Sell Watches To You

They might have been lifted from the most ghoulish of horror films: more than 200,000 jars containing more than a million snakes, monster frogs, bats, stunted fish, outlandish lizards and serpents, all garishly illuminated on nearly eight miles of theatrically back-lit shelving.

The spectacular display, which uses some 21,600 gallons of alcohol, is the world's biggest, most sophisticated collection of so-called "wet species", comprised of rare reptile specimens collected across the globe in the past 200 years. Visitors to Berlin's natural history museum are able to pass through an elaborately constructed climatised air lock at the 200-year-old research institute and enter a vast darkened chamber where the alcohol-preserved reptiles have gone on permanent public display to the public for the first time.

Yet inside the magical "wet" collection room, it was crowds of delighted rather than frightened children that were pressing their noses against huge illuminated glass walls that seemed to be stuffed with creatures taken straight from Alice in Wonderland.

"In museum terms, this is like a Phoenix rising from the ashes," said Andreas Kunkel, a spokesman for the museum, which was inspired by the research conducted by the German explorer Alexander von Humboldt two centuries ago. "After a break lasting all of 65 years, we are back in business," he said. The exhibition is the high point of what amounts to the rebirth of Berlin's once-legendary natural history museum. It is now aiming to resume its place among the world's foremost after undergoing a comprehensive €30m (£25m) restoration programme.

Its collection includes the world's largest dinosaur skeleton, 25 million mammals, fish and insects, and birds, now extinct, collected during Captain Cook's voyages, and the institution once rated alongside its counterparts in London and Paris in terms of global scientific importance. It was formally opened by the last Imperial Kaiser, Wilhelm II, in 1889 and was designed to put German natural science firmly on the map.

However in 1945, an Allied air raid reduced the east wing of the turn-of-the-century building in Berlin's Invalidenstrasse to a blackened ruin. During the Cold War, the museum was deprived of cash as it was located in the communist-run sector of Berlin, firmly ensconced behind the city's infamous Wall. "The museum was left badly neglected," Mr Kunkel said. "Almost nothing was done to it for over six decades."

As little as eight years ago, trees were growing out of sections of the bomb-damaged building. Its priceless collections of stuffed birds and mammals were so badly affected by the lack of a modern climate-control system that the skin and feathers were drying up, splitting and falling off the exhibits. "It is not nice for the visitors," complained the museum's director at the time.

Chronic underfunding meant that staff were unable to open, let alone catalogue, the museum's 250 tons of prehistoric skeletal specimens that were brought back to Berlin from the largest single dinosaur excavation on record, which took place in 1913 in German East Africa. In winter, museum researchers had to wear thick coats if they wanted to examine specimens. Heating was banned because it meant the alcohol containing the reptiles would evaporate too quickly.

The museum's plight prompted natural history professors from Britain, the United States, France, Switzerland and Denmark to publicise an appeal in 2002 for the equivalent of an initial £6.4m to help to rescue the building.

They pointed out its collections were "part of a national and international cultural heritage" and concluded that the museum was "dangerously underfunded". However, the suggestion that the Berlin museum should bid for sponsorship – as its London counterpart did for its popular Darwin Centre – was not taken up. Instead, the museum became mired in bureaucratic wrangling between Germany's federal government and the then government of the bankrupt capital, Berlin, which faced £31bn worth of debts.

Yet salvation arrived last year, when the museum was finally classified as one of the country's acclaimed Leibniz scientific research institutes, funded jointly by regional and central government.

The new money has allowed the purchase of sonar-type equipment which enables researchers to examine the contents of hundreds of bamboo crates packed with dinosaur bones that have remained unopened since they were brought by ship nearly a century ago.

Specimens such as a finely penned 16th-century specimen log book and a sea-foam-coloured antique cabinet full of rare corals have been restored. And items with a darker history, such as a doe-eyed panda that Hermann Göring, the Nazi air chief, ordered stuffed for Berlin's 1935 "hunting exhibition", are also on display. Even the remains of a stuffed Vasa parrot called Jacob – the favourite pet of Alexander von Humboldt, the founder of modern geography – are there.

