? Government emergency committee Cobra
? Two men under arrest in hospital
? Man brutally killed in broad daylight on London street

There's much to like about Microsoft's Windows 8 hybrid tablet-laptop ? but it's expensive if you don't need all the specs

Microsoft created a stir when it unveiled its first two tablets ? Surface RT and Surface Pro ? at a mystery press conference in Los Angeles on 19 June last year. Indeed, it was something of a shock, because for the first time, Microsoft was competing against its biggest customers: Windows PC suppliers such as Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, Lenovo, Samsung and Toshiba.

The good news is that the Surface Pro is finally being released in the UK ? it went on sale at midnight on Thursday. The bad news is that 11 months on, it's the same Surface Pro. My guess is that Microsoft is following Apple in trying to sell products on their capabilities and style, rather than the usual tech specs and discounted prices. This could be tough at a time when the free Windows 8.1 "Blue" update and Intel's next generation of Core processors, codenamed Haswell, are just coming into view.

The Surface Pro is a 2lb (903g) hybrid PC (the Surface RT is 676g) that appeals in four different ways:

? Surface Pro is a tablet designed to work with Windows 8's touch-first user interface and new-style apps, which are downloaded from the Windows Store. In this respect, its responsiveness is a big improvement over the Samsung slate that software developers and many journalists used during the Windows 8 beta test.

? Surface Pro is a full-scale Windows PC with an Intel Core i5 processor, 4GB of memory, and 64GB or 128GB solid-state drive (SSD). Add a Touch or Type keyboard cover, flip out the kickstand and you have the equivalent of an Ultrabook, though it's a bit tricky to balance on your knees.

? Surface Pro is a slate that comes with a digitising pen that you can use for on-screen drawing, handwriting recognition, filling in forms and so on. There has been a small but steady market for slates for commercial, industrial and health industry applications since the GRiDPad arrived, running Microsoft MS-DOS for Pen Computing, way back in 1989.

? Surface Pro is tough, thanks to its unique VaporMg construction. Microsoft dropped a Surface onto the floor during its launch and Steve Sinofsky, former head of Windows, added wheels and used one as a skateboard. It's an obvious choice for field workers, police and even military applications. Some companies are already buying. For example, if you've had OpenReach broadband technicians visiting your home or office with Panasonic ToughBooks running Windows XP, you can expect to see them using Microsoft Surfaces instead.

There are some benefits to the four-in-one design, and some drawbacks, so you will have to decide whether a Surface Pro matches your needs as well as your pocket.

The benefits: if you are mostly mobile, if you can do much of your work using commercial or in-house Windows 8 apps, and if you need a tablet that works with ? in Microsoft's phrase ? "your existing enterprise management infrastructure" (including Active Directory), then the Surface Pro is a very attractive product. If you need a robust machine, albeit one that's not fully sealed, it's cheap compared to the phones and PDAs sold for industrial use.

Also, if you want to switch between full PC power and tablet convenience without moving files between devices, the Surface Pro does that well. It's great for running Adobe Lightroom as a desktop program before viewing photos using tablet apps.

The drawbacks: if you want a PC to run traditional Windows XP/7 programs, and if you do most of your work with a keyboard, then it's not a good choice. A Surface Pro will do the job, but an Ultrabook or traditional laptop would be better value. Also, if your tablet requirements can be satisfied by a small, cheap Google Android or similar device, then the Surface Pro is a bigger, heavier, and much more expensive option. If you want a 15.6in laptop and a 7in tablet, the Surface Pro falls awkwardly between the two.

Hardware features

At first glance, the Surface Pro looks exactly like the ARM-based Surface RT, which is already on sale in the UK, and it takes the same Touch and Type keyboard covers. Up close, however, you notice it's thicker (13.5mm v 9.3mm) and heavier (903g v 676g). The giveaway is a thin vent that goes round the outside of the case to allow heat from the Core i5 to escape.

The left edge of the Surface Pro has a single USB 3.0 port, a rocker switch for volume control, and an audio jack. The right edge has a microSD card slot, a Mini DisplayPort, and a magnetic socket that connects to a charger and doubles as a holder for the digitising pen. The top edge has a tiny on/off button, while the bottom edge has magnetic connectors to snap in the keyboard covers.

