Sochi Club

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13 mins: The cat has now been removed, quite gently, by a burly steward. Carroll celebrates this with a couple of tasty touches.

11 mins: There's a cat on the pitch. It's currently settled in Tottenham's penalty area. Not a fox in the box, but not too far off. "After the Manchester United game Carroll said that Kuyt had shouted at him to knock the ball down for him to run on to it. Which he did. To great success," writes Phil Sawyer. "And then carried on doing during the Wolves match. Had it not occured to Dalglish to mention this tactic in the previous 12 months, or have Carroll's travails at Liverpool been because he's really really hard of hearing?"

10 mins: Tottenham have yet to do anything of note. Kelly has just ended a long spell of Liverpool possession by miscontrolling and letting the ball bobble out of play.

7 mins: The free-kick is touched to Gerrard, whose shot flicks the wall, hits a team-mate and bounces to safety. A very good shooting chance wasted, that.

6 mins: Parker sends Johnson flying, inches outside the penalty area. And now we have seen a replay, and Dawson's tackle was exemplary. It had to be.

4 mins: Gerrard's pass plays Carroll through, Dawson slides in and appears to poke the ball away from the striker as he prepares to shoot. Yet to see a replay, but Carroll's reaction (apoplexy, basically) suggests that Dawson perhaps didn't get the ball at all.

3 mins: Then Carroll concedes a comedy corner, sliding a side-footed pass from near the half-way line into precisely the one area of the pitch where there was no Liverpool player to stop it trundling out of play.

3 mins: Three minutes played, three long-balls aimed at Carroll's head. "An intriguing development, Redknapp's plane being delayed and Spurs facing the prospect of playing a vital away match without the gaffer on the sidelines," writes Peter Oh. "I wonder does this make a difference to today's players or are they so self-absorbed as to not even notice the difference?" Interesting point. I think Redknapp surely deserves some credit for Tottenham's excellence, but it's only a matter of time before players just listen to, um, dubstep or something on their iPhones in preference to the manager's team talk.

1 min: Peeeeeeeep! They're off!

7.59pm: According to @InfostradaLive on Twitter, Liverpool have a 46% chance of winning, Spurs have a 23% chance of success, and there's a 31% chance of a draw. They may just have made those numbers up.

7.57pm: And they're out! There's absolutely no sign of fog, or Harry Redknapp, and football is moments away.

7.55pm: The players are in the tunnel. Action imminent. Well, the Spurs players are in the tunnel, and a couple of Liverpudlians.

7.54pm: Fabio Capello is in the stadium. Perhaps it was the hot air emanating from the Italian's mouth that did for the Anfield fog.

7.48pm: Redknapp latest, from Kevin Bond: "He was going to be here in plenty of time, then he was going to be here but not in much time, and now he's struggling. I'm not really sure. Hopefully it won't make too much difference to us." (If you don't know, his plane up from London, where his trial continues, failed to take off due to technical difficulties).

7.42pm: Has anybody not yet seen Hugo Viana's 94th-minute 60-yard matchwinner in Portugal from yesterday? Worth a watch, if you haven't.

7.35pm: We had an inkling of Liverpool's line-up, but José Enrique and Jordan Henderson are the players who drop out of the team to make space for Kelly and Gerrard. Tottenham bring in Michael Dawson and Jake Livermore, in place of Younes Kaboul and Rafael van der Vaart.

7.27pm: Today's teams are in!
Liverpool: Reina, Kelly, Skrtel, Agger, Johnson, Adam, Spearing, Kuyt, Gerrard, Bellamy, Carroll. Subs: Doni, Aurelio, Suárez, Henderson, Coates, Downing, Carragher.
Tottenham: Friedel, Walker, Dawson, King, Assou-Ekotto, Parker, Livermore, Kranjcar, Modric, Bale, Adebayor. Subs: Cudicini, Saha, Rose, Nelsen, Khumalo, Luongo, Lancaster.
Referee: Michael Oliver (Northumberland).

7.08pm: Early team news: Steven Gerrard starts for Liverpool but Luis Suárez is only on the bench.

7.03pm: News: the fog that threatened to force a postponement just a few minutes ago has lifted. But what hasn't lifted, sadly, is Harry Redknapp's flight from London, grounded because of "technical difficulties".

Simon will be here from about 7.30, so until then why not read this preview?

Kenny Dalglish says Luis Suárez is keen to play against Tottenham Hotspur on Monday night following his eight-match suspension for racially abusing Patrice Evra but the manager is not sure whether to throw him in at the deep end.

The Liverpool manager said of Suárez, who has not played since the 1-1 draw with Blackburn Rovers on Boxing Day: "He'll want to play, won't he? There is a lot to be taken into consideration – the way the other boys have played without him and the fact he has not played for a month.

