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Prime minister makes admission during visit to London hospital in face of opposition to GPs policy David Cameron spoke yesterday of concern within his own family over the government's planned reforms of the health service, admitting publicly that even his brother-in-law was not convinced by the changes. Dr Carl Brookes is married to the prime minister's sister Tania and works as a cardiologist in Basingstoke for the North Hampshire NHS trust. Speaking during a visit to a London hospital, Cameron raised the topic himself, telling assembled doctors and nurses: "My brother-in-law is a hospital doctor and he says 'you're giving too much power to the GPs, and hospitals will be disadvantaged.'" Meanwhile, more than half of GPs responding to a survey by the Royal College of General Practitioners said they were concerned that the proposed health reforms would not lead to improvements in care for patients. The findings, from an online poll of 1,800 medics, are a b...

Egypt's new Vice President Omar Suleiman announced on Monday that the Egyptian president appointed him to hold immediate dialogue with the opposition. According to Suleiman, President Hosni Mubarak highlighted the importance of executing court's orders to correct the parliamentary elections results, which the opposition has alleged fraudulent. Suleiman, a former intelligence chief, was recently appointed as Egypt's vice president in response to the massive protests that took place in Egypt governorates.

The Belarusian Foreign Ministry said Monday that the country is ready to take an adequate response to the sanctions announced by the European Union. "Tension with the European Union -- is not our choice," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement. "However, the decision of the EU Council makes the Republic of Belarus to go to proportionate and appropriate measures which will aim at strengthening the sovereignty of Belarus, the preservation of stability and consolidation of the Belarusian society." "EU Council's decision is based on genuine cover-up of the action of aggressive acts and violence by demonstrators, expressed in the attempt to seize government buildings and parliament of the Republic of Belarus, on Dec. 19, 2010 after the presidential election," said the statement. The statement urged the EU to "get away from the logic of confrontation and hasty attempts to destroy constructive relationships, which has no reasonable alternative." A...

SEOUL: Analysts watching the leadership succession process in secretive and bitterly cold North Korea are pondering a potential new clue Kim Jong-un's furry hat. The youngest son and heir apparent of leader Kim Jongil was seen wearing the same pricey otter fur headgear as his father during a visit to an art studio in Pyongyang reported by state media on January 23. A clear sign of Kim Jongun's rising status "is that he now wears the top-quality fur hat reserved for Kim Jongil", said a Seoul government official quoted by Chosun Ilbo newspaper on Saturday. The headgear designed by a foreign craftsman is a luxury only allowed to the leader, it quoted a defector, also unidentified, as saying. "It's an unwritten rule that nobody else can wear such a hat. So if Kim Jong-Un is also wearing one, it means he has now reached almost the same status as his father," the defector said. While other senior staffers sometimes wear similar hats, they are indust...

One million to march on critical day for rebellion Vice-president says he will talk to opposition White House hardens stance over transition Egypt's army gave a powerful boost to the country's opposition tonight by announcing it would not use force to silence "legitimate" demands for democratic reforms in the Arab world's largest country. On the eve of a million-strong protest planned for tomorrow and amid multiplying signs that the US is moving steadily closer towards ditching its long-standing ally, Egypt's president Hosni Mubarak now has few options left. Tonight, the Egyptian vice-president, Omar Suleiman, said Mubarak had asked him to start a dialogue with all the country's political parties. According to state TV, Suleiman said it would involve constitutional and legislative reforms. The White House warned in a statement that the crisis should be settled by "meaningful talks," while the EU called for an "orderly transition" to ...

Federal judge agrees with coalition of 26 states that law is unconstitutional Barack Obama's efforts to end the iniquity that leaves millions of Americans without healthcare insurance suffered a blow today when a federal judge ruled the entire reform package unconstitutional. A federal judge in Florida agreed with a coalition of 26 states from across the US that the provision in the law to oblige individuals to buy health insurance was in breach of their personal rights. Judge Roger Vinson said that the objection to this specific part of the legislation had an impact on all the other reforms and so he found against the whole law. The ruling is unlikely to have an immediate effect on the prospects of health reform in the country, not least because this provision does not come into effect until 2012 in any case. But the judge's decision is the most severe setback for Obama over one of the signature measures of his first two years in the White House. It is also likely to speed the...