The front of the Surface Pro has a 720p HD webcam above the 10-point multi-touch screen and a Windows Start button below it. The back has another webcam and a kickstand, which hides various bits of labelling. The 48-watt battery is sealed inside. Other features include an ambient light sensor, an accelerometer and a gyroscope. The small power supply has an extra 5W USB port so you can charge another device at the same time.

For a tablet, the Surface Pro has an impressive range of connections. For a Windows laptop, it's minimalist, though it's similar to some Ultrabooks. It is missing an RJ45 Ethernet port for a wired internet connection, one or two USB 2.0 ports, an HDMI port, a full SD card slot, and a SIM slot for a 3G or 4G mobile connection. If you want to use it with a separate keyboard, mouse and monitor, you may want to buy a USB 3.0 dock as an extender, though you could also use the Mini DisplayPort for the screen and buy a Bluetooth keyboard.

I transferred files from SD cards using a small USB converter (£1 from a handy Poundland). If I owned a Surface Pro, I'd probably buy a large microSD card to bump up the built-in storage.

Although it's glossy and not very big, the 10.6in ClearType 16:9 widescreen is one of the best things about the Surface Pro. It's very sharp, has great blacks, and a Full HD resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels. In tablet format, it's great for catch-up TV using the BBC's iPlayer in the IE10 browser.

Software and services

As you'd expect, the Surface Pro comes with Windows 8 pre-installed, and this works beautifully in tablet mode. The experience is better than smartphones (which use Windows Phone, of course) and other tablets I've tried, including the Surface RT. Given that it's running on a Core i5 with 4GB of memory, of course, it should be.

Unlike most tablets, you can run two apps snapped together on the same screen, so you can run Twitter alongside a streaming video, for example. Also unlike most tablets, you can give your spouse and or parents/children their own guest accounts, and they can have touch-based picture log-ins to avoid typing.

With normal Windows XP/7 programs, the performance is smooth but not noticeably better than you'd expect.

The Surface Pro scores 5.6 on the open-ended Windows Experience Index, where the limitation is the Core i5's built-in Intel HD4000 graphics. Otherwise, the processor scores 6.9, the memory 5.9, and the solid-state drive (SSD) 8.1. The gaming graphics score of 6.4 suggests it will run some serious games, though not to the level of a typical PC gaming rig. It's more than good enough for Angry Birds, Fruit Ninja and similar game apps downloaded from the Windows Store.

Although there's no crapware, the Surface Pro does come with a number of preinstalled Microsoft apps. These include Skype, SkyDrive, Mail, Maps, Weather, Photos, and Bing apps for News, Sport, Travel and Finance. The Bing apps are excellent, and really show the value of devoting the full screen area to content. Microsoft also offers a free Fresh Paint app for download, though Microsoft Paint is still provided as a desktop program. The free Microsoft Office OneNote app is also worth having.

The Photo app can consolidate photos from the picture library on the Surface Pro, and from SkyDrive, Facebook and Flickr.

The Live Tiles for Games, Music and Video are fronts for Xbox Live services, and should appeal to people who use the same services on an Xbox games console or Windows Phone smartphone. If you're doing something on one device, you can pick it up and continue on another.

Storage furore

When the Surface tablets appeared, there was a minor furore over the amount of free storage, compounded by the fact that drive manufacturers use decimal instead of binary counting. Your 500GB (billion byte) hard drive, for example, only holds 465.65GB of actual files (counting 1KB = 1024 byte, 1MB = 1024KB, and so on).

My loan Surface Pro machine had a 128GB Samsung SSD which provided 110.7GB of user storage space, of which 85GB (76%) was free. There were three hidden partitions: 200MB for the EUFI secure boot system, and two recovery partitions taking up 7.62GB and 600MB. These enable users to refresh or restore the operating system if they run into problems.

Storage isn't a problem with the 128GB version, but anyone buying a 64GB Surface Pro should be aware that only about 25GB (or less) will be available for storing files, and they may need to use removable microSD cards. With the growing use of network-attached servers (NAS) and cloud storage, it shouldn't be a major problem. For IT departments, Windows 8 supports storage pools with thin provisioning, like Windows Server 2012.

