David Cameron: there is no going back on austerity

David Cameron is to declare that there is “no going back” on harsh spending cuts after seeing the leaders of France and Greece swept from power by public anger at austerity.

Two years on from their sun-dappled press conference in the Downing Street rose garden, David Cameron and Nick Clegg will restate the case for the Coalition to 'rescue the economy from the mess left by Labour' Photo: GETTY

Greek election runner-up Alexis Tsipras rejects coalition deal

The leader of the runner-up party in Greece's national election, the Radical Left Coalition's Alexis Tsipras, has rejected a coalition with the winning conservative party.

Following 40-minute talks with conservative leader Antonis Samaras, Mr Tsipras said the two parties' views were diametrically opposed. He demanded the cancellation of austerity measures many blame for deepening economic woes.

Mr Samaras, who was given three days from today in which to build a coalition or pass on the mandate to Mr Tsipras, was also meeting with the head of the third party, the socialist PASOK.

Mr Tsipras' refusal to co-operate with the conservatives, while anticipated, makes it even less likely that Mr Samaras will be able to form a strong enough coalition. It also increases the possibility that Greece will be forced to hold repeat elections in mid-June.

"The campaign positions of Mr Samaras are at the opposite end of the alternative proposals of a left-wing government," said Mr Tsipras, who strongly opposes Greece's bailout commitments.

"There can be no government of national salvation, as (Samaras) has named it, because his signatures and commitments to the loan agreement do not constitute salvation but a tragedy for the people and the country."

Another election, possibly as soon as next month, looms for a country that is reliant on international support to avoid bankruptcy.

Yesterday's vote saw parties backing the draconian international rescue package lose their majority in parliament - raising the chances of a possible Greek exit from the common euro currency.

The uncertainty weighed on markets across Europe, with the Athens exchange closing 6.7 % down.

Official results showed conservative New Democracy came first with 18.85% and 108 of Parliament's 300 seats. Mr Samaras, who backs Greece's bailout commitments for austerity but has called for some changes to the bailout plan, will launch coalition-forming talks later in the day.

"I understand the rage of the people, but our party will not leave Greece ungoverned," Mr Samaras said.

But even with the support of the only other clearly pro-bailout party elected, Socialist PASOK, New Democracy would fall two seats short of a governing majority.

If the deadlock does not ease, Greece faces new elections under a caretaker government in mid-June, about the time it has to detail new drastic austerity measures worth 14.5 billion euro (£11.7 billion) for 2013-14.

In June, Athens is also due to receive a 30 billion euro (£24 billion) instalment of its rescue loans from the other countries in the 17-strong eurozone and the International Monetary Fund. If aid is cut off, analysts at Commerzbank estimated the country would have trouble paying its debts by autumn.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Athens would still be expected to live up to its agreements.

"Of course the most important thing is that the programmes we agreed with Greece are continued," she said.

Her remarks were echoed by a European Commission spokesman, Amadeu Altafaj Tardio, who stressed the need for "full and timely implementation" of Greece's agreement with its international creditors and underlined that "solidarity is a two-way street".

Analyst Vangelis Agapitos said protracted instability would threaten the country's eurozone membership. Greece's debt inspectors - the eurozone, IMF and European Central Bank, collectively known as the troika - could turn the screws by halting release of the bailout funds until Athens moves forward with its pledged reforms.

"Europe can live without Greece but I don't think Greece can live without Europe," he said. "If the troika is bluffing, Greece will remain in the euro. But if the troika says: 'I can negotiate, but first show me some progress,' Greece has no progress to display right now."

"If the troika rattles our bars, then either the people will come to their senses at the next elections or the country will enter an alternative course, and when we open that door we will see what kind of chaos - or paradise - lies behind," Mr Agapitos said.

Yesterday's big winner was Mr Tsipras' party, whose unprecedented second place with 16.78% gives it 52 seats.

Disaffected voters deserted PASOK and New Democracy, the two mainstays of Greek politics, leaving them at their worst level since 1974, when Greece emerged from a seven-year dictatorship. Instead, strong gains were registered by smaller parties, including the extremist Golden Dawn, which rejects the neo-Nazi label and insists it is nationalist and patriotic.

Golden Dawn has been blamed for violent attacks on immigrants and ran on an anti-immigrant platform, vowing to "clean up" Greece and calling for land mines to be planted along the borders. It got 6.97% of the vote - a stunning improvement from 0.29% in 2009 - and won 21 seats.

The election was Greeks' moment to vent their fury over two years of austerity that Athens has been pushing through to qualify for bailout loans. Incomes, benefits and pensions have been slashed repeatedly and taxes hiked. Unemployment has soared to a record of over 21%.

