Foreign Office officials believe elements of Taliban ready to talk but fears grow of long Afghan conflict, and growing casualties
Britain will today urge the Afghan government to put more effort into the pursuit of peace talks amid fears that the war could be prolonged ? and more British lives lost ? as a result of incompetence and lack of political will in Kabul.
A speech to be delivered in the US by the foreign secretary, David Miliband, will reflect growing anxiety in London that President Hamid Karzai's professed desire for a political solution has not been backed up by any serious planning or concrete proposals.
Unless more pressure is put on the Afghan government, some British officials predict that Karzai's proposed loya jirga, or grand peace council, due at the end of next month, will be little more than a PR stunt. "My argument today is that now is the time for the Afghans to pursue a political settlement with as much vigour and energy as we are pursuing the military and civilian effort," Miliband will say at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, according to a text of the address seen by the Guardian.
British officials believe that significant Taliban leaders are ready to start talking about a political settlement in which they would sever ties with al-Qaida and put down weapons in return for a role in politics. But there is also concern that opportunities to open a preliminary dialogue are being lost, and that the conflict, which has already cost more than 270 British lives, is being intensified by Kabul's inefficiency and corruption.
"The Afghans must own, lead and drive such political engagement," Miliband will say in his speech. "It will be a slow, gradual process. But the insurgents will want to see international support.
"International engagement, for example under the auspices of the UN, may ultimately be required."
Karzai presented a paper on political reconciliation at a conference held by Gordon Brown in London in January. But officials who saw it, and subsequent Afghan proposals on peace talks, have variously described them as "empty" and "a C-team effort".
Gerard Russell, at the Carr Centre for Human Rights at Harvard University, said: "We had a look at the Afghan government's thinking on reconciliation, but we haven't seen a concrete proposal or a workable methodology."
Russell, a former political adviser to the UN mission in Afghanistan, added: "There is a talk about having a loya jirga. But what is a loya jirga going to do? On its own, its not going to achieve anything."
The growing alarm at the lack of political initiative in Kabul comes at a time when back-channel contacts with the Taliban have also run into trouble, paradoxically as a result of a Taliban arrest hailed as a triumph last month.
Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the head of the Taliban's military operations seized in Karachi by Pakistani intelligence agents, had taken part in tentative and secret contacts with Saudi intermediaries last year.
One participant in those talks told the Guardian that Baradar's arrest had been "a huge blow" to the peace effort.
Britain's special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, has been sent to Kabul as caretaker ambassador, with the primary mission of trying to inject more substance into the loya jirga planned for 29 April. Tomorrow, Miliband will also call for a direct international role in managing the peace process. Miliband's speech also carries a message for Washington.
While Britain's Foreign Office believes work on peace talks should begin straight away and be pushed behind the scenes by the Obama administration, most US officials, and some British generals, question whether such negotiations would produce results before Taliban morale has been depleted by the military surge.
"There is an important US audience for this," a British official said. "Nobody wants a PR stunt in Kabul that doesn't lead anywhere."
AfghanistanForeign policyDavid MilibandHamid KarzaiJulian Borger
Grenades set off in offices of World Vision humanitarian group
Attackers armed with grenades bombed the offices of an international aid group in north-west Pakistan today, killing five people working for the organisation, police said.
The attack targeted World Vision, a large Christian humanitarian group helping survivors of the 2005 Kashmir earthquake in Mansehra district.
The dead were all Pakistanis and included two women, said a police official, Mohammad Sabir.
Al-Qaida, the Taliban and allied groups are strong in north-western Pakistan, but Mansehra lies outside the tribal belt next to Afghanistan where the militants have their main bases.
Extremists have killed other people working for foreign aid groups in Pakistan and issued statements saying such organisations are working against Islam. The attacks have greatly hampered efforts to raise living standards in the desperately poor region.
Militants see the aid groups as a challenge to their authority. The aid groups often employ women and support women's rights initiatives, angering the extremists.
Many foreign aid groups set up offices in Mansehra after the 2005 earthquake, which killed about 80,000 people.
In 2008 militants in Mansehra killed four Pakistanis working for Plan International, a British-based charity that focuses on helping children.
PakistanInternational aid and developmentCharities
? 1,600 homes to be built in East Jerusalem settlement
? Vice-president says the deal undermines trust
Joe Biden, the US vice-president, condemned a plan by Israel to build 1,600 homes on occupied Palestinian land in an East Jerusalem settlement.
