British lesbian couple in Ecuador maternity battle

A British lesbian couple are at the centre of a constitutional battle in Ecuador after applying to have themselves both registered as parents of their child.

Nicola Rothon, left, and Helen Bicknell leave the Supreme Court of Quito, with their daughter Satya, earlier this month

Nicola Rothon and Helen Bicknell tried to register joint maternity after their daughter, Satya Amani, was born in December, but were denied permission.

The women, both 34, then filed a claim alleging discrimination and demanding that state prosecutors protect their constitutional rights.

Their case has led to heated debate in Ecuador and is being followed closely in a conservative society which is 80 per cent Catholic.

The Catholic Church itself has so far kept a low profile in the dispute, but is emphatic in embracing only heterosexual marriage.

Antonio Arregui, president of the conference of bishops, said: "There is only one mother."

He added that the view of most Ecuadorians was that "a normal family is father, mother and children".

Miss Rothon and Miss Bicknell met 16 years ago in Kenya, where they worked as volunteers. They entered into a civil partnership in the UK in 2010.

They now teach English and raise organic produce on the outskirts of Quito, the capital of Ecuador.

Their baby was conceived using a sperm donor, who was a mutual friend, and Miss Rothon carried the child to term.

In 2008 Ecuador adopted a new constitution extolling "families of diverse types" and recognising civil unions, giving them the same rights as marriage apart from joint adoption of children.

Miss Rothon said she is concerned that, if she were to die, the government might keep her daughter because her partner has no biological tie to the infant.

She said: "If something happens to me, does she go to an orphanage?" She added: "The constitution protects us but there is a loophole and that needs to be fixed. It will not be easy."

Miss Bicknell said: "It's always the case that when you're the first ones, you've got to fight to change the laws. For any child, it's best if two people love them and want to give them the best."

The women are now considering taking the case to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

Isabel Salazar, 42, a member of an Ecuador group that rejects gay marriage and abortion, disputed the women's claims to joint parenthood.

She said child raising required the "complementarity of a male and female parent" and added: "We respect gays and lesbians, but they are a marginal group."

Sarahi Maldonado, an activist supporting the rights of sexual minorities in Ecuador, said: "It is outrageous to believe that you can't have a family in which no man is present."

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Hay Festival 2012: President Mohamed Nasheed on freedom of speech

Following a coup in February, the Maldives is in peril and the 'flame of democracy must not be snuffed out', says President Mohamed Nasheed.

President Mohamed Nasheed

By President Mohamed Nasheed

Even after its democratic revolution in 2008, few saw the Maldives as a political bellwether. But looking back, the ousting of the 30-year dictatorship in a Muslim country was a precursor to the Arab Spring. As in Libya, Egypt, Syria and Tunisia, the Maldivians who took to the streets demanding change in 2008 were young, full of hope, and fed up with the rule of a dictator: Maumoon Abdul Gayoom.

I was elected president in the Maldives’ first ever multi-party elections on a ticket of civil liberties and democratic reform. I faced huge challenges coming into office: the Gayoom regime had almost bankrupted the country. Institutions, such as the judiciary, were corrupt, and many Maldivians lived on the poverty line despite the country’s tourism wealth.

My new administration set to work to balance the books, embed democracy and create a more equal society. Working with the IMF, we managed to bring the budget deficit down from 22 per cent of GDP to 9 per cent. At the same time we established the country’s first social safety net, which included universal health insurance, an old age pension, and allowances for the disabled.

We also made great strides to improve civil liberties. The Maldives shot up over 50 places in Reporters Without Borders’ global press freedom index and it became a poster child for democracy movements in other countries.

In the early hours of Feb 7, however, the former dictatorship reasserted itself. Sections of the police and military loyal to former president Gayoom mutinied, overran the centre of Malé and presented me with an ultimatum: resign within an hour or face bloodshed . I resigned on national television and was immediately placed under house arrest. My vice president, Waheed Hassan, who had pledged his support to the mutineers on television the night before, hurriedly took the oath of office.

Three months after the coup and the Maldives’ prospects look bleak. Waheed – whom I believe knew about the coup – has stacked his government full of Gayoom’s loyalists, and he has also rushed to appease Islamic radicals describing his supporters as Maldivian “mujahideen”, encouraging them to “fight to the last drop of our blood” against “the enemies of this country”.

