Ukraine forces have ended a rebel blockade of a strategic airport in the east, killing at least 30 rebels, as the country traded charges and threats with Russia, over violations of their joint border during a weekend of fierce military combat.

Ukraine's military said on Monday that its warplanes had inflicted heavy losses on the pro-Russian separatists during air strikes on their positions around Luhansk airport. An armoured convoy, which Kiev said had crossed the border from Russia, was also hit.

Government forces, taking the lead from Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko who swore to "find and destroy" the separatists who killed 23 servicemen in rocket strikes on Friday, went on the offensive across a broad range of targets at the border town of Luhansk.

NSA whistleblower, Edward Snowden, has denounced the UK's emergency surveillance bill, criticizing its heightened powers of intrusion along with the distinct lack of public debate it encompassed.

During an exclusive interview in Moscow with the Guardian, the whistleblower suggested it was highly unusual for a state to process legislation so hastily other than at a time of acutely endangered national security.

"I mean we don't have bombs falling. We don't have U-boats in the harbour", he emphasised. Yet suddenly this legislation has become an absolute priority. "It defies belief", he stated.

Snowden found the duress with which the UK government processed the Data Retention and Investigation Powers Bill to be remarkable, comparing it to the Bush administration's introduction of the Protect America Act in 2007. The Protect America Act was issued after the New York Times exposed a "warrantless wire-tapping programme" that was both illegal and "unconstitutional", he said.

BRUSSELS - Leaders meeting on Wednesday (16 July) are likely to pick only the new EU foreign policy chief, with a decision on the successor to Council head Herman Van Rompuy "possibly" delayed until autumn.

According to one EU source, "if a complete deal is feasible, we should go for it. Otherwise, it will be only the high representative."

A second source told this website that it is "certainly a possibility" that only the foreign affairs chief is picked.

Both the foreign policy head - Catherine Ashton - and the Council president - Herman Van Rompuy - have five months to go until their terms end. But in the case of the foreign affairs job, the successor also has to undergo hearings in the European Parliament and to be voted together with the rest of the new EU commissioners in October.

Spain's government Friday approved controversial new fines for holding unauthorised demonstrations, sparking protests from civil rights groups.

Following warnings from judicial authorities, Madrid watered down measures from an earlier bill, but maintained tough penalties for unauthorised demos if they are deemed a security threat.

Critics have branded the reform repressive. But Interior Minister Jorge Fernandez Diaz insisted it would "guarantee greater security for citizens with greater legal security... and protect the rights and freedoms of citizens".

○ William Hague quits as foreign secretary in cabinet reshuffle

Prime Minister David Cameron said: "William Hague has been one of the leading lights of the Conservative Party for a generation, leading the party and serving in two cabinets. "Not only has he been a first class foreign secretary - he has also been a close confidante, a wise counsellor and a great friend.

"He will remain as First Secretary of State and my de facto political deputy in the run up to the election - and it is great to know that he will be a core part of the team working to ensure an outright Conservative victory at the next election."

Amnesia and Gaza Genocide

What is clear she suggested is that the reason for Dalli's loss of office as presented by the commission president has "changed again".

"It wasn't [Dalli's] knowledge about the bribe, Barroso emphasised, but all the meetings with the tobacco industry; by the way, meetings in which the lobbyist did not say that she even worked for the tobacco industry.

"The commission president is applying double standards. The commission should not behave as if the tobacco lobbyists are lepers. If they were then a lot of people in the commission would be infected - including the commission president.

"This constant change of argument shows that the case rests on clay feet. The errors and infringements committed by the commission and OLAF are outrageous."

Barroso testified before the European court of justice, in a case filed by the former EU health commissioner John Dalli over a claim of unfair dismissal.

The Maltese official 'resigned' as commissioner in charge of health and consumer policy in October 2012 just before the commission launched the revision of the tobacco products directive.

The questions were not a hoax, but part of a new effort to measure the size of the Spanish economy. As of September, all European Union countries will be required to take fuller accounting of trade in sex, drugs and other underground businesses as part of an overhaul of economic measurements by Eurostat, the European statistics agency.

