General title books are increasingly being read on digital devices, the data shows Sales of digital books are soaring in the UK, figures from the Publishers Association show. The association said that in 2010 sales of e-books and audio book downloads in the "general titles" category, which includes novels and consumer titles, shot up from £4m to £16m.
Academic and professional books still dominated overall digital sales, which reached £180m last year.
It still remains a small proportion of total book sales, which hit £3.1bn.
However, the increased digital sales suggests devices such as Amazon's Kindle and the Sony Reader are increasingly making an impact. Copyright review Richard Mollet, chief executive of the Publishers Association, said: "Digital publishing is growing at an impressive rate in whichever part of the sector you choose to look.
"Now that technology is putting e-reading devices into consumers' hands, we are starting to see the rapid growth of digital sales in this area too, as consumer publishers develop digital formats to reach wider audiences."
He added the traditional print book market remains "hugely popular" and the figures suggest print and digital books will co-exist in the future.
In the US, electronic books sold more than either hardbacks or paperbacks in February.
The Publishers Association said the digital innovation taking place in the UK could be threatened if copyright laws are watered down in a government review.
Mr Mollet said: "The innovation in the digital marketplace and the strength of British publishers' export performance is only possible because of the robust and flexible copyright framework which underpins the UK creative industries."
Sohaib Athar said he was one of the few people using Twitter in Abbottab
The raid that killed Osama Bin Laden was revealed first on Twitter.
An IT consultant, living in Abbottabad, unknowingly tweeted details of the US-led operation as it happened.
Sohaib Athar wrote that a helicopter was hovering overhead shortly before the assault began and said that it might not be a Pakistani aircraft.
He only became aware of the significance of his tweets after President Obama announced details of Bin Laden's death.
Mr Athar's first posting on the subject came at around 1am local time (9pm BST).
He wrote: "Helicopter hovering above Abbottabad at 1AM (is a rare event)."
Soon after, he reported the sound of an explosion, now known to have been US forces blowing up their damaged helicopter.
"A huge window shaking bang here in Abbottabad Cantt. I hope its not the start of something nasty :-S"
Throughout the raid, Mr Athar was drawing on information from friends in the local area who were also online.
Rory Cellan-JonesTechnology correspondent, BBC News
Already this is being described as another huge day for the micro-blogging service.
"Twitter just had its CNN moment", as one American website put it, comparing this event with the first Gulf War, where millions suddenly woke up to the fact that cable news was the place to observe a war unfold in real-time.
Such is the power of this network that it has become the key resource for older media trying to stay ahead of events.
A journalist who does not use Twitter is now like one who abjures the mobile phone.
"The few people online at this time of the night are saying one of the copters was not Pakistani..."
"People are saying it was not a technical fault and it was shot down. I heard it CIRCLE 3-4 times above, sounded purposeful."
US officials stated that the raid took less than 40 minutes, but Mr Athar said there was still a military presence in the area two hours later.
"And now, a plane flying over Abbottabad..."
In his Twitter biography, Sohaib Athar describes himself as: "An IT consultant taking a break from the rat-race by hiding in the mountains with his laptops."
However, his postings during and after the raid reveal a frustration that world events had caught up with him.
"I guess Abbottabad is going to get as crowded as the Lahore that I left behind for some peace and quiet. *sigh*"
Mr Athar told the BBC's Nosheen Abbas in Pakistan that his tweets has led to a deluge of interview requests from media organisations around the world.
He also said that he was not surprised to be the only person writing about events as they happened.
"I've been tweeting for about 5, 6 years, and been tweeting about Abbottabad because no one really talks about it,
"In fact, not many people use Twitter here. Everyone uses Facebook," he said. Twitter confirmation
Political aide and tweeter @keithurbahn worked out what was happening before the announcement
Even before President Obama confirmed the death of Osama Bin Laden, informed tweeters were speculating online about the reason for a hastily-organised White House press conference.
Keith Urbahn, chief of staff to former US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld wrote: "So I'm told by a reputable person they have killed Osama Bin Laden."
While some observers have cited Mr Urbhan's tweet as further evidence that the mainstream media is struggling to keep up with Twitter, the author himself was sceptical.
He wrote later: "My source was a connected network TV news producer. Stories about 'the death of MSM' because of my "first" tweet are greatly exaggerated."
In another tweet, he said: "As much as I believe in rise of "citizen journalism," blogs, twitter etc supplanting traditional media, my tweet isn't great evidence of it." Revolutionary tool In the five years since Twitter was created, it has played a growing role in the reporting of world events.
