At a meeting of European Union foreign ministers scheduled for Monday, sanctions that have been in place against Myanmar since 1996 are to be suspended, according to unnamed officials speaking Thursday on the condition of anonymity.

Originally implemented against Myanmar's military junta in response to human rights abuses, the 16-year-old sanctions include an asset freeze on hundreds of individuals, a ban on EU companies and organizations from investing in Myanmar, an import ban, and an arms embargo.

European parliamentarians have approved a controversial data-sharing deal with the US. Proponents argue that it will make travel more safe, but critics say it violates the rights of EU citizens.

The European Parliament has approved a controversial agreement that will give US authorities access to data on passengers flying from European Union destinations to the United States.

The approval, which came after more than two years of wrangling, was approved by a vote in the Strasbourg-based parliament of 409 in favor, 226 against and 33 abstentions.

The Passenger Name Record (PNR) agreement will allow the US Department of Homeland Security to keep the data it receives on European travelers in its transparent form for a maximum of five years.

BRUSSELS - In a room behind closed doors in the European Commission headquarters in Brussels, the EU and China on Wednesday (18 April) declared their mutual intent to bolster cultural ties between average people.

"Both sides would like to upgrade their co-operation ... to enhance international understanding and friendship through educational, cultural and humanitarian activities involving the exchange of ideas and experiences," the joint declaration, signed by EU education and culture commissioner Androulla Vassiliou and China's state councillor Liu Yandong, says.

BRUSSELS - A UK-led initiative to weaken the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) could violate the rights of European citizens, Diogo Pinto, the secretary-general of the Brussels-based NGO, the European Movement International has said.

"A number of UK draft proposals could in practice give the power to the national courts to decide which cases are to be reviewed by the European court, and to the national governments to have greater leeway in applying its judgments. We are worried that this would violate the rights of the individuals across Europe to apply to the court," he told this website on Wednesday (18 April).

With hours to go before the end of campaigning ahead of Sunday's first round of the presidential vote, French President Nicolas Sarkozy aimed a strike at the blonde, palatably packaged leader of France's extreme-right National Front party at a rally in the northern French town of Arras Wednesday.

AP - Confessed mass killer Anders Behring Breivik testified Thursday that he had planned to capture and decapitate former Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland during his shooting massacre on Utoya island.

Breivik said his plan was to film the beheading and post the video on the Internet. Brundtland had already left the Labor Party's youth camp on Utoya when Breivik arrived on July 22, after setting off a bomb in Oslo that killed eight people.

Sixty-nine people, mostly teenagers, were killed on Utoya, where nearly 600 members of the Labor Party's youth wing had gathered for their annual summer retreat.

"The plan was to behead Gro Harlem Brundtland while it was being filmed," Breivik told the court.

The fund's latest forecast says it will take Spain until 2017 for GDP to recover to 2008 levels; the loss of Spanish jobs is unlikely to be reversed before 2022 or 2023; the Bank of Spain is discussing a proposal to set a quasi-bad bank that hives off property-related activities in a separate company; Luis de Guindos tells Germans that Spain needs no EFSF programme; the Spanish and French bond auctions went well, but Spanish yields rose after the auction; Nicolas Sarkozy is showing signs of frustration over his failure to close the polling gap with Francois Hollande; president complains that all candidates get the same air time on French TV; Hollande wants to tap the savings of French households to fund the French sovereign debt; Greek banks get funding pledge but recapitalization terms delayed; Evangelos Venizelos wants EU and IMF to give Greece another year to meet fiscal targets; Peter Spiegel says that Portugal has two months to prove it needs no second bailout; the Dutch finance minister wants hedge funds to be more closely monitored; economists expect the Ifo index to decline; German economics institutes disagree on debt redemption fund; meanwhile, we have an illustration by the IMF, showing how contagion in the eurozone might work;

In an astute commentary on the INET panel in which I appeared (see here for the text), to talk about Europe's future, Eves Smith had this to say: "It is worth noting that one of the questions after the various presentations on the Eurozone mess raised the issue of the `democratic deficit'. The various speakers endorsed the idea of getting public approval, but they implicitly or explicitly acknowledged that it would be after the fact. Erm, so since when do you approve a fait accompli?" Yves is spot on. My excuse for not addressing perhaps Europe's worst `deficit' is that my task was to squeeze within my 20 minutes three policy proposals for dealing with Europe's three crises (banking crisis, debt crisis and the hidden crisis due to under-investment and to the internal imbalance of payments). I only wish I had five more minutes to explain that these three policies are also our best chance for redressing the Eurozone's democratic deficit.

