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Chechen police killed 12 rebels as they repulsed a raid on the Moscow-backed president's home village yesterday, authorities said, an attack that broke a period of relative calm in the troubled Russian republic.

The Chechen president, Ramzan Kadyrov, told state-run Rossiya-24 TV that he headed the operation to fight off the attack on his village of Tsentoroi, although it was not clear whether Mr Kadyrov was in the village at the time of the attack, or directing operations from the republic's capital Grozny, some 40 miles away.

Mr Kadyrov, who is himself a former rebel, has vowed to bring peace and stability to the republic which has experienced more than 15 years of sporadic conflict. Many of the neighbouring Russian republics in the mainly Muslim North Caucasus are also afflicted by simmering insurgencies and 10 rebels were killed in Dagestan and Kabardino-Balkaria on Saturday.

While there were conflicting accounts of yesterday's assault, the fact that it happened at all challenges Mr Kadyrov's pledge to the Kremlin to maintain tight security in Chechnya."This raid is a message to President Kadyrov," said Grigory Shvedov, the chief editor of the internet news agency Caucasian Knot. "The sabotage looks quite successful, and is a sign that we could expect a surge in similar activities." The government said some 30 rebels attacked the village early yesterday morning and only a few rebels shooting a video of the raid managed to escape. Five civilians and two policemen were also killed in the attack, the regional news agency RIA reported, but it said it could not immediately confirm the toll of 12 rebel dead cited by Mr Kadyrov.

An Islamist website, www.kavkazcenter.com, challenged the official data saying that at least 15 of Mr Kadyrov's security officers were killed, while a total of 60 insurgents attacked the village. Five rebels were also killed, it said.

The insurgents spent about an hour rampaging through the village, the website said, citing local residents, and torched 10 houses it described as belonging to "Kadyrov's confidants". It was not clear whether Mr Kadyrov's own house was also set ablaze, it said.

Mr Kadyrov has been the target of a number of assassination attempts in the past 10 years, and Tsentoroi was raided by insurgents back in 2004, in what Mr Kadyrov said was an attack aimed at killing him.

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French and other foreign languages have seen a dramatic decline in schools, GCSE results out today showed, as the numbers of pupils taking individual sciences has surged and the overall pass rate rose again to a record 69.1%.

Against a backdrop of increased pressure on university places and lobbying by business leaders to encourage the take-up of single sciences in schools, entries for chemistry and physics GCSE rose by 32%, while those for biology were up 28% this year.
The number of students taking a language has dropped by a third since the government made them optional at GCSE six years ago. The decline of French has been striking; it has nearly halved to just over 170,000 entries compared with more than 300,000 in 2004, and fell out of the top 10 most popular subjects this year. More pupils choose to study geography and art for GCSE.

Spanish appears poised to overtake German at GCSE; with the numbers taking it rising to over 67,000 while German entries have fallen to around 70,000 this year. The numbers taking Mandarin, Portuguese and Polish have also risen, with the last thought to be fuelled by the increase in the number pupils who are children of recent Polish migrants.

About 690,000 pupils from England, Wales and Northern Ireland received their GCSE results today and the pass rate rose for the 23rd year in a row. The lecturers union the UCU today warned of a "domino effect" that could harm some teenagers' chances of continuing in further education. The union said a crisis in degree places could force out some of those who have traditionally turned to vocational qualifications at the age of 16.

More than 180,000 university hopefuls are still without a place, figures showed today. Ucas, the university admissions service, said 184,872 students were still in clearing, which matches spare university places to those without any offers or who have applied late. This is 27% of the 676,256 who applied for undergraduate courses this autumn.

This time last year, 138,506 students were in clearing out of the 612,947 who applied for a university place. Some 19,276 students have found a place in clearing, compared with 17,800 last year, and 9,018 have opted out of the system, compared with 7,318.

Today's results appear to show a sharper awareness of demand for single sciences both from universities and employers. Last year, the Confederation of British Industry said businesses should expect to offer golden handshakes to students who did science and engineering.

