We visit the Tuesday market in Katine, a rural sub-county in north-east Uganda, to speak to women about the difficulties of generating money to support their families

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Israeli tanks and thousands of troops today battled Hamas fighters as they pushed deep into the Gaza strip in a dramatic escalation of the conflict which has killed more than 30 Palestinians and one Israeli soldier since the ground invasion began.Soldiers reached as far as the Mediterranean coast, cutting Gaza in half and seizing control of large areas of the overcrowded territory.Israel's ground operation, which had been widely expected, began on Saturday night, the eighth of the conflict, and is the biggest assault on Gaza since Israel withdrew its Jewish settlers in 2005.Television footage showed troops wearing night vision goggles, their faces painted in camouflage, marching in single file across the border.Palestinian medical sources said more than 30 Palestinians had been killed in the offensive since midnight ? three Hamas fighters and the rest civilians. The Israeli soldier was killed by mortar fire early this morning in northern Gaza, the first Israeli fatality in the ground offensive, the army said.Thick clouds of smoke hung over Gaza as the Israeli attack targeted the northern towns of Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahiya and Jabaliya, all of which have been frequent scenes of Israeli incursions over recent years.Israeli troops were also seen near the town of Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip along the Egyptian border.The streets of Gaza City were deserted and the city was surrounded by Israeli forces to the north, east and south.Naval ships in the Mediterranean continued to fire shells into Gaza, along with artillery rounds from the east and repeated air strikes across the length of the territory.Tens of thousands of Israeli reservists have been called up ? a sign that the operation could yet deepen.Said Judeh, of the Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahiya, said eight people had been killed in an Israeli artillery strike. He said they were among a group of people trying to leave their homes to shelter in a nearby school.Beit Lahiya is the scene of some of the heaviest fighting, and it was reported today that five members of the same family had been killed in two separate artillery strikes on their home there.At least 30 Israeli troops were injured after the invasion began, with two, a soldier and an officer, seriously hurt.Tank shells exploded in Gaza City's main shopping area, killing at least five Palestinian civilians and wounding 40, hospital staff and witnesses said.The Hamas al-Aqsa television channel today reported that Hamas fighters had captured two Israeli soldiers, but the Israeli army said it had no knowledge of any such incident and that previous Hamas reports of Israeli casualties had proved inaccurate.The Israeli defence minister, Ehud Barak, said the Israelis were "peace seekers". "We are not war hungry, but we shall not, I repeat shall not, allow a situation where our towns, villages and civilians are constantly targeted by Hamas," he said. "It will not be easy or short, but we are determined."Brigadier General Avi Benayahu, an Israeli military spokesman, said the military's goals in launching what it called "phase two" of its campaign in Gaza were "to deal a heavy blow to the Hamas terror organisation, to strengthen Israel's deterrence and to create a better security situation for those living around the Gaza Strip that will be maintained for the long term".The decision to launch a ground offensive came after a late-night meeting between the prime minister, Ehud Olmert, Barak and the foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, which lasted until 4am on Saturday.A security cabinet meeting then approved the operation, although two ministers reportedly abstained.The development followed another day of intense Israeli bombing in Gaza on Saturday. Among the targets destroyed was the American International School in northern Gaza, a private school which has been attacked by Palestinian militants in the past.Another Israeli air strike destroyed a mosque in Beit Lahiya, killing around a dozen Palestinians.The death toll in Gaza climbed to nearly 500, with more than 2,300 wounded, according to Palestinian medical officials.Four Israelis have died in rocket and mortar attacks from Gaza since Saturday, with around 60 wounded. Hamas launched further rocket attacks on Israel today.Hamas leaders warned of heavy fighting to come. "You entered like rats. Your entry to Gaza won't be easy. Gaza will be a graveyard for you, God willing," Ismail Radwan, a Hamas spokesman said in a statement broadcast on Hamas television.In Damascus, the Hamas leader in exile, Khaled Meshal, said on Friday that Israeli soldiers faced a "black fate" in Gaza.He said Hamas's conditions for a ceasefire were that Israeli attacks stopped, that Israel lifted its long economic blockade of Gaza and that the Rafah border crossing into Egypt be opened for people and goods.Israel is believed to want tougher conditions, including a halt to Palestinian rocket fire, an end to smuggling, continued control of the crossings into Gaza, and is thought likely to push for international monitoring of any ceasefire deal.Diplomatic efforts to end the conflict were appearing to falter. Late on Saturday night, the US blocked the approval of a UN security council statement calling for an immediate ceasefire.Alejandro Wolff, the US deputy ambassador, said Hamas would not agree to halt the violence and that a new statement "would not be adhered to and would have no underpinning for success, would not do credit to the council".The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-Moon, spoke of his "extreme concerns and disappointment" about the invasion, and France also condemned Israel's ground attack.However, Jiri Potuznik, a spokesman for the EU presidency, which is currently held by the Czech Republic, issued a statement that was strikingly supportive of Israel, saying: "At the moment, from the perspective of the last days, we understand this step as a defensive, not offensive, action."Israel and the Palestinian territoriesMiddle Eastguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

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It has never been like this before. The assault is coming from the sky, the sea and the ground. The explosion of shells, the gunfire from the tanks, the missiles from planes and helicopters, are all incessant. The sky is laced with smoke, grey here, black there, as the array of weaponry leaves its distinctive trail.Most Gazans can only cower in terror in whatever shelter they can find and guess at the cost exacted by each explosion as the toll for those on the receiving end rises remorselessly.As Israeli forces carved up the Gaza strip today, dividing the territory in two as tanks sliced through the centre of the territory to reach the sea south of Gaza City, the UN warned of a "catastrophe unfolding" for a "trapped, traumatised, terrorised" population.Among the terrorised is Mahmoud Jaro. He was sheltering with his wife and four young children in his home in Beit Lahiya, on the eastern side of the Gaza Strip, within sight of the Israeli border, when he heard the first tank engines in the early hours of Sunday morning.He grabbed his children, the youngest only three, and fled."I couldn't see anything. The area was dark. They cut off the electricity. We were moving in the pitch dark. There were shells, rockets everywhere. Shooting," he said."I was just trying to protect my children. They were very scared and afraid. My youngest son was crying all the time."Eventually, Jaro and his family made it across Beit Lahiya to his parents in law's house in a relatively safer part of the town."I don't know what's going on. I don't know what the Israelis want. This time it's from the air, the sea, the ground at the same time. I've never experienced it like this," he said.The Israeli army warned others who had stayed in their homes to get out.It seized control of Palestinian radio frequencies, jamming Hamas and Islamic Jihad stations, and broadcast a warning in Arabic telling people to move towards the centre of Gaza City for their own safety.Others did not escape the assault. The wounded and dead piled up at Gaza's al-Shifa hospital on Sunday.Eric Fosse, a Norwegian doctor there, said Hamas fighters were a small minority of the casualties brought in."This hospital has been filled up with patients," he added. This morning they [Israeli forces] bombed the fruit market. There were a large number of casualties."We became like a field hospital. There were two patients at a time in the operating rooms and we were operating on other people in the corridors. Some were dying before we could get to them."Moawya Hasanian, the head of al-Shifa's emergency and ambulance department, said the hospital had taken in 33 dead and 137 wounded by lunchtime on Sunday.Among those killed was an paramedic after his ambulance was hit by Israeli fire. Three of his colleagues were wounded."Only three of the dead are from Hamas, the rest are civilians," Hasanian said. "There are many children under 18. There are many in critical condition. We are working under pressure. It's not easy to work with bombs and air strikes everywhere. It's not easy for ambulances to move."Since Israeli ground forces crossed into Gaza on Saturday evening, five people were killed when an Israeli shell hit Gaza city's main market.The Palestinians said a single tank shell killed 12 other people in northern Gaza. An air strike took five lives in a mosque as dusk fell. At least 20 others have died.The total death toll since the Israeli assault began with air raids eight days ago has risen to more than 500.Hamas has put up a fight, claiming Israeli casualties. The military said one soldier was killed by a mortar and 29 others wounded as they fought for control of areas around Beit Lahiya, Beit Hanoun and the Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza, close to where Hamas launches its rockets on Israel.The Israeli military said Hamas fighters were not engaging them in close combat but using mortars and roadside bombs.Occasionally, through the huge Israel attack and Palestinian resistance to it, there came the sound of a Hamas rocket launched into Israel - a reminder that the invading army is going to have to move even deeper into Gaza to achieve its declared aim. By dusk, Hamas had fired at least 30 rockets.John Ging, the head of the UN relief agency in Gaza, described the situation there as "inhuman"."We have a catastrophe unfolding in Gaza for the civilian population," he said. "The people of