Some observations?.

The Surface Pro shows an impressive attention to detail, and works really well as a portable PC and an armchair tablet. It's not perfect, of course, and some things could be improved.

Screen: combine high resolution with a small screen, and Windows features can look tiny. The Surface Pro ships with 150% scaling pre-set, which is mostly OK as long as Windows programs scale correctly; not all of them do. Incidentally, the screen has a pixel density of 208ppi, which is a "retina screen" at a viewing distance of 17 inches (43cm).

Pen: the digitising pen turned out to be much more useful than I expected. You can capture your handwriting and annotate documents in OneNote (as you could in Windows XP Tablet Edition a decade ago), and this is a great feature for meetings and jotting things down in front of the TV set. The pen also comes in useful as a mouse substitute when dealing with tiny icons in Windows desktop programs. But it would be nice if the pen fitted inside the Surface Pro rather than attaching via the magnets provided for recharging.

Battery life: I normally use a long-life laptop that nominally provides 12 hours of battery life. As this gives about eight hours of real usage, I was somewhat apprehensive about the Surface Pro's five-hour battery life. In fact, I always got at least five hours of word processing and web browsing with Wi-Fi on, a bright screen and a balanced (rather than battery-saving) power scheme. This was enough for most purposes, but you may need to pack the charger.

Instant on: Windows PCs have usually been laggards at opening and closing down, but the Surface Pro's fast start system works well enough for tablet use. Waking it up first thing in the morning takes about six or eight seconds. After that, it appears to turn off instantly (the screen blanks), and it turns on in about two seconds. It takes longer than that to type in a password, which is why I set up picture passwords with quick taps.

Apps: Being new, the Windows Store doesn't have as many apps as the Apple and Google Android stores. Still, the selection includes Netflix, 4oD, TuneIn Radio, Shazam, Dropbox, Evernote Touch, Adobe Reader Touch and almost 150,000 more. Of course, where apps are missing, you can load IE10 and go to the website using the full power of a PC.

Kickstand: this works if you have a table or other flat surface, though I stopped trying to use it on my knees: for quick access you just lay the screen flat and have the keyboard at an angle. The drawback with the kickstand is that, on a table, the screen angle is fixed. The advantage is that the front- and rear-facing cameras are then aligned correctly, but I often wanted the screen tilted further back. The workaround is to prop up the front with a book, or whatever. The kickstand wins for simplicity and portability, but it loses on adjustability.

Keyboard covers: almost everyone will buy a flat Touch or keyboard-style Type cover to go with their Surface Pro, at considerable extra cost (£99.99 or £109.99). I didn't like the Touch cover, but the Type cover is surprisingly good. When I tried some online typing tests, my score was an insignificant 1 character per second higher than on my desktop PC. Having grown up with typewriters, I prefer big clicky keys, but the Type cover does the job better than expected. Also, attaching and removing the keyboard is almost instant and you can do it with your eyes shut.

Processors and prices

The Surface Pro's estimated UK prices are £719 for the model with a 64GTB SSD and £799 for 128GB; that's without the £100 keyboard covers. This compares with £849 and £929 for the equivalent Apple MacBook Air models, which don't have touch screens, don't support digitising pens, and don't run iPad apps.

I'd like to see a cheaper Surface Pro that uses a slower Intel chip such as a Core i3 or even an Intel Atom, but then it wouldn't be such a prestige product. I don't see a way round that conundrum.

Either way, the Surface Pro should become faster and possibly cheaper later this year, when Intel launches the fourth-generation Haswell chips designed specifically for Ultrabooks. Haswell promises improved battery life and about twice the graphics performance of the current Ivy Bridge generation. Intel will start with high-end Core i7 chips, perhaps at the Computex trade show in Taiwan in early June, but the low-power versions may not arrive much before Christmas.

It's a good schedule for companies testing a few Surface Pros before ordering hundreds, but not so good for geeks who want the latest and greatest.

Microsoft could sweeten the pot by throwing in a free copy of Microsoft Office, as it does with Surface RT. Otherwise, as mentioned above, value for money depends on what you want to do with your Surface Pro. If you want an Ultrabook, a tablet, and a slate where you can draw on the screen, it's good value. If you just want a Windows 7 laptop, it's not.

