Lack of UNSCR resolution 'encouraged Syrian government to step up its war on its people', says secretary general

The UN's failure to agree a resolution on Syria is "disastrous" for the country's people, the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon has said as President Assad's government launched its most intense bombardment so far of rebel-held areas.

Speaking at the UN headquarters in New York, Ban said he had briefed the security council about a plan proposed by the head of the Arab League, Nabil al-Araby, for a possible joint UN-Arab League observer mission to Syria.

But as witnesses in the opposition stronghold of Homs reported an unprecedented assault involving tanks and heavy artillery, with more than 200 rockets falling in the space of three hours on the opposition-controlled suburb of Baba Amr, Ban said the situation was becoming desperate.

"For too many months we have watched this crisis deepen. We have seen escalating violence, brutal crackdowns and tremendous suffering by the Syrian people. I deeply regret that the security council has been unable to speak with one clear voice to end the bloodshed," he said in a brief statement.

The failure of a UN security council resolution calling for the departure of the president, Bashar al-Assad, which was vetoed by Russia and China, was "disastrous for the people of Syria", Ban said.

He added: "It has encouraged the Syrian government to step up its war on its own people. Thousands have been killed in cold blood, shredding President Assad's claims to speak for the Syrian people."

The situation in Homs was "unacceptable to humanity" and "a grim harbinger of worse to come", the UN chief added, warning the instability would inevitably spread around the region.

Ban said he had briefed the security council about his talks with Araby and the proposal for an observer mission, which could involve a joint official envoy.

"We stand ready to assist in any way that will contribute towards improvement on the ground and to the overall situation," he said.

The Guardian has been unable to independently verify eyewitness accounts or casualty figures from Homs, but similar reports came from rebel areas around the country as Assad, spared from the UN resolution, appeared to speed up attempts to eliminate the threat to his regime.

One activist, Raji, speaking from a basement inside Baba Amr, said Syrian forces had begun using heavier artillery rounds with devastating effect. In addition to the 27 killed, he said many people were lying dead under the rubble of their houses. There were also reports that 18 premature babies had died in hospital after power cuts caused their incubators to fail, according to the BBC. State TV denied the reports.

In the face of the increase in violence, western and Arab governments urgently sought a fresh response. The Pentagon was reported to be reviewing contingency plans for intervention in Syria, from providing humanitarian relief to direct military action. There was no sign the Obama administration was seriously contemplating military options, but the president is under increasing pressure in an election year to respond decisively to the reports of mass killing in the country.

"We are seriously dying here. It is really war," Waleed Farah told the Guardian via satellite phone from al-Khaldiyeh, another rebel-held neighbourhood in Homs.

Hopes of quickly healing the global rift caused by the weekend's security council vote came to nothing. When William Hague spoke to the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, to ask Moscow to reconsider its vote and its arms sales to Damascus, Lavrov said there was no independent confirmation of the regime's use of heavy weaponry in Homs and elsewhere and insisted that the supply of Russian arms was legal, according to British officials. After visiting Damascus on Tuesday, Lavrov called for a political dialogue and a UN resolution backing the deployment of more observers in Syria, but the opposition Syrian National Council has rejected Moscow as a broker and is insisting Assad step down in line with an Arab League peace plan.

Vladimir Putin, the Russian prime minister, said: "We of course condemn all violence regardless of its source, but one cannot act like an elephant in a china shop. Help them, advise them – limit, for instance, their ability to use weapons – but do not interfere under any circumstances."

China also defended its decision to veto the UN resolution and rejected Hague criticism of the vote as "extremely irresponsible" and "totally unacceptable".

With no sign of a break in the diplomatic deadlock, urgent efforts were under way aimed at building as broad an international coalition as possible to keep up the diplomatic pressure on Damascus. A "friends of Syria" conference is expected to be called in the next few days to agree joint measures, including fresh sanctions, anti-Assad resolutions at the UN general assembly, and diplomatic support for the opposition Syrian National Council with the aim ofcreating a credible alternative to the Assad regime. The next steps will be decided at meetings of the Gulf Co-operation Council on Saturday and the Arab League on Sunday. Most observers, however, believe Assad can weather such pressure as long as he can rely on backing from Moscow and Beijing.

Turkey declared it was launching its own initiative to confront what it warned was becoming a grave political and humanitarian crisis. The prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has spoken by telephone to the Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, and the foreign minister, Ahmet Davotuglu, flew to Washington to press for an emergency international conference. Western capitals support the Turkish initiative but argue the leading role and venue is better left to Arab states.

Turkey's ambassador to London, Ahmet Ünal Çeviköz, said Turkey would not insist on hosting a conference. He said: "The important thing is to form as wide as possible an international platform of like-minded countries to show the determination of the international community that there is no possibility of a return to the status quo ante. Assad thinks he can buy time but we have to show we have no more confidence in him."

Çeviköz said his government believed the death toll was "much more severe" than the 5,000-7,000 reported, and argued that priority should be given to ending the violence and addressing the humanitarian needs of the Syrian people.

"The people of Homs are facing not just bombardment but a blockade of the city, with a serious lack of food and medicine," the ambassador said. "There needs to be contingency planning on ways of reaching out to people and regions in Syria which are facing this crisis."

Turkey has floated the idea of a humanitarian corridor or a safe zone for displaced populations, but Çeviköz said those decisions would have to be taken at the proposed international conference.

If Russia and China continued to oppose such concerted action, he added: "They will have the responsibility of being the culprits in a humanitarian crisis."

Fears of renewed street violence after more than 48 hours of political turmoil since Mohamed Nasheed forced out of office

The future of Mohammed Nasheed, the first democratically-elected president of the Maldives, appeared increasingly bleak on Thursday after a criminal court on the island nation issued a warrant for his arrest.

Nasheed, who has been internationally recognised for his campaigns about global warming, was ousted earlier in the week by middle-ranking officers within the Maldives' military and mutinous policemen after pitched battles between factions in the centre of the capital, Male.

The exact details of the charges against him are unclear but the 44-year-old politician has told supporters that he "expected to be in jail tomorrow".

Paul Roberts, an aide, revealed that Nasheed had been ordered to resign by a meeting of army officers at the military headquarters on Tuesday.

"He refused to resign there and then so they took him to the presidential office and he wrote a letter there. They weren't actually pointing their guns at him but they were all armed and made it very clear they were prepared to use their weapons. It was a coup d'etat," said Roberts, who is in hiding.

Ahmed Naseem, foreign minister of the Maldives and a supporter of Nasheed, made an impassioned plea for foreign intervention. "We need them to help solve the issue of this illegal government that has come to power in a coup," Naseem said.

Scores were injured, some seriously, in violence on Wednesday night when police used teargas and baton charges to break up what witnesses said were peaceful marches by the ousted premier's supporters.

Casualties included senior politicians loyal to Nasheed. At least one remains in intensive car after being beaten and kicked. Many outlying areas also reported violence with police stations attacked.

On Thursday, Male and other cities appeared calm.

Western and local governments were scrambling to gain assurances from the new president of the country, the former vice-president Mohammed Waheed Hassan, that Nasheed, who took power in 2008, would be treated well.

In the Commons, William Hague, the foreign secretary, called on "the new leadership" of the Maldives "to establish its legitimacy with its own people and with the international community".

"We hope that the new leadership will demonstrate its respect for the rule of law, including peaceful demonstrations," Hague said.

John Rankin, the British high commissioner to Sri Lanka and the Maldives, said he was concerned for Nasheed. "We are concerned that no harm comes to him. If it did, it would be a matter of serious concern for us and the international community," Rankin said.

A senior American envoy will arrive in Male on Saturday. President Mahinda Rajapaksa of Sri Lanka has telephoned the new president and asked him to ensure the safety of his predecessor.

In contrast, India's prime minister, Manmohan Singh, wrote immediately to the Maldives' new ruler to convey his "warm felicitations".

Concerns remain that the power struggle will result in fresh violence. After more than 48 hours of political turmoil, the atmosphere in Male is "very very tense", one official said.

"If they arrest [Nasheed]. I don't know what will happen if they do. God help us," said Naseem, the former foreign minister.

However, it appears likely that the ousted president's probable strategy will be to contest elections due in 2013 rather than launch a campaign on the streets.

"The ballot should decide, not battles," Nasheed told reporters outside his home in Male. He appeared confident he would win.

Nasheed won the election in 2008 with 54% of the vote. Those polls ended 30 years of rule by Mamoun Abdul Gayoom, who had been repeatedly criticised by human rights groups.

Hassan has repeatedly denied that Nasheed was forced out and has called for a government of national unity.

Officials from Nasheed's Maldivian Democratic Party said they will not join any such administration and will campaign for the return of Nasheed to power.

Senior MDP officials accuse elements within the security forces loyal to Gayoom of engineering Nasheed's removal.

This week's events were the culmination of weeks of protests after a presidential order to the military to arrest a judge accused of blocking multimillion dollar corruption cases against members of Gayoom's government.

Nasheed, educated in the UK, was detained more than 25 times during the rule of Gayoom, earning the nickname "the Mandela of the Maldives". But he struggled to contain inflation and has been criticised by Islamist groups in the Maldives, where almost all 330,000 inhabitants are Sunni Muslim.

Events appear not to have had any impact on tourists in the luxury resorts of the archipelago.

Supporters protest in Madrid after Spanish human rights champion barred for 11 years over illegal recordings of lawyers

To the victims of human rights criminals he was a crusading knight fearlessly wielding the sword of justice wherever it was needed across the globe. Now Judge Baltasar Garzón, the Spanish magistrate who pursued dictators, terrorists and drug barons, has himself been condemned in a remarkable court verdict that claims he behaved like the totalitarian regimes he famously pursued.

Garzón's career effectively came to a dramatic end on Thursday as he began an 11-year suspension for illegally wiretapping conversations between remand prisoners and their lawyers in a corruption case involving the prime minister, Mariano Rajoy's People's party (PP).

The furious reaction of Garzón's supporters and the euphoria of his enemies revealed bitter divisions over a man who first landed himself in trouble by investigating the abuses of Spain's former dictator, General Francisco Franco.

As his supporters gathered to demonstrate in Puerta del Sol square in central Madrid last night, many claimed there was a conspiracy to bring down one of the world's best-known human rights investigators. They pointed to the unprecedented coincidence of a Spanish investigating magistrate being tried in three different cases of alleged abuse of authority at the same time.

"It was clear they were out to get him, and now they have," said Emilio Silva, head of the Historical Memory Association that campaigns to shed light on Francoist killings. "It is very sad. Plenty of other judges have committed the same irregularities and have not been treated this way."

"I cannot accept this," said Julio Llamazares, a deputy for the United Left party.Francisco Jorquera, a deputy for the Galician National Block party, claimed the sentence was a public lynching and proof of a vendetta against Garzón.

Reed Brody of Human Rights Watch said: "It looks like Garzón's enemies got what they wanted … the criminal prosecution of a judge for his judicial actions undermines the independence of the judiciary. The accumulation of charges against him raise the appearance that they have been brought in revenge for his handling of cases involving vested interests."

That he should be banned for investigating the sort of corruption that brought the country's indignados, or indignant ones, on to the streets in protest last year only added insult to the injury felt by some. The guilty verdict against Garzón, they pointed out, made him one of the first people to be punished in the long-running Gürtel case involving corruption in the PP regional governments of Valencia and Madrid.

The case alleges public money was siphoned off by PP politicians and crooked businessmen during, among numerous other cases, a visit to Spain by Pope Benedict. "Garzón has become the first victim of the Gürtel clan," the Garzón solidarity group, which called Thursday's protests, said.

Critics rejoiced at the downfall of a man they saw as vain, media-loving, transparently leftwing and a loose cannon in the Spanish judicial system.

"This puts things in their place," said José Antono Choclán, one of the lawyers.

"The judge stuck a finger up at our constitution, which ensures that all Spaniards have the same rights at trial," said Agapito Maestre on the rightwing Libertad Digital blog.

"It was about time," said Carlos Rodríguez in a fierce Twitter debate between supporters and detractors. "He thought he was Superman."

PP politicians struggled to hide their joy at the demise of a judge who, despite a stormy relationship with the Socialist party that once made him a parliamentary deputy, they felt was out to get them. "It is a happy day for the rule of law," said Esperanza Aguirre, the PP president of the Madrid regional government.

Even Garzón's supporters recognised he may have overstepped the mark by recording the conversations as he attempted to prove some lawyers were involved in money laundering, but they said the punishment was excessive.

"They could easily have come to the opposite conclusion," said José Antonio Martín Pallín, an emeritus supreme court magistrate. "This was an important investigation into organised crime and corruption."

Pallin pointed out that a second magistrate had ordered that the wiretaps continue. "If they were to be rigorous [in their logic], they would go after the other magistrate too," he said.

Garzón claimed he had put into place measures to safeguard the right of suspects to prepare their defence in private.

State attorneys had backed Garzón at his trial, saying investigating magistrates in other cases had made similar orders without facing charges.

But the supreme court said Garzón not only illegally wiretapped the prisoners' conversations but committed a second crime by doing so in the full knowledge that he was breaking the law.

"We shall carry on fighting, carry on appealing. We have a long road ahead, but I believe both he and I are more than strong enough," Garzón's lawyer, Javier Baena, said after the verdict.

Garzón cannot appeal in a Spanish court, despite European Union insistence that this right should be available to everyone. He has previously said that he will take his case to the European court of human rights in Strasbourg if he has to.

The 56-year-old judge, best known for his groundbreaking use of international human rights law when he ordered the 1998 arrest of Chile's former dictator Augusto Pinochet, must also pay a €2,500 fine. That money reportedly goes to those at the centre of the Gürtel case.

• Creditors demand to see Athens act on new pledges
• Default looms in weeks if bailout cash is withheld

European finance ministers are piling the pressure on Greece to come good on pledges to slash public spending to the bone before closing a deal on a new €130bn (£109bn) bailout – even as the prospect of a disastrous default looms closer.