The police have often been brutal in putting down anti-government protests that have erupted since the coup. Amnesty International has repeatedly condemned the new government. The Maldivian media has also been muzzled and intimidated The EU, the Commonwealth and India have all pushed the regime to restore democratic rule. But those in power have chosen the path of isolation .

The Maldives looks set for further turbulence in the months ahead. The international community now has a choice: apply pressure on Waheed to call elections, or watch his regime become increasingly authoritarian and the country suffer.

The future of democracy in the Maldives hangs in the balance. The country that held so much hope that democracy and liberty could flourish alongside Islam is in peril. Democratically elected governments can only be removed by the people who elected them, not by force of arms. The world has a duty not to sit passively by as the flame of Maldivian democracy is snuffed out.

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Egypt's state of emergency ends after 31 years

Egypt's military rulers said they had ended the decades-old state of emergency as its last renewal expired.

Egypt has been under a state of emergency continuously since president Anwar Sadat's assassination in 1981

Vowing to continue to "protect" the nation, the military said in a statemet it would continue its "national and historic responsibility, taking into account that the state of emergency has ended, in accordance with the constitutional declaration and with the law".

It said it would continue in that role until it hands over power, as it has promised it would to an elected president by the end of June. A runoff between the two frontunners from the first round of the elction is to be held on June 16-17.

Egypt has been under a state of emergency continuously since president Anwar Sadat's assassination in 1981, allowing authorities to detain people without charge and try them in emergency security courts.

Parliament renewed the emergency law for two years in May 2010 when now ousted president Hosni Mubarak was still in power, but limited its application to terrorism and drug crimes.

The military, which took charge after Mubarak's overthrow in February 2011, at first extended the law to include strikes but then said it would apply only to "thuggery".

A constitutional declaration ratified in a referendum in March last year gave the military the responsibility to "protect" the country but said only parliament had the right to proclaim a state of emergency, at the executive's request.

The military had suspended the constitution after Mubarak's overthrow.

Essam Erian, the deputy leader of the Islamist Freedom and Justice Party, which has the most seats in parliament, said the military's statement indicated it would not ask parliament to extend the law.

The party's leader and presidential candidate Mohammed Mursi has said the law will not be renewed.

Ending the state of emergency was a key demand of protesters who toppled Mubarak in an 18-day popular uprising in January and February last year.

Thousands of Egyptians had been jailed under the law over the previous decades. Many have been released since the military took power.

But the ruling generals have themselves been criticised for trying thousands in military courts, which resemble the state security emergency tribunals in the limited rights afforded to defendants, human rights groups say.

"This is historic because the state of emergency was one of the Mubarak police state's tools," said Heba Morayef, a Cairo-based researcher for Human Rights Watch.

"It is a reflection of the fact that the age when the interior ministry was above the law and had unlimited power is over," she said.

"Unfortunately, this will not end most serious abuses that we saw over the last year and a half, because those were committed by the military and legitimised by military courts," she added.

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City fund manager jailed for nine years over plot to murder PR executive's father

A formerly high-flying City fund manager has been sentenced to nine years in a South African prison after he arranged for a hitman to murder the British father of an attractive PR executive he had become infatuated with.

Lawyer William Booth and Hannah Rhind outside the Cape Town magistrate court

Shumsheer Ghumman offered to pay an alleged township gangster £850 to kill Hannah Rhind's father Philip, a wealthy oil company executive now living in Cape Town, South Africa.

Ghumman found the man by pretending to be an investigative journalist reporting on the murder of Anni Dewani, who was allegedly killed on her honeymoon in Cape Town by two hitmen hired by her husband.

However, the "hitman" hired by Ghumman pulled out of the deal, prompting him to try and complete the job himself by throwing lit Molotov cocktails – marked with the words "4 Hannah" at the Rhind family's seafront villa.

In February, he was convicted of fraud, incitement to commit murder, attempted murder and malicious injury to property in a Cape Town court.

The city's magistrates' court heard how the 33-year-old developed an obsession with Miss Rhind, 30, after meeting her at a dinner party in London in 2009 when she was a PR executive for the Roche pharmaceutical company and he was working for Japanese firm Daiwa Asset Management.

Ghumman bombarded the attractive blonde with emails, telephone calls and SMS text messages, and was eventually convicted, in October 2010, of harassment at Westminster Magistrates' Court.

He appealed and, in an attempt to prevent Miss Rhind's father giving evidence at his appeal hearing, launched his attempted murder plot.

Prosecutor Billy Downer revealed that Ghumman had previously received a police caution for harassing another 24-year-old woman in London.

