At least 20 people were killed, tens of thousands evacuated, over 250,000 households left without power in what has been branded the 'worst flooding' on record across the Balkans. Officials in Bosnia say 12 people have died and more bodies could emerge as the water recedes from dozens of cities flooded in the past three days. Serbia has seen eight deaths, AP reported. [...]

Hunter Biden, son of US VP Joe Biden, is joining the board of directors of Burisma Holdings, Ukraine'€™s largest private gas producer. The group has prospects in eastern Ukraine where civil war is threatened following the coup in Kiev. [...]

A worker at Fukushima filed a historic lawsuit over radiation exposure, saying TEPCO exposed him to dangerous levels of radiation without his knowledge. Shinichi is asking TEPCO for 11 million yen in compensation for the company’s negligence. That translates to only about $110,000 in US dollars – a small price for a big company to pay after exposing millions of people, animals, soil, and water [...]

The French government has said that it will go ahead with 1.2 billion euro ($1.6 billion) contract to supply Russia with two Mistral helicopter carriers because cancelling the deal would harm Paris more than Moscow. In the wake of the crisis in Ukraine, the United States had been pressing France as well as Britain and Germany to take a tougher line against Russia and cancel the Mistral contract. [...]

As most in the former USSR celebrated the 69th Victory Day over Nazi Germany today, the US-backed government in Kiev (which took power after the February coup) decided to launch one of its bloodiest military operations thus far, this time against the anti-coup protesters Mariupol, eastern Ukraine. [...]

Contrary to what the mainstream media has tried to convince you, it's not at all a mystery how the fire started in Odessa, Ukraine and it's not at all a mystery who started it. We owe it to the victims to expose what really happened. On May 2nd 2014 over 40 people were murdered in Odessa Ukraine. Some eyewitnesses claim the real number is over a hundred. [...]

Hungary has taken a bold stand against biotech giant Monsanto and genetic modification by destroying 1000 acres of maize found to have been grown with genetically modified seeds, according to Hungary deputy state secretary of the Ministry of Rural Development Lajos Bognar. Unlike many European Union countries, Hungary is a nation where genetically modified (GM) seeds are banned. In a similar stanc [...]

Donetsk People's Republic has proclaimed itself a sovereign state and has asked Moscow to consider its accession into Russia, the Republic'€™s council said. “We, the people of Donetsk, based on results of the May 11 referendum and the declaration of sovereignty of the Donetsk People’s Republic, declare that from now on DPR is now a sovereign state,” Republic Co-Chairman Denis Pushilin said [...]

Washington finally found its new bogeyman: Osama Bin Putin. Russia's celebrations of the 69th anniversary of the defeat of fascism in World War II come just days after Ukrainian neo-fascists enacted an appalling Odessa massacre. For those who know their history, the graphic symbolism speaks for itself. [...]

A historic, long-term deal for the delivery of Russian gas to China that has been 10 years in the making is 98 percent ready, Russia'€™s Deputy Energy Minister Anatoly Yanovsky has said. All that's needed are the two countries'€™ signatures, he added. [...]

The results of referendums have been announced in Donetsk and Lugansk Regions, showing the majority of voters support self-rule, amid an intensified military operation by Kiev which resulted in several deaths. [...]

About 400 elite mercenaries from the notorious US private security firm Academi (formerly Blackwater) are taking part in the Ukrainian military operation against anti-government protesters in southeastern regions of the country, German media reports. [...]

The referendum is in full swing in Ukraine's Donetsk and Lugansk regions, seeking independence from the central government. Local self-defense forces boosted security, fearing that Kiev could stage provocations to disrupt the self-determination vote. [...]

The Kiev junta is the product of West regime change in Ukraine, an analyst says. A political analyst says the West is covering up a massacre in the Ukrainian city of Odessa that was carried out by neo-Nazis receiving orders from certain people in power. [...]

While the Obama administration insists that supporting Ukrainian Presidential elections are vital to national interests, some members of the US political elite are questioning the costs of getting involved. During a two hour House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing, the US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland shared her assessment of the US role in Ukraine's crisis and the upcoming presiden [...]

A German medical jet which was to be hired by RT TV channel in order to pick up RT'€™s stringer, critically wounded during a military operation in Mariupol, was denied landing in the eastern Ukrainian city, gripped by unrest. [...]

Kiev'€™s forces are using heavy weaponry and tanks in the eastern city of Mariupol to storm the local Interior Ministry building, where police have barricaded inside. After residents began flocking to the scene, Kiev fighters opened fire on civilians. [...]

The families of soldiers who lost their lives in Kiev'€™s "€œanti-terrorist operation'€" in the south-east of Ukraine will be compensated by 1 million hryvnas (around $86,000), pledges a charity, newly founded in Ukraine. The initiative to create a special foundation to support the injured troops and the families of the deceased soldiers came from the Dnepropetrovsk Region’s National Defens [...]

A senior Russian MP has suggested the Commonwealth of Independent States set up its own Court of Human Rights to investigate the events that led the current Kiev regime taking power and the actions of pro-Maidan radicals against federalization supporters. [...]

The IMF has approved a $17 billion loan to Ukraine. The first $3.2 billion tranche has arrived on Wednesday. It’s essential to identify the conditions attached to this Mafia-style “loan.” Nothing remotely similar to reviving the Ukrainian economy is in play. The scheme is inextricably linked to the IMF’s notorious, one-size-fits-all “structural adjustment” policy, known to hundreds of [...]

A report on human rights violations, law abuses, use of torture, inhuman treatment and other crimes in Ukraine from the end of November 2013 to the end of March 2014, a so called "€˜White Book"€™, has been presented by the Russian Foreign Ministry. The authors compiled their facts by carefully monitoring Ukrainian, Russian and some Western media reports. [...]

A failure to properly grasp US interests in Ukraine has made Obama susceptible to hawks seeking confrontation with Russia despite the greater geopolitical goals that Moscow and Washington share, former CIA and State Dept. employee Larry Johnson told RT. Johnson belongs to a group of former US intelligence agents who are attempting to get Obama to change course and defuse the ongoing crisis in Ukra [...]