Burma agrees to prisoner amnesty

Aung San Suu Kyi welcomed the prisoner amnesty and said that ethnic harmony was key to a strong democracy. Photograph: Soe Than Win/AFP/Getty Images

Authorities in Burma are set to release hundreds of prisoners in a new amnesty, in the latest step towards wholesale reform in the secretive south-east Asian state.
An announcement on Thursday has raised hopes that many of the political prisoners currently held in Burmese jails will be among the 600-odd detainees set to be freed.
William Hague, the British foreign secretary, repeatedly raised the issue of the political prisoners, who could number as many as 1,700, during a visit to Burma last week, as did Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, during her visit in December.
Burmese state radio and television said the prisoners would be released so they can "participate in the task of nation-building".
The words used appeared to indicate that many would be political prisoners, observers said. A recent clemency order was widely criticised internationally for releasing only 13 minor political activists.
On Thursday, Burmese authorities also signed a ceasefire agreement with ethnic rebels in the east of the country, taking a major step toward ending one of the world's longest-running insurgencies.
Burma has been ruled directly or indirectly by the military since 1962,but a nominally civilian government was appointed last year, pro-democracy campaigner Aung San Suu Kyi was freed from house arrest and censorship eased.
The three conditions laid out by western governments for sanctions imposed by the European Union and the US on Burma to be lifted are free elections, the release of political prisoners and peace with the dozens of ethnic groups which have been fighting authorities intermittently for decades.
A spokesman for the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) said "the government is releasing the prisoners apparently because the recent clemency order was strongly criticised by us and the international community."
"We have to wait and see how many political prisoners will be released tomorrow," Ohn Kyaing, the spokesman, said. Many of those being held are members of the NLD. However, the peace agreement with the rebels is also seen as crucial.
Aung San Suu Kyi, general secretary of the NLD, said last week that "unless there is ethnic harmony, it will be very difficult ... to build up a strong democracy." Agencies in Rangoon have reported that the government's peace committee met on Thursday with leaders of the Karen ethnic group in the Karen state capital, Pa-an.
A government official at the talks told reporters "a ceasefire agreement has been signed" between the authorities and the Karen National Union, a rebel group.
Karen rebels have been fighting for autonomy for 63 years and were the only major ethnic community in Burma that had not concluded any kind of peace agreement with the government.
Violence between ethnic groups living along the borders and Burmese central government forces has displaced millions of people and caused huge suffering.
Military offensives have been accompanied by systematic rape, torture and the use of forced labour, human rights groups say. Millions have been forced into exile, many fleeing to neighbouring Thailand.
An agreement with groups representing the Kachin ethnic minority in the north-east broke down last summer.
Military operations – in contradiction of an order given by President Thein Sein last month – appear to be continuing. Aid workers in Burma said on Thursday the situation was deteriorating, with more than 50,000 Kachin people forced from their homes over the past six months.
The Karen long fought successfully against Burmese authorities from the jungle-covered hills near the border with Thailand before a lack of unity weakened the movement.
Karen diaspora groups cautiously welcomed Thursday's agreement but warned that it remained unsafe for Karen exiles to return to Burma.
"We have seen how human rights abuses have continued in other areas of Burma where there are ceasefires, and how the dictatorship used the ceasefires to extend its control … A ceasefire alone tackles the symptoms, not the causes. There must also be political dialogue for a permanent political solution," a statement from Karen Communities Worldwide said.
There have been several rounds of ceasefire discussions between the Karen and the government, most recently around 2005, but none resulted in an agreement.
One Burma-based analyst described the agreement as "ground-breaking", but warned that genuine economic development was now important to make sure any peace was durable.
"The previous ceasefires in 1990s become an opportunity for [some leaders] to enrich themselves and intensified the extraction of natural resources," the analyst said. One example was extensive logging by Chinese companies in Kachin areas. Opium poppy cultivation and drug manufacture also boomed.