The very structure of the European Union (inter-governmental rather than federal) puts a great distance between citizens and the EU itself. This is why, quite naturally, even though most Europeans are pro-Europe, the EU is rather unloved (and, for some, positively loathed). Then came the Eurozone. A currency union predicated upon a single institution (the ECB) that is, by design, unaccountable and, to boot, geared towards shifting the burden of an economic crisis from the social classes and strata whose actions helped cause the crisis to the weak shoulders of those who never benefitted from the preceding boom. Since such a `shift' causes adverse popular reaction, the ECB is a natural ally of the domestic political forces (especially in the deficit member-states whose population bears the brunt) whose task is to bend the electorate to their will, and to the ECB's will. To all intents and purposes, an economic crisis in the Eurozone ends up creating a form of neo-neo-colonialism within the world's most advanced `democracy' - within the EU.

In short, the awful architecture of our common currency, which was never designed to deal with a crisis like the current one, reacts to the unplanned for crisis with savage incursions into the democratic process of the deficit countries, whose populations must be beaten into a pulp until they surrender their spirit to the irrationality of the `cure' (bailouts plus austerity). And since no one can remain free when others within their broader community are turned into slaves (to paraphrase Hegel), the democratic losses of the periphery soon expand to the core, the result being that Greece's and Ireland's democratic deficit soon spreads to Germany and Holland, diminishing the democratic processes of the surplus countries. In the end, as we have been witnessing in the Eurozone over the past two years, governments everywhere are misleading their parliaments and their people.

http://apps.facebook.com/theguardian/world/2012/apr/19/greece-military-spending-debt-crisis

No other area has contributed as heavily to the country's debt mountain. If Athens had cut defence spending to levels similar to other EU states over the past decade, economists claim it would have saved around €150bn - more than its last bailout. Instead, Greece dedicates up to €7bn a year to military expenditure - down from a high of €10bn in 2009.

"Germany became Germany partly because for 62 years it did not have to think about military expenditure," said Angelos Philippides, a prominent economist. "For a long time Greece spent 7% of its GDP on defence when other European countries spent an average 2.2%. If you were to add up that compound 5% from 1946 to today, there would be no debt at all," he said. "It's vital that if the European Union wants to speak about fair deals it should at least guarantee Greek borders [with Turkey] so the country can bring down military spending to 2.2%."

The imbalance has spawned speculation that peripheral countries in Europe with vulnerable frontiers likesuch as Greece are being exploited in terms of defence spending by wealthier states at Europe's core.

Spain has managed to absorb more cash by selling government bonds in a crucial auction. Once again, it has had to put up with higher interest rates as markets remain unimpressed with the state of the economy.

Spain sold 2.54 billion euros ($3.32 billion) of government bonds in a closely watched auction on Thursday. Due to strong investor appetite, Madrid was able to surpass its target of up to 2.5 billion euros.

But investors insisted on a higher premium to buy into the sovereign debt auction, which was seen as a major test of market confidence in Spain's endeavors to rein in public spending.

BRUSSELS - International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde on Thursday (19 April) warned of "dark clouds" hanging over the global recovery, with the eurozone at the heart of the problem.

"We are seeing light recovery, blowing on the spring wind. But we are also seeing very dark clouds on the horizon," Lagarde said in a press conference in Washington.

BRUSSELS - "Discipline must be accompanied by convergence and responsibility must be matched by solidarity", European Commission President Barroso said on Wednesday (18 April) during his address at the European Parliament's plenary session in Strasbourg.

BRUSSELS - Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti followed in the footsteps of his Spanish counterpart on Wednesday (18 April) by announcing that Italy would need extra time to reaching its deficit target amid a deepening recession.

Fitch Ratings has issued the clearest warning to date that Holland faces losing its AAA rating if it fails to deliver austerity cuts or lets political conflict intrude on economic management.

