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The risk of an explosion at the site of a massive natural gas leak in the North Sea has been greatly reduced, said oil analysts. Oil giant Total confirmed on Saturday that a flare, which was lit as part of the evacuation procedure at it’s Elgin platform has gone out by itself.
The 200,000-cubic-metres-a-day leak began six days ago at the platform off Scotland’s east coast, forcing the evacuation of 238 workers. A three-kilometre exclusion zone was set up around the platform with fire-fighting ships on standby in case of any explosion.
The energy company says about 3% of North Sea gas production has been lost by the shutdown.
Total have engaged specialists to advise how to plug the leak, including a team from the same engineering firm that helped tackle BP’s oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010.
More about: Gas accident, Total

Three widows and two daughters of Osama Bin Laden have been sentenced to 45 days in a Pakistani jail. The five women have been found guilty of staying in the country illegally.
However, they will only spend another 14 days behind bars, due to time already served since their detention on March 3. They were also fined around 80 euros each.
After finishing their jail-time, the women will be deported to their home countries. It is believed the three widows are from Saudi Arabia and Yemen.
Following a 10-year manhunt, the head of al-Qaeda was shot and killed last May, as American special forces stormed his compound in Abbottabad, just over 60 kilometres from Pakistan’s capital Islamabad.
Bin Laden’s body was buried at sea within 24 hours of his death.
More about: Justice, Osama bin Laden, Pakistan

Eurozone countries are falling far behind the United States and Canada even as a fragile recovery takes root according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.
The OECD’s chief economist Pier Carlo Padoan said the risk of something derailing that recovery has diminished, but not disappeared: “We believe it has come down a bit, so those risks are smaller, but they are not gone away. If you take the G7 as a group there is a recovery which is firming, with respect to last year’s numbers, but this is clearly coming at different speeds, with North America and the United States going faster and the euro area still in a weak spot.”
The economic think tank said the Group of Seven advanced economies are on course for average annualised growth of 1.9 percent in the first half of this year but with wide variations.
An improving US labour market would help the world’s biggest economy grow 2.9 percent in the first quarter on the same basis, and 2.8 percent in the second quarter, the OECD said.
It believes the UK’s recovery will be weak and the eurozone’s weaker still.
Britain’s economy was seen contracting an annualised 0.4 percent in the first quarter before posting growth of 0.5 percent in the following quarter.
The economies of France and Italy are pretty sure to be in contraction in the first quarter and Germany would grow just 0.1 percent.
Grappling with weak industrial production and fragile household confidence, Italy would be stuck in recession as its economy contracted an annualised 1.6 percent in the first quarter and 0.1 percent in the second quarter, the organisation estimated.
To maintain the rebound momentum the OECD advised central banks to keep the easy money flowing and possibly an interest rate cut by the ECB.
“Monetary policy needs to be supportive in the medium term to allow this process to continue,” Padoan said.
More about: Economic recovery, Eurozone in crisis, OECD

Three convicted multiple murderers have been hanged in Japan, marking its first executions in almost two years.
The move puts Japan back alongside the United States as the only leading developed nations to carry out the death penalty.
The hangings at separate jails were authorised by Justice Minister Toshio Ogawa. Official figures indicate over 80 percent of Japanese people are in favour of capital punishment.
“The death penalty is supported by the Japanese people,” Ogawa said. “It is also supported through people’s participation in jury trials. As such, I will continue to do my legal duty as justice minister.”
Despite the delay between executions, there has been no formal moratorium on capital punishment in Japan. Today’s news has angered and disappointed anti- death penalty campaigners who had hoped the current government in Tokyo would end the practice.
More than 100 people are said to remain on death row in Japanese jails.
More about: Death penalty, Japan, Justice

It is one of the deadliest road accidents Europe has ever seen – and most of the victims are children. A coach crash in a Swiss motorway tunnel has killed 28 people, 22 of them youngsters.?�They?�had been?�heading back to Belgium after a ski-ing trip organised by their schools.?�The coach, carrying 52 people, crashed head on into the wall of the tunnel near the town of Sierre in the Swiss canton of Valais.?�A total of 24 children were injured. Some are in a serious condition. Those caught up in the crash were aged around 12.?�As investigators try to understand why the tragedy happened, Belgium has declared a national day of mourning. Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo and relatives of the victims travelled to Switzerland on planes provided by Belgian authorities. ?�As they set off, many shocked parents still did not know whether their own youngsters had survived.

