"While Russia has been making efforts to de-escalate and resolve the crisis, the Kiev regime has chosen to launch airstrikes on peaceful residential areas, literally destroying the last hope for preserving the Geneva accords." Dmitry Peskov, Putin's spokesman

"The crisis in Ukraine is not the result of 'Russian aggression,' but of a criminal strategy by the US and its European allies to install a hostile regime on Russia's borders in Ukraine and, ultimately, dismember Russia itself." Johannes Stern, "NATO boosts military build-up against Russia as protests spread in east Ukraine," World Socialist Web Site

Fighting broke out on Friday in the eastern Ukrainian city of Slavyansk when Kiev's coup government deployed military helicopters to fire on the city while troops and armored vehicles stormed checkpoints. At the time this article went to press, two helicopters had been shot down killing at least two pilots while one was captured. In an impassioned statement on Russian TV, Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, appealed to allies in the EU to do whatever they could to persuade Ukrainian authorities to call off the operation and stop the violence.

"We are calling on the European capitals, the United States of America to give an assessment of the current events and are of course calling on those carrying out airstrikes on residential areas to...immediately end the punitive operation and any violence against its own people..."

Bob Carr has denied being self-indulgent, a snob or a bigot following attacks from former Labor colleagues over the publication of a diary recounting his 18 months as foreign minister.

Pro-Israel leaders have also dismissed Mr Carr's claims they wielded ''extraordinary influence'' over former prime minister Julia Gillard as ''scurrilous gossip'' and a ''figment of his imagination''.

In his book, Diary of a Foreign Minister, Mr Carr suggests Ms Gillard supported Israel in a controversial United Nations vote on Palestinian recognition because Australian foreign policy had been ''subcontracted'' to Melbourne-based pro-Israel group the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council.

The member for Melbourne Ports Michael Danby, who is Jewish and a strong supporter of Israel, told ABC radio: ''No lobby in Australia, I understand, has that kind of influence.

Decades of failed peace talks have led nowhere; but do not lose hope just yet. Join Robert Foster as he attempts to host the first ever Middle East Peace Raps, using rhyme and reason to bring together Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu, and a representative of Hamas.

Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness has said that "dark forces" within the PSNI are behind the timing of Gerry Adams' arrest.

Speaking to reporters at the Assembly, the Sinn Féin MLA said Gerry Adams has been the single most important person in building peace in Ireland.

"I view his arrest as a deliberate attempt to influence the outcome of the elections due to take place all over this island in three weeks," he said.

The Mid-Ulster representative added that the allegations against Gerry Adams in relation to the death of Jean McConville have come from elements within society who are hostile to the Peace Process and wish to see it collapse.

Martin McGuinness also added that he has every confidence that Gerry Adams will continue to lead Sinn Féin through the upcoming election campaign.

The Ukrainian army's assault on Kramatorsk has finished, witnesses say, adding that the military did not enter the town. Preliminary reports say that one self-defense activist was killed and nine were injured.

It is unclear whether there are any casualties on the army's side.

Meanwhile coup-appointed interior minister Arsen Avakov has said on his Facebook page that Kiev is not planning to stop the special military operation in Kramatorsk, adding that the military assault will continue at sunrise. He added that the military took control of a TV tower in Kramatorsk overnight.

"The military attacked the barricade on the road to Yasnogorka (town adjacent to Kramatorsk)," an eye-witness in Kramatorsk told RT when the assault started late on Friday. "The lights have been turned off on the nearby street. Shots are being heard across the city, signal rockets light up the sky from time to time. People are saying the Ukrainian army is shooting at everything that moves right now."

Over 10 people have died and around 40 have been injured after members of Right Sector opened fire on civilians in eastern Ukraine, the People's Mayor of Slavyansk has said.

Civilians had reportedly formed a human chain to protect their village from members of the right-wing group.

"In the village of Andreevka (suburb of Slavyansk) during the night people blocked entry to Right Sector members, forming a human chain along the road. Members of Right Sector opened fire, killing over 10 people," The People's Mayor of Slavyansk Vyacheslav Ponomarev told Russia's Interfax news agency in a telephone conversation.

According to the People's Mayor, members of Right Sector would not allow anyone to move the wounded and opened fire on people who tried to approach them.

RT's stringer, Graham Phillips, who is in Andreevka, said over 100 Ukrainian soldiers had set up camp in the village yesterday and had now left. He uploaded a video onto his YouTube feed showing the dead body of a man who had been shot dead by soldiers, according to local residents.