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Swedish police evacuated a Pakistan International Airlines plane that was diverted to Stockholm because of a bomb alert today, and detained a passenger on suspicion of preparing to sabotage the aircraft, officials said.

The Boeing 777 was travelling from Toronto to Karachi when the pilot asked to land at Stockholm's Arlanda airport, after Canadian authorities received a tip that a passenger was carrying explosives. Arlanda spokesman Anders Bredfell said 273 people were on board.

A Swat team detained the suspect as he was evacuated from the aircraft along with the other passengers. Police described him as a Canadian citizen of Pakistani origin, aged about 30.

Stephan Radman, who led the police operation, said no explosives were found on the man, who was being questioned by investigators at a police station. He said a bomb squad was searching the aircraft, which was parked on a ramp at the end of a runway.

The tip was "called in by a woman in Canada", Radman said, adding that Swedish police took the threat seriously.

Police officials said the man was not on any international no-fly lists and had cleared a security check in Canada. He didn't resist when the Swat team took him into custody.

A prosecutor was to decide whether to formally arrest him.

In Pakistan, a spokesman for state-run Pakistan International Airlines confirmed the incident involved flight PK782 to Karachi.

"The plane has landed at the Stockholm airport due to security reasons," the airline spokesman Sultan Hassan said.

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It is a long way from Liverpool, but New York was not the escape Nick Clegg might have hoped for. First he had to perform Vince Cable damage control before speeding to a New York University town hall event to tell of strange things going on in Britain: opposing parties talking to each, governing together even.

All that was before most of Manhattan had had breakfast. Only much later was the Deputy Prime Minister released into the baffling maze of the United Nations to tell other people about other strange things going on in Britain: an austerity government willing, nay eager, to increase spending on aid abroad.

Mr Clegg might make a decent American politician – he has the town hall format down pat and some say he wasn't bad in the election leaders' debates. On the other hand, he wouldn't last five minutes here on account of his frankness about the lapses of the country he co-governs. Not patriotic enough.

There is, Mr Clegg told NYU, much "uncivilised and irrational debate" going on in Parliament "every day". The way in which power is centralised in Britain "beggars belief", and voters at home are burdened with a political system that is "creaky and clapped out". With good old English irony, he also quipped: "Personally, I like democracy. I think we should start practising it in the United Kingdom."

The discussion, of course, was about the voting reform to be put to a referendum next year. But the students were gripped most by this notion that rival parties can co-operate. The language of "someone's up and someone's down" is giving way, he said, to a "more complex idiom where people are open to all kinds of difference and are grown-up about the differences".

His argument that sustaining Britain's commitment to foreign development aid is about "enlightened self-interest" – his most frequently uttered phrase of the day – was uncontroversial at NYU, at least. Some at the UN, who have not matched their rhetoric on the Millennium Development Goals with cash, might think "pious" while smiling and shaking his hand.

What left the students puzzled, perhaps, was his analysis of shifts occurring in politics not just in Britain but everywhere. Whether he cheered or scared them was hard to tell. But the old status quo, he said, is crumbling. "Something seems to be going on in political democracies and we don't where it is going to evolve," he offered. "The old tribalism is collapsing. All democracies are dealing with this."

If old orders are indeed on their way out, whither Democrats and Republicans? Is America ready for its duopoly of political power finally to falter? Could an independent rule the country, say, with a Tea Party deputy leader or the other way about? Mr Clegg may have just suggested a ticket for 2012: Bloomberg-O'Donnell. Those crazy, naive British. Don't be fooled by this clean-cut leader comes here all sane, sensible and "grown-up". Unhinged.