The New Microsoft

One thing that's noticeable with the Surface Pro is that it's just as much of a Microsoft device as a MacBook is an Apple device, or even more so. To really exploit the system, it's best to sign in with a Microsoft account on Outlook.com or Office365 and use Microsoft's powerful cloud-based ecosystem. This includes free Microsoft Office programs in SkyDrive. The cloud also stores your settings so you can have your own Windows 8 set-up by logging into any Windows 8 PC.

With Xbox Live music, movies and games services, and apps such as SmartGlass, the ecosystem extends beyond the PC to Windows Phone 8 smartphones and the forthcoming Xbox One entertainment system, which has added some Windows 8 features. Microsoft is now close to delivering a complete ecosystem as envisaged by Ray Ozzie with the mantra of "three screens and a cloud". (The three screens are the PC, TV and smartphone; the cloud is Azure, hosting a wide range of subscription services.)

Ozzie was Microsoft's Chief Software Architect from June 2006 to December 2010, which gives you some idea of how long ago the project started, and how long it will take to bring to fruition. Win or bust, it's a full-blown attempt to transform the company.
Microsoft no longer thinks of itself as a software company: it's now a "a devices and services company", like Apple. A Surface Pro running Windows 8 is not just another PC, it's concrete evidence that Microsoft has shifted to what CEO Steve Ballmer calls "a new computing paradigm".

Pros: A light, fast, laptop in a tablet format. Great multi-touch screen with pen input. Well made. Good value if you want a hybrid tablet PC.

Cons: Compromises on size: it's small and light for a PC but big and heavy for a tablet. Sealed unit: it can't be expanded. Expensive if you don't need the features.

Committee on Climate Change says the sooner the UK invests in low-carbon power generation the cheaper it will be

Investing in new renewable power generation, rather than a "dash for gas", will be the lower-cost option for keeping the lights on while cutting greenhouse gas emissions, the government's climate change watchdog has said.

The sooner the UK makes large investments in low-carbon generation ? including offshore and onshore wind, nuclear power and energy from waste ? the cheaper it will be, according to David Kennedy, chief executive of the Committee on Climate Change (CCC), the statutory body that advises ministers on meeting emissions targets.

The conclusions are likely to be controversial, as many MPs on the right of the Tory party have been clamouring for an end to onshore windfarms and reductions in renewable subsidies.

They would prefer to see a new "dash for gas" that would require the UK to massively expand shale gas drilling and import tens of billions of pounds worth of fuel each year as North Sea reserves run down. They point to lower gas prices in the US that have resulted from the aggressive pursuit of shale resources.

The CCC's analysis found that investing in renewable energy made sense even if the price of gas was relatively low. Previous analysis by the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) relied on scenarios of large increases in the gas price to make renewables and other forms of low-carbon power, such as nuclear, more economic.

Kennedy told the Guardian: "Not investing in renewables only makes sense if you don't want to meet our emissions targets ? if you tear up the Climate Change Act."

That is precisely what some on the rightwing of the Tory party would like to do, although the act passed in 2008 with just a handful of no votes. The opponents included Peter Lilley, recently appointed as a senior adviser to David Cameron, although No 10 said his focus would be on foreign policy and not on energy.

A DECC spokeswoman said: "We agree with the CCC on both the need to invest in a portfolio of low-carbon technologies, and the need to reduce our dependence on imported gas which is the main factor driving up household energy bills.

"We recently trebled support for low-carbon technologies to £7.6bn to 2020, and have introduced landmark legislation through the energy bill to incentivise £110bn of investment in clean energy infrastructure, which has the potential to support 250,000 jobs in the energy sector."

Kennedy said targets on emissions from the electricity sector to 2030 were likely to be needed, in order to spur low-carbon investment by giving companies the clarity and certainty they needed to put money into UK projects.

The government has rejected a target of decarbonising electricity generation by 2030, as had been proposed for the energy bill now on its passage through parliament. Tim Yeo, the Tory former minister, is leading a rebellion on the target, which he wants reinstated, and has gathered at least 45 supporters including the prominent Tories Zac Goldsmith and Sir Peter Bottomley.