The Israeli interior ministry's approval of the plan cast a cloud over a visit to the country by Biden just hours after he pledged strong support for the Israeli government.
In an unusually strong statement issued after he arrived 90 minutes late for a dinner with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, Biden said: "I condemn the decision by the government of Israel to advance planning for new housing units."
He said the blueprint for Ramat Shlomo, an ultra-Orthodox settlement in an area of the West Bank annexed to Jerusalem, "undermines the trust we need right now and runs counter to the constructive discussions I've had in Israel".
The approvals came just a day after the Israeli defence ministry announced that 112 apartments would be built in Beitar Illit, a settlement on the occupied West Bank. The new building comes at a delicate moment in the long-stalled peace process after Israeli and Palestinian leaders agreed to start indirect negotiations.
The interior ministry said the Ramat Shlomo approvals had been passed by the Jerusalem district planning committee. A spokeswoman said there were 60 days to appeal against the decision. Ramat Shlomo, built 15 years ago, is on land captured in the West Bank in 1967 and annexed to Israel in a move not recognised by the international community.
Israel's interior minister, Eli Yishai, who heads a religious party in Netanyahu's governing coalition, said the timing of the plan's approval was coincidental. "There was certainly no intention to provoke anyone and certainly not to come along and hurt the vice-president of the United States," Yishai told Israel's Channel One television.
"Final approval [for the project] will take another few months. I agree that the timing [of the announcement] should have been in another two or three weeks."
Two years ago, when the Israeli government approved 1,300 homes in the same settlement, then US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, criticised the move as having a "negative effect" on peace talks.
Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, said the announcements were "destroying our efforts" in peace negotiations.
"With such an announcement, how can you build trust?" he said. "It's a disastrous situation."
Earlier in the day, Biden said Israel and the Palestinians needed to "take risks for peace". But his talk of a "moment of opportunity" obscures a reality in which the two sides are a long way apart. Although the peace process has been under way for nearly two decades, there have been no direct negotiations between Israeli and Palestinian leaders since Israel's war in Gaza a year ago.
Palestinian officials refused to hold direct talks unless Israel halted all settlement construction, in line with the demands of the US administration and of the US road map. But Netanyahu, agreed only to a temporary, partial curb to settlement building. It did not include East Jerusalem, or public buildings, or homes where construction had already started.
In talks with Netanyahu, Biden appeared to focus not on the struggling peace process but on Iran, saying Washington was committed to preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. "There is no space between the US and Israel when it comes to Israel's security," Biden said after their meeting.
"We are determined to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons," Biden said.
In private, he is also believed to have cautioned the Israeli government against any unilateral military strike on Iran, and to have tried to win Israeli support for the US administration's policy, which is moving towards sanctions against Iran.
Netanyahu made clear the Israeli government hoped for a tougher sanction regime against Iran. "The stronger those sanctions are, the more likely it will be that the Iranian regime will have to chose between advancing its nuclear programme and advancing the future of its own permanence," he said. Netanyahu frequently cites the need to address Iran's nuclear ambitions as his priority in government and Israeli leaders have pointedly not ruled out a military option.
IsraelPalestinian territoriesMiddle EastUS foreign policyUnited StatesJoe BidenBinyamin NetanyahuRory McCarthy
Kurdish alliance set to play prominent role in coalition government despite Gorran group breaking away
A strong turnout from Iraq's Kurds in national elections on Sunday has enhanced their status of kingmakers in forming the central government, with preliminary voting results expected within 24 hours.
The electoral commission said today that votes had now all been counted, although the official results will not be declared until the end of March.
The ballot appears to have narrowly favoured the political list of the incumbent prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, but the rival bloc of former leader Iyad Alawi is also predicted to have performed well. Whoever wins will have to form a coalition in order to build a government, with the Kurds expected to play a prominent role.
However for the first time, a nascent Kurdish opposition has threatened to splinter the Kurdish alliance, whose truculent factions have invariably united when dealing with post-Saddam Baghdad. The allegiances of a breakaway Kurdish group, Gorran, are an unknown factor in the post-election negotiations. Gorran is thought to have won about 15 seats in the new 325 seat parliament, damaging the bloc of warlord turned president Jalal Talabani, who wants a second term as Iraq's head of state.