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Barack Obama inherited both the war in Afghanistan and the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Now he tells critics, somewhat late in the day, that a Republican president's response to resurgent Taliban and bankrupt bankers would have been worse. True, but that does not mean that his response to both – a troop surge in Afghanistan and an inadequate stimulus package – were the right ones. It does, however, mean his ownership has been indisputably stamped on each of the worst legacies of the Bush era. Telling left-wingers to get real is beside the point. Obama first has to prove that these policies work, first and foremost because they are now his.

The task of winning back a growing band of sceptics is complicated – not least by the actions and words of his own administration. Doubtless all left for different reasons, but the fact remains that, with the departure of Larry Summers, his top three economic advisers have now quit in the runup to midterm elections in which the handling of the economic crisis will be the hot-button issue. In these circumstances, few are going to be wholly convinced by the formula that the best and the brightest left to spend more time with family, or with Harvard. So is it right to see this administration in the terms in which it describes itself – as a team that evolves over time – or as it is described by others, as an executive that finds big decisions difficult and makes them only after much blood has been split on the Oval Office carpet?

On Afghanistan, the apparent dissension matters. Bob Woodward's account of the internal debate that led to the troop surge is in many respects too contemporaneous for its own good. It has been just over a month since the last of those 30,000 troops were deployed, and it is only three months until the review of that decision has to take place. Yet we hear that Obama wants out of Afghanistan at all costs ("I am not doing long-term nation-building"); that David Petraeus, since appointed the commander of ISAF, says that the US will be in the fight for the rest of his life and probably his children's; and that they think that Hamid Karzai, the bearing on which the whole creaky wheel turns, is a manic depressive.

How much more difficult will it be for Obama when he has to stand up, some time before July 2011, and say the US is in Afghanistan for the long run? His only hope is that, by next July, the tide will have turned sufficiently for Gen Petraeus to say that counter-insurgency is working. Failing that, a recalcitrant president will have been drawn ever deeper into a war he does not believe in, and which he cannot get out of. He would have been better off trusting his instincts.

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In future years, 2010 may be remembered as the landmark year healthcare was finally secured for all Americans. It may be remembered for the most sweeping reforms of Wall Street ever. It may even be remembered for sweeping Democratic losses in congress.

But for now, 2010 is, hands down, the year of the Tea Party.

Democrats' reaction to victories of Republican Tea Party candidates, culminating in last Tuesday's primaries has been one of shocked delight. Did Republican voters really elect candidates who believe masturabtion will earn you box seats in hell, have "dabbled into witchcraft", want to abolish state education, would allow discrimination on the basis of race, want to ship welfare recipients to prison and believe that "healthcare will kill more people than terrorism?

Democrats have found it hard to temper their public delight at the hickjacking of their opponents' candidates, making the calculus that it will temper their impending disaster at the November elections. That's possible, but unlikely. The house of representatives is all but gone. The senate remains in Democrats' tenuous grasp.

But take the slightly bigger picture. If Republicans make the gains they're likely to, we're looking at two years of gridlock that can only benefit the president who will do what he does best – play mediator, speak with a voice of reason and be a calming influence in the polarised and chaotic Washington of the next two years. This, combined with the Palin factor – forcing primary Republican presidential challengers to veer violently to the right – will improve Obama's chances of re-election in 2012.

Yet, this still misses the greater point.

The Republican "tent" is straining: witness the cannibalism already taking place this weekend, with Karl Rove attacking the tea partiers, with moderate senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska announcing a "write-in" campaign against her extremist opponent Joe Miller (the guy that says unemployment benefits are unconsititutional).

The Republican party is already already severely divided. And this isn't temporary. On one side, the nationally electable socially moderate (and fiscally conservative) candidates like Mitt Romney. On the other side, Sarah Palin and associates. Enough said. Remonstrations are already rife in the party. Expect that to accelerate.

