Russian police have released about 250 opposition activists who were detained in Moscow after a rally against Vladimir Putin's election victory.

Protest leader Alexei Navalny said the rallies would go on "until we win".

Opposition election monitors have reported large-scale fraud in favour of Mr Putin, who was elected president for a third term on Sunday.

Especially in St Petersburg there appears to be evidence of severe fraud - more than in Moscow.

Passengers on an Air France flight travelling from Paris to Bogotá have spoken of how they thought they were going to die when the plane they were on plummeted towards the Atlantic ocean after a burning smell filled the cabin.

Euclides and Rosa Montes, Colombians with British nationality travelling from London to Bogotá via Paris, told the Guardian that people on board were "saying their goodbyes to one another" as the plane rapidly descended to within 2,000 feet of the sea to offload fuel.

"We looked out of the window and the sea was directly below us," said Euclides. "Fuel was pouring out over the wings. We thought we were going to die."

Extending secret hearings into civil courts will undermine effective scrutiny of government operations in the "war on terror", according to prominent civil liberties activists and lawyers.

In a letter to the Guardian, the director of Liberty, Shami Chakrabarti, the Conservative MP David Davis, Lady Kennedy QC, the former director of public prosecutions Lord Macdonald QC and others warn that the government's justice and security green paper violates "basic principles of the common law".

Their criticism comes as the justice secretary, Ken Clarke, gives evidence to parliament's joint human rights committee on the impact of the proposals that will prevent claimants being told of the evidence against them.

A German clothing company favoured by far-right extremists has provoked outrage after allegedly naming its newest branch after the self-confessed Norwegian mass murderer who killed 77 people last summer.

Thor Steinar, which models itself as a Nordic company and uses the Norwegian flag, has named its shop in the eastern city of Chemnitz as "Brevik" - a name whose similarity to Anders Behring Breivik is too close for coincidence, critics say. The name Brevik hangs prominently in the window of its central store flanked by Norwegian flags.

Breivik, who has been remanded in custody since the killings last summer, has become a hero among neo-Nazis. The company, which is registered in Dubai said the shop had been named after a Norwegian community called Brevik, which lies south-east of Oslo.

The first hearing into the civil case brought by a New York hotel maid alleging ex-IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn sexually assaulted her has been delayed until March 28, the court said Tuesday.

The afternoon hearing had initially been scheduled for March 15 at the Supreme Court of the State of New York in the borough of New York City. It will air oral arguments on pre-trial motions and is not the start of the trial itself.

Neither Strauss-Kahn nor his accuser are required to attend the hearing. Civil proceedings in the United States are usually drawn out and can take several years if the parties cannot reach a negotiated agreement.

While Monday saw workers in western states of the country walk off the job, Tuesday was the turn of workers in northern states Hamburg, Mecklenburg Western-Pomerania, and Schleswig Holstein to push for a pay increase.

Public service union Verdi has been systematically mobilising employees in the sector to strike - the most disruptive of which so far were the repeated walkouts at Frankfurt airport.

On Wednesday, Verdi will summon workers in North Rhine-Westphalia to strike.

Verdi, Germany's biggest public service union, is calling for a 6.5 percent pay rise for the two million people employed in the sector - or at least a raise of €200 per year.

Investors panic at the thought that the Greek debt exchange may flop; there is also nervousness about the budgetary overshoot in Spain, as Spanish spreads move above those of Italy; Greece yesterday threatened to default on the holdouts, triggering concerns about the success of the debt exchange; six biggest Greek banks will participate, but four pension funds will not; there are persistent market rumours that the deadline for the debt exchange of tomorrow might be extended; IIF warns that the costs of a disorderly default would be €1tr;

Bundesbank's profits down due to risk provisions; Yves Mersch is now certain to get the ECB job after France changes allegiance; in turn, Germany will push Thomas Mirow out of the EBRD and support a French candidate; Nico Fried argues the SPD's threats are not credible; Jens Weidmann said he did not leak the letter to Mario Draghi, which suggests that he has lost control over his own institution; the European Commission's latest forecasts suggests that the eurozone is sliding further into recession this year; Achim Truger and Henner Will argue that Germany's debt brake will be pro-cyclical; Martin Wolf, meanwhile, says the fiscal compact fulfils the definition of insanity as trying to repeat the same mistake, hoping for a different outcome.

Financier and cricket mogul Allen Stanford has been found guilty by a court in Houston, Texas, of running a $7bn Ponzi scheme.

Stanford, 61, was convicted on 13 of the 14 charges.

He had pleaded not guilty to defrauding some 30,000 investors with bogus investments through his Stanford International Bank in Antigua to fund a lavish lifestyle.