Following weeks of brinkmanship that have poisoned relations between the bankrupt country and its eurozone creditors, ministers and senior officials from the Eurogroup, the European Central Bank, the European commission and the International Monetary Fund have been wrangling over whether to activate the bailout, which would prevent an outright insolvency at the end of March, when Greece has to redeem more than €14bn in debt.

Despite announcements in Athens and Frankfurt that Greece's government had yielded to savage new terms from the eurozone to qualify for the bailout, it was unclear whether the complex new rescue package would be finalised at the parties' meeting in Brussels.

The emphasis, though, was on first getting Greece to deliver its side of the bargain.

"It's up to the Greek government, by concrete actions through legislation and other actions, to convince its European partners that the second [bailout] programme can be made to work," said Olli Rehn, the European commissioner for monetary affairs.

Wolfgang Schäuble, the German finance minister, played down expectations of any breakthrough on the bailout, which was originally formulated by EU leaders last October. "I don't think we'll come to any results tonight. The negotiations have made progress but we're not there yet," he said.

That was echoed by the president of the Eurogroup, Jean-Claude Juncker: "I don't think we will have a definitive and final decision tonight," the leader of the group of eurozone finance ministers said.

Greece's finance minister, Evangelos Venizelos, was insistent that the bailout be concluded, but ran into strong reservations from Germany. "We finally have a staff-level agreement for a new, strong and credible programme," said Venizelos. "We also have a deal with the private creditors on the basic parameters. We now need the political endorsement of the Eurogroup for the final step."

But, amid a mounting sense of crisis, it is possible that any deal that might be struck may prove inadequate. With unemployment soaring, revenue sources drying up, recession deepening and social unrest increasing, there is palpable pessimism and resentment on both sides. In Greece, the idea is growing that austerity cannot work, and that default is more of a question of "when", not "if".

"Just because Greek leaders have agreed on targets does not mean that they will or indeed can be delivered," said Sony Kapoor of Re-Define, an economics thinktank in Brussels. "We have just reached a temporary truce. The war will continue to be fought for some time to come."

European commission sources said a signed memorandum committing the Greek government to a further €3.3bn in savings – which still has to go through parliament in Athens this weekend – had to be delivered within five days to meet the tight deadlines for avoiding default.

Following a gruelling month of wrangling and number-crunching in Athens and final negotiations with the Greeks that ran until early on Thursday morning, officials from the "troika" of the European commission, the ECB, and the IMF departed for Brussels, leaving behind a country pledging to slash 15,000 public sector jobs this year and 150,000 within three years, cut the minimum wage by 20%, and reduce pensions.

The troika believes that the euro in Greece is overvalued by up to 20%, meaning that labour costs need to be further reduced if any level of competitiveness and productivity is to be achieved.

In return for the pledges, Greece will get the €130bn, on top of the €110bn decided nearly two years ago. Greece's private creditors will take up to 70% losses on their loans to Greece through a debt-swap accord that would halve Athens's private sector borrowings to €100bn. Negotiations resumed in Paris on Thursday on the "haircuts" for Greece's private lenders.

The pan-European regulator, the European Banking Authority, admitted on Thursday that it had yet to complete a detailed analysis of the plans submitted by the European banks that were found to need to raise €115bn in last year's stress tests. However, they will not be subjected to new stress tests in 2012 while they cover the already identified shortfalls.

If a deal is struck on the new bailout, the IMF will need to confirm that the arrangement will eventually render Greek debt levels sustainable – the yardstick being that debt falls to 120% of gross domestic product by 2020, from 160% currently.

Despite the political pessimism, the markets responded positively to the signals that Greece would be thrown a new lifeline. European stocks rose and the euro neared a two-month high against the dollar.

"There is clearly some very encouraging news coming out of Athens,"

said Christine Lagarde, the head of the IMF. "It's positive."

• Martin Chulov describes intense fighting near Homs
• UN offers to join the Arab League monitoring mission
• More killed on the sixth day of the assault on Homs


• Read the latest summary

8.35pm: A cousin of Assad has won a legal bid to unfreeze 3 million francs ($4m) held in Swiss bank accounts, AP reports.

Swiss authorities froze the funds on Hafez Makhlouf's four Geneva bank accounts in May. That decision was overturned four months later but prosecutors sought to prevent the release of the funds by launching a money laundering investigation in September.

But the Federal Criminal Court agreed with Makhlouf's argument that prosecutors had previously dismissed money laundering suspicions. The court ordered the funds unblocked and granted Makhlouf 1,800 francs ($1,975) in damages.

8.26pm: The US has set out some of its plans to help organise the first meeting of the Friends of Syria group, which will coordinate ways to tackle Assad regime.

The top Middle East envoy of the state department , Jeffrey Feltman, has been dispatched to Morocco, France and Bahrain to help put the meeting together and determine the group's membership and its mandate, AP reports.

Arab League foreign ministers are due to meet Sunday in Cairo and could announce a date and venue for the meeting after that.

France and Turkey, both of which have historic and commercial interests in Syria, have offered to host the meeting. Morocco, which sponsored the UN Security Council resolution calling for Assad to step down, which Russia and China vetoed, is also a candidate to host.

State department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said:

Now that the UN Security Council action has been blocked by the double veto, we are compelled to work outside the UN system, and so that's why you see this sort of groundswell of work now to get this friends group together.

8.07pm: Here's the Guardian's latest video of the violence in Syria.

Footage obtained from social media websites purports to show the assaults on Homs and Idlib. Other footage is reported as showing the Free Syrian Army attacking a military checkpoint in Homs.

7.44pm: The Arab League will discuss a proposal to send a joint mission with the UN to Syria.

The League's deputy head, Ahmed Ben Helli said:

There is a proposal from the secretary-general of the Arab League to form a joint mission for Syria in coordination with the United Nations, and it will be presented before the planned Arab foreign ministers' meeting on Sunday in Cairo.

Arab ministers are considering whether to extend or scrap an observer mission sent to Syria in December, which was criticised by anti-Assad groups, and retreated to hotels for safety as the bloodshed in the country worsened.

One Arab diplomat said the meeting could also issue a statement on a decision by Russia and China to veto a UN resolution that was based on a peace plan put forward by the league, which had the backing of Western powers.

Earlier this week, Arab League secretary-general Nabil Elaraby said a new mission could be sent but it would have to be larger, better equipped and have a stronger mandate.

7.19pm: CNN has posted a video interview with a Syrian activist who describes how he saw a friend shot in the head by government forces.

The broadcaster also reports on the terrible scenes at a makeshift clinic in the Baba Amr area of Homs:

Some arrive with heads decapitated or their torsos split open like animals after slaughter. Or their limbs are mangled under the crush of rubble.

The Associated Press has posted a video of the shelling of Homs, which shows a body on a stretcher being taken from the ruins of a residential home.

7.01pm: Britain has no plans to arm the Syrian rebels but cannot rule out getting involved in military action, according to the foreign secretary, William Hague.

Amid speculation that Britain could assist the rebels with weapons or other equipment, Hague told Sky News:

We are clearly not planning military intervention. Britain is not engaged in that and we haven't done that in any of the conflicts or we certainly don't have any plans to do such.

We are intensifying our contacts with opposition groups, opposition groups mainly outside Syria. We're also increasing our support for organisations that get food and medical supplies in to people so badly affected by this situation.

Addressing rumours that Britain was arming the rebels, he added:

No, our plans at the moment are to intensify our diplomatic work which is what we are doing with the Arab League, with our partners at the United Nations Security Council, to help with food and medical supplies, to work with the opposition outside Syria.

These are the things we're doing, there is a lot the United Kingdom can do on all those fronts but we're not engaged in conflict within Syria.

6.35pm: Human Rights Watch has condemned the Syrian government for its "indiscriminate" assault on the civilian population of Homs.

Anna Neistat, associate emergencies director of HRW, said:

This brutal assault on residential neighbourhoods shows the Syrian authorities' contempt for the lives of their citizens in Homs. Those responsible for such horrific attacks will have to answer for them.

The human rights organisation said eyewitness accounts, as well as video reviewed by the group's arms experts, suggest Assad's forces are using long-range mortars to pound the city. It said such weapons "are inherently indiscriminate when fired into densely populated areas."

This video report by Danny Daem posted on YouTube purports to show residential homes in the Baba Amr district of Homs destroyed by shelling. The Guardian is unable to verify this content.

This photo posted on Twitter purports to show a home in the same district destroyed in the bombardment.

6.17pm: This is David Batty – I'm taking over the live blog for the rest of the evening. You can follow me on Twitter @David_Batty.

Residents of Homs have described the increasingly dire situation in Homs to the Associated Press. The heavy shelling of neighbourhoods such as Baba Amr has made it difficult to get medicine and care to the wounded, and some areas have been without electricity for days, according to activists.

Abu Muhammad Ibrahim, an activist in Homs, told the news agency:

Snipers are on all the roofs in Baba Amr, shooting at people. Anything that moves, even a bird, is targeted. Life is completely cut off. It's a city of ghosts.

Mohammed Saleh, another activist, said Assad's ground forces were keeping their distance from the city while it was under heavy shelling. He added:

There is medicine in the pharmacies, but getting it to the field clinics is very difficult. They can't get the medicine to the wounded.

5.00pm: Here's a summary of today's events in Syria:

• The situation is very tense, with a lot of gunfire and lot of shelling, says Martin Chulov, who is reporting for the Guardian from close to the city of Homs. Casualties have also been streaming out of the city. Meanwhile, the Free Syrian Army seems to be getting resupplied, and its numbers are growing.

• Today's death toll has now reached 126, including 107 in Homs according to the Local Co-ordination Committees in Syria. Other activists quote lower figures and the Syrian Revolution Coordinating Commission said at least 30 civilians were killed in Homs. These figures cannot be independently verified.

• Prematurely born babies are dying in Homs because of the lack of incubators, according to Muhammad Al-Muhammad, who claims to be a doctor in the Baba Amr district.

• Libya has reportedly ordered Syrian embassy staff to leave the country within 72 hours. In October, Libya became the first country to recognise the opposition SNC as Syria's legitimate government.

4.43pm: On The Atlantic's website, Geoffrey Goldberg has been comparing casualty figures. The Syrian death toll is now thought to be about 6,000 since last March.

A total of 2,294 Palestinians and Israelis died in the first intifada and 10,760 in the second intifada, Goldberg says. Meanwhile, the Irish troubles cost about 3,000 lives over three decades.

Casualty figures for the 1982 Hama massacre in Syria are uncertain, though estimates range from 10,000 to as many as 40,000.

Goldberg does not mention the decade-long Algerian civil war that began in 1991, though estimates of casualties in that conflict are usually estimated at more than 100,00 dead, and possibly as many as 200,000.

4.25pm: Libya has ordered Syrian embassy staff to leave the country within 72 hours, al-Jazeera is reporting. In October, Libya became the first country to recognise the opposition SNC as Syria's legitimate government.

Two days ago, the six Gulf Cooperation Council countries – Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE – announced they were expelling Syrian ambassadors and recalling their own ambassadors from Damascus.

3.57pm: Sanctions against Syria are unlikely to topple the Assad regime and might even strengthen its popular support, Turkey's ambassador to the EU has warned.

European countries are working towards imposing tougher sanctions by the end of this month – probably including a freeze on the assets of Syria's central bank and banning trade in diamonds, gold and other precious metals.

But the Turkish ambassador, Selim Yenel, told Reuters:

We don't believe in sanctions. They never work. That's why we are against them in Iran ... In Syria they will hurt people. Whether in the long term they will turn them into more vocal opposition, I don't know. We have never seen that happen before.

Assad still has backing The middle class is still supporting Assad. They are afraid of what comes after him.

The regime is not just a person, or one family. It's a big group of people and ... they want to hold on to power.

3.47pm: Today's death toll has increased to 126 people, including 107 in Homs according to the latest unverified update from activist group the Local Co-ordination Committees in Syria.

Other activists quote lower figures. The Syrian Revolution Coordinating Commission said at least 30 civilians were killed in Homs, according to Reuters.

3.24pm: In his latest video appeal Muhammad Al-Muhammad, who claims to be a doctor in Baba Amr, says prematurely born babies are dying in the city because of the lack of incubators.

He shows one new born baby who he claims will die without help

Speaking from a makeshift delivery ward in a Mosque, Muhammad said the baby had been born two month premature.

He needs an incubator now. Without one he will die. Nine premature babies have died in Homs.

Where are you the clerics of Damascus and Aleppo?

If we leave him like this he will die. Shall we leave him like this. We can't do anything for him. We are using a mosque for a hospital because of the heavy bombing by the rockets and the helicopters.

3.12pm: "The violence and brutality I have witnessed over the last ten months shocks me," writes Britain's ambassador to Syria Simon Collis.

In a new blogpost, Collis who was recalled from Damascus last week, claims that the violence documented on YouTube is authentic.

He also urges the Syrian opposition to refrain from violence.

I tell the Syrian opposition at every opportunity to avoid the path of an armed resistance. But the sad truth is that violence begets violence. That is why it is important that all sides refrain from violence and that the regime allows a political transition instead of repeating its hollow promises of reform..

Without context, it can be hard to make sense of YouTube images shot on a mobile phone. It can be hard to understand why a man with a family in a town in Syria would decide to take up arms against his government. It can be hard to believe that over 5,000 people have been killed in ten months, or that torture is a regular occurrence in prisons, children brutalised and tanks and mortars used by the army against its own citizens. If I hadn't seen for myself what the Syrian regime has done I would be asking these questions too.

But I have. And it is too shocking to ignore. That is why I am so appalled by the vetoing of the draft resolution, tabled by Morocco, which supported the Arab League efforts to resolve the crisis. The resolution did not impose any sanctions. It did not authorise military action. And at every stage we worked to accommodate the concerns of others. There was nothing in the draft to warrant opposition. Those opposed to it will have to account to the Syrian people for their actions and the horror of the unfolding tragedy.