The point of counting everything, including the wages of sin, is to get a more accurate reading of each country's gross domestic product. Because G.D.P. is such an important number -- one that can sway national policies and make or break politicians -- the European Union wants numbers "better reflecting the economic environment," Vincent Bourgeais, a Eurostat spokesman, said.

With European Union governments obliged to reduce debt as a percentage of their economies, the changes are also expected to make growth rates from Spain to Sweden look better, possibly also making debt ratios seem rosier.

Insurers are eagerly eyeing exponential growth in the tiny cyber coverage market. But their lack of experience and skills handling hackers and data breaches may keep their ambitions in check.

High profile cases of hackers seizing sensitive customer data from companies, such as US retailer Target Corp or e-commerce company eBay Inc, have executives checking their insurance policies.

Increasingly, corporate risk managers are seeing insurance against cyber crime as necessary budget spending rather than just nice to have.

The intensifying debate over when the Federal Reserve raises interest rates is little more than a sideshow when it comes to the ability of the U.S. to borrow.

For all the concern fixed-income assets will tumble once the central bank boosts rates, the Treasury Department still managed to get investors to submit $3.4 trillion of bids for the $1.12 trillion of notes and bonds sold this year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That represents a bid-to-cover ratio of 3.06, the second-highest on record and up from 2.88 in all of last year.

Attracting investors is critical for the U.S. as it finances a debt load that has more than doubled to almost $18 trillion since before the financial crisis. The appeal of Treasuries was on display last week as benchmark 10-year notes rallied the most since March while investors sought a haven amid rising concern over the health of a Portuguese bank.

Mario Draghi's newest stimulus tool will hand banks more than 700 billion euros ($950 billion) of cheap funding, economists say.

The European Central Bank president's targeted lending program for banks will boost credit for the real economy as planned, and at the same time help keep the financial system flush with cash, according to the Bloomberg Monthly Survey of 45 economists. Draghi highlighted the measure in testimony to lawmakers today in Strasbourg, saying that it has "strong incentives" built in to spur lending.

The ECB has identified loans to companies and households as a key weakness in the euro area's fragile recovery. The so-called TLTRO program, part of a wider package of measures announced in June, offers as much as four years of low-cost funding tied to bank lending that Draghi said this month could ultimately provide as much as 1 trillion euros.

BRICS create development bank, based in Shanghai

(AFP) - The BRICS group of emerging powers launched a $50 billion development bank Tuesday to be based in Shanghai and a $100 billion crisis contingency fund, according to a joint declaration.

The New Development Bank's first president will be from India while the board's chairman will be Brazilian, according to the declaration released at a summit in Fortaleza, Brazil.

The bank will have an initial subscribed capital of $50 billion followed by an authorized capital of $100 billion, equally shared among Brazil, Russia, China, India and South Africa.

The Contingency Reserve Arrangement will have an initial size of $100 billion and will help countries avoid "short-term liquidity pressures, promote further BRICS cooperation, strengthen the global financial safety net and complement existing international arrangements."

○ China urges IMF to give more power to emerging markets - January 2014
○ Rejecting crucial reforms, Congress is jeopardizing U.S. global leadership

In this column, Professor Joaquín Roy, Professor of European Integration and Director of the European Union Centre at the University of Miami, argues that although the United States and Europe are in crisis, they are still a magnet for the rest of the world, as shown by the ceaseless waves of migrants they attract.

BARCELONA, Jul 14 2014 (IPS) - A few decades ago, even before the end of the Cold War and before and after Ronald Reagan's election to the White House, analyses regularly referred to U.S. decadence. At other times, it was Europe's turn for pessimistic descriptions, especially when it could not overcome its ambivalence over deepening integration, and above all because of the failure of its constitutional project. 

The West was in crisis. And now the pair are apparently going through a similar phase, with each one trying to outdo the other in inferiority.

Israel has kept up its air and naval bombardments of the Gaza Strip for a seventh day, despite growing international pressure for a ceasefire.

At least 176 people, including 29 children, have been killed as of Monday and more than 1,200 people have been wounded.

