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Walking on clouds in the footsteps of Incas

Will Hutton defies his aching muscles and extreme fatigue to climb the unforgiving Inca trail in Peru to the mystic ruined city of Machu Picchu, one of the last surviving wonders of the ancient world
Clouds over Machu Picchu
Having finally made it to the top, Sonia was met by ... rain and cloud cover.

The Inca trail is the world's most remarkable walk. Sure there are extraordinary high-altitude treks in the Rockies, Alps and the Himalayas in stunning scenery, but in none of them are you walking a bewilderingly switchback path - part of a 500-year-old road across some of the world's highest mountains built by a remarkable and unique civilisation. And in none of them is the end destination a mystic ruined city - Machu Picchu -about which we have no clues as to its use and purpose.

Part shrine, part place of learning, part fortress: we have to guess the meaning of its great granite stone walls, temples and squares perched on cliffs 4,000ft high above the Urubamba river. Enter a world of mystery, charm and extreme beauty - and test yourself to your limits.

For make no mistake, this is no Sunday afternoon hike. On most of this 40-mile walk you never descend below 8,500ft (2,700m); large parts you walk at over 11,000ft; one pass nudges 12,916 ft and the highest at 13,734ft ranks with the highest mountains in the Alps.

Even the fittest have to walk slowly up incredibly steep inclines, steps and the Inca's long stone staircases; on the two high passes the air is thin, there is a constant pressure on your temples and you feel slightly dizzy.

If altitude sickness strikes there is no structure of care or medical stations; this is a wild national park that is deliberately kept wild and your only recourse is to the oxygen cylinder carried by your tour guide. After a series of accidents the Peruvian authorities now oblige every user of the trail to take a guide; this is too dangerous and demanding territory to allow Western tourists to go without support and local knowledge.

In a walking party supported by a guide and porters to carry tents and food you are perfectly safe, but nonetheless exposed to the elements. At night temperatures can fall as low as minus 20C. With the air so thin and you so high, the ultraviolet rays are intense; factor 35 sunblock is compulsory. You start walking at sunrise and finish at sunset, with only a midday meal and break as interruption. Over the four days you are on the trail it is certain to rain and the clouds to descend for at least part of the time.

In retrospect I wonder why we put ourselves through all this. All I can say is that I now treasure the experience. It was, quite simply, one of the best things I have ever done. This is one of the world's wonders and if you have any taste for adventure, history and nature at its best (there are 400 varieties of wild orchid alone) - and you are physically capable - put it down as a 'must do'.

It was about 20 years ago that I read the history of the Incas - one of the most compelling and exotic stories of the rise and fall of any civilisation - and began to want to see the sites at first hand and this year, I finally got to go.

At the beginning of the fifteenth century, the Incas, using their mastery of agriculture, architecture and diplomacy, explosively created an Andean Empire - in less than 100 years - that extended from Quito in today's Ecuador to Chile's Santiago with 18,600 miles of paved roads and trails symbolising the extraordinary organisation that underpinned it - but in just five years it collapsed before 179 Spanish conquistadors in search of El Dorado.

Picture the scene in the early months of 1532. There is Atahualpa, pretender to the Inca throne, who has just triumphed in an internecine civil war against his half-brother Huascar. Atahualpa has disputed his father's splitting of the empire into two and settling the tougher less rich north on him - and the better protected richer south on his brother. The empire only worked, he believed, as an integrated whole.

Imagine Inca armies half a million strong have been deployed against each other all over the Andes, and finally Atahualpa - a brilliant general - has won. He is resting with his court and 500 concubines in his beloved Cajamarca, an Inca resort some 300 miles north of the Imperial capital, Cuzco, when he learns that the leader of a small group of armed men mounted on horses - one Francisco Pizarro - wants to meet him. The Spaniards have been driving south from their new colony of Panama.

News of the legendary empire whose people worship the sun and moon and who decorate the walls of their temples and palaces with gold and silver - representing sun and moon - six inches deep has reached them. This is unimaginable wealth. Pizarro, a friend of fellow Spaniard Hernán Cortés who brutally opened up Mexico, and his two brothers have put together a band of desperadoes; brigands, adventurers, gold seekers and cut-throats who aim to loot El Dorado.

As they huddle in one of Atahualpa's palaces awaiting his arrival with an enormous Inca army encamped outside, they hit upon attempting one of the most audacious ambushes of all time; they will capture Atahualpa when he appears with his 6,000 strong body guard and spare his life only on condition that he fills one room full of gold and another of silver. Which is what they did, except when the rooms were filled they tried, then murdered Atahualpa, marched on the Inca capital Cuzco and colonised the country.

Horses, muskets and swords made of Toledo steel were as technologically advanced compared with the Incas' bronze age weaponry as those used by the US were over the Iraqi arsenal.

The Spanish - accompanied by Jesuits, Dominican and Franciscan monks - believed they had a mission to spread Catholicism to the newly subject Indian peoples and across the Inca empire there was a frenzy of church building, typically supplanting the Inca temple that stood there before. God had delivered gold and silver to the invading Spanish in mines of unparalleled richness; the least that could be done was to deliver heathen souls back to him.

Strangely Machu Picchu never fell. Its great granite walls were never robbed to build churches, colonial villas and Spanish squares in the middle of the Andes like so many others. It is authentic, but since its rediscovery by the American explorer Hiram Bingham in 1911 we have marvelled at its state of preservation. Given the wholesale elimination of Inca culture by the Spanish and lack of any written record (the Incas did not use paper but instead communicated orally or with signs), we do not know what the population of the town - three quarters of whom were women - did. The town was evacuated suddenly when the empire collapsed, though the Incas never told the Spanish of its existence; and no Indian peasants or soldiers did either. It is an enigma above the clouds.

The 'senior' Inca trail begins at 'Kilometre 82' on the railway from Cuzco to the newly built tourist town of Aguas Calientes on the river below the ancient city; this is the serious hike. There is a 'junior' trail that begins further down the line and gets you to the city within five or six hours, but it doesn't follow the ancient Inca road.

You are checked on to the trail by National Park keepers once you pay your $50 (£30) entry fee - they will check you out again at the other end for security - and you start the walk for some six miles beside the fast running Urubamba river. For the morning at least you will come across the occasional lonely single- storey house, complete with its long bamboo stick with knotted red handkerchief above the door - signalling that you could - ill-advisedly - join the locals there to drink pure chicha , a high-octane alcoholic drink made from ground corn - but soon even those disappear.

There is an Inca fort and farming village, with tell-tale terraces that double up as flat land to grow corn and potatoes and a defensive shield, guarding the point where a tributary of the Urubamba, the Río Cusichaca, has carved a steep V-shaped valley joining the main concourse; and this is where the long climb begins to the first pass 'Dead Woman's Pass'.

A day earlier, my wife Jane had been laid low by food poisoning; it is a miracle she is walking at all - and she is to find the first two days more physically demanding than almost anything in her life before. After five hours of continuous walking we arrive at a sheltered enclave where the porters have assembled a cooking and eating tent.

Hilario, the cook, treats us to trout as we all group round a portable table; we are so tired and stiff that we drop any inhibitions about being served. So should you; the porters are incomparably fitter, stronger and nimbler than Western hikers and supply an indispensable support infrastructure - and welcome the work that the Inca trail has brought. They run the trail with huge 50lb burdens, worthy successors to the Chaqui runners, the specialist athletes who the Incas used to take messages round their Empire. At the final campsite in three days time you hear successive groups cheering their porters effusively and giving them generous tips; it's a good relationship. The porters have even organised themselves into a union to protect the level of their wages.

Success in the walk depends on climbing as high as possible on the first day, and our guide - Adelqui Palomino - is, as dusk falls, using every gambit in the coaching manual to persuade Jane to carry on walking. A professor at Cuzco University, he has not only walked the trail a lot, but is also a mine of information about everything from Inca history to the habits of hummingbirds; don't revolt against the concept of a guide - revel in it. A good guide will lift the whole trek.

As we climb the views get better - the glacier-capped Veronica (18,860ft) becomes ever easier to see - but that is just an interlude in the all-consuming physical commitment to sustain the effort. You know you'll make it - you have to; the issue is how frequently you have to stop, how slowly you make the ascent and how overwhelmed you will be at the end of the day by fatigue. You are wholly engaged; mind and body are one; endorphins are spilling out everywhere. Curiously, despite the effort, you feel happy.

The first night we camped nearly 2,000ft below the pass's summit; rarely has hot powdered chocolate and milk tasted so good. It was a clear night; the temperature would fall well below zero. The sleeping bag, so tight the bottom half cramped you like a mermaid's tail, would not be warm enough; what was required was layers.

Peruvian Indian women wear multi-petticoated skirts, layers being added and subtracted as the temperature changes violently between day and night. Trekkers have to achieve the same effect, if less exotically, so with hat, gloves, a track suit over my pyjamas and five shirts and pullovers we launch into a night of tension and half-sleep - to be not so much woken (I wasn't asleep) but roused with a cup of camomile tea at dawn.

The second day - renowned as the toughest - begins with a slow procession of trekkers up to the pass's summit as each walker fights breathlessness and the impossibly thin air. The Inca trail then snakes down a connecting valley and up over a pass nearly as high. It is only an iPod and The Best of Van Morrison that coaxes Jane up the second pass. By now my knees are beginning to ache; the Incas carved giant stone staircases to keep the road as straight as possible - and the constant impact as you step down is cumulatively agony. Without my walking stick to soak up some of the pressure I would be lame. By nightfall we can scarcely move; we are fatigued to our souls. I sleep solidly through viciously heavy rain.

