Torture survivors seeking sanctuary in Britain are being wrongly held in government detention centres, despite independent medical evidence supporting claims of brutal violence against them in their home countries.

According to Home Office guidelines, in cases where there is evidence that a person seeking asylum has been tortured they should be detained only in "exceptional circumstances". But medical charities that carry out hundreds of independent assessments of torture survivors every year have accused the government of routinely ignoring their reports, with victims held in detention centres until their asylum claims are heard - and, in almost every case, rejected.

Sonya Sceats, a spokeswoman for one charity that carries out medical assessments for the government, told the Observer: "It's very clear there is a systemic and increasing problem here. The corollary of their dismissal of independent medical evidence is that the protection [asylum] claim is invariably rejected and this means a survivor of torture is at risk of being returned to further torture or at risk of detention."

The allegations come in the wake of strong criticism last week of the UK Border Agency, which was condemned for failing to investigate claims of mistreatment by failed asylum seekers in abuse allegations up to July 2008. Ministers now plan to review the use of force against asylum seekers by British security guards after a Border Agency report on abuse conceded that serious injuries were suffered by detainees who had been handcuffed or physically restrained.

After a ten year moratorium, exploration on the future of the Gorleben nuclear waste dump is to resume. The Green party and environmental leaders are protesting the decision. 

Environmentalists and member of the Green party responded with sharp criticism to reports that the German Environment Ministry would reopen talks on the future of the Gorleben nuclear waste dump.

Greenpeace activists projected the phrase "Gorleben: unsuitable for nuclear waste, Mr. Roettgen" onto a tower at the disused salt mine in the early hours of Sunday. Green party leaders sharply crtiticized the decision to resume talks to make the Gorleben salt mines a permanent nuclear waste dump.

A ministry spokeswoman declined to comment on the report and said Environment Minister Norbert Roettgen would be holding a press conference on the topic of Gorleben on Monday.

Discussion on using the underground salt mines in Gorleben in Lower Saxony have been on hold since 2000. According to a report in news magazine Spiegel, exploration of the salt dome could take eight to ten years. During the exploration, the old mining law would apply - not the nuclear law, which requires a broader civic participation in the decision-making process.

The head of the Catholic church in Ireland should consider standing down over revelations that he knew about an alleged cover-up involving the country's most notorious paedophile priest, child abuse victims said today.

Cardinal Sean Brady said today that he had been present at a closed canonical tribunal into the activities of the late Father Brendan Smyth. During the meeting, two of Smyth's child victims were made to sign an oath to the Catholic church that they would not talk about their claims with anybody other than a priest.

The disclosure that the children gave these written assurances in Brady's presence will again raise fears that the church thought it was above the law. The support group Irish Survivors of Child Abuse said it confirmed that a cover-up of clerical abuse of children "went to the very top".

The tribunal was held over two meetings in 1975 behind closed doors at a Dominican Friary outside Dundalk, close to the Northern Ireland border, and later in Ballyjamesduff. Smyth was accused of sexually assaulting a boy then aged 10 while on holiday. A girl said the priest had abused her around Easter 1970, when she was 10.

Both alleged victims were required to sign affadavits swearing they would not talk to anyone except priests given special permission to hear their allegations. The church at the time did not inform Irish police about the children's allegations.

French people are voting in regional elections that are expected to reflect widespread disenchantment with President Nicolas Sarkozy's government.

It is the last nationwide vote before presidential and parliamentary elections due in 2012.

The opposition Socialist Party already controls 20 of the 22 mainland regions and hopes to take the other two.

The poll ratings of the centre-right president have plunged in opinion polls and unemployment has risen to 10%.

The BBC's Emma Jane-Kirby, in Paris, says that although the election is meant to be about regional issues, voters are bound to use this opportunity to punish the central government.

Tony Blair is preparing to launch a "faith offensive" across the United States over the next year, after building up relationships with a network of influential religious leaders and faith organisations.