The first glimpse that many people had of the site's potential was in 2009 when a US Airways plane made an emergency landing on New York's Hudson.
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of the stricken aircraft, moments after it came down.
More recently, Twitter has been hailed as a catalyst in making world events happen.
Anti-government protesters in the Middle East and parts of Africa have made extensive use of the website, along with Facebook to disseminate their messages.
The 2011 Egyptian uprising, which led to the ousting of President Hosni Mubarak, has been widely referred to as the "Twitter Revolution".
Yandex is due to sell shares on Nasdaq Russia's largest search engine, Yandex, has confirmed that it passed confidential data to the country's state security service, FSB.
Yandex's online payment service gave the FSB personal information about users who donated money to an anti-corruption website launched by the Russian blogger Alexey Navalny.
The disclosure follows a warning by Yandex about the legal and political risks associated with investing in Russia, ahead of its planned listing in New York.
Yandex plans to raise up to $1bn (£600m) through a listing on Nasdaq.
In its prospectus, issued to the US Securities and Exchange Commission last week, the company warned that businesses in Russia "may be subject to aggressive application of contradictory or ambiguous laws or regulations, or to politically-motivated actions".
The Russian legal system is characterised in the document by:
"inconsistencies between and among laws and regulations"
"selective enforcement of laws or regulations, sometimes in ways that have been perceived as being motivated by political or financial considerations"
"a perceived lack of judicial and prosecutorial independence from political, social and commercial forces"
The company also warned that the degree of uncertainty will grow as the 2012 presidential elections approach. Market leader Russia is one of the few countries where Google is not the dominant search engine. Yandex holds 65% of the Russian internet search market while Google has 21.8%.
"Yandex has a very good position in Russia and some of the former Soviet countries, being the most popular search engine", says analyst Lilit Gevorgyan from IHS Global Insight.
"However, when you hear news that the FSB forced Yandex to reveal the payments through Yandex.Money, it hits the most painful spot: transparency and state intervention."
Some experts say this episode will not affect the company's IPO plans.
"All big funds who plan to invest a lot of money in Russia are already aware of these risks," says Georgy Voronkov, analyst from Investcafe research company.
Yandex plans to follow in the footsteps of another Russian Internet group, Mail.ru, which at the end of last year raised $912m in London.
Deutsche Bank said it would defend itself vigorously The US Justice Department has sued Deutsche Bank for more than $1bn (£600m) for defrauding the government. The complaint says Deutsche's MortgageIT subsidiary lied in order to get Federal Housing Administration (FHA) insurance for its loans.
FHA rules say lenders must make sure the borrower will be able to repay the loan, but the Justice Department claims Deutsche did not do so.
A Deutsche spokesperson described the claims as "unreasonable and unfair".
"We intend to defend against the action vigorously," she added.
The lawsuit is one of the first targeting mortgage lenders under the federal False Claims Act.
The government says that between 1999 and 2009, MortgageIT endorsed more than 39,000 mortgages for FHA insurance.
It says that the lender had powerful incentives to generate as many FHA-insured loans as it could so that it could then sell them on to investors.
Deutsche Bank bought MortgageIT for $430m in 2007.
The government said it had paid out more than $386m in FHA insurance claims and related costs.
The global financial crisis was sparked by mortgages being given to people who could not afford them, with the debt then being repackaged and sold on to investors.
The US government has been trying to hold the mortgage industry responsible for the crisis as well as the housing slump and large numbers of foreclosures.
Watch: Rory Cellan-Jones on the latest Sony security breach
A further 25 million gamers have had their personal details stolen as a result of security breaches at Sony.
As well as the Playstation Network, which has been down since 20 April, the company has now taken its Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) service offline.
It said credit card details and other personal information have been taken from an "outdated database".
Last week, Sony admitted that the personal details of 77m Playstation users may have been stolen by hackers.
Since the breach was revealed, shares in Sony have dropped by 4% amid calls for the company's CEO Howard Stringer to stand down over the crisis. 'Cyber attack' In a message to its customers, Sony said: "We had previously believed that SOE customer data had not been obtained in the cyber-attacks on the company."
However, it added that "on 1 May we concluded that SOE account information may have been stolen".
If you are asked for this information, you can be confident Sony is not the entity asking”
End QuoteSony statement
Sony was quoted by the Associated Press (AP) news agency as saying that the latest incident occurred on 16 and 17 April.
This was earlier than the larger Playstation user security breach, which occured on 20 April.
Sony admitted the scale of the problem to users on 27 April.
This new attack goes beyond users of Playstation hardware, affecting PC and Facebook gamers - potentially an additional 25 million people.