But the worst is over. Most of the third day is a walk through cloud forest at 11,500ft high; a tangle of trees, creepers, moss, wild flowers and humming birds. The trail has been well engineered; here buttressed with stones as the forest plunges down below you - there driven as a tunnel through granite cliff. How did the Incas build this? How many men did it take? The incidence of ruined forts, store houses and small farming settlements increases; we are within the orbit of the city. Your sense of anticipation rises.

It's at Phuyupatamarca - the ruined Inca village 'above the clouds' with its now familiar aqueducts still distributing water around the site - that the trail has one last trial. You have to descend 2,600 steps to the terraced ruins of Winay Wayna, the campsite from which you walk to Machu Picchu.

On arrival, we pour the first few drops of our first beers for three days on the ground to thank Pachamama (the Earth Goddess) for getting us here - and I start to ponder the easy way the West now accepts Inca religious ritual. Even the passionately Catholic Spanish found that they had to make compromises with the indigenous paganism; a painting of the Last Supper in Cuzco cathedral, for example, has Christ not eating cheese and fruit but feasting off guinea pig, the dish Incas and contemporary Indians consider a delicacy. (I ordered some and got a roasted whole animal resembling a rat - with head and eyes that balefully fixed you from the plate. The whole dish was psychologically and physically inedible.)

The Indians treat religion as insurance. You worship Christ, but only in a way that does not obstruct worshipping the Sky represented by a condor, Earth by a puma and the Underground by a snake. In Calca, for example, a village in the Urubamba valley that you drive through on the way to the trail, the central monument is not the church - rather it is an eye-catching giant puma. This refusal to give up pagan beliefs infuriated the Spanish missionaries.

The following morning, in steady rain, we strike out for the sun gate of Machu Picchu. Some go at dark through the rain forest to see the sunrise; but in this weather it is pointless. After four days, and up a final, desperately steep staircase, we are at the city's sole and legendary Sun Gate entry point; the clouds roll back - and there briefly is the sacred city below you in its famous panorama.

The satisfaction is immense, and by now you are attuned to nature; the orchids never seem so vivid - the bird song never more melodious. The city takes hours to explore. Previous generations have tended to view the Incas as sophisticated, mysterious and cruel pagans - the mummy of the 14-year-old-girl clubbed to death as a human sacrifice on a mountain-top near Arequipa is certainly testimony to their barbarism.

But as we become more secular, alongside condemnation of their barbarism has come a new respect for their veneration of nature and the heavens. If you are insecure about what the afterlife might bring, there is a curious rationality in celebrating nature in the here and now. Certainly what it has endowed this small corner of our world is stunning. To stand at Machu Picchu's highest temple and gaze through the cloud below at a panorama of canyon, cloud forest, glacier covered mountain and dramatic cliffs is to understand what the Incas felt.

However and whoever created beauty like this deserves to be honoured. For this you build a sacred city - and for this you drive a road over mountains to serve it. And what's more you build solidly; it is Inca walls, with their solid base and carefully calibrated incline, that have survived earthquakes and natural disasters better than those of the Spanish invaders. The Incas may have lost the battles, but as the centuries accumulate maybe they are winning a bigger war - over why we must and should celebrate nature.

Dos and don'ts

1. Take a walking stick

2. Have a good torch

3. Make sure the tour guide has an oxygen cylinder

4. Break in your boots

5. Be vigilant what you eat in the days beforehand; you don't want food poisoning on the trail

6. Buy a $2 plastic poncho against the rain at the head of the trail; so-called waterproofed British anoraks don't stay waterproofed against Andean rain

7. Charge all batteries and have spares for your camera. You are going to use a lot of film

8. Don't eat guinea pig

9. Always keep to the inside of the trail

10. Enjoy. It's the walk of a lifetime

Will Hutton flew with American Airlines to and from Lima. He bought his trip from Veloso Tours (0208 762 0616) which included ground arrangements with Andean Nature Tours. They handled his four days on the Inca Trail and exploration of Cuzco and the Urubamba Valley.

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A snowbound one-room hut miles from a shop? Luxury

Fed up with grotty shoeboxes in modern ski resorts, Edward Marriott heads to a cosy cabin beside the piste, high above the Austrian resort of Schladming
The Aigner hutte, Schladming, Austria
The simple interior of the Aigner hutte

This is how it normally goes. Up at 5am, a long drizzly trek across town, then a bleary-eyed wait at check-in, before finally - somewhere around teatime - arriving in the ski resort. Once there, the accommodation is generally as disappointing as the experience of getting there. Last year, trying to do it as cheaply as possible, I rented a shoebox in Tignes. For £350 for the week, my brother-in-law, nephew, son and I had about 12 square metres of floor. The hallway doubled as bunk space; the other 'room' served as sitting room, kitchen, dining room and bedroom combined. The best bit of the day was leaving the flat in the morning.

Never again, I vowed. Surely, I figured, somewhere in the Alps it must be possible to rent an affordable property in a decent ski area that isn't in a soulless apartment block with a dodgy lift and gives you some sense that you're actually in the mountains, rather than a chilly, high-altitude version of Torremolinos. Finally, it would also be great to get there without flying.

As it turns out, all these things are indeed possible. I tracked down a one-room hutte in the mountains above Schladming, in Styria, southern Austria. The hut, I learned, was a holiday home owned by a local family, the Aigners. It sat on the edge of woodland, far from any other dwellings. It lacked the convenience of a Tignes shoebox; with the nearest shop some 1,500m below in the valley, there'd certainly be no fresh croissants for breakfast. But, I figured, there'd be real advantages; the children could play together outside long after the lifts had closed, something that was very hard to organise in Tignes.

My wife balked at the prospect of a week in an isolated, snowbound mountain hut, but my brother-in-law and nephew needed little persuasion, so it was the same personnel as last year who boarded the Eurostar at Waterloo, bound this time for Schladming - via Paris, Munich, and Salzburg. It was, by any standards, a long journey - but, thanks to an afternoon wander around Paris, the novelty thrill of the Paris-to-Munich sleeper, a breakfast of hot chocolate and pastries in Munich station and the gradual approach of the snowy mountains beyond Salzburg, 24 hours of rail travel certainly didn't feel much longer than going by plane.

We gathered our gear and went shopping - only to realise that the clock was against us. To make it up the mountain to our hutte meant taking a cable car, and the day's last ascent was fast approaching. We ran round the supermarket, throwing cheese, yoghurt, bread, salami and chocolate into the trolley, then persuaded a local shopkeeper to give us a lift to the cable-car station. By the time we'd heaved bags, food, skis, boots and snowboards into the cabin, there was barely enough room for us. But up we went, and as we climbed, grass gave way to snow, and the peaks of the mountains loomed ahead in the afternoon sun.

Emerging from the cable-car into blinding sunshine, I wondered for a moment whether we'd come to the right place. I asked a couple of people if they knew where the 'Aigner family hut' was, but the question drew a blank. Finally, my poor German notwithstanding, one of the cable-car operators pointed out the house: a modest, slope-roofed, wooden cabin, forest on one side, a red run on the other. We skidded across the piste, avoiding the last of the day's skiers, manhandled our bags up a 30ft snowbank and finally made it to the front door, breathless, trousers soaked with snow.

The decor could not have been more different from what we'd got used to in Tignes. Everything was wood, polished, cared-for, clearly loved. On the table, in the middle of an embroidered tablecloth, sat a welcome bottle of wine and a box of Ferrero Rocher chocolates. Nosing around later, I found an inventory listing crockery, cutlery, blankets, and so on - dated 1972. Three-and-a-half decades had turned the paper the colour of treasure-map parchment; various items had been crossed off, others added at the bottom.

The facilities were basic but functional: fridge, two-ring electric cooker, an ancient wood-burning stove (in the event of electricity failure, presumably), two sets of bunk beds, an old TV (with two fuzzy but just about functional channels) and a radio. So, helped by a large bottle of schnapps thoughtfully left by a previous guest, we spent most evenings devising our own entertainment: playing cards by candlelight and betting how long the roof-edge icicles would be when we woke up in the morning.

The house, with its dark-wood exterior, yew-green shutters and icing-sugar slab of snow on the roof, blended seamlessly into the surroundings. At night, it was eerily quiet, which took some getting used to, accustomed as we all were to the boozy small-hours carousing of skiers. And the view was breathtaking, clear north across the valley, with Schladming far below, to the Dachstein glacier. It is, as owner Helmut Aigner put it to me on the telephone after our return to the UK, as close to perfect as any holiday house has a right to be, in his words, 'just pure nature'. His father, a sports-shop owner from a nearby town, built the house in 1969, although tighter planning regulations mean this would be unlikely to be allowed today. 'We're very lucky to have the house,' he said.

Just how fortunate became clear as the week unfolded. Every evening after skiing, my son Louis, nine, and his cousin Joseph, eight, played outside in the snow. Much of the week was spent in elaborate and ambitious construction work: a series of tunnels under the snowbank, meeting in a capacious central chamber. When they tired of this, they used my snow shovel as a sledge and careered off the edge of the bank or pelted each other - and us - with snowballs. One evening, all four of us had an extended snowball fight in the woods. It was an evening of luminous beauty, with sunlight slanting down through the pines, picking out myriad green and grey lichens on the rocks and tree trunks.