Zynga IPO fails to generate stock market 'pop' on disappointing debut

Zynga raised about $1bn from the sale, far less than the $20bn that had been expected earlier this year. Photograph: Mark Lennihan/AP

After months of hype and speculation, Zynga, the 4-year-old games company behind FarmVille and Words with Friends, has had a disappointing debut on the Nasdaq stock exchange.

Many tech firms enjoy spectacular first-day "pops", with stratospheric rises in their share price in the early hours of trading. Zynga's shares, priced at $10, rose 11% initially, before closing out the day at $9.45. Wall Street, it seems, isn't playing Zynga's game. At least not yet.

The company, which claims 60 million people a day play its games, raised about $1bn from the share sale, and is worth a total of $7bn, far less than the $20bn that had been expected earlier this year.

Founder Mark Pincus, who named the company after his pet bulldog, now owns a stake worth over $1bn. He cashed in some of his shares ahead of the sale, selling a small portion of his holding for more than $109m back in March, according to regulatory filings.

Unlike many other young web companies, Zynga is profitable. The company makes money by selling virtual goods in its popular games such as CityVille, FarmVille and Mafia Wars. In the first nine months of the year, Zynga's revenue doubled to $829m from a year earlier, but its net income declined 35% to $31m.

Zynga is highly dependent on Facebook, whose users account for 94% of Zynga's revenue, according to analyst Arvind Bhatia of Sterne Agee Group. Bhatia issued a negative report on the company Tuesday claiming growth is slowing at the company and its margins are under pressure.

Facebook takes a third of the game firm's revenues, and analysts expect Zynga to use its new cash pile to expand into the rapidly growing mobile gaming market and away from its social networking.

John Wilson, partner at San Francisco law firm Sherman & Sterling, said Zynga was a major beneficiary of the Facebook effect. "It's in the social network space and it's affiliated with Facebook," he said. Facebook gives the company an "extraordinary reach. And they are able to leverage that relationships with the most remarkable company story since Google," he said. "The real test is where will it be six months from now."

Perhaps Zynga's lack of zing isn't such a bad thing. Many recent tech IPOs have enjoyed a first-day pop only to quickly lose steam. Groupon surged 31% on its debut as a public company, and business-focused social network LinkedIn jumped 84%. Both are now trading well below those prices.

According to Birinyi analyst Kevin Pleines, tech IPOs have popped an average of 31% from their IPO price after the opening bell on their first day of trading. But 18 of the 30 stocks he looked at are now below their IPO price, and 24 of the 30 are below their opening price on their first day of trading.

Wilson said the pops were part of the process and that the big winners in technology, such as Google, had similarly leapt up in price on their first day of trading but gone on to outperform.

"The issue now is that there is so much money on the sidelines," Wilson added. "Pension funds, hedge funds, private investors. And they are getting so little from fixed income investments that when something with potential comes along, there's a stampede."

Zynga's debut is the latest test for an IPO market that took a hit after a summer slump. Many other new tech firms were planning IPOs earlier this year before stock markets were thrashed by the crisis in Europe and the debt ceiling row in Washington.

Wilson said he expects many of those firms to go public next year, led by Facebook. Figures leaked this week suggest Facebook will aim for a valuation of $100bn when it goes public next year – about the same value as soft drinks and food giant Pepsi Co.

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Desmond Tutu urges Trinity Church to allow Occupy protester camp

Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu called called the Occupy movement a 'voice for the world.' Photograph: Mohammed Salem/Reuters

Archbishop Desmond Tutu has waded into an ecclesiastical row over a New York church's refusal to allow protesters from Occupy Wall Street to camp on a vacant lot it owns.

The South African activist and retired church leader urged Trinity Church to heed the pleas of demonstrators to allow the camp and, failing that, at least to stop any violence or arrests at the site during a day of action this Saturday to mark its three month anniversary.

Tutu, the latest in a growing number of church leaders to align themselves with Occupy called the movement a "voice for the world."

