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A&E doctors want pubs and clubs to stop serving alcohol in glasses to reduce the number of people attacked with them as weapons. Up to 300 people a week are believed to be "glassed" in pub brawls.

Medical organisations want licensed premises to use tumblers made of a shatter-proof plastic called polycarbonate glassware. Trials in Hull and Lancashire have shown the switch reduces the number of serious facial and neck injuries, that can sometimes be fatal.

The A&E doctors, together with the Royal College of Surgeons of England and the British Medical Association, support the change. A glass is the most common weapon in fights in pubs and bars. Football grounds were banned from selling alcohol in glass containers some years ago.

Since the introduction of the trial in Hull in 2008, nobody has been injured because of "glassing" and the local NHS has saved £7.2m in eye surgery costs.

Research presented tomorrow at a conference in London on safety shows young people are happy to drink from plastic containers, whereas older drinkers prefer glass. "It's much easier to eliminate glass than knives. Young people don't mind plastic, but people over 40 prefer glass because, they say, it keeps the drink cooler, which is nonsense," said Alasdair Forsyth of the centre for study of violence at Glasgow Caledonian University.

John Heyworth, president of the College of Emergency Medicine, representing casualty doctors, said: "It would be a good first step to put these shatter-proof glasses into pubs and clubs which are known tobe associated with alcohol-related violence, and then move to all pubs and clubs; and for all drinks, including wine, not just beer.

"When a glass is used a weapon, it can damage arteries and major blood vessels around the face and neck and may endanger life. It often causes wounds which require extensive surgery and lead to lifelong disfigurements through scars around the eyes, mouth, nose and cheeks."

A BMA spokeswoman said: "We believe it is a good idea. We do not think it will necessarily decrease violence, but it should reduce the consequences of drunken brawls."

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A fresh US-led diplomatic effort was under way yesterday to rescue Israeli-Palestinian negotiations as construction resumed in some Jewish West Bank settlements after Israel's decision to end a 10-month moratorium on building. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas effectively gave US mediators at least a week to resolve the crisis by confirming that he would hold a series of consultations, culminating in an Arab League meeting called for next Monday, before deciding whether to pull out of the negotiations.

Speaking after meeting French President Nicolas Sarkozy in Paris, Mr Abbas told reporters: "We will not have any quick reactions. After this chain of meetings, we will be able to put out a position that clarifies the Palestinian and Arab opinion on this issue now that Israel has refused to freeze settlements."

US Presidential envoy George Mitchell will fly to the region this week in the hope of salvaging the talks, which Mr Abbas had earlier threatened to break off without an extension to the partial construction freeze. US State Department spokesman PJ Crowley acknowledged that Washington was "disappointed" by Israel's decision to halt the moratorium and said there were no Israeli-Palestinian negotiations "scheduled at this point". But he said the administration would be "in touch with the parties to see how we move ahead".

Work resumed in at least three settlements yesterday. In Adam, north of Jerusalem, a bulldozer cleared ground at a site earmarked for new housing while a single bulldozer flattened earth at another at Karme Tzur in the southern West Bank. In the large northern West Bank settlement of Ariel four construction vehicles began levelling rock and bushes on a plot planned for 100 new homes.

But the resumption was limited across the West Bank, not least because of the end of the partial freeze fell in the middle of the week-long Sukkot religious holiday in which many businesses are only partly functioning. Ironically, Palestinian building workers employed in settlement sites are in many cases unable to go to work because of the temporary closure of crossings ordered by the Israeli military during the holiday.

The significance of the 22-member Arab League meeting fixed for next Monday is that it will be with the same representatives of Arab states who in July voted to give Mr Abbas the backing to enter negotiations if and when he chose. Besides further weakening Mr Abbas's position, the Israeli Prime Minister's decision to halt the moratorium is another setback for the Middle East peace efforts of US President Barack Obama, who issued a high-profile call on Israel to prolong the freeze in his speech to the UN general assembly in New York last week.

Officials on all sides have been tight-lipped about details of the behind-the-scenes diplomatic efforts to salvage the talks. But Associated Press reported yesterday that Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak had proposed that he should have veto powers on each settlement building project. It was unclear, however, whether that would find favour with his more hawkish cabinet colleagues who might see it as a means of restoring the freeze in all but name.