2.36pm: This appears to be one of the bloodiest days yet in Syria, according to another unverified update from activists.

The number of martyrs in Syria today has reached 105 so far including 10 children. Ninety-three martyrs in the affected city of Homs, four in Maarat Al-Noman in Idlib, five in two Damascus suburbs (Madaya and Zabadany), two from Ain Al-Arab (Kobany) in Aleppo and one in Lattakia. These numbers were reported by activists and doctors in the fields in the different areas. We are not able to document the names of martyrs due to the intense shelling.

2.23pm: British prime minister David Cameron pledged today to keep up the pressure on the Syrian regime, PA reports.

Speaking at an international gathering in Sweden, he said:

It is quite clear that this is a regime hell-bent on killing, murdering and maiming its own citizens ... we need to take the toughest possible response we can.

We also need to work with the [Syrian] opposition to try and help shape their future and assist them in whatever way we can. We also need to put together the strongest possible contact group of like-minded nations.

2.02pm: "It has a grim foreboding feeling of a place that is already in the midst of a civil war," Martin Chulov reports from outside the Syrian city of Homs.

Speaking via satellite phone he said:

Much of the countryside in the lead up to Homs has been taken by the Free Syrian Army for now, and we can move around. But as we get closer to Homs there is a lot more fighting. There is gunfire all around, rockets are landing.

Casualties have been streaming out of Homs into various clinics. We've been to a clinic this morning. Four people were bought in dead another couple died when they got there.

It is very tense, there is a lot of gunfire, and there's a lot of shelling. It's two-way gunfight going on or so it would seem. There's certainly mortar fire coming in from regime forces and there seems to be some gunfire coming back. We did see a resupply [for rebels] come in of very old mortar tubes. There is some attempt to set up a defensive perimeter or a fight back. But it is by and large one sided.

The regime is not looking to take ground at the moment. It is softening up Baba Amr and al-Khaldiyeh [districts in Homs], and other places nearby, with what appears to be a more heavy rocket round today and some artillery. Today they have stepped it up a little.

Defected soldiers are armed with RPGs and Kalashnikovs, Martin said. Asked if it resembled a civil war, Martin said:

Very much so. The Free Syrian Army is able to hold some territory at this point. They do have the stated intent to overthrow the regime, they are getting resupplied, and their numbers are steadily building. It has a grim foreboding feeling of a place that is already in the midst of a civil war.

The FSA does hold some strategic parts, especially near some border crossings from Turkey and Lebanon. The fact that it has held ground does show that it has a resilience. They are looking to consolidate those gains and advance on the regime once this shelling stops.

Most of them [the rebel fighters] aren't sleeping. All those we've spoken to today looked traumatised and looked like people very much fighting a war. It is a very grim focus.

1.56pm: A Syrian activist in Zabadani, near the border with Lebanon, said today that the army is arbitrarily shelling the town. The NOW Lebanon website reports:

The shelling has killed a woman, a young man and a child, Local Free Council spokesperson Ali Ibrahim told Future News.

He added that the army of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad "has targeted the mosques in the city and Zabadani's church."

Ibrahim also said that the city is experiencing "food shortages," adding that "communication lines have been cut off."

Once again, we are unable to provide independent confirmation of the statement.

1.47pm: Here's a summary of events so far today:

• The assault on Homs continues. Local Coordinating Committees in Syria say today's death toll has reached 65, including 57 in Homs alone, while the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights puts today's death toll at 20 people. These figures cannot be independently verified.

• The leader of the Free Syrian Army, Colonel Riad al-Asaad, appears to be trying to mend his differences with the opposition Syrian National Council. Earlier, in a BBC interview, he had accused the SNC of treachery.

• The United Nations and the Arab League have proposed sending a joint observer mission to try to end the crisis in Syria.

1.12pm: The Local Coordinating Committees in Syria claim that today's death toll has risen to 65, including 57 in Homs alone.

The claim could not be independently verified. The LCC usually provides the names of those killed, but could not today "because of heavy shelling in most areas".

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights puts today's death toll at 20 people, AP reports.

12.47pm: Activists are claiming seven members of Syrian security forces were killed in a rebel ambush. Awaiting details/confirmation.

12.38pm: Syrian writer Khaled Khalifa (author of In Praise of Hatred, which was shortlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction) has posted an open letter on his Facebook page calling for international solidarity with the Syrian people. He says:

I know that writing stands helpless and naked in front of the Russian guns, tanks and missiles bombing cities and civilians, but I have no wish for your silence to be an accomplice of the killings as well.

An English version of the letter is here. It has also been translated into French, Spanish, Norwegian and Albanian.

12.12pm: The Syrian government should immediately stop its shelling of residential areas in Homs, Human Rights Watch said in a new statement. It said:

Since 3 February, the attacks have killed more than 300 persons in the city, according to Syrian monitoring groups, and wounded hundreds others, including women and children. No adequate medical assistance is available to the victims due to a blockade of the city by government forces and fear of arrest if treated at government-controlled hospitals ...

Eight witnesses to the attacks interviewed by Human Rights Watch said that government troops have fired hundreds of "shells and mortars" into populated neighborhoods. Videos and photos of the attacks, reviewed by Human Rights Watch's military experts, and accounts from international journalists on the ground, confirm that government forces launched long-range indirect fire attacks into densely populated areas.

Anna Neistat, associate emergencies director at HRW, said:

It is clear the Syrian government has interpreted the Russia-China veto as a carte blanche to launch an all-out assault on cities like Homs without caring who's killed in the process. Russia and China now have a particular responsibility to force the Syrian government to end its onslaught. If they can't do that, they should stop obstructing security council action.

11.55am: The activist group, the Local Co-ordination Committee in Syria, claims 56 people have been killed so far today. The vast majority of the victims were in Homs.

It also said four people had been killed in the former opposition stronghold of Zabadani - 20 miles north-west of Damascus.

Yesterday activist Fares Mohamad told the Guardian that tanks were surrounding the city and that 18 people had been killed since the assault started.

New video footage purports to show a residential areas in the hill town coming under bombardment.

Another clip from Zabadani purports to show rationed bread being sold (Mohamad told us bread was running low in the town).

A man in clip said:

We have a bread crisis. We don't have any flour. We have no fuel or food. He [Bashar al-Assad] even banned Red Crescent cars fromp reaching the city, because he is so mean and filthy. They are fighting us with our bread.

We will not allow him into Zabadani. As will allow him in only over our dead bodies.

11.46am: Muhammad Al-Muhammad, who claims to be a doctor in Baba Amr, has made two more emotional video appeals from a makeshift field hospitals in Homs.

In the first Muhammad shows the wounded bodies of five children from the same family. [warning: graphic content].

According to our translator, Mona Mahmood, he said:

People of Syria, go down to the street to put pressure on this criminal regime. But it is useless - you don't have any sense of religion, you have no shame.

Look at this child is she one of the criminal gangsters, or her sister, or her other sister, or this child.

I ask you in the name of God to move.

In another disturbing clip Muhammad speaks over the dead body of woman who he claims is the mother of seven children [warning: graphic content].

Today is Thursday, and we have martyr after martyr. Our martyrs are going to paradise, your dead are going to hell.

This woman is not one of the armed gangsters. This is a mother of seven children. She has been killed by Assad's criminal gangs. Since 6am we have been bombed by the heaviest rockets.

On Wednesday Muhammad, dressed in a blood-stained hospital gown, appealed to Arab leaders to intervene to end the crisis.

11.11am: AP has more on the expulsion of those Syrian diplomats from Germany.

Germany says it is expelling four Syrian diplomats following the arrest earlier this week of two men accused of spying on Syrian opposition groups in Germany.

Foreign minister Guido Westerwelle (pictured) said in a statement Thursday that he ordered the expulsions of the four Syrian Embassy employees, and that the ambassador had been informed.

He did not give details on the diplomats.

German federal prosecutors said Tuesday they had arrested a Syrian and a German-Lebanese dual national on suspicions that they spied on Syrian opposition supporters in Germany over several years.

Syria's ambassador to Germany was summoned to the Foreign Ministry the same day and told that Berlin cannot tolerate such activities.

10.59am: The leader of the Free Syrian Army, Colonel Riad al-Asaad [pictures], appears to be trying to mend his differences with the opposition Syrian National Council [SNC] after accusing it of treachery in a BBC interview, the FT reports.

But Roula Khalaf says that a new joint statement by Asaad and the SNC pledging to overcome disagreements does little to defuse the perception of disarray within the opposition.

The dispute has turned the spotlight again on the dilemma of the Syrian opposition, which western and Arab governments are calling upon to show greater unity.

The formation of the Syrian National Council last year was seen as a significant step, and was hailed by activists on the ground. But the group has yet to win official recognition by foreign powers.

Attempts by the Arab League to bring together the SNC and a rival group known as the Syrian National Co-ordination Committee have failed. The Syrian National Co-ordination Committee is opposed to the militarisation of the uprising and to providing backing for the FSA.

10.53am: Omar, who we just spoke to, sent a link to this clip purporting to show Baba Amr coming under attack today.

Once again the footage cannot be independently verified.

10.44am: Multi-rocket launchers attack Baba Amr every three minutes, an activist, who claimed to be in the area, told the Guardian.

Speaking via Skype the man who gave his name as Omar said:

Hundreds of houses have been destroyed. The casualty numbers are rising too high. We don't have exact numbers of lives lost today, but there are huge numbers.

Every two or three minutes a new missile hits down on another house ... There are many tanks in the neighbourhood. It is kind of a collective punishment on the people of Baba Amr, because this neighbourhood is a stronghold of the revolution.

Omar said he saw helicopters over the area this morning. He believed the helicopters fired at Baba Amr, but he didn't see them shoot.

Today in early in the morning I started to see the first [use of the] airforce in Baba Amr. We saw some helicopters from very far [away]. We had five missiles probably from those helicopters. Six people died straight away.

Asked about the number of injured, he said:

Trust me there are hundreds of them. We used to have a field hospital, it has been hit by a missile as well. Now we treat people in normal houses. There is a great shortage of medication, food, bread, baby food, milk, all this kind of stuff.

I believe Assad's army is committing genocide against humanity in Baba Amr, and the world is just watching and having a good time.

Commenting on the armed resistance Omar said:

Assad's army has not yet sent troops in on the ground. That's why there have been no clashes between the Syrian Free Army [FSA] and Assad's army. The FSA just has light machine guns. They have RPGs for the tanks but so far they [the regular army] are firing from a long distance using multi rocket launchers. They [the FSA] don't have weapons against those rockets.

Asked what he would like the international community to do, Omar said:

Would the international community like to see another Kosovo in 2012. They intervened in Libya in 11 days. Now we have been on the streets for 11 months.

What are they waiting for? We are dying here. We have children here dying because there is no baby milk. Assad's regime should be taken to the international criminal court.

10.39am: There are breaking reports that Germany is expelling four Syrian diplomats.

10.29am: Syria's top Sunni cleric, Grand Mufti Sheikh Ahmed Badreddin Hassoun, met Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad yesterday and thanked Iran for supporting the Syrian regime.

According to Amadinejad's website, Hassoun expressed "the appreciation and congratulations of the Syrian nation and president for the stands adopted by the Iranian president, nation and leadership".

Ahmadinejad reportedly told him: "America and its allies are trying to flicker the flames of another war in the region, and meanwhile break the line of Islamic resistance, but we believe relying on unity, trusting in God, and taking advantage of wisdom, we can keep resisting against them effectively."

10.08am: Patrick Seale, a prominent Syria-watcher who wrote a biography of President Assad's father, argues in a new article that the rise of an armed opposition "has provided the Syrian regime with the justification it needed to seek to crush it with ever bloodier repression". Writing for Middle East Live he says:

The opposition's mistake has been to resort to arms – to become militarised – largely in the form of the Free Syrian Army, a motley force of defectors from the armed services, as well as free-lance fighters and hard-line Islamists. It has been conducting hit-and-run attacks on regime targets and regime loyalists. The exiled opposition leadership is composed of a number of disparate, often squabbling, groupings – of which the best known is the Syrian National Council. Inside the SNC, the Muslim Brotherhood is the best organised and funded element of the opposition. Outlawed since its terrorist campaign in 1977-1982 to overthrow the regime of Hafiz al-Asad – an attempt crushed in blood at Hama – it is driven by a thirst for revenge.

No regime, whatever its political colouring, can tolerate an armed uprising without responding with full force.

9.31am: A Syrian journalist, Mazhar Tayyara, is reportedly among those killed in Homs.

The New York based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) says:

Tayyara, known as "Omar the Syrian," was reporting from the Homs neighborhood of Al-Khaldiyeh [on Saturday] when government forces shelled the district, the news website Citizenside reported. The journalist began helping people injured from the blasts when "a second volley of shells fell and he was hit," Tayyara's friend told AFP. The journalist sustained multiple severe injuries and died in the hospital within hours, news reports said.

The CPJ has documented the deaths of three other journalists in Syria during the last four months. In November, cameraman Ferzat Jerban was found in Homs with his eyes gouged out. Basil al-Sayed, a videographer, was shot and killed at a Homs checkpoint in late December, and French journalist Gilles Jacquier was killed in January while covering a pro-regime rally in Homs.

9.20am: More video from Baba Amr shows the already bomb-torn neighbourhood being pounded by shell after shell on Wednesday.

The video cannot be independently verified but it what it shows would be impossible to fake.

Activist Omar Shakir, who claims to be in Homs, tweeted this image:

#Syria #Homs #UN #Assadcrimes #Babaamr where are the #UN twitter.com/OmarShakir91/s…

— Omar shakir (@OmarShakir91) February 9, 2012

Syrian-American Dima Moussa, spokesperson Revolutionary Council of Homs, has a new unverified update on today's death toll.