PASOK, which has spent 21 years in government since 1981 and stormed to victory with more than 43% in 2009, saw its support slashed to 13.18%.

Mr Samaras also held talks with Evangelos Venizelos, the leader of PASOK. Both Mr Samaras and Mr Venizelos have indicated any unity government would have to include more than just their two parties.

US expects China to allow dissident Chen Guangcheng to travel abroad

Officials say Beijing has indicated it will push through activist's application to leave China after offer of study from US university

Chen Guangcheng case puts pressure on Chinese activists

Dissidents fear Chinese authorities will launch crackdown to prevent them following example of man who fled to US embassy

A Chinese petitioner is approached by police outside the hopital where Chen Guangcheng is being treated in Beijing. Photograph: Ed Jones/AFP/Getty Images

Chinese human rights campaigners have warned of a crackdown on the dissident community despite expectations that Beijing will clear the way for the activist Chen Guangcheng to travel abroad to study.

Dissidents believe the government is likely to tighten the screws on prominent critics to prevent them from following Chen's lead to challenge their authority.

"I think that after the Chen Guangcheng incident, the situation for us will just become worse and worse, because in today's society government power has no limits," said Liu Yi, an artist and supporter of Chen.

The US expects China to quickly clear the way for Chen to travel to America after days of fraught negotiation. China's foreign ministry hinted at a possible face-saving deal in an ambiguous statement saying the blind activist could apply to study abroad like other citizens.

The US state department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said: "Mr Chen has been offered a fellowship from an American university, where he can be accompanied by his wife and two children.

"The Chinese government has indicated that it will accept Mr Chen's applications for appropriate travel documents. The United Statesgovernment expects that the Chinese government will expeditiously process his applications for these documents, and make accommodations for his current medical condition. The United States government would then give visa requests for him and his immediate family priority attention."

Liu Feiyue, an activist who runs a rights monitoring network in the central province of Hubei, warned that other dissidents should not expect similar concessions from the government.

"This is only an individual case. Because it turned into a China-US incident, the US put a lot of pressure on China, which is why the authorities made a concession to allow Chen Guangcheng to study overseas," he said. "Not all dissident cases can become international issues."

Chen had agreed to remain in China to study with government assurances on his safety, but changed his mind after leaving the US embassy in Beijing, where he had fled after escaping from 19 months of house arrest in eastern Shandong province.

Chen, a self-taught legal activist, was originally praised by authorities for helping disabled people defend their rights, but angered officials by defending women who had undergone forced abortions and sterilisations, which are illegal in China.

US embassy officials and doctors met Chen on Friday and said he had suffered three broken bones and his foot was in a cast after his escape.

Cairo clashes leave hundreds injured

Violence escalates after death of soldier during protests outside defence ministry in runup to presidential elections


Violent clashes erupt at defence ministry in Cairo. Source: Reuters Link to this video

Troops are guarding Cairo's defence ministry after a soldier was killed and more than 370 people were injured during demonstrations against'sEgypt's ruling generals in the runup to the presidential election.

Military prosecutors have detained more than 300 protesters following clashes outside the ministry on Friday in which soldiers fired teargas on the crowd.

The streets of Abbasiya district were calm on Saturday but strewn with rocks and other missiles hurled by protesters.

Lawyer Ragia Omran said the detainees, who include 18 women, were being interrogated and could face military trials. They face charges of attacking military troops, belonging to groups that aim to disrupt public order and being present in restricted military areas, Omran added.

Reports suggested more than 100 soldiers were among the injured.

The violence followed the first sustained large-scale protests near the ruling generals' headquarters since the removal of Hosni Mubarak in an uprising last year. The military council had warned the demonstrators before the march that deadly force would be used against them if they approached the ministry.

On Saturday, the head of the military council, field marshal Hussein Tantawi visited the injured troops and inspected the area of the clashes. State TV showed footage of the funeral of the dead soldier.

The violence cast a shadow over presidential elections, due to begin in three weeks.

Anger at the ruling military council, which took power after Mubarak's removal, has spread across the political spectrum. The generals are accused of using oppressive measures and moving to maintain a degree of power even after the presidential election and handover of power.

Egypt's generals wait in the wings as battle for democracy sours

In Cairo, violence flares between gangs and Islamists. In Alexandria, discontent grows as the country's politicians lose their way ahead of elections. And over them all looms the shadow of an army far from ready to give up power

Egyptian protesters forced back by water cannon during a march on the defence ministry in Cairo on Friday. Photograph: Ahmed Gomaa/AP

There is a narrow footbridge overlooking the entrance to the ministry of defence in the Abbasiya district of Cairo. On Friday afternoon, this crowded bridge provided the best view of the frontline in the latest round of violent clashes between the army and demonstrators who suspect the country's ruling generals of wanting to hold on to power.

