Some people are thought still to be trapped in buildings and a number of firefighters are reported missing. Emergency services officials said ammonia may have caused the explosion. It has been reported the company had 54,000 lbs (20 tonnes) of anhydrous ammonia on site.

An official confirmed there were deaths, but could not give a figure. Dean Wilson, of the Texas Department of Public Safety, told a news conference that they were still conducting house-to-house searches. He said the fire was still smouldering and that no firefighters were tackling it as there was the risk of further explosions. Half the town had been evacuated, he added.

The anniversary will be an occasion for Jews around the world to reflect on what a remarkable country Israel is: how it has survived attempts to destroy it, winning three wars against the armies of its Arab neighbours; how it has developed a successful hi-tech industry propelling it to the forefront of the global economy; how it has launched satellites and won prizes for medicine; and how, despite some recent blots on its democratic copybook, Israel remains by some distance the most vibrant democracy in the Middle East with a free and fearless press.

And yet all is not well with the world's only Jewish state. The Arab Spring has seen the rise of radical Islamist ideology amongst its neighbours. Egypt is now run by the Muslim Brotherhood, progenitor of Hamas which is in charge of Gaza and committed to Israel's destruction; Syria is in flames, and in Jordan Islamism is also on the rise.

Inside Israel divisions are growing: between rich and poor and between secular Jews and the rapidly expanding population of Israel's most religious Jews.

Ephraim Halevy, former head of the Mossad, told me: "Ideologically there cannot be an end to the conflict - ever. Both sides claim to have rights to this land and they claim they are the only ones who have rights on this land. No side can in any way forego its rights of every single inch of territory because it's holy land."

If this continues, Mr Halevy foresees "permanent conflict" which neither side could sustain.

A two-year study by the Constitution Project concluded that there was “no justification” for the so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques” deployed by the George W Bush administration, which it said violated both international and American law. “It is indisputable that the United States engaged in the practice of torture,” said the 577-page report by Constitution Project, a high-powered Washington watchdog.

“I had not recognized the depths of torture in some cases,” said James Jones, a former Democratic congressman who acted as co-chairman of the research team with Asa Hutchinson, formerly a senior official under Mr Bush. “We lost our compass.”

The report detailed numerous legal cases in which dubious treatment used by Americans on terror suspects after 2001 was prosecuted in the US or was denounced as torture by Washington officials when applied by other states. Legal justification drawn up by US government lawyers was derided as “acrobatic” advice to justify brutal interrogative methods, such as waterboarding, sleep deprivation, and chaining prisoners in painful positions.

Aswat is currently being held at Broadmoor high-security psychiatric hospital and is wanted by US prosecutors for allegedly plotting with Hamza to set up a terror camp in Bly, Oregon. Hamza was deported from the UK last year after a long legal battle when the Strasbourg court rejected his appeal.

European judges today ruled the move would be a breach of his human rights. But today the ECHR decided that extraditing Aswat to the US would violate the paranoid schizophrenic's human right to be free from ill-treatment on account of the severity of his mental illness.

And the judges found that, if he was convicted, he could face the "highly restrictive regime" of ADX Florence, breaching Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which prohibits degrading or inhuman treatment.

Speaking at the report's launch in Beijing, defense ministry spokesperson Yang Yujun hinted that America's increasing focus on the region was "not conducive to the upholding of peace and stability".

"We hope that the relevant parties would do more to enhance the mutual trust between countries in the region and contribute to peace and stability," Colonel Yang told reporters. China's state-run media also carried opinion pieces that were critical of the US's growing role in Asia.

An editorial in the China Daily newspaper argued: "There remain doubts about whether the US will play a constructive role in the region." It continued: "The US needs to ensure that its involvement in Asian affairs contributes to lasting peace and stability in the region. China does not oppose a bigger US role in the Asia-Pacific as long as it acts in a more constructive and responsible way and strives to respect the interests of all countries in the region."

On Tuesday, Xinhua described China's armed forces as a "staunch force upholding world peace and regional stability." But the Chinese military would "readily respond to and resolutely deter any provocative action which undermines China's sovereignty, security and territorial integrity," it warned.

