Fires - fanned by strong winds and fuelled by dry wood and grass - also struck at the Queen's Balmoral Estate. Flames leapt 40 feet in the air as crews from Surrey, Berkshire and Hampshire fought ferocious blazes that came close to Broadmoor top security hospital in Crowthorne, Berkshire. Ramblers fled for their lives as the inferno swept across dry heath and forest land in Crowthorne Woods, Berkshire, with the smoke so thick it blotted out the sun. Some are thought to have been sparked by barbecues and careless disposal of matches. But arsonists are also being blamed.

The wildfires follow two of the driest spring months on record. Rivers are 'exceptionally' low for May across England and Wales. In Berkshire, three schools were closed and homes evacuated as fires ripped through Swinley Forest, driven by up to 45mph gusts. Choking smoke poured over nearby roads as 150 firefighters tackled the 750-acre forest fire just a few hundred yards from Broadmoor top security hospital, which houses dangerous patients including Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe.

Fierce flames were whipped up by strong winds as two separate blazes took hold - one covering an area of one square mile. The fires have since spread to four areas, police said. Roads were closed and hundreds of residents were advised to keep their windows shut because of the dense smoke. A spokesman for the Royal Berkshire Fire and Rescue Service said: 'We expect to be fighting this fire for a couple of days and believe it will be the weekend before the land is handed back. This is the biggest forest fire we have had this early on in many, many years and we have called in all officers who were on holiday or on leave.'

Meanwhile, Chris Huhne, the Energy Secretary, will have to defend the impact the tax is likely to have on oil and gas production at a time when Britain needs to bolster its energy security. The hearing comes three days after Centrica warned it may partially shut the UK's biggest gas field as a result of the tax. The move has recently been criticised by John Whiting, head of the Office for Tax Simplification, Ed Balls, the Shadow Chancellor, and numerous industry figures.

On Tuesday, Bill Transier, chief executive of Endeavour International, a major investor in the North Sea, said British governments had made doing business in the UK "more of a political risk than West Africa or the Middle East", after making four major tax changes within seven years.

"The North Sea is the second-largest oil-producing region in the world after Saudi Arabia. It's a national treasure for the UK. The government is utterly destroying that," he told The Daily Telegraph. "I wish people would step up and say you just can't do this. You're killing the industry. Capital is leaving the country and going elsewhere. The politicians seem to be ignorant of the facts and then they do something stupid as a political mechanism to offset a fuel tax. It's a critical time in the future of the North Sea and some of these reserves are going to be lost forever."

In the last few days of his term, outgoing Bundesbank President Axel Weber appeared extremely satisfied with how effectively he had done his job. Looking back on seven years as head of the German central bank, he said, "we actually achieved quite a lot." Everywhere Weber goes, people rave about Germany's rapid economic recovery. In other words, things couldn't be better - that is, if it weren't for a nagging problem that threatens to overshadow all the positive news.

Weber himself describes it in banker-speak: "Along with the economic upswing, we see a deterioration in the price outlook." In plain English: Prices are threatening to spiral out of control, and inflation is rearing its ugly head again. The latest figures are indeed unsettling. Compared with the same month last year, consumer prices in Germany rose by 2.4 percent in April - the biggest increase since the outbreak of the financial crisis in 2008. This means that, for the fourth month in a row, the inflation rate in the euro zone's largest economy has been above the threshold of what the European Central Bank (ECB) considers compatible with general price stability, namely two percent.

It's quite possible that German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schauble (CDU) would take an entirely different approach to the rising inflation rate - and opt to do nothing at all. Indeed, this could give the treasury a distinct advantage. The spiral of rising prices and wages would bolster tax revenues - while inflation would reduce government debts. Both of these together constitute a relatively painless way of restructuring the country's finances - at least its public ones.

Police said they were unaware of any link between the arrests and bin Laden's death. The men were arrested on Monday after officers conducted a stop check on a vehicle near the Sellafield site in Cumbria. The men are all aged in their 20s and from London.

A spokesman for the police's North West Counter Terrorism Unit declined to comment on media reports the men had been filming the site. "There were suspicions from the Civil Nuclear Constabulary that led to some arrests. There were some suspicions about them near to the perimeter fence," he said. A police counter terrorism source said the arrests were not preplanned. "The local officers felt there was enough to arrest them. It's a case of seeing if there is anything to it."

Police held the men under section 41 of the Terrorism Act, which allows officers to arrest people suspected of terrorist offences and hold them for 48 hours without charge. The men were being transferred to Manchester to be questioned by counter-terrorism officers. Local police were alerted by officers from the Civil Nuclear Constabulary, a specialist force which provides protection for civil nuclear licensed sites.

"We've received reports of plans to attack the home of Mama Sarah Obama three days ago and immediately put in place adequate security measures," local police chief Stephen Cheteka said, adding that the home will be under constant surveillance. Cheteka said there was no cause for alarm and that Obama had been informed of the increased security measures. Calls to the US State Department seeking confirmation of the report and additional comment were not immediately returned on Tuesday.