Even if Maliki, or his bloc, ends up with the most popular votes, his claim on the prime ministership remains heavily contingent on his ability to appease potential coalition partners and the residual wrath of any enemies he has made during the past four turbulent years. Maliki's supporters were privately claiming today that he has won as many as 85 seats in the new parliament, having swept the south and performed solidly in Baghdad.
Alwai's backers were equally upbeat, with a senior figure in Iraqiya, the secular alliance he took to the election, also claiming the party had won 85 seats. In private, officials are hoping for as many as 110.
A total of 38 people were killed in violence that heralded Sunday's ballot, but so far there have been no claims of vote-rigging or fraud. Election observers have generally endorsed the conduct of the election, which saw a 62% turnout nationwide, and up to a 73% showing of registered voters at provinces that had boycotted the previous poll.
IraqKurdsMartin Chulov
Four men and three women suspected of planning to kill Lars Vilks, who has had al-Qaida bounty on his head since 2007
Irish police today arrested seven suspects over an alleged plot to kill a Swedish artist who drew the Prophet Muhammad with the body of a dog.
The target of the alleged assassination was Lars Vilks, who had a $100,000 (£67,000) bounty put on his head by al-Qaida in 2007, with a 50% bonus if Vilks was "slaughtered like a lamb" by having his throat cut. Another $50,000 was said to have been put on the life of Ulf Johansson, editor-in-chief of Nerikes Allehanda, the local newspaper that printed the cartoon.
The four men and three women, who were detained at about 10am this morning, are in their mid-20s to late-40s and are being held at stations in Waterford, Tramore, Dungarvan and Thomastown. Garda sources have confirmed that some of those arrested hold Irish citizenship and a number are from the Middle East. Some of those questioned have been confirmed as converts to Islam.
The suspects are being held under Ireland's Criminal Justice Act 2007. Under Irish law they can be held in custody for up to seven days.
Ireland's anti-terrorist special detective unit was involved in the operation. A spokesman for the force said: "Throughout the investigation Garda Síochána has been working closely with law enforcement agencies in the United States and in a number of European countries." The CIA and the FBI were involved in the investigation.
Vilks' cartoon caused outrage because dogs are considered unclean by conservative Muslims, and Islamic law generally opposes any depiction of the prophet for fear it could lead to idolatry.
The controversy over cartoons depicting Muhammad began in 2005, when the Danish daily Jyllands-Posten printed 12 caricatures of the prophet after a children's author said he could not find an illustrator for his book on the life of Muhammad.
The drawings sparked violent protests across the Muslim world, culminating with the burning of the Danish embassy in Damascus and its consulate in Beirut in February 2006.
Irelandal-QaidaGlobal terrorismSwedenHenry McDonald
? Former choirmaster did not know of sexual abuse
? Pupils claim headteacher was sexual 'sadist'
The elder brother of Pope Benedict XVI admitted today that he slapped pupils at a Catholic boarding school where he was choirmaster and was aware of violent incidents that took place at the school, but not the extent of the abuse. He asked victims for forgiveness for his failure to act.
Georg Ratzinger, 86, who was choirmaster at the Regensburger Domspatzen in Bavaria between 1964 to 1994, said he occasionally struck boys in his care, according to what he said had been the "normal reaction" at the time.
But he denied any knowledge of sexual abuse. "These things were never discussed," Ratzinger told the Catholic daily, the Passauer Neue Presse. "The problem of sexual abuse that has now come to light was never spoken of."
Former pupils at the boarding school to which the choir was attached have reported how the former headteacher was a "sadist" who "imposed a reign of terror", and beat the children "black and blue".
A composer, Franz Wittenbrink, who was a pupil at the school, has spoken of an "ingenious system of sadistic punishments linked to sexual satisfaction", claiming that the headteacher, who died in 1992, had habitually "taken two or three" eight and nine year old boys "into his room of an evening" and plied them with wine and masturbated with them. In one incident he is accused of beating a boy with a stool until it broke.
Ratzinger said he himself had occasionally given boys "clips round the ear", as part of the "discipline and rigour" needed to reach a "high musical and artistic level", but had "never beaten" pupils "black and blue". He said he had been "relieved" when a ban on corporal punishment had put an end to the practice.
"I always had a bad conscience and I was happy when in 1980 corporal punishment was banned by lawmakers," he said. He described the practice of striking pupils as "simply the normal reaction to failings or disobedience".
He said he recalled being struck himself once as a child "for mixing up a school book", but could not recall any incident in which the future pope, then Joseph Ratzinger, had been maltreated.