Green campaigners welcomed the CCC report. Leila Deen, energy campaigner at Greenpeace, said: "Every MP in British politics should take heed of this report, because in two weeks' time they'll be making the biggest changes to the UK's energy system in a generation when they vote on the energy bill.

"The CCC's advice is clear: a clean energy system is better for business and better for consumers. George Osborne has ripped a 2030 decarbonisation target from the bill, but with hundreds of businesses and investors crying foul, it's up to coalition MPs to vote it back in."

The passage of the energy bill promises to be tempestuous because of the deep divisions within the Tory party on energy and climate change. Yeo said: "This report raises serious concerns about the mixed messages the government has been sending on energy and climate change policy. The energy bill is supposed to deliver billions of pounds of investment in clean energy infrastructure by providing long-term certainty and reducing capital costs, but the Treasury has undermined investor confidence by stripping the legislation of a clear carbon reduction target."

Eggs and nests of protected raptors destroyed to protect pheasant shoot, according to FoI documents

A government agency has licensed the secret destruction of the eggs and nests of buzzards to protect a pheasant shoot, according to documents released under the Freedom of Information Act.

The action sets a historic precedent, being the first time such action has been licensed against any bird of prey to protect game shoots since raptors gained legal protection decades ago. Buzzards are recovering from near extinction and now number 40,000 breeding pairs, while 35m pheasants are bred each year for shoots.

It is also less than a year after the wildlife minister, Richard Benyon, abandoned related plans citing "public concerns". Benyon, whose family estate in Berkshire runs shoots, cancelled plans to spend £375,000 on testing control measures for buzzards around pheasant shoots after a public outcry in May 2012. "I will collaborate with all the organisations that have an interest in this issue and will bring forward new proposals," he said at the time.

The destruction of the nests, which took place in the last few weeks, was only revealed after the event through a freedom of information request by the RSPB.

"We were proceeding collaboratively and that is why we are so angry now," said Martin Harper, the RSPB's conservation director. "Most people would prefer to see buzzards soaring in the sky. They are big, majestic creatures in the wild and we don't have many of them in the UK: they are England's eagle. The fact the licence process takes place without public scrutiny is wrong."

The licences were issued by the government's licensing body, Natural England (NE) and permitted destruction of up to four nests and the eggs they held. "The law allows action to be taken against protected species to protect livestock, which includes any animal kept for the provision or improvement of shooting," said a spokesman for NE. "We rigorously assessed the application [and] were satisfied the case met the criteria."

The locations of the destroyed nests were not made public. NE stated the issue was "emotive and sensitive" and cited "public safety". NE issued the licences despite its own expert reviewer stating: "There is no body of published evidence demonstrating that the presence of buzzards is likely to result in serious damage to a game shoot." A related application to kill sparrowhawks was rejected.

The National Gamekeepers Organisation (NGO) was closely involved in winning the licences and had threatened NE with judicial review if they were not granted. "We believe the long-standing licensing process was correctly used in this case," said a spokesman. "A few buzzards had been consistently killing a large number of pheasants. Most birds of prey are now at or near record levels in the UK, so conflicts with game management and farming are bound to occur from time to time."

Pheasants are not native to the UK and were introduced to stock shoots, but the biomass of the population makes it now the single biggest bird species in the countryside. The growing popularity of shoots in the Victorian era saw buzzards poisoned, shot and trapped until just 1,000 pairs were left, but protection in recent decades has led to a partial recovery.

Jeff Knott, the RSPB's bird of prey expert, said: "The buzzard has full legal protection, so why are we undermining this when all the available evidence shows they are not a significant source of loss of pheasant chicks." An independent study commissioned by the British Association for Shooting and Conservation found that, on average, 1-2% of pheasant poults released were taken by all birds of prey, Knott said, adding that a third of all pheasants are killed on the roads. The NGO spokesman said the buzzard control project was cancelled last year after the RSPB's campaign would have provided evidence of predation: "They can't have it both ways."

A spokeswoman for the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, said: "After a thorough assessment, Natural England granted a licence for the removal of a small number of buzzard nests. Buzzard populations are thriving in the UK and this licensed action had no effect on their population."

