News Headlines - 17 April 2014

▽Ukraine crisis: Geneva talks produce agreement on defusing conflict | The Guardian

The US, Russia, Ukraine and the European Union have reached agreement on a series of immediate steps aimed at pulling eastern Ukraine back from the brink of war.
The deal, clinched after a dramatic extended meeting in Geneva, calls for the disarming of all illegal groups. In the next few days they would have to vacate all the government buildings and public spaces they have occupied over the course of the crisis.

▽Putin’s 10-point plan to destroy Ukraine

As those concerned with Ukraine waited skeptically for April 16 peace talks among Ukraine, Russia, the European Union and the United States in Geneva, Russian President Vladimir Putin heated up the conflict, suggesting that he will not stop until Ukraine is destroyed as a sovereign nation.
He called Ukrainians and Russian one nation and threatened with a full-scale invasion of the Russian army.

▽BBC News - Caroline Lucas: Judgement 'not cause for celebration'

Green MP Caroline Lucas and four co-defendants have been cleared of obstructing a public highway and a public order offence during an anti-fracking protest in Balcombe, West Sussex.
The group were arrested outside energy company Cuadrilla's exploratory oil drilling site on 19 August last year.

▽'Don't scrap 2021 census' say MPs

The 2021 census should not be scrapped, as alternative methods for collecting information about the country's population would not provide a proper replacement, MPs have said.
The Government has indicated that the 2011 census could have been the last, ending the system of data collection carried out every 10 years since 1801 with only one interruption due to the Second World War in 1941.

▽BBC News - S Korea ferry: Bad weather hampers search for survivors

Emergency services are still searching for more than 270 people missing after a ship carrying 475 people sank.
Officials say 179 people have been rescued. Most of the passengers were pupils at the same high school.