Gaza City and the north now have no water. That comes on top of having no electricity. They're trapped, they're traumatised, they're terrorised by this situation."They're in their homes. They're not safe. They're being killed and injured in large numbers, and they have no end in sight. The inhumanity of this situation, the lack of action to bring this to an end, is bewildering to them."The UN has been particularly angered at the contention of the Israeli foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, that there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza.Ging also accused Israel of a campaign of destroying public buildings vital to the administration and governance of Gaza."The whole infrastructure of the future state of Palestine is being destroyed," he said. "Blowing up the parliament building. That's the parliament of Palestine. That's not a Hamas building. The president's compound is for the president of Palestine. Schools, mosques."While some Israeli forces seized control of areas north and east of Gaza City, tanks and troops also carved their way through the centre of Gaza, taking control of what used to be the Jewish settlement of Netzarim.Its hundreds of houses and public buildings are nothing more than rubble after the Israelis bulldozed them as they pulled the settlers out of Gaza in 2005.Some of the tanks then continued on the short distance to the sea, cutting Gaza in two - a tactic frequently favoured by the Israeli army when it still had military bases in the territory - and making movement between the halves impossible for Palestinians.Samar Abdel Rahma lives close to Netzarim and watched the Israelis move back into the wreckage of settlement."All night there were bombs, fire, from everywhere," he said. "The noise was very loud. I could see the tanks moving. It was a terrifying situation. I could feel the ground moving because of the tanks."All of my family came to my room because its the safest place in the house. We are 13 people living here. Since the Israeli operation started I didn't leave the house. We've had electricity for just a few hours the entire time. We are not even cooking."The Israeli military has been broadcasting derisory comments on the seized radio frequencies, accusing Hamas officials of cowardice and abandoning the population by going in to hiding.The leadership, including the prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, and the Hamas chief, Mahmoud Zahar, have not been seen in public in days following the targeted assassinations of other senior officials by the Israelis.But Abu Ubaida, a spokesman for the armed wing of Hamas, denied they were hiding and said the morale of the organisation's fighters remained high."We have been able to hit a tank ... and more surprises are awaiting the invaders," he added.Israel and the Palestinian territoriesMiddle Eastguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

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Barack Obama's chances of making a fresh start in US relations with the Muslim world, and the Middle East in particular, appear to diminish with each new wave of Israeli attacks on Palestinian targets in Gaza. That seems hardly fair, given the president-elect does not take office until January 20. But foreign wars don't wait for Washington inaugurations.Obama has remained wholly silent during the Gaza crisis. His aides say he is following established protocol that the US has only one president at a time. Hillary Clinton, his designated secretary of state, and Joe Biden, the vice-president-elect and foreign policy expert, have also been uncharacteristically taciturn on the subject.But evidence is mounting that Obama is already losing ground among key Arab and Muslim audiences that cannot understand why, given his promise of change, he has not spoken out. Arab commentators and editorialists say there is growing disappointment at Obama's detachment - and that his failure to distance himself from George Bush's strongly pro-Israeli stance is encouraging the belief that he either shares Bush's bias or simply does not care.The Al-Jazeera satellite television station recently broadcast footage of Obama on holiday in Hawaii, wearing shorts and playing golf, juxtaposed with scenes of bloodshed and mayhem in Gaza. Its report criticising "the deafening silence from the Obama team" suggested Obama is losing a battle of perceptions among Muslims that he may not realise has even begun."People recall his campaign slogan of change and hoped that it would apply to the Palestinian situation," Jordanian analyst Labib Kamhawi told Liz Sly of the Chicago Tribune. "So they look at his silence as a negative sign. They think he is condoning what happened in Gaza because he's not expressing any opinion."Regional critics claim Obama is happy to break his pre-inauguration "no comment" rule on international issues when it suits him. They note his swift condemnation of November's terrorist attacks in Mumbai. Obama has also made frequent policy statements on mitigating the impact of the global credit crunch.Obama's absence from the fray is also allowing hostile voices to exploit the vacuum. "It would appear that the president-elect has no intention of getting involved in the Gaza crisis," Iran's Resalat newspaper commented sourly. "His stances and viewpoints suggest he will follow the path taken by previous American presidents... Obama, too, will pursue policies that support the Zionist aggressions."Whether Obama, when he does eventually engage, can successfully elucidate an Israel-Palestine policy that is substantively different from that of Bush-Cheney is wholly uncertain at present.To maintain the hardline US posture of placing the blame for all current troubles squarely on Hamas, to the extent of repeatedly blocking limited UN security council ceasefire moves, would be to end all realistic hopes of winning back Arab opinion - and could have negative, knock-on consequences for US interests in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Gulf.Yet if Obama were to take a tougher (some would say more balanced) line with Israel, for example by demanding a permanent end to its blockade of Gaza, or by opening a path to talks with Hamas, he risks provoking a rightwing backlash in Israel, giving encouragement to Israel's enemies, and losing support at home for little political advantage.A recent Pew Research Centre survey, for example, showed how different are US perspectives to those of Europe and the Middle East. Americans placed "finding a solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict" at the bottom of a 12-issue list of foreign policy concerns, the poll found. And foreign policy is in any case of scant consequence to a large majority of US voters primarily worried about the economy, jobs and savings.On the campaign trail, Obama (like Clinton) was broadly supportive of Israel and specifically condemnatory of Hamas. But at the same time, he held out the prospect of radical change in western relations with Muslims everywhere, promising to make a definitive policy speech in a "major Islamic forum" within 100 days of taking office."I will make clear that we are not at war with Islam, that we will stand with those who are willing to stand up for their future, and that we need their effort to defeat the prophets of hate and violence," he said.As the Gaza casualty headcount goes up and Obama keeps his head down, those sentiments are beginning to sound a little hollow. The danger is that when he finally peers over the parapet on January 21, the battle of perceptions may already be half-lost.Barack ObamaIsrael and the Palestinian territoriesSimon Tisdall's world briefingObama White HouseHillary ClintonJoe Bidenguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

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Gordon Brown today unveils ambitious plans for a 1930s American-style programme of public works to ease the pain of recession by creating up to 100,000 jobs.School repairs, new rail links, hospital projects and plans to usher in a new digital age by investing in superfast broadband will be used to keep unemployment down. The plans will also be used to tackle climate change, by means of investments in eco-friendly projects such as electric cars and wind and wave power that would also create jobs.Speaking exclusively to the Observer, the prime minister also pledged action within weeks to kickstart bank lending in an attempt to save existing jobs. Brown is studying a scheme pioneered by Nissan to avoid redundancies in manufacturing, which would see ailing firms given government funding to move staff on to part-time working and use the remaining time for training. His promise to use public money not only to create short-term jobs, but also to build a low-carbon economy for the future, will be seen as a modern reworking of Roosevelt's New Deal - a massive programme of public works, such as dams and roads, to help America recover from the Great Depression. Brown even claimed his green plans would be bigger than Barack Obama's planned multi-billion-dollar "Green New Deal", relative to the size of Britain's economy. In a wide-ranging new year interview at his family home in Scotland, the prime minister also:? ruled out an early second recapitalisation of the banks;? signalled opposition to deploying more British troops in Afghanistan; ? proclaimed a "historic opportunity" for an international deal on climate change.He also revealed his own new year's resolution - to take up running.However, his biggest priority will be to create and save jobs, amid predictions that by 2010 one in 10 Britons will be unemployed. Retailers are expected to respond to a disappointing December by shedding staff this year. "I want to show how we will be able, through public investments and public works, to create probably 100,000 additional jobs over the next period of time in our capital investment programme - schools, hospitals, environmental work and infrastructure, transport," Brown said. "We are not going to stand by and allow nothing to be done when people are facing difficulties." The programme will be funded by new money drawn partly from reserves.One priority will be jobs in digital industries, while 30,000 jobs will be in school repairs in an effort to help private construction firms ravaged by the downturn. Brown suggested infrastructure such as high-speed broadband could be the modern equivalent of FDR's programme: "When we talk about the roads and the bridges and the railways that were built in previous times - and those were anti-recession measures taken to help people through difficult times - you could [by comparison] talk about the digital infrastructure and that form of communications revolution at a period when we want to stimulate