He faces a sentence of up to 20 years in prison for the most serious charge.

Stock markets have suffered their worst day's trading of the year. The FTSE 100 closed down 1.8%, or 109 points lower, its biggest fall since 14 December. Fears over the global economy, and the slow pace of Greece's debt swap deal, were blamed - although City experts warned against panic.

New York shared in the selloff, with the Dow Jones index currently down around 200 points.

* Greece's debt swap deal creaked on. With just two days to go, Athens appears unlikely to hit a 90% take-up rate in its Private Sector Involvement -- despite its six biggest banks all offering their support. That would mean it would deploy Collective Action Clauses - as long as the take-up rate hit 66%.

The Greek goverment put fresh pressure on its creditors to take part, warning that bond-holders who rejected the deal would not be paid out later.

Nissan will build its new compact car at its factory in Sunderland, creating 2,000 jobs and providing a major boost to one of the regions hardest hit by recession and spending cuts, the company says.

The business secretary, Vince Cable, will confirm at the Geneva Motor Show that the Nissan expansion - which will create 400 jobs at the factory and 1,600 more in the supply chain - was underwritten by £9m from the government's regional growth fund.

He will say: "The decision [from Nissan] is another clear vote of confidence in Britain's manufacturing industry, and vindicates the government's decision to put support for manufacturing at the core of its economic strategy."

China's government debt amounts to about 17.5 trillion yuan (2.78 trillion U.S. dollars), about 43 percent of the country's gross domestic product, Yang Kaisheng, president of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, said Tuesday.

The debt is composed of 10.7 trillion yuan of local government debt and 6.8 trillion yuan of central government debt, Yang said at a press conference on the sidelines of China's annual parliamentary session.

"Government debt in China now is at a controllable and secure level," said the banking magnate, citing the government work report delivered by Premier Wen Jiabao on Monday.

The investigation is yet another complication in the merger between Porsche and auto powerhouse Volkswagen.

The three employees, who remain unnamed, are accused of lying to a bank about the number of options Porsche held on VW ordinary stocks in 2009, when Porsche was in talks about the refinancing of a €10 billion loan.

When the bank questioned Porsche about its financial needs during negotiations, the three suspects undervalued the options by around €1.4 billion.

RWE said in a statement its net profit fell by 33.9 percent to €2.479 billion last year and operating profit declined by 24.3 percent to €5.814 billion on a 3.1-percent drop in revenues to €51.686 billion.

"For us, fiscal 2011 was marked by difficult economic and political framework conditions," RWE said. "The German government's nuclear energy decisions alone had a negative impact on the result of well over one billion euros."

In the wake of the nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan, last year, the German government decided to phase out nuclear power, forcing energy suppliers to shut down their profitable large-scale power plants and also levying a tax on the reactors' fuel for their remaining lifespan.

In addition, lower sales prices on the gas wholesale market and "persistently low margins in the electricity generating business all had an adverse effect on business performance," the group complained.

The eurozone is at war with double-entry bookkeeping.

In the argument about the risks of the 3y LTROs the Bundesbank appears divided and isolated

Ahead of tomorrow's Governing council meeting, the Bundesbank appears to be weakened by division and isolation, Financial Times Deutschland and Handelsblatt report. FTD writes that the leaked letter had provoked internal tensions in the central bank. Pragmatists had argued that it should focus on a strategy to get out of the ultra-generous liquidity measures. The hard liners on the other hand had insisted that the letter should contains proposals about additional collateral from the euro crisis countries to the ECB in order to cover the risks emerging from the ever increasing Target balances in the central banks of surplus countries such as the Bundesbank. The Bundesbank's claim that the leak was not done with Weidmann's knowledge or approval is not reassuring to the ECB and other euro central banks. The reason is that it implies that Weidmann is not in control of his institution and that there are powerful forces inside the Bundesbank working against him. In its main front page story, Handelsblatt points out the Weidmann's isolation within the ECB's governing council. According to the paper the Bundesbank president's insistence on risks has brought him to a similar degree of isolation from his colleagues as his predecessor Axel Weber was in before he resigned.

Unverified video footage posted on YouTube purports to show Libyan rebels shouting abuse at a group of black Africans held captive in a cage with their hands bound and forcing them to eat the former Libyan flag. The detainees are accused by their captors of being mercenaries who fought for Muammar Gaddafi. The former Libyan leader chose the all-green flag in 1977 to symbolise his Green Book of political thought

Six major world powers and Iran are to hold fresh talks on Tehran's nuclear programme, the EU has said.

