James Murdoch has resigned from his role as chairman of UK broadcaster BSkyB, but will remain on the board.

The move is part of an effort to distance that company from the phone-hacking scandal at the News of the World newspaper, once a Murdoch title.

It means he no longer has a major role at a UK company. He also stood down as chairman of the newspaper publisher, News International, last month.

His father Rupert founded its parent company, News Corporation.

Terror charges are to be brought against 13 suspected Islamic militants detained in raids last Friday, France's state prosecutor in Paris said.

Francois Molins also confirmed some of the suspects are accused of plotting to carry out kidnappings.

He said he would ask for nine of the suspects to be detained and allow four to be freed on bail.

At least 17 people have been killed by a fire that swept through a market warehouse in southern Moscow.

The victims were migrant workers from former Soviet states, according to the city fire department.

The two-storey building was being used as living quarters for the market vendors, who had no direct access from their room to the street.

An opinion poll released Sunday shows the 2012 presidential election could see the highest rate of abstention in the history of the modern French Republic. For frontrunning Socialist candidate François Hollande, that is a cause for real concern.

The Socialists' presidential candidate no longer talks about treaty revision, but instead focuses on add-ons; Hollande also no longer insists on eurobonds, but instead wants to push project bonds; Spain and Portugal both have a big bond auctions today, as the interest rates in secondary markets are rising again; swap offer for Greek international bond holders ends today - with the likely outcome of a default; Greek debt to external suppliers continues to rise;Greek MPs defy Lucas Papademos' call for restraint over seeking legislative amendments to austerity plan; 425 economists have submitted proposals for the Wolfson prize over how to dismember the eurozone; the Czechs promise to abide by the rules of the fiscal pact - without signing it; the Pirate Party has jumped to 12% in national polls in Germany;the Irish fiscal watchdog says the country's debt sustainability would be endangered even by the slightest shortfall in economic growth; Wolfgang Proissl, meanwhile, warns against talk of a
premature exit by the ECB.

,,Pirates" would get 12% in German national elections

According to the most recent polls, the ,,Pirates" would get up to 12% if there was a national election in Germany now, Spiegel Online writes. With such a result they would dispose of 70 deputies in Bundestag and thereby probably undermine any chances of the non-communist left (SPD and Greens) to form a coalition. But the success is also making members of the party ill at ease. The ,,Pirates" have so far succeeded to enter the parliaments in state elections in Berlin and Saarland. However there is little programmatic content besides internet freedom, no party organization or leadership to speak of and members of the party fear they will be unable to fulfill the huge expectations some people have in them. Analysts say the astonishing results of the ,,Pirates" reflects a general mistrust of the German public with the countries established parties.

Eurointelligence Daily Briefing: Francois Hollande tones down his proposals for treaty revision (04.04.2012)

Czech Republic promises to respect rules of the fiscal pact

Receiving Angela Merkel in Prague, the Czech prime minister Petr Necas promised his country would respect the rules of the fiscal pact get its deficit below 3.0% despite the fact that it had not signed the treaty, Süddeutsche Zeitung reports. Merkel stressed in Prague that she had not put any pressure on Necas to respect the pact.

The Socialist in him would like to go

bad boy. he'd love to, but there's that pesky ingot he's chained to.

wearing his schizophrenia like a cred accessory. shades of etch a sketch...

"It's very hard to see what is kept invisible" Roseanne Barr

Head of France's prestigious Sciences Po grande école was champion of access for poor students

A New York police spokesman said employees at the Michelangelo hotel, in Manhattan, found the naked body of Richard Descoings, 53, on Tuesday afternoon.

He was director of one of the country's top institutions, the Institute of Political Studies, in Paris, known as Sciences Po, where he shook up the entry system, describing France's higher education as unfair, unequal and undemocratic.

The police spokesman said investigators were awaiting a medical examiner's report to determine the cause of death, but there appeared to be no evidence a crime had been committed.

The number of Spanish jobseekers rose for the eighth month in a row in March to hit a record 4.75 million.

The Labour Ministry said the number of people filing for unemployment benefits rose by 38,769 with the services sector seeing the most jobs lost.