More about: Accident, Belgium, Bus accident, Switzerland, Victims

Is it a virtual strip search that reveals too much or a vital new tool in aviation security? Full body security scanners at European airports have been the focus of much debate, and held up as a prime example of why our fundamental rights need to be closely watched. Critics of the scanners talk about human dignity and privacy.
Airport body scanners appeared in Europe after a young man tried to blow up a plane flying from Amsterdam to the US in 2009. Explosives had been hidden inside his underwear.
Some scanner images found on the internet and in the media give the impression the naked form is not that detailed or graphic.
But other images show that more is being revealed than some might expect.
One woman from Malta had a first-hand experience, just a few days after the European organisation she works for was asked to give an opinion on the scanners.
Anna Maria Darmanin, Vice President of the European Economic and Social Committee, told euronews: “It was horrible. First thing, I didn’t even know I was going through a body scanner. I was just sent through this glass thing. And when I was in it, actually I realised I was in a body scanner. And when I went out of it I complained because I said I have the right of choice, and I was told ‘you either go through this or you don’t fly’.
“And really, to me, it was really humiliating, because I felt my own dignity was trespassed, my own rights, just because I wanted to fly, were really diminished. And for me, actually sacrificing one’s rights should not be done for security.”
Brussels brought in new regulations, citing provisions of the charter of fundamental rights.
Passengers were given the right to refuse to be scanned and choose an alternative screening method. However, discussions are ongoing over the fact the UK is not applying this part of the rules.
The new law also says that images cannot be stored and the security officer analysing them must be in a separate room from where the scanner is.
And, because of health concerns, only non-x-ray body scanners can be used at EU airports.
In response to the privacy concerns, some airports have opted for new technology: generic stick figures have replaced the nude-like images.
But one of the groups that first spoke out on the issue believes there is still a lot more that needs to be done to satisfy passengers.
Nickle Pickles, Director of Big Brother Watch, said: “It’s one thing to satisfy lawyers and regulators, but it’s very different when we hear stories of people being forced to take infant children, for example, through body scanners with them; and also concerns around men looking at images of women being scanned. So there are still questions to be asked.
“But I think that the debate has certainly moved on now to be: how can we make this technology acceptable on a privacy level, and not just to move beyond the privacy issue? Because unfortunately, sometimes, when security’s concerned, it is used as a trump to all the other issues.”
Claudia Fusco from the Directorate-General for Mobility and Transport at the European Commission told euronews: “This is really one example where fundamental rights were taken into account from the beginning in the impact assessment which has accompanied the proposal, where the commission has put on the table some options, policy options, what we could do best in terms of security on one side and the fundamental rights.
“And of course the interest of the commission is to put the things together and to show both. And the final policy option, which is what we have in the legislation currently, is the best option which was possible.”
Euronews’ Seamus Kearney said: “The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union officially became legally binding when the Treaty of Lisbon came into force in December 2009. The charter is divided up into six different categories: dignity, justice, freedoms, solidarity, citizens’ rights and equality.”
But there is concern that people do not really understand why and how the charter is useful.
For example, they need to know that it is only legally binding on EU countries when they are implementing European Union law.
The European Commission is promising an annual progress report on application of the charter, with a new one to be released soon.
So what do the experts think?
Nuala Mole, founder and director of the Aire Centre in London (Advice on Individual Rights in Europe), told euronews: “One of the most important things that it does is that it ensures that people are entitled to go to a court to enforce their charter rights in any situation which is covered by EU law. And they have the full panoply of fair trial rights when they do this. This is not the case with the European Convention on Human Rights, which only gives you that full spectrum of fair trial rights in certain specified circumstances. So the charter is much wider, provided you come within it, provided it’s a subject which is governed by EU, European Union law.”
And one case not covered by the charter, for example, would be a human dignity complaint over a police search in the street. As there is no EU law in this area, Brussels would not be able to follow-up on such a complaint.
Nuala Mole from the The Aire Centre added:“But of course the standards that the charter imposes are standards which are gradually being accepted across Europe. The UK and Poland entered a particular reservation to the charter, which said they didn’t want it to be fully applicable.
“And just last year, in a case that we were involved in about asylum seekers being sent back to Greece, the court made it clear that the UK and Poland were indeed bound by the standards of the charter, in the subject matter that was before the court.”
Nick Pickles from Big Brother Watch concluded: “Well I think it (the charter) clarifies a lot of things. Obviously the Human Rights Act put into British law something which was drawn up in the first part of the last century. So actually bringing it into line with modern life and modern technology is absolutely something that needed to happen.
“I think that the next step in the way we have to look forward is seeing how every day people can actually expect to live their lives without having to rely on these protections, rather than governments pursuing intrusive policies, to wait for them to be challenged in court.”
More about: Air transport, Consumer Protection, European Union, Security

The political comeback of Slovakia’s former prime minister Robert Fico looks complete.
All the signs are that his leftist opposition party has won an absolute majority in an early election, returning him to the job he last held in 2010.
Fico campaigned on a pledge to build a strong social safety net in turbulent economic times.
His promise to tax the rich struck a chord in Slovakia, the eurozone’s second-poorest country, where 13.7 percent of people are out of a job.
The election was brought forward after Iveta Radicova’s centre-right coalition government collapsed last October. She is now quitting politics.
The ruling right has also been at the centre of corruption allegations in what is known as the ‘Gorilla’ scandal. It has drawn tens of thousands of outraged Slovaks onto the streets to voice their anger at the country’s politicians.
More about: Election results, General election, Slovakia, Talks / negotiations

Spanish international Fernando Llorente scored a brace of goals to hand Athletic Bilbao an emphatic 4-2 win over Schalke in the first leg of their Europa league quarter final at the Veltins Arena on Thursday.
Elsewhere, Diego Simeone’s Athletico Madrid needed a late strike from Argentina’s Eduardo Antonio Salvio to outclass Hannover 2-1 at the Vicente Calderon.
Dutch side Alkmaar downed Valencia while Izmailov and Insua both scored in the second half to hand Sporting Lisbon a convincing 2-1 win over Kharkiv at the Jose Alvalade.
More about: Football, Germany, Netherlands, Spain, Ukraine