We have at least 31 confirmed martyrs in #Homs today, most of them from #BabaAmr. It's not even noon yet. #Syria

— Dima Moussa (@dimam78) February 9, 2012

9.06am: China's foreign ministry has said a Syrian opposition delegation visited the country this week and met a deputy foreign minister, Zhai Jun, Reuters reports.

It was the first contact reported by China in the wake of escalating violence in Syria and Beijing's veto in the UN of a draft resolution on the country.

China's communist rulers have always resented the advent of 'humanitarian intervention', writes Steve Tsang director of the China Policy Institute at the University of Nottingham.

After all, if the western powers can impose regime change on authoritarian states on humanitarian grounds, why would this stop at China's borders? But, until now, there was little that China's leaders could do about it. Now, with the costs of the West's misadventures in Iraq and Afghanistan (and, to a lesser extent, in Libya) compounded by its major economies' weakness, China's leaders appear to see an opportunity to push back.

With Russia on its side, the Chinese government can take a stand without appearing isolated. And, while a long-term strategic alliance between Russia and China may not be in the offing, tactical cooperation to stop the West from imposing its values on the global community is likely to persist, so long as Vladimir Putin retains power in Russia.

A rising great power like China taking on a proactive global role is, in principle, a positive development. But the world will not be a better place if China's newfound assertiveness is focused – or, just as importantly, is perceived to be focused – almost exclusively on helping autocrats to stay in power through brutal repression of their citizens.

8.57am: "We don't want monitors again, we want the UN to interfere with the army," British-Syrian activist Danny Abdul Dayem says in his latest video appeal from Homs.

He was speaking as he toured the wreckage of house in the Baba Amr district of Homs where he claimed four civilians had been killed.

8.36am: (all times GMT) Welcome to Middle East Live. Syria remains the focus. The UN has offered to join the Arab League monitoring mission amid the continuing crackdown on opposition strongholds by president Bashar al-Assad's forces.

Here's a roundup of the latest developments:

• Activists say Syrian forces have renewed their assault on Homs in the heaviest bombardment the city has seen, AP reports. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says at least 12 people were killed Thursday morning but an exact death toll couldn't immediately be determined because of the chaos in the city.

• The United Nations and the Arab League have proposed sending a joint observer mission to try to end the crisis in Syria, UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon has announced.

Ban also suggested that Russia and China's veto of the draft resolution on Syria has been "disastrous for the people of Syria". He said the failure to agree on collective action "has encouraged the Syrian Government to step up its war on its own people".

• Turkish foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu said the international community needed to provide something more forceful than an observer mission. Speaking to Reuters before flying to Washington for talks on Syria, he said: "It is not enough being an observer. It is time now to send a strong message to the Syrian people that we are with them."

• The west and the Arab world are scrambling to find a new diplomatic strategy without Russian and Chinese help. A "friends of Syria" conference is expected to be called in the next few days to agree joint measures, including new sanctions, anti-Assad resolutions at the UN general assembly, and diplomatic support for the opposition Syrian National Council with the aim of molding it into a credible alternative to the Assad regime. The next steps will be decided at meetings of the Gulf Co-operation Council on Saturday and the Arab League on Sunday.

• The Pentagon is drawing up contingency plans for intervention in Syria that include military action. The defence department has for several weeks been planning a range of US actions, from dealing with a flood of refugees and the provision of medical relief to a direct military assault on Syria. Included in the planning is intervention coordinated with allies such as Turkey and other countries in Nato. Administration officials said the "internal review" was at the initiative of the Pentagon, not the White House, in order to be able to present options to President Obama if he were to call for them.

• Residents in Homs said on Wednesday that the noose was tightening around their besieged city, with the Syrian army carrying out a ferocious bombardment against the helpless civilians trapped inside. At least 27 people were killed on Wednesday, with about 200 injured, 50 seriously, activists said, after unrelenting artillery attacks. Activist Waleed Farah told the Guardian, "It isn't war between two armies. It's between the army and civilians. You hear the rockets and explosions. You feel you are at the front. The situation for civilians is pitiful."

• The foreign power most actively involved inside Syria is Iran, says Simon Tisdall.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz quoted Syrian sources saying Suleimani was, in effect, acting as chief regime adviser and strategist ...

Iranian Revolutionary Guards are said to be present in Syria in numbers ranging into the hundreds, though exact figures cannot be confirmed. They act as trainers, advisers and intelligence-gatherers to regime forces, in much the same way as Iranian agents assisted extremist Shia and Sunni groups fighting US forces during the occupation of Iraq ...

For Assad, Iran is a source of protection, security and funds.

• The Free Syrian Army should end their suicidal resistance and broker for peace, argues former UN diplomat Daniel Serwer in the Atlantic.

The Free Syria Army, an informal collection of anti-regime insurgents, is nowhere near able to protect the population. Their activities provoke the government and its unfree Army to even worse violence. It would be far better if defected soldiers worked for strictly defensive purposes, accompanying street demonstrators and rooting outagents provocateurs rather than suicidally contesting forces that are clearly stronger and better armed. A few automatic weapon rounds fired in the general direction of the artillery regiments bombarding Homs are going to help the artillery with targeting and do little else ...

The opposition should ask for a ceasefire and the return of the Arab League observers, who clearly had a moderating influence on the activities of the regime. And, this time around, they should be beefed up with UN human rights observers. If the violence continues to spiral, the regime is going to win.

Live coverage of the Republican presidential campaign as conservatives gather at the annual CPAC gathering in DC

2.37pm: A new PPP poll of North Carolina shows Barack Obama's poll ratings improving there – a key swing state in 2012 – and has slight leads over his Republican rivals:

Obama hit a low point in September [2011] at 43/53. He's seen improvement across the board since then but the really significant movement has come with independents. Where they disapproved of him by a 2:1 margin five months ago at 31/62, now they're pretty much breaking even at 48/49. Obama's still weaker with independents in the state than he was 4 years ago but he's made a lot of progress.

Obama leads the entire Republican field in the state, although most of the margins are close. He's up 47-46 on Mitt Romney, 48-46 on Rick Santorum, 50-45 on Newt Gingrich, and 47-41 on Ron Paul.

Another sign there of the Santorum bandwagon: he's as electable as Romney in North Carolina at least.

2.11pm: Regarding the description of CPAC as a "petri dish," conservatives have reacted with a remarkably thin-skin after a CNN reporter used the term today.

One emailed the Washington Examiner:

A petri dish is defined as 'a shallow circular dish with a loose-fitting cover, used to culture bacteria and other microorganisms.' As if conservatives are some kind of organism in a contained space to be studied from above by the 'scientists' at CNN for our harmful effects. We are not the Ebola virus, but that seems as if it's how CNN sees conservatives.

Hey, penicillin was first found in a petri dish.

2.05pm: The Guardian's Ewen MacAskill returns from the CPAC "petri dish" in northwest Washington:

The opening day of the Conservative Political Action Conference is normally a quiet one but not this year. The Marriot Hotel where the gathering is being held is buzzing. There seems to be a lot more energy and activity than the last few years – probably because it is election year.

The ballroom where the star speakers appear was almost full, with only a few empty seats at the back. Outside, there are the hundreds of young men and women rushing around self-importantly, handing out leaflets, booklets and stickers and wearing t-shirts with slogans like Freedom and Capitalism. Hanging above it all, a triptych of the heroes and heroine of American conservatism: William Buckley, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher.

The conference organiser claims there are 10,500 people attending. That's difficult to confirm but there are at least 5,000 here judging from the seats in the ballroom and the numbers filling the halls outside, fringe events, dining rooms and the adjacent Harry's Bar.

There are long queues at the registration counters, including the media one: 1,200 journalists have pre-registered while the queue for those just turning up is just as long.

In chats with attendees, Ewen says there is strong support for one presidential candidate, the one called But. As in "Santorum But" and "Romney But".

1.37pm: After coming under fire from Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum starts hitting back, saying that Romney "has been about serially tearing down opponents without offering any kind of vision for what he wants to do for this country" and calling it "gotcha politics":

He's not interested in talking about the issues. He's interested in trying to pander and make political sauce when there's real substantive issues about how we're gonna try to change this government. And he's on the wrong side of it.

There will be more of that type of thing between now and whenever Rick Santorum drops out.

1.11pm: The so-called Super Tuesday is on 6 March and the Republican candidates are looking ahead to the 10 states holding primaries or caucuses that day.

One is Georgia: Newt Gingrich's former home state but one where Mitt Romney nas been sniffing around, with a visit there yesterday. AP reports:

Gingrich is credited as an early architect of the Georgia's now dominant Republican Party. His campaign headquarters is in Atlanta. Unlike states where he has a meager infrastructure, he has a solid network of support here. Governor Nathan Deal and most of the state's House delegation are behind him and are beginning assemble a grassroots operation.

Representative Jack Kingston, a key Gingrich backer in Georgia, said he and others would be pouring money into direct mailers, robocalls and ads to assist Gingrich.

"There's a lot of ground to cover on Super Tuesday, so we want to make it was as easy as we can for him in Georgia," Kingston said.

12.46pm: Charlie Whelton, a British politics blogger, finds a silver lining in Newt Gingrich's disastrous performance in Minnesota and Colorado this week:

The results were a disappointment, but Gingrich may be happy to take a step back, recover his preferred 'outsider' label, and allow Santorum to take the brunt of Romney's attack machine for a while. If nothing else, it should take the attention off Gingrich's 'moon colonisation' idea, for now at least.

Ah, Moon Base Gingrich was fun while it lasted.

12.25pm: Yes we've been amused and then bored by the whole "Shit [insert name] says" thing.

And just to flog that last strips of flesh from that dead horse, here's a Democratic party Super Pac with "Shit Mitt Says". It's semi-funny.

12.14pm: The highlight of CPAC so far has been Marco Rubio, who wowed the crowd on the controversial subject of the administration's healthcare mandate and contraception provision:

You may not agree with what that religion agrees. That's not the point. The point is, the First Amendment still applies. This isn't even a social issue, this is a constitutional issue. The federal government has no right to tell religious institutions to pay for things they believe are wrong.

Oh and Rubio joked that teleprompters were "hard to find in this town" because Obama had them all:

Oh dear Marco Rubio. The "Obama uses teleprompters" is a Republican meme since a clunky appearance by the president before an audience of school kids in 1973 or something, but it's getting tired – especially since Mitt Romney appears unable to exhale without a teleprompter.

11.39am: Here's the CPAC schedule for tomorrow. It's being held at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel for those of you planning glitter-bombings (note: the Guardian does not endorse glitter-bombing even if it produces hilarious photographs).

10.25am: Rick Santorum
12.55pm: Mitt Romney
4pm: Newt Gingrich

Today Rick Santorum is preparing for Super Tuesday on 6 March by campaigning in Oklahoma, which is said to be full of evangelicals, although you wouldn't know it from Rogers and Hammerstein.

Anyway, Santorum is holding a rally at the Mabee Center in Tulsa at 1.30pm central time, if you want to pop along.

11.27am: Oh CNN has a "delegate calculator" for you to play with. Knock yourself out here.

11.20am: The Financial Times's Edward Luce is a contender for introduction of the year with this deconstruction of the GOP presidential field:

If the Republican presidential candidates were your neighbours, Newt Gingrich would be in a bitter dispute with you about your fence. Ron Paul would keep foisting weird books on your teenagers about Austrians and gold. And the electronic gates to Mitt Romney's residence would barely be visible through the rhododendrons.

Only Rick Santorum would fit the type who mowed your lawns and dropped off pecan pies. He may preach a bit and wear off-putting V-necked sleeveless sweaters. But it would always be with a cheery smile.

On this theme, here are the GOP candidates in terms of popular television characters:

Rick Santorum = Ned Flanders (The Simpsons)
Mitt Romney = Conrad Grayson (Revenge)
Ron Paul = Ron Swanson (Parks & Rec)
Newt Gingrich = Jack Donaghy (30 Rock)

On reflection that is too kind to Newt Gingrich. Leave suggestions in the comments below, why not?

10.45am: Would you like to have your photograph taken with Mitt Romney? Well, who wouldn't? Apart from most people.

Well, good news: just take a cheque (or a check) for $2,500 along to the Marriott Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington DC at 5pm tonight, and your dream will come true.

10.24am: Rick Santorum spent yesterday in Texas meeting people with lots of money and asking them to donate some of it to him.

Santorum's campaign claims to have raised more than $1m in donations in the 24 hours since his Midwest night of triumphs. When Mitt Romney heard the news he lit a cigar with a $100 bill and then wrote a cheque to "cash" for $1,000,000.01 just to prove a point.

10am: There's no rest for the Republican presidential candidates as they criss-cross the country raising money and preparing for a showdown at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington DC this weekend.

CPAC kicked off today – down the road from the National Zoo, perhaps appropriately – and it will hear from Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich tomorrow, with Rand Paul appearing as a proxy for his father Ron, who is campaigning in Maine.

The FT's Anna Fifield spots a fashion trend at CPAC, perhaps related to climate change denial and/or thermal underwear.

Meanwhile the implications of Rick Santorum's triple victory on Tuesday night continue to sink in, although the received wisdom is that Mitt Romney remains in the strongest position.

Photo posted on blog of marines with SS flag as marine corps also investigate group recorded urinating on Taliban corpses

The US marine corps has confirmed that a sniper team in Afghanistan posed for a photograph in front of a flag with a logo resembling that of the notorious Nazi SS.

Use of the SS symbol is not acceptable, and the marine corps has addressed the issue, Lt Col Stewart Upton said in a statement. He did not specify what action was taken.

Upton said the marines in the photograph, posted on a blog, are no longer with the unit. The picture was taken in September 2010 in Sangin province, Afghanistan.

The photo shows a flag with what appear to be the letters "SS" in the shape of jagged lightning bolts. The symbol resembles that used by SS units in World War II.