Sony said that names, home addresses, e-mail addresses, dates of birth, phone numbers and gender information was taken.
Additionally, direct debit details of around 10,700 customers in Austria, Spain, the Netherlands and Germany were stolen, as were the credit or debit card details of some 12,700 non-US customers. Broader investigation Sony explained that the information included card numbers and expiry dates, but said that it was taken from a 2007 database which was securely encrypted.
The company added: "There is no evidence that our main credit card database was compromised. It is in a completely separate and secured environment."
Spokeswoman Taina Rodriguez told AP that there was no evidence as yet that the stolen information had been used for illicit financial gain.
Sony Online Entertainment's Fortune League is a Facebook-based multiplayer game
However, in its statement, Sony has warned customers to be aware of any contact via e-mail, telephone or postal services purporting to be official Sony correspondence.
"Sony will not contact you in any way, including by e-mail, asking for your credit card number, social security number or other personally identifiable information.
"If you are asked for this information, you can be confident Sony is not the entity asking. When SOE's services are fully restored, we strongly recommend that you log on and change your password."
It warned customers who may use the same passwords for other services to change them immediately.
The suspension of SOE, which is based in San Diego, California, left multiplayer games including DC Universe and Facebook-based Fortune League unavailable.
"We have had to take the SOE service down temporarily," the company said.
"In the course of our investigation into the intrusion into our systems we have discovered an issue that warrants enough concern for us to take the service down, effective immediately," it added. Powering up? The company had previously said that it would get the Playstation Network up-and-running again this week.
It has also promised assistance for users who have been affected by the hack.
Kazuo Hirai is seen as a frontrunner to take over Sony Corp
"We will provide a complimentary offering to assist users in enrolling in identity theft protection services and/or similar programs.
"The implementation will be at a local level and further details will be made available shortly in regions in which such programs are commonly utilised."
On Sunday, top Sony executive and head of the Playstation unit Kazuo Hirai led an apology for the attacks.
"We apologise deeply for causing great unease and trouble to our users," he said.
"These illegal attacks obviously highlight the widespread problem with cyber-security."
It said users would soon see a phased re-introduction of gaming, movie and music download services.
Users on paid services will be granted 30 days of additional time on their subscriptions, along with one day for each day the system is down.
"We deeply regret the inconvenience this has caused and appreciate your continued patience and feedback," the company said.
Despite the extension Timothy Geithner wants an urgent resolution to the deadlock US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has secured more time for Congress to negotiate a deal to increase the borrowing limit of the US. Stalemate over the talks means the US risks defaulting on its debts because it will be unable to borrow beyond its $14.3 trillion (£8.6tn) limit.
Mr Geithner had previously said the deadline for a deal was 8 July.
But in a letter to Congress he said that better tax receipts meant the deadline could be extended to 2 August.
Republicans want to tie any agreement on the US budget to spending cuts, especially in the healthcare programme.
The Obama administration has proposed a $4tn package of budget cuts, but the Republicans say they do not go far enough.
Despite pushing back the deadline, Mr Geithner nevertheless warned Congress of the need for a urgent resolution to the impasse.
He said in his letter: "While this updated estimate in theory gives Congress additional time to complete work on increasing the debt limit, I caution strongly against delaying action."
Last month, ratings agency Standard & Poor's warned that the failure to agree a budget deal was damaging the financial credibility of the US.
In a surprise move, which hit share prices on both sides of the Atlantic, S&P downgraded its US credit rating outlook from stable to negative, increasing the likelihood that the rating could be cut within the next two years.
The university town of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, was hardest hit, with at least 65 killed The outbreak of tornadoes that ravaged the southern US last week was the largest in US recorded history, the National Weather Service has said.
The three-day period from 25-28 April saw 362 tornadoes strike, including some 312 in a single 24-hour period.
The previous record was 148 in two days in April 1974.
The tornadoes and the storm system that spawned them killed at least 350 people in Alabama and six other states. It was the deadliest outbreak since 1936.
The review by US meteorologists came as the southern US states of Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, Virginia, Louisiana and Kentucky continued the huge task of digging out from the destruction.
In Tuscaloosa, Alabama, a university town that was the worst-hit single location, officials estimated debris removal alone would cost $70m (£42m) to $100m (£60m).
The storm tore down century-old trees, flattened farm buildings and downed power lines, leaving as many as one million people without electricity in Alabama alone.
On Monday, more than 400,000 people still had no power in that state, emergency officials said.
The most destructive tornado struck Tuscaloosa, killing at least 65 people between there and the city of Birmingham, the National Weather Service said in a
That was the deadliest single tornado since 1955, when a twister in Kansas killed 80.
