NONSENSE. It's never easy to pick the most idiotic anti-Russian rant but here’s the latest: “Putin’s Russia is one of the most loathsomely misogynistic countries in the world”. Fact: Russia has more women in senior management than any one else. But, it’s Russia, what do facts have to do with it?
RUBLE. Has fallen quite a lot against the USD (but so have most other currencies). Here's an analysis of the pros and cons. But the ruble price of oil is about the same.
SANCTIONS. They’re hurting Russia, but Europe more. Industrial production continues to rise in Russia but inflation is too. In Europe industrial production is down. Remember, it’s not that Russia was such a big market for the EU but that it was about the only one that was growing: Russia can substitute; the EU cannot. So why is Europe ruining itself in such a questionable cause?

• "(Western media) ... prefers to dwell on ... “first world problems” like pouring buckets of ice water over our heads or the condition of Kim Kardashian's butt"
• It has also lied to the people about the Iraq war, the financial crisis, and now, what is going on in Ukraine

The mainstream media’s echo chamber claim about Russian media goes something like this: “Russian media is powerful and effective because it is well-funded propaganda.” Really? Having worked in Russian media for well over a decade, I observe it focussing on foreign audiences in a very different way: it challenges the West’s hegemonic grip on shaping and controlling the global media agenda. Up until recently, western media outlets enjoyed near monopoly in defining the news agenda. It also worked in lockstep with the powers that be. Reading the op-ed pages of the Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and the Financial Times one will quickly notice they closely mirror the foreign policies of western governments. It has been a cozy arrangement too. A pliant media whitewashed foreign policy adventurism. In return, major media outlets were given a front row seat to cover wars to be packaged as the West saving the world. This model worked reasonably well until the power of the Internet made itself felt, and until the financial crisis hit, failed wars were exposed, and new and alternative media began to emerge.

Suspicions of Israeli involvement in the alleged suicide of a Palestinian bus driver continue to intensify, with the victim’s family lawyer telling RT that until independent forensics prove it to be a suicide, the death must be viewed as a homicide. ● The family of 32-year-old Yousuf Hasan al-Ramouni who was found hanged inside his bus at the Har Hotzvim terminal near Jerusalem insists that the father of two was murdered by Jewish settlers. They also argue that the Israeli authorities deliberately “contributed to this confusion” of the circumstances of al-Ramouni death by publicly proclaiming it a suicide without proper investigation. Following a post-mortem, Israeli police ruled it was not a criminal or nationalist attack and that there was “no suspicion of criminal activity.” Now, the family's lawyer, Muhammad Mahmoud is trying to fight the conclusion by the country's leading forensic lab, saying it is based on racial bias, and premature autopsy results. Palestinian pathologist, Dr. Saber al-Aloul, was present at the post-mortem conducted at Israel's central forensics lab. The controversy over al- Ramouni's death started after Ma'an reported earlier this week that the Palestinian coroner came to a different conclusion than his Israeli colleagues. On Thursday, Ma’an said Israeli police summoned al-Aloul to appear before authorities on Sunday for questioning.

James Petras ■ There are clear signs that a major war is about to break out in Ukraine: A war actively promoted by the NATO regimes and supported by their allies and clients in Asia (Japan) and the Middle East (Saudi Arabia). The war over Ukraine will essentially run along the lines of a full-scale military offensive against the southeast Donbas region, targeting the breakaway ethnic Ukraine- Russian Peoples Republic of Donetsk and Lugansk, with the intention of deposing the democratically elected government, disarming the popular militias, killing the guerrilla resistance partisans and their mass base, dismantling the popular representative organizations and engaging in ethnic cleansing of millions of bilingual Ukraino-Russian citizens. [...] An intensifying war fever is sweeping the West; the consequences of this madness appear graver by the hour.

Stephen Lendman ■ Kiev Plans Full-Scale War || Ukraine is the most serious post-WW II geopolitical crisis. At risk is escalated East/West confrontation. Possible global war. Obama bears full responsibility. Complicit EU partners share it. America goes all-out to advance its imperium. Millions of corpses attest to its barbarity. Replacing independent governments with subservient pro-Western stooge ones is longstanding US policy. Washington-supported Kiev putschists staged the most brazen coup d'etat since Mussolini's 1922 march on Rome. Ukraine is the epicenter of European fascist reemergence. Hardline rule masquerades as democracy. Elections are farcical when held. Illegitimate by any standard.

RT.com: Euromaidan anniversary: 21 steps from peaceful rally to civil war

Sputnik News: Deputy Prime Minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic stated that US Vice President Joe Biden's visit to Kiev could put at risk crisis settlement in Ukraine. ● The US Vice President Joe Biden's visit to Kiev could jeopardize crisis settlement in Ukraine, Deputy Prime Minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) and its permanent envoy to the Minsk talks Denis Pushilin warned Friday. US Vice President Joe Biden arrived in Kiev Thursday evening to hold talks with Ukrainian leaders. "Biden's visit to Kiev is aimed at disrupting the peace process. Washington's offers to change the format of the Minsk talks to something else may result in a re-escalation of the conflict. Americans want to get into the process themselves, which will weaken the peacekeeping position of the European Union. At the same time, they want to exclude DPR and LPR from the process, which will lead to a deadlock situation," Pushilin said. Pushilin stressed that possible supply of lethal weapons to Ukraine by the United States would also contribute to an escalation of the crisis.

Michel Chossudovsky ■ The US led war against the Islamic State is a big lie. Going after ” Islamic terrorists”, carrying out a worldwide pre-emptive war to “Protect the American Homeland” are used to justify a military agenda. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) is a creation of US intelligence. Washington’s “Counter-terrorism Agenda” in Iraq and Syria consists in Supporting the Terrorists. The incursion of the Islamic State (IS) brigades into Iraq starting in June 2014 was part of a carefully planned military-intelligence operation supported covertly by the US, NATO and Israel. The counter-terrorism mandate is a fiction. America is the Number One “State Sponsor of Terrorism”. The Islamic State is protected by the US and its allies. If they had wanted to eliminate the Islamic State brigades, they could have “carpet” bombed their convoys of Toyota pickup trucks when they crossed the desert from Syria into Iraq in June.

Lord Monckton, Viscount Monckton of Brenchley || This memorandum sets out evidence of falsehood with intent to mislead a court by Dr Michael E. Mann in a case in the District of Columbia against the Competitive Enterprise Institute and the National Review.

■ First, it will be demonstrated that Dr Michael Mann, the plaintiff and appellee in the case, materially misled the court in his Brief of Appellee filed 3 September 2014 by falsely stating (1) that the finding of Sir Muir Russell in an inquiry into revelations of malpractice by climate scientists in the “Climategate emails” that a depiction of three graphs of northern-hemisphere temperature changes from 1000-2000 AD, reconstructed from tree-rings and published on the front cover of the World Meteorological Organization’s Statement on the Status of the Global Climate in 1999 on the WMO’s 50th anniversary in 2000, was misleading “had absolutely nothing to do with Dr Mann or with any graph prepared by him”; and (2) that “Dr Mann did not create this depiction”.

■ Second, it will be demonstrated that Dr Mann had reason to know each of these two statements was false in every material particular and was calculated to mislead the court on issues central to the proceedings.

■ Third, it will be demonstrated that a graph by Dr Mann and a depiction by him and others of his graph together with two similar graphs on the front cover of a widely-circulated official publication gravely misrepresented the scientific data so as to mislead policymakers into the adoption of costly regimes of taxation and regulation calculated to occasion substantial losses to taxpayers, and that Dr Mann knew the depiction was misleading, and that he was given an opportunity to correct it but did not correct it.