The SS, or Schutzstaffel, was the police and military force of the Nazi Party, which was distinct from the general army. Members pledged an oath of loyalty to Adolf Hitler. SS units were held responsible for many war crimes and played an integral role in the extermination of millions of Jews along with gypsies and other people classed as undesirables. The SS was declared to be a criminal organisation at the Nuremberg war crime trials.

The Military Religious Freedom Foundation in Washington said it was outraged and wants a full investigation.

Mikey Weinstein with the foundation said he has been flooded with calls from former marines offended by the photo and from one member of his organisation who is an Auschwitz survivor.

"This needs to be fully investigated. This is a complete and total outrage," he said.

Weinstein said his organisation was sending a letter to the head of the Marine Corps and defence secretary Leon Panetta.

Master Gunnery Sgt Mark Oliva, a spokesman at Camp Pendleton, California, said the photo was brought to the attention of the 1 Marine Expeditionary Force inspector general in November, and he found there was no intent on the part of the Marines to identify themselves with a racist organisation.

Oliva said the investigation found that the SS symbol was meant to identify the marines as scout snipers, not Nazis, but it was nonetheless not acceptable.
This is the second time this year the marine corps has had to do damage control for its troops' actions.

The marine corps is also investigating a separate group of marines recorded on video urinating on the dead bodies of Taliban fighters.

Dissenters began to attack new belt-tightening measures to enable Greece to get its €130bn rescue almost as soon as the deal was done

In the end the squabbling political leaders in Athens did what they were always going to do: they opted to save Greece from the economic Armageddon that an assured default would have meant if the debt-stricken country had decided not to accept the tough conditions attached to further funds from the EU and IMF.

But no sooner had the Greek government announced that decision , with IMF chief Christine Lagarde rushing to describe it as "very encouraging news", than the wrangling began all over again. One after another, politicians rushed to disassociate themselves from measures that might have averted bankruptcy – Greece has to pay €14.5bn of maturing debt next month – but at the price of throwing the country into a dark age of austerity, bereft of any hope of growth or development.

Minutes after the government triumphantly sealed the deal, deputy labour minister Yannis Koutsoukos resigned. He blasted the belt-tightening reforms Athens had accepted in return for €130bn in rescue loans as being not only painful but "anti-constitutional" and in violation of international law.

Ignoring counter-proposals and the argument that further austerity will deepen Greece's already severe recession, foreign lenders, he said, had blackmailed officials into accepting the accord. On the other side of the political spectrum, Yiannis Manolis, a senior unionist in the conservative New Democracy party, also resigned, saying policies that included a 22% cut in the minimum wage would ensure that Greeks were reduced to living on "Bulgarian salaries in a country with Brussels prices". Aleka Papariga, the communist party leader, warned of "all-out war". After two years of being subjected to relentless tax rises, wage and pension cuts, the prospect of state entities being closed, with mass sackings, loss of benefits and even lower wages would prove the tipping point for Greeks. "They want us to live in Dachau, in concentration camp conditions," she said.

The intra-party wrangling – highlighted by the extraordinary drama of negotiations that were constantly delayed – does not bode well for the upcoming vote on the debt deal in parliament this Sunday.

With elections looming, senior MPs in all three parties backing prime minister Lucas Papademos's interim coalition threatened to reject the draconian terms attached to the release of further aid.

Many believe that come June, when Greece will face yet more bond repayments, pressure will mount yet again to rein in its runaway budget deficit with even more belt-tightening.

In the runup to Sunday's vote, trade unions representing civil servants and workers in the private sector also pledged to bring the country to a standstill with a 48-hour general strike. Their promise came barely two days after the last stoppage. Violence cannot be ruled out when mass protests are held outside the Greek parliament. "They have pushed us too far," said Ilias Iliopoulos at the public sector union Adedy. "The social explosion is coming."

If there was any sense that the brinkmanship on display in the last few weeks is over, it was put to rest when Laos, the junior party in the ruling coalition, said it had not even been informed about the bailout agreement.

It had played no role in resolving the issue of cuts in supplementary pensions, the final obstacle to consensus being reached over the accord.

"We've had no contact all day with the prime minister's office," said Nikos Vasilliades, a party spokesman. "The deal only represents the two main parties, Pasok and New Democracy."

The president of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, cheerily announced hours after news of the deal came through that, finally, "the pieces of the puzzle" in Greece were all coming together. With more Greek drama beckoning, that is very unlikely to be the case.

• READ THE OFFICIAL STATEMENT
• Finance ministers demand proof Athens will deliver
• Euro finance ministers sceptical
• Angry unions call two-day strike
• Greek finance minister heads to Brussels with 'hope'
• Mr Monti goes to Washington
• Today's agenda

8.20pm: It's time to wrap this live blog up after another lively day. Here's a closing summary:

• Greece's coalition leaders say they have accepted the terms of the country's second rescue package, ending days of deadlock. Having failed to agree €300m of pension cuts last night, last-ditch talks with international lenders have delivered 'success' – according to prime minister Lucas Papademos....

• But doubts remain over whether it will be enough to satisfy the rest of Europe. Eurozone finance ministers are meeting now in Brussels, but are not expected to reach a decision tonight. Germany and Ireland have both suggested that the deal agreed in Greece may not go far enough.....

• The agreement has sparked anger in Greece. Unions have called a two-day strike, beginning on Friday. A government minister has resigned, along with a senior member of the New Democracy party.

• The European Central Bank hinted that it could share any profits on its Greek bonds with the rest of the eurozone. However Mario Draghi ruled out taking part in the debt restructuring programme.

• On the UK economic front, the Bank of England raised its quantitative easing programme by another £50bn. It will soon have created £325bn of electronic money. The move came after surprisingly good manufacturing data, and a narrowing of the UK trade gap.

Thanks for reading, and your comments today. I'll be back early tomorrow to carry things on. Good night!

7.47pm: In Athens tonight, the squabbling has started again between rival political parties – just hours after they appeared to put their differences aside and back the tough austerity measures demanded in return for its second bailout, worth €130bn.

Politicians have been engaged in an unseeemly rush to distance themselves from the deal. As we flagged up at 4.17pm, a deputy minister swiftly quit.

This was followed by the resignation of a senior member of the conservative New Democracy party. Yiannis Manolis claimed the deal would condemn Greeks to "Bulgarian salaries in a country with Brussels prices."

Aleka Papariga, the communist party leader, had already fired up the rhetoric, claiming that international lenders were determined to force the Greek people into "concentration camp conditions."

The junior party in the coalition is even claiming that it is not part of the agreement. As Helena Smith explains from Athens:

If there was any sense that the brinkmanship on display in the last few weeks is over, it was put to rest last night when Laos, the junior party in the ruling coalition said it had not even been informed about the bailout agreement.

As such, it had played no role in resolving the issue of cuts in supplementary pensions, the final obstacle to consensus being reached over the accord.

"We've had no contact all day with the prime minister's office," said Nikos Vasilliades a party spokesman. "The deal only represents the two main parties, Pasok and New Democracy."

7.29pm: My colleague Ian Traynor reports from Brussels that euro finance ministers are piling pressure on Greece to prove it will deliver on its pledges to slash public spending.

Without solid assurances, Greece may still not get its new €130bn bailout – despite its political leaders finally agreeing to the terms of the rescue package today.

Ian writes:

Following weeks of brinkmanship that have poisoned relations between the bankrupt country and its eurozone creditors, the ministers and senior officials from the Eurogroup, the European Central Bank, the European Commission, and the International Monetary Fund are wrangling over whether to activate the bailout to prevent outright Greek insolvency by the end of March when the country has to redeem more than 14 billion euros in debt.

Despite the announcements in Athens and Frankfurt that Greece's coalition government had yielded to savage new terms from the eurozone to qualify for the bailout, it is unclear whether the highly complex new rescue package would be finalised at the meeting in Brussels.

The emphasis, though, is on first getting Greece to deliver its side of the bargain.

7.01pm: The word from Brussels is that there's no chance of EU finance ministers ruling tonight whether Greece's agreement is acceptable.

A press conference is expected to be held at 11pm local time, or 10pm GMT.

Many of the pictures coming out of the meeting show finance ministers looking somewhat stressed -- Evangelos Venizelos, for example, appears to be feeling the strain...

That follows the comments from EU finance ministers, questioning whether the deal agreed by Greek coalition leaders actually meets Europe and the IMF's demands.

As reported at 4.22pm, Germany's Wolfgang Schäuble has fuelled fears that Greece may still not have done enough. He told reporters that:

The agreement, as far as I understand, is not at a stage where it can be signed off.

If you're coming to this story late -- the key points are that
a) overnight, Greek leaders failed to agree to €300m of pension spending cuts, but accepted other austerity measures demanded by its Troika of lenders
b) At 3pm today, Lucas Papademos announced that a deal had been reached over this missing €300m. However the statement, which you can see here, is rather short of detail.

6.44pm: More details from Mario Monti's speech in Washington DC (see also 5.41pm)

The Italian PM said he did not expect any country to quit the euro -- instead, he sees "more countries" joining in the future*

On the issue of Greece, Monti urged the IMF to "turn the page" and give Greece the aid it needs, so long as it has met its mininum requirements. Otherwise, he warned, Europe would face a "big potential explosion".

Mario Monti also said that a successful resolution to the bailout debacle in Greece would help Italy by pushing down its borrowing costs (they've already dropped in the last couple of months). He insisted that Italy did not need external financial support itself.

* - Latvia and Romania, for example, already have plans to enter the eurozone in the next few years, and indeed only the UK and Denmark have official opt-outs.

6.26pm: Irish prime minister Enda Kenny has ruled out seeking a Greek-style debt restructuring in the future.

Kenny told Bloomberg Television (see video above) that Ireland will pay its bills "in full and on time", insisting that the country's current rescue plan will give it the time needed to strengthen its economy and return to the financial markets.

Kenny added:

I'm not looking to draw any further monies, I'm looking to emerge from the bailout when we can fly independently ourselves again. So I'm not contemplating a second bailout at all.

6.12pm: Just in from the European Banking Authority -- it is following up the stress tests which is held at the end of last year.

Those tests found that banks needed to find €115bn to withstand further pressure from the Eurozone crisis. Those banks seen as too weak have presented their capital raising plans – and the EBA now wants to check whether those proposals are viable.

The regulator, which has concluded that the capital raisings will reduce lending to the European economy by less than 1%, will release its verdicts in early March. It said this evening that:

The EBA's Board of Supervisors today made a preliminary assessment of
banks' capital plans submitted in response to the EBA's recommendation
on recapitalisation.

Their review highlights that, in aggregate, the shortfalls are expected to be met primarily through direct capital measures. The measures are not viewed as having a negative impact on lending into the real economy.

Our banking expert Jill Treanor points out that the aim is to recapitalise Europe's banks without the need for further state handouts.

The EBA also said that it plans to undertake its next EU-wide stress test in 2013.

5.55pm: The Open Europe think tank had helpfully listed the key questions that remain, following today's agreement in Athens:

• What structure will the bailout take (in terms of allocation of funds and distribution of payments)?
• What will the total level of debt reduction from the restructuring be?
• When will the restructuring begin and will it be in time to pay off the €14.4bn in debt maturing on 20 March?
• Will the European and Greek parliaments approve all aspects of the deal?
• What role is the ECB playing? Will it submit its holdings of Greek debt for restructuring?

Full details here.

5.41pm: Mario Monti has begun speaking in Washington D.C. as part of his two-day trip to the US.

The Italian prime minister is banging the drum for a better growth strategy in Europe. Monti said it was important for the G20 to help, but that wide-ranging structural reforms were needed in Italy to restore demand.

Speaking without notes, Monti also reached for a culinary analogy. He described the euro as both an economic and political tool -- a cherry on the cake, but "there was no cake".

Ie, Europe launched a single currency without the fiscal and political integration and tools necessary for it to succeed.

Monti added that to make the euro a success, Europe needs to "make the cake" - through a proper single market. He added that Europe is alreadu moving towards "some degree" of closer political union.

The trip is seen as a valuable opportunity for Monti to get president Barack Obama on his side, over the issue of growth vs spending cuts.

5.10pm: Greek finance minister Evangelos Venizelos has declared that Greece is just one "final step" away from its second rescue package, as he arrived in Brussels for this evening's meeting of eurogroup finance ministers.

Here's the quotes from Venizelos:

After a long and tough period of negotiation, we finally have a staff level agreement with the troika for a new, strong and credible program.

We also have a deal with the private creditors on the basic parameters of the PSI.

We now need the political endorsement of the Eurogroup for the final step.

Venizelos's optimism, though, isn't obviously shared by other senior Euro officials. EC commissioner Olli Rehn points out that the eurogroup needs to be persuaded that Greece can implement the measures laid out in the draft agreement.

Rehn said the Euro finance ministers will have a "thorough discussion" of the deal tonight, but it is up to "the Greek government and parliament' to convince them they can carry it out.

4.46pm: European stock markets closed slightly higher today, with the FTSE 100 finishing 19 points higher at 5895.

David Jones, chief market strategist at IG Index, said traders were in no mood for euphoria despite the 'breakthrough' (if that's what it is) in Greece:

It's been so long a wait for a deal on Greek austerity measures that the reaction was fairly muted, with Wall Street even dipping into the red, helped along the way by a lack of detail.

4.22pm: The finance chiefs of Germany and Ireland have both cast doubt on claims that Greece has reached a credible agreement.

In the last couple of minutes, German finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble told reporters in Brussels that it was "still not clear' that Greece can reduce its debt pile to 120% of GDP by 2020. That's the key long-term goal set by international lenders, at the heart of the plan to encourage creditors to take a 'voluntary' haircut on their loans.

Ireland's Michael Noonan said that he was "not sure" a Greek deal has been done.