The prime minister, who faces a parliamentary election on 5 June, hailed the package as a victory, saying it included more lenient terms than those imposed on Greece and Ireland as the deal gave Portugal more time to meet budget goals which it had previously agreed. "The government has obtained a good deal. This is a deal that defends Portugal," he said, although he added: "There are no financial assistance programmes that are not demanding."

The reaction from the financial markets was cautious. Filipe Garcia, head of Informacao de Mercados Financeiros consultants in Porto, said: "He [Mr Socrates] showed us the bright side of the moon. It is the dark side that remains to be seen, and that includes the interest rate." An EC source said what was presented was what had already been agreed. The source said the interest rate on the loan would be decided at a meeting of eurozone finance ministers in mid-May, when the bailout is expected to be approved.

Agreement is needed by 15 June, when Portugal has to meet a bond redemption of 4.9 billion euros. A newly elected government after the June election will have to enact the terms of the bailout. Mr Socrates added, however, that the loan agreement would not require any changes to the constitution.

"It was decided that any effort to work with the Pakistanis could jeopardise the mission," Leon Panetta, CIA director, said in an interview with Time magazine. "They might alert the targets." Such allegations illustrate the extraordinary tensions between the US and Pakistan - a country US government officials deem as strategically vital but also deeply unreliable. "Our eyes are wide open when it comes to Pakistan's relations - past and probably current - with groups that the US views as serious threats," a senior US intelligence official told the Financial Times, adding that relations between the two countries' intelligence agencies were "co-operative and tense at the same time".

He added that Pakistani officials had been unaware of the US focus on the Abbottabad compound in which bin Laden was hiding but "did provide information that helped fill in the intelligence picture". The White House on Tuesday provided a fuller version of events at the Abbottabad compound which included the fact that bin Laden was unarmed at the time of the attack contradicting an earlier statement from the administration.

US officials are particularly concerned about alleged ties between Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency and Muslim extremist groups. On Tuesday, Democratic and Republican congressmen called for the US to halt or scrutinise the aid it gives Islamabad. The administration, however, is reluctant to anger a country on which its war effort in Afghanistan depends. "Clearly, there is some type of support network that provided [bin Laden] assistance and helped facilitate contact between bin Laden and his operatives," John Brennan, Barack Obama's counter-terrorism adviser, said on Tuesday. "Whether or not that was individuals inside of the Pakistani government is unknown... But I know Pakistani officials want to get to the bottom of this."

But Navi Pillay, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said that the al Qaeda leader, killed in a US operation in Pakistan, had committed crimes against humanity as self-confessed mastermind of "the most appalling acts of terrorism", including the September 11, 2001 attacks on America. It was always clear that taking bin Laden alive was likely to be difficult, she said, noting that US authorities had stated that they intended to arrest him if possible.

"This was a complex operation and it would be helpful if we knew the precise facts surrounding his killing. The United Nations has consistently emphasised that all counter-terrorism acts must respect international law," Pillay said in a statement issued in response to a Reuters request. In Washington, US Attorney General Eric Holder defended as lawful on Tuesday the US operation to go into Pakistan that resulted in the death of bin Laden and the taking of his body.

The October date for reaching the 7 billion mark is based on calculations from current trends and Hania Zlotnik, head of the UN economic department's population division, said it should be taken "with a grain of salt." Nevertheless, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) announced it would start a seven-day countdown on October 24 that would include a series of events. The world reached 6 billion people in 1998 and was 6.89 on July 1.

The report, "2010 Revision of World Population Prospects," projected there would be 10.1 billion people on the planet by 2100, the first time it has looked that far ahead. But it said that if global fertility was just half a child more per woman than it expected, that figure could be almost 16 billion. UN officials said their figures were based on the assumption that fertility would taper off during the century. But Zlotnik told a news conference, "Stabilization of the population doesn't seem to us as very probable at this moment."

Dr Zakaria al-Agha, member of the PLO Executive Committee, said Monday that a joint Fatah-Hamas committee for marking "the 63rd Nakba Day" had been formed, and that negotiations were under way with "all of the nationalist and Islamic forces" in order to carry out a joint, central action on the day. The plans reportedly include mass marches toward Israel from all of the countries surrounding it, by Arabs and foreign sympathizers.

"Nakba," or "disaster," is how the Palestinian Authority Arabs call the establishment of the Jewish state, despite a concerted Arab attempt to kill the Jews. An internet campaign dubs the events "the Third Intifadah" (or uprising). The post-World War One British Mandate for Palestine encompassed all of present-day Israel and Jordan. Seventy-five percent of the territory was given to the Arabs in 1923 and is now Jordan. The remaining 25% - present-day Israel - has been contested bitterly by the Arabs ever since.

The swirling dark-gray column of air and cloud cut a 3-mile (5-kilometer) path across the Auckland suburb of Albany at mid afternoon, tearing off roofing iron, flattening trees and tossing vehicles around, police and witnesses said. "There were kids in a car which turned upside down and they had to get help," said Hamish Blair, whose golf supplies store was in the hardest-hit area. "There's probably six or seven seriously damaged cars, and I saw cars flying off the ground about 30 meters (100 feet) in the air."