Labour's environment secretary, Mary Creagh, said buzzards had recovered under the previous government: "This latest revelation blasts a hole in ministers' empty words about protecting Britain's iconic native species. It is astounding the government has granted licences after ministers were forced to U-turn last year." She also criticised Benyon: "Who exactly do ministers think they are there to serve? "

A key criteria for the granting of the licences was that all non-lethal control methods, such as creating places for pheasants to hide and diverting buzzards away by leaving food out, had been unsuccessfully tried. But the NE expert who reviewed the application reported: "Overall, there is a pattern of [non-lethal] methods being employed inconsistently." The reviewer also noted that "the efficacy of [nest and egg destruction] is untested". Harper said the RSPB was considering its legal options.

The government has previously been criticised for favouring grouse shooting in the Pennines, after NE abandoned plans to ban the burning of peat land on a grouse moor and withdrew from a related legal action against the Walshaw Moor estate.

Protesters from the far-right English Defence League have clashed with police in Woolwich where a man was stabbed to death by assailants apparently acting on extreme Islamist views

The IMF's health check on the UK has concluded that the country is 'still a long way from a strong and sustainable recovery'

German chancellor tops list of most powerful women for third year running, while Queen drops 14 places to 40th

The Queen and JK Rowling are once again the only two British women to feature in the Forbes Most Powerful Women list, which has been led by Angela Merkel for the third year running.

The German chancellor is ranked ahead of Brazil's president Dilma Rousseff, Melinda Gates, who co-chairs the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Michelle Obama, and Hillary Clinton.

The Queen dropped from 26 to 40 on the 2013 list, while the Harry Potter author JK Rowling slipped from 78 to 93.

The list was heavy on top politicians, featuring nine heads of state who run nations with a combined GDP of $11.8tn. Merkel ? who has been placed at the top of the Forbes ranking seven times ? headed the list again, ahead of Rousseff, who came to power in Brazil in 2011. Hillary Clinton, who has featured in every Most Powerful Women list since the inaugural ranking in 2004, is in fifth place. Despite resigning as secretary of state earlier this year, Clinton remains one of the biggest political hitters on the international stage. The only former first lady to become a US senator, she is now hotly tipped to become the 2016 Democratic presidential candidate.

Clinton was one place behind the woman already in the White House, First Lady Michelle Obama, who climbed three places to reach fourth.

Apart from Clinton, there are 14 on the 2013 list who appeared on the inaugural list a decade ago: the head of the IMF, Christine Lagarde (7), Sonia Gandhi (9), Indra Nooyi, the chief executive of PepsiCo (10), chatshow host Oprah Winfrey (13), UN administrator Helen Clark (21), ABC chief Anne Sweeney (24), Sony Pictures co-chair Amy Pascall (36), the Queen (40), Fidelity president Abigail Johnson (60), Ho Ching, chief executive of Singapore state investment firm Temasek (64), news anchor Diane Sawyer (73), JK Rowling (93) and Fox news anchor Great Van Susteren (97).

The list features 24 corporate chief executives in control of $893bn in revenues, 16 of them founders of their own companies, including two of the three new billionaires to the list, Tory Burch and Spanx's Sara Blakely. The 14 billionaires featured in the list are valued at more than $82bn, according to Forbes.

Among the world's most powerful women are Africa's first female head of state, Liberia's Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the first woman chief executive of at IBM, Ginni Rometty, and the first president of an Ivy League and of the Rockefeller Foundation, Judith Rodin.

Providing both light entertainment and philanthropy, Angelina Jolie (37), Shakira (52), Gisele Bundchen (95) and Beyoncé (17) were all recognised for their charity work.

There was a strong showing for women in Asia. Park Geun-hye, the South Korean president, comes in at 11, while Burma's pro-democracy leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, was at 29. After showing her mettle in the Australian parliament - where she gave the leader of the opposition a dusting-down and accused him of sexism ? Australian PM Julia Gillard featured just behind in 28th position, with Thai prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra at 31. Asian entrepreneurs Zhang Xin (50), Sun Yafang (77) and Solina Chau (80) all made the list, as did Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, India's first biotech entrepreneur.

Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg (6), Rometty (12) and HP's Meg Whitman (15) all represent women working in technology, while in the world of fashion, Miuccia Prada, Zara founder Rosalia Mera and Diane von Furstenberg all made an appearance.

Moira Forbes, president and publisher of ForbesWoman, said: "This year's Power Women exert influence in very different ways, and to very different ends, and all with very different impacts on the global community.

"Whether leading multibillion-dollar companies, governing countries, shaping the cultural fabric of our lives or spearheading humanitarian initiatives, collectively these women are changing the planet in profoundly powerful and dynamic ways."

The top 10

1. Angela Merkel, German chancellor

2. Dilma Rousseff, president of Brazil

3. Melinda Gates, co-chair, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

4. Michelle Obama, US First Lady

5. Hillary Clinton, former US secretary of state

6. Sheryl Sandberg, COO, Facebook

7. Christine Lagarde, managing director, IMF

8. Janet Napolitano, US homeland security secretary

9. Sonia Gandhi, president, Indian National Congress party

10. Indra Nooyi, CEO, PepsiCo

English Defence League in street battles with police in Woolwich and mosques attacked in apparent acts of revenge

Scores of supporters of the English Defence League threw bottles at police and chanted anti-Muslim slogans in Woolwich hours after the murder of one man and the shooting of his two suspected assailants.

About 100 men, including some wearing balaclavas printed with "EDL", engaged in running battles with police for less than an hour.

A police commander said officers cited section 60 of the Public Order Act, which allowed them to stop and search individuals within a specific area without evidence of a crime being committed.

EDL leader Tommy Robinson said: "They're chopping our soldiers' heads off. This is Islam. That's what we've seen today. They've cut off one of our army's heads off on the streets of London.

"Our next generation are being taught through schools that Islam is a religion of peace. It's not. It never has been. What you saw today is Islam. Everyone's had enough. There has to be a reaction, for the government to listen, for the police to listen, to understand how angry this British public are."

The men congregated near Woolwich Arsenal station with flags bearing the cross of St George after plans for a protest were circulated on social media. Hundreds of police including riot police were stationed around Woolwich.

The first clashed began just after ten before the men were pursued and blocked in at a pub close to a local mosque.

Elsewhere, two men were arrested after separate attacks on mosques. A 43-year-old man is in custody on suspicion of attempted arson after reportedly walking into a mosque with a knife in Braintree, Essex. The secretary of the mosque, Sikander Saleemy, told Channel 4 News he felt it was a "revenge attack".

He added: "The police said it's too early to try and link it to what happened in Woolwich, but those of us who were here feel that it was some sort of revenge attack. It was clear from the man's behaviour.

"We absolutely condemn what happened in Woolwich, but it had nothing to do with us. It was an appalling act of terror ? but it wasn't Islamic in any way. I wish it wasn't described like that, because sadly people will now start to blame Muslims."

Meanwhile, police in Kent were called to reports of criminal damage at a mosque in Canterbury Street, Gillingham, at 8.40pm. A spokesman said a man was in custody on suspicion of racially aggravated criminal damage.

Previously secret note from Home Office refers to order to intercept communications at height of 1936 abdication crisis

Ministers ordered the bugging of Edward VIII's telephones in Buckingham Palace and in his Windsor retreat at the height of the 1936 abdication crisis, hitherto secret papers reveal.

The extraordinary move, reflecting a growing and deep distrust between the king and his ministers, is disclosed in a unique cache of intelligence files hidden until now in a basement at the Cabinet Office in the heart of Whitehall.

Among the files is a scribbled note, dated 5 December 1936 and marked "most secret", from the Home Office to the head of the General Post Office, Sir Thomas Gardiner, referring to an order from the home secretary, Sir John Simon.

It states: "The home secretary asks me to confirm the information conveyed to you orally ? that you will arrange for the interception of telephone communications between Fort Belvedere and Buckingham Palace on the one hand and the continent of Europe on the other."

When not at the palace, Edward stayed at Fort Belvedere, his bolthole in Windsor Great Park. Edward's mistress, the American divorcee Wallis Simpson, was staying with friends in the south of France at the time.

