Russian Deputy Defense Minister says such actions are not contributing to the efforts to deescalate tensions in Ukraine. ● Ukraine has deployed 15,000-strong military force near Russia’s borders, Russian Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov said. “The 15,000-strong grouping of Ukrainian forces has been deployed in the border areas. Military conscription has resumed (in Ukraine),” he said. “At the same time, NATO amasses its grouping of forces in Eastern Europe,” Antonov noted. The high-ranking military official said such actions are not contributing to the efforts to deescalate tensions in Ukraine considering the ongoing crisis in the country. Antonov said that Russia calls on the official representatives of NATO and Pentagon “to quit cynically deluding the international society on the real state of affairs on the Russian-Ukrainian border.” Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that Russia pulled all its forces from its borders with Ukraine. NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, however, announced earlier in the day that Russia’s military forces were still present in the border areas.

RIA Novosti: Russian Defense Official Bashes NATO for Ignoring Troop Pullout
RT.com: Putin oversees planned military drills on countering nuclear strike

The United States is providing billions of dollars to fund illegal settlement construction in the “apartheid” regime of Israel, posing a threat to American national interests, a political commentator in Los Angeles says. “We see the ongoing illegal settlement building on Palestinian land with the Jewish colonies that are built there, subsidized by the US of course,” said James Morris, editor of America-hijacked.com, a blog charting the influence of the powerful Israeli lobby in America. The illegal Israeli settlements are constructed on Palestinian lands “with the billions of dollars of US tax-payer funded support that the US gives Israel as US states go broke,” Morris told Press TV on Wednesday.

The Saker ■ I have to admit that today's move by Putin caught me completely off-guard. My first impression was that by asking the folks in the Donbass to postpone the referendum, Putin was basically tossing aside a valuable bargaining chip. Even more disturbing was his apparent backing for the upcoming May 25th presidential election. Let me also say, however, that the notion of Putin "caving in" never even crossed my mind if only because categories such as "caving in" are simply not applicable in the real world of international politics - they are only good for the taking heads on the Idiot Tube and their zombified audience. But if Putin was not "caving in" - what in the world was he doing? I submit that what Putin did is give us his reply to yesterday's quiz. Remember what I wrote? Let us assume that Russia does not intervene and that, with time and effort, the nationalists regain control of most of the eastern and southern Ukraine. Let is further assume that the referendum wanted by the Russian-speakers is either not held or ignored, while the Presidential election goes ahead and that Poroshenko or Tymoshenko get's "kind of elected" in a farcical election which, however, the USA and its EU protectorate will immediately recognize as "legitimate". This is *exactly* the option chosen by Putin today.

You May Think You Have Nothing to Hide … But You’re Breaking Federal Copyright Laws Several Times a Day Without Even Knowing It...

The Pentagon announced Wednesday that it is dispatching a team of US military advisers to Nigeria to aid the government of President Goodluck Jonathan in rescuing over 200 schoolgirls kidnapped by the Islamist insurgent group Boko Haram, which has threatened to sell them into slavery. ● The deployment of military advisers—who are to be accompanied by FBI and CIA agents and other US officials—was worked out Tuesday in a discussion between President Barack Obama and President Jonathan. It marks a major advance in the steadily escalating military intervention of Washington and its allies throughout the region. There have been calls from members of Congress for a more aggressive US intervention, including from Senator Susan Collins (Republican of Maine), who demanded that US Special Forces troops be sent to rescue the girls. [...] If the US can gain military control over the flow of strategic resources from Africa, it can exert greater pressure on other powers, particularly China, which is poised to supplant Europe as the continent’s number one trading partner and is engaged in massive investment in infrastructure. Fully one third of China’s oil imports now flow from Africa.

John Kerry says Africa has “Natural Resources”, Therefore the US is a “Natural Partner”
Obama Death Squad "Boko Haram" Confesses to African Murders
Boko Haram Kills Over 300 in Attack on Nigeria Border Town
Boko Haram Is A CIA Covert Operation - Wikileaks
Boko Haram: A CIA Covert Operation

Thailand’s Constitutional Court yesterday removed the elected Prime Minister, Yingluck Shinawatra, and almost a third of her cabinet ministers for “abuse of power.” The anti-democratic ruling follows months of anti-government protests and legal chicanery aimed at installing an unelected “people’s council”—essentially a dictatorship backed by the military. ● Yingluck’s supposed crime was to transfer National Security Council chief Thawil Pliensri to another role in 2011 so that his place could be taken by Preiwpan Damapong, a former brother-in-law of Yingluck’s brother, ex-Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. The nine cabinet ministers were removed for endorsing the transfer. The court admitted that Yingluck was within her rights to transfer Thawil, but asserted the decision was taken with a “hidden agenda” and not in accordance with “moral principle.” Yingluck’s removal was denounced by legal experts. Ekachai Chainuvati, deputy dean of law at Siam University in Bangkok, told the New York Times the ruling was “total nonsense in a democratic society” and an example of “what I would call a juristocracy—a system of government governed by judges.”