Almost 19% of students sat biology GCSE, while 17.5% took physics and 18% took chemistry. Last year, the proportion of students who took separate sciences rose, but less sharply.

Andrew Hall, director general of the AQA exam board, said it was the first time "in living memory" that French was not in the top 10 most popular subjects.

Hall, who has a background working in engineering, said languages were still important for business although English is spoken widely. "You do need to be able to communicate with people in their own country in their own language," he said.

Ziggy Liaquat, managing director of the Edexcel exam board, said: "It's disappointing to see the decrease of languages." He said knowledge of languages was "very important" in the global market. "There is a conversation to be had about how we do make languages more engaging, more interesting, more relevant for young people."

Christine Blower, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, urged ministers to ensure that all young people acquired at least one modern foreign language. She said: "Yet again, of real concern is the decline in the study of modern foreign languages, particularly French and German. This was reflected in last week's A-level results. I find it extraordinary that French, which has for so long been core to the secondary curriculum, should now have dropped out of the top 10 GCSEs taken by young people."

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If you are lucky enough to be reading this with a glass of whisky in your hand then take a second to regard the contents of your glass. Is it a pale golden or dark ruby colour? Does it greet your nose with memories of heather moorland or salty coastlines? Is your mouth filled with a honey sweetness or a dark acrid smokiness? All of these and many more are possible from the most multifaceted of spirits known variously as whisk(e)y, liquid sunshine, and the water of life.

Whisky is the liquid gold that emerges from the distillation of base beer. It is "the separation of the gross from the subtle and the subtle from the gross ... to make the spiritual lighter by its subtlety" (Hieronymus Brunschwig, 15th century doctor and distiller). Almost all spirits are produced by distillation: a liquid with a low alcohol content such as wine or beer can be taken and from it a spirit produced. Alchemists believed that through repeated distillation they could extract the essence or spirit of a material and that from wine they could extract the aqua vītae or water of life. The word itself, whisky, is an Anglicised version of the Gaelic for water of life: uisge beatha or usquebaugh is what Irish and Scots monks called their distilled barley beer.

Scotland's mild, maritime climates, with long hours of daylight in summer, was ideal for growing barley for making beer. Thus, the Scots distilled beer not wine, and so made whisky not brandy. The first evidence of whisky production in Scotland comes from an entry in the Exchequer Rolls for 1494: malt is sent " ... to Friar John Cor, by order of the King, wherewith to make aqua vitae". Since then whisky has been as intimately associated with Scotland as the kilt and Tunnock's caramel. However, it is not thought to be a Scottish invention. Whisky making is most likely to have developed in Ireland and have been carried across to Scotland by monks some time between 1100 and 1300.

The processes that go into making whisky appear simple but they can produce an infinitely complex and subtle drink. Whisky can be made from many different grains but a Scottish single malt can only be made from malted barley. Scottish single malt is what we will concentrate on here as there are many more whisky distilleries in Scotland than anywhere else in the world.

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An unassuming and private character, Gareth Williams only ever described his work as "something to do with codes". Over the years he had grown accustomed to fading into the background. But when he repeatedly failed to turn up for work at the riverside headquarters of MI6, colleagues became so concerned that they called in Scotland Yard to open up his flat. From that point on Mr Williams' death – if not his life – was to be very public.

The scene that greeted the detectives inside the top-floor apartment of an expensive central London house was gruesome. A decomposing body had been stuffed inside a large sports holdall in the bath. Nearby, Mr Williams' mobile telephone had been laid out alongside several SIM cards.

Yesterday the 30-year-old's work as a communications officer at the intelligence "listening post" GCHQ, seconded to the Secret Intelligence Service, led to speculation that he had been brutally murdered because of his job. Was he the first spy to be killed in Britain since the former KGB officer Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned in 2006?

The reality, however, is likely to be more mundane. Sources within the murder inquiry led by the Metropolitan Police's Homicide and Serious Crime Command insisted that "the suggestion there are terrorism or national security links to this case is pretty low down the list of probabilities". They are believed to be concentrating on Mr Williams' private life.

