A defiant James Murdoch took the stand at the Leveson Inquiry today for a much-anticipated grilling on his role in the phone-hacking scandal roiling his former turf. The former CEO of News International--the U.K. arm of his father's News Corp. conglomerate--hadn't made an appearance in London since resigning from the post in February. But he arrived more than an hour early to the courthouse, which was packed with spectators and an expectant air.

A day after the fall of his government, Dutch PM Mark Rutte has urged MPs to react "responsibly" to the serious economic problems facing the country.

His minority government collapsed over last-minute disagreements about finding billions of euros in austerity cuts.

"The economy is flagging, employment is under pressure and national debt grows faster than we can afford," he said.

He said he expected a general election to take place on 12 September, rather than before the summer recess.

French Socialist presidential candidate Francois Hollande has suggested that some leftists voted on Sunday for the far right out of "social anger".

Mr Hollande won the first round of the election, narrowly beating conservative Nicolas Sarkozy, while the National Front's Marine Le Pen came third.

Mr Sarkozy, who faces a run-off election with Mr Hollande on 6 May, said he had "heard" Le Pen voters.

Yulia Tymoshenko, Ukraine's former prime minister, has gone on a hunger strike, alleging that guards in the jail where she is being held had severely beaten her.  

Tymoshenko announced the hunger strike on Tuesday, saying she had refused food since Friday night in order to attract "the attention of the democratic world to what is happening in the centre of Europe, in a country called Ukraine".

Prosecutors acknowledged that prison guards had taken Tymoshenko to a nearby hospital for treatment of an existing medical problem against her will, but insisted she was not beaten.

Europe's financial markets have recovered their poise after Monday's panic sell-off, despite clashes in the Dutch parliament over the country's austerity measures.

Share prices plunged at the start of the week, after left-winger François Hollande's strong showing in Sunday's first round of the French presidential election.

Nervous investors fear that support for Hollande, and the surprise collapse of the Dutch government, reveal a growing Europe-wide backlash against the austerity policies Brussels believes are the only way of safeguarding the single currency.

A police official has described how an explosion outside the government headquarters in Oslo caused chaos, allowing the bomber, Anders Behring Breivik, to slip away to Utøya island where he shot 69 people.

Eight people were killed by the Oslo bomb. Breivik, a rightwing extremist, has said he thought he would be killed by police before reaching Utøya.

Testifying in Breivik's trial, police operations leader Thor Langli said initial reports after the blast suggested there were two suspects, and two other bombs were about to explod

It is not clear whether the Dutch finance minister will be able to meet an April 30 European Commission deadline, in which he needs to set out how to achieve the 3% deficit target; the government is talking to centrist opposition parties, hoping to reach an agreement to pass the budget, but this may not come in time for the deadline; the Dutch labour party said the Netherlands should forego the target and aim for 3.6% in 2013, citing "exceptional circumstances"; an FT editorial says that the Netherlands is one of the few countries in the eurozone with some margin for manoeuvre, which it should use now; Marine Le Pen is planning a big campaign for the French parliamentary elections, where she will put up an unprecedented 335 candidates with the goal to weaken Nicolas Sarkozy's UMP; member of Germany's IG Metall have voted in favour of holding warning strikes in support of a 6.5% pay claim; the financial crisis has added more debt in Germany than anywhere else in the eurozone, due to the large bad bank programmes; the European Banking Authority plans to ask banks about their strategy once the LTRO runs out; the German government is expected to forecast a growth rate of 0.7% this year; Yves Mersch says the IMF is way too pessimistic on eurozone growth, and too optimistic on eurozone inflation

the Greek central bank forecasts a larger than expected fall in GDP this year; Spanish tax revenues fall by 2.5% in the first quarter; a Spanish debt auction succeeds, but at the cost of much higher interest rates; John Plender, meanwhile, says the eurozone is headed for a vicious circle of debt deleveraging, and even further central bank policies are likely to have little effect.

Compass, the left-wing pressure group, argues that neither Labour nor the Conservatives have the right policies to end the economic crisis.

Neal Lawson, chair of Compass, said Ed Miliband and Ed Balls should be bolder:

Labour's '5 point plan' doesn't go far enough. Ed Miliband and Ed Balls need to go on the offensive by presenting a clear alternative to the failed politics of austerity, rather than offering up a lightweight version of the "Osbornomics" which has let the country down so badly these last two years.

* Reversing the cuts until the economy is growing strongly.
* A new round of Quantitative Easing to be directed to a Green New Deal, to insulate and prepare large numbers of buildings to use renewable energy.
* Cancelling PFI debts, saving the nation £200bn in debt repayments.
* Increasing some benefits for the poorest, who are most likely to spend any extra income, thus boosting demand.
* Introducing a Financial Transaction tax on the City to be used for public investment purposes.
* Closing the £70 billion lost tax gap with a range of anti-avoidance measures including a general anti-avoidance principle.

Just a question of vocabulary: I'm co-opting the new fashionable buzz words. When I say "growth", I actually mean "austerity". Is that clearer?

_{It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II}