Europe

The UK will ship 700 kilograms of nuclear waste in the United States under a new deal signed by Prime Minister David Cameron on Thursday.  An anonymous government source confirmed that the Prime Minister agreed the deal at a nuclear security summit in Washington and will mark the largest ever shipment of highly enriched uranium in history. In return the U.S. will send Europe another type of nuclear waste that can be used to produce medical isotopes for cancer treatments.

“Whichever way we slice the data, the growth in working age population stands out as a key driver of economic growth for most countries. A healthy dependency ratio, a skilled workforce, together with strong institutions and an absence of major resource imbalances is usually the formula for country-level success. But with most DMs weighed down by ageing populations, a key question is this - can people inflows counter challenging demographics? The short answer is yes.”

Submitted by Judith Bergman via The Gatestone Institute,

• Erdogan has boasted that he is proud of boldly blackmailing EU leaders into paying him protection money.

• Erdogan's threats were almost criminally sinister: "... the EU will be confronted with more than a dead boy on the shores of Turkey. There will be 10,000 or 15,000. How will you deal with that?"

The last time Europe had at least two consecutive months of deflation was in late 2014/early 2015 when the ECB launched its sovereign QE, and when prices staged a modest rebound into the rest of the year. One year later, it's more of the same, and as Eurostat revealed earlier today, after a headline price drop of -0.2% in February, March prices declined once more, this time by -0.1% in line with expectations, driven by a -8.7% plunge in energy prices.

• Roller-coaster first quarter ends with shares, dollar under pressure (Reuters)
• Oil prices slide as U.S. crude stocks hit record (Reuters)
• GE Files to End Fed Oversight After Shrinking GE Capital (WSJ)
• FDA Eases Rules for Abortion Pill, Making Access Simpler (BBG)
• Kremlin denies report of Russia-U.S. deal on Assad's future (Reuters)
• Thirst for Gasoline Fuels Oil Rally (WSJ)
• Landlords in last-minute rush to beat stamp duty rises (BBG)
• CEO of SunEdison’s Spinoffs Leaves (WSJ)