UK - The remains of more than 15,000 babies were incinerated as 'clinical waste' by hospitals in Britain with some used in 'waste to energy' plants. The bodies of thousands of aborted and miscarried babies were incinerated as clinical waste, with some even used to heat hospitals, an investigation has found. Ten NHS trusts have admitted burning foetal remains alongside other rubbish while two others used the bodies in ‘waste-to-energy’ plants which generate power for heat. Last night the Department of Health issued an instant ban on the practice which health minister Dr Dan Poulter branded ‘totally unacceptable.’ At least 15,500 foetal remains were incinerated by 27 NHS trusts over the last two years alone, Channel 4’s Dispatches discovered.

RUSSIA - Igor Sechin gathered media in Tokyo to warn Western governments that more sanctions over Moscow's seizure of the Black Sea peninsula from Ukraine would be counter-productive. The underlying message from the head of Russia's biggest oil company, Rosneft, was clear: If Europe and the United States isolate Russia, Moscow will look East for new business, energy deals, military contracts and political alliances. The Holy Grail for Moscow is a natural gas supply deal with China that is apparently now close after years of negotiations. If it can be signed when Putin visits China in May, he will be able to hold it up to show that global power has shifted eastwards and he does not need the West.

RUSSIA - Somebody is a selling a fistful of US Treasuries. It could be Russia, or China, Turkey, South Africa, or Indonesia, or all frantically selling bonds at the same time for different reasons. We don’t yet know. All we know is that the US Federal Reserve’s custody holdings on behalf of foreign central banks plunged by $106 billion in the week ending March 12, the biggest one-week drop on record. Russia’s central bank is undoubtedly liquidating reserves at a breakneck pace to prevent a collapse of the rouble, as foreign companies scramble to get all their spare cash out of Russian accounts before the G7 guillotine comes down on the Putin clan next week. It is certainly trying to remove its assets beyond the jurisdiction of the US authorities – though that will not be easy. The international order is unravelling.

USA/UK - Both in the US and the UK, government authorities are considering the legalisation of so-called “three-parent embryos”. The US Food and Drug Administration held hearings in late February and the UK Department of Health has published draft guidelines which are currently open for comment by the public. However, a leading US scientist has delivered a broadside at the scientific ignorance and spin involved in discussion of the proposals. Professor Stuart Newman, of New York Medical College, makes the obvious point that what is being proposed is nuclear transplantation, not mitochondrial transplantation. He believes that the technique is being used as a stalking horse for genetically engineered children: “once the transfer of an entire haploid (ie one parent's) set of chromosomes into a woman's egg is considered acceptable, transfer of a smaller number of chromosomes or genes will be a much easier sell.”

USA/VATICAN - In a meeting room under Holy Name Cathedral, a rapt group of black Roman Catholics listened as Barack Obama, a 25-year-old community organizer, trained them to lobby their fellow delegates to a national congress in Washington on issues like empowering lay leaders and attracting more believers.

USA - President Barack Obama's policies “have become progressively more hostile toward Christian civilization,” Cardinal Raymond Burke, head of the highest court at the Vatican, said in a recent interview. Cardinal Burke added that Obama wants to restrict religious freedom and force the individuals, outside of his or her place of worship, “to act against his rightly-formed conscience, even in the most serious of moral questions.”

AUSTRALIA - Why are politicians and the media ignoring the cause of most child abuse: the breakdown of the traditional family? The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has been heralded a new epoch in Australian life that will finally ‘break the silence’ surrounding child sexual abuse. Sceptical commentators, however, have questioned how the royal commission will ensure children are better protected in the future when its restrictive terms of reference (which only authorise an inquiry into how institutions such as churches, schools and sporting bodies respond to child sexual abuse) ignores the 70 percent to 80 percent of cases of child sexual abuse in which the perpetrator has a ‘familial relationship’ with the abused child.

UKRAINE - The raids on TV editorial boards by parliamentarians in the new Ukrainian government, which Germany helped bring to power, is provoking massive protests. Tuesday evening, Svoboda Party MPs stormed the office of the acting President of the National Television Co of Ukraine (NTU) and forced him to resign with physical blows and verbal insults.