the economy. It's a very important thing."He is also studying 10 specific projects on alternative energy sources. He denied that the recession would see green issues shelved, adding: "Rather than pushing the environment into a lower order of priority, the environment is part of the solution."Brown, who will hold a jobs summit next Monday, promised new measures to help firms with good long-term prospects to obtain credit: "Clearly we have banks that were willing to take large numbers of risks a year or two ago and people are now averse to risk, so we have got to create the conditions in which it's possible for banks to resume lending." The government will also shortly unveil a payment holiday scheme for people struggling with their mortgages after redundancy. Brown insisted that they wanted to help "everybody who is genuinely trying to pay their mortgage back", but admitted that lenders would ultimately decide eligibility. Other key priorities for 2009 include an international agreement to reduce carbon emissions. Brown said Obama's election would help, but that getting India and China on board was critical.However, if Obama asks for more British troops for a surge in Afghanistan he may be disappointed, with the prime minister insisting that the priorities were to strengthen Afghan governance and involve Pakistan in fighting terrorism. "The first question everybody starts by is saying 'What about the numbers?', but actually the first question is purpose and objectives and how we can achieve them," he said. "We have increased our numbers in the past few weeks; we are the second-largest force in Afghanistan; we are making a very big contribution."Brown also dismissed Tory warnings of growing resentment of public sector workers' gold-plated pensions, insisting there had been "significant savings", and refused to comment on whether it was appropriate for council chief executives to earn £200,000-plus a year. But he added: "Obviously everybody has got to make their share of the contribution."Gordon BrownEconomicsLabourUnemployment and employment dataEconomic policyCredit crunchUnited Statesguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

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Two-thirds of Britons want the rich to face punitive tax rates not seen since the 1980s, according to a new poll which suggests that the recession has hardened attitudes towards the wealthy.Bankers are now seen second only to footballers as being overpaid, while seven in 10 think that ordinary workers should sit on remuneration committees setting executives' pay to ensure that high salaries are deserved. The findings - in a poll for the think tank the Fabian Society, to be published this week - suggests that the credit crunch has provoked a backlash against the rich, with the public seeking retribution for alleged mistakes made by City figures. The findings will encourage Labour MPs who want Gordon Brown to go further in next spring's budget and rebalance the tax system in favour of more modest earners. His gamble in pledging to introduce a top rate tax of 45 per cent for those earning more than £145,000 is backed by three-quarters of those polled, while 69 per cent would support Labour introducing a higher top rate of 50 per cent for those earning more than £250,000.Tax has not been that high in the UK since 1988, when Margaret Thatcher brought the top rate down from 60 per cent. Neil Kinnock's threat to introduce a 50p tax rate in the 1992 election is widely held in New Labour circles to have cost him Middle England's support.However, the Fabian report found new demand for forcing the wealthy to contribute more, with 70 per cent of those polled by YouGov agreeing that "those at the top are failing to pay their fair share towards investment in public services". Louise Bamfield, senior research fellow at the Fabian Society, said the public had previously considered footballers and business "fat cats" overpaid but had largely accepted it as a fact of life. That had now changed. "There is a shift to a new group of people - bankers and traders - and the sense that not only have they been paid too much but what they have been paid has had a direct negative consequence on other people," she said."People had assumed that this group were more than competent and it must have been deserved. There is now a feeling that these people have been responsible for others losing their jobs."However, she said the anti-rich backlash had not greatly benefited those at the bottom. Focus groups conducted alongside the poll found that while there was sympathy for those losing their jobs, people still expected them to find work as quickly, despite the recession. Those polled significantly underestimated the cost to the Exchequer of tax avoidance by the wealthy and over-estimated the cost of benefit fraud. They blamed the government for failing to stop tax dodges rather than individuals, but saw benefit fraud as the fault of the individual. The findings may explain why Labour's poll ratings have increased; 55 per cent of the public blame reckless lending by the banks for the credit crunch, while fewer than a quarter think the government was mainly responsible. Labour's private polling suggests that two-thirds of Britons blame America for starting the credit crunch - the argument that Brown uses, to the frustration of Conservative MPs who argue that he left the economy overexposed. Bamfield said the poll suggested Brown had pitched his tax rise correctly. More than half of respondents wanted not only to see bonuses reduced, but for executives of failed companies to repay past bonuses as penance for mistakes.Tax and spendingCredit crunchTaxExecutive salariesGordon BrownLabourguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

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Police say at least 30 people died when female suicide bomber detonated explosives near shrine

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The French government fears a wave of extreme left-wing terrorism this year with the possible sabotage of key infrastructure, kidnappings of major business figures or even bomb attacks.Secret French government reports, seen by the Observer, describe an "elevated threat" from an "international European network ... with a strong presence in France" after the radicalisation of "a new generation of activists" in recent years. Senior analysts and experts linked to the government have drawn parallels with the Action Directe group, which carried out 50 or more attacks in the early 1980s. Others cite the example of the Baader-Meinhof gang.A report by the French domestic intelligence service talks of "a rebirth of the violent extreme left" across Europe that is likely to be aggravated by the effects of the economic crisis. Other secret documents expose alleged links with activists in Italy, Greece, Germany and the UK. "It has been growing for three or four years now and the violence is getting closer and closer to real terrorism," said Eric Dénécé, director of the French centre of intelligence research and a former Defence Ministry consultant.While some believe such claims to be scaremongering, the present political atmosphere is tense, with many among right-wing President Nicolas Sarkozy's aides fearing a repeat of the violence in Athens last month, when angry and alienated young people and a hard core of violent left-wing extremists rioted for several days, causing significant damage and bringing the city to a halt.Last week hundreds of fly-posters around Paris called on young people "forced to work for a world that poisons us" to follow the example of their Greek counterparts. "The insurrection goes on. If it takes hold everywhere, no one can stop it," the posters said.The recent intelligence reports have blamed violent demonstrations against changes in employment law in 2006, often by middle-class young people, for the recruitment of large numbers of new activists.A series of incidents last year confirmed the fears of French police. In January two activists were arrested in possession of what was alleged to be bomb-making materials. In November nine people were arrested after a lengthy surveillance operation in the central French village of Tarnac, where they had set up a commune. Two of the alleged ringleaders, Julien Coupat, 34, and his partner Yildune Lévy, 25, are still in prison accused of sabotaging high-speed TGV railway lines and "associating with wrongdoers with terrorist aims".Gilles Gray, assistant director of economic protection of the French domestic intelligence service, spoke recently of "a philosophy that was spreading in Europe". The arrests in Tarnac were "a strong message ... addressed to those who might be thinking about committing similar acts," he said. "We hope that this affair has put a stop for a time to this kind of violent action [and will avoid] a return of Action Directe."Investigators believe that the arrests at Tarnac provoked "reprisals" in Athens, where the offices of the French news agency Agence France-Presse were attacked with makeshift incendiary devices, and in Hamburg, where the French consulate was daubed with paint.A claim of responsibility for the sabotage of the TGV lines was, police say, sent to a German newspaper from Hanover and signed "those who have had enough ... in memory of Sébastien", believed to be a reference to Sébastien Briat, a young anti-nuclear militant crushed by a nuclear waste train in eastern France exactly four years before the night of the recent spate of sabotage. Coupat and Lévy had taken part in demonstrations and actions in Germany, the US and the UK.Coupat has also been accused by investigators of anonymously writing a book, The Coming Insurrection, published by a little known Paris publishing house in 2007. The book, which has been translated into English and posted on US and UK anarchist websites, was found in the possession of three young activists arrested after detonating a bomb in a field. It contains instructions about sabotaging railways and other means of "destroying the power of the police, seizing local political power by the people, and blocking the economy". A statement from the publishing house said the author was "a committee from the subversive tendency".But some accuse France's right-wing government of both exaggerating and exploiting the left-wing threat. "They are turning my son into a scapegoat for a generation who have started to think for themselves about capitalism and its wrongs and to demonstrate against the government," said Gérard Coupat, father of the alleged ringleader of the Tarnac group. "The government is keeping my son in prison because a man of the left with the courage to demonstrate is the last thing they want now, with the economic situation getting