Key al-Qaeda leader killed in Yemen

US-born radical Islamist cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, a key al-Qaeda leader, has been killed in Yemen, the country's defence ministry said.

US President Barack Obama said his death was a major blow to al-Qaeda. Awlaki, of Yemeni descent, has been on the run in Yemen since December 2007. The US said that as a key figure in al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), he had played a "significant role" in plots to blow up US airliners and had sought to use poison to kill US citizens. Obama is said to have personally ordered his killing last year.

Yemen's defence ministry statement said only that Awlaki had died in Khashef in Jawf province, about 140km (87 miles) east of the capital, Sanaa, "along with some of his companions". US and Yemeni officials later named one of those as Samir Khan, also a US citizen but of Pakistani origin, who produced an online magazine promoting al-Qaeda's ideology. Local tribal leaders had told the AFP news agency that Awlaki had been moving around within Yemen in recent weeks to evade capture. Local people had told AP that he had been travelling between Jawf and Marib provinces when he died.

US officials said Awlaki's convoy was hit by a US drone and jet strike. Obama said that as the leader of external operations for AQAP, Awlaki, born in 1971, had taken "a lead in planning and directing efforts to murder innocent Americans" and was also "directly responsible for the death of many Yemeni citizens".

This is the biggest blow to al-Qaeda since the killing of Osama Bin Laden. Anwar al-Awlaki was possibly the organisation's most inspirational cleric and ideologue in the Middle East. Using the internet and an online magazine called Inspire, Awlaki encouraged his followers to attack Western targets. He has been blamed for inspiring US army major Nidal Hassan to kill his fellow soldiers in Texas and for inspiring the British woman Roshonara Choudhry to stab her MP Stephen Timms because he had supported the invasion of Iraq.

Awlaki was a charismatic cleric and fluent English speaker, and may be hard for al-Qaeda to replace. He said the death marked another "milestone in the broader efforts to defeat al-Qaeda and its affiliates", and paid tribute to US intelligence and the Yemeni security forces for their co-operation. "This is further proof that al-Qaeda and its affiliates will find no safe haven anywhere in the world, " he said.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague said Awlaki had "demonstrated his intent and ability to cause mass terror".

One US official told the American network ABC that US intelligence had had "a very intense focus" on Awlaki for some time, waiting for a chance to strike. The unnamed official said there had been "a good opportunity to hit him" on the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks this year, but that "it never materialised".

Euro crisis: Is anyone in charge?

In the Centennial Hall in Wroclaw, Poland, in early September, Jean-Claude Trichet, president of the European Central Bank, warned Europe's finance ministers how grave the global financial crisis was. The Euro area, he said, was currently its epicentre, and the consequences could be much worse than anything seen so far.

But since most citizens are not yet feeling the pain, politicians are struggling to act decisively. A lightning visit to Wroclaw by Tim Geithner, America's treasury secretary, to express his alarm over the "catastrophic risk" of cascading sovereign defaults seemed to have little impact. The Europeans offered either excuses (decisions in a European Union of 27 countries are hard to reach) or hostility (America should sort out its own debt). After two days of talks, the Euro-zone ministers came no closer to a solution.

One week later, at the annual meetings of the IMF and World Bank in Washington, the Americans and others, including China, berated the Europeans for threatening the world economy. In fact, there was some progress: the Europeans agreed that there must be a plan to ring-fence solvent but illiquid economies, beef up the main bail-out fund, the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF), recapitalise Europe's banks and, not least, deal with Greece, which may yet default chaotically. But there was no agreement on any of the details of such a plan.

The Euro zone has the firepower to solve this crisis-its aggregate deficit and debt numbers compare favourably with America's and Britain's. But it is not a single entity, politically or economically.