World news round-up: Osborne flies in for talks on £75bn bail-out of Portugal

Chancellor George Osborne will meet European finance ministers today to discuss the details of a possible bail-out of Portugal amid fears that British taxpayers will have to find more than £4 billion as part of a rescue package.

Mr Osborne flew out to Budapest last night for a two-day summit in the Hungarian capital after Portugal's Prime Minister, Jose Socrates, said his country would be seeking European help.

Lisbon has yet to make a formal request for financial assistance but the size of any bail-out is estimated at between 75 billion to 85bn euros (65bn to 75bn).

As well as the size of any bailout, European finance ministers will also decide conditions that could be attached, such as austerity measures.

The make-up of any package, as well as interest rates, are all topics up for discussion.

Sources said the final deal would be similar to that offered to Greece and Ireland. But the British Government will not be offering Portugal a bilateral loan as it did to Ireland.

Portugal's plea for help came as the European Central Bank put up interest rates by 0.25 per cent, putting further pressure on ailing economies in the eurozone.

Kosovo's first female leader

Kosovo's parliament has elected Atifete Jahjaga as its new president, the first woman to head the state.

The 35-year-old Ms Jahjaga received 80 votes, with no votes against, in the parliament session. Ms Jahjaga was a compromise candidate in a US-brokered deal.

Venezuela hit by blackout

A BLACKOUT hit a large part of Venezuela, darkening street lights, shutting down the Caracas underground and forcing President Hugo Chavez's government to resort to temporary rationing measures.

The power outage affected Caracas and 12 northern states.

Japan rocked by aftershock

A STRONG aftershock ripped through north eastern Japan, killing two, injuring dozens and piling misery on a region still buried under the rubble of last month's devastating tsunami.

The quake was the strongest tremor since the March 11 incident and did some damage, but it did not generate a tsunami and appeared to have spared the area's nuclear power plants. The Fukushima Dai-ichi complex - where workers have been frantically trying to cool overheated reactors since they lost cooling systems last month - reported no new abnormalities.

Nato blamed for convoy attack

An apparent Nato airstrike slammed into a rebel combat convoy, killing at least five fighters and increasing anger among Libyan anti-government forces after the second bungled mission in a week.

Yesterday's attack - outside Brega - brought fresh questions about co-ordination between Nato and the rebels.Pakistan: security forces backed by helicopter gunships and jets have killed 54 alleged militants in a north-west tribal region near the Afghan border.

Three security personnel also died in the clashes in Mohmand.

Israel: An anti-tank missile fired from the Gaza Strip has struck a school bus in southern Israel, wounding two people, one of them critically, and prompting fierce Israeli retaliation that killed five Palestinians.