The European Union said it was in touch with "all parties in the region" to press for an immediate halt to the hostilities, a day after US Secretary of State John Kerry offered to help secure a Gaza truce.

Egypt and Qatar are seen as potential mediators but peace efforts were complicated by Hamas' rejection of a mere "calm for calm" in which both sides hold their fire in favour of wider conditions including prisoner release and an end to Israel's Gaza blockade.

Israeli Radio, quoting Egypt's state-news agency, said on Monday that Kerry will arrive in Cairo on Tuesday to discuss a ceasefire.

(Reuters) - Residents of a town north of Baghdad found 12 corpses with execution-style bullet wounds on Monday, after fighting between rival Sunni insurgent groups that could eventually unravel the coalition that seized much of the north and west of the country.

The incident points to an intensification of infighting between the Islamic State and other Sunni groups, such as supporters of former dictator Saddam Hussein, which rallied behind the al Qaeda offshoot last month because of shared hatred for the Shi'ite-led government in Baghdad.

Police in Muqdadiya, a town 80 km (50 miles) northeast of the capital, said residents from the nearby town of Saadiya found the 12 corpses on Monday after intense fighting overnight between Islamic State fighters and the Naqshbandi Army, a group led by Saddam allies.

Since the Islamic State swept through Iraqi cities and proclaimed its leader caliph of all Muslims last month, there have been increasing signs of conflict with other Sunni groups who do not necessarily share the al Qaeda offshoot's rejection of Iraq's borders or its severe interpretation of Islam.

WASHINGTON, Jul 12 2014 (IPS) - Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei's comments on the nuclear talks Monday provided an unusual glimpse of diplomatic maneuvering by the U.S.-led coalition of five nuclear powers and Germany on the issue of enrichment capability to be allowed in a comprehensive agreement.

But his remarks also suggested that Iran was responding with its own diplomatic maneuvre on the issue. Both sides appear to have put forward demands that they knew were non-starters with the intention of moderating their demands substantially in return for major concessions from the other side.

Khamenei described the United States and the P5+1 as demanding initially that Iran's annual enrichment capability be cut to the equivalent of as few as 500 to 1,000 centrifuges - as little as 2.6 percent percent of its present level of 19,000 centrifuges.

But he also suggested they were now aiming at getting Iran to accept a capability equivalent to the annual production of 10,000 centrifuges on the condition that it would be the final level for the duration of the agreement.

The T-shirt is sold by organisations like this. (Bestsellers: National Socialist Kriegsmarine Battle Flag, Racist Redneck Rebels - "Keep The Hate Alive!", Swastika Flag etc.)

Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel once said she wished "for nothing more than a free-trade agreement between the USA and the EU". But, to the dismay of many in Brussels and Washington, Germans are now taking a very different view.

Europe's biggest exporter is becoming one of the most vocal opponents of the world's biggest trade deal. A transatlantic pact would create a market of 800 million people and allow Germany to sell more of its luxury cars, trains and chemicals in the United States, an attractive proposition for an economy that has faltered in recent months.

But in a twist that few officials expected, European concerns about the threat to food and the environment have found their strongest voice in Germany, amplified by the country's influential Green party, as well as anger at reports of US spying.

For the first time ever, the sale of carbon credits will finance projects that help tackle climate change. The EU Commission will fund 19 projects, two of which are in France. EurActiv France reports.

For those who still question the point of a European carbon market, here is a possible answer. The European Commission announced on 8 July that 19 projects from 12 EU member states will receive their share of €1 billion raised through the sale of carbon credits.

Established in 2005, the European Union Emission Trading Scheme (EU ETS) set a cap on the total amount of certain greenhouse gases that can be emitted by some 12,000 factories, power plants and other installations across the EU. Most emission allowances were initially given away for free, while countries were allowed to auction off part of the credits destined for the industrial sites. The collapse in carbon prices forced the Commission to withdraw the credits from the market in an attempt to increase prices, which are currently at €5 per tonne compared to €30 in 2008.

A study co-authored by a University of Guelph scientist that involved fitting bumblebees with tiny radio frequency tags shows long-term exposure to a neonicotinoid pesticide hampers bees' ability to forage for pollen.