While his body was discovered at around 4.40pm on Monday after the door to his flat was broken down, it appeared that he may have been dead for as long as two weeks. The first post-mortem examination proved inconclusive yesterday evening, though it did find that, contrary to earlier reports, he had not been stabbed.

Police have described the death as "suspicious and unexplained," and a further examination is due to be held soon to find out exactly how Mr Williams, yet to be officially identified, died. It will include toxicological analysis of his blood to test for traces of drugs or alcohol.

Both GCHQ and the Foreign Office have refused to say anything more than that it is policy not to confirm or deny the identity of any individuals working for the intelligence agencies. However, it is understood that Scotland Yard's Counter Terrorism Command and the domestic intelligence agency MI5 are being kept up to date with the investigation.

Mr Williams normally lived near his work within the heavily secure environment of the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), an intelligence agency in Gloucestershire which eavesdrops on global communications. But he had been based in a flat in London for the past year in a street populated by bankers and politicians.

In a twist befitting any spy thriller, the property in Pimlico, whose recent occupants all appeared to have Cheltenham links, was owned by a company registered in the British Virgin Islands called New Rodina – a term which means "motherland" in Russian. The well-to-do street is home to a number of distinguished residents, including former Conservative Home Secretaries Michael Howard and Sir Leon Brittan.

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Liverpool midfielder Javier Mascherano's future lies in the hands of Barcelona after manager Roy Hodgson admitted the situation was "uncomfortable" for the Merseysiders.

The Argentina captain was left out of the squad for last night's 3-0 Barclays Premier League defeat to Manchester City after the Reds rejected a bid, believed to be about £16million, from the Catalans.

Hodgson said the 26-year-old's head "was not right", with reports in Spain suggesting the Primera Division champions have already agreed personal terms on a four-year, £85,000-a-week contract.

Barcelona coach Pep Guardiola has admitted he is in the market for a defensive midfielder but refused to comment on Mascherano.

But Hodgson insists the club is unwilling to budge on their valuation of a player rescued from West Ham's reserves for £18million three-and-a-half years ago.

"His head is being turned by Barcelona, who are making overtures to him and telling him they want him," said the Liverpool manager.

"Unfortunately the fee they are offering is way, way below our valuation.

"But that does not make the player any happier because he is not interested in the justice of the fee, he just wants to move and it makes it uncomfortable for us."

Mascherano attended the club's Melwood training ground today but Hodgson hinted last night he would not pick the player again until the situation was resolved or the transfer window closed.

However, it seems inconceivable the Argentinian will still be on Merseyside by the beginning of September, having been angling for a move for a year.

Mascherano has complained his family have not settled in England and wants a move for that reason, and his case has been strengthened by an agreement struck last season when he was told by the club if they received an acceptable offer he could go.

His presence will only be a distraction and a disruption but Liverpool will run the risk of keeping an unhappy player as they are determined to hold out for Mascherano's true market value.

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Caster Semenya "doesn't care" about the criticism aimed at her since she returned to athletics, according to her coach. The Canadian athlete Diane Cummins said on Sunday that running against Semenya was like "literally running against a man", but Michael Seme said the South African is unmoved.

Seme, speaking yesterday, added that those who complain should stay at home but his comments are unlikely to end the disquiet among a number of Semenya's rivals. "Unfortunately for Caster, she's grown up in an environment that is complicated not just for her but for human science," Cummins said. "Basically, is she man, is she lady? What constitutes male, what constitutes female?

"Even if she is a female, she's on the very fringe of the normal athlete female biological composition of hormone testing. So, from that perspective, most of us just feel that we are literally running against a man."

Seme refused to hit back. "It's up to them to say and do what they want to," he said. "We don't say anything. As long as the organisers of meetings invite us, there is no problem. People are people and they will say things, but we have no problem. If these athletes don't want to come and run, it's up to them."

Asked whether there were any concerns from Semenya by what was being said, he responded: "No, no, no. We don't even care about the past now, we're just looking forward to new things and shouldn't be talking about the old ones. That is now over and gone."