One million to march on critical day for rebellion Vice-president says he will talk to opposition White House hardens stance over transition Egypt's army gave a powerful boost to the country's opposition tonight by announcing it would not use force to silence "legitimate" demands for democratic reforms in the Arab world's largest country. On the eve of a million-strong protest planned for tomorrow and amid multiplying signs that the US is moving steadily closer towards ditching its long-standing ally, Egypt's president Hosni Mubarak now has few options left. Tonight, the Egyptian vice-president, Omar Suleiman, said Mubarak had asked him to start a dialogue with all the country's political parties. According to state TV, Suleiman said it would involve constitutional and legislative reforms. The White House warned in a statement that the crisis should be settled by "meaningful talks," while the EU called for an "orderly transition" to ...

Lionel Barber says most publishers failed to 'take the issue seriously' because their titles may also have been implicated Read the full text of Lionel Barber's Hugh Cudlipp lecture Lionel Barber, the editor of the Financial Times, tonight warned that the Britain's newspapers were now at risk of facing political "retribution" in the form of statutory regulation in the wake of the News of the World phone-hacking scandal , as he gave the Hugh Cudlipp memorial lecture. He accused Rupert Murdoch's News International publisher of the tabloid of failing to pursue a policy of "own up rather than cover up" to hacking, while criticising the bulk of the industry of failing to "take the issue seriously" because their titles may also have been implicated in the illegal practice. In a trenchant speech, Barber went on to warn that worries about the scale of phone hacking meant that News Corporation's 8bn bid for BSkyB was "troublesome...

Nicole Minetti questioned over alleged 'bunga bunga parties', as magistrates prepare to request that Berlusconi stand trial Nicole Minetti, the former dental hygienist and TV dancer accused of procuring sex workers for Silvio Berlusconi, has been questioned by magistrates who are preparing to request this week that he stand trial for paying a minor for sex. As Minetti, 25, was questioned in Milan yesterday, women took to nearby streets to protest against the Italian prime minister's alleged "bunga bunga" parties with starlets and sex workers, ahead of a nationwide demonstration planned for 13 February. Protesters also jeered Moroccan dancer Karima El-Mahroug as she made an appearance at a Rimini nightclub at the weekend. Berlusconi is alleged to have paid to sleep with Mahroug, known as Ruby the Heart Stealer, when she was 17, as well as pressuring police to free her when she was arrested on suspicion of theft. Other women who attended parties at his villa near Mi...

New York mayor sent investigators to Phoenix, Arizona where they were able to buy Glock pistols with no questions asked Undercover investigators have exposed the ease with which high-powered guns can be bought in the US, purchasing the same type of pistol used in the Tucson massacre just two weeks later in a neighbouring city with no questions asked. New York's mayor, Michael Bloomberg, sent a team of undercover agents to the Crossroads of the West gun show in Phoenix, Arizona, just 120 miles away from the scene of the Tucson shooting. There, on 23 January, they bought a Glock 9mm pistol of the kind wielded by Jared Loughner when he killed six people and wounded 13, including the US congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, at a public meeting in Tucson. The agents filmed the gun sales using hidden cameras. They bought a Glock 17 gun for $480 (299) and three $40 extended magazines each holding 33 bullets. Loughner had a 33-round extended magazine attached to his Glock 19, allowing him ...

Nelson Mandela Foundation hits back after accusation it lied over former president's state of health The Nelson Mandela Foundation has angrily hit back at criticism that it lied to the public about the former South African president's health. The foundation was under siege last week when it emerged that 92-year-old Mandela had been taken to hospital. Its failure to issue anything beyond a two-sentence statement, combined with a long silence from other official bodies, was widely described as a public relations disaster that allowed rumours to fester . The government has now stepped in to deal with the huge interest in the anti-apartheid hero's recovery. The deputy president, Kgalema Motlanthe, said today that Mandela "had a restful and peaceful night" and "is said to be responding to medication and treatment" at his home in Johannesburg. Weekend reports suggested that the foundation has been marginalised after losing an unseemly "turf war" wi...