Meanwhile, Khaled Meshal, Hamas's leader, made a surprise claim that only minor issues now stood in the way of reconciliation with Mr Abbas's Fatah faction. Hamas, which controls Gaza and has considerable support in the West Bank, has been excluded from talks with Israel and has threatened to undermine them with attacks like that which killed four settlers at the start of the month.

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It has been called the trial of the year – a murder blamed on a Brussels primary school teacher and amateur skydiver who prosecutors say killed a close friend and fellow parachutist after losing a contest for the affections of their instructor.

Els Clottemans, 26, is charged with murdering Els Van Doren, a 34-year-old married mother who plunged to her death in Flanders almost four years ago after someone sabotaged her parachute, snipping the strings and causing it and the emergency parachute to fail during a threesome sky dive.

A videocamera on Van Doren's gear filmed her desperate struggle as she tried to release her reserve parachute. The video ended as she landed in a suburban garden in eastern Belgium.

"The first question a family normally asks is whether the victim suffered, whether she knew what happened. We don't have to ask, it was filmed. Try to deal with that as a family," said Jef Vermassen, a lawyer for Van Doren's family.

Both women, according to police investigators, were having affairs with their Dutch skydiving teacher, Marcel Somers, with all three belonging to the Zwartberg parachute club in eastern Flanders. Jealousy, the prosecution maintains, was the motive for a coldly calculated killing.

When Somers spurned the younger woman for a night with Van Doren, the wife of a Flemish jeweller, Clottemans snipped the parachute strings and Van Doren jumped to her death a few days later, the 68-page chargesheet claims.

Defence lawyers dismissed the evidence as tittle-tattle and hearsay. Several friends from Clottemans's home village travelled several hours to Tongeren, north-west of Brussels, to offer her their support.

The prosecution case rests on establishing the dynamics of a love triangle between the instructor and the two women.

Clottemans was arrested within weeks of the death in November 2006 and questioned after police discovered the two affairs. A court psychiatrist who examined her reinforced the prosecution case by finding her to be psychopathic, narcissistic and manipulative.

Her lawyer, Vic Van Aelst, described this as nonsensetoday, noting that since being released on bail in 2008, Clottemans had completed teacher training and worked as a primary school teacher in the Brussels district of Anderlecht.

"There is no motive," he said. "There is talk of a passionate relationship between Clottemans and Marcel Somers. They are supposed to have been in love. But love was out of the question. There is no evidence at all, not the slightest indication of guilt. I believe Els Clottemans is innocent."

With the court in the Flemish town of Tongeren besieged by Belgian media for a case that has enthralled the country, the prosecution pleaded for quiet.

Vermassen said: "We need to keep calm in our statements during the trial and we ask the press to do the same."

That the women were having an affair with the same man is not contested. However, the intensity of the relationships and the motives for murder are disputed.

Clottemans has told investigators that she suffered from low self-esteem and entered the relationship knowing she was second-best. In a letter published in Belgian papers three years ago, she said: "I always knew I was number two for Marcel."

A few days before the death, the two women were said to have been competing for attention at the instructor's home. Clottemans was rejected, sent to a sleeping bag in the living room where Van Doren had left her parachute, according to the investigation. The straps and strings were cut. Clottemans knew how to do it.

A few days later 12 members of the club flew over Flanders, with the two women supposed to link hands with Somers and another man in a skydiving quartet. Clottemans jumped too late, on her own. Van Doren fell more than 1,000 metres to her death, her last frantic attempts to activate her parachutes filmed by the camera in her helmet.

There is scant forensic evidence to support the case against the school teacher, no DNA or fingerprints from the victim's skydiving kit.

The jury of seven men and five women have four weeks to hear 170 witnesses and make up their minds.

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The tide has turned globally against the introduction of genetically modified crops, Lord Melchett, the former director of Greenpeace and campaigner for organic farming and food, said yesterday.

Fifteen years ago, many governments thought GM crops and food would become the norm, but it has not happened because of rising public resistance around the world, and it will not happen, he said.

"This is a redundant technology and many people in Europe may be unaware of the extent of the resistance to GM in places like India and China, because they swallow the GM industry line that it is supported all across the world," he said. "I have to say that where we are now with GM leaves me feeling very optimistic."