He said his harassment of Ms Rhind and her family had been "brutal, cruel and cowardly" as well as "morally repugnant and served to satisfy the accused's selfish needs."

"It is only by the greatest good fortune that the Rhinds were not burned to death, as the accused intended", he added.

Judge Herman Pieters on Thursday sentenced him to a nine years jail term, to be served in South Africa. Taking into account his time on remand and parole laws, he could be released in three.

Speaking outside court on Thursday, Ms Rhind's father described his ordeal as a "nightmare".

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BBC's Petroc Trelawny free to leave Zimbabwe

Petroc Trelawny, the BBC music presenter arrested in Zimbabwe last week over a work permit row, was finally free to fly home to the UK on Thursday night after being cleared by a court of any wrongdoing.

Petroc Trelawny was arrested for failing to obtain a Temporary Employment Permit

Mr Trelawny said he was "delighted" with the judgement of a magistrate sitting in Zimbabwe's second city of Bulawayo, who said he had broken no laws by working for free at a children's music festival.

He told The Daily Telegraph he would return to Britain with his "head held high" following a week-long ordeal that at one stage looked as though it could leave him facing a sentence in a Zimbabwean jail cell.

"I'm particularly pleased that I leave with my head held high and been assured by immigration that there will be absolutely no problem with my returning to Zimbabwe in the future to carry on with my work here," he said.

His release on Thursday night came exactly a week after he was escorted from the stage of the Bulawayo City Hall, where he was narrating a production of Song of the Carnivores involving 500 local schoolchildren.

He was arrested for failing to obtain a Temporary Employment Permit and held in a police cell where, over the weekend, he slipped on a patch of water and dislocated his shoulder. He spent the next five days – including his 41st birthday on Sunday - in hospital under police guard.

Early this week, Zimbabwe's Attorney General, then a High Court judge, ordered his release but Bulawayo's Immigration Department filed a new charge that he had lied on his tourist visa application, which saw him brought before the court on Thursday.

There, a magistrate decided that there was no law which prohibited tourists from taking part in public music events, and told him he was free to leave Zimbabwe at his leisure.

Mr Trelawny, from Primrose Hill in London, said his time in Zimbabwe's criminal justice system had been "an interesting experience" but would not deter him from returning to continue his work with underprivileged children.

"I'm just elated that it's over but above all it's been an experience in the humanity of people," he.

"I was touched by the way I was looked after in the hospital by doctors and nurses, how respectful police were, even the night I spent in prison - although it was not something I would ever care to repeat, it was certainly something I will not forget.

"It was an interesting experience and something we can all learn from. It hasn't in any way changed my opinion of the wonderful people of this country." He admitted that the legal wranglings that saw him book and rebook his flight out of Zimbabwe as officials argued over whether he had a case to answer or not had been "a bit bewildering and frustrating at times".

He praised the "wonderful defence" mounted by his lawyer, a member of the respected Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights group which has in the past come to the defence of many tourists in trouble with the Zimbabwean authorities.

"I was terrified when I was first arrested, but then it all took place in daylight and in public, and the music academy staff were there, so it was not so terrifying," he said.

He was generous about the brutal conditions of Bulawayo Central Police Station, where previous occupants have described torture by members of Robert Mugabe's feared Central Intelligence Organisation and beatings by other inmates.

"I think I was a source of fascination for the 18 prisoners sharing my police cell. I don't know what they were in for, all sorts of things I think, but everyone is equal in a cell like that," he said.

"They made sure I had space to lie on the floor and when I managed to slip over, they were fantastic at getting me attention, making sure police knew I needed to get into hospital.

"When I arrived on Thursday, it was late and everyone had their positions on the floor staked out. It was quite cold and there were a limited number of blankets.

"There was a complicated herringbone sleeping pattern to get everyone in, but I got my space and managed to get some sleep, although I did a lot of thinking as well." He said that after the sparse conditions, he was eagerly anticipating some luxury before his departure from Bulawayo this morning.

"I'm now looking forward to a nice dinner and hopefully some good Zimbabwean beef and South African wine," he said.

"People who were good friends here before have now become very close friends and I'm looking forward to celebrating with them before heading back to London to continue celebrations.

"I'm meant to be going to Zambia a week on Friday. All being well, I'm looking forward to a couple of weeks on safari, perhaps a slightly more relaxing African experience." Asked what he would be playing on Radio Three when he returned, he said: "I will have to find something that speaks of adventure."

