(Reuters) - Credit ratings agencies hammered Greece on Monday after senior euro zone policymakers acknowledged that Athens will need a second bailout package soon to avert a disorderly overhaul of its debt obligations.

Officials said the European Union was also looking to lower interest rates on rescue loans to Ireland within weeks and eyeing easier bailout terms for Greece as the common currency area floundered deeper into crisis.

But ratings agency Standard & Poor's suggested far more radical measures would be required to make Greece's 327 billion euros ($470 billion) debt mountain sustainable, saying Athens may have to reduce the face value of its bonds by up to 70 percent, implying big losses for investors.

S&P downgraded Greece's credit rating further into junk territory to B, just one notch above Pakistan's, hitting Greek bank stocks as investors sought safety in German bonds. The euro slid to its lowest level in three weeks against the dollar.

Anyone who thinks this is "Economy" and not 100% political is wrong.

The small village of Moneygall, in Ireland, is awaiting the visit of President Barack Obama later this month.

The President is paying a visit to the ancestral home of his great great great grandfather before he emigrated to the USA.

The latest waves of immigrants arriving on the Italian island of Lampedusa are from Libya and cannot be sent back as they are fleeing a conflict zone. The European Commission has called on EU countries to help Italy share the burden.

Some 500 boat people from Libya were rescued yesterday (8 May) after their frail vessel hit rocks off the Italian island of Lampedusa.

In a separate development, sixty-one immigrants died of hunger and thirst before their vessel finally reached shore on 10 April, back in Libya where they had started from.

Only 11 passengers survived the trip, and two of them died soon afterwards. According to the Guardian newspaper, Western military ships in the area ignored the boat in distress. Naval spokespeople declined to comment.

Two environmental groups said on Monday (9 May) they had sued Europe's chemicals watchdog for withholding information about the production of toxic chemicals.

The lawsuit, filed by activist lawyers ClientEarth and chemicals campaigners ChemSec, says the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) breached transparency laws by refusing to disclose the names of facilities producing 356 potentially dangerous chemicals.

ECHA is Europe's agency for evaluating and restricting more than 30,000 substances that currently face little regulatory oversight, many of them a potential risk to human health.

Companies wanting to sell chemicals must register them with ECHA, including details on toxicity, which the agency will publish on its website.

Investigation found that US biodiesel was being shipped through Canada to avoid duty.

The EU has decided to impose duties on imports of biodiesel from Canada that originated in the United States.

On Thursday (5 May), the Council of Ministers agreed to impose an anti-dumping duty of €409.2 per tonne on imports from Canada. It also imposed the same penalty on imports of US diesel blends containing less than 20% biodiesel. The duties will be backdated to 13 August 2010.

The decision followed an investigation by the European Commission into whether US biodiesel was being shipped through Canada in order to avoid duties imposed on US biofuel in March 2009. The investigation followed a complaint by the European Biodiesel Board (EBB) that there was an increase in imports from Canada after duties were imposed on US biodiesel export. In 2007, the EBB complained that European biodiesel producers were losing out because of subsidised imports from the US.

As security crackdown continues in Syria, EU diplomats suggest its leader could be targeted.

An ongoing security crackdown in Syria has increased pressure on the European Union to freeze the assets of Bashar Assad, Syria's president, and to ban him from entering EU member states.

"There is an ongoing review of the situation in Syria and a constant re-assessment of the list" of people against whom sanctions are in force, a diplomat said. He said that the situation in Syria would be "critical" in assessing whether Assad, whose family has ruled the country with an iron fist for the past four decades, would be added to the list.

On Friday (6 May), member states' ambassadors on the EU's Political and Security Committee failed to agree sanctions against Assad, although they imposed visa bans and asset freezes on a dozen of his associates. Those sanctions are currently being finalised and are expected to enter into force in the coming days. A largely symbolic arms embargo took effect last month.

Germany registered a net gain of 128,000 immigrants last year, the largest increase since 2004. Poland, Romania and Bulgaria were the most common countries of origin, followed by the United States and Turkey.

According to the the Federal Statistics Office, 798,000 people immigrated to Germany in 2010, 77,000 more than in the previous year (+11 percent). Meanwhile, 671,000 left the country, 63,000 fewer than in 2009 (-9 percent).

The rise in population reverses a two-year period when more people left the country than arrived. However, immigration in 2010 still did not match the heights seen during the post-reunification 1990s, when typically saw 800,000 people entered Germany each year.

In 2010, 684,000 immigrants of the total were foreigners, while about 115,000 were expatriate German nationals returning home.

President Barack Obama is set to formally announce the deployment of US military aircraft to Poland, in a move that could damage Washington's relations with Moscow.

Mr Obama visits Poland at the end of the month and is expected to confirm the stationing of F16 combat aircraft on Polish soil during meetings with Bronislaw Komorowski, his Polish counterpart, and other central and eastern European leaders.

Citing diplomatic sources, the Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza claimed that 16 US jets will move from their current home at the Aviano air force base in Italy to Lask in central Poland, and will be stationed on a rotational basis from 2013.