The jobless rate in Spain stood at 23.6% in February, according to EU figures released on Monday.

Motorola Mobility's patent lawsuits have become the subject of two investigations by the European Commission.

It follows complaints by Apple and Microsoft after Motorola tried to block sales of their products.

They said that Motorola - which is in the process of being taken over by Google - had failed to license "essential" technologies on fair and reasonable terms.

Motorola denies any wrongdoing.

An 11-year-old boy's plan to save the eurozone has been commended in a major competition that has attracted some of the world's top economists.

Schoolboy Jurre Hermans from the Netherlands gets a special mention - and a 100-euro gift voucher.

He suggests how Greeks could swap euros for their old currency, the drachma.

Five entries were shortlisted for the Wolfson Economics Prize in the competition to find the best plan for dealing with a eurozone break-up.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said Tuesday that despite the decline of a few major economic indicators, China's economy as a whole continues to grow as the government anticipated in its exercise of macro-controls.

Despite the falls, major economic indicators are still at reasonable levels, and confidence should be maintained on the country's economic work, said Wen during a three-day inspection trip to the southeastern Fujian Province and Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in south China.

Wen called for close attention to new conditions and problems and the implementation of flexible and prudent macro-policies with timely and appropriate anticipatory adjustments and fine-tuning to ensure a sound and rapid economic development

In recent days, an unwholesome spat has erupted between progressive economists (e.g. Mark Thoma and Steve Keen, with some prior involvement by Paul Krugman) which, curiously, ended up revolving  around the question of what is neoclassical economics, who can be classified as a neoclassical economist etc. I must state it for the record that such a debate, especially when it escapes the confines of our silly academic games (and infects a public eager for serious policy debates and buffeted by the trials and tribulations of actual barbaric policies), is counter-productive. We should be debating ideas and desisting name-calling, label-wielding and boyish games whose objective is mutual belittlement. But since this one has escaped into the public domain, here is my bob's worth on what constitutes neoclassical economics. Be warned: this is an academic article. But it is the best I can do to throw light on what neoclassical economics is.  The first section provides a definition of neoclassical economics. Later sections offer an account of how this most peculiar scientific failure has managed to draw enormous power out of its... failure.

Barack Obama has accused Mitt Romney, his likely Republican opponent in the presidential election, of supporting "thinly veiled social Darwinism" in backing a budget which sharply reduces taxes for millionaires while cutting public spending on education, justice and medical research.

The strength of Obama's remarks are a clear indication that the White House has decided that the Republican frontrunner will be his party's presidential candidate and is not waiting for the primaries to run their course before going on the attack.

The Israeli prime minister has intervened to prevent the eviction of hardline Jewish settlers from a house in the tense West Bank city of Hebron, despite a Palestinian family's insistence that they are the legal owners of the property.

Binyamin Netanyahu overruled his defence minister Ehud Barak, who had ordered the eviction of scores of settlers from the property on the grounds that they had not secured a permit for purchase from the Israeli authorities in the West Bank.

In a boost to the settlers, Netanyahu demanded the eviction be delayed to allow an investigation, for which no timeframe was given. A deadline of 3pm on Tuesday for the settlers to leave voluntarily passed without action being taken.

The gunman who killed seven people at a Christian university in Oakland, California, came looking for a female administrator. A representative of the Oakland police says when he couldn't find her, the suspect, a 43-year-old Korean-American who had recently been expelled from the university, asked former classmates to get in line before he opened fire

Rural residents protesting against land grabs have clashed with police in north and south-west China, according to accounts posted online, in the latest cases to be sparked by one of the country's most potent sources of unrest.

Villagers in south-western Yunnan province were arrested and injured when police broke up a a three-day blockade of a highway over the death of a rubber farmer who complained her land had been illegally seized, according to an account posted by an unknown user.

An officer at the Xishuangbanna police station confirmed that officers had dispersed farmers whose protest had blocked the road for several days last week, but said he did not know if there had been arrests and denied that anyone had been beaten.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday that international sanctions were hurting Iran's economy but not enough to persuade it to curb its nuclear ambitions even slightly.

"The Iranian government ... is having economic troubles but it has yet to move backward, even a millimeter, in its nuclear program," Netanyahu told a news conference he called to mark his right-wing government's third anniversary in power.

