The European Banking Authority (EBA) will name the 90 or so banks that need to undergo a stress test exercise, which will determine which of them need to raise capital to bolster their defences against economic headwinds.

The EBA, keen to be seen as tough after last year's tests flopped, will determine the level of core capital that the banks need to have left on their books when put under the adverse economic scenarios.

BP's £10 billion share-swap with Russian government-owned Rosneft was dealt another blow today after a tribunal blocked the deal until further notice.

The Stockholm tribunal has extended an injunction blocking the swap as it determines whether the deal breaches agreements with its existing Russian partners TNK-BP.

The oil giant currently has until April 14 to complete the deal - which would see BP own 9.5% of Rosneft's shares, while the Russian group would have taken a 5% stake in BP - but plans to discuss extending this deadline with Rosneft.

The embattled supermajor has come to blows with TNK-BP shareholders, a group of Russian oligarchs known as Alfa-Access-Renova, who said BP was obliged to pursue new projects in Russia with TNK-BP.

The Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) and Bosnian system operator BH-Gas signed yesterday (7 April) an agreement paving the way for a future extension of the planned gas pipeline to Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The two companies agreed "to explore opportunities for developing natural gas markets and enhancing supply diversity in South East Europe (SEE)".

The development comes shortly after TAP, which is one of several projects in the so-called 'Southern Gas Corridor' (see 'Background'), found a partner in Croatia, Plinacro Ltd, the country's natural gas transmission system operator, paving the way for further extension in the Western Balkan region.

Boeing inspectors cleared the majority of its older 737s for flight Tuesday after cracks found in Southwest jetliners caused the aviation giant to conduct widespread safety checks on the model.

The space race is no longer just between nations. Space X, a private firm based in California, has stolen a march on Nasa by unveiling plans to launch the most powerful private rocket ever built.

Named Falcon Heavy, the new rocket can carry more cargo than a fully-laden Boeing 737 aircraft and does not only exist in blueprint form - it promises to be complete by the end of next year. It will be the the largest rocket since the Apollo-era Saturn V.

In 2010 Space X stunned the world after it became the first private company to launch a craft that orbited the Earth twice and landed safely within just three hours. Its founder Elon Musk, the American engineer-turned-entrepreneur who made his fortune after co-founding the global online payment system PayPal, promises that Falcon Heavy will bring "revolutionary change, not evolutionary change" to the field of space exploration. "The public should be very excited about this. It re-establishes US leadership in space," he said.

Space X didn't 'stole a march' on NASA: privatising the launcher market was one of the ultra-free-marketista Bush-era policies, and NASA had to contract the new manufacturers. We'll see whether they can deliver on reliability and reusability.

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

NETHERLANDS: NS Hispeed finally began running Fyra services between Amsterdam and Breda on April 4, when the interim locomotive-hauled shuttle was extended from Rotterdam to Breda.

...The interim trains are formed of conventional coaches hauled by leased Bombardier Traxx multi-system locos. They operate at up to 160 km/h using ETCS Level 1, meaning that Thalys services to and from Paris also had to operate on Level 1 between Rotterdam and Schiphol.

Because the Thalys trains were running at 300 km/h on the southern section of HSL-Zuid using ETCS Level 2, Fyra services could not be extended south of Rotterdam until the locos had been certified for Level 2 operation. Now this has been achieved, infrastructure provider Infraspeed is expected to switch the northern portion of HSL-Zuid to Level 2, allowing Thalys to run at up to 300 km/h on this section.

...Ridership on the interim Fyra service has failed to reach expected levels, despite several reductions in the premium fares charged, and earlier this year HSA warned that it would have problems meeting the full concession payments to the government.

What a surprise...

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

A container train from Chongqing in China arrived on the evening of 4 April into Duisburg, Germany after travelling for 16 days.

The DB Schenker freight test train completed the journey of 10,300 km after being commission by a `global company.'

The route the train took went south of Mongolia, through Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus and then from Poland to Germany. This took half the time it would have taken had the journey been made by sea, which is how most of China's goods enter Europe currently.

In 2008, there were already two test trains that ran from Beijing resp. Xiangtang to Hamburg in 15 resp. 17 days. The difference was the route: the 2008 trains ran along the Transsib.

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

CHINA: Work is underway on the first Passenger-Dedicated Line in Inner Mongolia, a 286 km route linking provincial capital Hohhot with the eastern city of Zhangjiakou...

In northeast China, construction of the 360 km PDL from Jilin to the port of Hunchun and Tumen near the border with North Korea was launched on March 3...

An interim report from the Banking Commission due on Monday will not support the total break-up of Britain's biggest banks, the BBC understands.

Instead it will favour ring-fencing their risky investment banking operations, so they do not jeopardise the savings of ordinary depositors.

The move will still cause anger at big banks like Barclays, according to BBC business editor Robert Peston.

It means their investment banking units will find it more expensive to borrow.

"I understand that the Commission will recommend that within megabanks like Barclays, HSBC, or Royal Bank of Scotland, new legal barriers - or 'firewalls' - should be constructed," our correspondent said.

"So that if a crisis occurs in the investment bank it can't hurt our savings in the retail bank."

(Reuters) - Britain should reinstate school attendance payments as part of a range of measures to help reduce its huge government debt, the Paris-based OECD said on Thursday.

The scrapping of Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) payments in England last October prompted many pupils to join violent student demonstrations against higher university fees.

In its latest "Going for Growth" report, the OECD said that improving the educational achievement of young people could boost youth employment in Britain, propelling economic growth and helping it cut a record budget deficit.

The organisation called on the government to "encourage participation in secondary education by reintroducing the Education Maintenance Allowance," among other recommendations.