On one side of a ring of barbed wire, soldiers hurled bricks and fired tear gas. Below the bridge, the protesters facing the soldiers threw their own missiles, while others removed the injured on motorbikes or carried them limp on their shoulders, some insensible, others spattered in blood.

I bumped into Hazem Abdel Rahman, a young protester, drenched in sweat, holding his injured arm. "I came here this morning and everything was peaceful. People linked arms to keep the crowd back from the ministry of defence. But then after Friday prayers people came who we did not know and infiltrated our demonstration and started throwing stones," he said.

Others say the trouble started after some protesters were grabbed by the soldiers trying to cross the wire. A few minutes after I spoke to Hazem, the first sound of live gunfire rang out, driving the protesters back in panic. I ran, but found myself trapped between two groups of soldiers, forced to climb several walls and cross a railway line to escape, only to be confronted by an angry group of supporters of the military.

"You are a spy," one shouted, attempting to drag me away for questioning, prevented in his efforts by the intervention of other residents. Other journalists covering events in Abbasiya in the last few days have not been so fortunate. Eighteen have been arrested or injured, including one who reportedly had an ear cut off during an attack.

Egypt's long-awaited presidential elections – the first round of which begins on 23 May – appear to be unravelling amid rising violence and protest. By the end of Friday, two people were dead, including a soldier; hundreds had been injured or arrested; and a curfew had been imposed by the army in the area where the violence was worst.

Once again, the most significant faultline of the protests – one that threatens to overshadow the election campaign – has been the growing rift between the generals and the political parties who would replace them when – or rather if – the army relinquishes power, as it has promised to do, on 30 June.

Some of those out protesting on Friday have special reason to despise them. In Tahrir Square a few hours before the violent dispersal of the protest in Abbasiya, I had met Mohammed Atta, a 45-year-old tour guide. He had been in Abbasiya on Wednesday and witnessed the baltagiya – well-organised gangs of armed thugs – attack a sit-in dominated by ultra-conservative Salafi Muslims and supported by revolutionaries, outside the defence ministry. That day at least 11 people died, many shot in the head at close quarters.

I encountered Atta attending a protest in the square called by the Muslim Brotherhood to protest at those killings. "I was in the middle of the street [in Abbasiya] when they came in from one end," Atta recalled. "I saw them come out from where the police were."

Atta fled, chased by 12 men. He left behind him the body of his murdered friend, Atif al-Gohary, a 41-year-old chef. "He went over to talk to them, to ask them to be peaceful," he recalled. Instead, al-Gohary was shot in the chest and his face was stamped in.

"He was like a brother to me. He taught me about revolution. On 25 January last year when I came here to Tahrir Square at the beginning of the revolution, I was afraid to go beyond the police lines. But he called me down to join him and told me not to be afraid."

Atta had come to Tahrir Square on Friday to participate in the millioneya– the million-man protest organised by the Muslim Brotherhood and other parties to call on Egypt's military council, which has ruled since the fall of dictator Hosni Mubarak more than a year ago, to keep its promise and stand down.

But if the Brotherhood had hoped to pack the square that became the symbol of the resistance to both the Mubarak regime and military rule, they were to be disappointed, despite bussing in supporters from hundreds of miles away. The Brotherhood, once regarded as Egypt's most organised and potent political force, has begun to wane.

As the election nears, Egypt's fragile transition to democracy is slipping into turmoil. It is not just the killings, or the repetition of the generals' heated denials – on Thursday they insisted that they had nothing to do with the bloodshed, had no preference for who should be president, and had no desire to cling to power. It is that the process that was supposed to deliver a transition to democracy appears to have been undermined at almost every turn by Egypt's de facto rulers, creating a growing sense of disillusionment, not only with the army, but with parties such as the Brotherhood.

Candidates have been disqualified, including the Brotherhood's own first choice, Khairat al-Shater, and Hazem Abu Ismail, the ultra-conservative whose supporters were gunned down and stabbed to death in Abbasiya on Wednesday. There have been rumours of postponements to the elections, sourced to the army; complaints to the electoral commission against the candidates who remain; and dishonest reporting of events by a state media still dominated by those once loyal to the old regime.

For those like Atta, who describes himself as an "independent revolutionary" but who joined the Brotherhood's protest last week, the aim of the generals has been to turn the different parties who have participated in the revolution against each other.

Peru drug clinic fire kills 14 people locked inside

Privately run Sacred Heart of Jesus rehab centre outside Lima had windows and doors locked and barred

Bars visible on a window of the Sacred Heart of Jesus clinic at Chosica, outside Lima, where 14 people have died in a fire.

A pre-dawn fire has swept through a drug rehabilitation centre in a town on Lima's outskirts, killing 14 people in the second blaze in Peru this year to kill addicts locked up in a private treatment residence.