A wave of evictions that has cleared encampments from cities and campuses across the United States has galvanised a clergy of different faiths to open their doors, and sometimes their homes, to protesters.

More than 1,400 church leaders, including the Rev Jesse Jackson have signed a pledge of support to OWS and on Wednesday, a coalition of prominent Afro-American pastors joined with the movement to launch a new series of actions that they consider part of the Rev Martin Luther King Jr's unfinished legacy.

But despite a cascade of support from these quarters, the protesters have failed to secure from their new allies the one thing they say they need to reignite the movement after having somewhat faded from the public radar – an outdoor space in which to gather, talk and plan.

The church has been steadfast it its refusal to allow a winter encampment. Photograph: Mark Lennihan/AP

Trinity is among the churches that have offered protesters some form of sanctuary, in their meeting rooms and offices and at their neighbourhood centre. However, despite weeks of negotiations, pressure from other church leaders and a hunger strike by four protesters, the church has been steadfast it its refusal to allow a winter encampment at its site at Duarte Square, at the corner of Canal Street and Sixth. Protesters have also criticised Trinity for not protecting them when they were arrested on the vacant lot on November 15.

Trinity Real Estate, the landowning arm of the church, has proposed a re-zoning plan to pave the way for up to 3,500 new housing units there, although it has yet to be approved by the community board. The plan also calls for a primary school.

In a letter to OWS, Tutu describes Trinity Church, on Wall Street, as an "esteemed and valued old friend" but said it caused him pain to hear of the impasse in negotiations between OWS and the church over the site.

"Sisters and Brothers, I greet you in the Name of Our Lord and in the bonds of common friendship and struggle from my homeland of South Africa. I know of your own challenges and of this appeal to Trinity Church for the shelter of a new home and I am with you! May God bless this appeal of yours and may the good people of that noble parish heed your plea, if not for ease of access, then at least for a stay on any violence or arrests."

He said: "I appeal to them to find a way to help you. I appeal to them to embrace the higher calling of Our Lord Jesus Christ – which they live so well in all other ways – but now to do so in this instance...can we not rearrange our affairs for justice sake?"

The matter is expected to come to a head on Saturday, during a day of action after a call to re-occupy former locations or find alternative camps.

Bishop George Packard, former chaplain for the armed services and decorated Vietnam veteran who has acted as the liaison in negotiations between the church and protesters, wrote on his blog this week that Duarte Square could be the new home for OWS "or not." He went on: "Trinity might mobilize platoons of police in riot gear and ring this sad little place with multiple barricades. No room at this Inn!"

Amin Husain, for OWS, has accused Trinity of putting "profit before God".

However, in a fresh posting on its website on December 9, the Right Rev John Cooper said that he believed that to allow a winter encampment would be "wrong unsafe, unhealthy and potentially injurious."

The rector stated:

"We want to be responsive, while also being responsible, to our residential and business neighbors, partners, visitors and tenants — our entire community. There are no facilities at the Canal St lot. Demanding access and vandalizing the property by a determined few OWS protesters won't alter the fact that there are no basic elements to sustain an encampment. The health, safety and security problems posed by an encampment here, compounded by winter weather, would dwarf those experienced at Zuccotti Park.

"Calling this an issue of 'political sanctuary' is manipulative and blind to reality. Equating the desire to seize this property with uprisings against tyranny is misguided, at best. Hyperbolic distortion drives up petition signatures, but doesn't make it right. Those arrested [on November 15 at Duarte Square] were not seeking sanctuary; they were seeking to be arrested. Trinity will continue our responsible outreach and pastoral services for all."

Rev John Metz, of the Episcopalian Church of the Ascension, in Brooklyn, who is part of the Occupy In Faith NYC group, said collaboration between churches and the Occupy movement was gathering momentum. Supporters include Bhikkhu Bodhi, from the Buddhist Global Relief, and the Concord Baptist Church of Christ in Brooklyn, one of Amercia's largest protestant congregations.