The research by Nigel Raine, a professor in Guelph's School of Environmental Sciences, and Richard Gill of Imperial College London was published in the British Ecological Society's journal Functional Ecology.

The study shows how long-term pesticide exposure affects individual bees' day-to-day behaviour, including pollen collection and which flowers worker bees chose to visit.

"Bees have to learn many things about their environment, including how to collect pollen from flowers," said Raine, who holds the Rebanks Family Chair in Pollinator Conservation, a Canadian first.

"Exposure to this neonicotinoid pesticide seems to prevent bees from being able to learn these essential skills."

Today was the 17^th consecutive day on which both the German peak and base day-ahead prices remained below four cents, a new record streak going back probably to the early 2000s, when the wholesale price was regularly at that low level.

(charts)

The difference between French and German prices today is striking, but it is also Bastille Day today, a public holiday in France. But we do not have to look far to find similar days with a great discrepancy between the two countries.

On Wednesday, July 9, for instance, prices in France were once again only half as great as in Germany, and there was no public holiday in France. As French grid operator RTE shows, the country exported up to 10 GW of power at a time that day. The French were therefore dumping a lot of electricity on neighboring countries at a loss. Nonetheless, nuclear plants were not at a particularly low level, peaking above 47 GW for most of the day. Perhaps the large amount of hydropower helps explain this outcome

BATTIR, West Bank, Jul 13 2014 (IPS) - The Palestinian village of Battir, just six kilometres southwest of Jerusalem and a similar distance from Bethlehem, is the latest to be trapped in the gap between international recognition and Israel's policies in the West Bank.

The village's agricultural terraces covering the surrounding hill slopes, and the spring water-fed open irrigation channels that run through them, have been in use for centuries.

Last month, this unique landscape was designated a World Heritage site by the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), making it only the second such Palestinian site after the Old City of Jerusalem site.

Already in autumn last year, the World Monuments Fund, an international organisation working to preserve important cultural heritage sites, had added Battir's ancient terraces to its 2014 World Monuments Watch.

The decision to inscribe Battir in the World Heritage list comes amid Israeli plans to establish a new section of its Separation Barrier at the foot of the terraced hill slopes, cutting through the Palestinian village's lands.

The Church of England has voted to allow women priests to be ordained as bishops, overturning centuries of tradition in a church that has been deeply divided over the issue.

After almost five hours of debate, the General Synod, the governing body of the Church of England, approved on Monday the proposal to allow women to take up senior roles in the Church.

Ahead of the vote, Justin Welby, spiritual leader of the world's 80 million Anglicans, said the general public would find it "almost incomprehensible" should the General Synod fail to support the move.

Al Jazeera's Emma Hayward, reporting from York, described the scene outside the meeting, as "jubilant" following the vote.

Researchers from Umea University have explored two different ways that allow unprecedented experimental insights into the reaction sequence leading to the formation of oxygen molecules in photosynthesis. The two studies have been published in the scientific journal Nature Communications.

"The new knowledge will help improving present day synthetic catalysts for water oxidation, which are key components for building artificial leaf devices for the direct storage of solar energy in fuels like hydrogen, ethanol or methanol," says Johannes Messinger, Professor in Biological Chemistry and leader of the Artificial photosynthesis research group at Umea University.

Every child learns at school that the oxygen we breathe is produced by photosynthesis in plants and by cyanobacteria that live in lakes and the oceans. However, exactly how that happens is still under intense research.

The South African Nobel-prize-winning author Nadine Gordimer, one of the literary world's most powerful voices against apartheid, has died at the age of 90, her family say.

Gordimer died peacefully at her Johannesburg home on Sunday evening in the presence of her children, Hugo and Oriane, a statement from the family said.

Born in Gauteng, South Africa, in 1923 to immigrant European parents, Gordimer was awarded the Nobel prize for literature in 1991 for novels and short stories that reflected the drama of human life and emotion in a society warped by decades of white-minority rule.

Many of her stories dealt with the themes of love, hate and friendship under the pressures of the racially segregated system that ended in 1994, when Nelson Mandela became South Africa's first black president