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Egypt braced for verdict of Hosni Mubarak

Egypt is braced for a new round of street violence as relatives of those killed in last year's revolution demand the death penalty for their one-time dictator Hosni Mubarak when a verdict is handed down in his trial on Saturday.

Saturday's scheduled hearing is the climax of a drama

Relatives of the “martyrs of Tahrir Square” told The Daily Telegraph they did not believe the former president’s trial was fair and said they would reject a lenient sentence.

“I was happy when Mubarak was first put on trial, but now I don’t have any trust,” Ali Hassan, 50, whose son Mohab, a 20-year-old computer science student at one of Egypt’s leading universities, was shot dead by police.

“Now I have no doubt that he will get a light sentence or nothing.”

He and other relatives warned there would be trouble outside the special courtroom set up in the Cairo police academy – once named after the defendant – when the verdict was given.

That could easily spread to Tahrir Square, particularly as activists are already calling for demonstrations.

The army is preparing for trouble in what will be the first test of the end of Egypt's state of emergency, which has been in place since 1981 but expired with little notice on Thursday.

The country's interim rulers, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, did not apply to parliament for an extension of the emergency law, imposed after the assassination of Mr Mubarak’s predecessor Anwar Sadat, which allowed authorities to detain people without charge and try them in emergency security courts.

If Cairo escapes riots after the verdict, there will be a second chance for the young revolutionaries to test their new freedoms with the second round of the presidential election on June 16-7.

Ahmed Shafiq, a Mubarak ally, will face Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood, a choice that means that either winner will be bitterly opposed by a majority of the electorate.

Saturday's scheduled hearing is the climax of a drama – many of the millions of Egyptians gripped by its twists and turns call it a farce – that began with Mr Mubarak being wheeled into the courtroom on a hospital trolley on August 3 last year.

There have been suggestions that the interim government of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces will order a postponement until after the presidential elections are complete, but so far officials say it is going ahead as planned.

If found guilty, Mr Mubarak could face any sentence from the death penalty to a few years under house arrest in hospital.

The prosecution demanded death for the most serious charge, that Mr Mubarak and Habib al-Adly, his interior minister who is also on trial, were complicit in the murder of hundreds of protesters and other civilians shot dead by police as protests against his rule gathered steam in January last year.

Mr Mubarak, along with his two sons Gamal and Alaa, also face corruption charges, for which lengthy jail terms could be imposed.

Amir Salem, one of the lawyers representing victims' families, said it was impossible to predict the outcome – even supposing, as most people do, that the panel of three judges will consult closely with the military beforehand.

"The military council are leading the country like rats through a maze," he said. "The judicial system is now under the control of the military. For me it is clear that the court by its procedures and behaviour are making a political decision."

A string of witnesses – including members of the council and former aides – testified on their former boss's role in the failed attempt to put down the uprising. It made for an extraordinary spectacle for Egyptians, for whom the ruling generals had been untouchable for half a century, but ultimately disappointed them.

Without exception they agreed they had never heard either Mr Mubarak or Mr Adly give explicit orders to open fire.

Instead, prosecutors are relying on the argument that as commander-in-chief and interior minister, no order could have been given without their agreement.

Relatives fear the generals will forbid a harsh sentence for the man whom they served for 30 years – and on whom their own advancement depended. If he is not acquitted immediately, many believe a common conspiracy theory that he will be given a tough sentence only to have it reversed once the election results are in.

"I believe in the conspiracy theory," Mr Hassan said. He and his son were both among the crowds of demonstrators pressing towards Tahrir Square in the street battles that broke out on the "Day of Rage", Friday January 28.

He sent his son back home to Shubra, just north of the city centre, after the army was called in. But instead Mohab joined a separate march, which was fired on by police.

Two of his friends died instantly. He died in hospital from wounds to his chest.

"I hope Mubarak gets the death penalty, not only because he killed my son but also because he corrupted the political and economic life of Egypt," he said.

For many, even a stiff prison term will not be harsh enough.

Badya Ibrahim, whose 30-year-old brother Mohammed was killed outside a police station, said nearly all the individual police officers already tried for shooting protesters had been acquitted.

"It's all just a show," she said. Mohammed's mother, Mahasen, said: "Mubarak should be hanged. But I long ago lost any hope that this would be his sentence."

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Does Israel have the military might to end Iran’s nuclear ambitions?

