The coup government in Kiev is waging a civil war against federalists in east Ukraine. It calls that war, in which it uses heavy weapons against civilians, an "anti-terrorist operation". But are those "terrorist" the same "terrorists" that blew up the gas line in west-Ukraine? The coup government would likely be happy if the world starts to believe such. But there are other people, very different from the federalists, who had threatened to blow up these lines: The leader of the far-right Ukrainian nationalist Pravy Sektor (Right Sector) party has reportedly threatened to attack Russia's lucrative gas pipeline which travels through Ukraine to prevent the Kremlin from sparking a "Third World War". [...] The pipeline in question, the Trans-Siberian Pipeline, supplies Europe with the majority of its gas imports. "We are well aware of the fact that Russia is earning money by transporting its oil and gas to the West through our pipe," [Dmitry Yarosh] said. "Therefore, we'll destroy this pipe in order to deprive Russia of its financing source."

MoA: French Photographer Confirms U.S. Mercenary Presence
RT.com: Reporter walks into tripwire flare while shooting for RT near Ukraine’s Kramatorsk - Video

A top Chinese general on Thursday defended the deployment of an oil rig that has inflamed tensions in the disputed South China Sea and triggered deadly protests in Vietnam, blaming Hanoi and saying China cannot afford to "lose an inch" of territory. ● General Fang Fenghui also pointed blame at U.S. President Barack Obama's strategic "pivot" to Asia as Vietnam and China grapple with one of the worst breakdowns in relations since the neighbors fought a brief border war in 1979. Anti-China riots in Vietnam erupted after China's towing of an oil rig into waters claimed by both countries. Up to 21 people have been killed and a huge foreign steel project has been set ablaze. Fang said some Asian nations had seized on Obama's vows to rebalance military and diplomatic assets to Asia as an opportunity to create trouble in the South and East China Seas. Fang, chief of the general staff of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, said in Washington that the oil-drilling rig was operating in China's territorial waters, activity he vowed to protect. A U.S. official said Vice President Joe Biden told the visiting Chinese army chief that Beijing's actions in the maritime disputes were "dangerous and provocative.

Eric Draitser of StopImperialism.org appears on Press TV’s “The Debate” to provide his analysis of the current political and geopolitical situation in Syria. Draitser gives his perspective on Iran and Russia brokering a deal in Homs, the nature of the regime change operation against Assad, and the maneuvers by the Obama administration and its allies to save face in what can only be described as a humiliating defeat. He also calls out the hypocrisy of Western governments and their apologists and propagandists.

I really love the BBC. Love to hate it, that is. They just posted an article about the fact that Russia will now demand pre-payment for the gas it will sell the Ukraine which concluded with this great sentence: There is a danger for EU nations that Ukraine will start taking the gas Russia had earmarked for its European clients, something it did when it was cut off from Russian gas during previous disputes in 2006 and 2009. — Wouldn't they make Psaki proud? Instead of writing that the Ukraine will start robbing, hijacking, siphoning-off, stealing, diverting, embezzling, plundering, looting or misappropriating the gas Russia is selling to the EU, they wrote "taking". As if the energy market was some kind of all-u-can eat buffet where each guest is invited to help himself to whatever he wants. There is a gang of Nazi thugs in Kiev who came to power by an illegal armed insurrection, they are massacring civilians using what counts for a military in their pathetic Banderastan, and this gang of thugs and freaks is about to rob the EU from gas the EU has paid top-Euros for, and the BBC calls it "taking". - I really love to hate them.

And the U.S. Launched 201 Out of the 248 Armed Conflicts Since the End of WWII.