As America – admittedly, slowly – becomes more socially moderate (see polls on greater acceptance of gay rights, belief in healthcare, etc), Republican leaders in Washington are doing their best to portray an inclusive party. Many in the Republican camp are on board with the moderate strategy (see Ken Mehlman – Bush's chief strategist's – call for acceptance of gay rights, or Karl Rove's repudiation of the Tea Party).

It's tempting to compare the Republican party to the British Conversative party of the late 1990s: at war with itself; unsure of its identity; fundamentally torn by the issue of Europe and forced into being the party of "no" (remember William Hague's "Five days left to save the pound" campaign?). The answer for the Conservatives was to modernise, tack to the middle and embrace social change. They were able to do so not least because of the ageing population of the most rightwing elements.

Americans Republicans don't have that luxury. Tea Partiers aren't dying out. Their extremism is sustained, in part, by thriving Christian fundamentalism. They're here to stay. And they're here to be vocal.

And so the inevitable conclusion? A Republican party that either is doomed to represent an extremist vocal minority, or – more likely – a schism in the party. It's doubtful that will take place anytime soon. It will take a series of disasters to prompt change. But the cracks in the party are widening. They will become chasms, especially as the country moves on.

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The police officer blinded by gunman Raoul Moat has revealed he is fighting the Government after being awarded £18.95-a-week mobility allowance.

Pc David Rathband said it was "somehow not fair" that he had been awarded the lowest band for his disability living allowance.

The 42-year-old Northumbria Police officer lost sight in both eyes after he was blasted while sitting unarmed in a patrol car on an A1 roundabout on July 4.

He wrote on Twitter: "Now ready for battle with the DHSS. Been awarded lowest band for mobility. Somehow not fair."

After receiving messages of support over his plight, he added: "Thank you for all the words of support, each one makes me stronger to keep up the battle. It's easy to remove the dark days with your support."

Home Secretary Theresa May has twice written to the officer and invited him to the House of Commons.

Pc Rathband likened the shooting to having his "head inside a tin can with the biggest firework you can imagine. It was absolutely unbearable".

But he has insisted he has "no malice towards the man who shot me".

Disability living allowance, a tax-free benefit for disabled children and adults needing care, is in two parts - care and mobility.

Pc Rathband is understood to be receiving a higher band for care.

A Department for Work and Pensions spokesman said: "We are indebted to Pc Rathband for his bravery and we want to ensure he receives all the benefits he is entitled to.

"For those who require frequent care and supervision, the highest rate of the care component of disability living allowance is awarded to meet their care needs."

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The Tea Party delivered fresh shocks to the Republican establishment in a series of primary elections that highlighted the apparent civil war being waged among US conservatives.

The grassroots movement backed by Sarah Palin pulled off a dramatic coup in Delaware and New York and ran a close second in another bitterly fought election in New Hampshire. The upheaval could damage Republican hopes of taking the US Senate from the Democrats in November's mid-term elections.

Tim Kaine, the Democratic party chairman, in an NBC interview, said the victories were a sign of the battle raging in the Republican party. "That creates opportunities for us," he said.

Although the Democrats are on course for their biggest election drubbing since 1994 in November's Senate, House and gubernatorial elections, the Republican party infighting could prove costly, denying it vital seats to win the Senate.

The biggest of the surprises was Christine O'Donnell, the Tea Party-backed candidate in Delaware, who beat the Republican establishment candidate, Mike Castle, a party veteran and former governor. She won with 53% of the vote against Castle's 47%, and will be the Republican nominee in the US Senate race.

Her win comes on top of a series of Tea Party scalps dating back to Republican Scott Brown's win in January to take the late Ted Kennedy's former Massachusetts seat. Since then, they have won primaries across the country, including Kentucky, Florida, South Carolina, Utah and Alaska, shifting the Republicans to the right.

Although Brown is a moderate, the Tea Party candidates in these other states are further to the right. The Tea Party, a populist movement that believes the Republican party has shifted to the left, is intent on infiltrating the party in what amounts to a takeover bid.