In all, there was just one drawback: access to shops. Somehow, through cunning and parsimonious food management, we got away with doing only one extra shop. This, though, was an arduous journey, which I undertook alone. Despite my best intentions, I never quite managed to avoid giving the others a daily sermon about the sacrifice I'd made. Maybe I should have kept my counsel, because the result of my martyred laments was that I effectively put anyone else off shopping for the rest of the week. By the last two days, our breakfasts were eclectic in the extreme: salami, stale bread, old cheese, hot chocolate made from the last of the Nutella.

On the last evening, the boys disappeared for a long time, only for Louis to reappear at the door of the hut, breathless with excitement. 'Dad! Uncle Matt! Come quickly! We're doing front flips off a snowdrift in the woods. It's great. Come and look.' And, as we headed out to watch this display of mountain gymnastics just round the corner from the house, one thought flashed across my mind: there's something you wouldn't dare attempt from your third-floor flat in Tignes.

· The Aigner hutte can be rented through Interhome (020 8891 1294; interhome.co.uk). It sleeps up to four people and costs from £464 a week in the winter, quote reference A8967/200. Rail travel from London to Salzburg, including a four-berth couchette between Paris and Munich, costs from £285 per person return through Railbookers (0844 482 1010; railbookers.com). For more details on the region, consult skiamade.co.uk. Edward Marriott and family rented their equipment from Charly Kahr (00 43 3687 24883; charlykahr.com) and organised ski lessons through Skischule Hopl (00 43 3687 61525; hopl.at).

Perfect settings: more ski huts to slope off to

Interhome has a range of huts for rent on hillsides and in forests across the Alps, but if you'd just like to spend one night on the mountainside rather than a whole week, and have someone else do the cooking, try one of these:

Above Gressoney, Italy

Perched at 2,880m, above the traditional village of Gressoney, the owners claim this is Europe's highest hotel. It can accommodate 50 people in double rooms and offers hearty, rustic food and quality wine in plastic cups. Try the cold meats with chestnuts in honey or the Valdostana soup, made with cabbage and Fontina cheese.
Dinner bed and breakfast: €50.
00 39 0163 91444; rifugioguglielmina.it

Above Verbier, Switzerland

This place is busy with skiers at lunchtime, but those in the know stay the night in the little rooms upstairs. Luxury it ain't, with token-operated showers that tend to cut out leaving you covered in soap, but the situation is stunning, the hut itself (pictured below) is beautiful, and in the morning you have the pistes to yourself for the first run.
Dinner, bed and breakfast £25.
00 41 27 778 1384; cabanemontfort.ch

Above Flaine, France

Take the Cascades piste and look for the sign on which is a button.Press it, and the owner will come on his snowmobile and tow you up to the picture-perfect chalet, which has five rooms and is renowned for its food.
Dinner, bed and breakfast: €55. 00 33 4 50 895514

Above Kaltenbach, Austria

It's at 2,500m, and you have to take a T-bar lift to get to it, but the Kristallhutte could be the most luxurious mountain hut of them all. The eight rooms are romantically designed, each with its own balcony. The dinners are lavish affairs - the chef says his hero is Heston Blumenthal.
Dinner, bed and breakfast from €75. 00 43 676 88 632400;

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Tour an Icelandic volcano – from the inside

A unique new tour of the once-fiery chamber of a dormant volcano in Iceland produces a deep sense of awe
Inside the chamber at Thrihnukagigur in Iceland
Inside the chamber at Thrihnukagigur in Iceland

"Are you going into the volcano?" In any other country the question would be prefaced with "Good god, man!" and followed with a string of question and exclamation marks. But in Iceland it's a fairly normal question for anyone about to embark on the country's newest tour.

Launched last week, "Inside The Volcano" may sound like a ride at Alton Towers, but it is instead a very literal description of the dormant chamber of Thrihnukagigur, a volcanic peak just outside Reykjavik, which is now open to visitors. For the first time, intrepid travellers can climb over the rim and descend into the once-fiery abyss.

It has been 4,000 years since Thrihnukagigur last popped, and like all eruptions it was tremendously violent. Crucially, though, it wasn't so cataclysmic as to destroy the chamber and the entire mountain; instead the vast geological pressure was likely to have been vented through tunnels and arteries deeper in the earth, preserving a newly opened chamber and creating what cave explorer Arni Stefánsson describes as a "pristine collapse".

In 1974, Stefánsson was the first person to be lowered inside, and it was his idea to open up the mountain to tourists. Progress has been slow, but he says there is a tricky balance to be struck between opening the underworld and protecting the "single most important volcanic cave in the world". There are a few other accessible volcanoes – notably Furna do Enxofre in the Azores – but none so complete, nor so deep. This combination, along with the resolute focus on preservation, is what makes the mountain and the tour unique.

Located just 20km outside Reykjavik, Thrihnukagigur has huge potential as a day-trip destination from the capital, or even a side trip during a flight stopover – it is only about an hour from the main airport.

If the volcano tour proves popular, a tunnel may eventually – and carefully – be cut into it, and standing platforms installed inside. But for now, conquering the volcano requires a satisfying amount of effort. Just to reach it, we have to trek for 3km over uneven volcanic fields, past gas tunnels, fissures and small cones sculpted by volcanic forces just beneath the surface, with Thrihnukagigur, or Three Peaks, looming on the horizon.

When Eyjafjallajökull (which is 150km away) erupted in 2010, its ash clouds caused huge inconvenience to airline passengers around the world.

But that was insignificant compared with some volcanic incidents in Iceland's past. While in most of the world's volcanic regions the largest eruptions are the subject of ancient history, Iceland, a geological baby at 15m years old, has barely finished its tumultuous birth. Unfortunately, as in 2010, its most ferocious incidents are rarely contained within its borders.

Stefánsson describes the 1783 eruption of Laki, a mountain in the south of the island, as "immense", though apocalyptic would perhaps be more accurate.

The colossal gas emissions caused temperatures to soar in Europe, and led to thousands of deaths from sulphur dioxide inhalation, while North America subsequently suffered a long, cold winter because the sun's light was obscured. When the eruption finally ended, eight months later, Laki's fury had killed 25% of Iceland's population and half of its wildlife.

Stefánsson, my guide, is talking about these events as though something like Laki could happen again, at any time, especially as Iceland is due to enter one of its once-a-millennium periods of sustained volcanic activity. "But that's not inevitable, is it?" I ask, as we approach Thrihnukagigur. Stefánsson stops, looks as me as though I've insulted his mother, and says: "Absolutely. It will definitely happen."

This isn't what I want to hear just as I am about to enter Hades. Despite its relative calm, Stefánsson says that inside Thrihnukagigur there is also a real risk from earthquakes, which could easily dislodge rocks and crush visitors. "So it'll be the earthquakes that will get us, not another eruption," I say hopefully. "Oh no no," he replies. "It could definitely erupt, too."

This exchange takes place just before we climb on to a rickety platform ready to be lowered 120m into the throat of the volcano. I can't help wishing my host was a little less straight-talking.

Visitors are lowered 120m into the cave on a platform
Visitors are lowered 120m into the cave on a platform

When he did this as a 25-year-old, Stefánsson was alone, on a rope, spinning in the dark, and wearing a motorbike helmet for protection. Things have moved on a lot in 38 years, but even now it's not exactly a smooth process. The platform is fitted with tyres to help it pass a particularly narrow stretch 20m from the surface. As the natural light fades, the amount of water seeping through the porous rock increases. Down and down the platform goes, until it reaches the rocky floor.

"When I first got down here, I was so disappointed. It was nothing more than a quarry," says Stefánsson. "I came looking for beauty, but I found ugliness." He didn't come back for 17 years. When he finally returned – with better lighting and more time – he was overcome by a sense of wonderment. He now talks about the chamber with a kind of philosophical awe: "Coming here is a chance to feel your own smallness, to tackle your own fears. I want people to come here and feel humble."

For me, standing inside the volcano is a strangely emotional experience. First, there's the sheer unlikeliness of the situation – of standing in a site of unimaginable geological violence. Once that passes, there is an opportunity to enjoy the awesome subterranean arena. The rock dome has been scalded and charred, torn and ruptured; the gasses, pressures and extreme temperatures have stained it a mishmash of yellows, reds and blacks. It looks like a child's drawing of hell.

But inside there is not an increase of temperature as you might expect, nor any reek of sulphur. Instead, there is a stillness that creates a sense of tranquillity and, yes, smallness.

Stefánsson seems happy with my reaction. "Firstly this project is about preservation, then exploration, and finally education," he says over a bowl of hot soup back on the surface. "It's not about volcanology, really. It's about the aesthetic … It's about beauty."

Tours are available until 31 July, but more dates may be added. The price is ISK 37,000pp (£188) including equipment and collection from Reykjavik. (+354 863 6640, Visitors must be over the age of 12, and have a reasonable level of fitness. The tour takes about five hours, including one hour inside the volcano. There are plans to make the visitor experience smoother, so go this year to feel more of a sense of exploration. Flights were provided by Iceland Express (0118-321 8384,, which flies to Reykjavik from Stansted, Gatwick and Edinburgh from £178 return. Accommodation was provided by Hotel Holt in central Reykjavik (+354 552 5700,, doubles from €143)


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Badge TV & Radio Blog

The Apprentice final: who should win?

As the four finalists prepare to do battle for the last time, help us decide who should ultimately be hired or fired on Sunday
Lord Alan Sugar
Who will Lord Alan Sugar choose as his next business partner on Sunday? Photograph: BBC/Talkback Thames

After 11 gruelling tasks, Lord Alan Sugar's quest to discover a new business partner will finally come to an end on Sunday. The series finale features a round of interviews that will pick holes in the remaining four candidate's CVs, examine the viability/insanity of their mysterious business proposals and allow us another chance to share the company of Margaret Mountford and her magnificent eyebrows.