Benjamin Netanyahu could yet attack Iran, but his threat of war may be a bluff

Flexing its muscles: an Israeli tank on exercise manoeuvres, but the country might not have the power to attack Iran

Silence might be the only warning. If Israel were to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities from the air, its F-15 Eagles would not take off amid bellicose sabre-rattling; rather they would swoop on their targets as bolts from the blue.

A rule of thumb suggests that when Israeli leaders talk of war, they are unlikely to give the order. But the opposite also holds true – silence can be ominous – and it will remain true despite the negotiations between Iran and the world’s six leading powers that took place in Baghdad yesterday.

For Israel was the ghost at the feast during these talks. An exclusive club of countries deals with Iran on the nuclear issue. Together, the five permanent members of the Security Council – America, Britain, France, Russia and China – along with Germany are responsible for defusing the most incendiary of the world’s confrontations.

Israel must watch from the outside, only too aware that it has far more at stake than some members of the privileged circle. After all, if Iran were to build the ultimate weapon, it would enter a nuclear-tipped stand-off with Israel, not China.

Ignore the ravings of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a lame duck president who will leave office next year and appears to have lost a brutal power struggle. Consider instead the words of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of Iran, who said in February that Israel was a “cancerous tumour that should be cut and will be cut”.

Iran-watchers are inclined to dismiss outbursts of this kind as mere rhetorical flourishes. Inflammatory phrases provide no guide to the regime’s real intentions, they say. Judge the Ayatollah by his cautious actions and modest capabilities, not his speeches.

They could be right, but Israelis do not see it that way. When a national leader threatens them with annihilation, they are inclined to take him seriously – and given the history of the 20th century, who can blame them?

Outsiders find it hard to grasp how Iran’s nuclear ambitions stir something deep within the soul of Israel. This country’s founding purpose was to provide a haven for the Jewish people. When another state threatens Israelis with destruction, while pursuing a nuclear programme that might just provide the tools for the job, they are more fearful than citizens of placid lands can easily understand.

And that leads to the next instinctive reaction. Israelis believe they can trust no one – not even the United States – with their own security. In the end, they will insist on taking their own decisions on how to counter any threat. Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, pointedly reminded President Barack Obama in the White House in March that Israel must remain the “master of its fate”.

But trusting others is exactly what Israel is now being called upon to do. If the talks with Iran succeed in resolving the nuclear question, Israel will have to decide whether it can live with a deal negotiated by the six favoured countries.

Perhaps unwisely, Mr Netanyahu has spelt out the terms of an agreement he would find acceptable: Iran must stop enriching uranium, surrender the entirety of its existing stockpile and dismantle the facility at Fordow where this process has been taking place in a bunker dug into a mountainside.

But he is setting himself up for a fall: any realistic settlement would almost certainly fall short of those demands. Privately, Western officials say that a viable deal would allow Iran to continue enriching uranium, albeit with the strictest safeguards. The goal is to “restore international confidence” in Iran’s nuclear programme, not raze this effort to the ground.

Quietly, the negotiations are moving towards a formula that would allow Tehran to enrich uranium, while giving the rest of the world enough assurance that this process would only be used to make fuel for nuclear power stations, not the fissile core of a weapon. Some retired officials, notably Peter Jenkins, Britain’s former ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, have said in public that “enrichment plus safeguards” is the only way out of the labyrinth.

But could Israel accept such an outcome? In the end, Mr Netanyahu may have little choice. Some good judges, including Michael Hayden, a former CIA director, believe that his threat of war is a bluff. Israel may lack the military ability to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Doing the job would require most – if not all – of the air force’s 125 F-15 and F-16 strike aircraft to attack a range of targets between 900 and 1,200 miles from their home base. Airborne refuelling would be the key requirement – yet, on paper, Israel has only seven tanker planes. Could they get the bombers and their fighter escorts all the way to Iran and back again?

Few countries can match Israel for military ingenuity; perhaps Mr Netanyahu has cards up his sleeve that no one knows of. But there is a real possibility that wrecking Iran’s nuclear plants is beyond his reach.

Even if the goal was achievable, he would still have to weigh the central objection to war: Iran could rebuild its key installations, meaning that any air strikes would delay but not derail its nuclear ambitions. The most that Israel could achieve would be to buy time – and perhaps not very much time at that. Mr Netanyahu might end up precipitating a global crisis for the sake of setting back Iran’s programme by only a handful of years.