Speaking at the Sustainable Planet forum in Lyon, France, he said GM technology, put forward by firms such as Monsanto, the US agribusiness giant and pesticide manufacturer, had achieved its initial success only "through secrecy", he said. Many aspects of it had been kept a secret from farmers and consumers, but once labelling of GM products began, public support collapsed. He cited the case of Monsanto's GM bovine growth hormone milk.

"America is where we're told GM is a huge success, and where everyone from farmers to consumers loves GM, but it's simply not true," he said. "If anybody tells you this, ask them, where is GM wheat? Monsanto had it ready to go but it was stopped by American farmers. Ask them, where is the GM version of alfalfa, the fourth most commonly grown crop in the world? American farmers went to court to stop it being commercialised," he told the conference, which is being co-sponsored by the French newspaper Libération, The Independent and La Repubblica from Italy.

Lord Melchett is now the policy director of the Soil Association, the organic farming and food campaigning body. An organic farmer himself, he has been one of Britain's most prominent anti-GM activists and in 1999, when head of Greenpeace, led a raid to trash a field of trial GM crops in Norfolk.

He and 27 other Greenpeace volunteers were arrested and charged with criminal damage, but acquitted by a jury after claiming that the damage they had prevented – potential contamination of non-GM crops by pollen from the GM trial – was greater than the damage they had caused.

In the Lyon forum yesterday, attended by thousands of people, Lord Melchett joined with a French anti-GM campaigner, Philippe Martin, to examine the question (perhaps reflecting French preoccupations) of whether it is possible now to have a menu with no GM items on it.

Mr Martin, a socialist MP and council leader from Le Gers, the south-western France department with the highest percentage of farmers in the country, began by saying there were four great existential questions: Who are we? Where do we come from? Where are we going? What's for dinner?

He said that, personally, he would not like a menu without confit de canard on it (his local regional speciality of preserved duck), but that was a matter of choice. He was concerned about cases where consumers might have no choice at all.

He hit out at the decision by the European Commission last July to authorise the import of six more GM strains of maize to be used for animal feed. Lord Melchett agreed, saying it was vital to label clearly milk and meat that came from animals fed on GM products. "There is a huge amount of GM soya fed to chickens, pigs and dairy cows, and you will eat it whether you want to or not," he said. "Simply to get these products labelled is a crucial battle."

Anti-GM demonstrators briefly disrupted a debate between two senior French politicians at yesterday's conference. They carried banners on to the stage at the Lyon opera house to protest against what they called the French government's "hypocritical" approach to genetically modified foods.

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The south African President Jacob Zuma tried yesterday, at a major policy conference of the ruling African National Congress, to mend strained relations with his trade union allies, but shied away from offering left-leaning policies that would secure his standing among his traditional backers.

Mr Zuma, who is striving to shore up his authority, rejected suggestions that his governing alliance with Cosatu, the trades union federation, is in trouble as he looks to re-election in 2014. But he failed to back calls from Cosatu to nationalise some mines in the world's biggest producer of platinum and the fourth-largest producer of gold, or to engineer a fall in the strong rand currency.

Mr Zuma, already seen by analysts as an ineffective leader, could leave the ANC's most important meetings in years in a weakened position if he fails to hold on to the old allies or to win over some new ones. He also has to be seen to rein in the ANC youth leader Julius Malema, who has threatened not to back him for second term in 2014.

Mr Zuma warned the Youth League, which is also pushing for the nationalisation of mines, to respect senior leaders. But Mr Malema brushed off the rebuke. "It is the responsibility of a parent to chastise a child," he said.

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Nick Clegg pleaded for Liberal Democrat activists to "stick with" him today after he suffered a major rebellion over key coalition school reforms.

Delivering his first party conference speech as Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Clegg mounted an impassioned defence of his decision to do a deal with David Cameron's Tories.

He said voters would never have taken the Lib Dems seriously again if they had passed up the opportunity to govern in the national interest at a time of crisis.

And he insisted the "soul" of the party was alive and well in the coalition despite members' fears that they were being marginalised and suffering serious political damage.

The address - a text of which was shown to the Prime Minister before being finalised - came after a difficult day for the leadership.

Just hours before Mr Clegg took to the stage in Liverpool, party members overwhelmingly backed a boycott of Tory-inspired plans for a network of "free" schools.