worse and worse. Nothing like this has happened in France since the war. It is very serious."Author and researcher Christophe Bourseiller told the Observer the threat was being exaggerated. "Yes, there is a certain renewed level of agitation, but there is a huge difference between deliberately slowing down a few trains without injuring anyone and something like the Madrid bomb blasts," he said. "The Ministry of the Interior has made it look like the Tarnac arrests halted a serious campaign of violence with a huge, huge media operation."Certainly there is a widespread fear at the ministry in the Place Beauveau of violent protests in the coming months. A powerful and growing movement among schoolchildren forced the tactical withdrawal of wide-ranging reform plans after demonstrations in Lyon led to clashes with the police, mass arrests and the burning of cars.Trade unions have promised a series of mass stoppages in the coming months. Among a population already made bitter by static salaries, rising prices and structurally high levels of unemployment, the lay-offs and wage cuts that could result from the economic crisis will fuel anger."Whether or not the Tarnac group is guilty, there are other groups in France, in Italy, in Germany, which, having lost faith in a political left in disarray, are tempted by violent action and are in a phase of semi-clandestinity," Alain Bauer, a criminologist at the Sorbonne, told the Observer. "With Action Directe and the Red Brigades, there was a first intellectual phase, followed by a radicalisation and then a transition to physical action. Books like The Coming Insurrection are strongly reminiscent of the first phase."Other similarities include the tactics envisaged and the middle-class, educated profile of most of the activists.FranceGlobal terrorismguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

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Thousands of teachers and pupils are expected to call in sick this week as widespread outbreaks of flu and the norovirus "winter vomiting bug" threaten to disrupt schools across Britain. Teachers' unions warned that schools face a "tough time" when the new term starts tomorrow with flu cases up by 73 per cent on a year ago and the norovirus still rampant.Mick Brookes, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said: "There are more people struggling with this very unpleasant flu bug, which seems to lay you low for weeks, and various forms of the norovirus. I think the beginning of term is going to be a tough time for schools."Staffing would inevitably be stretched, he added. "It's not like other workplaces where they carry on; if a teacher is off, the work doesn't get done. You can't have a classroom full of pupils and no teachers. So there will be a need for supply teachers, and you have to hope they don't get ill too. It's easier to get supply teachers in some contexts than others."My own observation is that a lot of people are struggling. We'll have to wait until Monday to find out how many. The problem is that if they turn up at school with the virus, it spreads like wildfire."It has been predicted that this winter could be the worst flu season in nine years. Experts believe the unusually cold weather may have contributed to the surge.The outbreaks began a month earlier than last winter and coincide with widespread cases of the vomiting bug norovirus, the most common gastrointestinal illness in Britain. Figures from the NHS Alliance show a 25 per cent rise in demand for GP out-of-hour services over the Christmas period, with some areas seeing much higher rates.John Dunford, general-secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, has been suffering from the bug himself and warned that people who have caught it already are not necessarily out of the woods. "This particular strain seems to be more widespread this year," he said. "The end of the autumn term is often bad, but it may be that the start of the spring term is as bad as the end of the autumn term. It may be that the people who had it before Christmas suffer a second dose, which happened to me."Asked if there would be enough supply teachers to step in, he added: "Cover will be patchy."Health experts fear that schools increase the risk of transmission of the norovirus, which could become evident by the end of this week. Professor Steve Field, chairman of the Royal College of GPs, said that the length of time staff or children spend in close physical proximity to each other means that if just one or two have the bug, they could quickly infect many others."You would expect the norovirus to affect schools once they reopen this week, but not until the end of next week or the start of the week after, as its incubation period is a few days," said Field, a GP in Birmingham. "If someone hasn't washed their hands properly after going to the loo, someone else could pick up the virus. Simply talking could be another source of transmission, because small droplets of water come out of the mouth when we do as mouth spray."Although the high number of cases of norovirus is putting a strain on the health service, the fact that teachers and students have not been exposed to each other over the festive break should mean that no school is forced to close this week because of it, he added. Everyone in such confined environments is urged to follow basic hygiene procedures rigorously.HealthSchoolsguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

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Liverpool v Everton was the first match out of the hat in an intriguing draw for round four

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Phil Taylor has won his 14th world title and pocketed a cheque for £125,000 after a masterful display of darts at Alexandra Palace. He obliterated his opponent and good friend, Raymond van Barneveld, by seven sets to one. In doing so he achieved a three-dart average of 110.94, a record for a PDC World Championship final.Darts fans packed the north London venue hoping for a repeat of the 2007 decider ? that three-hour epic, the last to be played at Purfleet's Circus Tavern, was dramatically won by van Barneveld in a sudden death final leg in the deciding 13th set. But it was not to be, as Taylor made his extremely talented opponent look almost average."That's my little pension now," said Taylor. "What you have got to do with Barney is put him under pressure and that's what I did."Having shot closer to the bull backstage 48-year-old Taylor opted to give the Dutchman the throw and the ploy worked, with Taylor taking the opening set, denying his opponent even an attempt at a checkout as he broke twice and took the set 3-0. He repeated the feat in the second as his opponent misfired early on.You do not become a five-time world champion (four times at the Lakeside and once at the PDC) without being built of stern stuff and the 41-year-old from The Hague took the third set 3-2, holding his nerve and hitting double five to half the deficit. However the Dutchman was powerless in the face of the type of onslaught that ensues when "The Power" abandons his smile for a determined glower.Five 180s rained in during the next set as both players raised the already high standards, with Taylor's three-dart average topping 106 ? "Barney" behind him with a still-respectable 98. The former postman took the second leg with only 11 darts but missed double 18 and double nine later in the set as Taylor took it 3-2 to re-establish his two-set lead at 3-1.In the fifth Van Barneveld took a two-leg lead and moved tantalisingly close to retrieving that lost set immediately. However, "The Power" had other ideas, breaking twice in between holding his own throw and once again seizing the set from the jaws of defeat. The Stoke arrower took a 4-1 lead and the chants of "There's only one Phil Taylor" drowned out the groans of the Dutchman's supporters.Despite throwing 10 180s to Taylor's seven by the end of the sixth set, Van Barneveld still found himself four sets down, with Taylor looking untouchable on his own throw. Once again the Dutchman held both his throws but still lost the set 3-2? the fourth consecutive set to go the distance after Taylor's initial two whitewashes.Whether it be paint or whitewash, the writing was on the wall in the next set, which Taylor won 3-1 after van Barneveld choked in the third leg, missing double top and double 10, allowing Taylor to break and comfortably throw for the set in the fourth leg.Credit to Van Barneveld, he took the final set to a fifth leg but Taylor claimed his 14th title. Had he lost it would have meant an unprecedented three years without a world title for Taylor, who went out to Wayne Mardle at the quarter-final stage last year.But the Stoke thrower came into the championships in great form having won 19 of 26 PDC tournaments in 2008. "Barney" in comparison has only won one untelevised event. Taylor, the world No1, had an impressive 103.41 three-dart average and a 47% checkout success rate coming into the final, dropping only three sets as he defeated Steve Grubb, Marco Van Gerwen, Kevin Painter, Co Stompe and Mervyn King.Van Barneveld, second in the world, lost nine sets in beating Mark Stephenson, Wes Newton, Ronnie Baxter, Jelle Klaasen and James Wade en route with slightly lower averages of 100.26 and 41% ? despite the historic nine-dart finish he achieved in his quarter-final win over Klaasen.Dartsguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