As he wrestles with this dilemma, he remains a key actor in this drama. Whenever the six countries negotiate with Iran, an absent Israel has the power to upset every calculation.

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Israel returns dead Palestinian militants

Israel has handed over to the Palestinian government the remains of 91 militants, including suicide bombers, in a move it said was designed to induce Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to renew peace talks.

Members of the Palestinian security forces arrange Palestinian flags on the coffins

All 91 were killed carrying out attacks on Israeli targets, Palestinian officials said. At least one of the attacks dated back to the 1970s.

The bodies had been buried in unmarked coffins in Israel and were dug up for the transfer. The Palestinian official in charge of the transfer, Salem Khileh, said Israeli officials handed over the remains to Palestinian liaisons in the Jordan Valley.

Seventy-nine bodies were then transported to Ramallah, and 12 to the Hamas-run Gaza Strip.

Dozens of armed Islamic Jihad fighters and families holding framed pictures of their dead relatives welcomed the 12 coffins as they entered Gaza, draped with Palestinian national flags.

Women ululated, and threw rice and sugar over the coffins. Hamas police officers fired 21 shots into the air in salute.

Two armed men, clad in black uniforms and bandanas, kissed the forehead of a suicide bomber's mother as the vehicle carrying his body arrived. Her 21-year-old son, Ramzi Obaied of Islamic Jihad, killed 24 Israelis in a 1996 attack in Tel Aviv.

"My son was a hero," said the black-clad woman, who identified herself as Um Hidar. "The enemy feared him even after his death, for they kept his body."

Mirvat Zaoul's husband, Mohammed Zaoul, killed four Israelis in a 2004 suicide attack in Jerusalem. She said she thought her 11-year-old son would be sad to hear that his father's remains would be returned to the West Bank.

"But he was happy," she said. "He said, 'I'm going to visit his grave every day and put a flower there for him.'"

Palestinian government ceremonies honouring the dead militants were to be held in the West Bank and Gaza later.

"We hope that this humanitarian gesture will serve both as a confidence-building measure and help get the peace process back on track," Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said.

"Israel is ready for the immediate resumption of peace talks without any preconditions whatsoever," Regev added.

Abbas has given no sign that the gesture would persuade him to return to talks.

He said the "major obstacles to resuming negotiations" were Israel's refusal to freeze all settlement construction in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, and to negotiate on the basis of the lines Israel held before capturing those territories in 1967.

Palestinians see those areas as the core of a future state that would also include Gaza.

Israel rejects that demand. Israeli-Palestinian talks stalled more than three years ago and have failed to take off again despite US mediation, primarily because of the dispute over settlement construction

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Israel may take 'unilateral steps' to establish the borders of a Palestinian state

Israel may take "unilateral steps" to establish the borders of a future Palestinian state and impose its own solution to a decades-long dispute if peace negotiations continue to fail, its defence minister has warned.

Israel have returned the bodies of 92 Palestinian militants, including several who had carried out bloody terror attacks within the Jewish state as far back as 1975

In a high profile speech that could mark a turning point after years of stalled talks, Ehud Barak became the most senior government official to signal that without progress soon, Israel could effectively go it alone.

"If it becomes apparent that [negotiation] is impossible, we need to think about interim agreements and even unilateral action," Mr Barak said in an address to the Institute for National Strategic Studies conference in Tel Aviv.

Government officials interpreted his comments as implying a strategy for partial withdrawal of Jewish settlers from the West Bank. That would amount to a de facto declaration of a new Israeli new border and may include those sections of the occupied territory most heavily populated by Israelis.

However the demarcation of borders in the so-called "two-state solution" has been one of the thorniest issues, along with the division of Jerusalem, the right of return of Palestinian refugees to Israel and the composition of security forces in the new Palestinian nation.

Any such move would provoke fierce controversy and possibly a return to violence.

Mr Barak's comments drew a sharp response from Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, who said that talks with the Palestinians were the "only route" to peace.

"They have to get to the negotiating table and deal with very hard issues," she said. Direct peace talks have been on hold since September 2010.

In response to Mr Barak's mention of "unilateral action", Nabil Shaath, the chief Palestinian negotiator, said: "Israel cannot determine the borders [of a future Palestinian state]. It can withdraw from any part of our territory that it likes and of course no Palestinian will stand against that.

"But if they are really willing to abandon major areas of the West Bank, why don't they first just accept the lesser option of stopping building settlements so we can get back to negotiations?" Construction of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank has been a major obstacle to progress.

