Doctor's daughter who wed 'bomber'

THE wife of one of the Boston Marathon bomb suspects is a doctor's daughter who apparently led the life of a typical American high school student before she converted to Islam.

Katherine Russell Tsarnaev is said to have enjoyed a comfortable middle-class American childhood and was pictured in a school yearbook posing in a slim-fitting tank top, her long dark hair cascading over bare shoulders.

But she abandoned this lifestyle after meeting Tamerlan Tsarnaev and swiftly adopted the hijab as she devoted herself to his beliefs.

However, she was kept in the dark over his alleged deadly intentions and only discovered he was a suspect when she saw a news report on the terror atrocity on television, her lawyer Amato DeLuca said.

The eldest of three daughters, her background was said to have been characterised by conventional American family values.

Known to her friends as Katie, she was raised as a Christian by her father - an emergency physician - and mother, who worked as a nurse.

She was brought up in a detached house in North Kingstown, an attractive and affluent town in Rhode Island, south of Boston, before she reportedly moved on to Suffolk University, in Boston.

It was while studying there that friends introduced her to her future husband who was then an apparently promising boxer and athlete.

The pair began to date following their first meeting at a nightclub and, at some point after this, she converted to Islam.

By then, their relationship was described as being intense.

The pair married in 2009 or 2010, DeLuca said. She left university around this time, apparently without graduating.

When asked why she opted to change her life so dramatically, her lawyer said: "She believes in the tenets of Islam and of the Koran. She believes in God."

According to reports, Russell Tsarnaev stood by her husband when he was arrested for violently assaulting her in 2009 at their Massachusetts home.

The widow was pictured collecting belongings from the house she shared with her husband at the weekend, dressed in black and wearing a headscarf and sunglasses.

Tamerlan, 26, and his brother, Dzhokhar, 19, were accused of planting the bombs near the marathon finish line last Monday. The Chechen siblings, from southern Russia, are alleged to have killed three people and injured more than 180 others.

DeLuca said Russell Tsarnaev never suspected her husband but had not seen much of him in recent days because she was working between 70 and 80 hours, over seven days a week, as a home health care aide while he looked after their toddler daughter.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev was said to have been at home when his wife left for work on Friday - the day he was killed in a getaway attempt and the last day she saw him alive.

When asked whether Russell Tsarnaev felt anything was amiss following the bombings, DeLuca said: "Not as far as I know."

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EU ends Myanmar sanctions

EU foreign ministers have agreed to lift the last of the bloc's trade, economic and individual sanctions against Myanmar (Burma), hailing "a new chapter" with the once pariah state.

"In response to the changes that have taken place and in the expectation that they will continue, the Council (of ministers) has decided to lift all sanctions with the exception of the embargo on arms," said a statement approved without a vote on Monday.

"The EU is willing to open a new chapter in its relations with Myanmar/Burma, building a lasting partnership," it added.

The European Union began easing sanctions against Myanmar a year ago as the military, in power for decades, progressively ceded power to civilians and implemented wholesale reforms of the economy.

Ministers noted, however, that there were "still significant challenges to be addressed", in particular an end to hostilities in Kachin state and improving the plight of the Rohingya people.

New York-based Human Rights Watch said on Monday that Myanmar has waged "a campaign of ethnic cleansing" against Rohingya Muslims, citing evidence of mass graves and forced displacement affecting tens of thousands.

HRW Asia head Phil Robertson said lifting the sanctions was "premature and regrettable", warning the move lessens leverage over Myanmar.

In April last year, foreign ministers agreed to a one-year suspension of measures targeting almost 500 individuals and more than 800 firms to bolster a reform process which the same month saw opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi's election to parliament.

Among the sanctions, hundreds of people were targeted by a travel ban and asset freeze, while on the economic front the EU had barred investments and banned imports of the country's lucrative timber, metals and gems.

During a visit to Brussels last month, the first by a Myanmar head of state, President Thein Sein urged the EU to lift sanctions, saying "we are one of the poorest countries in the world".

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BBC urged to remove Gill sculpture

THE BBC has been urged to remove a figure of a naked boy, sculpted by a British man who sexually abused two of his daughters, from the front of its headquarters Broadcasting House.

The carvings of a man and a naked child were the creation of Eric Gill, one of the most respected artists of the 20th century when he died in 1940.

But his diaries, published in 1989, revealed he had sex with two of his daughters and the family dog.

His 1932 statue Prospero And Ariel, from Shakespeare's play The Tempest, stands on the BBC's Broadcasting House in London as a metaphor for broadcasting.

Gill converted to Catholicism in 1913 and the Catholic Church has previously faced calls to dismantle the sculptor and engraver's world-renowned Stations Of The Cross from Westminster Cathedral.

Now Fay Maxted, chief executive of The Survivors' Trust, a body which represents organisations supporting survivors of rape, sexual violence and childhood sexual abuse, told the London Journalism Centre: "It's an insult to allow a work like this to remain in such a public place. It is almost mocking survivors, it is intolerable."

Peter Saunders, chief executive of the National Association For People Abused In Childhood, added: "There's a strong argument that this (the statue) should be removed. These symbols are in people's faces."

The statue was especially inappropriate in light of the recent Jimmy Savile scandal, he added.

"People who aren't affected by these issues can get uppity and say 'you can't do that'. But if you've been abused as a child then this is very insensitive and inappropriate."

A BBC spokesperson said: "The statue of Ariel and Prospero on the front of Broadcasting House stands as a metaphor for broadcasting, executed by one of the last century's major British artists whose work has been widely displayed in leading UK museums and galleries.

"There are no plans to remove or replace the sculptures at the front of Broadcasting House."