"There's a natural relationship between the endeavours of the movement and of the church, both in terms of charity and looking at the source of societies ills," he said. "The dots are starting to be connected by the clergy and by lay people."

Metz, who has offered sanctuary to protesters in his own home as well as his church, said the Occupy movement was forcing church leaders to rethink their work.

"The Episcopalian diocese of Long Island, during its most recent convention, passed a resolution in support of Occupy Wall Street. What this means is that it becomes part of the Occupy Faith movement. Not only do you commit resources but you are re-occupying your own church by re-envisioning how it is we can live in ways that are committed to the Gospel mandate of social and economic justice. We are not asking people to 'like' this as on Facebook, but to work out the theology of occupation," he said.

He also called on the Archbishop of Canterbury to support the Occupy movement.

"It would be tremendously important if someone like the Archbishop of Canterbury were to step in with strong support of the Occupy movement. He understands the incarnated aspects of encampment. He understands that in terms of the Christmas story. We need his leadership here."

In a recent article in the Radio Times, a British magazine, Archbishop Rowan Williams posed the question "what would Jesus do" about the Occupy protesters at St Paul's. He suggested that Jesus would be there "sharing the risks, not just taking sides but steadily changing the entire atmosphere by the questions he asks of everybody involved, rich and poor, capitalist and protester and cleric" but he stopped short of coming out in support of the protesters.

The Rev Jackson also urged a stronger response from the Church of England to the Occupy movement on its doorstep. In front of St Paul's Cathedral in London on Wednesday, where he gave a speech hailing protesters as the direct descendants of the civil rights movement, Jackson said: "The church should be the headquarters for the Occupy movement. In a sense, the occupiers represent the conscience of the church."

While St Paul's reversed its initial decision to join action by the Corporation of London to evict protesters, relations between the camp and the church have been strained.

The Very Rev Jep Strait, from the Cathedral Church of St Paul in Boston, which has allowed demonstrators to hold general assemblies in the church since they were evicted, said: "This is very important to their central message about how society functions and who has access to power and resources and who doesn't which is also a part of the Gospel message."

 

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The Killing helps boost UK travel to Denmark

Copenhagen city hall, which features in The Killing. Photograph: Alamy

The rain falls. The wind blows. The daylight has faded to a crepuscular gloom. Desolate woodlands give way to an array of unlit basements, disused factories and pitch-black alleyways. A murderer may or may not be lurking with a gun and a menacing stare.

Yet, despite its almost total absence of textbook tourist charm, the Copenhagen portrayed in BBC4's hit series The Killing appears to have a powerful allure for Britons. The number of nights spent by UK visitors in the Danish capital has risen by 50,000 this year – an increase of 16% – and industry experts believe it is at least in part down to the huge success of the television drama, which first aired here in January.

"The first two episodes nothing happened. And then suddenly everyone was saying 'what is that? It's something different, something new, something fresh'," said Henrik Kahn, director of VisitDenmark UK. "People watched it even though it was in Danish with subtitles. It became a mad thing; everyone wanted to know more."

He believes that the popularity of the thriller – the second series of which comes to a dramatic finale on Saturday night – is the latest and arguably biggest factor that has turned the UK on to the Danish aesthetic over the past two years. Britain is now the biggest non-Scandinavian market for visits to Copenhagen, and across the whole of Denmark tourists from the UK are expected to have booked 13% more overnight stays in 2011 than in the previous year.

"There are different things happening," said Kahn. "The fuss about Denmark, or Copenhagen especially, started [in the] spring of 2010, when Noma was named the world's best restaurant. That created a lot of buzz about Danish food suddenly – that it wasn't just herring."

The wave of Scandinavian crime fiction, which began with the Swedish detective series Wallander and continued with the Stieg Larsson novels, also played a part, he said. "And then suddenly The Killing comes on."