The scale of the sell-off was the worst in 30 years, with the volatility index standing at the highest level in its history. John Kemp at Reuters has calculated that based on a normal distribution, you would expect to see movements like Monday's only once in every 500 million trading days, or two million years.

The news which would justify such a price swing is curiously absent – in fact, my view is that the market ought to be bullish for gold. Something doesn't add up. The gold market remains one of the most complex and opaque in the world. None of the publicly available data justifies the incredible price movements we have seen recently. It looks as though the market has been rigged again.

It is too early to tell if it is false flag terrorism or real terrorism. Either way, prominent Americans have noted for years that another terrorist attack could usher in martial law (we’re already pretty close) … and more war (we’re in a lot already):

§ Daniel Ellsberg, the famous Pentagon Papers whistleblower, said “if there is another terror attack, I believe the president will get what he wants”, which will include a dictatorship.

§ Former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski (who helped to create Al Qaeda to fight the soviets in Afghanistan) told the Senate that a terrorist act might be carried out in the US and falsely blamed on Iran to justify war against that nation.

§ President Carter recently implicitly acknowledged the risk of staged provocation in order to start a war against Iran.

§ Robert David Steele – a 20-year Marine Corps infantry and intelligence officer, the second-ranking civilian in US Marine Corps Intelligence, and former CIA clandestine services case officer – says that elements within the US government are trying to carry out a false flag operation and blame it on Iran.

§ Former high-level CIA officer Michael Scheuer – who was the head of the CIA unit tasked with capturing Bin Laden – says that Israel or Saudi Arabia could be setting up Iran as a way to foment war.

Wolfgang Schäuble, the German finance minister, strongly voiced his legal concerns at an informal meeting of EU finance ministers in Dublin over the weekend. His comments point to the high political stakes involved in forging a common institution to shut down troubled financial groups.

His intervention in Dublin was a shot across the bows of the European Commission as it prepares to publish a blueprint for the resolution reforms in June – as well as a reality-check for reformers pushing for the full banking union framework to be agreed in the coming 12 months.

By throwing his weight behind the need for a treaty revision in the medium term, Mr Schäuble also raised Britain’s hopes of opening a path to an eventual repatriation of powers from the EU. George Osborne, the UK finance minister, made clear that Britain’s backing for treaty change would come at a price. “That sent a chill around,” said one person in attendance.

Under the current EU treaties the legal options for pooling such important decision making within a single authority are limited. Such reforms also require a huge sacrifice of sovereignty over a decision that presents toxic political choices: when should a troubled bank be wound up and who should foot the bill?

During a debate among finance ministers, Mr Schauble forcefully warned against raising market expectations over the pace of banking union reforms and said his lawyers concluded the creation of a single resolution authority would not be legal under current treaties. “A banking union only makes sense if we have mechanisms for the restructuring and resolution of banks,” Mr Schauble said after the meeting. “But if we want these European institutions, we need treaty changes.”

Since then, massive radiation has been released on a daily basis from Fukushima… for years. And there are so many new leaks that even the mainstream press is starting to admit that Fukushima was never fixed. Radiation from Fukushima is slamming Tokyo, as well as the West Coast of North America.

Fukushima radiation is showing up in fish on the West Coast of the United States. Scientists are starting to sound the alarm as to additional human deaths and health problems on the US West Coast due to Fukushima radiation, and an epidemic of injuries to sealife.

And it’s not just Fukushima …

An investigation by Associated Press found that 75 percent of all US nuclear sites have leaked radioactive tritium. In fact, whistleblowers at the Nuclear Regulator Commission say that the risk of a major meltdown at US nuclear reactors is much higher than it was at Fukushima.

Chinese GDP grew by an annualised 7.7 percent in the first three months of this year, down from the previous quarter's 7.9 percent growth, according to official government figures. Analysts had hoped for 8 percent growth.

The disappointing figures, driven largely by weaker-than-expected industrial production, dragged on markets in Asia and elsewhere, led by commodities sell-offs. Hong Kong's Hang Seng fell 1.43 percent and the Shanghai Composite dropped 1.13 percent overnight.