With Afghanistan and Iraq casting a shadow over his popularity at home in Britain, Blair's focus has increasingly shifted across the Atlantic, to where the nexus of faith and power is immutable and he is feted like a rock star.

According to the annual accounts of the Tony Blair Faith Foundation, a UK-based charity that promotes cohesion between the major faiths, the foundation is to develop a US arm that will pursue a host of faith-based projects. The accounts show that his foundation has an impressive - and, in at least one case, controversial - set of faith contacts. Sitting on some £4.5m in funds as of April last year, mostly gathered through donations, it is now well placed to make its voice heard.

The foundation's advisory council of religious leaders includes Rick Warren, powerful founder of the California-based Saddleback church. It attracts congregations of nearly 20,000 and is reportedly one of the largest in the US. Warren, who has addressed the UN and the World Economic Forum in Davos, has been named one of the "15 world leaders who matter most" and one of the "100 most influential people in the world".

The representative of German Jews on the board of a new wartime refugee museum has threatened to step down. Salomon Korn demanded that the plight of Germans who fled Poland be linked to Nazi war crimes. 

The representative of Germany's Jews on the board of a controversial museum for Germany's World War Two refugees has threatened to stand down in a row over its content.

In an interview with the German news magazine Spiegel, the vice-president of the German Council of Jews Salomon Korn urged a shift in emphasis in plans for the museum being overseen by the Foundation for Flight, Expulsion and Reconciliation.

The new wave of sex abuse allegations currently plaguing the Catholic Church has reached Switzerland. A Swiss abbot said victims, not the church, should be the ones to press charges. 

The Catholic Church in Switzerland is investigating sixty claims of sexual abuse by priests, the Swiss news agency SDA reported.

Abbot Martin Werlen of the Benedictine Abbey of Einsiedeln told the newspaper Mittelland-Zeitung that the church is looking into the claims. The church itself will not press charges, Werlen emphasized, and intends to advise victims to do so themselves. 

"We find it important that the victim himself determines what steps to take," the cleric told the Mittelland-Zeitung, cited by the Swiss news agency.

An unofficial meeting of eight foreign ministers during the weekend at the Saariselkä resort in Finnish Lapland was considered so successful that the group agreed on holding another one next year in Lapland.

      Finnish Minister for Foreign Affairs Alexander Stubb (Nat. Coalition Party) said that similar gatherings are to be held in other EU countries as well. The feeling was that smaller gatherings could bring significantly more efficiency to EU decision-making.

Speaking to reporters, Catherine Ashton, the EU's High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, said that a turning point had been reached in the construction of a new foreign policy in Europe.

      She said that discussions are concentrating more on content than on "that fluffy stuff", she said on Saturday.

      In the field of foreign affairs she sees a need to systematically strengthen the EU's position in adjacent areas, and with the most important concentration of power.

Ashton appeared more relaxed and self-confident in an interview with Helsingin Sanomat and three international news agencies than she has been in recent times.

      She has been the focus of sometimes intense criticism after taking office as the first "foreign minister" of the EU.

      She has been called a weak performer at a time when the EU institutions and member states around her have struggled for power in foreign affairs.

She said that the storminess has not disturbed her at all, adding that some of the expectations for the EU's common foreign policy and the "European External Action Service" that is now under construction have been unrealistic.

      Whether it is over or not, the controversy has certainly has made Ashton the centre of attention. She was clearly at centre stage at the weekend retreat in Saariselkä, where she met with the foreign ministers of six EU member states, as well as Turkey.

Stubb is a former childhood bully (I know someone of his age from the same school) and has a bizarre over-youthful taste in winter clothing (product placement?), but he does keep himself fit, is intelligent and informed on issues, he's a Swedish-speaking Finn, also speaks fluent English, French and German, and on the whole has a fairly decent track record. He's an energetic Europhile.

He has potential as a future Finnish PM.

I totally disagree with his positive view of NATO, but it doesn't so far seem to have done him any harm in contacts with Russia.

You can't be me, I'm taken