To make the most of the craze for the Bafta-winning drama, savvy Copenhagen inhabitants have laid on activities that would satisfy even the most obsessive fans of Sarah Lund, the main character in The Killing. Lise-Lotte Frederiksen, of Peter and Ping walking tours, organised her first "In the footsteps of Sarah Lund" event six weeks ago and has taken 25 people – all of them British – for a two-hour amble around some of the main locations of the show.

"My first tour was actually in rain, it was very cold, but I thought that's just the right weather. And I thought people would phone and cancel, but they didn't – they turned up and they were four young guys from London," she said.

The tour takes in Copenhagen's city hall, the police headquarters – which Frederiksen hopes one day to be allowed inside with a group – and Kødbyen, the meat-packing district where Lund is attacked in season two. She once even made it inside the school where much of season one was filmed. "I was so lucky … some pupils were there sleeping over from a party so I actually got into the basement," she said. "I think [the tourists] really liked that."

Visitors looking to immerse themselves in the show's gritty ambience may be disappointed, however: Kahn says Copenhagen is simply too nice. "It's not a spooky city. It's not a dangerous city. That's not what we're known for. We're known for relaxing," he said.

Even worse, the weather might be clement. "That's the worst thing about this series: it's raining all the time. It's irritating to see they haven't seen the sun yet," Kahn said. "You have rain in November. But less rain than [Britain], that's for sure."

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End of the note by quran education

Credit rating battle: how the UK and France measure up

Sarkozy versus Cameron: economic statistics show it's too close to call. Photograph: John Schults / Reuters/REUTERS

The entente is no longer so cordiale. As the big credit rating firms assess whether to strip France of its prized AAA status, Bank of France chief Christian Noyer this week produced a long list of reasons why he believes the agencies should turn their fire on Britain before his own country.

France's finance minister François Baroin put things even more bluntly: "We'd rather be French than British in economic terms."

But is the outlook across the Channel really better than in Britain? Taking Noyer's reasons to downgrade Britain – it "has more deficits, as much debt, more inflation, less growth than us" – he is certainly right on some counts.

Britain's deficit will stand at 7% of GDP next year, while France's will be 4.6%, according to International Monetary Fund forecasts. But Britain's net debt is put at 76.9% of GDP in 2012 and France's at 83.5%. UK inflation has been way above the government-set target of 2% this year and the IMF forecasts it will be 2.4% in 2012. In France the rate is expected to be 1.4%.

On growth, neither country can claim a stellar performance. France's economy grew 0.4% in the third quarter and Britain's 0.5%. Nor has either a particularly rosy outlook. In Britain the economy is expected to grow by 1.6% in 2012. But in the near term there is a 1-in-3 chance of a recession, according to the independent Office for Budget Responsibility. In France, the IMF predicts slightly slower 2012 growth of 1.4%. But in the near term France's national statistics office predicts a technical, albeit short, recession.

What Noyer and Baroin fail to mention, say economists, are the other key factors the credit ratings agencies take into account. What the agencies are charged with assessing is how likely a country is to be able to repay its debts. In making that call, whether a country is in the euro or not plays a big role, said Victoria Cadman, economist at Investec.

"If a country is in the euro it is seen as having more risks to its balance sheet," she says, noting France is a particularly big contributor to the eurozone bailout fund, the European financial stability facility. "Monetary autonomy is important as well. Britain can keep the printing presses going. France doesn't have that luxury," added Cadman.

The fact the Bank of England has embarked on quantitative easing (QE) is a reflection of a weak economic outlook. But it is already helping the UK's repayment prospects, because it involved the central bank buying government bonds, argued Alan Clarke, eurozone economist at Scotia Capital. The European Central Bank has shown no such willingness towards QE.

"The UK central bank is buying so many gilts and will probably announce more purchases in the new year. There is hardly enough debt to go around, so the risk of a default is low," says Clarke.

Ratings agencies will also be looking at repayment of maturing bonds and interest. France has to come up with £100bn next year, but the UK has to find only half that, £53bn.