Attempts by the leadership to water down the criticism by removing claims that the policy would increase "social divisiveness and inequity" were resoundingly thrown out following a passionate debate in the packed hall.

Mr Clegg told the audience at the Arena and Convention Centre that he knew many of the coalition's plans would "provoke controversy" and some Lib Dems were "worried" about the schools plans.

"It wouldn't be Liberal Democrat conference if we didn't have a motion that provoked strong passions on both sides," he said.

"The great thing is that all Liberal Democrats share a passion for education. When it comes to lasting fairness, education is everything.

"So I want to be really clear about what the Government is proposing. It's not Labour's academies programme: a few schools singled out for preferential treatment - a cuckoo in the nest that eats up attention and resources."

He went on: "My vision is that every school, in time, will be equal, every school equally free. But there's one freedom new schools shouldn't have: freedom to select."

Mr Clegg reiterated his reasons for forging the Tory alliance, saying the "chance for change" came, and the Lib Dems "responded with real courage and conviction". He praised the Conservatives for being willing to "embrace negotiation and compromise".

"Cynics expected us to back away. Instead, we confounded those who said that coalition Government was impossible. We created a Government which will govern, and govern well, for the next five years," the Deputy Prime Minister said.

"Hold our nerve and we will have changed British politics for good. Hold our nerve and we will have changed Britain for good."

The coalition was the "politics our nation needs today", he said.

"In life, two heads are usually better than one. And in politics, too, when the country faces grave challenges - the deficit, the threat of climate change, a war in Afghanistan, millions of children trapped in disadvantage - two parties acting together can be braver, fairer and bolder than one party acting alone."

Mr Clegg told Lib Dem members that their long-standing desire for fundamental reform of the UK's electoral system was now within reach - and also had an apparent dig at Mr Cameron for repeatedly warning before the general election that a hung parliament would be disastrous.

"Never again will anyone be able to frighten the voters by claiming that coalition Government doesn't work," the party leader said.

"Liberal, plural politics will feel natural; the sane response to a complex and fast-changing world. Just imagine how different our country will be."

He highlighted a list of long-term Lib Dem goals that the coalition was already implementing, saying it had "ended the injustice of the richest paying less tax on investments" and "guaranteed older people a decent increase in their pension".

Legislation that was "illiberal and intrusive" was being rolled back, a bank levy introduced, and 900,000 low earners are being taken out of income tax altogether.

"In May, the people of Britain will get to choose their own voting system," Mr Clegg said. "And this time next year, there will be a pupil premium so the children who need the most help get the most help."

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Strikes by about 200,000 Cambodian textile workers – mainly women – in the capital Phnom Penh and the provinces, in protest over low wages, were suspended after three days last week.

The action followed the announcement in July that the minimum wage for workers in the garment and footwear industry would rise from $50 to $61 a month. The level of the rise outraged trade unions, prompting demands for $93 a month.

Last week's industrial action ended peacefully, but strikers threatened to further action if their demands were not met. "We are not demanding a minimum wage, we want a living wage," said Ath Thorn and Kong Athit, of the Cambodian Labour Confederation.

Their demands are supported by a study published last year by the economist and head of the Cambodian Development Institute Kang Chandararot. He said garment workers could only make a living by doing overtime so were closely dependent on the economic climate. He proposed a viable minimum wage of $90.

Cambodia was hard hit by the international crisis in 2008. Textile exports to the US and Europe, the country's main markets, fell by 23% in 2009. More than 90 factories, often owned by Chinese or Taiwanese operators, closed, laying off about 60,000 workers out of a total of 345,000 in the trade. Conditions in the first half of 2010 have improved, with a 7% increase in exports, but business is still far below its level three years ago. Above all there is still no overtime, prompting the massive strike turnout.

"New demands are surfacing now, after two relatively quiet years, because the worst of the crisis is past and exports are picking up," said Jean-Raphaël Chaponnière, an economist at France's Development Agency (AFD).

François-Marie Grau, the General Secretary of the Women's Clothing Federation in Paris, endorses this view. "What is happening in Cambodia is symptomatic of widespread upward pressure on manufacturing costs all over Asia. The region is enjoying powerful growth so workers are putting pressure on their employers," he said.