The tornado first touched down in Albany and then passed through neighboring Birkenhead. Most of the serious damage was in Albany, where a shopping mall, a large hardware store and a supermarket were hit. Radio New Zealand reported that the roof of the Mega Center mall in Albany collapsed. Paul Patton, a spokesman for North Shore Hospital, said one person had been killed and at least 20 injured.

New Zealand has been hit by several disasters in recent months, including a February 22 earthquake that devastated the South Island city of Christchurch and killed at least 169 people.

If the reports that his compound lacked a telephone line and internet access are correct, then they are indicative of quite how handicapped Bin Laden was. Furthermore, with Al Qaeda increasingly regarded as more of a 'franchise operation' or a brand, under which any Islamist with a few pounds of explosive and a hatred of the West can claim membership, Bin Laden became little more than a name that could be chanted in suicide videos before yet another massacre of innocents. The death of Bin Laden, so this argument goes, will matter little to them.

According to John McLaughlin, a former deputy director of the CIA, the death of Bin Laden will hit Al Qaeda hard. Speaking before the attack, Mr McLaughlin said: 'It would create fractures within the movement, renew a debate on broad strategy, and remove the one figure best able to inspire new recruits.' But we should be wary of being optimistic - even if Bin Laden's death does cause Al Qaeda to atomise.

The hatred against the United States and the West remains, and there are plenty of other groups - such as Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami and Lashkar e-Taiba in Pakistan, and other groups in Somalia and Yemen - who are readying themselves to become the world leaders in bringing carnage to our streets. The war, it should not be forgotten, is far from over. If anything, there could be an increase in attacks on the West to avenge the killing of Bin Laden.

There is no doubt that this is a bad blow for Al Qaeda - and perhaps even one from which it can never recover - but beating Al Qaeda is not the only fight that needs winning. This conflict is truly generational.

The Islamic world is amazingly receptive to what I call "counterknowledge". Let's start by reminding ourselves that most people in Muslim countries have their doubts about 9/11, and millions them believe unquestioningly that it was plotted by the CIA. One of the most important features of what sociologists call the cultic milieu is that political and religious extremists happily exchange conspiracy theories, irrespective of their origin.

Sir Christopher Meyer, our former Ambassador to the Washington, said this in response today's news: "I can't conceive the US president would go out to make a statement to the world that Bin Laden is dead without being able to produce evidence that he is dead. I think we will see some evidence - DNA or photographic - to prove there is not still some phantom Osama bin Laden riding the Tora Bora mountains."

Spot on. It's inconceivable that America would announce the death of its deadliest enemy without offering evidence that would convince any reasonable person; I'm surprised that it hasn't been produced already. Moreover, why did it allow bin Laden's body to be dropped into the sea? Is the US really so sensitive to Islamic burial practices that it is prepared to hand conspiracy theorists such a gift?

The death of bin Laden is something in which President Barack Obama can take pride, and I have no doubt that it will benefit him politically. But the American Right is in a strange mood at the moment, as its obsession with Obama's birth certificate demonstrated. That particular controversy boiled on for years, thanks to the President's odd reluctance to publish the relevant documents until last week. He can afford no such delay when it comes to proof of the death of Osama bin Laden.

"We regard this as a continuation of the American policy based on oppression and the shedding of Muslim and Arab blood," Ismail Haniyeh, head of the Hamas administration in the Gaza Strip, told reporters. Though he noted doctrinal differences between bin Laden's al Qaeda and Hamas, Haniyeh said: "We condemn the assassination and the killing of an Arab holy warrior. We ask God to offer him mercy with the true believers and the martyrs."

Bin Laden was shot dead by US forces in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad - Pakistan was not involved in the raid. US officials said Bin Laden must have had a support system in Pakistan. Bin Laden, 54, was the founder and leader of al-Qaeda. He is believed to have ordered the attacks on New York and Washington on 11 September 2001, as well as a number of other deadly bombings. He was America's most wanted man but had eluded them for decades.

But US officials say they are "99.9%" sure that the man they shot and killed in a raid on a secure compound in Abbottabad and later buried at sea was Bin Laden. They said a video had been made of Bin Laden's burial but have not said yet whether it, or any photographs of Bin Laden's body, will be released. The compound in Abbottabad is just a few hundred metres from the Pakistan Military Academy - the country's equivalent of West Point or Sandhurst

White House counter-terrorism chief John Brennan said it was "inconceivable that Bin Laden did not have a support system" in Pakistan. But in his opinion piece, Mr Zardari said Pakistan had "never been and never will be the hotbed of fanaticism that is often described by the media. Such baseless speculation may make exciting cable news, but it doesn't reflect fact," he said.

After Mr Obama announced the news on Sunday night, there were jubilant scenes in Washington, New York and around the US. But the US said the threat of terror attacks was not over, warning Americans of the possibility of al-Qaeda reprisal attacks. Security has been increased at embassies and airports, while the US embassy in the Pakistani city of Karachi and consulates in Peshawar, Lahore and Karachi have been closed for routine business until further notice.