The centre-left government of Italy's new Prime Minister Romano Prodi has won a key vote of confidence in the Senate, two days after he took office. The upper house approved Mr Prodi's coalition by 165 votes to 155 against. Crucially all seven senators for life backed his government in the house, where he has only a two-seat majority. Mr Prodi's coalition narrowly beat former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi in April's election. Mr Prodi has a solid majority in the lower house.

On Thursday, Mr Prodi made his first speech to the Senate as leader, calling the war in Iraq a "grave error" and pledging to push for a troop pullout. Friday's vote was the first of two confidence votes Mr Prodi is facing in the parliament. If he lost, the new government would be forced to resign. In the 640-seat lower house - where Mr Prodi faces a second confidence vote next week - he holds a clear 70-seat majority. The centre-right opposition led by Mr Berlusconi has said it will seek every opportunity to defeat Mr Prodi's administration. On Thursday Mr Prodi announced plans to reverse many of the policies of his predecessor, pledging to withdraw Italian troops from Iraq, and launched a scathing attack on Italy's political climate. Mr Prodi said Italy needed a social, economic and moral jolt to mark a clean break with the past. He said there was a climate of tolerance towards unethical if not downright illegal behaviour in Italy, marked by huge conflicts of interest and shameless enrichment. He said his coalition was ready to govern Italy for the next five years, in order to carry out their objectives. These include tackling economic stagnation and cancelling constitutional changes carried out by Mr Berlusconi's government. As Mr Prodi announced plans to withdraw from Iraq he was shouted down by cries of "shame" from right-wing opposition MPs and it took several minutes to restore order. Mr Prodi gave no date for the withdrawal and said a technical time-frame would have to be worked out with the Iraqi authorities and with the UK and United States. The previous government of Mr Berlusconi had decided to withdraw Italy's 2,600 troops from Iraq by the end of 2006.

UK

A sex slavery cult based on a series of 1960s science fiction novels has been uncovered by police in Darlington. Durham Police discovered the bizarre sect after raiding a home in the area, after receiving complaints that a woman was being held against her will. But a spokesman said the Canadian was a willing participant and the other people involved were consenting adults. The group, called Kaotians, follow the Chronicles of Gor novels which depict a society where women are dominated. The 29-year-old woman is said to have voluntarily attended the sect after finding out about it over the internet. She later contacted a friend in United States, who then contacted the police, saying she wanted to leave but couldn't as she had burnt her passport and return ticket. But a police spokesman said upon arriving at the premises they did not find any evidence of "criminal offences". Police also investigated claims by a father in Essex his 18-year-old son had joined the sect. However police also found the teenager was at the property voluntari

ly and they had no grounds to get involved. Lee Thompson, 31, says he is the "master" who trains the slaves at the Darlington address. He said the women who act as slaves "do so by their own choice". "We're just a group of people that live a different lifestyle, I mean there's nothing wrong with that," he told BBC News. "We don't hurt anyone, we don't damage anyone, everyone's consensual." Members of the group based their lives on "a dominant submissive point of view", he said. "It's one thing that everyone's missed out on so far is, even in our organisation, if that's what you want to call it, women can be free and they can be dominant, we don't stop that," he added. "But the majority of women in our organisation are obviously slaves because women have a submissive streak in them." Mr Thompson says up to 350 followers regularly meet in pubs and clubs around the North East, in an area from Berwick to York. Kaotians are a splinter group of the Goreans, which base their beliefs on novels written by American university professor John Norman. The books are set on the quasi-medieval planet of Gor, which has a caste system and uses women as slaves. There are an estimated 25,000 Goreans worldwide.