"The Dutch are on the edge of a negative rating action," said Chris Pryce, Fitch's expert on the Netherlands. The first move is likely to be a switch from stable to negative outlook rather than a full downgrade.

"We will hold a rating committee meeting in June. They run risks if they keep letting debt rise: a cautious approach would be advisable," he told the Telegraph.

The warning comes as Dutch property tips into deeper slump, with the inventory of unsold homes nearing South European levels. Household debt is the eurozone's highest at 249pc of income, compared with 202pc in Ireland, 149pc in the UK, 124pc in Spain, 90pc in Germany, 78pc in France and 66pc in Italy - according to Eurostat data from 2010.

The Netherlands is caught in a "negative feedback-loop" as recession and house price falls feed on each other. Building permits have dropped 9pc from a year ago, the lowest since 1953. "The housing market is in a coma," said the Volkskrant newspaper.

Citigroup shareholders seem to have started a trend.

After the resounding rejection of Citigroup's compensation plan earlier this week, shareholders at other banks are following suit, according to a Wall Street Journal story by Robin Sidel, Suzanne Kapner and Joann S. Lublin Thursday.

The movement reflects a widespread disgust with pay in the banking sector that seems to have finally found its voice with the Citi smackdown. It could affect shareholder meetings coming up this spring at other gargantuan banks such as Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo.

It is also having an effect on smaller regional banks. Shareholders on Wednesday rejected the executive pay plan of regional bank FirstMerit Corp., of Akron, Ohio, the WSJ reported. The bank gave its CEO a pay raise to $6.4 million last year from $5.5 million, while its stock fell 20 percent, the WSJ notes.

Foreign ministers from Western and Arab countries who met in Paris on Thursday say a peace plan brokered by UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan is the last chance for Syria to avoid civil war.

Diplomatic efforts to end the violence in Syria continued on Thursday with the foreign ministers from the group of 14 Western and Arab countries known as the "Friends of Syria" gathering in Paris.

The verdict reached appeared to be unanimous, with a draft statement obtained by the Reuters news agency describing a a peace plan brokered by UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan is the last chance for Syria to avoid all-out civil war.

Russia's foreign minister has expressed concerns about NATO plans to withdraw from Afghanistan. Sergei Lavrov also asked NATO for guarantees about its plans for a missile shield.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has expressed concern about plans by the Western military alliance NATO to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2014.

"As long as Afghanistan is not able to ensure by itself the security in the country, the artificial timelines of withdrawal are not correct and they should not be set this way," Lavrov told a press conference following talks with NATO foreign ministers in Brussels on Thursday.

India has test-fired a nuclear missile with a range of over 5,000 kilometers (3,100 miles), enough to reach Europe and most of China. It is capable of delivering a one-ton warhead.

Indian's government on Thursday confirmed media reports by saying it had "successfully" test-launched a long-range missile, marking a "milestone" in its defence capabilities.

The launch had previously been delayed by one day due to bad weather.

The 17-meter (56-foot) Agni-V missile, with a range of more than 5,000 kilometers (3,100 miles) and capable of delivering a one-tonne warhead, was launched shortly after 8 a.m. local time (0230 GMT) from India's eastern state of Orissa.

Nigeria has asked Germany for help in its campaign against the radical Islamist group Boko Haram, saying German technology and know-how could make a difference.

Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan was in Berlin on Thursday to meet with Chancellor Angela Merkel on ways Germany can help Nigeria in its fight against the Boko Haram terrorist group.

Specifically, Nigeria is looking to use German technology to help monitor the Boko Haram members, who have been blamed for hundreds of deaths in attacks on police stations, churches and schools this year alone.

AP - Bombings struck several areas in Baghdad and to the north Thursday, killing at least 30 people in the first major attacks in Iraq in nearly a month. The violence stoked fears that insurgents were trying to undermine confidence in the Shiite-led government amid rising sectarian tensions.

In all, officials said extremists launched 12 attacks in the Iraqi capital and in the cities of Kirkuk, Samarra, Baqouba, Dibis and Taji. Mortars were fired into the northern cities of Beiji and Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit, but no injuries were reported there.

AFP - Mali's police announced a wave of arrests overnight after officers seized containerloads of weapons, as the country's new prime minister considered Thursday who should form his transitional government.

