The Saker ■ Interestingly, Putin has declared that for him the point of no return was reached when the USA and its allies at the UNSC and NATO clearly and grossly twisted the intention of the UNSC on Libya and "upgraded" what should have been a "no fly" zone to a free-fire zone to attack and bomb Libya. Putin says that from then on he had acquired the conviction that the West could not be negotiated with and had to be simply stopped. Then Syria happened: for the first time since the end of WWII the USA had decided to do something and was stopped by an outside power in the most humiliating way possible. The Russian stance on Syria was an overt challenge to US world hegemony. It was clearly understood as such in Washington and now, following the crisis in the Ukraine, the Russians have openly admitted this. The Russians would have much preferred to wait, to buy time, but the US determination to punish it for daring to oppose it on Syria literally forced them to fold and surrender or openly accept the US challenge and stand firm. I will repeat that again and again - Putin had no other choice. So this is the real stake of the civil war in the Ukraine: for the USA it is to punish Russia for daring to challenge the world hegemon; for Russia it is to unseat this hegemon and replace him by a multi-polar international system in which sovereign countries act within the bounds of international law.

The Ukrainian crisis may have seen a flickering light at the end of the tunnel, as politicians from the great powers collided over the former Soviet state are now bringing up the idea of having four-sided talks between the US, EU, Russia and Ukraine itself. But with the east of the Ukraine boiling with new wave of protests, and Kiev's government being fed with unreasonable promises from Washington -- whatwill tomorrow hold for the Ukrainians themselves? Are talks a real possibility? Will there be any use of them? To find this out, Sophie talks to Ray McGovern, retired CIA analyst turned whistleblower.

Police in Peoria, Illinois seized computers and cell phones while attempting to find the person responsible for a satirical Twitter account mocking the town’s mayor. ● The Peoria Journal-Star reported that authorities executed a search warrant on the home on Tuesday night in connection with an investigation into the @Peoriamayor account, which reportedly represented itself as belonging to Mayor Jim Ardis. The account was suspended earlier this year, but not before adding a line stating it was satirical in nature. However, it still used the mayor’s name, email address and biography and posted content related to sexual activity and drugs, including a comparison between Ardis and Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, who has admitted to using drugs during his time in office. It had around 50 followers and as many posts before being suspended. Police said the person responsible faces charges of impersonating a public official, a misdemeanor punishable by a maximum one-year jail term and $2,500 fine. Three people were taken from the residence to police headquarters for questioning. Another two residents were brought in from their workplaces. One of the residents, 27-year-old Michelle Pratt, told the Journal-Star she was put in an interview room alone for three hours before detectives questioned her. “They brought me in like I was a criminal.”

Ukrainian security forces fascists killed three pro-Russian activists, wounded 13 and took 63 captive in a firefight overnight in the eastern city of Mariupol, the interim Ukrainian interior minister said on Thursday.● The clash was the most lethal so far in the east of the country. The minister, Arsen Avakov, said the protesters had tried to storm a base used by troops in the newly formed National Guard, which has drawn from volunteers who took part in last winter’s protest movement against the government. A crowd made up of civilians as well as militants formed outside the base, he said. Mr. Avakov’s description of the conflict indicated another challenge for the new government, as in other cases where pro-Russian groups have seized administrative buildings and police stations.

RT.com: Kiev: Military operation in Ukraine southeast to go on despite Geneva agreement

The head of the self-proclaimed provisional leadership in Eastern Ukraine's Donetsk has disavowed fliers issued in his name that call on the city's Jewish population to "register" with his separatist government. ● Denis Pushilin, the leader of the pro-Russia "People's Republic of Donetsk," confirmed to the Ukrainian press on Thursday that such fliers were distributed around the city's synagogues. But he both rejected their content and denied that his organization was behind their distribution, according to Think Progress. The fliers, which were first reported by Ukraine's Novosti Donbassa and later picked up by USA Today, instructed Jews to bring proper identification to the regional administration and pay a $50 registration fee. Failure to do so would result in loss of citizenship, confiscation of property and deportation, the pamphlet read.