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak sworn in the new Egyptian cabinet led by Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq on Monday with new faces in several miniseries, state TV reported.

Fundraising Standards Board launches inquiry after businessmen earned 10m from donated secondhand clothes The UK's charity fundraising regulator has asked the Salvation Army to explain revelations that it allowed a businessman to earn a multimillion-pound personal fortune from selling secondhand clothes donated to the cause. The Fundraising Standards Board has asked the Christian charity to investigate complaints that it may have misled its donors about the use of profits from the sale of the 2,500 of tonnes of clothing donated each month A director of the charity's trading arm personally earned more than 5m from sale of the clothes over the last five years, affording him a lifestyle that included buying a racehorse and a 1m mansion. The wording on the side of the charity's secondhand clothes banks dotted across supermarket car parks nationwide said profits from their sale are used "to help the Salvation Army's work with people in need both at home and abroad...

Events of past 18 months have little effect on Britons' opinion, as 83% view climate change as a current or imminent threat The public's belief in global warming as a man-made danger has weathered the storm of climate controversies and cold weather intact, according to a Guardian/ICM opinion poll published today . Asked if climate change was a current or imminent threat, 83% of Britons agreed, with just 14% saying global warming poses no threat. Compared with August 2009, when the same question was asked, opinion remained steady despite a series of events in the intervening 18 months that might have made people less certain about the perils of climate change. Emails between climate researchers that were released online in November 2009 had led to unfounded suggestions that the scientific basis for global warming was flawed. World leaders also failed to agree to a global deal to combat warming and a mistake over the melting of Himalayan glaciers was handled badly by the UN...

Tuition fee rise planned for 2012 has caused huge rise in university applications this year Nearly 600,000 university hopefuls an all-time record applied for a place on a degree course this year, official figures showed today. Applications have risen by 5.1% compared with this time last year, with 583,501 candidates chasing a place this autumn, according to data from the universities and colleges admission service. Ucas said this was the highest number since it started collecting data in 1964. The surge has been caused by the likelihood that fees will almost triple for some universities from next year. This year, fees go up to 3,375 a year, but by 2012 universities will be allowed to charge as much as 9,000. The figures show a dramatic rise in the number of university applications over the last four years. In 2007, there were 402,831 applications. At least 180,000 applicants are likely to be disappointed, because there are only just over 400,000 places available for undergraduate stu...

Hit refresh or the auto-update button for the latest posts Email barney.ronay@guardian.co.uk with your thoughts The gossip from today's papers in the Rumour Mill More news, comment and analysis on Guardian Football All the major deals in the January transfer window 10.38am: Kaspar Nymand interjects: "The Danish media are reporting that Aalborg have a surprise trick up their sleeve as they plan to reveal Celtic flop Morten "Duncan" Rasmussen on loan. He is already on loan (and on the bench) at Mainz in Germany, so I doubt many Celtic fans will even notice." He also points out that ""Vennlig Hilsen" [10.31] means "Kind regards" in Norwegian and Danish". What a lovely name. 10.37am: Dalglish also said on Ashley Young: "we're not going to talk about someone else until he's our player." Which sounds fairly hopeful that he might be. 10.33am: Some pictures of Robbie Keane arriving at West Ham for training. He;s wea...

Our two week festival will take you on an enviromental journey around the world, with a blog a day from a different country The environment is, by definition, global. So over the next two weeks, we will bring you a blog a day at 8am from a different part of the world, allowing fresh voices to explore the top green issues there. Of particular personal interest is the post from Brazil we will run tomorrow. I visited last year and was really struck by the progress made there under President Lula and its ambition to be the world's first environmental superpower . ( Problems remain of course .) So we've asked Gustavo Faleiros of O Eco Amazonia to write about the green credentials of Lula's successor, Dilma Rousseff . In the course of the blog festival we will of course visit China, where the green dragon of low-carbon energy and efficiency is fighting the black dragon of rampant economic growth. India will feature as our first post today on the issue of genetically modified...