EU foreign policy head Catherine Ashton said she had replied to a letter from Iran on behalf of the five permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany.

Iranian negotiator Saeed Jalili sent the letter last month proposing talks. No date or venue has been set.

The move comes amid fresh speculation of a pre-emptive military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities.

Hamas will not do Iran's bidding in any war with Israel, according to senior figures within the militant Islamic group.

"If there is a war between two powers, Hamas will not be part of such a war," Salah Bardawil, a member of the organisation's political bureau in Gaza City, told the Guardian.

He denied the group would launch rockets into Israel at Tehran's request in response to a strike on its nuclear sites. "Hamas is not part of military alliances in the region," said Bardawil. "Our strategy is to defend our rights"

The Red Cross has again been denied access to the devastated Baba Amr area of Homs. Syrian state TV broadcast interviews purporting to show resident who have begun to return to the area, but an activist in a neighbouring district said the interviews were fabricated. The activist claimed the Free Syrian Army still controlled a quarter of the city.

* More evidence of the extent of the shelling in Homs and elsewhere has continued to emerge. The US ambassador to Syria published satellite images showing damage to civilian buildings in Baba Amr. Activists in Rastan showed video purporting to show homes that have shelled.

* Activists claimed the army launched an assault on a village in the southern province of Dera'a, according to AFP. It has also continued to launch attacks in Rastan, activists claim. Video footage emerged purporting to show a staff general declaring his defection to the Free Syrian Army in protest at the assault on Rastan.

Six global powers have agreed to resume negotiations with Iran on its nuclear programme, calling for "concrete and practical steps" to restore international trust in Tehran's stated intentions.

In a letter to Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, the EU foreign policy chief, Lady Ashton, said the negotiations should restart as soon as possible, at a venue to be decided.

Writing on behalf of a negotiating group comprising the US, UK, France, Russia, China and Germany, Ashton said: "Our overall goal remains a comprehensive negotiated, long-term solution which restores international confidence in the exclusively peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear programme, while respecting Iran's right to the peaceful use of nuclear energy consistent with the NPT [nuclear non-proliferation treaty]."

U.S. President Barack Obama said on Tuesday that it is his belief that there is a still a "window of opportunity" to use diplomacy instead of military force to resolve the dispute over Iran's nuclear program. During a press conference, Obama also warned against prematurely instigating war over the matter.

Referring to his position that the world should exhaust the path of sanctions and political pressure on Iran before considering a military option, the U.S. president urged caution in reference to talk of war, adding: "This is not just an issue of Israeli interests - this is an issue of American interests."

Tribal leaders and militia commanders in oil-rich eastern Libya have declared their intention to seek semi-autonomy, raising fears that the country might disintegrate following the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi.

Thousands of representatives of major tribal leaders, militia commanders and politicians made the declaration on Tuesday in a ceremony held in Benghazi.

They promised to end decades of marginalisation under Gaddafi and named a council to run the affairs of the newly created region, extending from the central coastal city of Sirte to the Egyptian border in the east.

India's ruling Congress party has suffered a major election setback in crucial state polls, winning clearly in just one of five states contested.

Congress, which runs the federal government in New Delhi, suffered a landslide defeat in Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous and politically significant state.

With all but a few results confirmed, Congress had won just 28 out of 403 seats.

Tuesday's results were the first appraisal of Rahul Gandhi, a presumed prime-minister-in-waiting who led the Congress campaign in Uttar Pradesh.

At least 42 people have died in an avalanche that hit a village in northeastern Afghanistan, local officials say.

Hundreds more remained trapped on Tuesday under the snow, according to the officials.

The avalanche covered at least one village in Badakhshan province, near the border with Tajikistan.

Afghan army helicopters descended on the north of Badakhshan to try to rescue the trapped families.

In a motion on Monday, attorneys for the defendants argued that the hate crimes charges should be dismissed because "the alleged intra-religious actions between private individuals do not fall within the statute or federal authority. The actions are not alleged to have been taken out of prejudice or hatred against the Amish religion. Rather, the alleged acts are doctrine-based Old Order Amish beliefs."

Zionism will only cease being demonized in the politically correct corners of the West once our schools and film industry cease to demonize colonialism. The politically correct depiction of the colonialist as a racist and covetous brute must give space to the majority of well-meaning administrators that helped build roads, schools, and hospitals for the natives.

It must be shown that colonialists administered law and justice far more fairly than most pre-colonial chieftains or post-colonial despots. It must be taught that human development indicators plummeted in the majority of African and Asian countries following independence.

Skiers at a resort in the Savoie region of France escaped injury when an avalanche plunged down the St Francois Longchamp mountain, at the weekend.