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A United Nations panel of human rights experts has accused Israel of war crimes through willful killing, unnecessary brutality and torture in its "clearly unlawful" assault on a ship attempting to break the blockade of Gaza in May in which nine Turkish activists died.

The report by three experts appointed by the UN's Human Rights Council (UNHRC) described the seizure of MV Mavi Marmara, a Turkish vessel, by Israeli commandos as illegal under international law.

It condemned the treatment of the passengers and crew as brutal and disproportionate. It also said that the Israeli blockade of the Palestinian enclave is illegal because of the scale of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

"There is clear evidence to support prosecutions of the following crimes within the terms of article 147 of the fourth Geneva convention: wilful killing; torture or inhuman treatment; wilfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health," the report said.

"A series of violations of international law, including international humanitarian and human rights law, were committed by the Israeli forces during the interception of the flotilla and during the detention of passengers in Israel prior to deportation."

Israel swiftly dismissed the accusations as "politicised and extremist". But the report is likely to be welcomed by Turkey which has dramatically cooled once-close relations with the Jewish state since the attack on the ship.

The 56-page report – compiled by a former UN war crimes prosecutor, Desmond de Silva, a judge from Trinidad, Karl Hudson-Phillips, and a Malaysian women's rights advocate, Mary Shanthi Dairiam – accuses Israeli forces of various crimes including violating the right to life, liberty and freedom of expression, and of failing to treat the captured crew and passengers with humanity.

"The conduct of the Israeli military and other personnel toward the flotilla passengers was not only disproportionate to the occasion but demonstrated levels of totally unnecessary and incredible violence. It betrayed an unacceptable level of brutality," the report said.

The UN security council is expected to debate the findings on Monday.

The report does not have any legal force and the UN human rights council, which has been accused of a disproportionate focus on Israel, is viewed with scepticism by many western countries because it is dominated by the developing world.

But the report will be a further severe embarrassment to Israel after the assault on the ships brought widespread international condemnation even by generally sympathetic countries and breached relations with Turkey.

Israel, which refused to co-operate with the inquiry, said the report is biased.

"The Human Rights Council blamed Israel prior to the investigation and it is no surprise that they condemn after," said Andy David, a spokesman for the Israeli foreign ministry.

Israel has claimed that its troops only resorted to force and opened fire after coming under attack by activists with metal bars, axes and wooden clubs. The pro-Palestinian activists said they were defending the ship from what amounted to a pirate attack on a vessel in international waters.

The raid prompted an international outcry and focused attention on the blockade of Gaza. Israel has since lifted most of the restrictions on the flow of medicines, food and many goods into the territory but still maintains a ban on some items, such as building materials, on the grounds they can be used to manufacture weapons.

Israel is working with another UN inquiry under the former leaders of New Zealand and Colombia, Geoffrey Palmer and Alvaro Uribe, that is still in progress.

The Jewish state is also carrying out its own inquiry into the attack on Mavi Mamara.

Last month, Israel's military commander, Lieutenant General Gabi Ashkenazi, defended his forces' use of live ammunition during the assault on the ship, saying that commandos had not expected to meet such violence from the activists and were forced to defend themselves when they came under attack.

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Almost three months have passed since the coalition government decided to axe free swimming for under-16s and over-60s.

The cancellation was announced by Hugh Robertson, minister for sport and the Olympics, on 17 June as part of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport's £73m contribution to cutting the fiscal deficit.

At the time the department said free swims had "not delivered value for money" and cutting it would save £5m as part of a total saving of £40m from the Free Swimming Programme funding.

Labour launched the programme in April 2009. When it was axed at the end of July, a total of 160,665 free swims had been taken, 98,684 had been taken by people aged 16 and under, and 61,981 by those aged 60 and over.

The programme's success in some areas has led to a few local authorities retaining it. In late August, both Warwick district council and Wolverhampton city council said they would continue to fund the scheme until its original planned end date of 31 March 2011.

In areas where the scheme was scrapped, the number of swimmers has fallen sharply. The Halesowen News reported that the number of swims at its local leisure centre fell 36% from 10,300 in August 2009 to 6,521 a year later. And according to the Derby Times, the number of under-18s and over-60s swimming at pools in South Derbyshire went from 10,090 in the scheme's first month to just 3,855 the month after it ended.

