The Olympic Games, created to bring countries together around sports, appear to be having the opposite effect on U.S.-Russia relations.

Rising animosity between the former Cold War powers was on full display Friday when Russia chose a former figure skater who tweeted out a racially charged picture of President Obama for the symbolic lighting of the Olympic cauldron.

That came just a day after the world found out that a personal phone call between State Department official Victoria Nuland and the U.S. ambassador to Kiev, where she can be heard saying "F - k the EU," had been intercepted and leaked on You Tube.

The Obama administration immediately pointed the finger at Moscow, which did little to signal a denial over an incident that embarrassed Washington.

To be sure, there are hard feelings in Russia toward the U.S. and the Obama administration, too.

Russian President Vladimir Putin hoped hosting the first Games since the 1980 Moscow Olympics, which the U.S. boycotted, would showcase a "new Russia" emerging from the ashes of the Soviet Union as he enters his 15th year in power.

Instead the U.S. and its western allies have consistently painted the picture of a corrupt autocracy.

The Western press is once again brimming with a fresh wave of anti-Sochi slander. The new round is dedicated to the supposedly "skyrocketing" costs of the games, or the "bacchanalia of waste and corruption" as Steven Lee Myers of the New York Times so poetically expresses it.

Fresh ammunition was provided by a new propaganda report concocted by the "opposition investigative blogger" (more Opposition than investigative), Alexey Navalny. Navalny is one of 10 to 20 Russian figures which the Western press refers to as "the leaders of the Russian opposition." Navalny's report is actually nothing less than a rehash of a report that Boris Nemtsov, another one of these "opposition leaders", already published half a year ago. Navalny is adept at finding plagiarism in other people's work, so let's see if Nemtsov will accuse Navalny of using his words and ideas without giving credit.

TRICKS WITH FIGURES

Myers from the NYT accepts the Navalny/Nemtsov claim that the cost of organizing the event amounts to 48 billion USD (Nemtsov's figure was 51 billion). However, Myers fails to make a distinction between the costs of organizing the event and the concomitant heavy investment in Sochi's infrastructure. Nevertheless, Myers correctly relates that "President Vladimir V. Putin stoked the debate when he recently told a group of television anchors that Russia had spent only 214 billion rubles, or roughly $7 billion, to erect the sporting venues for the games . And less than half of that, he maintained, was government spending." Myers was right in quoting Putin that this was the price for 'erecting sporting venues' (add to that also other running costs for hosting the guests etc.), but he then goes on to confuse investments in the urban infrastructure of Sochi with costs for "erecting sporting venues."

The cost of organizing the games indeed equals roughly 7 billion dollars, which is about the same amount that Vancouver spent on the previous winter Olympics. But at the same time, the Russian government, state companies and private investors have made gigantic investments in the permanent infrastructure, adding up to about 40-45 billion dollars to the bill. It is, of course, a deliberate tactic on the part of the "opposition leaders" and an unrestrained press, who disseminate propaganda that misleads the public into thinking these infrastructure investments form part of the "organizing costs". These concoctions create the impression that "Sochi has turned into an unaffordable personal vanity project, intended to cement Mr. Putin's legacy," as Mr. Myers puts it. The New York Times journalist persists with this lie, although his preceding discussion demonstrates that he has in fact understood the difference.

At the Munich Security Conference the Ukrainian opposition and the U.S. essentially agreed on a plan to force Viktor Yanukovich to capitulate. Arseniy Yatsenyuk told of this plan of action, which was worked out with the direct participation of Western representatives, after a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and EU officials. While the «Euromaidan» is shoring up its tents, showing that it is there for the long haul, the State Department has appointed a time by which the regime change operation in Ukraine is to be finished: March 24. That is how the message which appeared on the official site of the U.S. State Department on January 24 could be interpreted:

The EU has threatened to review all bilateral agreements with Switzerland if Bern goes all the way and blocks immigrant inflow. On Sunday Swiss voters narrowly approved the return of strict quotas for immigrants from within the EU.

"This is a turning point, a change of system with far-reaching consequences for Switzerland," Switzerland's justice minister, Simonetta Sommaruga, told reporters in Bern.

A 50.3 percent majority of Swiss voters approved the return of quotas for citizens of EU-member countries. However, while support prevails in Switzerland, Brussels is striking back with harsh rhetoric from its top officials.

Europe produced an acerbic response to the Swiss people's decision: "One thing is clear: you can't take advantage of a big European internal market and stay outside [regarding] other questions at the same time. This is what we have to discuss with Switzerland now," slammed Martin Schulz, president of the European Parliament.

