Indonesia may host man-made 'orangutan island'

A British conservationist is leading an audacious plan to create a chain of man-made islands in northern Sumatra that would liberate the Indonesian island's population of caged orangutans.

Dr Ian Singleton aims to create four islands of grass, shrubs and trees for sick and injured orangutans – those who are unable to be reintroduced to the natural habitat – to roam, freeing them from the 3x4m cages in which they currently reside.

Singleton is currently in the process of securing land for the islands. The ideal location would be near the coast with a consistent supply of fresh water via a stream or river.

Diggers, operated by local contractors, will then carve up the land to create moats, thereby encircling the land with water. The earth removed by the digging will be used to landscape the islands to make them ape-friendly.

Orangutans, which can't swim, will be reluctant to leave the islands due to the water, although Singleton plans to erect an electric fence to ensure the creatures don't drown.

"Depending on the site, it shouldn't take us too long to create the islands, as long as the moats don't leak," Singleton told the Guardian from northern Sumatra.

"The biggest challenge is finding the right land that has the right security and a water supply that isn't full of effluent."

"Finding a clean stream in Sumatra can be difficult as there's lots of pollution, but we have the option of creating a bio-filtration system to purify the water."

Singleton and his team have released more than 150 orangutans into the wild over the past decade, but currently have 50 further apes in medical quarantine.

A handful of orangutans have been earmarked for immediate transportation to the island, including twins that made headlines earlier this year due to both of their parents being blind.

Singleton has been in Sumatra since 2001, following stints at zoos in Jersey and Edinburgh. He leads the Orangutan Conservation Programme in the country and is funded by a Swiss NGO, PanEco.

While the immediate aim is to protect the captive orangutans, Singleton hopes the project will inform local people about the threat to the animal's survival via an education centre and guided walks.

There are only an estimated 6,000 orangutans left in Sumatra, due to deforestation and conflict with humans.

"These orangutans are refugees from forests that don't exist any more," he says.

"You have animals like Leuser who has been blinded by an air rifle and you don't want him living for 45 years in a small rusty cage. I want people in Medan (capital of the north Sumatra province) to see how these orangutans have been shot or had their arms chopped off or got hepatitis B."

"There needs to be a change in behaviour, otherwise the project is a waste. It's all very nice getting westerners here, but we need to reach the people who are chopping down the trees here and shooting the orangutans because they're in their habitat."

"Lots of middle class people, even policemen, steal orangutans and have them as a status symbol. The irony is that the people who are meant to uphold the law here are the ones with orangutans in cages."

Singleton says that he is close to acquiring a 20 ha (49.4 acre) plot of land to create the islands, but claims he has been hindered by the byzantine Indonesian system.

"I fluctuate between cautiously optimistic [and] very pessimistic," he says. "The business lobby is so powerful here and vote buying so prevalent, that it's hard to change anything.

"One minute the government will say that it wants to protect the forest and then they will grant a permit to clear 15,000 hectares of forest. Very few people are prosecuted for keeping an orangutan as a pet."

Singleton is working with the Australian Orangutan Project to raise funds for the island development.

Nicolas Sarkozy tells David Cameron: shut up over the euro

David Cameron has begun a week of intense political infighting over Europe by becoming embroiled in a furious row with Nicolas Sarkozy over Britain's role in talks to solve the crisis enveloping the euro.

The bust-up between Cameron and Sarkozy held up the conclusion of the EU-27 summit for almost two hours, with the French president expressing rage at the constant criticism and lectures from UK ministers.

Sarkozy bluntly told Cameron: "You have lost a good opportunity to shut up." He added: "We are sick of you criticising us and telling us what to do. You say you hate the euro and now you want to interfere in our meetings."

The prime minister has torn up his travel plans this week – a move urged on him by Labour leader Ed Miliband in a Guardian interview on Saturday – to attend an emergency heads of state meeting on Wednesday, and has demanded that all 27 EU countries be given the final say over measures to prevent the eurozone's sovereign debt crisis spreading and Europe sliding into deep recession.

On Monday the prime minister is facing both the largest Commons revolt of his premiership and the largest rebellion of eurosceptics suffered by a Conservative prime minister when parliament votes on whether the UK should have a referendum on Europe.

Cameron will meet parliamentary aides in Downing Street before the vote in an attempt to dissuade as many as 10 members of the government minded to rebel against the prime minister, requiring them to resign their posts. The government is sticking to its decision to impose a three-line whip on MPs to vote against the motion despite criticism it has been too heavy-handed.