Now is not the time to ponder on exactly why the class of 2012 had less fizz than previous years – perhaps it was all that English sparkling wine they've been glugging. Instead, let's focus on the final four and decide who's going to receive £250,000 into their business account and gain a grumpy 65-year-old blaaady business man as their new partner.

Tom Gearing

This 23-year-old director of a fine wine investment company is quite possibly the most handsome man ever to appear on The Apprentice. But, as demonstrated by the baffled look on his face whenever faced with anything that isn't holding a wine glass, he has the pampered air of a man whose idea of physical labour is combing his hair. Considering Lord Sugar's adversity to Where's Wally? contests does he really want someone this anonymous as a business partner?

Wins: 7

Defeats: 4

Boardroom: 2

Worst bit: In the urban art task when, as both team leader and a self-confessed expert actually able to "read" the words in graffiti, he failed to impress street artist Pure Evil.

Best bit: After failing to land Mr Evil, he demonstrated some genuine ballsy risk-taking by picking the most expensive artist.

Nick Holzherr

Who is Nick Holzherr? Does he have a personality? Does he actually exist? For someone whose greatest talent is sounding a little bit like Boris Johnson and looking a bit like Harry Styles it has been hard to explain exactly why this 25-year-old from Birmingham with a lovely mop of hair is still in the show. Although – according to Adam – he is "good at computers and stuff". My suspicion is that he has a business proposal that's better than a curved nail file.

Wins: 8

Defeats: 3

Boardroom: 1

Worst bit: In the very first task, having project-managed a team who had printed up some faulty bags picturing a London bus with the catchy slogan "This is a … ", he showed his true colours when he said: "We'll sell it to a gullible tourist".

Best bit: His brilliant sideways eyes-a-go-go look at Adam during his faltering pitch on the luxury brand task. This from a man who had come up with the brand name Choo Choo Choc.

Jade Nash

Growing up helping at her parents' caravan park Jade learnt the ropes of running a business at a young age. Possibly due to the notoriously bad mobile reception in the Bedfordshire area, she has also proved herself to be world-class at holding a Blackberry and shouting into it very loudly and very quickly.

Wins: 5

Defeats: 6

Boardroom: 3

Worst bit: Managed to show herself incapable of even operating a calculator, deferring to computer expert Nick to help her add two numbers together.

Best bit: Communication isn't the only business skill Jade has demonstrated on the show, she's also really good at drawing tigers – as seen in the very first episode, when her T-shirt designs proved a big hit with the under-fives and Lord Sugar.

Ricky Martin

A "business superstar" by day and professional wrestler by night, Ricky Martin is under the illusion that everyone calls him "The Fitness" (they don't) and compares himself to a shark. The closest we've seen to him demonstrating shark-like ruthlessness was when he polished off his third plate of scallops in the coupon task. However, he's provided the show with the best quotes – "You've sat on the fence more times than I've had hot dinners" – and proved himself a master at combining two rubbish ideas to create one even more rubbish idea (ie contemporary dance and martial arts). A quality some people (er, cough, Amstrad E-m@iler Telephone, cough) have built an empire upon. Ricky to win!

Wins: 6

Defeats: 5

Boardroom: 4

Worst bit: Overseeing the production of a supposedly high-quality condiment, he produced a repellent, lumpy sauce that was less of a ketchup and more of a congealed open wound in a bottle. Mmmm … Belissimo

Best bit: He is the most upbeat candidate ever to appear on The Apprentice, and will twist everything into a positive. In the final task, after a line of experts had told him his grooming products were boring he said he'd received a lot of comments, "both positive and some very constructive". You get the impression that even if he was about to be executed for a murder he didn't commit Ricky would view it as one more chance to shine.

So, who do you think is going to win? And of all the fired candidates who should have made it into the final four? Let us know

Today's best video


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Exhibition of self-portraits highlights women artists

The Blue Room (La chambre bleu) by Suzanne Valadon
Suzanne Valadon's 1923 self-portrait The Blue Room subverts the tradition of the odalisque
A survey of self-portraits spanning five centuries - the most comprehensive ever, according to National Portrait Gallery director Sandy Nairne - brings women artists firmly to the fore, alongside masterpieces by the likes of Rembrandt and Velazquez.

One of the earliest paintings, never before seen in Britain, is the work of 17th-century Italian Sofonisba Anguissola. The eldest of six daughters of an Italian nobleman, who became painter at the court of Philip II of Spain, she painted self-portraits as advertisements for her skills, carefully depicting herself modestly dressed as a hyper-virtuous woman ("since by painting she was already transgressing", according to exhibition curator Joanna Woodall). But in Self-portrait at the Easel Painting a Devotional Panel she plays with the Christian tradition that St Luke painted the first portrait of the Virgin Mary. By showing herself painting the virgin, Anguissola identifies herself with the male saint, said Dr Woodall.

Artemisia Gentileschi, daughter of Caravaggio's associate Orazio Gentileschi, was even bolder, depicting herself as Pittura, the allegory of painting. "She is saying: 'If painting can be female, then a female can be painting," said Dr Woodall. "We still haven't worked out precisely how she made this self-portrait. We think she must have used three mirrors," she added.

Dr Woodall said that far from seeing the women self-portraitists in the exhibition as victims, she regarded them as resourceful and often witty challengers of artistic and social convention. Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun's self-portrait sees the painter projected as both a beautiful object and a depicter of beauty; the 17th-century Dutch artist Judith Leyser shows herself at the easel painting a genre scene of a man playing the fiddle, poking her brush in the direction of the fiddler's crotch and having a good laugh.

Yet more formidable, perhaps, is Anna Dorothea Therbusch, whose self-portrait, on loan from the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin, shows her as a learned matriarch sporting a fantastic monocle - drawing attention to her eye, and thus the artist's gaze. Therbusch defied convention by tackling the male nude and leaving her family to pursue her art. Her first submission to the Académie Royale in Paris was turned down because the quality of the colour and strokes must, it was felt, have been the work of a man.

Even more startlingly upfront is Suzanne Valadon's 1923 self-portrait draped luxuriantly over a divan, cigarette in mouth, in a pose that subverts the tradition of the odalisque in French art from Ingres to Matisse - and makes no apology for her evident bohemianism and unconventionality, not to mention her generous fleshiness. She was an artist's model in 1880s Paris, used by Renoir, Puvis de Chavannes and Toulouse-Lautrec, but she was also supported and taught as a painter by Degas.

Dr Woodall said: "In all portraits we fantasise about encountering the subject, but in self-portraiture we stand where the mirror was, so our identification with the artist is extremely direct. We find ourselves starting to reflect on ourselves, on our own creativity. The artist almost becomes the other - the thing we see in the mirror."

· Self-portrait: Renaissance to Contemporary, opens at the National Portrait Gallery, London, on Thursday.

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Guinea pig farm owners threatened in letters

A woman yesterday admitted intimidating the co-owner of a guinea pig farm which was targeted for six years by animal rights activists.

Madeline Buckler, 24, of Levenshulme, Manchester, wrote letters to Darley Oaks farm demanding they release the guinea pigs bred there for scientific research or face consequences, Leicester crown court was told.

The farm, in Newchurch, Staffordshire, shut in January. Buckler denied three counts of blackmail and one of attempted blackmail on which no evidence will be offered. She will be sentenced on September 22.

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    Bradley Wiggins capped his remarkable sporting year by taking home the big prize at the ceremony in London
  • Martin Parr's M Video Christmas party photograph

    Dinner, dusk and dancing Russians: my best winter shot

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    Kimon, an eight-year-old pet female long-tailed monkey, treats a kitten as her baby in Bintan Island, Indonesia


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Royal wedding guests arrive for marriage of William and Kate

Members of royal family, friends and foreign dignitaries attend Westminster Abbey as thousands of wellwishers look on
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Members of the royal family, friends, foreign dignitaries and royal families from around the world, have begun arriving at Westminster Abbey in London to celebrate the marriage of Prince William, the second in line to the throne, and Kate Middleton.

Thousands of wellwishers have lined the 1.5-mile route to the abbey, which has itself been inundated with tourists watching the arrival of the 1,900 guests since 8:15am. David and Victoria Beckham, Elton John and David Furnish, and Prince Harry's friend Chelsy Davy were among those to arrive before 10am. William and his brother, Harry, who is his best man, are expected to arrive at 10.15am.

But despite her marriage to the heir to the throne, the bride will not be known as Princess Catherine. Buckingham Palace announced that William will become the Duke of Cambridge, making Kate the Duchess of Cambridge. William will also take the titles Earl of Strathearn and Baron Carrickfergus.

An early wedding present from the groom's grandmother, the Queen, the titles have been given to mark the marriage. The title of duke links the couple to England, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and is the highest rank in the British peerage.

The wedding will be among the first global news events of the social media age: a service full of pomp and ceremony that has thrust the monarchy to centre stage. It will also be the most important – and, courtiers hope, positive – event for the future of the monarchy in nearly 30 years.

Middleton, 29, accompanied by Harry, attended a rehearsal on Thursday at Westminster Abbey, the coronation church for the monarchy since William the Conqueror in 1066.

In the evening, William, 28, reached into the crowds waiting on the Mall, shaking hands and telling delighted members of the public he was focusing on "remembering the lines" for the "big day".