"After five or six weeks out, it's not automatic someone will come straight back into the team. It depends on the individual, it depends on our needs; not just who we have available but who we are playing against."

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Diplomatic crisis follows day of continued violence in which at least 50 people were killed in Homs, according to activists

Britain and the US recalled their ambassadors to Damascus on Monday in protest at what the British foreign secretary, William Hague, called the "doomed" and "murderous" regime's violent behaviour towards its civilian population.

The diplomatic crisis followed a morning in which at least 50 people were killed in attacks on the Syrian city of Homs, according to activists, including the bombardment of a field hospital in which 19 people were killed.

Speaking in the House of Commons, Hague said of Assad's government: "There is no way it can recover its credibility internationally or with its own people."

Hague recalled Britain's ambassador in Damascus, Simon Collis, to London for "consultations" on what he termed an "utterly unacceptable situation which demands a united international response".

The foreign secretary also signalled the west would now scramble to explore alternative, non-UN routes in an attempt to halt the killing in Syria and prepare for a post-Bashar al-Assad future. As well as continuing support for the Arab League, Hague said the UK would intensify its contact with the Syrian opposition, and would back a new Arab-led group, Friends of Syria. "Britain will be a highly active member in setting up such a group with the broadest international support," he said.

He described Russia's and China's vetoes of the United Nations security council resolution censuring Syria as a grave error of judgment and a betrayal that implicitly "left the door open" to further human rights abuses.

Earlier in the day, an unrepentant Russia accused the international community of "hysteria" following global condemnation of Moscow and Beijing's decision to veto the UN resolution on Syria.

Russia's foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, dismissed the reaction from "some western voices" as "verging on the hysterical" and called it an "indecent" attempt to pin blame for the out-of-control violence in Syria "on one side only".

The US, Britain, France and Germany all expressed disgust at Moscow's action.

The US closed its embassy in Damascus and evacuated its ambassador and other diplomats amid security concerns. The French president, Nicholas Sarkozy, described the rejection of the Arab-backed security council resolution as a scandal, with the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, saying she was appalled.

Hague's remarks came amid another day of bloodshed and mayhem in Homs, the opposition-controlled town relentlessly targeted by Damascus since Friday. At least 50 people were killed on Mondaywhen shells slammed into a makeshift clinic and residential suburb, in the third day of indiscriminate bombardment by the Syrian army, activists said. Another 10 people were reported killed elsewhere, they added.

The Guardian was unable to independently verify the casualty figures.

The government denies shelling Homs. But activists say as many as 200 people were killed on Saturday, the highest death toll since the uprising in Syria began last March. Arab satellite television stations broadcast live footage from the town, showing smoke rising from some buildings and explosions.

In an interview with NBC, Barack Obama said that despite the failure of UN diplomacy there was no prospect of western military intervention in Syria. But he said he still believed it was possible to reach a negotiated solution to the conflict. He added: "The Assad regime is feeling the noose tightening around them. This is not going to be a matter of if, it's going to be a matter of when."

Asked why Syria differed from Libya, Obama said there was a lack of unity among the major powers in dealing with Syria. He stressed, however: "We have been relentless in sending a message that it is time for Assad to go, that the kind of violence we've seen exercised against his own people over this weekend and over the past several months is inexcusable."

Lavrov will on Tuesday lead a Russian diplomatic mission to Damascus and hold talks with Assad, Syria's president. Mikhail Fradkov, Russia's foreign intelligence chief, will also attend. There has been speculation Moscow may privately be seeking to persuade Assad to make a "controlled exit", handing over power to trusted senior generals, in a move that would preserve Russia's influence in a post-Assad scenario.

Russia has cast its efforts as an even-handed attempt to get both sides to negotiate, in contrast to the partial diplomacy of the west. Lavrov said he would urge Assad to withdraw his heavy weapons from Syria's towns and cities, a key Arab League demand. But he also said he wanted what he called "extremist groups" – opposition fighters from the Free Syrian Army – to disarm as well.

Analysts said Russia's diplomatic initiative stood little chance of success, with Assad emboldened by the Russian and Chinese votes to crush the rebels militarily, and Russia's credibility with Syrian opposition groups at zero. "My gut feeling is it will go nowhere," David Hartwell, senior Middle East analyst at IHS Jane's said.

He added: "The debate has been sharpened by what happened on Saturday. Moscow's argument that Assad is a credible figure who can lead a reform movement in Syria is increasingly weak. The Russians have got themselves in a situation where they are not treated seriously by anybody, certainly not by the opposition."

Russia appears to have rejected the UN resolution for several reasons. The Kremlin has traditionally enjoyed good relations with Syria and supplies it with billions of dollars worth of military hardware. In return, Damascus gives Russia a strategic foothold in the Middle East, allowing it the use the Syrian port of Tartus as a naval base. Russia is also Syria's third biggest trading partner (after Ukraine and China).