Ratzinger said he had only learned later that the headmaster at the school between 1953 and 1992, who has been identified only as Johann M, had been "very violent", but had not known the extent of the abuse. "Had I known at the time what excessive violence he was using I would have said something back then," he said.
He said that nowadays such incidents are "condemned more, because we have become more sensitive". He said choirboys had referred to physical abuse during concert tours, "but their reports didn't reach me to the extent that I believed I had to intervene," Ratzinger said.
Asked why the church had held its silence over the issue for so long, he replied: "I believe it's not only the church that was silent. In the whole of society people didn't want to get involved in things that they themselves would nevertheless have condemned." He said today he would view the matter differently, and for that, he said, he apologised to the victims.
The school where the abuse took place was attached to the choir but the two institutions were independent of each other.
Earlier this week Ratzinger told La Repubblica he was willing to give evidence to an inquiry into sexual abuse at the school.
The revelations from Regensburg are the latest in a string of abuse scandals to have shaken the Catholic church in Germany since January. On an almost daily basis new incidents have come to light over abuse at church-run schools which took place over decades and in recent days reported incidents have also started coming from Austria and the Netherlands.
The pope himself is likely to be called to question over how much he personally knew of sexual abuse in the church during his time as professor of theology in the 1960s, most prominently at Regensburg University and later as Archbishop of Munich and Freising between 1971 and 1982.
GermanyPope Benedict XVICatholicismReligionKate Connolly
A metre of snow fell in the Pyrenees leaving 6,000 travellers stranded and blocking up to 40 roads
In pictures: Barcelona in the snow
Nearly a quarter of a million people in north-eastern Spain were without power yesterday after the heaviest snowfall in decades brought major disruption to the region.
A metre of snow fell in the Pyrenees leaving 6,000 travellers stranded and blocking up to 40 roads on the border between Spain and France. Barcelona recorded its heaviest snowfall since 1962 causing road, rail and flight chaos.
Catalonia's interior minister, Joan Boada, said the power cuts, caused by a fault in a high-tension cable, were affecting the area around Girona, 60 miles north of Barcelona.
Spain's border with France at La Junquera was closed causing 30-mile traffic jams while 170,000 pupils had the day off as schools were shut, local newspapers reported. About 3,000 people were put up in a town hall overnight and many others stranded in their cars as railway lines and roads became impassable, Boada said.
Tens of thousands more were unable to get home after snow fell at lunchtime and many left their offices to photograph the rare scenes of central Barcelona and its beach lying under a blanket of snow.
"I've never seen anything like this here in all my life," said Barcelona resident Raquel Lasmarias, 35.
The Catalan regional president, José Montilla, toured the affected areas admitting things would not get back to normal as quickly as might be hoped. "Some things cannot be repaired in hours," he said.
Girona, where 50cm of snow fell, was effectively cut off from the rest of Catalonia with most roads and rail lines blocked and only five of the scheduled 31 departures leaving its airport. The Catalan meteorological office said conditions would slowly improve but warned that unusually cold conditions would continue with widespread frost and ice.
In the Aude region of southern France, firefighters brought hot supplies to 1,800 passengers stuck on trains, AFP reported.
"In Perpignan, passengers were able to bed down on a sleeper train, but we spent the night sitting up and didn't even get blankets until 3:00 am," complained Jean-Marc Rossignol, escorting his 75- and a 82-year-old parents to Toulouse.
SpainNatural disasters and extreme weatherJames Sturcke
China and India formally endorse the last-minute climate agreement struck at the Copenhagen summit
China and India wrote to the UN's climate secretariat today agreeing to be "listed" as a parties to the Copenhagen accord, the last-minute agreement that emerged from the chaos of the UN's summit in Copenhagen.
The action falls short of full "association" and highlights the gulf between the US ? the strongest backer of the accord ? and the other key nations on how to deliver a global deal to combat climate change.
Since Copenhagen, there has been confusion over how a legally binding treaty to reduce greenhouse gas emissions can be achieved. All observers, including the UN's top climate official, Yvo de Boer, are now clear that no such deal will be signed in 2010, with a meeting in South Africa in December 2011 now seen as the earliest date.
At the heart of the disagreement is whether a new global treaty, like the existing Kyoto protocol, must be agreed unanimously by all 192 members of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and be a continuation of Kyoto, which enshrines bindings carbon cuts on industrialised nations but not on developing ones.