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Countries across Europe yesterday began to report declining gas supplies as the bitter dispute between Russia and Ukraine over energy contracts intensified.An emergency meeting of European Union envoys will be held tomorrow in the hope of resolving the row, which some experts fear has again highlighted the risks of energy dependency on Russia. Bohdan Sokolovsky ? an economic aide to the Ukrainian president, Viktor Yushchenko ? warned that if Russia continued to refuse to ship gas allocated for Ukraine, European countries could see major shortfalls within 10 to 15 days.The Czech Republic said its supplies had dropped by 5% since the start of the stand-off over unpaid bills and price levels on New Year's Day. Prague, which has just taken over the EU presidency, resisted calls to get involved directly in the row, but is coming under increasing pressure to do so. The EU receives about 25% of its gas from pipelines that cross Ukraine and has demanded that Russia honours existing transit and supply contracts.The stand-off between Russia and Ukraine shows little sign of being resolved after Kiev accused Moscow of manipulating gas distribution and Moscow retaliated by raising the price.Elsewhere Romania, which takes 40% of its natural gas from Russia, said its gas supplies were 30% down on normal levels, and it was having to draw supplies from storage facilities. The government called an emergency meeting to discuss its options. Poland said it was dependent on deliveries from Belarus to make up for a shortfall of 11%. Hungary and Bulgaria also experienced drops in supply.Turkey said supplies had fallen only slightly, while France and Germany reported no problems. But a spokesman for the German gas importer, E.ON Ruhrgas, said there has been a decrease in pressure in the pipeline through Ukraine.While consumers have not been affected, EU energy companies said that would only continue if the dispute did not last so long that storage supplies ran low. After a similar dispute in 2006, many European energy firms built up gas reserves.Russia accused Ukraine of stealing a sixth of the gas supplies destined for Europe. "In total over the past day European consumers have not received 50m cubic metres," Sergei Kupriyanov, spokesman for the Russian gas company Gazprom said, adding that Ukraine still owed Gazprom $614m (£422m) for gas supplies delivered last year. The company said it was now increasing supplies through routes which bypass Ukraine.But Ukraine accused Moscow of distorting the picture by cutting flows via a key pipeline by more than 50%. The Ukrainian state energy company, Naftogaz, said Moscow was threatening Europe's energy security. "Naftogaz considers the actions of Gazprom as threatening the energy security of Ukraine and Europe which could bring unpredictable consequences for the entire gas transit system of Europe," it said in a statement.Gazprom showed that it was not prepared to compromise over Ukraine's plea for a reduction in prices.Alexei Miller, Gazprom's chief executive, said that as Ukraine had turned down a proposed price of $418 per 1,000 cubic metres, he would now raise the price to $450.Oleksander Shlapak, the first deputy chief of staff of president Yushchenko, urged the EU to intervene. "Europe talks of real gas blackmail from the Russian side," Shlapak told Reuters. "Today, the front of that blackmail has moved to Ukraine."If Europe does not understand that and does not help us get out of this situation, then it can expect a more aggressive position from Russia on gas and other issues," he said.The 2006 dispute led to urgent calls for the EU to diversify its energy supplies but it has not managed to break free from its dependence on Russian gas.Russia and Ukraine have said they plan to bring cases against each other in the arbitration court in Stockholm.UkraineRussiaEnergyEuropePolandguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

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Marks & Spencer is this week expected to report its worst Christmas sales figures since Sir Stuart Rose took the helm after what has been a bloody trading period for retailers.Next and Debenhams are also expected to report sales declines in their January updates but analysts think that like-for-like falls will be most marked at M&S, with sales down by at least 5.5% in the third quarter. Some fear that the decline could be as steep as 9.6 per cent.If underlying sales are down more than 6.3%, that would be M&S's worst quarterly performance since 1999. The City is braced for bad news, with updates from all the big retailers due this month. One analyst predicts "the most depressing reporting season in years". The quarter containing Christmas is when retailers bank the bulk of their profits. But this year was marred by heavy discounting, with few expected to have eked out growth.Most analysts think M&S's clothing and homewares sales will be off at least 8% with food sales down nearly 7%. At Next, like-for-like sales are expected to be down more than 4%.Employee-owned chain John Lewis said sales jumped in the days before and after Christmas, when bargain hunters flocked to the Boxing Day sales. But data from Experian, which counts shoppers, suggests that December crowds were markedly smaller than a year ago. "There is no question it has been difficult," confirmed a senior retail executive.Given the grim climate, many retailers decided the only way to win custom was by running aggressive price cuts. The tactic is thought to have helped Debenhams to hold its own but may have damaged M&S, which followed suit with a series of kneejerk events. Analysts are divided as to how adept Rose has been at managing the chain's profitability since Britain plunged into recession, with brokers UBS, Deutsche Bank, ING and Pali International all cutting their forecasts in recent weeks. Profit forecasts for the year to March 2009 now range from as little as £460m to £692m, compared with 2008's £1bn. "A profit warning looks more likely than not and the dividend is by no means safe," said Blue Oar analyst Ian Macdougall. In contrast, supermarket chains are expected to have had a "reasonable" Christmas. Asda had one of its best so far and Waitrose enjoyed a sales jump of more than 40% in the final week. Recent data suggest that Sainsbury's held market share during the period.Retail experts predict that the economic downturn will have a dramatic impact on the shape of the high street this year. Woolworths, music store Zavvi and clothing chains Adams, Officers Club and USC have already gone to the wall and some quoted retailers also face an uncertain future. Experian predicts up to 10% of the UK's estimated 300,000 stores will lie empty by the end of the year as shops are shed in administration or, in the absence of a buyer, closed. Only 300 of Woolworths's 800 stores have found new homes. A substantial number of Zavvi and Adams's combined 400 stores are expected to close even if white knights are found.Marks & SpencerHigh street retailersRecessionguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

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'I was born my mother's son, but I will die my sister's brother." So says Christopher Ciccone in his book Life With My Sister Madonna. It's an unauthorised biography, one that Madonna is reportedly unhappy about; it came out last summer and was yet another glitch in a tricky year for the Queen of Pop. She's a trouper and her career has been through worse patches. But despite the fact that her Sticky and Sweet tour was a hit (the highest-grossing tour of the year) and she was inducted into America's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, it's the other stuff that we, and she, will remember about Madonna's 2008. "2008? Well, she turned 50, there was the divorce with Guy, the stuff with her kids and there was my book. All these things that she has no control over came crashing down at the same moment. And my sister," says Christopher, twisting his mouth, "is big on control."We are in Los Angeles, at the home of a brother of a megastar. Christopher's apartment is in West Hollywood, a one-bedroom joint. It's surprisingly tiny and feels smaller: stuffed like a junk shop with heavy, antique furniture, piled up art books, umpteen family photographs and paintings, many done by Christopher. The artist is ill in bed, struck down by a stomach complaint the night before our interview is scheduled. So I'm shown around by Scott, one of his friends, who's over from Britain trying to launch himself as a presenter/actor. Scott, a very sweet chap, talks me through all of Christopher's work, including a series of photographs of men's behinds, which Scott thinks "predates that Dazed & Confused vibe that's everywhere now". I'm not sure - they just look like snapshots of bottoms to me, though I do like his colourful, impressionistic paintings. Anyway, I'm more interested in the family pics. Here's a young Madonna cuddling baby sister Melanie; Madonna and Christopher looking minxy and fun; a formal portrait of their mother, also called Madonna, who died when they were very young. Some of these photos appear in Christopher's book; he tells me his sister "went crazy" at their dad for giving permission for them to be printed.Christopher, two years younger than his famous sibling, has not been in regular contact with Madonna for some time now. The last time he saw her, in 2006, she sent tickets for her Confessions show in Miami and made a point of dedicating a song to him: "It was quite a nice moment," he says now, "but it was my sister's way of publicly showing how kind she is to her family. It was calculated." They haven't spoken properly since. She didn't know he'd written his book; by the time she got wind of it, it was printed and only three weeks from being launched. She emailed Christopher just two words: "Call me." But he didn't.Christopher receives me atop his bed, in pyjamas and striped silk gown, reclining on two enormous Versace pillows. A small picture of Frida Kahlo is positioned so he can see it, for strength, I suppose. I interviewed Madonna a few years ago and Christopher resembles her: heart-shaped face, strong eyebrows, beautiful, curly-lashed eyes. He also shares her bluntness though lacks her charm. This might be because he's ill; he's definitely uncomfortable, cutting our chat short and generally seeming tense, especially when Madonna is discussed. What an irony! You write a book about your sister to give yourself a separate identity. Then people interview you about it and, naturally, only talk about her. Which is what I do. What does she think of his book?"She probably thinks of it as a desperate attempt for attention and money," says Christopher, his voice a mellifluous tenor that seems to rumble up from his toes. "And, ultimately, a betrayal. I think of it as a thesaurus - it's different ways of defining people and myself - and also as another piece of art. "Other than that, there are two factions. People who hate me because they think I've betrayed their icon. And then the people who hate me because they think I haven't betrayed her enough. The other day, I was walking through a gay bar and I heard this guy whisper, 'Traitor!' It was pretty funny." As adults, the pair were very close, much the tightest of the eight Ciccone brothers and sisters. They were born and brought up in Detroit, Michigan; Madonna the oldest girl, Christopher the second youngest boy, fifth-born. Their dad Sylvio, known as Tony, married Joan, the family housekeeper, after his first wife died, at 30, of breast cancer. Joan ran a strict household, trying to keep all the kids in order, a hard task, especially as the six older ones weren't hers. Madonna's desire for fame and love is usually traced back to the loss of her mother when she was five. However, Christopher thinks that Joan hasn't got her dues. He says that as she gets older, Madonna has taken on much of their stepmother's sergeant-major tendencies, "insisting that everything has to be done her