Television footage showed assault rifles and ammunition clips as Colonel Diamou Keita, the head of the gendarmerie, said they had arrested 22 people, 11 of whom were civilians -- one a banker -- and 11 of them soldiers.

[Emphasis original]

Helsingin Sanomat has learned that the United States has asked Finland for an annual contribution of 20 million dollars, or EUR 15 million a year for the security forces in Afghanistan.

The request is part of hurried attempts to close up a massive gap in aid funding that looms when the current NATO-led crisis management operation concludes in 2014.

NEW YORK -- The News of the World phone-hacking scandal that exploded in England last summer with a spate of arrests, resignations and several ongoing investigations has remained mostly on that side of the Atlantic.

But that could change if Mark Lewis, the British lawyer who has represented several phone hacking victims in the U.K. and who recently teamed up with two Manhattan-based attorneys, decides to file suits stateside on behalf of clients who believe their phones were hacked while on U.S. soil.

On Thursday, Lewis, sitting alongside New York attorneys Norman Siegel and Steve Hyman, discussed the possibility of bringing hacking-related suits against Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. in the U.S., the headquarters of a worldwide media juggernaut.

Lewis, who gained prominence for his pursuit of high-profile hacking cases across the pond, arrived in the U.S. for the Monday meeting with Siegel amid some media fanfare, including a New York Times profile. As a result of that meeting, Siegel said Thursday that there's "a reasonable basis for the proposition that three of [Lewis's] clients may have been victims of telephone hacking while they were in the United States." Lewis later confirmed he has a fourth client who may also opt to file suit in the U.S.

AFP - Officials in Peru said Thursday they are investigating what caused the deaths of nearly 900 dolphins that have washed up on its northern coast over the past four months.

Authorities said they suspect a virus may be responsible, but are awaiting test results to know whether they can rule out environmental pollution or other factors in the deaths of the marine mammals.

AFP - Slovenian adventurer Matevz Lenarcic successfully concluded a 100-day eco-friendly trip around the world on Thursday in an ultra-light plane boasting super-low fuel mileage.

"I haven't reached a 'goal' because I do not like goals, what matters is the path we cross," Lenarcic said shortly after landing at Ljubljana's airport late on Thursday.

Lenarcic made the trip flying a Pipistrel Virus-SW914 weighing just 290 kilogrammes (640 pounds) some 100,000 kilometres (62,000 miles), circling the world westbound.

AFP - Shell has begun looking at a potential $4.0 billion in new projects in Nigeria to boost production and reduce the amount of gas burned off into the atmosphere, the company's chief executive has said.

"Shell is assessing new projects for onshore Nigeria, which will add new production and reduce flaring," Peter Voser, CEO of the Anglo-Dutch oil giant, said in a speech in London on Wednesday posted on its website.

"These projects could cost some $4.0 billion," Voser added.

Recycling plastics have become much more popular around the world, but large amounts are still thrown away. Through the power of wind, gravity, and moving water, much of the globally produced plastics find their way into the oceans. But the plastic bottles we see washing up along the shoreline only tell a small fraction of the marine plastics story. Most plastic debris in the ocean are nearly invisible to the naked eye. These are known as microplastics, and they are far more dangerous to oceanic wildlife than larger plastic debris. After previous studies on this subject have failed to estimate the extent of microplastic pollution in the ocean, a team of researchers has proposed a new set up guidelines for their recording and characterization.

The team consisted of British and Chilean researchers and led by scientists from the German Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association.

They first identify the problem that microplastics cause. They are innumerable ultra-small objects that float near the surface, settle on the seabed, or washed onto the beach. They are defined as plastic objects whose diameter is less than five millimeters. Most are actually smaller than a grain of sand and could fit on the tip of a needle.

Russia Stunned After Japanese Plan To Evacuate 40 Million Revealed

A new report circulating in the Kremlin today prepared by the Foreign Ministry on the planned re-opening of talks with Japan over the disputed Kuril Islands during the next fortnight states that Russian diplomats were "stunned" after being told by their Japanese counterparts that upwards of 40 million of their peoples were in "extreme danger" of life threatening radiation poisoning and could very well likely be faced with forced evacuations away from their countries eastern most located cities... including the world's largest one, Tokyo.