4.17pm: Reuters is reporting that the Greek deputy labour minister has resigned over the new austerity measures agreed by the three coalition leaders

UPDATE: Yannis Koutsoukos tendered his resignation in a letter to Lucas Papademos this afternoon. He said he was quitting because the measures agreed by the coalition were "painful for working people".

3.57pm: European finance ministers are arriving in Brussels ready for their meeting, which is scheduled to begin at 5pm GMT.

Holland's representative, though, has already warned that they will not take a final decision on whether Greece should receive its second bailout this evening. Finance minister Jan Kees De Jager told reports in Brussels:

There will not be a final deal, but more importantly, we have to see first what the Troika has to report - a Yes or No [on whether] Greece has complied with all actions needed for the release of the second programme.

And Christine Lagarde of the International Monetary Fund said that "there is still work to be done on Greece".

3.50pm: Weighing everything up it looks like we can conclude that the troika backed down over the proposal for Greece's pensioners to take a €300m hit.

Helena Smith reports from Athens:

This is very good news conservative leader Antonis Samaras, who messiah-like, emerged from last night's marathon talks saying that he had "fought" throughout the negotiations for pensions to be dropped from the draconian package of austerity measures.

A cynic, however, might say that throughout the crisis Samaras has had his eye on the polls, his only wish really being his over-riding ambition to become Greece's next PM.

As IfigEusLannuon explains in the reader comments, the next Greek elections need to be held by October 2013. However, when Papademos was installed as non-elected head of state, it was broadly agreed that elections would be held this April. Pasok (the socialist party that ran Greece until November) would like the election postponed -- Samaras's New Democracy want them in April.

It will be very interesting to see when Samaras demands that Papademos' interim government make way for elections to be held.

3.41pm: The International Monetary Fund is continuing to work with the Greek government on the details of its new rescue package, following the agreement reached today.

The IMF is holding a press briefing in Washington now. Spokesman Gerry Rice told reports that today's deal is a valuable step forward.

An important initial step was to get the agreement among the coalition leaders in Athens, and the next step is to continue the discussions on that basis.

The IMF will be determined to see that the details of the bailout deal are implemented. That is far from clear -- the two-day strike scheduled to begin tomorrow underlines the deep public anger over the extra austerity that Greece will be asked to swallow.

Under the plan agreed last night, the minimum wage will fall by around 20% and as many as 15,000 civil servant jobs will be cut this year.

3.24pm: Here's the official statement from the Greek prime minister's office:

Ολοκλη�ώθηκαν σήμε�α το π�ωί με επιτυχία οι διαβουλε�σεις της κυβέ�νησης με την τ�όικα, σχετικά με το θέμα, το οποίο είχε απομείνει ανοικτό για πε�αιτέ�ω επεξε�γασία και συζήτηση. Οι πολιτικοί α�χηγοί συμφώνησαν με το αποτέλεσμα των διαβουλε�σεων αυτών. Κατόπιν το�του υπά�χει γενικότε�η συμφωνία για το πε�ιεχόμενο του νέου π�ογ�άμματος εν' όψει και της αποψινής συνεδ�ίασης του Γιο��ογκ�ουπ. Όπως είναι γνωστό, το π�όγ�αμμα συνοδε�ει τη νέα δανειακή σ�μβαση με την οποία η Ελλάδα θα χ�ηματοδοτηθεί με 130 δισεκατομμ��ια ευ�ώ», αναφέ�ει η ανακοίνωση που εξέδωσε το γ�αφείο του Π�ωθυπου�γο�.

Which means:

Negotiations between the government and troika were completed this morning with success regarding the one issue which had remained open for debate and re-assessment.

The political leaders agreed with the results of these negotiations. As a result, there is general consensus for the content of the new programme ahead of tonight's Eurogroup meeting. As is known, the programme is part of the new loan agreement with which Greece will be financed with €130bn euro.

Not a hugely detailed statement.....

3.16pm: Reports are now coming in that this afternoon's agreement was clinched during all-night negotiations between Greek PM Lucas Papademos and representative of the country's "troika" of creditors [the EU, the ECB and the IMF].

3.11pm: Word from Greece is that at least half of the €300m euro shortfall* will be covered through "further cuts" in public spending.

It is unsure how the rest will be accounted for, Helena Smith reports from Athens. The government appears to have kept this deliberately vague.

* - if you're just joining us, that shortfall was created because Greek political leaders refused to accept €300m of cuts to pensions, which was part of the deal for its second bailout programme.

3.00pm: The announcement has been made. Prime minister Lucas Papademos's office says that the party chiefs have agreed on the terms set by the Troika in return for Greece's second bailout.

State-run TV is saying the Greek finance ministry Evangelos Venizelos had to have "something in his hands" to present to his counterparts at the eurogroup meeting this evening (that's via Helena Smith in Athens). That meeting starts in just two hours time.

Still looking for the details.... And as Gemma Godfrey, chairman of the investment committee of Credo Capital points out on Twitter, there is still work to be done:

Greece agrees to austerity deal -now private bondholders must agree to restructuring&ministers must find the bailout money!

— Gemma Godfrey (@GCGodfrey) February 9, 2012

2.31pm: Mario Draghi won a laugh from journalists in Frankfurt when he described Greece as "unique", when explaining the European Central Bank's approach to the country.

Greece is unique.

Everything about Greece is unique.

Draghi added that the ECB did not have a Plan B for Greece, and was confident that it will fulfill the terms for its second rescue package. As he put it:

To have a Plan B is to admit defeat.

The ECB president said that he "hears" that negotiations with its creditors are going well and an agreement is 'close". Draghi also denied reports that the ECB would take any losses on its Greek debts as part of the country's rescue deal, and ruled out any "legal tricks" to help Greece.

I am sorry to say I cannot say anything about how our holdings of Greek bonds will be treated.

Interestingly, though, Draghi did say it would be legal for the ECB to share any profits on its Greek bonds among its members (these bonds were bought at distressed prices in the secondary bond market).

2.06pm: As expectation mounts in Athens we are able to finally reveal a time for the much-awaited announcement the government will make regarding "closure" of the deal.

"It will be issued in less than half an hour", government spokesman Pandelis Kapsis has just told Helena Smith, our Athens correspondent.

A reminder of the current situation -- Greek political leaders refused to accept around €300m of cuts to pensions in Greece, at last-night talks yesterday. That has left Greece short of the €3.3bn of austerity measures sought by international lenders in return for its second bailout.

When the announcement is released, the key question will be whether leaders have changed their minds of the pensions issue, or have found another way of making the saving.

1.45pm: Mario Draghi, head of the European Central Bank, has confirmed that the Greek government has reached a deal over the outstanding issues surrounding Greece's second bailout.

Draghi told reporters in Frankfurt that Greek prime minister Lucas Papademos had phoned him in the last few minutes and declared that an agreement has been reached and endorsed by the major Greek political parties.

Draghi added that the Greece austerity deal will be discussed by eurozone finance ministers in Brussels tonight.

State-run TV is also now reporting that there has been an agreement.

It appears that the Greek government is very keen to downplay any suggestion of failure ahead of tonight's eurogroup meeting of finance ministers. At this meeting, Greek finance minister Evangelos Venizelos will present the "last version" of the accord outlining the terms under which Athens will receive its second rescue package.

1.40pm: The Greece PM's office is now confirming that a deal has been struck between the coalition leaders over the new austerity measures needed for a second bailout.

But there is still a big question mark over whether George Karatzaferis, who heads up the junior coalition partner Laos, is on board.

Government spokesman Pandalis Kapsis told Helena Smith in Athens that:

An announcement can be expected soon.

We have the two principal parties on board ... we are researching whether Georgios Karatzaferis [the leader of Laos] will also agree.

Meanwhile, just to add to the suspence officials from the New Democracy party, another coalition member, are refusing to confirm or deny the rumours, says Helena.

1.13pm: The Financial Times is reporting that a deal has been reached in Athens over the outstanding issues around the bailout agreement.

Their Athens correspondent, Kerin Hope, states that:

An official in the prime minister's office says: "There's an agreement, Mr Papademos has met with Mr Samaras and it's done. There will be a statement shortly."

That's given stock markets a lift -- the FTSE 100 is now up 36 points. More as we get it....

12.55pm: Over in Greece, the old idea of calling a referendum over the draconian terms of the bailout deal has once again been raised.

Speaking to Flash Radio, the prominent socialist Pasok party MP Haris Kastanides said it was was "vital" that Greeks at large give their consent to the austerity measures, as successive governments will be bound by them.

Kastanides said:

At some point we have to seriously think about this idea again. Giving the people a say is the greatest form of democracy.

I don't want to go over that painful issue again....But it is the fairest way.

You may remember that back in November, Pasok leader George Papandreou flirted with the idea of a public vote on the terms of the €130bn bailout. This was a devastating political miscalulation. A roasting from German chancellor Angela Merkel and French president Nicolas Sarkozy forced Papandreou to backtrack. He then won a midnight vote of confidence (that was a day to remember), and stepped aside in favour of Lucas Papademos.

Kastanides was one of the people who persuade Papandreou to call the referendum in the first place, along with several Harvard academics.

From Athens, Helena Smith says that while it might seem like old hat, the referendum idea should not be excluded.

Bankers on Wall Street who watch Europe and the debt crisis closely are privately betting on a referendum eventually taking place in Greece, say my sources who are in close contact with financiers there.

12.45pm: The European Central Bank has voted to leave interest rates unchanged across the eurozone, at 1%.

Like the Bank of England 45 minutes ago, the ECB acted in line with expectations. Monetary policymakers must feel this isn't a day for surprising the market.

The interesting stuff will happen in 45 minutes time, when ECB head Mario Draghi answers questions from the media. Expect a grilling on whether the ECB might exchange its Greek bonds for securities issued by the EFSF.

12.20pm: Even by the standards of Greek political theatre, little can be ruled out in the 72 hours between now and the time the tough bailout agreement will be brought to the Greek parliament on Sunday, says Helena Smith in Athens.

"The whole situation is in flux," Nikos Vasilliades , a press spokesman at the small nationalist Laos party has just told Helena.

Vasilliades continued:

Logically the agreement should go to parliament to be voted on this Sunday but who knows? Our president [Laos leader George Karatzaferis] has made it clear that he will not be signing anything until he is assured that the measures being asked of us are legal.

Karatzaferis wanted "cast iron" guarantees from three institutions: Greece's High Court, its Central Bank and the European Parliament. The party is now awaiting the response of letters the 66-year-old Karatzaferis had sent all three.

Spokesman Vasilliades claimed that many of the measures in the draft bailout agreement "violate international labour law" and breach the Lisbon Treaty:

They will affect an entire nation for the next 15, 20 years so we need to be sure, we need to have an answer. Yes, you could say we are buying time.

12.10pm: The Bank of England cited the "significant margin" of slack in the British economy as a key reason for creating another £50bn of electronic money to spend on UK government bonds. It warned that "tight credit conditions" and "fiscal consolidation" were presenting a "headwind", slowing economic growth.

Katie Allen has the full story about the Bank of England's latest QE injection, here.

12.00pm: Breaking -- the Bank of England has increased its quantitative easing programme by another £50bn, to £325bn

The Bank also left interest rates unchanged at 0.5% -- where borrowing costs have been pegged since March 2009.

Both decisions were broadly in line with City forecasts. Next up -- the ECB at 12.45pm GMT.

11.54am: Vodafone has revealed this morning that it is pulling takings out of its Greek subsidiary "every night".

Chief Financial Officer Andy Halford told reporters that the mobile network giant is repatriating cash to the UK on a daily basis, and also making contingency plans for a Greek disorderly defauly.

Ealier, Vodafone had reported that weaker trading in Italy and Spain had undermined a stronger performance in Northern Europe.

Severeal major corporates are protecting themselves from a collapse in the eurozone. On Tuesday, GlaxoSmithKline admitted that it is shifting cash out of European banks and back into Britain.

11.46am: The European Union has been briefing journalists in Brussels about the latest developments in Greece.

EU spokesman Amadeu Altafaj told reporters that there was "some room for flexibility" in the ongoing negotiations. However he declined to confirm the claim that Athens has 15 days to find the missing €300m -- which rather backs up Dow Jones's claim that they've only got until Sunday.

Altafag also told the briefing that the negotiations with Greece are concluded – the eurogroup must now decide whether it has met its side of the deal.

11.37am: Greece may not have 15 days to find €300m in missing savings.... Dow Jones is reporting that they've only got until Sunday:

We are told #Greece has till Sunday to find EUR300mil to cut in its 2012 budget, need not be from pensions spending @djfxtrader @WSJ

— Matina Stevis (@MatinaStevis) February 9, 2012

11.23am: Mario Monti's visit to America today is a crucial opportunity for Europe to persuade the US that it is serious about fixing the eurozone crisis.

Monti's stock is pretty high since replacing Silvio Berlusconi as Italy's prime minister. With a responsible adult at the helm, Italy's bond yields have dropped (thanks also to that other Mario in the ECB). EU insiders say that Monti's credibility means his calls for a larger European bailout fund, and a focus on growth, carry plenty of weight.

Italian government officials are briefing that Monti will use his meeting with Obama to promote the idea of a new European growth strategy, which would probably involve some debt and deficit targets being relaxed.

This argument could be welcome in Washington, where the Obama administration has taken a more Keynesian approach to the crisis, and is now seeing robust economic growth.

Philippe Moreau-Defarges, a researcher at Paris-based French Institute of International Affairs, told Bloomberg that Monti will be batting for Europe:

There's no European more important for Obama to meet right now to understand that European leaders are aware of the problems and are dealing with them.

11.04am: Tomorrow's strike action has been called amid heated debate in Athens this morning, as the rhetoric from trade unionists increases.