way, according to her timetable and that life must be lived by her rules". When Madonna left home and started out in pop, in the Borderline-Lucky Star-Holiday mid-80s, Christopher was one of the two male dancers behind her. He performed at her early club dates. When she graduated to proper tours, he was her dresser. In the book, he seems embarrassed about this job, refusing to tell any of his friends. When I ask why, he says: "Well, technically, it was beneath me. I did it because she needed me, but it bred resentment. Not many people would have been able to deal with her stuff [she shouted at him a lot]." You could see this as the fatal flaw in their relationship, for Christopher; he hated being subservient to his sister, but liked being needed by her and, like everyone else around her, enjoyed the perks. Anyway, Christopher stopped being Madonna's dresser when he progressed to becoming director of her live shows, Blond Ambition and the Girlie Show, both of which were dazzling successes. He was also in charge of the interior decoration of all of her houses; plus, on and off, he lived with her, right through the Sean Penn marriage and the Warren Beatty interlude. For many years, Madonna's life was his life. Rupert Everett wrote in his autobiography: "To know Madonna at all, you had to know Christopher. The one was incomprehensible without the other."So how come they fell out? What happened? She dropped him. In 2001, Madonna appointed a different director - choreographer Jamie King - for her Drowned World tour and didn't tell Christopher. Around the same time, she married Guy Ritchie, who nitpicked about her brother's interior work. And Christopher got into what he calls "partying", meaning going out and taking cocaine, a big no-no for Madonna. "From the moment I found out that I wasn't doing Drowned World, to her and Guy's wedding, everything became a bit of a blur, a dark, fairly negative period of time for me. You know, she was my family. I wasn't close to my other brothers and sisters, I moved out when I was 18 and moved to New York so... she was my family. Plus I'd come out of a 10-year relationship straight after the Girlie Show. So losing that, losing her - I was kind of out there for the first time in 15 years by myself." His eyebrows furrow, he clasps his hands over his stomach.For his part, Christopher began pulling away too. He was upset with Madonna for dispensing with his services; he disliked Guy Ritchie, who he thinks is homophobic (Christopher is gay); and, as he no longer worked with his sister, he realised he had to establish himself as a separate entity. He continued with his interiors, he directed pop videos, he designed T-shirts. But nothing hit the heights of what he'd achieved before.So he wrote his book, which reached number two in the New York Times non-fiction bestseller list and number one in the equialent UK list despite Christopher not doing many promotional interviews. Rumour has it that Madonna's people lent hard on US magazines and TV shows in order to curtail his press. To be honest, though, there's not much in the book for her to worry about. She goes to bed at 11pm every night! She gave Christopher his first ecstasy tablet! She wouldn't pay for her sister Paula to come to her wedding! I suppose the very fact that he wrote it at all is enough to drive her bananas. Christopher toyed with writing his story for years, but he knew he was still angry with Madonna and thought it would be unfair. It was only when he started therapy and (oh no!) studying kabbalah that he felt he could "look back on our work together and be proud of it and not hate her for dragging me through this". What's interesting about that is that it was Madonna who strong-armed him into both. The therapy began because she was trying to force him into rehab for cocaine: instead, Christopher went to a doctor, who established that he was just a recreational user and recommended therapy. Madonna then sent a list of demands to Christopher's therapist, which says quite a lot. And she pressurised him into attending kabbalah meetings by refusing to pay him money she owed for his interior work unless he went along.At kabbalah, he became friendly with Demi Moore, who has since dropped him, too. Of her - and of Madonna - Christopher says grumpily: "A certain kind of diva carries a gay man around like a handbag, like an accessory. And then once they find the right straight guy, they don't need a male companion any more." He quite liked kabbalah, though. "There are great things about it, but the people who run it are not immune to the Hollywood celebrity thing. They'd like to think they are, but they treat celebrities better. When Britney started running around the centre, I was like, 'OK, time for me to go'."Christopher is naturally acerbic and there are some good stories in the book, with funny "partying" cameos from Kate Moss, Naomi Campbell, Donatella Versace and Courtney Love. He describes how Sean Penn makes him do a blood brother pact - cutting their palms and rubbing them together - and then, years later, rushes across at a party to ask Christopher if he has Aids. And there's a Miami evening where several people, including David Geffen, all play truth or dare. Every person, apart from Christopher, vows that if they could have sex with anyone in the room, it would be with Madonna. Even David Geffen, who likes men! "No, it didn't make me laugh," says Christopher sharply. "It made me feel ill."His mood is darkening; he says we'll have to stop soon. So I ask him about his current projects. He's just finished some interior decoration work in Miami, is involved in a hotel project in Mexico City and it looks like he'll be directing a low-budget movie called Twist: "Sex, drugs and murder in Orange County," he smiles. These days, Christopher is just another LA hustler, talking up deals, trading on past glories, pitching for the future. There's nothing wrong with that - it's how the city works. But it must be hard when you've previously been whisked to the top tables, VIP'd at the best parties. Even - or especially - when you know it's only because of your more famous sibling. Maybe he should have pursued a career away from his sister, as the other Ciccones did. "Yes, but she needed me, and I wanted to do it," he says. "Also, even though my brothers and sisters lead very regular lives, that still isn't easy for them. Because first, you compare yourself with Madonna and her success, and because you can't get there, you consider yourself some kind of a failure. And then there's the expectations of other people who know you're Madonna's brother, so why aren't you rich and famous? "The life that she's chosen has had unintended consequences on all of our lives. And it's not as if she'd ever acknowledge that. Even with me, involved with her for 25 years... Madonna isn't big on recognising other people for their contribution." It's clear that Madonna's sudden dropping of Christopher is not unusual for her, though it seems crueller as he is her brother. She's done it with other collaborators, musical or managerial. In fact, her only long-term US employee is press officer Liz Rosenberg and even she might have blown it with her recent leaking of how much Madonna is paying Guy in the divorce settlement. A couple of weeks ago, Rosenberg gave different numbers to different publications. A joint release from Ritchie and Madonna was issued within a day, saying that all the figures were inaccurate. Oops. Christopher is generous about the divorce, despite his feelings about Ritchie: "As much as I dislike Guy and as much as he may dislike me, I would never wish for the end of their marriage. Though, without getting into too much detail, Guy isn't quite the gentleman I thought he was trying to be. There are some myths running around about this amicable divorce stuff. It's not quite as sweet and clear-cut and dried..." He won't elaborate, but later on says this: "Madonna isn't a cheapskate, she's very practical and pragmatic. However, like most people she has a tendency to give her money away with strings attached. She gets the best bang for her buck."What about Christopher? Has he got the best bang for his buck? He won't say how much he was paid for his book, but it must have been good money. Was it worth it? By writing about Madonna, he's burnt umpteen bridges. "Oh yeah. It's a fine line to write a book of this nature," he says. "You can absolutely destroy your career. But I think because it's not a vicious book, then people are reading it, it's worthwhile. And more importantly, I didn't tear our family apart."Do you miss her?"I miss working with her, on her tours and in her houses. Madonna isn't a really buddy-buddy, palsy-around, slap-you-on-the-back, beer-at-the-pub kind of girl. Because we were all so focused on her, I now realise that she really didn't know me at all as a person. But I did some of my best work with her, and she did with me, and I miss that part of it."You know, it's interesting. By doing a book like this, you get to see who are really your friends and who just wants the seats in the restaurants, the connections with Madonna, the access to the tickets. Now, I have a small group of people who care about me and look after me and I know who they are and that's great. But I lost quite a few people who I thought were my friends. It made me feel vindicated on some levels about certain people. But in the end, it makes me feel lonely."? Life With My Sister Madonna by Christopher Ciccone is published by Simon & Schuster, £17.99Il Ciccone: Christopher's lifeBy Gordon Agar1960: Born 22 November in Bay City, Michigan, to Madonna Louise (who died of breast cancer, aged 30, in 1963) and Silvio "Tony" Ciccone. His siblings are Martin, Anthony, Madonna, Paula Mae, Melanie, Jennifer and Mario.1980: Begins career as a dancer with Le Groupe de La Place Royale in Ottawa.1982: Moves to New York; choreographs Madonna's Everybody video.1984: Appears as a backing dancer on Madonna's Lucky Star video.1990: Artistic director of Madonna's $65m-grossing Blond Ambition world tour, which included controversial depictions of sex and Catholicism.1993: Designs and directs Madonna's Girlie Show world tour.2003: Madonna dispenses with her brother's services, employing choreographer Jamie King to direct her Drowned World tour. 2008: In pre-production to direct serial killer thriller TwistMadonnaguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