What links climate change sceptic Lord Nigel Lawson and Europe's biggest single source of carbon pollution, the Belchatow coal-fired power station in Poland? A pretty straightforward business connection, all documented on public websites and set out below, is the answer.

But Lord Lawson's prompt explanation as to why this is a silly "non-issue" is not straightforward, in my opinion. It can be summarised as: it was all a long time ago, in a land far away and, in any case, how dare you doubt the word of a peer of the realm. I wrote back and asked why the information linking Lord Lawson to the filthy power station remains on the relevant websites, if it was such a long time ago and so far away. The response this time was silence.

I also asked whether it was appropriate for climate change sceptic Professor Ian Plimer to remain on the "academic advisory council" of Lord Lawson's thinktank, the Global Warming Policy Foundation, after his appointment as a director to a large Australian coal company?

Protesters against a new generation of 100m-tall onshore wind turbines have claimed a significant victory after Powys county council refused permission for a windfarm to be built in the Welsh countryside.

The council's planning committee on Tuesday unanimously rejected plans for 11 turbines, submitted by Acciona Energy UK for the Waun Garno site which is 12 miles south of the Snowdonia national park. The decision followed a vociferous opposition campaign and is being seen by opponents of onshore wind power as a major setback for the industry in Wales. The application for the 115m-tall structures was the first of a series to be heard by Powys council, which has 17 windfarm applications pending, spokesman said. Next week it will consider plans for a much larger 65-turbine windfarm, which will ultimately be decided by the Westminster government.

Council planners said the Waun Garno scheme would have an "unacceptable adverse impact on the landscape of the area", adding the application lacked information about the impact on ecology and habitats. They also voiced concern about its impact on conservation areas.

A deadly landslide in the mountains of Papua New Guinea, near whereExxon Mobil is building a $15.7bn gas project, has raised new questions about the global energy industry's scramble for ever harder-to-reach resources.

The landslide tore through a quarry used by Exxon in January, killing at least 25 people in the poor South Pacific country, but it has stirred little international publicity, even though an expert report had questioned the safety of the excavations.

The controversy also raises some familiar issues aired by critics of "big oil" in previous disasters: a pressure to deliver results, contractors found to have cut corners and remote operations that limit government oversight.

Emergency services have ordered more than 8,000 people to evacuate a New South Wales town, in southeast Australia, threatened by rising floodwaters.

New South Wales emergency officials and police ordered thousands to evacuate the centre of the town of Wagga Wagga on Tuesday as the Murrumbidgee river threatened to breach the town's levee barriers.

People had already been ordered to evacuate homes in the surrounding area after the river burst its banks in places.

On Sunday, about 13,000 people around New South Wales were also asked to leave their homes due to the flooding.

It is estimated that around one quarter of the electricity sector's revenues come from just 36 hours of peak production a year. As has often been cited as an example, the transport equivalent would be like building a 36-lane highway or Sydney Harbour Bridge to cope with maximum demand.

The impact on the electricity industry is already significant. Origin Energy CEO Grant King said in this fascinating interview with RenewEconomy last week that the fall in demand meant that no baseload energy would be required before 2020. He said the only opportunities for expansion will be in renewables (mandated by the 2020 target), and in peaking gas.

Four Principal Members of "Anonymous" and "LulzSec" Charged with Computer Hacking and Fifth Member Pleads Guilty; "AntiSec" Member also Charged with Stealing Confidential Information from Approximately 860,000 Clients and Subscribers of Stratfor

A headless robot dubbed "Cheetah" has set a new world speed record, according to its owners.

The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency said the four-legged machine achieved 18mph (29km/h) on a laboratory treadmill.

The agency said the previous land speed record by a legged robot was 13.1mph.

Darpa said that the project was part of efforts to develop robots designed to "more effectively assist war fighters across a greater range of missions".

A French government report is calling for a ban on "mini-miss" beauty pageants and children's lingerie to combat what it describes as the "hyper-sexualisation" of children.

The moves follow an international controversy over a Vogue magazine photographic shoot featuring provocative images of a 10-year-old French girl.

The parliamentary report, Against Hyper-Sexualisation: A New Fight For Equality, calls for a ban on child-size adult clothing, such as padded bras and high-heeled shoes for children, and an end to beauty competitions for the under-16s.

Britain's biggest commercial news provider, ITN, has vowed to face down "increased pressure" from the police to hand over unbroadcast footage of public unrest.

The head of compliance for ITN, John Battle, criticised a "worrying trend" of wide-ranging production orders from the police.