The panic in the British establishment provoked by Edward's affair with Simpson and his apparent belief that he could get away with marrying her and remain king has been widely reported.

What has not been disclosed until now is how the lack of trust in the monarch was such that ministers went to the lengths of recording his personal conversations.

The Queen's advisers at Buckingham Palace were consulted about the decision to release the file, the Guardian understands.

Deep anxiety in Whitehall and the government's fear of losing control of the situation led to a close watch of outgoing telegrams. One that was intercepted and blocked was from Neil Forbes Grant, London editor of the Cape Times.

Summoned to see the home secretary, Grant was told there was no truth to his report that the king was about to abdicate and that if the news had reached South Africa and then been telegraphed back to Britain, the reaction might have been "of a most serious character".

Simon wrote: "I reminded him that in 1815 a false rumour that we had lost the Battle of Waterloo produced a financial crisis and ruined many people. I asked him if he did not realise that his responsibilities as a journalist and an Englishman made the sending of such a message without definite authority as to its truth very improper and reckless."

Grant insisted he had got his information from "a very highly placed source", but seemed suitably chastened. According to Simon, the journalist said "this had been a lesson to him and that he would always have this experience in mind in discharging his responsibilities in future".

Edward abdicated on 10 December 1936, four days after Grant sent his intercepted telegram.

The newly released files, all highly classified, have been gathering dust for decades in a Cabinet Office basement. Lord Wilson, a former cabinet secretary, described how he visited what he called a strongroom beneath his old office where he found "heaps of paper ? my eyes swivelled".

He said he decided to "grasp the nettle" and set up a review to look into the possible release of the papers. It was carried out by Gill Bennett, a former Foreign Office official historian. She said the papers had been treated as "too difficult" to categorise. Officials were "not sure what to do with them", she said.

Other files among the tranche, which records events up to 1951, reveal how a male MI6 officer was arrested in Madrid wearing women's clothes, how MI6 paid huge amounts of money to agents to keep Spain out of the second world war, and how MI6 was prepared to "liquidate" selected individuals after the war.

Amid tales of bribery, smuggling, dirty tricks, and intrigue ? some of which, missing files suggest, are still being carried out ? the papers also include a first-hand account of how Churchill spent a night drinking with Stalin in Moscow in August 1942. Sir Alexander Cadogan, top official at the Foreign Office, wrote of being summoned to Stalin's room. "There I found Winston and Stalin ? sitting with a heavily laden board between them: food of all kinds crowned by a suckling pig, and unnumberable bottles.

"What Stalin made me drink seemed pretty savage: Winston, who by that time was complaining of a slight headache, seemed wisely to be confining himself to a comparatively innocuous effervescent Caucasian red wine."

" Everything seemed to be as merry as a marriage-bell", added Cadogan, as Stalin went on about the benefits of the Soviet system. The party broke up at 3am.

Newly declassified letter from Foreign Office official describes wartime meeting between two national leaders in Moscow

A colourful description of how Winston Churchill spent a night drinking with Joseph Stalin in Moscow during a wartime meeting is contained in a letter from Sir Alexander Cadogan, a top official at the Foreign Office, contained in a highly classified document released on Thursday.

He described how at mealtimes between the meetings in August 1942, Churchill "engaged the company in irreverent and irresponsible discourse".

Cadogan's account is contained in a letter to Lord Halifax, a former foreign secretary, when he was UK ambassador in Washington in the late 1940s.

"Nothing can be imagined more awful than a Kremlin banquet, but it has to be endured," wrote Cadogan.

"Unfortunately Winston didn't suffer it gladly. However, next morning he was determined to fire his last bolt and asked for a private talk, alone with Stalin. This was fixed for 7pm."

Cadogan said he was himself summoned to Stalin's room. "There I found Winston and Stalin ? sitting with a heavily laden board between them: food of all kinds crowned by a suckling pig, and innumerable bottles."

Cadogan continued: "What Stalin made me drink seemed pretty savage: Winston, who by that time was complaining of a slight headache, seemed wisely to be confining himself to a comparatively innocuous effervescent Caucasian red wine."

Cadogan added that "everything seemed to be as merry as a marriage-bell" as Stalin went on about the benefits of the Soviet system. The party broke up at 3am.