The only known survivor of the blaze at the Sacred Heart of Jesus clinic escaped by jumping from the building's second floor after the blaze broke out about 4am on Saturday, his brother said.

Local health director Pablo Cespedes said officials did not yet know what caused the blaze. There were media reports a patient may have set his mattress alight. Thirteen bodies were found in bedrooms on the second floor and one on the first floor of the two-storey home in Chosica, about 19 miles (32km) east of Lima, the coastal capital, Cespedes said.

Rescue efforts were complicated by locked doors and barred windows, said fire chief Fernando Campos. "The doors were padlocked shut. We had to use tools to get in the front door. On the second floor the windows have bars," he told reporters at the scene.

The apparent lone survivor, 39-year-old Luis Zevallos, jumped out of the building from a section of the second floor that lacked bars, said his brother, Jose Zevallos. "His friends were afraid and didn't [jump]. He's got burns on his face but it's not too serious. It's a miracle he's alive."

The aunt of an 18-year-old who died in the fire, Jennifer Rugel, said drug rehabilitation centres in Peru, as a rule, "seal their doors with locks because those interned want to escape and are there against their will".

She said by phone from the morgue where police took the 14 bodies that her nephew, Marco Cespedes, had to be interned because he was selling objects from his home to buy drugs.

The local health director, Cespedes, said the Sacred Heart clinic was licensed but that a 2011 inspection recommended physical improvements to prevent overcrowding and said it needed professional health care workers.

The owners of the clinic could not immediately be located for comment.
After a 28 January fire at a Lima rehab residence for addicts claimed 29 lives, government officials acknowledged that the state has limited capacity for treating drug addicts.

"The state has 700 beds for 100,000 drug-dependent people. That's the root of the problem," the country's drug czar, Carmen Masias, said in radio interview the following day.

A 2010 study by the agency she runs, Devida, counted 222 private rehabilitation centres in Peru, 80% of them unlicensed and many lacking doctors and psychologists.

The global fight to end capital punishment

The death penalty is a shameful legacy of colonialism – now British lawyers are fighting to abolish it around the world by representing condemned prisoners in court

Anti-death penalty protest in Jackson, Georgia, in September 2011. Photograph: Stephen Morton/AP

"If we needed to hang someone tomorrow," Martin Martinez, Trinidad and Tobago's commissioner of prisons, says, grinning wolfishly, "we would grease up the gallows and buy some new rope." Death by hanging is the penalty for anyone convicted of murder in Trinidad and Tobago, although no one has been executed here since 1999.

From his air-conditioned office, minutes from the cemetery in the capital, Port of Spain, Martinez reels off the four witnesses needed: a doctor, a priest, a court official and himself, the prisons commissioner. "It is traumatising to take a man's life," he explains. "It's an emotional issue, as there is such a high murder rate here. The death penalty sends a message, but it may or may not solve the problem."

Prime minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar, backed by former Fifa vice-president Jack Warner, who is now her minister for works and transport, is campaigning for enforcement of the death penalty to fight the "the tsunami of crime" that has hit Trinidad and Tobago. In Jamaica, which has one of the world's highest murder rates, there is also a growing clamour for the rope to be used.

The debate is close to boiling point in the English-speaking Caribbean, partly because it plays on one of the few remaining links to Britain colonialism. The fate of those on death row is currently decided more than 4,000 miles away, in Westminster, at the judicial committee of the privy council (JCPC). "We talk about independence, meaning a flag and an anthem," Martinez says, "but we need to sever the umbilical cord with the mother country."

The JCPC remains the highest court of appeal for 27 countries, including former Caribbean colonies, and the persuasiveness of a British campaign to abolish capital punishment – argued through successive cases – has prevented many islands from carrying out punishments that remain on their statute books.

The London-based Death Penalty Project (DPP) provides free representation to those facing the death penalty in countries that still use the JCPC as their final appeal court. The judgments made there are influencing the capital punishment debate around the world: increasingly Commonwealth countries accept that executing someone who has been on death row for five or more years constitutes cruel and inhuman treatment.

This follows the landmark Jamaican case of Pratt and Morgan, in which the judges ruled that the death sentences of two convicted murderers who had spent 14 years on death row should be commuted to life imprisonment. The case is viewed around the Caribbean as the main barrier to implementing the death penalty – by the time that most appeals have been exhausted, the five-year limit has run out. Keir Starmer, the UK's director of public prosecutions, who used to appear on behalf of condemned prisoners, has described the project as the "most successful litigation organisation in the world".

In March, two British QCs were arguing these points before five British judges in an oak-panelled room within the new UK supreme court building in Westminster. It could have been a day like any other in the British legal system, except for the large Trinidad and Tobago flag in the corner.

