "doing it for publicity".

She said: "I am sure by your reputation this was simply stupidity on your part and it wasn't any more than that. It was simply an error."

Doherty was fined £750 for possessing heroin and told to pay his previous fine of £2,050 for drink driving and driving carelessly.

After the hearing Doherty, who arrived 45 minutes late for court, said: "I'm pleased with the result."