For Semenya, 19, it was a return to the Berlin Olympic Stadium on Sunday, almost a year to the day since she was crowned champion in the two-lap race at the World Championships.

She was subsequently banned by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) after unusually high levels of testosterone were detected in a sample.

After being cleared last month, she won her first two races back in Finland, clocking 2min 4.22sec and 2:02.41, but improved significantly in Berlin by dipping under two minutes.

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Do you want to cross the Pacific on a boat made of plastic bottles?" I was asked a year-and-a-half ago. "Yes," I replied without hesitation. I figured it wasn't a question that would come up again soon. The Plastiki adventure began when David de Rothschild, the British adventurer and environmentalist, came across a United Nations report on the state of the world's oceans, which pointed to the fact that our seas and their ecosystems are dying, suffocated by millions of tons of human waste, in particular plastics. There was also the "discovery" of huge gyres of plastic waste "the size of Texas" trapped in oceanic vortices. Sailor and environmentalist Charles Moore had sailed through one of these Pacific "garbage patches" in 1997 and brought back grim samples: a briny soup in which plastic nanoparticles outnumbered plankton by a ratio of six to one.

Inspired by the famous Kon-Tiki expedition, David decided to build a one-of-a-kind expedition vessel incorporating that ubiquitous item of rubbish, the plastic bottle, and sail it across the Pacific to encourage the world to "beat waste". He was keen to show that with more efficient design and a smarter understanding of how we use materials, waste can be transformed into a valuable resource. The Plastiki is the result of nearly four years of design, boat-building, hipster environmentalism and cutting-edge research into plastic polymers.

I started documenting the adventure for a National Geographic Channel film nearly two years ago, when the Plastiki was still just a bunch of wild sketches on a naval architect's notepad and a pile of dirty recycled bottles in a San Francisco workshop. Work at the construction site was slow and disorganised. All of the plastic materials used to build the boat's structure were untested and, to his credit, David insisted on a hull design that incorporated recycled plastic bottles in their original form. Whatever vessel was going to emerge from this zany endeavour would have to be strong enough to sustain months of battering and ultra-violet degradation under the punishing equatorial sun.

I went 100 miles out to sea for a weekend trial with a crew I barely knew. Five men and one woman. Most of us hadn't ever sailed before. David spent the entire time vomiting his guts out and we lost a few bottles from the hulls (which we retrieved); but skippers Jo Royle and Dave Thomson reckoned the Plastiki was ready as she would ever be. The morning we set off in March this year, a hard-boiled sailor warned me I was mad to be taking part; the Plastiki would never make it past the Golden Gate Bridge, let alone 8,398 miles across the Pacific.

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A subtle twist on the traditional apple version. Photograph: Colin Campbell for the Guardian

The traditional apple version of this dish from south-west France uses dessert apples. Pears poached in red wine give a different result, subtle and lovely when served with cold crème fraîche. You'll have a batch of syrup left over: use it in a fruit compôte or for more pear poaching.

7 or 8 rock-hard pears
375ml red wine (any sort)
250g caster sugar, plus more for sprinkling
50g butter, salted or not
3-4 large sheets filo (about half a 270g pack)
Toasted chopped hazelnuts
Icing sugar

Peel, quarter lengthways and core the pears, then place in a saucepan with the wine and caster sugar. Bring to a boil, then simmer gently until the pears are slightly tender but not too soft. Place a plate on top of them once the pan is off the heat, to keep them submerged as they cool. Finally, drain the pears free of syrup.

Melt the butter, then take a 20cm round tart tin and brush the inside with butter. Take one sheet of filo, brush lightly with butter, sprinkle with caster sugar and hazelnuts, fold in half, then tuck it into the tart case. Repeat this with another sheet of filo. Spoon in the pears, fold the filo edges inwards, then butter another filo sheet, sprinkle with sugar and nuts, crumple and press it on top. Bake at 180C (160C fan-assisted)/350F/gas mark 4 for 30-40 minutes, until golden. Dust with icing sugar to serve.