xymphora: Five men in masks ■ A simply preposterous story, swallowed hook, line and sinker. Why would the Russian-speakers take up this particular cause, one they showed no interest in before, at this time, a time when they face the much more compelling issue that they may be under attack by the Ukrainian army, an army that is under orders from a coup government portions of which consist of neo-Nazis, people with a real demonstrated issue with Jews, especially when the Russian-speakers know for certain that this kind of attack will automatically produce all kinds of problems they don't need. When we read the odious production of presstitutes (and all journalists are presstitutes until proven otherwise), we must first assume it is a lie or false flag, and then consider the unlikelihood that it might have some merit.

Jason Ditz: Mythical “Jew Registration” in East Ukraine a Media Sensation ■ Determined not to let a good piece of rhetoric go to waste just because it was untrue and discredited nearly 24 hours ago, Western media outlets are running frenzied stories about Jews in the protester-held Eastern Ukraine cities being forced to register, providing a new chance to make World War 2 comparisons, and advancing the US narrative that the Russians, and not the “pro-West” protesters with swastika stickers on their helmets, are the “real anti-semites.” Incredibly, the State Department is endorsing the myth as absolute fact, because what USA Today claims unnamed Israeli media claims they saw posted outside a synagogue in Donetsk is good enough for them. The truth, not so much.

RT.com: ‘Letter to Jews’, Kerry cited, appears to be fake
The Daily Dot: That flyer about Jews needing to 'register' in Ukraine is fake - Jewish advocacy group

A Tehran resident washes "Yankee Go Home" graffiti
from a wall on August 21, 1953, two days after a U.S.-
backed coup elevated the Shah, M. Reza Pahlavi. (AP)

Nicolas J.S. Davies ■ U.S. efforts to overthrow foreign governments leave the world less peaceful, less just and less hopeful. || Soon after the 2004 U.S. coup to depose President Jean-Bertrand Aristide of Haiti, I heard Aristide's lawyer Ira Kurzban speaking in Miami. He began his talk with a riddle: "Why has there never been a coup in Washington D.C.?" The answer: "Because there is no U.S. Embassy in Washington D.C." This introduction was greeted with wild applause by a mostly Haitian-American audience who understood it only too well. Ukraine's former security chief, Aleksandr Yakimenko, has reported that the coup-plotters who overthrew the elected government in Ukraine, "basically lived in the (U.S.) Embassy. They were there every day." We also know from a leaked Russian intercept that they were in close contact with Ambassador Pyatt and the senior U.S. official in charge of the coup, former Dick Cheney aide Victoria Nuland, officially the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs. And we can assume that many of their days in the Embassy were spent in strategy and training sessions with their individual CIA case officers. To place the coup in Ukraine in historical context, this is at least the 80th time the United States has organized a coup or a failed coup in a foreign country since 1953. That was when President Eisenhower discovered in Iran that the CIA could overthrow elected governments who refused to sacrifice the future of their people to Western commercial and geopolitical interests. Most U.S. coups have led to severe repression, disappearances, extrajudicial executions, torture, corruption, extreme poverty and inequality, and prolonged setbacks for the democratic aspirations of people in the countries affected. The plutocratic and ultra-conservative nature of the forces the U.S. has brought to power in Ukraine make it unlikely to be an exception.

A person close to the family has confirmed reports that that Nobel laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez has died. He was 87. ● Garcia Marquez's magical realist novels and short stories exposed tens of millions of readers to Latin America's passion, superstition, violence and inequality. Widely considered the most popular Spanish-language writer since Miguel de Cervantes in the 17th century, Garcia Marquez achieved literary celebrity that spawned comparisons to Mark Twain and Charles Dickens. His flamboyant and melancholy works outsold everything published in Spanish except the Bible. The epic 1967 novel "One Hundred Years of Solitude sold more than 50 million copies in more than 25 languages.