As this picture shows, militants from the power power corporation (DEH) have already taken to the streets, our correspondent Helena Smith reports:

To a man, commentators are saying that Greece has been unfairly cornered - faced with the option of two brutal choices, bankruptcy or the sort of belt-tightening that will thow it further into "economic Armageddon," a fiscal dark age of no growth, no development and no prospect of productivity or salvation on the horizon.

"We are bankrupt but in order not to call us bankrupt they are giving us this money on terms that are so punitive that it will make us even more bankrupt," said Spyros Haritatos, one of the country's most popular radio show hosts.

"They are doing this to ensure that we don't make others [in Europe] bankrupt. With such measures how will Greeks survive? How will they be able to even marry?"

10.34am: Union leader have called a two-day strike starting tomorrow, as anger in Greece over the deal agreed last night bubbles away.

The two major Greek unions, GSEE and ADEDY – who represent around half of all Greek workers – announced the walkout as part of a "social uprising" against the austerity measures that were agreed by Lucas Papademos, George Papandreou, Antonis Samaras and George Karatzaferis.

The industrial action will come just three days after a general strike across Greece. The unions plan to hold protest rallies outside parliament on Friday and Saturday, and will return on Sunday when MP are likely to vote on the plan.

ADEDY secretary general Ilias Iliopoulos told Reuters:

The painful measure that creat misery for youth, unemployed and pensioners do not leave us much room. We won'e accept them.

We are moving to a social uprising.

10.22am: Greek youth unemployment rate has now reached 48%, according to this morning's data (see also 10.05am). That's up from 22.4% back in 2008 when the financial crisis began.

10.05am: Grim economic news from Greece this morning -- the unemployment rate hit 20.9% in November, a new record high. Industrial output tumbled by 11.3% in December, compared with a year ago..

Another sign of Greece's continuing economic contraction. Duncan Weldon, economist and TUC senior policy advisor, pointed out that the data shows the country will struggle to grow its way out of the crisis:

Meanwhile - Greek industrial production down over 11% year on year. Not much hope of an improving trade balance at this rate.

— Duncan Weldon (@DuncanWeldon) February 9, 2012

9.45am: Katie Allen, my colleague on the economics desk, explains what today's UK trade and industrial/manufacturing data (see 9.35am) means:

The numbers for both industrial production and trade are ahead of forecasts and should help allay fears that Britain is headed into recession - technically two consecutive quarters of contraction. The official data from the fourth quarter of 2011 indicated the economy shrunk 0.2%.

Not only did manufacturing output rise 1% in December, November's contraction was revised up to -0.1% from -0.2% previously reported by the ONS.

Still, two notes of caution:

Manufacturing makes up only 10.2% of the economy. The wider industrial sector, which also covers mining and utilities, makes up 15.4% of the economy. Secondly, the improvement in the trade balance was largely driven by a drop in imports - not exactly proof of burgeoning domestic demand. The pick-up in exports was very slight, a blow to government hopes for overseas trade to drive recovery and a longer-term rebalancing away from dependence on domestic demand.

9.35am: Britain's manufacturing output has jumped, beating City forecasts.

Data just released showed that manufacturing output rose by 1% in December, with output across all industry (including energy utilities) growing by 0.5%.

That could ease fears that Britain will suffer a double-dip recession. However the Office for National Statistics also reported that industrial production fell by 1.4% during the final three months of 2011 (it declined in October and November) - slightly more than predicted by the ONS when it estimated that UK GDP fell by 0.2%.

As economics editor Larry Elliott points out:

The bounce back in manufacturing output had been predicted because the survey evidence for December had been strong.

Seperately, the UK total trade gap in goods and services has dropped to its lowest in almost a decade -- £1.1bn in December 2011. Mainly due, though, to falling domestic demand rather then resurgent exports.

The trade gap in goods declined in December to £7.111bn, the smallest level since February 2010. That was mainly due to a decline in imports – down from £34.25bn in November to £32.67bn in December. Exports inched a little higher – from £25.34bn to £25.56bn.

The UK also ran a services trade surplus of slightly above £6bn in December.

9.12am: Quite a packed agenda today, with plenty of British economic data this morning, and the interest rate/QE decisions at lunchtime.

The Super Mario Brothers will be busy - while ECB head Mario Draghi fields questions in Frankfurt, Italian PM Mario Monti will be visiting the US.

• UK industrial+manufacturing production stats for December - 9.30am GMT
• UK trade balance - 9.30am GMT
• Bank of England interest rate/QE decision - noon GMT
• European Central Bank interest rate decision - 12.45pm GMT / 1.45pmCET
• ECB press conference with Mario Draghi - 1.30pm GMT / 2.30pm CET
• US weekly initial jobless claims data - 1.30pm GMT / 8.30am EST
• Eurogroup meeting in Brussels - 5pm GMT / 6pm CET
• Mario Monti speaks at the Peterson Institute - 5.30pm GMT / 12.30pm EST

There don't appear to be any bond auctions today.

8.48am: The euro is rising today, and European stock markets have also opened higher.

The euro hit $1.3312 against the US dollar, on optimism that the final details of the agreement will be ironed out. In London, the FTSE 100 is up 21 points at 5897, close to its highest point of 2012.

As City veteran David Buik points out, stock markets have rallied strongly over the past few months despite the uncertainty in Greece.

Since Oct 2011 S&P 500 +22%, DOW +20.9%, FTSE +20%,.Since Sept 2011 DAX UP 34%!! GREEK EQUITIES +48.3%!! Bull market?Hard to believe!

— David Barlow Buik (@DavidBuik) February 9, 2012

8.24am: George Karatzaferis, the junior partner in the coalition, initially declared that he opposed the agreement, only to later clarify that he would continue to support the coalition government

Greek news website ekathimerini.com reports:

Leaving the Maximos Mansion, Karatzaferis quoted a poem by Constantine P. Cavafy, suggesting that he had rejected the deal.

On returning to his party's headquarters, he clarified that he objected to signing the agreement because he did not have enough time to study it.

Despite having it translated into Greek especially?

Karatzaferis's comments have caused some bemusement in Greece, with Athenian Diane Shugart pointing out that you either back the deal, or you don't.

ps someone should tell mr karatzaferis that agreeing albeit with serious reservations is like being a little pregnant #greece

— Diane Shugart (@dianalizia) February 9, 2012

Sony Kapoor, managing director of the Re-Define think tank, also isn't impressed with the comments coming out of Athens:

Methinks there is a lot of posturing re #Greek deal, primarily for domestic audiences in #Greece & #Germany

— Sony Kapoor (@SonyKapoor) February 9, 2012

8.18am: Greek finance minister Evangelos Venizelos struck an optimistic tone as he headed to Brussels to present the results of last night's talks to the Eurogroup (made up of the 17 finance ministers from countries within the euro).

Venizelos said:

I leave for Brussels with hope that the Eurogroup will take a positive decision concerning the new aid plan.

As the prime minister said, there is agreement on all the issues bar one.

Christine Lagarde of the International Monetary Fund will also attend this afternoon's meeting in Brussels.

Gary Jenkins, City analyst at Evolution Securities, suggests that Greece may be hoping that the EU decides to let them off the last €300m. Possibly, but on the other hand Athens's 'goodwill bucket' is running pretty dry.

Jenkins also questioned whether the agreement could actually be implemented:

Whether an agreement will survive the April election, let alone the years of economic hardship to come, is a moot point. Apparently the terms of the agreement are based upon (amongst many other things) Greece returning to economic growth in the first half of 2013, which may be a tad optimistic.

7.57am: Prime minister Lucas Papademos held talks with Greece's Troika of lenders (the IMF, the ECB and the EU) overnight after the talks with Papandreou, Samaras and Karatzaferis broke up.

Reuters is reporting that Greece has been given another two weeks to find €300m in alternative savings, if the pensions issue really cannot be resolved. According to an unnamed official:

Greece has another 15 days to specify fiscal savings worth 300 million euros.

7.44am: On a positive note, plenty of progress was made at last night's talks, which lasted over seven hours.

George Papandreou (head of PASOK - socialist), Antonis Samaras (New Democracy - right wing) and George Karatzaferis (Laos - far right) agreed to around €3bn of austerity measures. That includes hefty cuts to the minimum wage, and up to 15,000 job cuts across the civil service.

Pensions, though, remained the sticking point, leaving technocratic PM Lucas Papademos around €300m shy of his target of €3.3bn of savings for 2012.

With elections looming, it appears that no-one wanted to be seen as reponsible for cutting money to the elderly. It appears that New Democracy would not accept cuts to supplementary state pensions, while Pasok would not accept cuts to the primary pension.

Samaras declared last night that he did not have the right "not to negotiate hard" for Greek pensioners:

During these difficult times, we must look at ordinary people, at the pensioner.

Panos Beglitis, a spokesman for the Pasok socialist party, told journalists in Athens that his party were also opposed to cuts in main pensions. He added that the three leaders had accepted that the minimum wage would drop by 22%.

7.30am: Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of the eurozone crisis.

Overnight, Greece's leaders have failed to agree to the full terms of its £130bn bailout package. Despite negotiating until nearly dawn, the coalition government headed by Lucas Papademos could not agree the details of cuts to pensions.

This leaves Greece short of around €300m of savings needed to persuade its international lenders to approve its second rescue deal.

Despite the hitch, the full Greek cabinet is due to meet later today to decide whether to rubber-stamp the new austerity programme. Evangelos Venizelos, the Greek finance minister, is heading to Brussels to present it to finance ministers from across the eurozone

But with €300m still to find, will Venizelos get a warm welcome from the eurogroup?

It's going to be a busy day. Both the Bank of England and the European Central Bank will announce their latest monetary policy decisions this lunchtime -- Britain could get more quantitative easing, while ECB chair Mario Draghi will be quizzed on the euro crisis.

Inter-Services Intelligence accused of kidnapping and torturing 11 men, four of whom have been found dead

Pakistan's all-powerful military will this week face a rare challenge by the courts over the case of 11 men who were allegedly abducted and tortured by the Inter-Services Intelligence spy agency .

The case, due to be heard on Friday, will offer a window into the workings of the ISI and its sister agency, Military Intelligence, and charges that they have made hundreds of Pakistanis disappear.

Four of the 11 men kidnapped from the high security Adiala jail in Rawalpindi in May 2010 have turned up dead in recent months. The families of the rest are petitioning the court for their return. Although apparently terrorist suspects, they have not been charged with any crime.

Before the hearing, the military stated in a written response to the court that they would not bring the remaining men before the judges, as had been ordered by the court, arguing that some were in such poor health that they could not be produced. Critics said this only confirmed the allegations of mistreatment.

The case is also a test for the supreme court, which is accused of pursuing a single-minded campaign against President Asif Zardari and his government, an agenda that plays into the hands of the military.

"This is a historic case. It is the first time the ISI has confessed to holding people," said Amina Janjua, chairperson of Defence of Human Rights, a group that campaigns for Pakistan's disappeared. "The courts are nothing in front of the agencies. The agencies think they are the masters. The ones who were killed did not die natural deaths. Their bodies were blue and black."

The intelligence agencies are allegedly responsible for over 1,000 disappearances since 2001, of whom about 500 are still missing, while in the western province of Baluchistan, dumped bodies of dissidents are regularly found.

Four of the remaining seven detainees in this case are now being held at the Lady Reading hospital in Peshawar, while the three others are being kept at a facility in Parachinar, a tribal area close to the Afghan border.

Abdul Qudoos, the brother of three of the detainees, said he believed they had been given "slow poison". In January this year his family received a phone call to pick up the body of one of his brothers, Abdur Saboor, 29, from an ambulance parked outside Peshawar. "His arms were as thin as sugar cane. Just a skull and skin left of him," said Qudoos.

Lawyers for the ISI told the court that those kept at the hospital were not in a condition to be produced before the court, while those held in Parachinar could be brought only after a "highly confidential" letter from the "internment authority" is considered by the court.

"The allegation of poison and torture, contained in the petition [from the families] is without any shred of evidence," the military's response said. "These are wild, diabolical and vicious allegations against a superior agency of the country."

The military claims that the men, who were ordered to be freed by the courts from Adiala jail, were abducted by people pretending to be intelligence agents and says that it rescued them during anti-Taliban operations in the tribal area.

"These men were in good condition. How did their health deteriorate?" said Inam ul Rahiem, a lawyer for the families.

According to the families, all the men were picked up by intelligence agents in late 2007 and early 2008 and abducted by the spy agencies a second time, from the jail. The men were all highly religious and many were associated with Islamabad's radical Red Mosque. Qudoos's brothers used to supply the mosque with copies of the Qur'an and other religious texts.

"The lies of the agencies have been exposed but they keep telling them," said Qudoos. "These private jails and torture cells, which are in every district, must be closed."

Prime minister says he wants to see pensions matched to life expectancy, more females on boards and tax cuts for people who use cleaners

David Cameron has said he is interested in introducing automatic rises in the pension age to match life expectancy in the UK.

Speaking on Thursday at a summit in Sweden with Nordic leaders, mainly outside the eurozone, he also said he would look at quotas for women in the boardroom if numbers failed to improve.

He also expressed interest in the idea of tax breaks for people who hire cleaning or other household services, as a way of generating extra jobs and freeing more women so they could join the workforce.

But a Downing Street spokesman insisted Cameron was only exchanging policy ideas, and said nothing was going to rushed into hard policy overnight.

Discussing the need for workers to stay in the labour force for longer, Cameron said: "I don't think anyone is saying you must work until you are 75. I think what we are all saying is that we need to have greater flexibility."

He said he was interested in a scheme run in Norway whereby the state pension age rose automatically as people lived longer; it allowed for more flexible retirement arrangements.

Norwegians can choose the age at which they start to claim their pension. Higher payments go to those who choose to wait the longest, up to the age of 75.

The Swedish prime minister, Frank Reinfeldt, said the fact that average global life expectancy had risen from about 46 years in 1950, to nearly 70 today, and 80 in the EU, had altered the premise for pension systems.