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The bad old days, 1880s
While male unions became ever more organised, women relied largely on philanthropic groups. Early action such as the 1888 "match girl" strike at the Bryant & May factory in London focused on working conditions rather than wages. As the Women's Trade Union League became more militant, pay rose up the agenda. The League's secretary, Clementina Black, moved the first successful equal-pay resolution at the Trades Union Congress in 1888.

The battlefield, 1914
The war brought an influx of women into the workplace. In 1915, at the Cleator Mill in Cumbria, women protested over unequal war bonuses, and a year later, carriage cleaners at London's Old Oak Common depot did the same. With the decision to grant universal suffrage in 1918, equal pay became a pressing issue. That year, female Tube workers launched a strike over bonuses and action by bus girls brought the city to a virtual standstill.

Early child care, 1940s
With women being conscripted into wartime industry, the government had to find a way to address women's "double burden". By 1943, 1345 nurseries had been established (compared with the 14 existing in 1940), though it was made clear that this was just for wartime. The option of part-time work also emerged, though other aspects – such as maternity benefits – remained low on the agenda.

The breakthrough, 1970s
In 1968, sewing machinists at the Ford plant in Dagenham went on a three-week strike demanding equal pay. Their high-profile action, which included a meeting Employment Minister Barbara Castle, paved the way for the inaugural Equal Pay Act. Coming into force December 1975, it prohibited differentiation of wages, holidays, pension rights, perks and bonuses based on gender. Though it subsequently was criticised for failing to outlaw racial discrimination, it provided a ground-breaking milestone in the history of women's rights.

Cooking up a fight, 1988
After 10 years and three tribunals, Julie Hayward, a worker in the kitchen of the Cammell Laird shipyard in Birkenhead, won the first case of "equal pay for equal value". She contested that the skills required for her job meant she should be paid the equivalent to her male colleagues in the shipyard.

Still a long way off, 2005
By 2005, the number of women belonging to a trade union outnumbered men, and the number of days lost to industrial disputes is at its lowest point on record. Even so, this week, a study by the Chartered Management Institute discovered that women in the UK face a 57-year wait before their take-home pay equals that of their male counterparts'. The path to parity continues.

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In the space of two days Federico met two people – one was me, the other is now his wife. So in a couple of days he'd sorted the whole thing, done. Now he has his own restaurant and a baby.

When Federico first came to England he was working at a restaurant in the countryside. He'd heard what we were doing at Zafferano [which Locatelli opened in 1994], which was very edgy and getting a lot of press. He and his brother Max saw it and said, "This is where we want to be."

He started as a commis [entry-level chef] but had to learn English. He'd been working in a French kitchen, which was a disaster. We don't want an Italian chef speaking French – we don't want anybody to speak French, not even the French!

He was working in our little pasta room when I first met him in person. The other day, we were talking about that little room and the guys who've worked for me over the past 20 years. A lot of today's big names started in that room – Angela Hartnett was in there for months.

After about a year-and-a-half I decided to leave Zafferano, and I had to decide who to take with me. Federico hadn't gone through all the ranks, but I knew he was sous-chef material. For 18 months we didn't really work: we did the TV programme Pure Italian and just went around on our motorbikes. We both ride, although my wife doesn't let me race any more. Now we have scooters, and scoot around like idiots.

We then set up Locanda, where we have always had the idea of a family, of equality. We work together, we eat together. When Federico was in Dubai setting up the second Locanda, we were fighting a lot, much more than in usual daily life. He was down there for six months doing all the work and suddenly I'd turn up and they'd roll out the red carpet and everybody was, "Giorgio, Giorgio." He found it frustrating, but it strengthened our relationship.

Three years ago Fed needed a break and went off for six months to South America. We didn't know if he was coming back, but were ready to accept any outcome. I already knew the answer, but when he came back I asked him, "What would you like to do?" He said, "I'd like to have a restaurant with my brother."

I haven't done anything hands-on with his restaurant, just signed the cheques. I feel very confident. If I go and he says to me, "You need to come in the kitchen," I'll take off my jacket and get in there; I don't mind at all. But I'm sure that won't happen.

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