Storm scientists say that tornado had a maximum width of 1.5 miles (2.4km) and a track 80 miles long.
Mr Ignatieff's Liberal Party saw their seats in the House of Commons drop from 77 seats to 34 Former Harvard professor Michael Ignatieff says he is resigning as the leader of Canada's Liberal Party, after a crushing defeat in the country's general election. Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative Party won a majority government in the election on Monday.
The New Democratic Party (NDP) became the official opposition by claiming 102 seats, while the Liberals took 34.
The election marks the worst defeat in the history of the Liberal Party.
Mr Ignatieff said on Tuesday that Conservative attack ads, which made use of the more than 30 years Mr Ignatieff lived in Europe and the US, had a large impact on the outcome of the election.
"My attachment to the country, my patriotism were questioned, my motivations were questioned and that had a political effect, there's no doubt about that, but I have to also take my responsibilities," Mr Ignatieff said.
The Liberal Party dropped from 77 seats to 34 in the House of Commons, with Mr Ignatieff even losing his own seat in a suburb of the city of Toronto.
The election marks the first time in Canadian history the Liberal Party did not finish either first or second.
Mr Harper's former colleagues have said the prime minister's long-term goals are to shatter the image of the Liberal Party as the natural party of Canadian government. Conservative victory Conservatives won 167 of the 308 electoral districts, earning 40% of the vote, Elections Canada reported.
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Prime Minister Stephen Harper: "Canadians chose hope"
Mr Harper, who took office in 2006, has previously won two elections but never before held a majority government.
His victory marks Canada's fourth general election in seven years.
Mr Harper went into the vote having headed two successive minority Conservative governments since 2006. His party held 143 seats in the House of Commons prior to the dissolution of the last government.
Analysts say the prime minister has slowly nudged the country further to the right during his five-year tenure.
He has lowered sales and corporate taxes, avoided signing climate change legislation and become a stark advocate of Arctic sovereignty.
Although the opinion polls predicted that the Conservatives would regain power, the scale of victory came as a surprise.
PM Stephen Harper ran a tightly-focused campaign, concentrating largely on his government's record in managing the economy, which has emerged from a recession as one of the strongest among the G7 group of countries.
The NDP had its best-ever showing, taking more than 100 seats. But it has been a disastrous night for the Liberal Party - it dominated Canadian politics in the 20th Century but has suffered its worst-ever result.
The Quebec separatist party, Bloc Quebecois, which has dominated politics in the French-speaking province for the past 20 years, has been almost wiped out, winning just three seats, too few to qualify for party status in the parliament in Ottawa.
The realignment of opposition parties could change the landscape for Canadian politics. There will certainly be calls for the Liberals and NDP to merge in an effort to unite the left-of-centre vote. And by choosing the federalist NDP over the separatists, Quebec may have triggered a renewed debate over its place in Canada's federation.
He has also increased military spending and extended Canada's military mission in Afghanistan.
"We are grateful, deeply honoured, in fact humbled by the decisive endorsement of so many Canadians," Mr Harper told supporters on Monday in the city of Calgary in the country's Alberta province.
Mr Harper said Canadians "can now turn the page from uncertainties" with a majority government. New Democratic gains NDP leader Jack Layton jubilantly greeted his supporters in Toronto on Monday evening.
"Spring is here, my friends, and a new chapter begins," Mr Layton said.
The NDP went into the election with 37 seats, compared with 77 for the Liberals and 143 for the Conservatives.
The separatist Bloc Quebecois, which seeks independence for the predominantly French-speaking Canadian province of Quebec, suffered heavy losses, retaining only four seats out of the 47 seats they previously held.
Mr Harper's government was forced into an election after a no-confidence vote in parliament.
It was found to be in contempt of parliament because of its failure to disclose the full costs of anti-crime programmes, corporate tax cuts and plans to purchase stealth fighter jets from the US.
The head of the CIA has said the US did not tell Pakistan about the operation to capture al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden because it feared the Pakistanis would leak information to the targets. CIA director Leon Panetta told Time magazine they decided co-operation "could jeopardise the mission".
Pakistan's intelligence agency, the ISI, says it is embarrassed by its failures on Bin Laden.
Pakistan's government denied knowledge of the raid before it took place.
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.
In its article, billed as Mr Panetta's first interview since Bin Laden was killed, Time magazine says "the CIA ruled out participating with its nominal South Asian ally early on".
It quotes Mr Panetta as saying "it was decided that any effort to work with the Pakistanis could jeopardize the mission. They might alert the targets".