The Middleton family spent the evening quietly at the Goring hotel near Buckingham Palace, which was cordoned off with a marquee shielding the entrance so that the bride will be able to slip unobserved into one of Buckingham Palace's Rolls-Royces for her journey to the abbey at precisely 10.51am. Her dress will not be revealed until she arrives at the abbey nine minutes later. The designer Sarah Burton, who is creative director for Alexander McQueen, appeared to have entered the hotel in disguise.

The couple issued a statement in an official programme, 150,000 copies of which will be sold for charity in central London, saying they were "incredibly moved" by the public's affection shown them since their engagement.

"We are both so delighted that you are able to join us in celebrating what we hope will be one of the happiest days of our lives."

The wedding ceremony itself – the 15th royal marriage to be celebrated at the abbey since 1100 – will place emphasis on Britishness, with music from three living composers, including a specially commissioned anthem by John Rutter, and music by the Welsh composer Paul Mealor as well as Sir Peter Maxwell Davies. The abbey has been decorated with an "avenue of trees" along the nave made up of eight English field maples and two hornbeams.

It is likely to be cool and cloudy in London for the wedding day, with rain later.

The police and intelligence services have launched an unprecedented security operation as London prepares to celebrate, with an extra 600,000 visitors predicted in the capital.

More than 8,500 journalists and broadcasting staff have arrived to cover the event, more than half of them from foreign news organisations. Across the country, stocks of bunting were said to have sold out.

In a show of strength to forestall threats of demonstrations and disruption by anarchists, terrorists or extremist groups, Scotland Yard carried out a series of dawn raids across London. Police with batons and riot gear arrested 20 people during an operation against five squats across the city. Those arrested were taken to the Paddington Green high security police station and may be detained into the weekend.

Hundreds of Territorial Support Group officers were involved in what the Metropolitan police said was an ongoing operation to investigate suspected criminality linked to disorder at the student demonstration last December and the TUC march last month. But the action amounted to a controversial pre-emptive strike which the Met said was "intelligence led".

The Labour MP John McDonnell criticised the operation, saying it was "disproportionate and no way to celebrate this glorious day".

For the wedding itself, under huge political pressure from the home secretary and the mayor of London, the Met is mounting one of the biggest security operations in its history, expected to cost £20m, deploying 5,000 officers.

Some 900 uniformed officers will line the route from Westminster Abbey to Buckingham Palace, and undercover units and armed teams are being deployed to deal with a range of threats, from terrorism to direct action by activists. Thousands of service personnel will also line the procession route.

After the wedding there will be a lunchtime reception for 650 guests at Buckingham Palace, hosted by the Queen, and an obligatory balcony kiss for the newlyweds at 1.25pm – before the monarch and the Duke of Edinburgh head for the country, leaving 300 guests to return for a dinner hosted by Prince Charles in the evening.

Thousands of street parties – including one by anti-monarchists in central London – are planned for this afternoon, though undoubtedly the most publicised will be the one for 90 guests in Downing Street, supervised by Lady Warsi, giving a new dimension to the minister without portfolio's job description. Downing Street is being decked with flags and there will be a large screen to allow guests to watch the wedding coverage, a brass band, an ice-cream stall and children's entertainment.

Today in pictures

  • sports peronality 2012

    BBC Sports Personality of the Year – in pictures

    Bradley Wiggins capped his remarkable sporting year by taking home the big prize at the ceremony in London
  • Martin Parr's M Video Christmas party photograph

    Dinner, dusk and dancing Russians: my best winter shot

    A glass of wine with a rough sleeper, Santa in trunks, a thousand partying Muscovites … in a My Best Shot special, top photographers pick the image that sums up winter for them
  • Kimon, a long-tailed monkey grooms a kitten, whom, she treats as her baby, Bintan Island, Indonesia

    Monkey adopts kitten – in pictures

    Kimon, an eight-year-old pet female long-tailed monkey, treats a kitten as her baby in Bintan Island, Indonesia


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St Paul's conversion: among the protesters cast out from the cathedral

They seemed to be getting along so well, and then church officials said London's Occupy protesters had to go
Occupy protesters gather for a meeting in front of St Paul's Cathedral in London
Occupy protesters gather for a meeting in front of St Paul's Cathedral in London. Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

Two tourists from America, Diane and Peter – in their 60s, I suppose – were walking up to St Paul's Cathedral at 11am on Friday. I wouldn't say they were hugely impressed by the camp of protesters, but Peter said: "It's the middle ground that tends to be most of us, and what upsets the middle ground is the permanent disruption. But since they're not preventing tourists from visiting this magnificent structure, they should be able to protest as they feel they need to."

Now it seems worth pointing out immediately that there was no disturbance here, unless you find it disturbing to see people talking to one another. Nobody was even in the way of St Paul's great sweep of steps. And there was something in the layout and atmosphere of this Occupy protest – visible but not obtrusive – that made me think that if "permanent" was too strong a word, "sustainable" was certainly near the mark. I thought it would be there for ages.

But then at 2.30pm, St Paul's officials released a press release saying they were closing the cathedral, and asking protesters to withdraw. "We have done this with a very heavy heart, but it is simply not possible to fulfil our day to day obligations to worshippers, visitors and pilgrims in current circumstances."

Look, I'm fancying myself a reporter here, so I'm trying not to be partial – but I didn't meet anybody who was inconvenienced in any way. I didn't even meet anybody who disagreed with the protest. You would see, by a factor of 100, more people obstructing one another if you walked three minutes to the tube station. And the clarification at the end of the St Paul's statement – "Today is about our ability, practically, to carry on our mission with free and open access to this public space and treasured place and I hope that the protesters will understand the issues we are facing, recognise that their voice has been legitimately heard, and withdraw peacefully" – did not, frankly, clarify.

As George Barda, a protester, had pointed out to me earlier: "This isn't about expressing something. This is about compassionately demanding change. All we're talking about is extending the values that people already claim to have. Wages have been suppressed and access to debt has been extended. This is great for the rich, they make super-profits by not having to pay people, then super-profits again by lending to the poor at very high rates. But 10 years on, the poor can't pay for anything. So what we already knew was morally and socially wrong turns out to be economically wrong as well."

On Thursday night, there had been intimations that relations might be souring between the protesters and the church, but there were no signs of that on the ground – Mark, sitting in the legal tent with a guitar at 10am on Friday, said: "We've both been accommodating one another rather delightfully."

St Paul's had sought, and received, an undertaking that protesters wouldn't use their megaphones while there was a service on. And if it seems a bit rich for a church to complain about noise pollution when it has a great big bell going off every quarter of an hour, nobody mentioned it.

Furthermore, two of the most impassioned, positive responses to the protest that I heard were from Jody Stowell, the curate, and James Mercer, the vicar of All Saints' church in Harrow Weald, north-west London.

Mercer told me: "What I would say is that in the gospels, Jesus makes a courageous and subversive stand against the corruption of the powers that be, and against the implicit assumption that the rich will get richer and the poor will get poorer. You feel Jesus's anger in his protest, which actually wasn't that peaceful. The heart of the gospel is one of outrageous generosity – and the greed that is protested here is not generous. That's why I say: 'Go for it, guys.'"

As it happens, I also came across an equally passionate defender of the banks, a man walking past who wouldn't tell me his name, and who had worked in the City all his life.

"I started at 16, with four O-levels. I'm extremely grateful to the banking industry. What happened to cause this crash was wrong, but it'll correct itself. All this stuff has happened before."

I put to him that the banking industry is inherently short-term, since the risks they take have huge rewards when they work and no consequence when they don't.

"No, it is a long-term business. Banking is an actuarial business. Standard Chartered is just over there; it's a fantastic bank. I sit on the board of the largest provider of social housing in the United Kingdom. There are lots of little merchant banks trying to finance people. Things will right themselves. Human beings are clever and industrious."

Maybe there's something sceptical in my face; he carries on tetchily: "Do you know who paid to renovate the church? Go find out! Do you know who built St Paul's Cathedral? Go find out. Do some research, before you get too leftwing." Even he, though, was impressed by the protesters; he liked what they were doing, and thought it was important that the issues be raised, so that this self-correction could come about.

I admitted, ruefully, to Andrew, a university lecturer who had just come to see the camp, that I did not know either who built or indeed renovated the cathedral. "Probably some enormously wealthy people," he replied, "but that doesn't mean we have to be grateful to them forever.

"I feel very sad, and touched, and moved, looking at this. It reminds me of protests I used to do in the 80s. I don't know whether it's having a family, getting caught up in mortgages, but it does tie you into things. And you don't realise how much you tolerate. The whole greed thing really bothers me. It bothers me more than I realised."

Bothersome greed versus outrageous generosity – it may sadden Christians even more than atheists which side the cathedral came down on.

Two hours later, as the cathedral's decision stood, despite the lack of any perceptible impediment to worshippers, visitors or pilgrims, a decision was reached among the protesters that they weren't going to move. "The inconvenient truth about peaceful protest," Barda told me, "is that it takes a lot of people. We're not going anywhere."


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Dave Hill's London blog

Big, mad Ben

In The Spectator, Stephen Bayley:

For government officials squeamish about committing to quality, it is worth recording that Big Ben came about not through any very rational procurement process with targets and dignified fallback positions. Instead, it was conceived and executed in an atmosphere of controversy, backbiting and muddle at least as toxic as the witches' brew of colliding egos and conflicting interests that filled the Millennium Dome.

Now read on.


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Work for us badge

Editorial experience at Guardian News and Media

We will be accepting applications for Editorial experience up until Sunday 6 July 2014

Guardian News and Media (GNM) offers a limited number of short editorial experience opportunities throughout the year to those dedicated to a career in journalism. These placements at the Guardian and Observer are unpaid, voluntary and range in duration from a few days to a maximum of two weeks.