The Swedish government allows people to deduct from their tax bill half the cost of household services such as cleaning, cooking, lawn-mowing, snow-shovelling and babysitting.

The concession is said to have created more than 5,000 jobs and has been praised for reducing the black economy, though has proved controversial.

Social democrats have claimed that a relatively small group of wealthy Swedes, earning more than 50,000 kronor (£4,423) a month were far more likely to make use of the subsidised services than lower paid households. And mainly immigrant labour had benefited, they say.

Of the nine countries at the summit, seven were outside the eurozone. After the meeting Cameron said he had been inspired by the measures in those countries that were designed to boost women's participation in the labour force.

He said he did not rule out introducing quotas for women in boardrooms but his preference was to see indicative targets. He said there was overwhelming evidence that companies were better run if men and women worked alongside each other.

"So the real nub of the issue is how do we accelerate, how to we fast-forward to having at least 30% of boards made up by women? That's where you get down to quotas, which I don't think you should ever rule out. If you can't get there in other ways, then maybe you have to have quotas." But he later clarified he wanted to "go as far as we can on this agenda without taking that step".

Reinfeldt claimed at the summit that a male atmosphere created more risk and a greater risk of corruption. "To say the least, more women in the financial sector would be very good in bringing down the risk level."

His remarks took him close to the view of some feminists who claim the financial crash would never have happened had Lehman Brothers been Lehman Sisters.

He also singled out Iceland as a country that had managed to keep people in the workforce longer; the country's prime minister, Johanna Sigurdardottir, was still working at the age of 69, and the nation's average retirement age was 67.

Britain is working to implement the recommendations of a February 2011 report by Mervyn Davies concerned with increasing numbers of women on company boards.

Women account for 15% of directors in FTSE-100 firms, up from 12.5% last year; and all-male boards in the FTSE, have dropped from 21 last year to 10 now.

The latest tabloid attempt to paint 'preacher of hate' Abu Qatada as a bloater certainly puts his lesser sins in perspective

Lost in Showbiz is aware that politics is showbiz for ugly people, but is something similar true of terrorism? Or is terrorism showbiz for ugly politicians? Or politics for ugly celebrities? Once again we have the Daily Mail to thank for plunging us into this ontological crisis, as the paper criticises BBC directives on coverage of Abu Qatada, the radical preacher who is to be freed on bail.

"Whose side are they on? BBC tells journalists to stop calling Qatada 'an extremist' – and showing pics of him looking fat (but we can, so here he is!)" reads a lengthy headline that might have been written by Ben Bradlee. There follows a snap of a relatively corpulent Qatada – the sort of trick they might pull with a reality TV star – but we shall come to which preacher of hate would look hottest in a bikini later.

Meanwhile, the Mail is distressed the corporation should regard "extremist" as a value judgment best avoided in news reports, where "radical" would do. But more than that, it seems, they are incensed at the Beeb's guidance on Qatada's present dimensions, despite the fact it was clearly only given to ensure current rather than out-of-date stock pictures are used. "BBC staff have also been advised against using images of the preacher looking fat," the paper shrieks to its readers. "He is apparently now much slimmer than he used to be."

"Apparently"? Now come, come, Daily Mail. This disingenuity does not become you. I put it to you that you knew very well indeed that Qatada had slimmed down – just as you are aware of even minuscule cellular changes in the adipose layers of everyone from Cheryl Cole to third-tier government ministers to babies such as Harper Beckham, who are only one whitewashed inquiry into press standards away from being described as "pouring their curves" into romper-suits and the like.

In evidence, may I cite an article from – ah, yes – the Daily Mail, dated 10 July 2008. It accompanied some paparazzi shots of Qatada popping out to the corner shop shortly after his last release from jail, and right up near the very top of this major story was the crucial observation that "the fanatical preacher … was 20st but slimmed down on prison food".

At the time, I marvelled that there was now not a single figure in the news whose BMI was not regarded as of immense importance to the Mail, and its latest attempt to paint Qatada as a bloater certainly puts his lesser sins into perspective. The only sadness is that the paper declines to describe the weight loss or gain of preachers of hate in the same argot that it uses to gloss such developments in the celebrity world.

It is a matter of almost ineffable sadness to Lost in Showbiz that Qatada is not described as "showcasing his post-prison body" in the manner that Beyoncé would be "showcasing her post-pregnancy body". Why is his shalwar kameez not described as "struggling to contain his curves" – after all, he's still no Osama in the sylph stakes. (Having said that, the deceased al-Qaida CEO spent his final years crossing back and forth over the Daily Mail ideal weight line – a boundary so impossible to plot that the cartographers have ruled it more mythical than Atlantis. From the photos and homicidal video messages, it appears Bin Laden veered between "enviably svelte" and a weight division we might class as "Fears for Demi", while a Mail report shortly after his death describing him as "emaciated" suggested he never cracked the paper's unplayable body mass rules.)

Whichever way you slice it, then, some seem bent on importing the customs of showbiz reporting into the coverage of evildoers or eviltalkers. And so it was that Abu Hamza – the milky-eyed, hook-handed cleric who appears to have been created by central casting – became the subject of a Sun kiss-and-tell a few years ago. (I'm afraid I could never truly deplore the exposé, on account of the fact that it contained the observation "he certainly had an eye for the ladies".)

Furthermore, this type of attention seems to have led Hamza to develop the preacher-of-hate equivalent of a red-carpet shtick. Just as celebrities have a stock pose they feel shows them at their best angle, so Hamza had his. Photographers used to report that when he spotted one of them, he would immediately hold his hook up to his face, in order that both his evilâ„¢ features were in the same shot.

Hamza is currently working the Belmarsh red carpet, as you may know, but according to the Mail might be "free in time for the Olympics". (Which makes me picture him being picked up by the athletics stadium Love Cam, and projected on to the big screen, waving both his hook and a giant foam finger.)

So where now for the showbizification of terror? My feeling is that the Mail must float the idea that Qatada has had a gastric band on the NHS – or at the very least wants one. To get round the fact that it's a complete stab in the dark, perhaps television's Anne Diamond could be prevailed upon to reprise the recent open letter she penned in the Mail to Dawn French, the comedian having lost some weight.

"Dawn, how did you do it?" wrote Anne in the faux-chummy register of the open letter, a journalistic form once described by Andreas Whittam Smith as an act of madness. "Was it really just 'eating less and walking more' as you have said? The slimming world is abuzz … I spoke to an obesity surgeon who said that the easiest way to guarantee your sort of dramatic and consistent weight is to have a gastric band or a gastric bypass. Your spokesman insists that's not the case. What I do know is that I made the terrible mistake of keeping quiet after I had gastric-band surgery ..."

We'll leave it there. But it's certainly something for Qatada to consider – after all, look at the attention it gets you.

A box-office hit in its native Australia, Red Dog is the tale of the legendary pooch who embodied the country's outback spirit – and has a made a star of its canine lead, Koko

Australia's hottest movie star fixes me with his soulful brown eyes and greets me with a firm lick on the hand. Then, with a clack-clack of claws on the wooden floor of his airy home, Koko shows me through to the kitchen. For the next 20 minutes, the six-year-old star of Red Dog embarks on an impressive charm offensive, gazing up charismatically and fixing a gimlet eye on the bowl of cashew nuts placed before us.

Koko, a red cloud kelpie, has been the surprise breakout talent of 2011 in Australia. The underdog project to adapt Louis de Bernières's book about a real dog that breathed life into a desolate mining town, took $21.3m (£13.4m) at the Australian box office last year, putting Red Dog among the 10 highest grossing Australian films of all time alongside Moulin Rouge and Strictly Ballroom. As with Uggie, the Jack Russell star of The Artist, and the equine heroes of War Horse, the canine lead in Red Dog does not suffer the indignity of having his features contorted by CGI. Red Dog may not talk but he and his film make an eloquent statement about the power of stories.

"It is about this outback community that was brought together by a dog," says Nelson Woss, Red Dog's producer. "And we were this film crew in a remote location that was brought together by the same dog." In fact, Woss enjoyed working with his leading man so much that he adopted him. When not trotting down red carpets together, the pair now reside in Perth, Western Australia. Koko enjoys frequent walks in the park, where the only concession to his stardom is a special ramp that enables him to easily disembark from Woss's 4x4.

The against-the-odds making of Red Dog began when Woss read a review of de Bernières's book on a flight back from LA, where Woss produced films including Ned Kelly, the retelling of another popular Australian legend. Woss beat off interest from DreamWorks to get the film rights to Red Dog, with de Bernières apparently persuaded by the producer's vision of a local film shot in the Pilbara, the remote north-west corner of Australia where the real Red Dog lived.

Kriv Stenders, the director, describes it as "a story about stories, a folk tale celebrating that very Australian tradition of the yarn". Like Waltzing Matilda and other outback tales, Red Dog also features tragedy. As de Bernières's deceptively simple novella showed, Red Dog became a powerful founding story for the tough towns that grew up around the hardscrabble mines of the 1970s. Red Dog was simply a dog without a particular home who was adopted by the miners. He earned the nickname "the Pilbara wanderer" because he would hitch rides with truckers for hundreds of miles but always return to his favourite seat on the miners' bus. He became a member of local clubs and was even given his own bank account. Like many miners, the dog was gregarious but also self-sufficient and solitary. He appeared to be searching for something, although no one quite knew what.

The making of Red Dog was an unorthodox undertaking from the very beginning. Woss started with a dog, buying Koko from a breeder two and a half years before filming began, and getting him trained by Luke Hura, a protege of Karl Miller, the legendary Hollywood animal trainer who worked with the stars of Babe. The film's American lead, Josh Lucas, drove himself through the outback for five days to get to the shoot, where Woss, in "guerrilla fashion", managed to cadge several helicopters and a mile-long train from a mining company for a week. "That's a big toy to play with," smiles Woss, who is described by Stenders as the kind of producer who "could sell snow to the Eskimos and finds money under a rock".

And so a meagre budget was able to produce a film with the sweep and zest of Danny Boyle. There were still some hitches, however. After a year of expert training, it appeared that Koko had learned very little. It took three weeks for the dog to master a short scene in which Red Dog pushes a woman off "his" seat on the miners' bus. Luckily, the dog (and his two doggy-doubles) came good during the eight-week shoot. Another problem was Stenders being allergic to dogs: the director had to struggle through the shoot with a lot of antihistamines and a no-touching policy for his leading canine.

True to the spirit of the 70s, when the film is set, Stenders resisted CGI and instead shot real dogs doing real things (with one exception, when Red Dog meets his nemesis, Red Cat). "We wanted to go back to the old-fashioned dog movie – Lassie and Benji," says Stenders. "Red Dog is just a dog. He doesn't do anything remarkable. The film is about people and the lives this dog changes. He's a very wise observer who sees the world in a very laconic way. He's a very Australian character." Stenders previously made grungy urban films such as Boxing Day, about a father who takes his family hostage. How did he direct a dog? "Just like you would an actor," he says. "They are personalities. They have their idiosyncrasies. You are dealing with a soul, a living, breathing thing."

Stenders was relieved they stuck with the decision to make it a period piece, complete with an excellent 70s soundtrack. "You can't fuck with the legend. There is an innocence about the 70s that is very evocative and unique." Woss likens Red Dog to feel-good Australian classics such as Muriel's Wedding and both he and Stenders were inspired by Wake in Fright, a cult and very unnerving film about the outback. Red Dog is rather more comforting in its nostalgic portrayal of the beginnings of the modern mining boom, the rarely seen industry upon which Australia's current economic success is based. With its dry wit, the film casts these vital but enormously destructive industries in an appealingly human light. Stenders admits it is a "celebration" of the birth of that industry. "When you are up there you realise that this is the heartbeat of Australia. It's very sobering to see the infrastructure and scale of it," he says. The film also showcases the lunar-like landscape of the Pilbara – usually completely overlooked by tourists – with its red rock and enormous cargo ships sitting in crystal clear turquoise water. "It's so starkly beautiful it's overwhelming," says Stenders. "You couldn't come up with anything as graphic as that with CGI. You can't help but make it look beautiful because it's stunning. You see man-made industry dwarfed by this amazing landscape."

Australians have good cause to celebrate the miners who have made them rich but another reason Red Dog has attained such mythical status is the dog's egalitarian qualities. Back in the 70s, there was a proposal to erect a statue of William Dampier, the English explorer who landed in north-west Australia in 1699. Dampier swiftly disappeared again after sniffily concluding there were "too many flies" and, as the film relays, the miners argue that Red Dog should be honoured instead. "We should have somebody who understands this place, who lives and breathes this vastness, this desolation. Somebody who has red dust up their nostrils. And their arsehole," says one of the miners in the film. Australians approve of Red Dog: "It doesn't matter where you are from in the world or what echelons of society you were born into, Red Dog got on with you the same," explains Woss, when we take Koko for a walk.

Woss sees a lot of Red Dog in Koko. "Love the one you're with, that's Koko, and to some extent that was the same with Red Dog too," he says. "He's a very smart, independent dog and he has a mind of his own." Dogs are supposed to be on leads in the park "but Koko doesn't like leads", waves Woss airily, as his leading man trots along, breaking into a desultory dash to see off a couple of crows.

Later that night, I meet Koko again at a screening of Red Dog in Perth. He looks perfectly relaxed when he is recognised in the street and yet, like the biggest Hollywood stars, there is a sheen of distance about him – he is perfectly polite, but floats above the fawning of those around him. Like a middle-aged heartthrob, Koko has a graceful grey grizzle around the mouth now, and Woss says his leading man will not take on any more films. "He quite likes his retirement," says Woss. "When he does promotional events, people want him to do tricks and that so isn't cool."

Red Dog is released on 24 February.

Footage obtained from social media websites purports to show the ongoing violence in Syria

President Obama has granted 10 states waivers exempting them from compliance with the flagship Bush-era education policy, 'No child left behind'. Will school standards in the US benefit?