Officials who witnessed the angry exchanges between Cameron and Sarkozy said the prime minister insisted that the package to be adopted on Wednesday by the 17 eurozone countries had serious implications for non-euro countries in the EU and their interests must be safeguarded. Eventually, after what Donald Tusk, the Polish prime minister, who chaired the summit, called a "stormy" discussion, the French president secured an agreement that all 27 leaders will first debate the three-pronged package of measures to recapitalise banks, build up the bailout find and write down Greek debt, but then the eurosummit would have the final say at back-to-back summits on Wednesday.

Cameron, however, got his fellow leaders to insert into the final communique recognition that laws on the single market must be upheld and a level playing field safeguarded for countries not in the euro. He later brushed aside the divisions, saying that what mattered was that markets regain confidence that the eurozone is preventing contagion from the Greek debt crisis.

The vote in parliament on Monday will be a testy encounter with his own party on Britain's membership of the EU. The vote calls for a nationwide referendum on whether Britain should leave the EU, renegotiate its treaty with Brussels, or remain a member on current terms. The government will not suffer a defeat, since Labour and the Lib Dems will vote down the motion, but a voluble and sizeable group believe the prime minister should honour pledges once made to allow a national poll on Britain's relationship with Europe. They would like the repatriation of social and employment rights.

On Sunday in Brussels, Cameron used a press conference to appeal directly to potential rebels, talking up the chance of repatriating powers with the "possibility" of treaty change coming on to the agenda as early as December, as euro countries push towards fiscal integration.

He claimed he had proved his ability last year to "exact" a good price when he agreed an EU treaty change that created a new mechanism for bailing out troubled eurozone countries but exempted Britain from having to pay for bailouts from 2013.

It is not clear if this would trigger the government's stated commitment to a referendum because it is due to stage a vote only if new powers are transferred from Westminster to Brussels, and any change by Cameron would be likely to do the reverse.

"If there is a treaty change, that gives Britain an opportunity," Cameron said. "Treaty change can only happen if it is agreed by all the 27 member states of the European Union.

"Any treaty change – as the last treaty change did – is an opportunity for Britain to advance our national interest. The last limited treaty change which brought about the European stability mechanism gave us the opportunity to get out of the euro bailout fund that the last government opted into."

Cameron said: "I've also argued that this crisis means that greater fiscal and economic integration of the eurozone is inevitable. But this must not be at the expense of Britain's national interest. So I've secured a commitment today, which will be in the council's conclusions, that we must safeguard the interests of countries that want to stay outside of the euro, particularly with respect to the integrity of the single market for all 27 countries of the EU.

Academics at Nottingham University predict the number rebelling against the government is likely to top the 41 Conservative MPs who voted against John Major in May 1993 on the third reading of the Maastricht bill – the biggest backbench rebellion for a Tory PM on Europe on whipped business.

They also said 41 was the number who rebelled in October last year over an attempt to make using insulting language a criminal act, which was then the biggest rebellion of Cameron's premiership.

The two sides in the referendum battle fortified their positions, with government ministers defending the decision to impose a three-line whip on the vote brought to the Commons by a petition.

The defence secretary, Philip Hammond, said the whip had been put in place because the motion was contrary to government policy and holding a referendum on the EU would be "just a distraction".

The former Conservative leader Lord Howard also weighed in, saying that an EU referendum would be a mistake in current conditions. The former foreign secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind said he believed a vote for a referendum would make Britain a "laughing stock".

But Cameron faces the likely resignations of some parliamentary aides to ministers and rebellion by the chairman of the 1922 committee, Graham Brady. Lord Tebbit suggested that "not even Ted Heath faced the chairman of the 1922 voting against him".

The number rebelling could hit 90 if the 68 who signed up to the original amendment tabled by the MP for Bury North, David Nuttall combine with another 33 who have signed compromise amendments which ministers say also run counter to government policy. Nuttall would commit the government to holding a referendum by May 2013 but would give the public three options – keeping the status quo, leaving the EU or reforming the terms of the UK's membership.

An amendment from George Eustice, a new but influential MP who used to work for Cameron, calls on the coalition to publish a white paper in the next two years setting out which powers ministers would repatriate from Brussels. The government would then renegotiate the UK's relationship with the EU and hold a referendum on the outcome.

Some names on Eustice's list may have signed up in the brief window when they thought Eustice's amendment would come to be adopted by the government as a way of the party high command giving backbenchers a compromise to vote through.The Commons speaker John Bercow may however choose not to call Eustice's amendment.

Dale Farm evictions - live

7.09am: Breaking news: PA reports that supporters have clashed with bailiffs and riot police at the rear entrance of Dale Farm as the eviction gets under way.