The judges were hearing the case of Marcus Jason Daniel, one of 33 people on death row in Trinidad. Daniel has been convicted of murder and sentenced to hang. The DPP organised psychologists to assess Daniel's mental health and argued that he should have been able to use the defence of diminished responsibility at trial. The JCPC will assess whether Daniel's conviction was safe, and if his death sentence should be sent back to Trinidad's appeal court for review.

Listening to well-spoken barristers reading witness statements littered with colloquialisms and expletives is often surreal but this had an extra edge. Julian Knowles QC referred to "liming", Trinidadian slang for partying. Another exchange had Lord Clarke interjecting: "Smoking 'blacks' is drugs, is it?", to which the counsel Peter Knox QC replied helpfully: "Yes, my lord. A cigarette mixed with cocaine and marijuana."

Privy council judges emphasise their role is to apply the law of the country in question. They deny their stance is explicitly anti-death penalty. However, Lord Dyson, one of the judges hearing Daniel's case, told the Guardian last year that hearing death penalty appeals made him feel "extremely uncomfortable". He acknowledged the role the court has played in preventing executions: "I'm not aware of any case in recent years in which the death penalty sentence has been upheld."

Rajendra Krishna is personally grateful for the intervention of British judges. He spent seven years on death row in Trinidad, having been convicted of murder during a botched burglary in his early 20s. He is wary of the press, as any local media attention could affect his chances of finding work. However, he is happy to speak to British journalists, explaining that he owes his freedom to English people.

"We [the inmates] always had faith in the privy council because the justice in Trinidad and Tobago is very poor," he says. "I have no confidence in no Caribbean court. I believe in the privy council. I would rather the British judges make the decisions." Krishna eventually spent 27 years in prison until the privy council granted his immediate release last year. "No one deserves to hang. Everybody deserves a second chance in life. [Among] the people on death row … not everybody is innocent." But those who are not guilty and can't afford representation, he adds, also "end up in there".

While the privy council has saved lives, the idea of British judges having the final say over former colonial subjects in 2012 – the 50th anniversary of both Jamaican and Trinidadian independence – may seem anachronistic. As Justice Adrian Saunders, a judge at the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), puts it: "Are you independent if your final court of appeal is situated in the former colonial power?"

The CCJ was set up as an alternative to the privy council to serve as the final appeal court for the region. Until now, it has failed to attract widespread support. The court currently only hears appeals from Barbados, Belize and Guyana – even though it is situated in Trinidad. This is about to change. Last month, the Trinidadian prime ministerpledged to stop sending criminal appeals to the privy council. This follows a promise from Jamaica's new prime minister, Portia Simpson Miller, in January, to end "judicial surveillance from London", sign up to the CCJ and drop the Queen as head of state.

While many have welcomed the news as an overdue step towards full independence, there are worries that leaving the privy council removes the barrier to hangings. Judges at the CCJ deny they preside over a "hanging court". They point to a death penalty appeal heard in 2006, where the sentence was commuted. The judgment allowed the CCJ to set out its philosophy on capital punishment. Justice Wit, another CCJ judge, said it showed the court was not "insulated". He continued: "Creating a Caribbean jurisprudence; that means a jurisprudence more connected to our kind of problems and our culture but that does not mean we are going to work in a vacuum. I would even say that at some points, the judgment was more progressive than I've seen from the privy council."

The CCJ has been hailed as a model for selection of judges among international courts. The court's impressive e-filing and video-conferencing system allows it to hear cases from around the region. The court can also travel to hear cases, which makes it more accessible than the JCPC, where parties must either pay for travel to London, accommodation and visa costs, or hire British lawyers. Saunders argues: "Access to the privy council is so restricted that almost all of the cases heard are those by or against the state, by or against big corporations, by or against wealthy individuals or pro bono death penalty cases. So the average man and woman has never had the opportunity to appeal right up to the privy council."

It's a persuasive argument for the CCJ, so why has there been a reluctance to sign up? Trinidad and Tobago's attorney general, Anand Ramlogan, told the Guardian in March that the priority is "the fight against crime" while signing up to the CCJ is a decision that "must be decided by the people and not the politicians", implying a time-consuming referendum. But the move to stop sending criminal cases to the privy council, while retaining its jurisdiction in civil appeals, could be read as a canny political move to show the population that the government is doing something about the mounting murder rate – 124 so far this year.

A recent survey by the DPP showed that 91% of Trinidad and Tobago's population support capital punishment. Ramlogan says his role means he is "duty bound – regardless of personal views – to facilitate and advance its implementation". Contrast that to his message in the local press in 2010: "Rest assured the death penalty is coming … if you do the crime you will not just do the time, but we will pop your neck."