There is also the question of how committed a government is to deficit reduction. In the UK the coalition has vowed not to stray from its austerity drive, and in France, there are elections next year, but still the government has remained committed to cuts. "Sarkozy has done two pre-election fiscal tightening measures, which is quite brave in the run-up to an election," says Clarke.

On the deficit, like so many other factors, the agencies are looking well beyond where things stand now. Longer-term France and the UK are level-pegging in deficit terms. The IMF puts the shortfall at 2.3% of GDP for both countries in 2015.

So where should that leave their ratings?

Investec's Cadman says she has sympathy with the ratings agencies' current stance: "They have got to take into account the credibility of deficit reduction programmes, whether a country is in the eurozone, whether it has monetary autonomy and on balance the fact they are looking at France is sensible. But that doesn't mean to say they won't have another look at the UK."

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End of the note by holy Quran reciter                              

Clashes between police and sacked oil workers in Kazakhstan leave 10 dead

A protester runs from a burning police vehicle in Zhanaozen. Photograph: Reuters TV/REUTERS

At least 10 people have been killed in violent clashes between police and demonstrators in an oil town in western Kazakhstan, where workers have been protesting for higher wages, authorities said.

Prosecutor General Askhat Daulbayev said that the mayor's office, a hotel and vehicles were set on fire in Zhanaozen, a city of 90,000 in the southwestern corner of the energy-rich nation.

The clashes appear to be some of the worst unrest to hit the former Soviet republic since it gained independence in 1991.

Contradictory accounts have emerged as to what precipitated the confrontation.

Daulbayev said police officers were attacked as they sought to quell a disturbance in the city centre and were forced to fire their weapons on protesters. He said 10 people were killed.

Roza Teletayeva, who said she was a former oil worker dismissed in June for taking part in a long-standing strike, said that police had surrounded a peaceful meeting of several hundred demonstrators in the morning.

"We had no idea what was going to happen, we were just standing peacefully and doing nothing," she said.

Teletayeva said police opened fire on the crowd and that she had seen at least five people dead. She said groups of angry young men later marched on the mayor's office and set it ablaze.

Footage broadcast by satellite channel K+ showed men in worker's outfits charging a stage erected for festivities to mark the 20th anniversary of Kazakhstan's independence on Friday.

Daulbayev said the headquarters of OzenMunaiGaz oil company, where the demonstrators were formerly employed, was also set alight.

A team of Interior Ministry investigators had flown to the town to identify and punish the organisers of the unrest and restore order, Daulbayev said.

Hundreds of workers at an oil facility controlled by the state-owned energy company KazMunaiGas in Zhanaozen have been protesting for better salaries and working conditions for more than six months. Almost 1,000 workers were fired in the summer for striking, but demonstrations have continued.

President Nursultan Nazarbayev has kept a tight lid on any signs of public discontent during his 20 years of rule. The apparent scale of unrest in Zhanaozen will come as a shock to Nazarbayev's government, which has also been facing an unprecedented surge in radical Islamist-inspired violence in recent months.

In a sign that Kazakhstan's authoritarian government was attempting to contain information on developments in Zhanaozen, internet users reported being unable to open independent news websites or Twitter.

Virtually all domestic media failed to cover the events throughout Friday, as lavish celebrations took place in the capital, Astana, to mark the independence anniversary.

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Nick Clegg: UK can still influence competitiveness agenda

Nick Clegg, criticised by Eurosceptics but insisting the country will not be pushed from one extreme to the other. Photograph: David Jones/PA

At the end of a momentous week in European and British politics, the charge sheet against Nick Clegg is long. He has been accused by the Eurosceptic press of treachery, a vanishing act and a euro sulk.

There are contrasting mutterings from some Liberal Democrats that he has displayed insufficient will to fight the pro-European corner inside government and was outmanoeuvred by David Cameron at last weekend's fateful summit.