The International Criminal Court prosecutor announced Tuesday that he has rejected a bid by the Palestinian Authority to have the war crimes tribunal investigate Israeli conduct during 'Operation Cast Lead' in Gaza.

The reason for his decision was that under the ICC's founding treaty, the Rome Statute, only internationally recognized states can join the court.

Hafiz Saeed, the leader of a Pakistan-based group blamed for the 2008 attacks on Mumbai, has demanded proof after the US announced a $10m bounty on his head.

In an exclusive interview with Al Jazeera, Saeed said the US move was prompted by the fact that he had been organising rallies against the re-opening of supply lines through Pakistan to NATO forces in Afghanistan.

"We are not hiding in caves for bounties to be set on finding us," Saeed said. "I think the US is frustrated because we are taking out countrywide protests against the resumption of NATO supplies and drone strikes. 

Mitt Romney can take a big step toward the Republican US presidential nomination with victories in Wisconsin and two other contests that would increase pressure on rival his Rick Santorum to drop out of the race.

The grinding, months-long battle for the right to face Democratic President Barack Obama in the November 6 election turns to Wisconsin, Maryland and Washington, DC, on Tuesday and Romney leads in all three.

A sweep would underscore front-runner Romney's growing strength and likely increase appeals from party leaders for Republicans to rally behind him despite deep reservations among many conservatives suspicious about whether he is one of them.

Malians have lined up outside gas stations holding jerry cans, water bottles and plastic jugs, as the West African nation braces itself for sanctions imposed as a consequence of a coup last month.

In an effort to force out the soldiers that seized control of Mali on March 21, Mali's neighbours decided at an emergency summit on Monday to impose an embargo, close their borders with Mali and freeze its account at the regional central bank.

The sanctions are likely to have a stronlgly negative affect on Mali's fuel supply. The landlocked country imports all its fuel, over land from neighbouring Ivory Coast and Senegal, both of which are located on Africa's Atlantic coast.

Last month was the third warmest March on record - outshone only by 1938 and 1957 - the Met Office has said.

It had an average temperature of 7.7C, compared with March 1938, which had an average of 8C. It was also the fifth driest and third sunniest March.

March saw a total precipitation of 36.4mm of rain and 156.5 hours of sunshine across the month.

Records for temperature and rainfall began in 1910, while the measurements for sunshine began in 1929.

A team of experts could travel out to the stricken Elgin platform in the North Sea on Wednesday.

All workers were removed from the installation, 150 miles off Aberdeen, when gas began escaping nine days ago.

Operator Total said a team was preparing to fly out to the platform either on Wednesday afternoon or Thursday, depending on the weather.

A Greenpeace ship is on the edge of the exclusion zone to test air and water samples.

Mauritania's waters are crowded. Twenty-five miles out to sea and in great danger from turbulent seas are small, open pirogues crewed by handfuls of local fishermen, taking pitifully few fish. Also here within 50 miles of us are at least 20 of the biggest EU fishing vessels, along with Chinese, Russian and Icelandic trawlers and unidentifiable pirate ships.

We are closest to the Margaris, a giant 9,499-tonne Lithuanian factory trawler able to catch, process and freeze 250 tonnes of fish a day, and a small Mauritanian vessel, the Bab El Ishajr 3. Here too, in the early mists, its radio identification signal switched off, is Spanish beam trawler the Rojamar. The Arctic Sunrise, Greenpeace's 40-year-old former ice-breaker, is shadowing one of Britain's biggest factory trawlers - the 4,957-tonne Cornelis Vrolijk. Operated by the North Atlantic Fishing Company (NAFC), based in Caterham, Surrey, it is one of 34 giant freezer vessels that regularly work the west African coast as part of the Pelagic Freezer Association (PFA), which represents nine European trawler owners.

President Hu Jintao on Tuesday called for more efforts in promoting a voluntary tree-planting campaign to provide ecological support to China's scientific development.

Introduced in 1981, the campaign remains effective in coping with climate change, improving ecological environment and achieving greener growth, said Hu at a high-profile tree-planting activity featuring the entire Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee.