The 6 million Jews killed during the Nazi Holocaust have been remembered in Israel with two minutes of public silence. Road traffic stopped and sirens wailed.

Millions of Israelis have stood silently or halted their vehicles for two minutes silence to remember the 6 million Jews murdered during the Nazi Holocaust of World War II.

The solemn day, which includes numerous broadcasts of interviews with survivors, had begun after sundown Wednesday at the Yad Vashem memorial.

After the acrimony and uproar last year, Germany's annual Islam conference this time around was more harmonious, but mistrust between the government and Muslims remains.

For German Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich this year's Islam conference was very constructive. During a break in meetings, he told journalists in Berlin that there was broad agreement among the conference participants. For example, Friedrich said, there was a consensus that forced marriage and domestic violence "did not come from religion, but from the patriarchal structures and traditions in the countries of origin."

Women and immigrants have better chances if they hand in anonymous application forms, says a study by Germany's anti-discrimination body. Eight companies took part in the pilot project.

One quick glance at the photo and at the applicant's details is often enough for human resource personnel to put a written job application on the "reject" pile. One quick glance tells you a lot: sex, age, nationality - and that is often enough to stir up prejudice. Some groups end up on the reject pile more often than others: women, immigrants, and people with disabilities. After all, one quick glance is not enough to tell you what the applicant's qualifications are.

As Bahrain gears up for Sunday's controversial Formula One race, the situation there is becoming increasingly volatile. DW talked to Nabeel Rajab, a prominent Bahraini human rights activist, about the concerns he has.

AFP - Women speak to their male partners less often as they grow older and turn their attention to a younger generation, according to an unusual study Thursday that tracked nearly two billion phone calls and text messages.

The findings back evolutionary theory about the role of women in the survival of the genes, according to the probe by researchers in Britain, Finland, the United States and Hungary.

The investigators tracked the origin and destination of cellphone calls and text messages among 3.2 million people over seven months.

What can surnames tell us about the culture, genetics and history of our society? That is the question being answered by Chinese researchers who have traced the evolution of surnames across China. The research, published in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, reveals how surnames can act as a genetic stamp, allowing scientists to trace lineage and understand the migrations and historical events which shaped modern China.

The research was led by Dr. Jaiwei Chen, from Beijing Normal University, and Professor Yida Yuan fromthe Chinese Academy of Sciences.

"When it comes to surnames the Chinese people are unique. 1.28 billion people share 7,327surnames. In fact the 100 most common names account for 85% of the population," said Dr Chen. "This means Chinese surnames include more cultural and genetic information than in most other countries."

Scientists have created artificial genetic material that can store information and evolve over generations in a similar way to DNA - a feat expected to drive research in medicine and biotechnology, and shed light on how molecules first replicated and assembled into life billions of years ago.

Ultimately, the creation of alternatives to DNA could enable scientists to make novel forms of life in the laboratory.

The Wall Street Journal published a self-revealing news article on Tennessee's recently adopted law (modeled on a template created by the Discovery Institute - a Christian group whose ultimate goal is preventing the teaching of the core principles of biology) encouraging science teachers to teach their opposition to "controversial" scientific findings.  The Discovery Institute opposes the scientific consensus on evolution - the central pillar of biology.  One would never understand that fact, however, if one relied on the WSJ article.

The wording of the bill comes from a template created by the Discovery Institute, a think tank in Seattle that questions evolution and promotes the concept of "intelligent design."

Evolution is the theory that generations of animal and plant species alter and transform over time in response to changes in their environment and circumstances, a process known as natural selection.

"Intelligent Design" is the proposition that scientific evidence exists to show that life in its multitudinous forms was caused by the direction of a higher intelligence.

What is that "scientific evidence"?

"Natural selection and descent does not explain the degree of complexity that exists out there," [the head of the religious group promoting the bill] said.

See, there are two rival views of biology, a "theory" v. a "proposition."  The rival views represent different opinions on biology by respectable biologists embracing the same scientific method and differing only in their interpretation of the "scientific evidence" emerging from their scientific studies.  Remember, this is a WSJ news article, not a screed by their "three bubbles off plumb" editorial staff.  What a difference a Murdoch makes to what was once a superb news organization.