7.09am: Residents of Dale Farm, the UK's largest Travellers' site, are preparing to resist an expected attempt to evict them today after they were refused permission on Monday to appeal against a high court ruling allowing Basildon council to clear the site.

Supporters have also been arriving at the site in Essex, where three people were said to be preparing to chain themselves to the gate by their necks, and two cars and a former Russian military vehicle have been moved into place as obstacles.

According to Tony Ball, the leader of Basildon council, "all preparations have been completed". Although he refused to confirm that the eviction would begin at first light today, he said the clearance was imminent and that no further negotiations would take place.

Dozens of bailiffs arrived at a council compound neighbouring the site for final preparations and two diggers and a crane were on standby.

Mr Ball said: "The time for talking is over. We have given the travellers' every chance to leave peacefully and they have not taken it.
"Now our job is to clear the site in a safe and humane manner.
"It is quite clear to me that the majority of the public want us to do that.
"My biggest fear is that somebody - be it a bailiff, a police officer, a traveller or a supporter - gets hurt.
"I would call on those inside Dale Farm to behave sensibly and responsibly."

Supporters have reinforced the barricade inside the main gate and smaller barricades are in place throughout the site. Piles of wood and bricks have been gathered at various key points.

British IndyCar driver Dan Wheldon dies after crash in Las Vegas

Dan Wheldon, the British racing driver who won the Indianapolis 500 for the second time this year, died in a 15-car crash during the IndyCar race at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Sunday.

Wheldon, 33, was lying 26th in the field of 34 cars when the accident began as two cars touched on one of the oval track's four long banked turns halfway round the 13th lap. One of them slewed sideways, setting off a chain reaction. Travelling at somewhere close to 200mph, Wheldon was unable to avoid the chaotic mass of spinning cars. His own car flew into the air and smashed into the barrier on the outside of the track, appearing to catch fire on impact.

The car of the American driver Townsend Bell finished upside down in the middle of the track. Three drivers besides Wheldon, including the championship leader, Will Power of Australia, suffered injuries. Others, including the Scottish driver Dario Franchitti, managed to pick their way through the wreckage. The race was stopped as Wheldon was taken by helicopter to the Las Vegas University medical centre.

Two hours later his death was announced to his fellow drivers, who staged a five-lap parade in salute to their colleague.

Wheldon had qualified for the race in 28th place but started in last position, as part of a bid to win a $5m prize for coming through the field to finish first. The prize would have been shared with the winner of a competition.

Born in the Buckinghamshire village of Emberton, Wheldon was an early rival of Jenson Button in junior racing. Having failed to find backing for his career in Europe, however, he moved to the United States in 1999, racing in the Formula 2000, Toyota Atlantic and Indy Lights series.

In 2002 he graduated to the IndyCar championship, the top level of single-seater racing in the US, and the following year he joined the Andretti Green team, taking a seat following the retirement of Michael Andretti. That year he won the series' rookie of the year award, followed two years later by victory in the Indianapolis 500, the most important single race in the US and – with the Monaco Grand Prix and the 24 Hours of Le Mans – one of the three biggest in the world.

It made him the first English driver to win the 500 since Graham Hill in 1966, having swapped the lead over the last few laps with the female driver Danica Patrick, and that year he also became the series champion.

This past May he won the race for a second time, in more extraordinary circumstances. On the final corner of the last of the race's 200 laps the leader, the young American driver JR Hildebrand, lost control while lapping another car and handed victory to an astonished Wheldon, who became the first man to win the historic race having led only a single lap.

He married his personal assistant, Susie Behm, in 2008. They had two young children and lived in St Petersburg, Florida.

Frieze 2011: A crab with a head for art

God, I feel old, traipsing around the ninth Frieze art fair. I feel like I have been here for almost a decade. It turns out I have. I have become a stranger to daylight. Someone said I looked like a B-boy in my patent hi-top trainers, but I had to ask a passing curator what a B-boy is. A very bad band was rapping about "Having sex with them" in LuckyPDF's spot, where the Peckham collective is making live recordings and daily TV broadcasts. Peckham is the new Shoreditch, I hear. Better get down there quick.

I didn't know who was supposed to be having sex with whom, and the band all looked so studiedly youthful that I left, in search of a makeover. You can get one at A Gentil Carioca's stand. The gallery is from Rio de Janeiro. Your chair awaits, along with the lights, mirrors, jars of unguents and a real makeup artist. The trouble is the makeover: the scheme, in this project by Laura Lama, is to make you look older. I told the makeup artist I'd already had the treatment and was really only 16, but I don't think she believed me. Some of the collectors wandering about look a million years old, but I don't think they've been slathered, in latex and instant-wrinkle cream either.