Douglas Mendes, a Trinidadian human rights lawyer, is used to death-penalty politicking. "When people are complaining about crime, the first thing that somebody says is 'let's hang somebody' and they distract the population into a debate about hanging." He notes that capital punishment will always garner popular support (recent surveys in the UK have often shown large numbers in favour of bringing back executions). "Every country where it has been abolished, it's because someone took a leadership decision."

Even without abolition, the privy council's jurisprudence is increasingly being adopted on other continents. Kenya, Malawi and Uganda have taken almost 5,000 people off death row as a consequence of a ruling that mandatory death sentences for all murders are unconstitutional.

One irony of the campaign is that having once exported capital punishment to its dominions around the world and hardwired it into their constitutions, the UK is now leading the fight to abolish the gallows. "There's no death penalty in Latin America. It was abolished in Brazil in 1950s," observes Saul Lehrfreund, the DPP's director. "It's a British colonial legacy. About 60 countries retain the death penalty; a significant proportion are former British possessions. We are trying to get abolition on to the Commonwealth agenda; 19 member states are abolitionist."

Opposing the death penalty is now official government policy. The foreign secretary, William Hague, called for abolition when he addressed the Commonwealth People's Forum in Australia last year. The UK has supported a series of UN resolutions supporting a moratorium on the death penalty. Asked in the Lords what representations Britain makes to the United States (where there are 4,000 people on death row), Foreign Office minister Lord Howell described it as "one of our priority countries". The project's work and some of its training programmes have been partially funded by the Foreign Office.

One of the most prominent defenders of capital punishment is Singapore, which left the JCPC in 1994; it has ignored subsequent legal developments. Yong Vui Kong, a 23-year-old Malaysian, is due to die because the state imposes a mandatory death sentence for drug trafficking; he was carrying 47g of heroin. His lawyers, who have been supported by the DPP, have made a clemency application to the president.

The greatest challenge for abolitionists is China where, some estimate, around 4,000 executions are carried out each year. The numbers have been reducing and last year the National People's Congress cut the number of capital offences from 67 to 54. The case of Wu Ying, a 31-year-old multi-millionaire and the sixth richest woman in China, has stirred up public debate about capital punishment. She was condemned to death for "illegal fundraising" but in an unusual act of public clemency the death penalty was rejected in her case.

The Death Penalty Project is hoping to expand its work in China. "Abolition is the long-term goal," says co-director Parvais Jabbar. The project has held workshops in Beijing and Guangzhou for judges who have the discretion to impose the death sentence. "When we started we were quite a long way apart, but by the end of the exercise we were getting closer together."

So will they be greasing up the gallows in Trinidad? Abolitionists should not assume the CCJ will bow to demands for more executions. The privy council may be loosening its global reach, but its philosophy will live on.

Een Nuraeni, daughter of Ruyati who was beheaded in Saudi Arabia, cries during a protest outside the Saudi Arabian embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia, in June 2011. Photograph: Mast Irham/EPA

Global trends in capital punishment

Although the global trend is towards abolition of the death penalty, progress is unlikely to be smooth. Belarus, the last country in Europe to execute criminals, shot two young men – Dmitry Konovalov and Vladislav Kovalev – convicted of carrying out a 2011 Metro bombing in Minsk.

Iraq, which has reinstated capital punishment, has put more than 60 people to death since November; on one day alone, 19 January 2012, 34 prisoners were killed. According to Amnesty International, there were at least 360 judicial killings in Iran in 2011 (up from 252 in 2010) and at least 82 in Saudi Arabia (up from 27 the previous year).

Almost 150 countries have now either abolished the death penalty in law or in practice, or introduced a moratorium. In the US, there were 43 executions but support appears to be ebbing.

More than 500,000 people in California have backed an abolition proposal ensuring it will be on November's ballot paper. Connecticut became the 17th state to abolish capital punishment in April.

Amnesty International's secretary general Salil Shetty says: "Even among the small group of countries that executed in 2011, we can see gradual progress. These are small steps but such incremental measures have been shown ultimately to lead to the end of the death penalty." Owen Bowcott

El Bulli chef sued over allegations of cheating former partner

Ferran Adrià accused of paying a former investor an excessively low price for his stake in the world-famous restaurant

Spanish chef Ferran Adrià closed his El Bulli restaurant last July. Photograph: Lluis Gene/AFP/Getty Images

One of the world's most celebrated chefs, Spaniard Ferran Adrià, is to appear in court over allegations that he cheated a former partner out of his proper share in the legendary El Bulli restaurant.

The heirs of Miquel Horta, a former financial backer and shareholder in El Bulli, claim that the chef took advantage of their father's frail mental health to con him into selling his share in the business for a knockdown rate, according to Spain's Cadena SER radio station.