The aim of our editorial experience program is to introduce aspiring journalists to how a multi-platform news organisation works. This may be achieved in a number of ways, from shadowing a journalist to getting involved in editorial activities. Above all, it's an opportunity to gain insight and to ask questions as part of your learning and development.

How to apply

To be considered for a placement you must be at least 18, an EEA resident with the right to work or train in the UK and able to demonstrate a genuine passion for journalism – for example, serious involvement in student journalism, substantial work experience on local/specialist media, or an impressive personal website or blog.

On the application, you will be asked about your previous experience, availability and which area of our journalism most interests you. Please note that demand is greatest during academic holidays and at these times we give priority to students from our Scott Trust Bursary Scheme, the Positive Action Scheme and winners of the Guardian Student Media Awards. It may help if you can be flexible with your availability.

If you would like to be considered for more than one position, you will need to apply for each category separately. Each category has tailored application prequirements, so do think carefully about which placement is most relevant and beneficial to your skills and ambitions.

Applications will be reviewed directly by editorial departments and a decision will be reached on whether you will join the category pools or not. Successful candidates will be placed in our editorial experience pool and will be considered for relevant placements as they become available in your category. Placements can last up to two weeks and can become available at any time.

Please note that acceptance into one of our experience pools does not guarantee a placement. While we aim to place as many candidates as possible, positions only become available according to business needs.

Please be aware that we provide only standard references stating the dates of your editorial experience. If you need to submit a more detailed reference as part of your course or qualification, please speak to your line manager before the end of your placement.

GNM also hosts Insight into Journalism days for people over 18 who are exploring whether to pursue a career in this field.

The Education Centre offers workshops for schools, colleges and occasional family days for those under 18. These programmes can build your understanding and experience of what a career in journalism involves. The Education Centre does not, however, offer individual work experience.

The aim of editorial experience is to introduce aspiring journalists to an editorial environment. For this reason we regret that professional journalists are not eligible to apply for these placements. Please note that to be considered you should not have held a placement at GNM in the previous 24 months.

We have placements available in the following areas of our Editorial departments:

News (UK and International)
Community and Guardian Witness
Features (G2, Lifestyle, TV, Women, Cook & Do Something)
Culture (including Film and Music)
The Guide (entertainment/listings)
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World briefing

Bush should not count on a pushover

Angela Merkel, tipped to become Germany's first woman chancellor, is being courted by a growing line of foreign suitors. Tony Blair sought her out during a fleeting visit to Berlin in June. France's presidential hopeful, Nicolas Sarkozy, welcomed her to Paris. And the White House hopes a new chapter is about to begin. But to varying degrees, all may be disappointed.

At first glance, a victory for Ms Merkel's conservatives holds obvious attractions for the Bush administration. Relations reached a post-war low after the current chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, opposed the Iraq war, and have struggled to recover.

When Wolfgang Schäuble, Ms Merkel's foreign policy adviser, visited Washington recently, he received red-carpet treatment, including 45 minutes of "face time" with President George Bush. "We are interested in a strong United States and in American leadership," Mr Schäuble said afterwards. "If we disagree, we will do so on a basis of partnership."

But although the CDU calls for a "new start" in US-German relations, Ms Merkel would be no pushover, said Katinka Barysch of the Centre for European Reform. "Merkel will go as far as she can but she can't go overboard. Public opinion is a factor and Bush is very unpopular in Germany. She may have to wait for a new US president."

Clear policy differences are likely to persist. German backing for the UN's international criminal court, for lifting the EU's arms embargo on China, and Ms Merkel's opposition to full EU membership talks with Turkey all potentially put her at odds with Washington.

Her anti-Turkish stance has gone down well in France where the reform-minded Mr Sarkozy hopes to win Ms Merkel's backing for his idea of an expanded core group of leading EU nations. In contrast, President Jacques Chirac will want to replicate the Franco-German axis that he forged with Mr Schröder on EU budget, agricultural, and multilateral policy issues.

Both men could be politely rebuffed, Ms Barysch suggested. "Merkel is less likely to cosy up to the French and will be closer to Blair and the UK on some issues ... It's about recovering Germany's traditional balancing function within Europe and in the transatlantic relationship. Germans like France, they like the social market, they admire its stand on Iraq. But she knows she has to disentangle herself from the French embrace."

Constanze Stelzenmüller, of the German Marshall Fund in Berlin, said Ms Merkel appeared receptive to British arguments about improved EU competitiveness and deregulation: "She has dropped rather heavy hints that she is sympathetic to CAP [common agricultural policy] reform. She may instinctively be more of an economic liberal than she cares to let on." But that did not mean she would suddenly adopt Mr Blair's way of thinking.

Ms Merkel's handling of Russia could prove to be her biggest foreign policy test. She assured President Vladimir Putin last week that their partnership would be "an important priority". That seems realistic, given Germany's reliance on Russia for up to 40% of its oil and gas supplies. But the German right is critical of Moscow's human rights record and Ms Merkel has pledged to build bridges to Poland and the Baltic states.

Ms Stelzenmüller said: "She would like to reduce dependence on Russian energy. And she may be more ready to support democracy movements in Ukraine and Belarus. But it will have to be treated gingerly to ensure there is no blowback."

Like any aspiring leader, Ms Merkel will ultimately face hard choices. But rather than make dramatic foreign commitments during a tight election race, she is keeping her options open.

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Today in pictures


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Burma frees Aung San Suu Kyi

Pro-democracy leader greets supporters after release from house arrest by military junta
Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi greets supporters after her released from house arrest
Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi greets supporters after being released from house arrest. Photograph: Mizzima News/EPA

The Burmese military junta has released pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest. The Nobel laureate, who has been detained for 15 of the past 21 years, was greeted by jubilant crowds who had gathered in Rangoon in anticipation of her release.

The US president, Barack Obama, welcomed her release as "long overdue".

There were huge cheers as Aung San Suu Kyi emerged from the the lakeside compound, where she has been confined for the past seven years, and briefly addressed her supporters.

"If we work in unity, we will achieve our goal. We have a lot of things to do," she said.

She said she would speak at greater length tomorrow at the headquarters of her party, the National League for Democracy (NLD). Her lawyer Nyan Win said she would meet NLD leaders before deciding on her next move.

University Avenue, where Aung San Suu Kyi lives, and which has been blocked off for seven years, has been transformed into part-party, part-vigil after thousands flocked to the gate of the house. People were weeping openly at the news she had been released, cars were beeping horns and some people were dancing while others sat by her bamboo fence, singing and chanting, "Good health Aung San Suu Kyi".

Thousands of people wore T-shirts bearing her image and the words, "We stand with Aung San Suu Kyi". It is a T-shirt that would have landed them in jail a few weeks ago.

Meanwhile, the police, who are usually feared as the frontline of Burma's brutal security apparatus, have faced ridicule and ironic cheers, with two armed platoons, dressed in riot gear and carrying shotguns, standing to attention across the road for most of the afternoon.

Officers began moving the barricades from around the house at around 4.30pm (10.30am GMT). When they were finally given the order to leave, they were jeered all the way down the street.

Obama described the pro-democracy leader as a hero and called on Burma's military leaders to release all the regime's political prisoners.

"While the Burmese regime has gone to extraordinary lengths to isolate and silence Aung San Suu Kyi, she has continued her brave fight for democracy, peace, and change in Burma," he said.

"She is a hero of mine and a source of inspiration for all who work to advance basic human rights in Burma and around the world. The United States welcomes her long overdue release.

"Whether Aung San Suu Kyi is living in the prison of her house, or the prison of her country, does not change the fact that she, and the political opposition she represents, has been systematically silenced, incarcerated, and deprived of any opportunity to engage in political processes that could change Burma."

The prime minister, David Cameron, and former prime minister Gordon Brown welcomed the end of her detention.

Cameron said: "This is long overdue. Aung San Suu Kyi is an inspiration for all of us who believe in freedom of speech, democracy and human rights.

"Her detention was a travesty, designed only to silence the voice of the Burmese people. Freedom is Aung San Suu Kyi's right. The Burmese regime must now uphold it."

Brown said: "There will be joy round the world at the release of Aung San Suu Kyi, the world's most renowned and courageous prisoner of conscience.

"Her release proves that no injustice can last forever, and while Burma's junta can continue its policy of repression it has never been able to wholly silence her voice."

Amnesty International's secretary general, Salil Shetty, welcomed the release but cautioned that it should not been seen as a concession by the military junta.

"The fact remains that authorities should never have arrested her or the many other prisoners of conscience in Burma in the first place, locking them out of the political process."

He added that the authorities should ensure her security and "put an end to the ongoing injustice of political imprisonment in the country".

There are more than 2,200 political prisoners in Burma still held under vague laws frequently used to criminalise peaceful political dissent, according to human rights campaigners.

Zoya Phan, international co-ordinator at Burma Campaign UK, said: "The release of Aung San Suu Kyi is about public relations, not democratic reform.

"I am thrilled to see our democracy leader free at last, but the release is not part of any political process, instead it is designed to get positive publicity for the dictatorship after the blatant rigging of elections on 7 November.

"We must not forget the thousands of other political prisoners still suffering in Burma's jails."

It is not yet clear whether the junta has attached any conditions to Aung San Suu Kyi's release, but it is expected the government will attempt to impose some. During her previous brief spells of liberty, the military restricted where she could go, including confining her to Rangoon, and with whom she could meet.

It had been unclear if the ruling generals would respect the expiry of the detention order due to fears she would revive her fight against the dictatorship in one of the world's most oppressive nations.