Senior leaders Wu Bangguo, Wen Jiabao, Jia Qinglin, Li Changchun, Xi Jinping, Li Keqiang, He Guoqiang and Zhou Yongkang also took part in the annual event.

Hundreds of Canadians demonstrated on Tuesday calling for an end to subsidies for wind power, saying noise from colossal turbines is making some people sick and driving down rural property prices.

Organizers told AFP about 800 farmers and other rural residents rallied outside a clean energy forum in downtown Toronto against a government subsidy for wind and solar power projects.

They said in a statement the program has resulted in "unbridled and unnecessary development" of wind power projects throughout Ontario, "which is altering rural communities, causing power bills to rise dramatically, and even causing some people to become ill from exposure to the environmental noise."

The government will not "ram legislation through Parliament" to increase monitoring of emails and web usage, Nick Clegg has said.

The deputy prime minister said the proposals would be "published in draft" first to allow them to be debated.

Earlier, the Home Office said it planned to "legislate as soon as parliamentary time allows".

Ministers say change is needed to help fight crime and terrorism, but critics warn it is an attack on privacy.

Romanian Parliament is illuminated with blue light during the "Light It Up Blue" campaign on Monday night to commemorate the World Autism Awareness Day on April 2, 2012.

O2 continues to expand its free Wi-Fi offering, this time donning a hairnet to push into 1,200 McDonalds hotspots which will become O2 branded just in time for the London Olympics.

Not that there will be any additional Wi-Fi coverage; the clown-branded eateries already offer free Wi-Fi connections complete with family-friendly filtering, but over the next few months those connections will switch from The Cloud onto O2's free Wi-Fi service as companies are now competing to see who can provide the most stuff for free.

A former SingTel engineer took revenge on the Singaporean telco giant after being given the sack by sabotaging fibre optic cables on a staggering 600 separate occasions.

Thirty-five-year-old Terrance Tan Khoon Shan was handed a 15 month prison sentence after the disgruntled engineer was found guilty of cutting cables in various parts of the city-state island, according to Channel News Asia.

The BBC is to make 24 live HD Olympic streams available to cable and satellite providers.

The deal means viewers will be able to watch every Olympic sport live for the duration of the summer games through their TV sets.

Previously, the BBC had only planned to broadcast the streams online.

It will be the first time viewers have been given the opportunity to follow one particular sport throughout the day.

After 61 reigns unbroken by wars, social upheaval and at least one pregnancy, the Larimer County Fair and Rodeo Board has fired its teenage rodeo queen and her lady-in-waiting following disputes over money, management and mothers.

Queen Kaylin Schimpf and Lady-In-Waiting Kayla Myers, both 19, were terminated from the program last month after they refused to agree to changes fair managers wanted.

http://www.coloradoan.com/article/20120404/NEWS01/204040377/Larimer-County-Fair-Rodeo-queen-gets-boo t?odyssey=tab%7Ctopnews%7Ctext%7CFRONTPAGE

The giant pandas at Edinburgh Zoo have been brought together to mate five times but so far have been unsuccessful.

Yang Guang was allowed into Tian Tian's indoor cage through a grate for five minutes at a time.

The 20st (127kg) male bear was showing more aggression, which the zoo said was a good thing.

Female pandas ovulate just once a year, with a narrow window of just 36 hours in which they can get pregnant.

Johnson repeatedly insisted Livingstone's claim was a lie, to no avail. Minutes later, in the confines of a lift for a short journey from the second floor to a roof terrace on the sixth floor at LBC's offices, an incensed Johnson unleashed his ire in front of fellow passengers Paddick, Jones and LBC managing editor James Rea.

A reportedly red-faced Johnson went "nose to nose" with Livingstone and told him three times over: "You are a fucking liar." A spokesman for the Labour candidate insisted he said nothing in reply because he was shocked. The candidates emerged from the lift to be photographed.

Barcelona's three-time Ballon d'Or-winner Lionel Messi scored the 50th Champions League goal of his career here on Tuesday in his side's quarter-final second-leg clash with AC Milan.

The Argentinian became, at the age of 24, the youngest player to reach the landmark when he converted a penalty in the 11th minute of the game.