In a letter to de Boer, Trigg Valley, the director of the US office of global climate change, did move back from earlier suggestions that the US wanted to ditch the UN process, seen as cumbersome by some, and negotiate climate change in a smaller group like the G20 or Major Economies Forum. But he has proposed to set aside some of the existing UN texts, which had been laboriously negotiated over several years, and replace them with passages from the Copenhagen accord.
In the letter from India, Rajani Ranjan Rashmi, environment and forests minister, states baldly the unacceptability of this approach: "The accord is not a new track of negotiations or a template for outcomes."
China's submissions are also unequivocal. The Chinese prime minister, Wen Jiabao, strongly backs the UN process and its consensus-based approach to reaching agreement. "It is neither viable nor acceptable to start a new negotiation process outside the [UNFCCC] and the [Kyoto] protocol", he said.
The US now appears isolated as China, India and many other countries, firmly support the idea of continuing with the two existing UN negotiating tracks to try to achieve a consensus.
The battle of the texts was fought for much of last year with the US backed by Britain and the rest of Europe. Today, the European Commission's first formal statement since Copenhagen offered some support for the US: "The political guidance in the Copenhagen Accord ? which was not formally adopted as a UN decision ? needs to be integrated into the UN negotiating texts that contain the basis of the future global climate agreement."
But some rich country governments now accept privately that they had "crossed a red line" and failed to recognise that developing countries had not been prepared to abandon the Kyoto protocol without a new legal agreement in place to ensure developed countries reduced emissions.
"The US wants to appear to be leading the world on climate change but it is in a very, very difficult position," said Tom Burke, founder of the consultancy E3G, citing the difficulty President Obama faces in getting a climate change bill through a reluctant senate.
In an recent interview with the Guardian, Yvo de Boer,, played down talk of radical change to the way to the UN process demands unanimous decisions, which some, including Gordon Brown, blamed for a lack of progress in climate talks. He said a major stumbling block to an agreement remained mistrust between the developing and developed countries over the finance needed to help countries adapt to the impacts of global warming.
Rich countries had offered "recycled contributions from the past" he said, while the build-up to the Copenhagen summit had focused too much on the issue of binding emission reduction targets. De Boer has announced he will step down from the UNFCCC in July. Yesterday, the South African tourism minister, Marthinus van Schalkwyk, was nominated by President Jacob Zuma as a candidate. But other candidates, including from India and possibly Indonesia, are expected to make the private shortlist from which the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, will make his choice.
Copenhagen climate change conference 2009Climate changeKyoto protocolUnited NationsIndiaChinaJohn VidalDavid AdamDamian Carrington
Mattel to launch Don Draper, Joan Holloway and Sterling Cooper dolls ? but without the whisky and cigarettes
It is a move that would have the male denizens of Sterling Cooper reaching for their whisky and cigarettes. Don Draper, a symbol of pre-sexual revolution male values from the hit TV show Mad Men, is to be made into a Barbie doll.
The licensing rights to Draper and three other characters from the critically acclaimed series have been acquired by toy firm Mattel to be part of a line called the Barbie Fashion Model Collection.
The featured dolls ? Draper, his wife, Betty, and colleagues John Sterling and Joan Holloway ? will cost $74.95 (£50.16) each.
Mattel's senior vice president, Stephanie Cota, told the New York Times: "The dolls, we feel, do a great job of embodying the series. Certain things are appropriate and certain things aren't."
Given the drinking, infidelity and smoking that marks the show's chronicle of life at a New York advertising agency, the line of dolls will be aimed at the adult collectibles market and not the young girls who comprise Barbie's massive fan base.
The Mad Men dolls will be in shops this summer, just in time for the start of a fourth season of the show.
Mad MenToysTelevisionUnited StatesPaul Harris
Official denies former Russian spy's family were denied status because of Silvio Berlusconi's friendship with Vladimir Putin
The Italian government today claimed that European regulations, not Silvio Berlusconi's friendship with Vladimir Putin, were behind the decision to refuse refugee status to the family of the murdered Russian exile Alexander Litvinenko.
After Litvinenko, a former Russian spy, was poisoned in London in 2006, his father, Walter, half-sister, Tatiana, and other relatives moved to Italy to claim refugee status.
They alleged that the delay in their case was due to the close ties between the Italian prime minister and his Russian counterpart, and Walter Litvinenko claimed his family had been harassed by Italian police.