Analysts said it was likely only the paramount leader, Senior General Than Shwe, and his closest allies knew the next steps for her.

With the 7 November election, the first in 20 years, out of the way and won by an army-backed party, the generals could seek some international legitimacy with her release. The charismatic daughter of the slain hero of Burma's campaign for independence from Britain has a huge international following.

Her release could be the first step towards a review of western sanctions on the resource-rich country, the largest in mainland south-east Asia. It could also divert attention from an election widely dismissed as a sham to cement military power under a facade of democracy.

"The regime needs to create some breathing space urgently," said a retired Burmese academic, who asked not to be identified. "Her release will help improve an image tarnished by electoral fraud."

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Sarkozy and Obama's Netanyahu gaffe broadcast via microphones

French president called Israeli PM a liar in exchange with US president inadvertently shared with journalists
French president Nicolas Sarkozy reportedly said he could not stand Binyamin Netanyahu
The French president Nicolas Sarkozy reportedly said he could not stand Binyamin Netanyahu. Photograph: Alfred/Witt/Sipa/Rex Features

The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, described the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, as a "liar" in a private exchange with Barack Obama at last week's G20 summit in Cannes that was inadvertently broadcast to journalists.

"I cannot stand him. He's a liar," Sarkozy told Obama. The US president responded by saying: "You're fed up with him? I have to deal with him every day."

Neither leader apparently realised that microphones that had been attached for a press conference had already been switched on, allowing journalists waiting for a press conference to hear the conversation.

The exchange was first reported on the French website Arrêt Sur Images, and was later confirmed by a Reuters reporter who also heard the remarks.

The gaffe came before a press conference while the two presidents were in a private room.

Arrêt Sur Images reported that while the two presidents were in private discussions in a closed room before their press conference, Élysée staff handed out translation sets to waiting journalists.

A staff member reportedly explained that the headphones to go with the translation sets were not yet being handed out because this would have allowed journalists to listen in on the private conversation still going on. Half a dozen journalists immediately plugged in their own headphones and caught three minutes of the private exchange.

The conversation apparently began with Obama criticising Sarkozy for not warning the US that France would vote in favour of the Palestinians' application to join Unesco, the United Nations agency for culture and education.

One French journalist told Arrêt Sur Images that the conversation was broadcast for around three minutes before officials realised the mistake. Another told the website that the reporters agreed not to publicise the remarks because of their sensitive nature.

The exchange was mentioned on a blog by Le Monde's political correspondent Arnaud Leparmentier, who said the two presidents had discussed their "difficult" relationship with Netanyahu behind closed doors.

Spokesmen for the Élysée and Netanyahu declined to comment.

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Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum battle for Ohio ahead of Super Tuesday – Thursday 1 March

Live coverage as GOP presidential candidates step up their campaigns in the runup to Super Tuesday
Mitt Romney in Ohio
Mitt Romney arrives at a campaign rally at in Toledo, Ohio. Photograph: Gerald Herbert/AP


text:
Marina Salye obituary

Russian democrat and implacable opponent of Putin
Marina Salye
Marina Salye first accused Putin of corruption in 1992, when he was working for the mayor's office in Leningrad. She went into hiding after he was elected president

The democratic politician Marina Salye, who has died aged 77, was a brave and implacable opponent of Vladimir Putin and a charismatic leader in St Petersburg during the perestroika years. She first accused Putin of corruption two decades ago. Weeks before her death she was again urging that Putin be tried for his misdeeds – addressing a new generation of pro-democracy protesters enraged by Putin's decision to return to the Kremlin.

Salye came from a distinguished St Petersburg family. Her great-great-grandfather was watchmaker to the tsar. A talented scientist, she became a doctor of geology and was a research scientist at Leningrad's institute of geology until 1990. She travelled across the Soviet Union, studying rocks — an occupation prudently removed from state politics and stifling official ideology.

In the late 1980s, when Mikhail Gorbachev embarked on a tentative experiment in political openness, glasnost, Salye emerged as the leader of a new and radical group of democratic activists. She became a prominent member of the Leningrad People's Front. In 1990 she was elected to the Congress of People's Deputies and to the Leningrad City Soviet, as the Communist party lost its monopoly on power.

Salye was given the thankless job of organising food supplies at a time when the Leningrad shops were bereft of goods. It was as the elected chair of the city's food commission that she first came across Putin. He had returned from his undercover KGB mission in East Germany and was working for Leningrad's new mayor, Anatoly Sobchak, as deputy for international relations.

Salye managed to stabilise the food situation. She introduced rationing and food coupons – a fraught step in a city with raw memories of starvation and the Nazis' wartime blockade. At the same time she travelled to Germany to secure badly needed imports of food. Once in Berlin, however, she was told that someone had beaten her to it: a mysterious order had come from St Petersburg city hall for 60 tonnes of meat.

In 1992, amid the whiff of municipal corruption, Salye was tasked with investigating what had happened. She found that Putin had entered into legally dubious contracts with obscure firms to export raw materials abroad in return for food. The contracts were awarded without tender. These raw materials – oil, timber, rare metals – were duly exported. But the food never turned up.

Salye and another city councillor, Yuri Gladkov, discovered conclusive proof that $92m handled by Putin's department had vanished. She had suspicions about another $900m of city money but was unable to prove them. After reviewing her evidence, the city council concluded the money had been stolen. The legislature urged Sobchak to dismiss Putin and his deputy Aleksandr Anikin. Sobchak, however, rejected this. Instead he abolished the city council.

By the mid-1990s Boris Yeltsin had dissolved parliament and had effectively abandoned grassroots democrats such as Salye, who became politically less active. She never forgot her investigation, though. In early 2000, prompted by Putin's candidacy for the presidency, and incensed by his own less-than-truthful statements about his role in the meat scandal, Salye decided to speak out. She penned an eloquent and insightful attack on Putin. She accused him of corruption and oligarchic practices.

Putin was elected despite her warnings and Salye went into hiding. She told Masha Gessen – the author and journalist who tracked her down a decade later – that someone had threatened her. (She never revealed who. This chilling encounter took place in the office of the State Duma deputy Sergei Yushenkov, murdered three years later. Gladkov, her co-investigator, also died after apparently being poisoned.) Rumours suggested that she had taken refuge in France. The story – apocryphal, it turned out – said that Putin had sent her a postcard with the message: "I wish you a Happy New Year and the health to enjoy it."

In reality, Salye was lying low in a remote village in the Pskov region of north-west Russia. She maintained her silence throughout Putin's two terms as president. In 2010, however, – a decade after Putin's Kremlin takeover and Sobchak's death – she began giving interviews again. Salye had kept her archive detailing the web of city hall corruption with Putin at its centre; she hid the papers at her rustic dacha home with its Russian flag, 12 hours' drive from Moscow.

Salye was one of Putin's earliest critics. But ironically, by the time she re-emerged into public life, hundreds of thousands of other Russians had grown fed up with Russia's authoritarian leader, taking to the streets in scenes reminiscent of turbulent perestroika years. Western journalists began seeking her out again. In a telegram read at her funeral, Gorbachev called her a "bright leader of our democratic movement" and "brave, principled and unyielding".

She made her last public appearance on 4 February at a rally in St Petersburg, just a month before Russia's presidential "election" saw an inevitable Putin victory. Addressing the crowds, she called for Putin to be tried for his crimes and urged the restoration of Russian democracy and a free media. The crowd shouted back: "Jail Putin!" A little short of breath, but still vigorous, lucid, and as uncompromising as ever, she shouted into the microphone: "Together we will win."

She is survived by two sisters, Natalya Mikhailova and Tatyana Salye.

Marina Yevgenyevna Salye, politician and activist, born 19 October 1934; died 21 March 2012

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Edward Snowden: what we know about the source behind the NSA files leak

His parents are divorced, he donated to Ron Paul, and his girlfriend has recently been contacted by NSA investigators
  • theguardian.com,
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Link to video: NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden: 'I don't want to live in a society that does these sort of things'

Edward Snowden never wanted to be in the spotlight. But his life will now be pored over and debated by a public curious to know the background – and motivations – of one of the explosive whistleblowers in modern US history.

So far, little has emerged about Snowden that has not already been supplied voluntarily by him.

When he identified himself as source of leaks to the Guardian on Sunday, Snowden spoke openly about his upbringing, education and work for the CIA and NSA, via defence contractors Booz Allen Hamilton and Dell.

He was also candid about his reasons for coming forward. "My sole motive is to inform the public as to that which is done in their name and that which is done against them," he said. "I can't in good conscience allow the US government to destroy privacy, internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine they're secretly building."

The 29-year-old, who will turn 30 next week, said he was "willing to sacrifice" a stable and successful life in order to leak the top-secret documents he feels shed light on the expansion of government surveillance.

His future is anyone's guess. He reportedly checked out of the Hong Kong hotel he was staying in at 12.30pm on Monday. A media pack has already descended on Hong Kong, desperate to track him down. In the longer term, Snowdon has said he plans to seek sanctuary, possibly in Iceland. New details about his past – the Edward Snowden before he was made famous – are hard to come by.

Unsurprisingly, given he was a passionate believer in privacy with knowledge of internet security, Snowden left little trace online. A full 24 hours after he came out of the shadows, there were only the barest details about his family. There were no interviews with high school associates, no new photographs, and no status updates from his Facebook or Twitter accounts, if indeed Snowden had any.