He compared the situation to Russia and said journalists were in danger of being seen as an evidence-gathering arm of the police.

Broadcasters including the BBC, ITN and Sky News have been ordered in recent months to hand over footage of the England riots, the evacuation of Dale Farm and protests outside the Syrian embassy in London.

Just over three years ago, a new housing complex was built at Bospolder, a deprived neighbourhood near the port of Rotterdam. Though some local residents call it the Kasbah, its real name is Le Medi, short for Mediterranean. Its design mixes traditional Dutch red brick and features borrowed from the Moroccan riad with an interior garden. Some might say it is a gated community for first- or second-generation immigrants.

Although the architects say Le Medi is very different from the concept of America's high-security gated communities, the basic principle seems similar. Here the five main entrances are closed in the evening and all day on Sundays. Wire fences protect covered parking lots and the occupants enjoy a higher standard of living than their neighbours.

With its streets lined with dismal social housing, Bospolder is one of the poorest places in the Netherlands and has come to be almost exclusively occupied by immigrants from Morocco, Turkey and former Dutch colonies. More than 80% of the population has, according to the official Dutch definition, at least one parent born abroad.

The pendulum of police and media relations has swung too far away from openness in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal, with police officers terrified to speak to the press, Lord Stevens, the former commissioner of the Metropolitan police told the Leveson inquiry.

Stevens, who as Met commissioner introduced an open-door policy for the media, said he would have picked up and "tirelessly" pursued the issues raised by the Guardian in 2009 about phone hacking at the News of the World. But he said the reaction to the phone-hacking revelations had created an unhealthy fear of the press among police officers.

Asked by Robert Jay QC, for the inquiry, if the pendulum had swung too far, Stevens said: "From what I have heard people are absolutely terrified of picking up the phone and speaking to the press in any way. I don't think that is healthy. The press has their job to do, they have delivered some outstanding work. There has to be a relationship with them for the right reasons."

On Sunday night, some would say the impossible happened. A feature film, financed and produced by both Saudi and international interests, premiered in a public place in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia with full approval of the authorities.

Director Bruce Neibaur's Imax movie "Journey to Mecca" had its local premiere at the Jeddah Hilton on the opening evening of the Jeddah Economic Forum, held for the first time under the patronage of King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud.

It's only the second time a film has been shown in public in Jeddah since the city's five cinemas were closed under Islamic law in 1982.

". . . the essential crime that contained all others in itself. Thoughtcrime they called it." George Orwell, 1984

In the referendum we are now to have, the question is - ah, but what is the question?

It is not, as [Irish finance minister] Michael Noonan wrongly claimed last year, a referendum on whether Ireland should leave the euro zone. (They can't throw us out.) It is not, as the Taoiseach variously claimed last week, about "economic recovery" or "jobs" or whether we "wish to participate in the European community and the euro and the euro zone from now on. It is surely not about how to define a structural deficit of 0.5 per cent - if it were, it would be the weirdest thing ever put to a public vote.

What it is about, however, is the creation of a thoughtcrime. A certain way of thinking is to be outlawed. It is not Nazism or racism or some other hateful ideology.

I've never met a contract lawyer worth the fees.

You can't be me, I'm taken

The late and much missed Douglas Adams threw some spectacular parties, triggering complaints about noise from sentient beings all over the Milky Way.

Now family, friends and fans of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy are marking what would have been his 60th birthday this Sunday with another bash, this time at the Hammersmith Apollo in London, which will celebrate the author's diverse talents and passionate interests via sketches, music, tributes and a rhino raffle.

Assuming the venue is not demolished by evil Vogons for a hyperspace bypass in the meantime, Terry Jones, Clive Anderson, Professor Brian Cox, zoologist Mark Carwardine, Stephen Fry (by videolink from New Zealand) and Stephen Mangan (Dirk Gently in the BBC4 series) will be among those discussing Adams's unique takes on the environment, comedy, music and, in the case of co-writer John Lloyd, the Meaning of Liff.

The bus was returning from Gladbach's defeat to Nuremberg when it stopped at a service station on the A3 motorway in Rhineland-Palatinate, where some Cologne fans - returning from a draw with Hoffenheim - were also pulled up.

"When we got back on the motorway, a black Opel followed us, the driver was constantly talking on the phone," the bus driver told Bild newspaper on Monday.

A few kilometres later, two white Mercedes vans manoeuvred in front and behind the bus, while another car drew up alongside. More cars followed. The vehicles forced the bus into another service station, near the town of Siegburg in North Rhine-Westphalia.

Cologne fans armed with baseball bats and metal bars immediately surrounded the bus in the car park.