A spokesman for Berlusconi denied the Litvinenkos had been abandoned and said Italy had applied a European directive granting the family so-called subsidiary protection status, which grants similar rights to refugee status.
"They have full protection ? it is the maximum allowed by law," he said. "It means they are considered individuals who cannot return to their country of origin because they fear being subjected to violence."
Italy has held back from granting full refugee status, which is enshrined in the Geneva convention and awarded to people suffering persecution due to race, religion, nationality, membership of a social group or political opinion.
Although Litvinenko's murder was widely believed to be political, the new status his relatives have been granted excludes that of people persecuted for their political views, since it is applied "when the applicant does not fulfil the requirements for becoming a refugee", according to the European Union description of the 2004 directive.
However, it does apply to those who face the general threat of torture and human rights violations as well as "indiscriminate violence arising in situations of armed conflict", for example where large groups flee warzones.
The spokesman said subsidiary protection status had been granted to Walter Litvinenko, his wife and his daughter in February. His son, Maxim, was granted the same status in 2008, he added.
ItalyRussiaAlexander LitvinenkoSilvio BerlusconiVladimir PutinTom Kington
Bill to reserve one-third of legislative seats for women clears first hurdle
After two days of acrimonious and chaotic scenes, India's upper house of parliament voted overwhelmingly today to pass a historic bill that would reserve a third of legislative seats for women.
Manmohan Singh, the prime minister, described the 186-1 vote as a "historic step forward toward emancipation of Indian womanhood". Sonia Gandhi, the president of the Indian National Congress party and chair of the ruling coalition, said that it was "a happy day".
"The first step has been taken ? the next step will also have to be taken," she told reporters. The bill now goes to the lower house, where it is considered likely to pass, despite substantial opposition.
Seven members of the upper house, the Rajya Sabha, were suspended after staging a sit-in protest against the proposed law. Indian media ran headlines about "the seven who blocked 1.2 billion people".
The bill to reserve one-third of legislative seats for women in national and state parliaments has faced strong opposition since it was first proposed in 1996. Many political leaders have worried that their male-dominated parties would lose seats in favour of those parties counting more women in their ranks.
The principal objection of those blocking proceedings this week was that the bill does not go far enough and that a number of the women's seats should be reserved for ethnic and religious minorities and people from low castes.
The bill is expected to be taken up in the powerful lower house of parliament, the Lok Sabha, next week. It will also have to be approved by 15 of India's 28 states before it becomes law.
The proposal is an attempt to correct some of the deep gender disparities in India, where women suffer disproportionately from illiteracy, poverty and low social status. If signed into law it would raise the number of female representatives in the 545-seat lower house to 181 from the current 59. It would nearly quadruple the number of women in the 250-seat upper house.
"This is legislation that ensures that the slogan of inclusion is transformed from slogans to legislative and constitutional guarantees," Brinda Karat of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) argued during today's debate. "In the name of tradition, stereotypes are imposed and we have to fight these every day."
Though the ruling coalition government retains a comfortable overall majority, the controversy over the women's bill comes amid broad discontent over issues such as food inflation and a proposed hike in fuel prices.
One key player in the forthcoming parliamentary battle will be maverick populist Mamata Banerjee of the All India Trinamool Congress, who did a last minute U-turn and voted against the bill today. However, Banerjee's 19 Lok Sabha members will be outweighed by opposition and Communist groups who have already announced their support for the legislation.
Arun Jaitley, a senior leader of the opposition Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata party, said the party "unequivocally" supported the bill, telling parliament it was unfortunate that 63 years after India's independence, women had only 10% representation in the lower house of parliament.
Though India has a number of prominent and powerful female politicians, measures to increase women's political participation at all levels have proved difficult to enforce. Male politicians disqualified from politics have often exploited anti-discrimination legislation to have wives or relatives elected. However, recent Indian government studies have shown that the reservation of seats has been a powerful incentive for women at grassroots level.
With 10% of its parliamentary seats held by women, India has lagged behind regional neighbours such as Bangladesh, where the proportion is 15%, and Pakistan, where it is 30%.
IndiaWomen in politicsGenderJason Burke
Prenuptial training for young people aims to tackle country's rising divorce rates
There was a time when Iranian women seeking husbands prioritised job status and financial security ? not to mention love ? at the top of their list of needs.
Now potential suitors face the prospect of having to fulfil a daunting new requirement before asking for a bride's hand ? having the right government certificate.