Mr Barak's speech reflected the surging confidence of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who recently significantly expanded his ruling coalition to include the main opposition party Kadima and 94 out of 120 seats in the Knesset.

Though the prime minister still officially supports the two-state solution, Mr Barak's speech could be an indication that the government believes it can either push the Palestinians into a corner or bypass the stagnant peace process by imposing unilateral measures.

While several senior Israeli military figures speaking at the conference joined Mr Barak in championing the unilateral approach, it also has its critics in Israel who say even a withdrawal of all 531,000 Israeli settlers from the West Bank is by no means a guarantee of peace.

Israel's removal from the Gaza Strip in 2005 under Ariel Sharon led several years later to the rise to power of militant faction Hamas and years of tit for tat violence.

In a measure separate move Israel yesterday returned the bodies of 92 Palestinian militants, including several who had carried out bloody terror attacks within the Jewish state as far back as 1975.

A state reception for the bodies was attended in Ramallah by Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president. Twelve coffins returned to the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip and were received with military honours, each receiving a 21-gun salute.

According to a statement from the Israeli government, the decision to return the remains, which had been buried in unnamed graves in a cemetery from 'enemy combatants' in the Jordan Valley, was intended as a humanitarian gesture to "help get the peace process back on track"

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Syria: Hillary Clinton says Russian policy risks civil war

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has criticised Russia's resistance to UN action on Syria, warning that its propping up of the Assad regime could contribute to a civil war.

Hillary Clinton said the absence of UN support for action in Syria, due mainly to Russia's opposition, 'makes it harder' to respond to the crisis

The Russians "are telling me they don't want to see a civil war. I have been telling them their policy is going to help contribute to a civil war," she told a mainly student audience on a visit to Copenhagen.

Clinton warned that unless unchecked, the deadly violence in Syria could lead to civil war or even develop into a proxy war because of Iran's support for the regime of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.

She said she had spoken on Wednesday with the international envoy on Syria, Kofi Annan, who is trying to expand his mandate to be able to deal more effectively with Damascus.

"We have to bring the Russians on board because the dangers we face are terrible," said Clinton, who is in Denmark on the first leg of a Scandinavian tour.

She said the absence of UN support for action in Syria, due mainly to Russia's opposition, "makes it harder" to respond to the crisis, as the international community did last year in Libya.

"The continued slaughter of innocent people, both by the military and by militias supported by the government and increasingly by the opposition ... could morph into a civil war in a country that would be riven by sectarian divides, which then could morph into a proxy war in the region.

"Remember you have Iran deeply embedded in Syria – their military are coaching the Syrian military. The Quds Force, which is a branch of the military, is helping them set up these sectarian militias.

"We know it actually could get much worse than it is," she said.

A massacre last week of more than 100 people in the city of Houla, allegedly by government-backed forces, and the discovery of new execution-style killing since then has raised the pressure for international action.

But Russia has adamantly refused to go against its close ally Syria with President Vladimir Putin warning Thursday that Moscow will not change its position under pressure.

"Russia's position is well-known. It is balanced and consistent and completely logical," Interfax quoted Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying.

Meanwhile, an April 12 peace plan and truce negotiated by Annan to bring an end to the violence and usher in a political transition appeared in tatters, amid reports of fresh attacks by Syrian government forces on Houla, the site of last week's massacre.

Syrian rebels have warned they will resume their defence of civilians if the government does not return to the peace plan by Friday.

At a news conference with Danish Foreign Minister Villy Soevndal, Clinton said those responsible for the Houla massacre must be held to account and called on those within the regime who knew what was going on to stand up and speak out.

Expanding on her earlier remarks about Russia, she said the United States was still focused on supporting Annan's efforts rather than going outside the United Nations.

She said Washington was also "reaching out both inside and outside Syria, bringing together those that are more directly affected, particularly in the region."

Many of her conversations over the next few days would be held "with particular attention paid to the Russians," she said.

"They are vociferous in their claiming that they are providing a stabilising influence. I reject that. I think frankly they are in effect propping up the regime."

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The real dilemma on Syria: can the West go it alone?

Day by day, the clash between Russia and the West over Syria grows more acrimonious. The massacre of the innocents in Houla has turned a simmering diplomatic disagreement into an escalating confrontation.

Vladimir Putin will almost certainly refuse to do the West's bidding

Behind the statements of Western officials lies one question: will the Kremlin now reappraise its stance and abandon President Bashar al-Assad? For all the rhetorical passion, however, this is not the real issue.