Switzerland is not free to revoke agreements with the EU at will, said Schulz.

Special testing kits sent to Sochi amid 'fears from Japan' and other countries over risk from deliberate deadly disease strike.
The testing kits can quickly diagnose the viruses linked to Marburg, Ebola, Lassa, Machupo, Dengue and Yellow fevers, explained Aleksander Agafonov, deputy director for science of the Vector State Virology and Biotechnology Research Centre, near Novosibirsk. The centre is internationally recognised as a world leader in its field.

'Any person who contracts an illness in or around Sochi must be taken for checkups,' said Agafonov. 'The anti-epidemic crews consist of infection specialists and physicians who are capable of identifying the disease they are faced with'. The experts from high-security Koltsovo scientific town developed six test systems that they sent to Sochi in case Olympic participants or fans complaining about infectious diseases.

'This is due to the fears of some Olympic Games participants, for example Japan, that by chance or deliberately viruses causing dangerous diseases can be delivered to Sochi,' said Dr Agafonov, according to a report in the Novosibirsk edition of Komsomolskaya Pravda. 'Some countries believe that bacteria causing dangerous disease can be deliberately brought into Sochi,' reported the newspaper.

New footage posted online suggests that British citizens fighting in Syria have been involved in acts of execution and torture.

The footage obtained by the Sky News on Monday, shows British members of the al-Qaeda-linked al-Nusra Front torturing and beating their fellow militants.

The video, which first appeared on social media websites, is believed to have been shot in a militant-held area in northwestern Syria.

The material is also found to be uploaded onto the accounts of two men from London who are currently fighting as militants in Syria.

The London-based International Centre for the Study of Radicalization (ICSR) said the footage serves as a further sign of a worrisome trend, proving that British militants have engaged in serious acts of violence in the Arab country.

The Lebanese resistance movement of Hezbollah says it will continue its battle against the foreign-backed Takfiri militants inside Syria.

Hezbollah's Deputy Secretary General Naim Qassem said on Sunday that the presence of the resistance movement in Syria is aimed at stopping the spillover of violence into neighboring Lebanon.

He said Israel is supporting the foreign-backed militants.

"We will continue our work and remain in the field committed to our political stances. We will remain fighting where we are fighting. We are a resistance wherever we are: a resistance against Israel and its agents and a resistance fighting in Syria in defense of the resistance," he said.

Beijing has blasted Washington's irresponsible warnings over the Chinese government's move to declare a new air defense zone in the South China Sea.

At a press briefing on Monday, China's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said foreign officials should reflect carefully on their stances regarding China's legitimate rights before making such comments.

"We hope that relevant countries and officials can stop making irresponsible comments," the spokeswoman said.

The reaction comes after the US Pacific Air Force commander described China's new territorial claims as very provocative.

This is the latest in a series of Washington-Beijing rows after China declared an air defense zone over East China Seas in November.

US Assistant Secretary of State for Europe, Nuland said: "Since the declaration of Ukrainian independence in 1991, the United States supported the Ukrainians in the development of democratic institutions and skills in promoting civil society and a good form of government - all that is necessary to achieve the objectives of Ukraine's European. We have invested more than 5 billion dollars to help Ukraine to achieve these and other goals." Nuland said the United States will continue to "promote Ukraine to the future it deserves."

International Business Conference, sponsored by Chevron. Ukraine-in-Washington lobby group

National Press Club - December 13, 2013

Speech by Victoria Nuland - Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and Eurasian Affairs

What is it about America's women diplomats? They seem so hard and cloned - bereft of any humanity or intelligence. Presumably, these women are supposed to represent social advance for the female gender. But, far from displaying female independence, they are just a pathetic copy of the worst traits in American male politicians - aggressive, arrogant and completely arrant in their views.

Take Victoria Nuland - the US Assistant Secretary of State - who was caught using obscene language in a phone call about the European Union and the political affairs of Ukraine. In her previous posting as a spokeswoman for the US State Department, Nuland had the demeanor of a robotic matron with a swivel eye.

Now in her new role of covertly rallying anti-government protesters in Ukraine, Nuland has emerged to sound like a bubblegum-chewing Mafia doll. In her leaked private conversation with the US ambassador to Kiev, the American female diplomat is heard laying down in imperious tones how a new government in Ukraine should be constituted. Nuland talks about "gluing together" a sovereign country as if it is a mere plaything, and she stipulates which members of the US-backed street rabble in Kiev should or should not be included in any Washington-approved new government in the former Soviet republic.