The leader of ultranationalist group Right Sector, Dmitry Yarosh, has threatened to destroy Russian pipelines on Ukrainian territory if a diplomatic solution is not reached with Moscow. In a fiery address loaded warmongering rhetoric, Yarosh told his followers they should be ready to resist the Russian “occupiers.” [...]

Philosopher, plutocrat, poseur or perfectionist investor, George Soros has a remarkable pedigree for prophecy. His latest assessment? The euro may kill the EU itself. Thanks to his investment acumen, George Soros is doubtless the richest philosopher in history, a position which has allowed him to bankroll all manner of activities from sponsoring Xerox machines in the Soviet bloc during the cold wa [...]

The United States government is investing tens of millions of dollars each year on offensive hacking operations in order to exploit vulnerabilities in the computers of its adversaries, Reuters reports. According to an in-depth article published Friday by journalist Joseph Menn, the US and its Department of Defense contractors are increasingly pursuing efforts to hack the computers of foreign compe [...]

Recent events are both a knee-jerk reaction by Putin and a culmination of his years of grievances with the international order. When Vladimir Putin summoned the entirety of Russia's political elite to the St George's Hall of the Kremlin to announce that Russia would "welcome back" the territory of Crimea last week, the atmosphere was almost as if they were celebrating a military victory. [...]

Thousands gathered in the Russian cities of Novocherkassk, Bryansk, and Belgorod to support the Russian-speaking population in Ukraine. "We don'€™t abandon our people," said banners held by those who sympathized with residents of the crisis-torn country. [...]

The coup-imposed government in Kiev is seeking foreign aid from the US, the EU and the IMF to address its budget shortage. The east remains defiant of the new authorities, while Russia reserves the right to deploy troops in order to prevent bloodshed. Nearly 15,000 people in the Russian city of Perm in the Urals have gathered for a demonstration to support Russian speakers in the autonomous republ [...]

The West has not yet reached a stage where it will be ready to impose economic sanctions on Russia, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said, stressing that she hopes for a political solution to the stalemate over Ukraine crisis. The chancellor said she is “not interested in escalation” of tensions with Russia, speaking after Wednesday meeting with the South Korean president in Berlin. [...]

Google is doing its best to put a lid on the NSA'€™s prying eyes by using enhanced encryption technology to make its flagship email service airtight. “Your email is important to you, and making sure it stays safe and always available is important to us,” Gmail engineering security chief, Nicolas Lidzborski, said in a blog post. [...]

This year, Great Britain's Channel 4 selected Edward Snowden to deliver an alternative holiday address to that of Queen Elizabeth this holiday season, marking his first television appearance since seeking asylum in Moscow. Snowden was chosen because of his disclosures of the many classified surveillance procedures in use by the NSA (and also, we hope, because his name has the word "snow" in it [...]

Events in Ukraine have become worrisome, because there is some kind of truth blockade occurring, and the information people are receiving is all warped somehow, and nobody knows who is telling the truth and who is not. Men and women around the Earth can’t tell what is propaganda and what is reality anymore because powerful people are manipulating what’s being reported over the air – nobody i [...]

This leaked phone conversation between EU foreign policy chief Cathy Ashton and Estonia's foreign minister Urmas Paet reveals that the snipers in Ukraine that fired on protesters were actually from the new coalition government, and Western diplomats... [...]

Diverting from the typical Western line against "Russia's invasion of Crimea," former Ohio congressman and Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich said it was driven by covert action by the United States. [...]

A Common Tactic to Discredit Opponents Or to Create Momentum for “Regime Change.” The powers-that-be often use agent provocateurs to disrupt protests and paint protesters as violent and unlikeable. It's brutal … but effective and cheap. [...]

Vienna is the first city in the world to be granted it's own URL domain suffix. Businesses and organisations associated with Vienna now have the chance to register websites with the ending '.wien', where you usually might have '.at' or '.com'. [...]

A group of former National Security Agency insiders who went on to become whistleblowers have written a letter to President Barack Obama, requesting a meeting with him to offer "€œa fuller picture"€ of the spy agency's systemic problems. The group of four intelligence specialists - William Binney, Thomas Drake, Edward Loomis and Kirk Wiebe [...]

Gas Wars: The untold story driving the crisis. The untold story behind the crisis is that this is an energy tug of war being fought between Russia and the west, with Ukraine caught in the middle. [...]

The US Secretary of State spoke today of the unacceptability of invading a sovereign country on phony pretexts in order to assert one’s own interests in the 21st century. But no, he was not speaking about the United States, as one might have thought. [...]

Washington'€™s decision to provide financial aid to the coup-appointed government of Ukraine goes against the US laws, Russia'€™s Foreign Ministry said, urging American politicians to think about the consequences of supporting the radicals in Kiev. Ukraine’s ousted president, Viktor Yanukovich, said on Tuesday that the US plans to loan $1 billion to the country’s new authorities are illega [...]

Edward Snowden, the man who blew the whistle on the U.S. National Security Agency in 2013 will be speaking on Monday, March 10th via satellite at the annual South by Southwest Festival (SXSW) in Texas. Joining Mr. Snowden is American Civil Liberties Union's technology expert, Christopher Soghoian. The discussion will cover NSA spying, and how& [...]

This video is hosted on LiveLeak and may not play on mobile devices.  It is worth seeking out a computer to watch it.   [...]

€‹Ukrainian McDonald'€™s Ltd, a subsidary of the world's largest fast food chain, has temporarily closed its doors in Crimea because of "€œmanufacturing reasons." “Due to reasons beyond the control of the company, business activities have been suspended in Simferopol, Sevastopol, and Yalta,” said a company statement posted on the Ukrainian website. [...]

A landmark legal battle between two farmers over alleged GM contamination has started in the Western Australian Supreme Court. The case is expected to determine GM farmers’ liability if their crops affect neighboring territories. [...]