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Spanish minister sees deeper contraction

SPAIN'S economy will shrink by between 1.0 per cent and 1.5 per cent this year, Economy Minister Luis de Guindos has revealed in an interview in the Wall Street Journal.

The prediction revises the government's official forecast of a 0.5 per cent recession in 2013 and comes the same day as Brussels confirmed Spain posted the biggest deficit in the eurozone last year.

De Guindos told the newspaper he saw "slight" growth in Spain's economy for 2014.

Spain, the eurozone's fourth-largest economy, shrank by 1.37 per cent in 2012 as it continued to feel the effects of the collapse of a decade-long property boom in 2008.

The Bank of Spain, the European Commission and the International Monetary Fund predict the Spanish economy will shrink by between 1.4 and 1.6 per cent in 2013.

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's conservative government will unveil a new package of reforms aimed at reviving the economy, as well as new deficit forecasts for the next few years, on Friday.

Spain posted a budget deficit equal to 10.6 per cent of GDP in 2012, the highest in the eurozone, including the cost to the state of recapitalising the country's banks.

It's seeking leeway from the EU to ease its deficit target for 2013 to 6.0 per cent, and to push back as far as 2016 the obligation to get back within the terms of the EU's Maastricht Treaty, under which member states are supposed to have public deficits of no more than three per cent of GDP, and debt of no more than 60 per cent.

This would allow Spain to soften austerity measures implemented by Rajoy's government that are blamed for triggering the recession.

De Guindos said the new reforms to be unveiled on Friday will not include any "significant" austerity measures.

"What we will do now is to establish a better balance between deficit reduction and economic growth. Investors' main concern right now is economic growth," he told the newspaper.

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French Polynesia votes for veteran

GASTON Flosse, the 81-year-old veteran of French Polynesian politics, topped the polls in the first round of a vote that will determine who next governs the Pacific paradise.

The French territory, which enjoys a high degree of autonomy, has seen 13 different governments rule in quick succession since 2004 when pro-independence candidate Oscar Temaru first came to power.

Flosse's party Tahoeraa Huiraatira won 40.2 per cent of the votes in an election that took place on Sunday and aims to select 57 representatives in the Assembly of French Polynesia, who will in turn pick the president.

UPLD, the party of incumbent Temaru, won 24 per cent of the votes, and Teva Rohfritsch, another candidate, got just under 20 per cent. All three will go forward to the second round planned for May 5.

Temaru has been president five times since 2004, and Flosse twice.

The victory of Flosse, an old friend of former French president Jacques Chirac, is a significant defeat for Temaru, who is seen as paying for the territory's dramatic economic crisis.

Unemployment in the territory, which has a population of 270,000, is estimated to be around 20 to 30 per cent, and a fifth of the population lives under the poverty line.

Many voters are also angry with Temaru for trying to register Polynesia on the United Nations' list of Non-Self-Governing Territories - a list of countries that the international body considers as colonised.

Flosse - who ruled French Polynesia for 13 years until 2004 - is not without his own set of problems, having been charged recently in corruption cases.

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More funding for Somme remembrance trail

AUSTRALIA will help fund new memorial facilities and walking trails in Somme to highlight one of the nation's greatest military achievements in World War I.

Veterans Affairs Minister Warren Snowdon announced in Paris on Monday an initial 200,000 euros ($A254,000) in funding for the latest stage of the Australian Remembrance Trail project on the Western Front.

An equal funding partnership with French authorities will provide two walking trails and a new "interpretive room" at the Museum of the Great War in Peronne, France to complement an existing memorial at Mont St Quentin.

Mr Snowdon said the room would help tell the story of the 2nd Australian Division's capture of Mont St Quentin on September 1, 1918, considered Australia's most important victory of the war.

The Australian Remembrance Trail will link sites of the most significant Australian battles of the war including Ypres and Zonnebeke in Belgium, and Fromelles, Bullecourt, Pozieres, Le Hamel and Villers-Bretonneux in France.

"This is about us building this historical trail so that Australians can come and visit here, go to the battle sites and understand what happened," Mr Snowdon told AAP.

"They can also get an appreciation of the communities which now host these memorial sites and understand how we've developed very deep and long-lasting relationships with those communities as a result of the service of Australian personnel and their sacrifice."

AAP lf/ap

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US airport delays as budget cuts hit

SOME US airports are experiencing significant flight delays in the wake of US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) furloughs due to budget cuts that are forcing staffing cutbacks.

In addition to some wind-related delays, New York's La Guardia airport was experiencing "general departure delays" of 60-75 minutes, while Newark, New Jersey's airport was experiencing delays of 46-60 minutes, according to the FAA's website on Monday.

The delays began over the weekend after the FAA began instituting furloughs for workers, including air traffic control staff, on Sunday related to the budget cuts.

Hold-ups averaged more than three hours on Sunday night at Los Angeles International Airport.

"The FAA will be working with the airlines and using a comprehensive set of air traffic management tools to minimise the delay impacts of lower staffing as we move into the busy summer travel season," the agency said in a statement.

An American Airlines spokeswoman said Newark was one of five airports "most likely" to be affected by the sequestration cuts, while La Guardia was one of four airports that "could potentially be affected" by the cuts.

On Friday three airline groups said they would petition the federal appeals court in Washington to block sequester cuts by the FAA and the Department of Transportation "to protect the rights of the travelling public."

"The Regional Airline Association, Airlines for America and the Air Line Pilots Association warned of "significant chaos" that could take place due to the furloughs of airport and other personnel.

"Our entire aviation system will struggle to maintain normality due to furloughs of these essential workers. The economic viability of our country depends on this mode of transportation; everyone will be affected," said ALPA president Lee Moak.

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