Acquiring the appropriate official qualifications before popping the question is part of a plan for prenuptial training courses approved by the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, with the aim of reversing declining Iranian marriage rates and rising divorce statistics.
From next week, online courses will be offered to young people to prepare them for the pitfalls of married life. The three-month courses, involving weekly tests, will be run by the state-governed national youth organisation, and those who successfully complete them will receive a certificate as proof of their readiness for matrimony. Mohsen Zanganeh, the head of the national youth organisation for Tehran province, said the courses would provide young people with an understanding of the "alphabet of life" and were intended as an essential gateway to marriage.
"We intend that within the next two years, if a boy attempts to woo a girl, she will answer only if he has finished his course," he told the Fars news agency. "We are trying to increase the level of information among young people concerning marriage."
Zangeneh said the course would run along similar lines to a universityand have a panel of 40 experts serving as its scientific board. The idea has been partly prompted by the rising divorce rate.
Iranian decision-makers are also alarmed at a rise in the average marrying age, which scientists say is leading to an increase in premarital sex and abortions arising from unwanted pregnancies.
IranMahmoud AhmadinejadMarriageDivorceRobert Tait
? Spiritual leader calls for Tibetan autonomy within China
? Annual address marks 51st anniversary of failed uprising
The Dalai Lama lashed out at Chinese authorities today, accusing them of trying to "annihilate Buddhism" in Tibet as he commemorated a failed uprising against China's rule over the region.
The Tibetan spiritual leader's remarks showed his frustration with fruitless attempts to negotiate a compromise with China. However, he said he would not abandon talks.
Beijing has accused the Dalai Lama of fighting for independence for Tibet, which China says is part of its territory. The Dalai Lama says he wants some form of autonomy for Tibet within China that would allow his people to freely practice their culture, language and religion.
The dispute turned violent two years ago, when anti-government protests erupted in Tibet and China cracked down on the region. Now, Chinese soldiers patrol the streets of Tibet.
In his annual address from exile in India, marking the 51st anniversary of a failed Tibetan uprising against China, the Dalai Lama said Chinese authorities were conducting a campaign of "patriotic re-education" in monasteries in Tibet.
"They are putting the monks and nuns in prison-like conditions, depriving them the opportunity to study and practice in peace," he said, accusing Chinese authorities of working to "deliberately annihilate Buddhism".
The Tibetan leader said "whether the Chinese government acknowledges it or not, there is a serious problem in Tibet", and that attempts to talk to the Chinese leadership about granting limited autonomy to the Tibetan people had failed.
"Judging by the attitude of the present Chinese leadership, there is little hope that a result will be achieved soon. Nevertheless, our stand to continue with the dialogue remains unchanged," he said.
The Buddhist leader's comments came during a tumultuous moment in relations with China. In January, Beijing reopened talks with his envoys for the first time in 15 months, but in February China was incensed when the Dalai Lama met President Barack Obama in the US.
Thousands of Tibetan exiles, most of them dressed in traditional silk and wool robes, gathered in the compound of a Buddhist temple to hear the Dalai Lama and other senior leaders of the Tibetan government-in-exile. The crowds included hundreds of Tibetan nuns and monks in orange and maroon robes.
The Dalai Lama, who fled Tibet shortly after the failed uprising, leads a government-in-exile from Dharmsala in India.
In Nepal, about 1,000 Tibetan exiles chanted anti-China slogans and waved Tibetan flags at a temple on the outskirts of Kathmandu, the capital, as riot police deployed to keep protesters from marching in the streets.
Dalai LamaChinaTibetBuddhism
Nicholas Watt on how David Cameron failed to persuade his Ulster Unionist allies to vote for devolving police powers
Nicholas Watt
Secret back-channel chats with Taliban leaders point to a willingness to end conflict, says UK
David Miliband's call for a major political push towards a peaceful settlement in Afghanistan follows a series of back-channel contacts between a string of international intermediaries and the Taliban, the Guardian can reveal.
Those contacts ? involving a colourful cast of former Arab mujahideen fighters, Saudi lawyers, a top UN official and a retired British officer ? have produced little of substance so far, but British officials believe they have demonstrated that at least some in the Taliban leadership are growing tired of fighting and are looking for a political alternative.