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A new year is usually a time for hope. But today many of us are full of doubt. The financial crisis has brought wave after wave of bad news, replacing the old certainties with a sense of dread and insecurity. And then there's terrorism, climate change and social breakdown... Are our nightmares based in reality or are we the victims of a very modern kind of mass hysteria? Out with the old... in with a new age of anxietyIn the week that Lehman Brothers needed $20bn to stay afloat, I needed £10,000. It was mid-September and we were at the end of a gruelling house renovation "project" (what on earth could we have been thinking of?) that had sucked up more money than I cared to add up and the builder was waiting for his final payment. No problem, I'd thought, we'll just add it to the mortgage. Seeing as it was a relatively modest amount, I guessed a phone call would do it. After all, when I'd organised the loan a year before, they had seemed happy for me to take much more than I had bargained for.That was then, though, way before Northern Rock, and now, in the week of the world's biggest bankruptcy, it quickly became clear a phone call would no longer do it; £10,000 was suddenly an awful lot of money. In order even to ask for it, my full medical history was apparently required ("Have you ever suffered from anxiety or depression?" "Um, not until now..."). And since my wife had an account in her maiden name, a marriage licence was called for. Between us, we had banked with our mortgage provider for 40 years, I pointed out. We already had a mortgage with them. They understood that, sir, but they also needed posted proof of my current address; a couple of utility bills and a council tax account agreement would do it. But, I said, you send our statements to this address already. They understood that, too, sir. And then, after that, there would be a three- or four-week period in which a full credit check would be carried out. We are talking about an extra payment of £47.32 per month here, yes? We are, sir.September passed and October. Credit crunched; Gordon Bailout did his desperate stuff. And I spent much of November engaged in character-building trials of mental fortitude with my bank's call centre. We are just connecting you, sir, again, with a screeching noise that will persist until you start the whole press-three-if-you-have-an- existing-mortgage process once more or until your will finally breaks and you exact immediate physical revenge at your nearest branch. By this time, my builder was keen for his cheque; he'd just had a new baby, Christmas was coming. I called again. My broker was not himself available, but a member of his "pod" was happily around to discover that, actually yes, the application had been turned down. Was there a reason, I wondered, beyond the fact that the entire financial world was dissolving? Yes, sir, it says here you were late with a credit card payment in November 2007. It's not exactly evidence of a life of reckless fiscal abandon, is it?It's an automatic refusal. Was his pod going to inform me of this? A letter does appear to have been sent; have you changed your address, sir?I proceeded to offer a hastily improvised analysis of the self-serving hypocrisy of the nation's financial system, and of banking call centres, which had always told us they liked to say yes and now just thought they could say no and hang up, not forgetting, of course, the "invisible sodding hand" of the bonus culture that got us into this mess with all of its insane risk-taking with our money; it was a speech he gave the impression of having heard several times before. The next day, an unnaturally cheerful woman called from India to wonder if I had 10 minutes to complete a customer satisfaction survey on my recent mortgage application. Would I say "on balance that I was very satisfied, moderately satisfied or not satisfied at all with the customer experience I'd had?" Where to begin?We managed in the end to cobble the builder's money together, but in the nights that followed, I found myself suddenly awake and sweating at two and three in the morning, imagining myself holed up with Little Dorrit in the Marshalsea. The radio alarmed me before it was light with talk of a squeeze and, never requiring much excuse to wake up worrying, I felt that squeeze somewhere in my throat. I was not alone. By November, the BBC was reporting a survey that showed that half the population of Britain was sleeping more fitfully than a year ago. A quarter of those surveyed were waking up "more than three times a night", with two-thirds blaming "money and work worries" for their insomnia. Like many of us, I've always lived with the sense of being about three pay cheques away from the Big Issue, but that sense has in recent years been softened by the idea that someone, somewhere would always be around to lend some cheap money. (Failing that, there was always the house to sell: ha.) Debt had not been hard to come by; it was positively encouraged. I'd proved that point to myself three years previously when, for an article, I'd spent the morning responding to all those flirty, unasked-for offers of credit cards with childish names - Egg and Smile and Goldfish - that made punitive interest rates seem like a primary coloured land of opportunity. On that occasion, I had raised a theoretical £100,000 by simply offering up my mother's maiden name repeatedly for a couple of hours.That mood, I'd seen first-hand at the time, was dangerously infectious. I'd also been round various debt agencies and met the people who had taken up all of those offers for real and were living in fear of the consolidated consequences. It remained infectious right up until last September. There was an extraordinary questionnaire carried out last July for the World Social Survey, one which future analysts of the great downturn of 2008 may find instructive. The survey proposed the idea that urban life was shaped by fear and addressed the question of what people in the 10 major cities of the world - from Cairo to Beijing - were most worried about. Londoners, it turned out in the ancient history of July 2008, were the least anxious people, but it was what they were actually anxious about that was most telling. Whereas in New York, where the new sub-prime reality had already taken hold, three of the top five worries listed were "not being able to maintain the same standard of living in the future" (17 per cent of respondents), "becoming jobless" (10 per cent), "fear that my children's lives will be worse than mine" (10 per cent), in London, these worries did not even register anywhere in the top eight. They were not only eclipsed by the biggest anxiety ("losing loved ones": 12 per cent), they also were felt less keenly than "being the victim of a natural disaster, tsunami, earthquake etc" (2.5 per cent), "being the victim of mass epidemic or food poisoning" (2.2 per cent) and "remaining alone" (1.8 per cent). Can there have been any other time in modern history when we had been so blithely unconcerned about our financial security than last July? But that was then: BC, before crunch.Credit is rooted in the Latin credere, "to believe". Financial credit depends not only on a lender's belief in you - and your mental health - but also on your belief in them - and theirs. The sleepless anxiety with which at least half of us are facing the New Year is a crisis not only of liquidity but of faith. Much that we believed in has, since September, melted into air and even Gordon Brown's borrowed billions aren't enough to make it come true again.There are many things that, as a result, already seem very 2008. There are the smaller things: bottled water, say, or £60 tickets to a bore-draw in the Premier League or letting your children download stuff with your credit card. Then there are bigger things, too, like worries about work-life imbalance (better than no-work-life balance), property ladders (remember them?), early retirement (70 if you are lucky), me-lancing, downshifting, sabbaticals...The main thing we have lost, though, is the seductive idea that, somehow, our future might follow a predictable pattern. It was always a myth, this, and one not shared in the overwhelming majority of the world. I was in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in September, an awfully long way from where our generally abundant nation was fretting about its mortgage extensions and its job prospects, and I wondered just how the people there - who had lived with war for 15 years - coped psychologically with the constant fears of their lives. Why weren't they all on the verge of a nervous breakdown? How could they sit and laugh in the sun? The most plausible answer was that they did not have even the luxury of anxiety; their expectation of security had never extended much beyond the next hour or two. Anxiety is a disease of relative plenty; it arises not from fear at what you do not have, but fear of what you might lose. I spent the Christmas holiday anxiously reading Patricia Pearson's recently published A Brief History of Anxiety. Being anxious was not a recognised mental state, really, until the advent of Freud and paid-for psychiatry, and "stress-related illnesses" did not become the leading cause of absenteeism from work until work was readily available and the welfare state made provision for panic attacks.The idea that we lived in an Age of Anxiety was coined by WH Auden exactly 60 years ago, just after the war. It was a replacement for the age of terror and dread that had just ended, a shadow of those more visceral fears. In industrialised nations since then, anxiety has co-existed with the idea that you had something stable to protect - a home, a family, savings, pension provision - and nurture. Fears of uncertainty and disaster, though often remote from many of those lives, were still hard-wired in those heads, however, and so found what object they could (hence in July 2008 the fears of tsunamis and pandemic among Londoners). The more you had to protect, the greater the potential anxiety about what might threaten it. The brain chemistry of anxiety, I discovered in Pearson's book, works like a child's fear of the dark. It is irrational but often overwhelming. The almond-shaped amygdala in the temporal lobes act as mission control for mammalian fear and when anxiety is triggered they send out alarm signals that easily overpower any kind of rational rejoinder or positive sentiment. Neurologically, we have evolved to be far more sensitive to these irrational fears at night - that is when bad things used to happen to our Stone Age ancestors - and that is why we wake up at 3am, fretting about events beyond our control, and wondering if we should turn over the back garden to subsistence crops.Even if you were not an estate agent or an employee at Woolworths, there have been, over the last few months, many things to fuel such 3am thoughts. There was in the first instance the abrupt trauma of replacing one seductive fiction - that of endless boom - for another, the apparent possibility of endless bust, 'the