BP Chief Executive Tony Hayward is already unpopular with the American people thanks to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill – the country’s largest ever environmental disaster.

Now a US Senate committee looking into the release of the Lockerbie bomber has invited Hayward – who is expected to announce his resignation this week – to testify as to BP’s involvement.

Today France’s parliament begins its controversial debate on whether to ban the burqa.

It’s a debate that is raging across several European parliaments, exposing society’s true values over women’s rights, religious freedoms and equality.

The principle question being asked is whether the burqa and its Arabian equivalent the niqab is a symbol of religious expression or repression of women?

The burqa is an outer garment worn by some Islamic women to cover their face and body in public.

Iceland, the small European nation with a population of just 320,000 may well become the world’s first ‘media haven’.

The Icelandic Modern Media Initiative (IMMI) has been discussed and was unanimously supported in the Icelandic Parliament on June 16. The new laws will be written and introduced sometime next year.

The IMMI addresses key issues for free expression in the digital age.

Once criticised for looking old-fashioned and lacking charisma, Forbes magazine has now voted her the World’s most powerful woman for four years running.

And if you look at the resume of German Chancellor (Prime Minister) Angela Merkel you’ll see why. She has steered her country out of recession and presides over Europe’s largest economy.

It’s difficult to know whether to laugh or admire. To this day, every home in Switzerland has to have a nuclear bunker, or at least access to one.

The law was designed to protect people against the security threats of the Cold War which ended more than 20 years ago.

And despite the war finishing, Switzerland’s reason for keeping the rule is simply a case of why stop now.

The law was introduced in 1963 to ensure all Swiss residents have protection against a nuclear attack.

As of this week, one of Russia’s richest men is going on hunger strike.

It’s the latest act in a Russian power play that began in the mid-1990s with a collection of history’s greatest robberies.

These were committed by the ‘oligarchs’, a dozen or so wealthy and connected businessmen who acquired their wealth in the shadiest of circumstances.

The hunger striker

On Tuesday afternoon, Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg announced a deal with David Cameron’s Tory Party to form Britain’s new government.

The decision ended five days of uncertainty, and makes the Eton-educated Cameron at 43, the country’s youngest prime minister in almost 200 years.

Now that the details of the deal have emerged, it reveals a truly negotiated outcome but disappointment for Clegg on his dream for proportional representation.

Last Thursday, the British people voted in one of their tightest elections in recent decades.

The result is what many expected: no single party won enough seats to reach the 326-seat majority, leaving a hung parliament.

It’s a familiar situation to many countries around the world that are used to two or more parties combining to form a government. But in Britain, it seems to provoke fear and uncertainty, which is a sign that their primitive election system is in need of change.

The system

Greece’s potential bankruptcy has resulted in by far the largest cash bailout of any single country in history – €110 billion.

The deal struck on Sunday has angered EU taxpayers, especially Germans who will contribute the largest loan payment.

But Greek citizens are even angrier as they now enter a gloomy period of stinginess and government spending cuts worth €24 billion over the next four years as part of the loan’s conditions.

So why bother saving Greece when it only seems to upset them?

It’s being called the curse of Katyn. On Saturday, a plane carrying Poland’s president and dozens of influential people crashed killing all 96 on board.

They were travelling to Smolensk, Russia to honour the 70th anniversary of the Katyn Forest massacre where 20,000 Polish officers, intellectuals and others were murdered by Russian secret service during the Second World War.