You age by the minute in here. One alarming sculpture, by Romanian-born Andra Ursuta, is a lifesize body cast, showing the artist as an iron-age mummy, preserved by being buried for millennia in a northern European peat bog. I notice her hi-tops are still intact. She is also covered in a copious quantity of fake, glistening semen. This is not the sort of thing one can easily overlook. Ursuta's abject sculpture is actually one of the better examples of a kind of figurative sculpture that is always with us: by turns jokey, laughable, stupid and extreme, in a frequently pointless and tiresome way.

A monstrous, trudging god (like the last man to finish a gruelling marathon) has a patch of stinging nettles growing out of his back. This is by Folkert de Jong, and it's called the New Deal. It looks like a very old deal to me.

Better is the billy-goat costume that artist Pawe? Althamer has travelled the world wearing, following the journeys of a Polish children's-book character. The goat is now taking a breather, sitting in the pose of Rodin's The Thinker, but looking a bit stunned. Elsewhere, Darren Lago has morphed Rodin's 1891 Monument to Balzac with Mickey Mouse. Why, I ask, but can't really be bothered to find out. I don't care that much. The fair is too big, and there isn't time. What collectors do with this stuff is a better question: stick it in the corner of the living room, frighten the kiddies with it?

Some of this art is for the birds. A flock of funny little bronze birds by Ugo Rondinone peck at an achingly white floor. A stuffed goose by Javier Téllez regards a little Brancusi-like tower of enormous golden eggs (this must be a metaphor about the art world); while a live hermit crab has taken a bronze cast of Brancusi's 1910 Sleeping Muse as its new home in Pierre Huyghe's aquarium, one of the better of this year's commissioned Frieze projects. This is odd and extremely beautiful. The art-encumbered crab clambers over the rocks, oblivious that the hollowed-out head it is wearing is art. Or perhaps it knows perfectly well who Brancusi is.

It is certainly a great deal more lively and lovely than Christian Jankowski's motor yacht, which punters can buy either as an expensive pleasure boat – or, for a bit more dosh, as an artwork. I find this a witless and trivial Duchampian gag. "Oh no," I imagine the proud new owner saying, "this isn't my expensive new yacht, this is an artwork for which I paid over the odds just so I can tell you about it and show off my extreme sophistication, my sense of humour and my utter lack of taste".

Bananas are in this year. I counted two, but there could be more. A stuffed chimp, teetering on a pile of heavy-duty art books reaches for one, dangling from on high in a work by Elmgreen and Dragset, and the other is spotlit, suspended on fishing line, like an indoor new moon, in a work by Urs Fischer. Work is perhaps not the word. (Neither are as good as the cameo-role banana in Samuel Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape, which Harold Pinter refused to act with or, rather, eat.)

More poignantly, on an otherwise empty stand, Michael Sailstorfer beams in live webcam footage from a woodland in Germany. He has painted the ground around some trees black, and the ground is slowly getting covered in fallen leaves. I keep looking, hoping to see furtive goings-on, but so far it is just a dappled autumn afternoon. In my mind, I twin this work with just about the only memorable sculpture dotted about Regent's Park. It is just a battered old domestic door, standing ajar in its frame, and remade in bronze by Gavin Turk. A door on to nothing, a passage to nowhere.

At the entrance to the fair, Scottish artist Cara Tolmie dances and whinnies, walks and talks and spins in a revolving chair. Part banshee, part kookaburra, part diva and part lecturer, Tolmie creates a daily performance that ends with a lecture, weaving a narrative about space and territory, action and language. It is funny, self-deprecating, piling layer upon layer of talk, song and movement, only to deconstruct it all at the end.

Laure Prouvost's signs dotted about give you pause. "Ideally in this room would be a busy African market," says one. Another: "The fifth floor is wonderful." Obviously, there is no fifth floor – but there is a market, stuffed with stuff.

You have to work at Frieze to get much out of it. Fairs may be the worst places in the world for looking at art, but you have to thank Frieze for giving a little shock therapy to the gallery schedules. This autumn sees more great shows than I can remember: Gerhard Richter, Tacita Dean, Pipilotti Rist, Wilhelm Sasnal.

Inside the fair, it's hard to remember the recession, but somehow gestures like Jankowski's boat begin to look obscene in the light of it, however critical his intentions. Even Pierre Huyghe's crab starts to have a decadent, underwater air. I think I'll have a banana.