Death of Capitalism', 'the Age of Scarcity' and so on. Some of this trauma had to do with numbers. For a long while, it has seemed that numbers in newspapers, especially relating to money, looked barely credible, apparently random and, therefore, unnerving - how could oligarchs, footballers, bankers be that wealthy? How could, for example, the bonuses paid in 2007 to New York employees of Lehman Brothers, months before it collapsed, really amount to $5,700,000,000? After September, the figures took that surreal quality to new extremes. For a few weeks, and to a certain extent subsequently, everything that mattered seemed to be measured in tens of billions. The numbers reminded me of that old joke: two men in a bar, towards closing time, challenging each other to name the biggest number in the world. The first thinks for a long time before triumphantly announcing: "Eighty-seven!" The second, after some consideration, blearily impressed, replies: "OK. You win." Except, on this occasion, no one won. The numbers just got more preposterously large. Why a £50bn bailout, why not a £500bn one? What, in anyone's head, was the difference? And once it became clear that the figures were being dreamt up by politicians not because they bore any calculated response to a problem but in the hope that their size alone would restore confidence to people used to checking the sixth zero on their payslip, who wouldn't lie awake anxious? Could this crisis really warrant (in today's figures) the combined cost of the Marshall Plan, the Nasa space programme and the Vietnam War to be agreed as emergency finance by the end of the afternoon? Apparently it could.With those figures disappeared any sense of proportionality. We were apparently no longer facing a recession but a return of the Great Depression itself. Though some suggested 1993 and 1983 as a comparison, many commentators, watching their pensions dwindling by the second, spurred on by their almond-shaped amygdala, took to comparing the present moment with the months before the Wall Street Crash. Part of this was geographical; if you had grown up, as I had, in the industrial Midlands, say, or the north of England or Wales or Scotland or Northern Ireland, present insecurities had a familiar taste from the Thatcher years. But if you had lived your life in the south east, as had most of the financial services employees initially threatened by the recession, then the previous downturns had likely passed you by and the crisis close to home looked very much like a new kind of catastrophe. In A History of Anxiety, Pearson suggests that one of the reasons we find it hard to allay irrational fears is that we have no irrational rituals to counter them. Most children no longer pray at bedtime; perhaps, Pearson suggests, if things get really bad, it is a habit we will all rediscover.One of the most unfortunate aspects of the current crisis, you might argue, is that it coincided with the nadir in popularity of the prime minister. Early on, when he stopped dithering about Northern Rock, Gordon Brown discovered a curious fact. The worse the situation was perceived to be, the more his popularity soared. Thereafter the zeros kept coming.'If the financial system has a defect,' historian Niall Ferguson wrote in The Ascent of Money, published in August, (surely one of the least well-timed titles of all time), "it is that it reflects and magnifies what we human beings are like. As we are learning from a growing volume of research in the field of behavioural finance, money amplifies our tendency to overreact, to swing from exuberance when things are going well to deep depression when they go wrong. Booms and busts are products, at root, of our emotional volatility."And have we ever been more emotionally volatile, more in thrall to our sensations than now? We had become used to viewing all our neuroses as crises; now a genuine crisis was upon us, it was a cataclysm. Atheist or believer, we have in the last decade been primed for an end-time of sorts, with a stock of latent fears ready and waiting: there was the ongoing unease about terrorism, a fear that had been stoked so regularly by politicians that it almost seemed to have become a constant white noise. There was the overriding anxiety of climate change, an anxiety so big and so global that it seemed almost impossible to contemplate. Suddenly, all of those fears had an outlet. We can probably only cope with one apocalypse at a time, and the financial crisis looked more immediate than the other two; it overwhelmed even them with the drama of its figures. But it was made to carry elements of the other threats - al-Qaida, we learned, rejoiced in the collapse of American and British banks; while somewhere in the collective guilt about the mess we had made of the planet was the sense that greed would eventually produce, in Al Gore's terms, a Reckoning (the balance sheet metaphor was coming true). And the fact was on a simply rational level, deep down we knew it was coming. We only had to walk down an average street in the last couple of years and see how the value of houses on it had doubled to know; or to absorb the fact that up to 75 per cent of all credit card debt in Europe was on British cards; or to wander on a Sunday afternoon in one of those extraordinary shopping malls in Birmingham or in Leeds and see the spending; or simply observe the way that across society, reward had so completely parted company from effort. We knew, just as surely as those in the Madoff scam knew, somewhere deep down, that there was a trick involved. But while house prices kept on going up, we kept the faith, just as Madoff's millionaires kept pocketing their unlikely dividends and asking no questions. Because in the absence of faith, what was there but doubt?For a while now, certain fashionable economists have been warning us about irrationality. It's been in the air, in books like Freakonomics. People don't operate in conventionally predictable ways and, therefore, neither do markets or any of the other institutions they create. We fool ourselves constantly that the world can be orderly and predictable; bankers with their risk-mapping systems have done this on a colossal scale. A good antidote to some of our apocalyptic anxiety is, then, a proper sense of behavioural economics. Dan Gardner's brilliant book Risk: The Science and Politics of Fear is one place to start. It is Gardner's contention that, because of a globalised media, as individuals we have lost our ability to calculate probability and much of our anxiety flows from that. I spoke to Gardner at his home in Canada. I wonder if he believes this current Age of Anxiety is different to those that went before? "It depends on how you define the age. If you are talking about the last 50 years, then, yes, there is more anxiety in the western world than there has ever been. If you are talking about the time since August when the banks collapsed, then no."The fact is that we have been primed daily, even during the best of times, for imminent disaster. We are addicted to crisis, perhaps as a factor of guilt at our collective waste and excess. As the French poet Paul Valéry once observed: "If some great catastrophe is not announced every morning, we feel a certain void. Nothing in the paper today, we sigh." In the past decade, mortality rates across the developed world have tumbled, but we have been obsessed with bird flu and Sars. Politicians have routinely traded on fear (George Bush won two elections with it), even while the routine business of our lives was ever more dominated by security. Now that a real crisis has come along, our response comes not from our rational mind but from those almond-shaped amygdala."I appreciate that the current economic crisis is very real," Gardner observes. "This is certainly a time to have rational fears. Not least if you are a journalist." But we need also to be doubly vigilant, he suggests, for the psychological traits and the herd instinct that got us into this situation in the first place.The essential point of Gardner's book is that there is a gap between risk perception and risk reality and often that gap increases to become a chasm. "The problem is we have a brain that evolved in a hunter-gatherer environment, which is completely unlike the world in which we live. You turn on the news, you see a parade of fantastically improbable events that are tragic and awful. A child is snatched on the other side of the planet. Now, you have a rational mind which states this event says nothing about the safety of your own children. But you also have an unconscious mind and that does not process information in the same way. "The unconscious brain has something called the 'availability heuristic'," Gardner suggests. "If an event happens, it is this part of the brain that tries to work out how common an occurrence it is. And it does so by calculating how often it has seen that event happen before. That worked wonderfully in a Stone Age environment. But when we are constantly gathering news from across the world, that in-built probability no longer works. Have we seen a stranger snatch a child? Yes, we saw it last night on the television. Let's keep our own children indoors."That globalising of information undermines our sense of control. Our brains are not wired to deal with the computation of large numbers. They are wired to respond emotionally to storytelling. That is why a single picture of a child suffering will prompt infinitely more charitable giving than the statistic that a million children are dying. Or a photograph of a lottery winner unconsciously blows away the fact that your chance of winning is one in 14 million. In fact, the more statistical information we have, the more likely we are to rely on irrational decision-making. When applied to financial decisions, this fact becomes scary. "There were two causes," Gardner observes of the latest meltdown. "One thing was the housing bubble and the other was a Wall Street misunderstanding of that bubble. Did everyone who backed those positions on Wall Street understand those positions? No, they looked to their left and right and adopted the position that other so-called Wall Street wizards were adopting."Behavioural economists are fond of the idea of "attention cascades". The term was coined by Yale professor Robert Shiller, the man who, in his book Irrational Exuberance, was most prophetic of the current crisis. An attention cascade is the herd instinct in action; when many people believe something - that we are all going to hell in a handcart - the belief becomes exponentially attractive for no other reason than that many people believe it.That's the cascade. The "attention" part is the result of what psychologists call "confirmation bias". Once a belief is in