The American president is also expected to hold talks about stationing SM-3 interceptor missiles in Poland as part of Washington's plans for a missile defence shield. The United States already has a Patriot missile battery in Poland.

A court in Austria has approved the extradition of former Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader, who is wanted in Croatia on suspicion of corruption. Sanader was arrested in Austria on an international warrant in December. 

A court in Austria ruled on Monday that former Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader can be extradited back to Croatia to face charges of corruption there, relating to his time as prime minister from 2003 to his resignation in 2009.

Sanader was arrested in Austria on December 10 after Croatia issued an international arrest warrant. He is suspected of corruption and embezzlement, and Croatian media suspect he funneled millions of dollars from state-owned companies into his own political party and other private accounts. Since his arrest, Sanader has been held in an Austrian prison.

As Russia celebrates Victory Day on May 9, marking the end of World War II in Europe, a new study is shedding light on the conflicted relationship Russians still have with Germany. 

Though 66 years have passed since the end of World War II, celebrations remembering the Allied victory over Nazi Germany still have an important place in Russia today.

Last year, for the first time ever, Allied troops took part in the annual military parade in Moscow commemorating the anniversary. Their participation was designed to express the historical ties that bound the nations in this dark chapter of history.

A question of historical accuracy

The participation of the German Federal Armed Forces, the Bundeswehr, in such a parade would have the potential to be seen as a gesture of reconciliation. A recent study, however, found that 57 percent of Russians firmly reject the idea of German participation.

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - It may be Europe Day, but a new haiku from the bloc's president celebrating the occasion could not mask unease across the Union, with criticism of the partisanship of the European Central Bank growing in Ireland and Greece suffering from yet another credit-rating downgrade.

EU flag: anti-EU populism is growing, warns the commission

On 9 May 1950, one of the two main founders of the EU, Robert Schuman, presented his proposal for an organised Europe, known as the "Schuman declaration" - considered to be the birth of the European project.

Sixty-one years later, European Council President Herman van Rompuy in a prepared video message conceded that the bloc was in a "difficult" period, but offered the 27 states a freshly written poem as a birthday present.

"A corona of stars / Rolling over the deep blue sea / Together forever," the haiku read.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has appeared in court on charges he bribed a witness to perjure himself in another trial.

It is the first time he has appeared in court over allegations he paid his former British lawyer David Mills to provide false testimony.

Mr Berlusconi faces two other corruption trials and is also accused in another case of paying an underage prostitute and of abuse of power.

In all cases he says he is innocent.

International high representative for country condemns Bosnian Serb officials for 'violating' Dayton peace accords.

Bosnia-Herzegovina is facing its most serious crisis since it was established as a state 15 years ago, the international representative for the country has warned, accusing Bosnian Serb officials of threatening its viability.

In a regular report to the United Nations, Valentin Inzko, an Austrian diplomat who represents Bosnia, accused Bosnian Serb authorities of engaging in "concrete actions which represent the most serious violation of [the 1995 the Dayton peace accords that ended the Bosnian war] that we have seen since the agreement was signed".

The peace accord divided the country into two: a separatist Bosnian Serb Republic, known as Republika Srpska, and a Muslim-Croat federation.

Juncker's spokesman Guy Schuller admits to lying about the secret meeting; Juncker himself is quoted as saying :"when it becomes serious, you have to lie", thereby undermining the credibility of the EU's policy response; Lucas Zeise says lies are a hallmark of an economic policy end game, with the eurozone now very likely to break up; Jean Claude Trichet has proposed another €50bn loan for Greece; Greek tax revenues fall way short of the plan; there are reports that Angela Merkel will travel to Brussels for emergency consultations; euro falls further, and bond spreads rise; an FDP politician has tabled a motion to end all eurozone rescue packages; there are huge recriminations in Brussels against the Germans for leaking the meeting, and for undermining the Greek stabilisation efforts; S&P downgrades Greece, and says that even a voluntary debt restructuring constitutes default; Finnish parties start difficult negotiations about Portugal's bailout package today; Portuguese banks borrowed €48bn from ECB in May; new FDP chief Philipp Rösler becomes economics minister, asserting his power in the party; German exports and imports reach new records, with net exports rising; the euro, meanwhile, is far more popular in France than it is in Germany.

Analysts believe that Spain's budget deficit will grow by two-tenths- from the current 6 percent of GDP to 6.2 percent - if growth doesn't meet the Zapatero administration's projected goal, of 1.3 percent. Market indicators have shown that Spain will only experience 0.8 percent growth, which will also bring on the cuts, say officials.

...

The Bank of Spainlast week announced thatthe Spanish economy had started theyear with "weak" growth driven by the export sector, while domestic demand remained negative.

In its monthly economic bulletin for April released Friday, the central bank calculated GDP posted quarter-on-quarter growth of 0.2 percent in the first quarter, the same rate as in the previous three months. Annual growth, however, accelerated slightly to 0.7 percent from 0.6 percent.