He had revealed a naivety in failing to foresee how the prime minister might wield the veto in the late-night talks in Brussels. As a result, it is claimed, a gaping fissure has opened both within the coalition and between Europe and Britain.

But Clegg is more concerned with solutions than recriminations. He is now cast in the role of an accident damage inspector at a hideous car crash caused by some reckless late-night driving by his boss. He is gingerly sifting through the wreckage to see if there is anything reparable.

So far as the coalition is concerned, Clegg is certain everything remains in good working order. "I suspect by now everybody understands what I have been saying since the beginning. This government will last until 2015. Nothing has changed."

He is full of plans – on an elected second chamber, social mobility and focusing help on the under-fives. A draft of a big speech on the enemies of the Open Society at the Demos thinktank is purring in the computer at 8,000 words and growing.

One of the chief enemies of openness emerges to be appointed peers. "I hear a lot of people say the Lords is a great receptacle of expertise but expertise is increasingly becoming an alibi for nepotism and political patronage.

"I am absolutely clear there will be a bill in the second session. There is a very clear coalition agreement and commitment."

There is no sign that he is crawling away from political reform in the wake of the disastrous defeat in the AV referendum. Clegg is a resilient optimist.

On Europe, he admits a repair job is needed and that the row with his coalition partners needs de-escalation. His discussion is full of references to bridge-building with EU partners, healing and getting back in the saddle.

He says: "The challenge is to make sure the distinction between Britain's status and the rest that transpired at the summit does not become a permanent widened breach."

He also denies he flip flopped when he first responded to the summit outcome, before condemning Cameron's veto. "Honestly there is this wish for people to be wise with hindsight.

"There had been a momentous summit. Many of the details were not out by Friday morning – you are asked to provide an instant historical commentary on something still evolving.

"So I came out quite clearly and said I regretted it. I said I did not want a treaty change in the first place and that I had always said it would be a divisive process.

"And I said the Eurosceptics needed to be careful what they wish for. People get lost in the detail but what happened was a breakdown in negotiations. Actually what was up for negotiation was not unreasonable."

With his wide political contacts across Europe, linguistic skills and his knowledge of the commission, he is confident the breach is not permanent.

"There will be a lot of opportunities to get back into the saddle. The summit has raised as many question marks as it has provided answers, and there will be a whole lot of discussions about what happens next in which we will be involved.'

He says it is significant that the EU council has granted the UK observer status at the meetings of the new group. Equally, he is firm that Britain will not block or legally challenge the 26-strong group from using institutions such as the commission and the European court of justice. "We have made some very big steps in the last few days. If you get behind the headlines of the big domestic argy-bargy in Britain, we have signalled we are happy for them to use EU institutions.

"Britain will have observer status in the meetings that will put together this inter-governmental arrangement so we will have moved already very quickly in the course of this week, and that is something I have been very keen on."

So is there absolute clarity in the UK that community institutions can be used by this new inter-governmental body that oversees euro discipline?

Clegg's emphatic response is: "Yes, Yes."

But was Cameron as clear in his statement to the Commons?

Clegg replies: "He was very clear we will look at it with an open mind constructively . You need to work out some details. You need a piece of paper, a minute, saying how this will work because it is a novel thing."

But are not some Eurosceptics demanding Cameron block the use of community institutions? "I am sure there are people who will use every debate and crisis to promote their agenda which is nakedly isolationist.

"You have got to go back constantly to what is in the national interest – what is good for growth and jobs – and I just don't think it can be in any doubt that it is our interest to see the Europe succeed."

Whatever his criticisms of the prime minister's use of the veto, Clegg recognises the dilemma Cameron faced because of his backbenchers and the pressure to secure some concessions on the City of London in return for agreeing to a treaty change.

"David Cameron was proposing a menu of options – these were not asking for British exceptionalism. Many of the ideas were just trying to entrench what was already agreed or standard practice.

"The political reality is that there was no way David Cameron could have returned from that summit and gone to the parliament empty-handed.