Senior British officials believe the nascent peace process has gained significant momentum in the wake of January's London conference on Afghanistan, when reconciliation and reintegration were the central topics. They are convinced a wholehearted Afghan push for a peace settlement, with unequivocal US support, could seize the opportunities for a dialogue offered by the contacts.
The most promising of the tentative peace feelers so far have been pioneered by former Arab mujahideen, who fought the Soviet occupation in the 1980s and who, in collaboration with sympathetic Saudi lawyers, offered their services as mediators to the Hamid Karzai government and the Taliban four years ago. The freelance effort was ultimately embraced by the Saudi monarchy and led to some contacts between Karzai family members and Taliban representatives in Saudi Arabia in 2008. The mediating role of the Saudi royal family was endorsed by the London conference in January.
According to sources close to the Saudi talks, the leading Taliban participant was Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, who was seized by Pakistani intelligence in Karachi last month. The seizure was widely reported as a breakthrough in co-operation between the CIA and Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI), but a key figure in the Saudi back-channel talks described Baradar's arrest as a "letdown" and "a huge blow" to the fledgling peace initiative.
"Maybe Pakistan was not happy with the negotiations," the source said, reflecting a widely held belief that the ISI had picked up Baradar because he had bypassed the agency.
However, western official sources have suggested the Baradar arrest was not the result of a Pakistani conspiracy, but a US intelligence operation, which tracked down Baradar, and gave the ISI ? which has a long history of support for the Taliban ? no choice but to pick him up.
A British official insisted that the capture did not conflict with Miliband's advocacy of a political settlement.
"This is an occupational hazard for someone in the top ranks of the Taliban," the official said. "Up until the point those people indicate they are serious about talks and enter into a proper conversation, they remain a legitimate target for strong military pressure."
Parallel overtures to the Taliban are being masterminded in Kabul by Sir Graeme Lamb, a former SAS general who was instrumental in securing Sunni support in the fight with al-Qaida in Iraq and who is now working as an adviser to the American Nato commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal.
"Lamb was brought in to run reintegration and reconciliation," said a western source familiar with operations in Kabul. "He talks much more about the former but is doing more on the latter."
The outgoing head of the UN mission, Kai Eide, also held meetings with Taliban representatives in Dubai, it emerged in January, according to UN officials, but most sources say his interlocutors were relatively junior. The contacts were denied by the Taliban. Eide left Afghanistan on Saturday, being replaced by a Swedish diplomat, Staffan di Mistura.
In his speech, Miliband will call for international, possibly UN, involvement in the peace process, but that may prove difficult for the new head of mission.
"If the UN gets involved it is going to have to tread very carefully," said Gerard Russell, a former political adviser in the UN mission. "The UN got stuck between trying to form a relationship with Karzai on one hand, and on the other trying to oversee tasks that demanded neutrality, like the elections. That's the challenge for di Mistura in brokering peace talks."
The push for a political settlement, spearheaded by Miliband's speech, will not be entirely welcome in Washington. Senior officials in the Obama administration believe peace talks are premature and the Taliban will only begin to negotiate in good faith once they have felt the full force of the US-led military surge.
This summer the surge will switch its focus from Helmand, where Nato and Afghan forces have taken control of a formerly insurgent-controlled district around the small town of Marja, to Kandahar ? a city of 900,000 which represents the Taliban's heartland.
During a visit to Kabul this week, the US defence secretary, Robert Gates, said President Karzai's reconciliation effort was unlikely to bear fruit until the Taliban leadership "realise that the odds of success are no longer in their favour" ? which he made clear was unlikely to be any time soon.
Profile: Graeme LambThe straight-talking, unfussy soldier has become so largely because he is trusted and respected by senior American commanders, including General David Petraeus, whom Lamb helped to set up the Iraqi "surge" in 2007 and the Sunni Awakening, when insurgents there gave up their fight.
Now as special adviser to General Stanley McChrystal, the US commander in Afghanistan, he is persuading that country's insurgents to abandon their arms. It is an appropriate task for a former SAS commander as Britain's special forces have operated closely with MI6, which has also been in the forefront of attempts to persuade the Taliban to give up the fight.
Lamb was quoted recently as saying that coalition forces were continuing to strike the Taliban, "and have to, 'til their eyeballs bleed". It was tough talk but open to misinterpretation. He also said rank-and-file Taliban fighters carried a sense of "anger and grievances that have not been addressed".
Richard Norton-Taylor
AfghanistanTalibanHamid KarzaiPakistanDavid MilibandMilitaryJulian Borger