Hundreds of thousands of children, some as young as seven years old, work on American farms. Among the most exploited are those who harvest tobacco, risking nicotine poisoning and other dangers, according to a report published Wednesday by Human Rights Watch. ● The report, based on interviews with 141 children between the ages of seven to 17 in the states of Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky, and Tennessee, details widespread health problems, exploitative working conditions, and low and missed wages (often below the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour) among child laborers. The children interviewed began work at a median age of 13. In the US, farms can legally hire children as young as 12 for an unlimited number of hours. This compares unfavorably even with the highly exploitative agricultural practices of Brazil and India, which formally prohibit children under the age of 18 from working on tobacco farms. The report noted that there are at least 130,000 hired child laborers on American farms, although these statistics rely upon self-reporting and omit child laborers hired out from labor contractors or paid under the table, as well as hundreds of thousands more working on family farms. There are no statistics on the number of child laborers in tobacco farms specifically.

An audio recording of a phone conversation between oligarch and governor of the Dnepropetrovsk Region Igor Kolomoisky and Oleg Tsarov made by unknown persons has appeared in the Internet. As the caption to the posted recording says, the conversation took place late at night on May 10, 2014 and was recorded by former officers of the Security Service of Ukraine who now call themselves the Joint Cyber-Militia of the Donetsk, Lugansk and Kharkov Regions. In addition, another audio record was posted online that proves that Kolomoisky personally ordered the Odessa massacre. As Chelovek-Online reports, Oleg Tsarov has confirmed the authenticity of the phone talk.

RT.com: Kiev protégé allegedly behind Mariupol and Odessa massacres – leaked tapes ● Two leaked tapes have emerged on the internet where Kiev-appointed governor allegedly threatens an ex-presidential candidate who called for a referendum. The official may also be behind the Odessa massacre and Mariupol shootings, the leak adds.

"Bring back your girls" message was quickly turned into "Bring back your drones", as soon as Michelle Obama’s picture in support of the kidnapped Nigerian schoolgirls went viral. Michelle Obama appeared in the internet picture last week, carrying a sign unambiguously captioned "#Bring Back Our Girls." The hashtag was fast enough to travel all through the network, sparking debate among internet users of most pressing issues in today’s America and beyond. Michelle Obama’s firm stand with regard to the Boko Haram atrocities, though, was duly praised.

Kevin Barrett: Is Boko Haram a psy-op?
Ajamu Baraka: From Benghazi to Boko Haram
Glen Ford: Kidnapped Girls Become Tools of U.S. Imperial Policy in Africa
Pulse.ng: Villagers Kill 200 Boko Haram Insurgents With Dane Guns, Arrows; Catch 10 Alive

In the span of a few weeks, an energy firm little-known inside the United States added two members to its board of directors — scoring connections to Secretary of State John Kerry and Vice President Joe Biden in the bargain. On April 22, Cyprus-based Burisma announced that financier Devon Archer had joined its board. Archer, who shared a room in college with Kerry’s stepson, Christopher Heinz, served as national finance co-chair for the former senator’s 2004 presidential campaign. Then, on Monday, the firm announced that Biden’s younger son, R. Hunter Biden, would join the board of directors. Why would the company, which bills itself as Ukraine’s largest private gas producer, need such powerful friends in Washington?

xymphora: The Samovar Dome

Patrick Martin ■ US Vice President Biden’s son, Kerry fundraiser take positions with Ukrainian gas firm || Burisma Holdings Ltd. is controlled by Nikolai Zlochevsky, a former top official in the government of President Viktor Yanukovych, who was ousted February 22 in a US-backed right-wing coup, spearheaded by fascist thugs of the Right Sector and the Svoboda (Freedom) party. Zlochevsky was a member of parliament for Yanukovych’s Party of Regions. He was minister of environmental protection and then minister of ecology and natural resources under Yanukovych, both positions of value to the oil and gas industry. In April 2012, he was named deputy secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, a position he held until Yanukovych fled Kiev and the current regime seized power. It is unclear, as of this writing, whether Zlochevsky is one of the many Yanukovych cronies who switched sides when it became clear that the corrupt president was incapable of resisting the right-wing coup, or whether, in his key national security position, he was already functioning as an instrument of US imperialism. Burisma took on its first American executive, Board Chairman Alan Apter, an investment banker, last year, while Yanukovych was still in power. In either case, the move by Zlochevsky to enlist two Americans with the highest level connections in Washington seems clearly intended to insure that the company’s interests do not suffer under the new regime.