"All he would have had was a deferred crisis in Britain. That is just a political fact and sometimes I am afraid politics is the art of the possible, not always the ideal," adding parenthetically under his breath: "Boy, do I know that after a year and a half in coalition government."

He seems to indicate Cameron felt he faced a genuine risk of a Commons defeat if he extracted no price for allowing the euro group to form a treaty.

He explains: "You have got a Labour party that is acting incredibly opportunistically on these big issue of the global response to the crisis.

" They voted against an increase in our subscriptions to the IMF a few months ago even though that was delivering on an undertaking by the previous Labour government.

"When you have that degree of opportunism on the opposition benches and very, very forceful Euroscepticism on the Conservative benches, he just could not come back empty handed."

And yet he understands why some euro-group countries, notably Germany, so badly wanted a treaty to strengthen the enforcement of the new fiscal rules. "Germany wanted clear reassurance that the fiscal rectitude it wants was going to be implemented."

That in turn might be a signal to the European Central Bank to act as a lender of the last resort, a step European politicians and economists outside Germany have been begging the ECB to take to ease the markets pressure on sovereign debt.

Clegg explains: "The ECB is independent and that is unbelievably important for the Germanpolitical elite for all the obvious historical reasons so you are never going to get a German politicians from any party to get up and say 'I hereby tell the ECB to do x y and z'.

"But it is obvious to me that the clearer the roadmap to greater fiscal rigour and integration is, the more permissive the environment would be for the monetary authorities to play an activist role. That was the most important thing about the summit. It was not about the position of Britain".

And then there is a sideswipe, if not at Cameron then at his Eurosceptic benches. "We were not being asked to give up anything, we were not being asked to sign over any powers to any European arrangement.

"We were simply being asked to provide passive consent such that the European institutions could do the kind of things ... necessary to create that fiscal integration."

But Clegg recognises the mortal danger facing the European economy. "There are very big question marks about how to stop contagion, how to create a proper ring-fenced mechanism so you don't get a knock-on effect from one country to the next.

"It is clear that markets have got very grave doubts, which in many ways are as bad if not worse after the summit.

"My view is we are still waiting for a very significant and tangible expression to implement labour market reforms, product reforms, pension system reforms which – given large scale fiscal stimulus is not available – is necessary to stimulate growth". He concedes that will "take months and years of painful reform".

"There is no single magic wand, but the focus at the summit from the eurozone countries was what particularly the German government could secure. But the other side of the equation - competitiveness and growth – was not dealt with that extensively and one is slightly meaningless without the other."

He says if the UK plays it smart it can influence this competitiveness agenda. He said: " The great genius of European integration economically is that it always held two different traditions in balance – the Anglo Saxon liberal tradition and the French dirigiste tradition.

"The goal was to ensure that neither the French or British tradition triumphed over the other. I don't think it is in their interest to see the British liberal tradition marginalised."

He chortles when I suggest his pro-Europeanism stems from his widely drawn family roots. " I am British, you know. I am hardly some alien from outer space It is ridiculous I love this country because we are such an open country.

"My mum's family had an upbringing in a Prison of war camp, my dad's family were ripped apart by the Russian revolution, so I understand the tyrannies and totalitarianism of other parts of Europe.

"I think it was great that I was brought up really valuing the tolerance and measured open minded character of this country.

"I think we are at our best when we are open. The danger at the moment is because society is under economic stress, xenophobia, chauvinism and polarisation increase. You can see it in British politics. This is the perfect environment if you are Nigel Farage or Alex Salmond.

"The people who are trying to exploit the politics of grievance and blame, they believe they have got the wind in their sails. The liberal open society is always under pressure when there is fear and anxiety in society. That does not mean you move off the centre ground. As a deputy prime minister, I will hold on to that centre ground of openness and reason.

"Far from being unBritish I think it is incredibly British – we are not going to be allowed to be pushed from one extreme or the other. We are going to keep a level head while others lose theirs."

 

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