Snowden was born on 21 June 1983, raised in Wilmington, North Carolina, and later moved to Ellicott City, Maryland. His mother, Elizabeth Snowden, 52, still lives in the modest condominium the family once shared. She is known locally as Wendy and works as a chief deputy clerk in the federal courthouse in nearby Baltimore. CNN showed pictures of her outside her home on Monday, but she did not talk to waiting reporters.

The whistleblower's father, Lonnie Snowden, 52 – reportedly a former US coast guard officer who has since remarried and now lives in Pennsylvania – told ABC News he was still digesting the news but was concerned for his son.

The concern cuts both ways; in his interview with the Guardian, Edward Snowden said he was most worried about how his family would be treated. "The only thing I fear is the harmful effects on my family, who I won't be able to help any more," he said. "That's what keeps me up at night."

Public records offered some clues about Snowden's background. Campaign finance data indicated Snowden made two donations, each worth $250, to the campaign of Ron Paul, the staunch libertarian Republican.

It chimes with a picture that emerged of a man with strong political views; although Snowden said he believed in Obama's promises in 2008, he said he voted for a third party.

Other parts of Snowden's account – such as his claim to have tried to join elite special forces – were confirmed by official sources.

"His records indicate he enlisted in the army reserve as a special forces recruit (18X) on 7 May 2004 but was discharged 28 September 2004," said the US army's chief civilian spokesman, George Wright. "He did not complete any training or receive any awards."

Some details emerged on Monday about Snowden's girlfriend, with whom he shared, in his words, a "a very comfortable life" in Hawaii, until his disappearance less than three weeks ago. The TV show Inside Edition identified her as member of an acrobatic troupe based in Hawaii.

For the public, Snowden's relationship with her may turn out to be one of the more intriguing questions about his backstory. It is not known how long they were together or how they met.

The couple lived in a house blue house with a neat lawn in Eleu Street in Waipahu. Snowden said he was earning around $200,000. "We occasionally saw him as he was coming or going, or checking mail, or getting the garbage," a neighbour, Carolyn Tijing, told local station KITV. Others described Snowden as private.

They appear to have moved out of the property on 1 May. Century 21 real estate agent Kerri Jo Heim told the Associated Press the owner of the house wanted the couple out so that the home could be sold.

Snowden's girlfriend may have realised this was anything but an ordinary disappearance around the middle of last week, when she received her first visit from NSA officials, accompanied by police.

That inquiry may have been a matter of routine; protocol would have required the NSA to investigate any unexpected absence by a contracted employee working on top-secret security matters. It is not known whether at that stage Snowden had been identified as a possible suspect involved in leaking classified information.

Other members of Snowden's family were also contacted by the NSA last
week. Snowden's father told CNN that she had returned to the US
mainland to be with her family.

When he left Hawaii, Snowden told his girlfriend that he had to be away for a few weeks, though he was deliberately vague about the reason. "That is not an uncommon occurrence for someone who has spent the last decade working in the intelligence world," Snowden told the Guardian.

By then, he must have known that he knew he was never going back.

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Biosecurity Tip of the Month: Horses and Event Facilities

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Ahava London: Colin George of 'The Loft"

By Jonathan Hoffman
April 2, 2011

In the JC Colin George, manager of clothes shop The Loft, two shops away from Ahava, was quoted as follows: "I'm pleased Ahava is leaving. It's brought the street down. I've complained to the landlords, as has everyone here. Everyone would like them to leave. I wish they had left two years ago. Protesters are just going to follow them around, wherever they go. Maybe they should be an online business instead."

During today's successful counter-demo I went to see him to discuss what seemed to be a pretty outrageous stance. He insisted he was misquoted and that his words were twisted. "I want Ahava to stay" he said. "I buy their products and the staff could not be nicer. I have never had a problem with Ahava."

Go figure ...

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Battling the ache of loneliness

By Nicola Loftus, April 25, 2014

Can I introduce you to Harry? You would love him. He has bright blue twinkling eyes and a mischievous smile.

Michael Mather scares off robbers

By Jennifer Lipman, May 24, 2012

Michael Mather last boxed during his RAF service in the mid-1950s. But the Redbridge pensioner showed a pair of would-be thieves that he could still pack a punch.

The 77-year-old was outside his Clayhall home when two teenage boys wearing hoodies approached him, asking whether they could use his toilet. When he refused, they attempted to force their way in.


text:
Fracking Not The Answer To Energy Security

Special To The Jewish Week

Energy companies are bombarding us with television commercials that claim hydrofracking, the controversial form of drilling for natural gas, should be allowed in New York State to increase America’s energy security.

Four Jewish Dems Keep, Earn Top House Committee Slots

Levin of Michigan keeps spot at Ways and Means; Lowey takes lead at Appropriations.

Four Jewish Democrats kept or earned top slots on U.S. House of Representatives committees.

Congresswoman Nita Lowey is taking the top spot at the House's Appropriations Committee. Getty Images

Egypt Again Halts Gas Supply to Israel Following Explosion

.JERUSALEM (JTA) -- Egypt has again shut off its gas supply to Israel following an explosion on its pipeline in the Sinai.

The explosion early Wednesday morning rocked the area and caused 65-foot flames, according to reports.

While Egyptian officials would not speculate on the cause of the blast, a security source told Reuters that an unidentified armed gang attacked the pipeline.

Jewish Groups Fight Repeal of Clean Energy Law in Calif.

(JTA) -- A coalition of Jewish organizations in California is waging a campaign against a ballot proposition they say would hurt efforts to wean the United States off foreign oil.

Proposition 23 effectively would repeal the Global Warming Solutions Act, a California law that established a timetable to bring the state in line with environmental standards set in the Kyoto Protocol. While the United States is not party to that treaty, California has sought to go beyond U.S. requirements and reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2020.

Area Shuls Begin Levying Fuel Taxes

Staff Writer
New York area rabbis are praying for a warm winter. With heating oil and natural gas prices up about 60 percent over last winter, some area synagogues are now imposing fuel surcharges on members, increasing dues and consolidating events in order to close their buildings and lower the heat a few nights each week. And the annual Kol Nidre appeal — used in the past to raise money for new programs — will now be used by some synagogue presidents to solicit donations to keep the lights and heat on.
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The Lancet, Volume 359, Issue 9317, Pages 1541 - 1549, 4 May 2002
doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(02)08512-4Cite or Link Using DOI

Maintenance infliximab for Crohn's disease: the ACCENT I randomised trial

Dr. Stephen B Hanauer MD a Corresponding AuthorEmail Address, Brian G Feagan MD b, Gary R Lichtenstein MD c, Lloyd F Mayer MD d, S Schreiber MD e, Jean Frederic Colombel MD f, Daniel Rachmilewitz MD g, Douglas C Wolf MD h, Allan Olson MD i, Weihang Bao PhD i, Paul Rutgeerts MD j, the ACCENT I Study Group
Members listed at end of paper

We did a randomised controlled trial to assess the benefit of maintenance infliximab therapy in patients with active Crohn's disease who respond to a single infusion of infliximab.

573 patients with a score of at least 220 on the Crohn's disease activity index (CDAI) received a 5 mg/kg intravenous infusion of infliximab at week 0. After assessment of response at week 2, patients were randomly assigned repeat infusions of placebo at weeks 2 and 6 and then every 8 weeks thereafter until week 46 (group I), repeat infusions of 5 mg/kg infliximab at the same timepoints (group II), or 5 mg/kg infliximab at weeks 2 and 6 followed by 10 mg/kg (group III). The prespecified co-primary endpoints were the proportion of patients who responded at week 2 and were in remission (CDAI <150) at week 30 and the time to loss of response up to week 54 in patients who responded. Analyses of the co-primary endpoints were by intention to treat.

335 (58%) patients responded to a single infusion of infliximab within 2 weeks. At week 30, 23 of 110 (21%) group I patients were in remission, compared with 44 of 113 (39%) group II (p=0·003) and 50 of 112 (45%) group III (p=0·0002) patients. Thus, patients in groups II and III combined were more likely to sustain clinical remission than patients in group I (odds ratio 2·7, 95% Cl 1·6—4·6). Throughout the 54-week trial, the median time to loss of response was 38 weeks (IQR 15 to >54) and more than 54 weeks (21 to >54) for groups II and III, respectively, compared with 19 weeks (10—45) for group I (p=0·002 and p=0·0002, respectively). Infliximab safety was consistent with that seen in other trials of infliximab in Crohn's disease and rheumatoid arthritis. In particular, the incidence of serious infections was similar across treatment groups.

Patients with Crohn's disease who respond to an initial dose of infliximab are more likely to be in remission at weeks 30 and 54, to discontinue corticosteroids, and to maintain their response for a longer period of time, if infliximab treatment is maintained every 8 weeks.
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a Department of Gastroenterology and Nutrition, University of Chicago Medical Center, Chicago, IL, USA
b London Health Sciences Center, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada
c Department of Gastroenterology, Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA
d Department of Clinical Immunology, Mount Sinai Medical Center, New York, NY, USA
e Klinikum der Christian-Albrechs-Universität, Kiel, Germany
f Hôpital Claude Huriez, CHU de Lille, Lille, France
g Division of Medicine, Tel-Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, Tel Aviv, Israel
h Atlanta Gastroenterology Associates, Atlanta, GA, USA
i Centocor, Malvern, PA, USA
j Afdeling Gastroenterologie, Universitair Ziekenhuis Gasthuisberg, Leuven, Belgium
Corresponding Author Information Correspondence to: Dr Stephen B Hanauer, University of Chicago Medical Center, Gastroenterology and Nutrition, 5758 S Maryland Avenue, MC-9028, Chicago, IL 60637, USA
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