Horta's children say that their father's financing of a new, bigger kitchen at the beachside restaurant outside the north-eastern town of Roses was key to El Bulli's later success.

Horta received 20% of the business in return for putting in the money to rebuild and expand the kitchens in the early 1990s.

In 2005, Adrià and his business partner Juli Soler bought out Horta – who had originally made his money from making eau de cologne. They reportedly paid Horta, who has since died, €1m for the 20% share.

Now Horta's sons, Jofre and Sergi, claim that Adrià and Soler deliberately set an excessively low valuation for a restaurant that had become a brand name with global recognition.

They have produced an independent valuation, which reportedly priced El Bulli as nine times higher than the rate paid to their father – or some €45m altogether.

A civil court judge in Barcelona has set a trial date for November, although experts say the two sides could reach an out-of-court settlement before that.

Adrià did not respond publicly to the announcement of the trial and there was no response to messages left by the Guardian.

The Catalan chef closed El Bulli last July, ending a period of 17 years in which he and Soler turned it into the world's most famous restaurant.

He said at the time that he had wanted to close the restaurant while it was still at its best.

El Bulli was voted Restaurant magazine's best restaurant for five years running from 2006.

Cadena SER reported that both Adrià and Soler had decided not to comment on the Horta affair in public – though Soler was reportedly "hurt" by the allegations.

"The truth is I am not interested in polemics," Adrià told a television interviewer last year after news of a dispute with the Horta family first became public.

"I haven't got involved because one has to be aware that one cannot be liked by everyone, that is impossible."

Last year, Adrià said that the restaurant barely made money. "This is like a research and development department. You shouldn't expect it to make money," he said.

Professor Julia Prats, an economist who carried out a case study on El Bulli for the University of Navarre's IESE business school, told the Guardian that it worked more as a marketing tool for Adrià. "Even if it breaks even, that's an accomplishment," she said.

The Horta family believe that their father was "cheated by the accused, who hid from him both profits and parallel activities carried out through third companies during the time he was a partner".

In the meantime, the Adrià family has now branched out into tapas bars in nearby Barcelona.

El Bulli is being turned into a research foundation, with architects plans already available for a new cinema-brainstorming house inside what looks like a large rock, and other buildings including an archive.

The new buildings will have to win planning approval, as El Bulli is inside the Cap de Creus natural park.

Adrià has teamed up with Spanish telecoms company Telefonica, which is the foundation's main sponsor.

Wonga launches business loans service

Loans of up to £10,000 will be available for up to a year but critics say costly borrowing for small firms is 'irresponsible'

The high-cost lender Wonga is launching a business loans service, promising to make funds available within 15 minutes of an application.

Wonga was reluctant to quote a typical annual percentage rate, or APR, for loans, saying the measure was inappropriate as they could be taken out for as little as a week. The firm has been heavily criticised for lending to individuals at an APR of 4,214%, but claims business loans will be at rates starting at 17% APR.

Loans of £3,000 to £10,000 will be available for terms of between one and 52 weeks. The cost, including a variable application fee and interest, starts at 0.3% a week and the loans must be repaid in weekly instalments.

Wonga is entering the business loan market at a time when firms are struggling to raise funding. Research in November by the Federation of Small Businesses showed that 57% of firms suffered late payment by clients but between 2007 and 2010 there was a 24% fall in successful loan applications.

More than half of small firms that applied for an overdraft and 43% applying for a loan for the first time last year were rejected.

The shadow business secretary, Chuka Umunna, criticised the government for failing to get banks to lend more to small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). "That SMEs are being driven into the hands of Wonga is a damning indictment of the government's failure to get finance to successful SMEs," he said.

Anil Stocker, founder of the online financing firm MarketInvoice, expressed dismay at Wonga's entry into the market. "We were shocked when figures from the Small Business Finance Monitor appeared suggesting as many as 26% of businesses were funding their working-capital needs from credit cards. Turning to Wonga-style, extremely expensive loans would be even more irresponsible," he said.

In contrast, Funding Circle provides monthly repayment loans ranging from £5,000 to £250,000 "in a matter of days, not months" and charges from 6.4% annually. The loans, which are funded directly by investors rather than through a bank, are repayable over one, three or five years.

Royal Bank of Scotland said its average rate was 2.9% last year and it approved 90% of SME loans. "We aim to approve loans as quickly as possible, and this could be as soon as the same day if we have the necessary supporting information," said a spokeswoman.

Wonga said its short-term loans were different from those provided by banks, and were expected to sit alongside traditional bank overdrafts, bank loans and invoice discounting products, providing alternative or additional funding. Russell Gould, head of Wonga for business, said: "The product is targeted at businesses which have cash coming in every week, rather than two or three times a year."