Pakistan received $1.3bn (£786m) in US aid last year and provides logistical support for the Nato mission in Afghanistan. However, relations between Islamabad and Washington have been strained by US suspicions that the ISI is covertly backing militants in Afghanistan, and by anger over US drone strikes in Pakistani tribal areas. 'Sharing information' Pakistan's ministry of foreign affairs has defended the ISI.
Clearly there were people helping Bin Laden in this location... were they state employees, were they simply from Taliban-related groups, were they from the intelligence agencies?
For all Americans may ask the questions, I doubt they will get any answers. There will be ambiguity about this and the Pakistanis will deny they had any knowledge whatsoever.
The establishment here is made up of army leadership, intelligence agency leadership and some senior civil servants, and they have always run Pakistan, whether democratic governments or military governments, and those people do have connections with jihadis.
The difficulty the West has is in appreciating there are more than 20 different types of jihadi organisations, and al-Qaeda is just one of them. The state has different policies towards different types of group and that subtlety is often lost on Western policy-makers.
In a statement, it said: "As far as the target compound is concerned, ISI had been sharing information with CIA and other friendly intelligence agencies since 2009."
No base within Pakistan was used by US forces, the ministry said. It went on: "US helicopters entered Pakistani airspace making use of blind spots in the radar coverage due to hilly terrain."
The ISI official gave new details of the raid, saying Bin Laden's young daughter had said she saw her father shot.
He told the BBC's Owen Bennett-Jones in Islamabad that the compound in Abbottabad, just 100km (62 miles) from the capital, was raided when under construction in 2003.
It was believed an al-Qaeda operative, Abu Faraj al-Libi, was there.
But since then, "the compound was not on our radar, it is an embarrassment for the ISI", the official said. "We're good, but we're not God."
He added: "This one failure should not make us look totally incompetent. Look at our track record. For the last 10 years, we have captured Taliban and al-Qaeda in their hundreds - more than any other countries put together."
The compound is just a few hundred metres from the Pakistan Military Academy - the country's equivalent of West Point or Sandhurst.
The ISI official also gave new or differing accounts of some of the events of Sunday's raid. They included:
There were 17-18 people in the compound at the time of the attack
The Americans took away one person still alive, possibly a Bin Laden son
Those who survived the attack included a wife, a daughter and eight to nine other children, not apparently Bin Laden's; all had their hands tied by the Americans
The surviving Yemeni wife said they had moved to the compound a few months ago
Bin Laden's daughter, aged 12 or 13, saw her father shot
The official said it was thought the Americans wanted to take away the surviving women and children but had to abandon the plan when one of the helicopters malfunctioned.
The helicopter was destroyed by the special forces unit.
The US has not commented on anyone it captured or had planned to capture, other than saying it had taken Bin Laden's body.
The ISI official said the organisation had recovered some documents from the compound.
The CIA is already said to be going through a large number of hard drives and storage devices seized in the raid.
The White House has not disclosed whether anyone has claimed the $25m (£15m) reward for leading the US to Bin Laden.
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President Obama: "We were reminded again that there is a pride in what this nation stands for"
Our correspondent says residents near the compound in Abbottabad reported that Pakistani soldiers had asked them to switch off their lights an hour before the attack, but the ISI official said this was not true and that it had no advance knowledge of the raid. President Asif Ali Zardari admitted Bin Laden "was not anywhere we had anticipated he would be".
But he denied the killing suggested Pakistan was failing in its efforts to tackle terrorism.
US national security adviser Joh Brennan had said it was "inconceivable that Bin Laden did not have a support system" in Pakistan. He estimated Bin Laden had been living in the compound in Abbottabad for five or six years. 'Geronimo' Bin Laden was America's most wanted man but eluded capture for more than a decade.
US officials say that after DNA tests, they are "99.9%" sure that the man they shot and killed and later buried at sea was Bin Laden.
The al-Qaeda leader, his son Khalid, trusted personal courier Sheikh Abu Ahmed and the courier's brother were all killed, along with an unidentified woman.
Bin Laden was shot above his left eye, blowing away a section of his skull, and was also shot in the chest.
The White House is still discussing whether to release a photo of Bin Laden's body.
The BBC's Andrew North, in Washington, says many people will want proof that Bin Laden is dead but the White House will be concerned about the reaction if the video, and still photographs of the body, are released.
General title books are increasingly being read on digital devices, the data shows Sales of digital books are soaring in the UK, figures from the Publishers Association show. The association said that in 2010 sales of e-books and audio book downloads in the "general titles" category, which includes novels and consumer titles, shot up from £4m to £16m.