Nazril 'Ariel' Irham, 29, gets three and a half years in jail and fined $25,000 for violating strict anti-pornography law An Indonesian pop star who rocked the predominantly Muslim nation after several home-made sex tapes found their way onto the internet has been sentenced to three and a half years in jail. The trial of Nazril "Ariel" Irham's has made headlines and dominated chatter on social networking sites for more than three months. Fans insist he did nothing wrong, making the tapes in the privacy of his own home. But Islamic hardliners warned that his actions had contributed to the country's moral decline. The 29-year-old singer, who said the videos were stolen and posted online without his knowledge, was the first celebrity to be found guilty of violating the country's strict anti-pornography law that came into effect in 2008. Presiding judge Singgih Budi Prakoso said the singer made the videos with two celebrity girlfriends and did nothing to prev...

CAIRO: Foreign governments stepped up their warnings Sunday about travel to Egypt, with several urging their citizens to evacuate as soon as possible amid uncertainty over where the Arab nation is headed after nearly a week of mass protests. The fears of foreign tourists mirrored those of many Egyptians. Dozens with the means to do so rented jets or hopped aboard their own planes in a mad dash that did little to boost confidence in the future of a country long viewed as a pillar of stability in a restive region. Those leaving included businessmen and celebrities. The United States, Canada, Switzerland, Turkey and the Netherlands issued advisories encouraging nationals already in Egypt to leave and telling those who planned trips there to reconsider. The US embassy in Cairo said it was making arrangements to transport Americans who want to leave to "safehaven locations in Europe." Flights would begin Monday. Assistant US secretary of state Janice Jacobs said it will...

Egyptian army troops fired back at attackers shooting protesters gathering in the Tahrir Square in Cairo's downtown area on Sunday night, Xinhua has quoted the BBC Channel as reporting.

BOSTON: An American woman, who called herself 'Jihad Jane' and is accused of conspiring to provide support to terrorists for staging terror attacks in South Asia and Europe, is expected to reverse last year's not-guilty plea in a Philadelphia court on February 1. Colleen LaRose, 47, had pleaded not guilty in March 2010 to charges including conspiracy to kill in foreign country. She was allegedly part of a plot to murder Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilks, whose portrait of prophet Mohammed had angered many. According to a court document, LaRose is set to plead guilty at a "change-of-plea" hearing.

Islam and demography: A waxing crescent Islam is growing. But ageing and slowing. That will change the world Islam and demography ARE Muslims taking over the world, or at a minimum, transforming Europe into Eurabia? Whatever your hopes or fears for the future of the world’s religions, a report published this week has plenty to stoke them. “The Future of the Global Muslim Population”, produced by the Pew Research Centre, a non-profit outfit based in Washington, DC, reckons Muslim numbers will soar from 1.6 billion in 2010 to 2.2 billion by 2030. In other words, from 23.4% to 26.4% of the global total. At the heart of its analysis is the ongoing effect of a “youth bulge” which peaked in 2000. In 1990 Islam’s share of the world’s youth was 20%; in 2010, 26%. In 2030 it will be 29% (of 15-to-29-year-olds). But the Muslim world is slowly heading towards paunchiness: the median age in Muslim-majority countries was 19 in 1990. It is 24 now, and will be 30 by 2030. (For French, Germans and Jap...

PORT-AU-PRINCE: The United States has no plans to halt aid to earthquake-ravaged Haiti in spite of a crisis over who will be the nation's next leader but does insist that the president's chosen successor be dropped from the race, US secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton said Sunday. Clinton arrived Sunday in the impoverished Caribbean nation for a brief visit. She is scheduled to meet with President Rene Preval and earlier met with each of the three candidates jockeying to replace him. Only two candidates can go on to the delayed second round, now scheduled for March 20. The US is backing an Organization of American States recommendation that the candidate from Preval's party, government construction official Jude Celestin, should be left out in favor of populist rival Michel Martelly. The top US official at the United Nations, Susan Rice, said recently that "sustained support" from the United States required the OAS recommendations be implemented. M...