Were free swims cut in the area where you live? If you are in the age ranges affected has their axing reduced how much you swim? Perhaps you have welcomed the cuts due to overcrowding in pools or because you viewed the scheme as an expensive luxury. Whatever your views, let us know.

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Ed Balls tried to pin the blame for the 2007 "general election that never was" on to Ed Miliband, now his rival for the Labour leadership, according to a BBC Radio series starting next week.

Mr Balls allegedly ordered Damian McBride, Gordon Brown's spin doctor, to brief the media that the Brown allies Mr Miliband and Douglas Alexander were responsible for allowing intense speculation to build that Mr Brown would call an election in the autumn of 2007, a few months after succeeding Tony Blair as Prime Minister. In the end, he backed off, inflicting damage to his public image which allies believe he never repaired.

It is understood that the "blame game" for the non-election fiasco lies behind today's enmity between Mr Balls and Mr Miliband. The "two Eds" were once allies as long-standing members of the Brown inner circle, but there is now little love lost between them as they vie for the Labour leadership. Some supporters of Mr Balls will make David Miliband their second choice in the Labour election, even though he is seen as a Blairite rather than a Brownite.

The alleged briefing operation is revealed in The Brown Years, a three-part Radio 4 series made by Steve Richards, chief political commentator of The Independent, who has conducted extensive interviews with the Brown team and Cabinet ministers.

In his first interview since resigning as a key Brown aide in 2008 after 11 years, Spencer Livermore said the Prime Minister initially saw the election speculation as "an opportunity to bait the Conservatives". But the tactical gain came at a strategic cost.

Mr Livermore, who was Downing Street's director of political strategy, regrets not warning about the downside of scrapping the election when Team Brown got cold feet as polling in marginal seats suggested only a slim Labour majority. "I don't think it's possible. Does anyone?" the Prime Minister told his inner circle at the crucial meeting. The mood was "very, very sombre", according to Mr Livermore.

Ed Miliband told Mr Alexander, Labour's campaign co-ordinator: "I bet within 20 minutes we find we're going to get the blame for this."

Mr Livermore said: "Twenty minutes turned out to be slightly longer than it took... Damian [McBride] told me he had been instructed to blame certain individuals." Mr McBride told Mr Livermore that the order had come from Mr Balls.

Mr Livermore was shocked but not surprised, claiming that Mr McBride – who later resigned over emails discussing a smear campaign against senior Tories based on untrue stories – in effect worked for Mr Balls as well as for Mr Brown.

He believes that Ed Miliband and Mr Alexander protested to Mr Brown about the briefing against them, but he does not know whether the Prime Minister authorised it. "It was a style of politics that was unhelpful to him ultimately – but he never saw the damage it was doing," said Mr Livermore.

He pinpoints the briefing against Mr Miliband and Mr Alexander as the pivotal moment when the small team around Mr Brown since his days as Chancellor fractured. "It never, never went back to the way it was," he said. "And that was of huge cost to Gordon because he didn't have a small team unified in purpose, totally committed to him, that he so desperately needed at that point. When he was at his most vulnerable, people had retreated to their own departments or their own priorities, rather than rallying around."

Mr Alexander said Mr Brown did not blame him for allowing the election speculation to get out of control but added: "It's equally clear that within minutes of his decision leaking there was briefing actually naming myself and Ed Miliband... I was disappointed, but not altogether surprised... He would have been in a stronger position in Downing Street if there had been a firmer approach taken to some of the briefing that was endemic in those early months."

Mr Balls denied ordering the briefing, saying: "I have never ever asked Damian McBride to brief against any colleague, elected or unelected. So it's not true." He said the "fortysomethings" attracted by a 2007 election, including himself, Ed Miliband and Mr Alexander, had been proved right by events, rather than older "greybeards" who were more cautious.

Paul Sinclair, a former Downing Street aide, told the programme: "The No 10 communications operation was a shambles. I think a number of people had failed to make the mental leap from working for a chancellor who sought to be prime minister [to] actually working for a prime minister. There was still the mentality, which might work when you're going for the leadership, that if anybody seems to distinguish themselves or get profiled they are there to be cut down. There was not enough of an understanding that actually Gordon was captain of a team and therefore the team had to do well."

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