But geopolitics also played a role. The Kremlin is keen to create difficulties for the west, and the US in particular. It is happier siding with a fellow authoritarian regime, especially one in the grip of a popular uprising. Additionally, Moscow feels betrayed after supporting last year a UN no-fly zone in Libya, which, it says, was used as a pretext for western-engineered regime change.

And then there are domestic factors, ahead of next month's presidential "election" in Russia and unprecedented street protests against Vladimir Putin's rule. Putin's is reflexively opposed to what he sees as US hegemony and western meddling in sovreign states. "The Russians think Assad's days are over and they are thinking about how to safeguard their position in the region," Ghassan Ibrahim, a Syrian dissident based in London, told Reuters. "Syria is their only door into the region and it gives them influence. They need to protect it. But do they have enough power to manipulate Assad (to step down)?"

Writing in the Rossiskaya Gazeta, Russia's former prime minister Yevgeny Primakov on Monday suggested the UN security council resolution was part of a western conspiracy. Its ultimate aim, he suggested, was to remove the Assad regime in Syria so as to isolate Iran, which the US believes is seeking to develop nuclear weapons.

"The United States and its NATO allies want to exploit the situation that arose in the spring of 2011 in the Arab world with the aim of getting rid of Arab regimes it dislikes," Primakov - a veteran of previous Russian "peace initiatives", including to Saddam Hussein in 1991 - said.

The inclusion of Fradkov, the head of Russia's SVR foreign intelligence agency, in Russia's mission is intriguing. Leaked WikiLeaks cables describe him as a leading member of Russia's security elite, and a "pragmatic hardliner who shares a world view of Soviet xenophobia and distrust of the west."

The US, meanwhile, said it had closed its embassy in Damascus over what it said were security concerns.The US state department said that the Syrian government was informed that the embassy had been closed and the American ambassador, Robert Ford, and the 17 staff remaining in Damascus had left the country only after all of them had crossed into neighbouring Jordan by road.

US officials say the Syrian security forces are so stretched by the uprising that they are not able to sufficiently protect the embassy. Those concerns were heightened by two car bomb attacks on state security offices in Damascus last month.

Judge tells 21 companies to bar access to material deemed religiously offensive, or face China-style action

Google and Facebook have removed content from some Indian websites after a court warned that India would crack down "like China" if they did not take steps to protect religious sensibilities.

The two are among 21 companies ordered to develop a mechanism to block material considered religiously offensive after private petitioners took them to court over images deemed offensive to Hindus, Muslims and Christians.

Individuals have brought two cases against internet companies in India, fuelling fears about censorship in the world's largest democracy.

"[Our] review team has looked at the content and disabled this content from the local domains of [Google] search, YouTube and Blogger," said a Google spokeswoman, Paroma Roy Chowdhury.

At the heart of the dispute is a law India passed last year making companies responsible for user content posted on their websites, and giving them 36 hours to take down content if there is a complaint.

Last month, the companies said it was impossible for them to block content. Roy Chowdhury declined to comment on what had since been removed, and a Facebook representative said only that the company would release a statement later.

A New Delhi lower court hearing one of the cases, a civil suit brought by an Islamic scholar, told the companies on Monday to put in writing the steps they had taken to block offensive content, and submit reports within 15 days.

"Microsoft has filed an application for rejection of the suit on the grounds that it disclosed no cause of action against Microsoft," a spokesperson for the company said. "The matter is sub judice and no further comments can be given."

That suit was brought by a scholar, Mufti Aijaz Arshad Qasm, who runs a website called fatwaonline.org, which gives answers to moral questions.

Google, Facebook, Yahoo and Microsoft have appealed in the Delhi high court against a separate criminal case successfully brought by Vinay Rai, a journalist.

The high court has yet to rule on their appeal, but the sitting judge warned in January they were responsible for content on their websites and said he could, "like China", block sites if the company failed to put its house in order.

In the Rai case, the court ordered the companies to stand trial for offences relating to the distribution of obscene material to minors, after being shown images it said were offensive to the prophet Muhammad, Jesus and various Hindu gods and goddesses as well as several political leaders.

"If the companies have actually removed some content, they should put in place a mechanism to do it regularly, instead of waiting for a court case every time," Rai said.

Fewer than one in 10 of India's 1.2 billion population have access to the internet, but that still makes the country the third-biggest internet market after China and the US. The number of internet users in India is expected to almost triple to 300 million over the next three years.

Despite the new rules to block offensive content, India's internet access is still largely uncensored, in contrast to the tight controls in place in neighbouring China. But, like many other governments around the world, India has become increasingly nervous about the power of social media.

While civil rights groups have opposed the new laws, politicians say posting offensive images in a socially conservative country with a history of violence between religious groups presents a danger to the public.