Vladimir Putin, fresh from regaining Russia's presidency and preparing for another long spell in power, will almost certainly refuse to do the West's bidding. His country's strategic interest in preserving Mr Assad's regime has not been changed by the latest bloodshed.

The reasons for Syria's importance in Mr Putin's eyes - ranging from its status as a base for Russian influence in the Middle East to its provision of a port for warships - are all too familiar.

One further illustration might serve to make the point: some 400 towns and cities across Russia exist only to provide workers for one local industry. Most are entirely dependent on making weapons. Losing Syria as a market for arms, with sales worth about Dollars 1 billion last year alone, would jeopardise the livelihoods of entire towns in Russia. So Mr Putin will probably remain implacable.

That leaves Western governments to grapple with the real dilemma. In 1999, they intervened in Kosovo in the face of furious opposition from Russia and without the authority of the United Nations Security Council. Are they prepared to do the same today over Syria?

By his actions, Mr Putin has raised the bar for the resolve that would be necessary to intervene. Not only must the West be prepared for the risks of military action, but its leaders would also have to shoulder the political burden of going to war without UN approval.

On Wednesday night in New York, Susan Rice, the American ambassador to the UN, raised the possibility of bypassing a Security Council logjammed by Russia. If the peace plan devised by Kofi Annan, the former UN secretary general, failed to curb the violence, then "members of this Council and members of the international community are left with the option only of having to consider whether they're prepared to take actions outside of the Annan plan and the authority of this Council," she said.

So far, no Western leader has talked about military action without UN backing. The reality of the situation is perhaps shown by the fact that Nato has not even laid plans for an operation in Syria.

All the focus on Russia provides a convenient alibi for Western governments. Despite the genuine outrage over Houla, the level of will required for military intervention does not exist.

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Syrian regime resumes bombardment of Houla

Syrian regime forces resumed their bombardment of Houla on Thursday, even as a government spokesman claimed that "terrorists" were responsible for the massacre of more than 100 people including women and children at the weekend.

A Syrian girl sits atop of a UN observers vehicle during a demonstration in Kfarnebel

Residents in the town said shelling had resumed on Wednesday night and were also using sniper fire on residents. Activists posted online a video showing the bleeding body of a 14-year-old boy, named as Oday Abdulhakim al-Saleh, who they said was shot dead on Thursday morning.

"We are being shelled," an anti-government activist in the town who gave his name as Saria al-Houlany said by Skype. "The attack started last night and has carried on all today since early morning. All of the city is being bombarded, including where the massacre took place."

The United Nations, whose observers were able to visit Houla after the killings on Friday night, said at least 108 people died, including 34 women and 49 children. They said the overwhelming majority had been shot dead, with some bodies showing knife wounds.

The rest were killed by shell-fire from artillery and tanks not available to the opposition.

Residents say the gangs who moved in after the initial bombardment were "Shabiha" or informal pro-government militias from neighbouring Alawite villages.

There has been sporadic shooting at the town in the days since.

"The people in the neighbouring village of Waer can see the missiles crossing overhead and landing in Houla," the activist said. "Some of the people who were saved from the massacre have fled the city completely, but some of them are hiding in field hospitals and clinics.

"Twice shells have almost hit a clinic. Yesterday one exploded in an empty building just to the right of where the wounded and doctors are, and where families are hiding.

"The regime does not want any witnesses left alive for the horrible massacres it committed." The weekend attack was triggered by an assault on army positions by the Free Syrian Army, some of whom remain in Houla, including 16 defected army officers.

Responding to the initial outrage, the Syrian authorities immediately blamed "armed gangs and terrorists". Yesterday it held a press conference to announce that an inquiry by General Qassem Jamal Suleiman found that 800 members of "armed groups" had carried out the attack.

"Killing children does not meet any goal of the government but those of the armed groups," he said.

He gave no explanation for how the deaths by shelling had occurred, but he said that the town was targeted because it was home to a member of parliament, Abdulmou'ti Mashlab.

Army defectors who spoke to The Daily Telegraph inside Syria earlier this year said the government was careful to distinguish between the security forces and the paramilitaries so that it could distance the army from the latter's atrocities.

Another activist, "Abu Jawfer", who witnessed the massacre, said: "Mashlab is in Damascus and he is too frightened to come back to his village now.

The people there will not speak to him, no one respects him."

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