The Home Office is investigating allegations that five illegal immigrants had cleaned immigration service offices for years. Channel 4 News reported that five Nigerians had worked at Immigration and Nationality Directorate premises, including one for three years. The Home Office said it would look into it "fully and as quickly as possible". It had earlier said the men were stopped when they first turned up for work due to the "alertness" of staff. Channel 4 News reported on Friday that the company the five worked for, Techclean, had said in a statement the cleaners had been working for months. "Each of the five individuals has worked at the premises of the IND on a number of occasions; one of them for about three years," Channel 4 said. Two of the men had worked for two years at IND, one cleaner for one year and one for six months, according to Techclean. The Home Office said the home secretary had highlighted that no system could be safe. "We understood last night that people had turned up for work for the first time and were stopped, their names checked and found not to be cleared, and the authorities were therefore called in and they were arrested," a Home Office spokesman said. " The home secretary made it clear last night that the fact that the system had worked successfully in this way was a cause for praise for the alertness of the security guard. "He also made it absolutely clear that no system was 100% foolproof and that there may have been occasions in the past where people had got through the system." Shadow home secretary David Davis accused Home Secretary John Reid of misleading the public. "Yet again we see the Home Office and now the home secretary have misled the public over a very serious breach of national and Home Office security," he said. Techclean launched its own probe after it sent five illegal immigrants to work in the Home Office premises. Techclean said the five men appeared to have "circumvented" safeguards. The Nigerians were arrested in London after being sent to the Immigration and Nationality Directorate's Becket House. "Techclean PLC and its subsidiaries have in place recruitment procedures in strict accordance with government guidelines and take the process of recruitment extremely seriously," the company's statement on Thursday said. This matter is subject to investigation and we will not be making any further statement at this time." Earlier this week a director at the IND caused a row after saying he did not have the "faintest idea" how many illegal immigrants were in the UK.

 

Inmates at the US detention centre at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba have attacked guards after luring them with a staged suicide attempt, the US military said. The detainees used weapons crafted from fans and light fixtures and the disturbance was quelled with minimum force, a US military spokesman said. Six inmates were reportedly hurt in the clash. Earlier two inmates tried to kill themselves with prescribed drugs. Thursday's incident coincides with a UN call on the US to close down the camp. The UN Committee against Torture said the US should release detainees or give them access to a judicial process. The US military has described Thursday's attack as the most violent and best organised in the history of the Guantanamo Bay prison camp. This  is the first time that details have emerged of such an incident involving more than one inmate, although individuals regularly resist guards. The US military said guards responded to an apparent attempt at suicide in Camp 4, a less restrictive part of the facility where detainees are allowed move more freely as a reward for good behaviour. The facility's commanding officer, Rear Adm Harry Harris said the attempt was "a ruse to get the guards to enter the compound". He said 10 detainees then attacked the guards as they entered the area, whose floor had been "slickened" with excrement, urine and soap. Weapons such as broken light fittings and fan blades were used and at one point, another military spokesman said, the guards "were losing the fight". The violence spread, as other inmates began destroying fittings in their parts of the prison. The military said it took a team of 23 guards an hour to quell the unrest, using pepper spray and non-lethal shotgun rounds. A spokesman said six detainees were treated for minor injuries and no soldiers were hurt. None of the detainees involved has been named. All those involved in the clash were removed to higher-security parts of the centre. Earlier, two detainees are said to have attempted to commit suicide by overdosing on prescription drugs they had been hoarding. Both were reportedly unconscious but in a stable condition. The military says there have been 39 suicide attempts in the camp since 2002, and hunger strikes have been common as detainees protest against their continued detention without trial. About 460 detainees are held at Guantanamo, which opened after the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. Most detainees are being held without charge or trial, and lawyers who have visited the facility say many of them suffer from depression. The call by the UN torture committee to close Guantanamo was accompanied by recommendations that secret US detention facilities abroad should be closed. It called for "immediate measures" to eradicate torture and ill-treatment of detainees by US military personnel "in any territory under its jurisdiction". John Bellinger, a legal spokesman for the US state department, said the report contained "factual and legal inaccuracies". Some "acts of abuse" had occurred in the past, he said, but the US was taking steps to prevent any repeat.