MIDDLE EAST - Rifts over foreign policy will likely make it harder for Arab leaders meeting at a summit this week to forge a common stand on regional challenges, including what many of them see as a threat from Iranian-US rapprochement. And while the Arab League meeting may agree more humanitarian action in response to Syria's war, any communiqué calling for the removal of President Bashar al-Assad will not reflect divergent views behind the scenes about the Syrian leader's handling of the conflict.

SPAIN - Violence has broken out at the end of an anti-austerity protest attended by tens of thousands of people in the Spanish capital Madrid. Dozens of youths threw projectiles at police, who responded by charging at them. Demonstrators were protesting over issues including unemployment, poverty and official corruption. They want the government not to pay its international debts and do more to improve health and education. They called their protest the march of dignity, our correspondent says, because they say that the government of Mariano Rajoy is stripping Spaniards of just that.

UK - Solicitors told how to draw up Sharia-style wills penalising widows and non-believers. Islamic law is to be effectively enshrined in the British legal system for the first time under guidelines for solicitors on drawing up “Sharia compliant” wills. Under ground-breaking guidance, produced by The Law Society, High Street solicitors will be able to write Islamic wills that deny women an equal share of inheritances and exclude unbelievers altogether. The documents, which would be recognised by Britain’s courts, will also prevent children born out of wedlock – and even those who have been adopted – from being counted as legitimate heirs. Anyone married in a church, or in a civil ceremony, could be excluded from succession under Sharia principles, which recognise only Muslim weddings for inheritance purposes. Nicholas Fluck, president of The Law Society, said the guidance would promote “good practice” in applying Islamic principles in the British legal system.

RUSSIA - The prospect of a European energy crisis loomed last night as Moscow threatened to impose retaliatory sanctions, and the new Prime Minister of Ukraine said his country could suffer shortages if help was not received from the West. Russia supplies 30 per cent of Europe's gas and a number of the Baltic states are almost entirely reliant on Russia. Yesterday, the Russian foreign ministry labelled this week's EU sanctions, in which a further 12 people close to President Vladimir Putin have had their assets frozen and a travel ban imposed, as "divorced from reality". With both Brussels and Washington now threatening further "targeted measures" this week, Moscow made it clear that it was considering tit-for-tat sanctions. "Russia reserves the right to give an adequate response to the undertaken action," a spokesman said.

RUSSIA - Fireworks have been let off over Moscow on President Vladimir Putin’s orders as Russia celebrated the formal annexation of Crimea, in an affront to the West. Mr Putin laughed off the US sanctions that targeted his inner circle, promising the Russian government would “have the back” of those on the list, and even opening a personal account at a sanctioned bank as an act of solidarity. “Far as I’m aware, it’s an average bank,” Mr Putin said on Friday of Bank Rossiya, the only institution on the list of sanctions targets released by the US Treasury Department on Thursday. “I don’t have a personal account there, but I’ll open one on Monday.” And in what appeared to be a move to de-escalate tensions, he even said he had no intention of imposing answering reactions. “We should refrain from retaliatory steps,” he said.

USA - There is a tongue-in-cheek saying in America — attributed to Mark Twain, who lived through the early phase of the California water wars — that “whiskey is for drinking and water is for fighting over.” It highlights the consequences, even if somewhat apocryphally, as ever-scarcer water resources create a parched world. California currently is suffering under its worst drought of the modern era. Adequate availability of water, food and energy is critical to global security. Water, the sustainer of life and livelihoods, is already the world’s most exploited natural resource. The future of human civilization hinges on sustainable development. If resources like water are degraded and depleted, environmental refugees will follow.

USA - Rabid skunks are on the rise and have been spotted in high numbers in El Dorado County. Hold that leash a little tighter, because your furry friend now has more furry foes to worry about. We all know skunks carry a unique smell, but there are more and more reports of them carrying the deadly rabies virus. Jennifer Hamburg with El Dorado County Animal Control says in an average year, she’ll see five to seven positive reports of rabid skunks. There have been seven in less than three months this year alone. And it’s not just in the woods of rural areas — they’ve also seen rabid skunks in populated areas. “They’re dangerous in the fact that the calls that we have received so far seem to be they are a little bit more aggressive complaints,” she said. “They are charging after people’s dogs.”