The Portuguese countryside has been ravaged by a series of wild fires. Firefighters have managed to contain some of the blazes but others are still out of control. Seven hundred hectares of forest in the Serra de Estrela National Park went up in smoke.

More than a million people in the United States were told to evacuate Saturday as a strengthened Hurricane Dennis headed to the US Gulf coast, after killing at least 15 people in the Caribbean.

Dennis was upgraded to a category three hurricane with sustained winds of 185 kilometres an hour after an Air Force plane flew over the storm to gauge the strength of its winds.

The 2012 Olympic Games will be held in London, the International Olympic Committee has announced. London won a two-way fight with Paris by 54 votes to 50 at the IOC meeting in Singapore, after bids from Moscow, New York and Madrid were eliminated.

Crude oil prices closed at new highs after hitting a record $60 a barrel for a second day, on concerns strong demand will continue over the coming months.

US light sweet crude touched the $60 mark overnight, and later closed 42 cents up at a new high of $59.84.

As you buy, sell and bank on the web, criminals are thinking of ingenious ways to con you out of cash. Banking card fraud now costs the UK 500 million pounds. The banks are hoping that the roll out of chip and pin cards will stem this growth but admit the criminals will look elsewhere.

Sandra Quinn from APACS, the association for payment clearing services, told the Money programme: "If chip and pin makes a big dent in their earnings, they're going to go somewhere else. There's no doubt about it."

Glasgow councillor Bill Timoney had never lost his debit card but somehow a criminal managed to spend 2000 pounds without him realising. "It's certainly alarming and if it could happen to me and I'm a fairly careful individual, it could happen to anyone."

Just how he was robbed remains a mystery to him because the crime was committed on the internet. He was a victim of 'card not present' fraud. Criminals are taking advantage of online shopping outlets using stolen cards and some are even buying and selling stolen card numbers online. Britain has seen an explosion of online commerce.

In 2004, we spent 14.5 billion pounds online and that's tempting for the criminals.

It's not just card and banking fraud. If your home PC is infected, your computer can then become part of what is called a bot net - a robot network of thousands upon thousands of infected computers. One British business, Bluesq.com, was targeted by a Russian gang. Their site was disrupted by the criminals and a ransom request made of $30,000 (16,438 pounds) to stop the attacks. Peter Pedersen, chief technology officer, describes the impact of an attack to the Money Programme.

"It's a huge pressure, because the business is under attack. The turnover is not coming in and ultimately this could have a big impact on business."

The company refused to pay the ransom and called in the National Hi-Tech Crime Unit. They managed to track the criminals to Russia and made crucial arrests. The attacks on BlueSq have stopped but the National Hi- Tech Crime Unit estimate that the cost to British business is 2.4 billion pounds and organised gangs are behind many of the attacks.

Pope Benedict XVI made his first trip outside Rome since his election as head of the world's 1.1 billion Roman Catholics and took the opportunity yesterday to emphasize two issues he has made clear will be fundamental to his mission: Christian unity and resistance to materialism and increasing secularism.

French employers' federation Medef has called for urgent reforms to boost the economy after France's rejection of the European constitution. The euro dropped to a seven-month low against the dollar, but analysts said the fall was not serious.

Experts believe that French voters gave a resounding "No" to the treaty amid disappointment over current economic reform efforts, rising unemployment and fears that cheaper Eastern European manufacturing could mean fewer jobs in France.

In a 300-page annual report, the group accused the US government of damaging human rights with its attitude to torture and treatment of detainees. This granted "a licence to others to commit abuse with impunity", the human rights advocates said.

The report also criticised the world as a whole for failing to act over crises, notably in Sudan's Darfur region. Afghanistan was slipping into a "downward spiral of lawlessness and instability", it added.