Almost as unlikely a win for the Tea Party as O'Donnell's was that of Carl Paladino for the Republican nomination for the governor's race in New York who won 62% of the vote. Few pundits had suggested that the political novice would beat the former congressman Rick Lazio, a Republican establishment candidate. Paladino will face the Democrat, Andrew Cuomo, in November.

Paladino, a multimillionaire, is a controversial figure who has supported turning prisons into places where those on welfare can attend hygiene classes and has reportedly emailed images containing racist jokes to his friends.

In his victory speech, Paladino, a first-time candidate who was accompanied on the campaign trail by a pitbull terrier called Duke, said: "New Yorkers are fed up. Tonight the ruling class knows. They have seen it now. There is a people's revolution. The people have had enough."

The Tea Party reflects public anger, at least among conservatives, over Barack Obama, who is seen as a socialist, particularly over the billions of dollars spent trying to stimulate the economy.

In New Hampshire, another Tea Party-supported outsider was engaged in a tight race with the Republican establishment favourite in the battle to represent the party in the Senate race. Kelly Ayotte narrowly beat the Tea Party's Ovide Lamontagne, who was described by the Democrats as "extreme" and who opposes same-sex marriages.

The contests on Tuesday marked the end of a series of bitterly fought battles, full of surprises, that have been going on for months. With almost all the candidates chosen, the focus shifts to November's elections.

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The three issues which could make or break the remainder of Nicolas Sarkozy's presidency – pension reform; sleaze allegations and his campaign against Roma migrants – threaten to coalesce explosively in protest marches all over France tomorrow.

French ministers drew comfort from the relatively tame pro-Roma demonstrations on Saturday, led by celebrities including the British-born singer and actress Jane Birkin. The Immigration Minister, Eric Besson, dismissed the modestly supported protests as the work of leftists and "ill-informed, millionaire socialists".

But hundreds of thousands of people from across French society are expected to join protests against Mr Sarkozy's plans to raise the pension age from 60 to 62 in a day of strikes and marches called by trade unions tomorrow.

The demonstrations are, in theory, aimed at the plans for radical pension reform, which are opposed by two-thirds of French people. But union leaders believe Mr Sarkozy's weakness in the polls, and anger on the Left at his crackdown on Roma migrants will help to generate one of the largest protests of his presidency.

Allegations of illegal financing of Mr Sarkozy's 2007 presidential campaign have given unions another windfall. The man at the centre of the allegations, the Employment Minister, Eric Woerth, is also spearheading the proposals for pension reform.

Mr Woerth, who refused to stand down despite new revelations last week, is likely to be the joint butt, with Mr Sarkozy, of slogans and effigies at tomorrow's marches. He is accused of, among other things, soliciting illegal campaign funds – and a job for his wife – from France's wealthiest woman, L'Oréal heiress Liliane Bettencourt. The unions could hardly ask for a better symbol of their allegation that Mr Sarkozy governs for the wealthy.

Mr Sarkozy has said that reform of the state pension system – and a standard pensionable age of 62 – will be one of the achievements on which he runs for a second term in 2012. His chief of staff at the Elysée Palace, Claude Guéant, said yesterday that the government would put forward proposals this week to soften the impact of the reforms but insisted that the main lines were not negotiable.

Significantly, however, Mr Guéant – regarded by many as the de facto second most powerful man in France – went out of his way to say that Mr Sarkozy was "absolutely not a president of the rich".

The strength of tomorrow's protests will show whether or not the unions have the momentum for a long "winter of discontent" like the strikes and protests which destroyed president Jacques Chirac's more modest attempt at pension reform in 1995. The Elysée is anxious to avoid any spill-over – or coalition of anti-Sarkozy feeling – between the pension and Roma issues.

Several ministers took delight in playing down Saturday's pro-Roma demonstrations in Paris and scores of other French towns (and outside French embassies in several EU capitals). A march through Paris, led by a Roma orchestra, attracted 50,000 supporters according to the organisers (12,000 said the police).

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