Wonga's service will initially be available to limited liability companies and limited liability partnerships that have been established for three years or more and have sales in excess of £20,000 a month, and Wonga said it expected to broaden the application criteria and the loan parameters over time.

Errol Damelin, Wonga's founder and chief executive, said the company was trying to fill a gap in the funding market. "Young, entrepreneurial companies represent our best hope of a recovery, yet many are struggling because they can't get quick access to the credit that they need to cope with everyday challenges, such as late payment by partners or customers.

"Others can use funds for great opportunities like getting a discount by paying cash, or buying in bulk, and then repaying early when the goods are sold," he said.

Wonga said a clear cost of repayment would be calculated for approved applicants before they committed. In one example it provided, a firm is lent £7,500 for 16 weeks, paying £360 in interest, equivalent to 0.3% a week, and an application fee of £75, or 1%. The weekly repayments are £495.94, with a total repayable of £7,935.

A company that is deemed more risky will pay more. If it borrows £6,000 for 12 weeks, with interest at 0.8% a week and a £120 application fee, the weekly repayment is £558 and the total repayable is £6,696, it said.

Gay marriage tangle for White House – live US political coverage

 Arne Duncan follows Joe Biden in support of gay marriage
• White House refuses to comment on change in policy
• Romney silent as supporter accuses Obama of treason
• CIA foils new underwear bomb plot in Yemen

US vice-president Joe Biden said at the weekend he was 'absolutely comfortable' with same-sex unions. Photograph: Lucas Jackson/Reuters

5pm: More on the Yemen bomb plot – the White House spokeswoman says President Obama learned about the plot in April and was assured the device posed no threat to the public:

The president thanks all intelligence and counterterrorism professionals involved for their outstanding work and for serving with the extraordinary skill and commitment that their enormous responsibilities demand.

4.20pm: This just in – a scoop by the Associated Press:

The Associated Press has learned the CIA thwarted a plot by al-Qaida's affiliate in Yemen to destroy a US-bound airliner using a bomb with a new design around the one-year anniversary of the killing of Osama bin Laden.

US officials say the plot involved an upgrade of the underwear bomb that failed to detonate aboard a jetliner over Detroit on Christmas 2009. This new bomb was also built to be used in a passenger's underwear but contained a more refined detonation system.

The would-be suicide bomber was told to buy a ticket on the airliner of his choosing and decide the timing of the attack. It's not immediately clear what happened to the would-be bomber.

4.09pm: BuzzFeed Politics has an interesting find in Mitt Romney's tax return: he has paid $2m in foreign taxes since 2000:

At a town hall here today, Mitt Romney was confronted by a questioner about foreign taxes he reported on his income tax returns, a charge Mitt Romney appeared to deny.

"I don't think I paid any foreign income taxes, but I'll look at it," Romney replied over the boos of the audience for the hostile questioner.

But in fact, Romney has paid over $1.2 million in foreign taxes for "passive category income" since 2000, according to his 2010 income tax return.

Additionally he has paid over $800,000 in foreign taxes for "general category income" according to the same filing.

3.46pm: Reading through the transcript of today's White House briefing, press secretary Jay Carney was given an unusually hard time by the usually supine press corp over the issue of gay marriage. For example:

Question: I think there are very few people who think that the president is not going to, after November, whether he's re-elected or not, come out in favor of same-sex marriage. I think there are very few people on the president's campaign who doubt that; very few people who support the president, very few people who oppose the president who have any doubt that that is what is going to likely happen.

And if that is the likely future of the president and his position, given that you don't have any news to drop on it, but probably his mind has been made up, why not just come out and say it and let voters decide? It seems cynical to hide this prior to the election.

Jay Carney: I think the president's position is well known. He's spoken to this. It's gotten a great deal of coverage. I don't have an update to provide you on the president's position.

Followed by:

Question: Is the president comfortable with the fact of men marrying men and women marrying women?

Carney: The president is comfortable with same-sex couples, as the vice president said, being entitled to the same rights and the civil rights and civil liberties as other Americans.

And this:

Question: Let me ask you this. You have a number of Democratic governors throughout this country – Governor O'Malley, Governor Cuomo, Governor Malloy, to name a few, now the vice president – who all support same-sex marriage. Why doesn't President Obama support same-sex marriage?

Carney: I just don't have an update for you on the president's position.

"I don't have an update for you" is the new "no comment".

3.10pm: Safely away from the crowd at his Ohio event, Mitt Romney is quizzed by journalists about the audience member's charge of treason at the president. Romney told CNN:

I don't correct all of the questions that get asked of me. Obviously I don't agree that he should be tried.

Romney said much the same to the New York Times and Washignton Post when they asked if he agreed that Obama should be tried for treason: "No, of course not."