Led by a Louisiana Democrat and North Dakota Republican, senators pressure White House to build controversial pipeline

Barack Obama faced a new challenge on the controversial Keystone XL pipeline on Thursday when Democrats and Republicans in the Senate introduced a bill taking the decision out of his hands.

The bill, introduced by Louisiana Democrat Mary Landrieu and North Dakota Republican John Hoeven, would bypass Obama, authorising immediate construction of the 1,660-mile pipeline.

The two senators said they were hoping for a vote as early as next week. Landrieu said she hoped to "greenlight construction of the pipeline immediately". The senators claimed they had the support of all 45 Republicans and 11 Democrats.

But it was unclear whether there would be a binding vote on the bill, or whether the senators would gather the 67 votes needed to over-ride a likely veto from the White House.

The bill introduced on Thursday reflects growing frustration from Keystone supporters in Congress at the Obama administration's repeated delays of the project. The administration announced another indefinite delay last month.

Six of the 11 Democrats supporting the bill - including Landrieu - are up for re-election, and several face tough battles in conservative and oil-producing states.

Landrieu has come under fire from her Republican challengers over her failure to get the Keystone project moving. "The construction of the Keystone pipeline is very important," she said on Thursday. "It is time to stop studying and start building."

Did you ever hear the story about a guy explaining the bright side of oil spills? You did not hear that story, because anyone who does that is a terrible person, and hopefully the human race collectively knows better, right? Wrong.

A Houston-based oil pipeline company recently made that very flawed argument in a written submission to Canada's National Energy Board. Kinder Morgan wants to triple the capacity of the Trans Mountain Pipeline, which carries oil from Alberta to British Columbia, because of backlogged demand. The pipeline has a 300,000-barrel-a-day limit, and yet the company's demand exceeds that by about 70%, according to the National Post. Opponents of the expansion think increasing the amount of oil travelling through the pipeline will increase the likelihood of a spill.

Maybe that's why, buried deep in Kinder Morgan's 15,000 page submission to the NEB, the oil company argued oil spills "can have both positive and negative effects on local and regional economies," because of the economic benefits brought on by clean-up efforts. "Spill response and clean-up creates business and employment opportunities for affected communities, regions, and clean-up service providers," the report reads. Kinder Morgan does not forget to analyze the negative effects an oil spill has on local communities, like crippling fishing resources, threatening human health, and damaging property, which all carry an economic impact of their own.

But Kinder Morgan still had the audacity to include the lines about positive effects a spill can have, and their opponents are tearing them apart over them. "It is an outrageous insult to British Columbians that Kinder Morgan would claim there are possible economic benefits from an oil spill," Sierra Club British Columbia campaigns director Caitlyn Vernon said in a statement.

Local politicians are coming out against the report, too. "We know Kinder Morgan is using every trick in the book to push this pipeline through our community, but this takes the cake - proposing that a spill would actually be good for the local economy," Kennedy Stewart, a federal politician who represents an area of British Columbia through which the pipeline passes, told the Vancouver Sun. "This assertion shows the utter disregard this company has for British Columbians."

Over the 25 years Hillary Clinton has spent in the national spotlight, she's been smeared and stereotyped, the subject of dozens of over-hyped or downright fictional stories and books alleging, among other things, that she is a lesbian, a Black Widow killer who offed Vincent Foster then led an unprecedented coverup, a pathological liar, a real estate swindler, a Commie, a harridan. Every aspect of her personal life has been ransacked; there's no part of her 5-foot-7-inch body that hasn't come under microscopic scrutiny, from her ankles to her neckline to her myopic blue eyes - not to mention the ever-changing parade of hairstyles that friends say reflects creative restlessness and enemies read as a symbol of somebody who doesn't stand for anything.

Forget all that troubled history, and a Clinton run for president in 2016 seems like a no-brainer, an inevitable next step after the redemption of her past few years as a well-regarded, if not quite historic, secretary of state. But remember the record, and you'll understand why Clinton, although rested, rich and seemingly ready, has yet to commit to a presidential race (people around her insist it's not greater than a 50-50 proposition), even as she's an overwhelming favorite.

If Clinton says yes, she'll have access to a bottomless pool of Democratic political talent and cash to match all those hyperbolic pronouncements about her inevitability. If she doesn't run, the single biggest factor holding her back will be the media, according to an informal survey of three dozen friends, allies and former aides interviewed for this article. As much as anything else, her ambivalence about the race, they told us, reflects her distaste for and apprehension of a rapacious, shallow and sometimes outright sexist national political press corps acting as enablers for her enemies on the right.

Clinton isn't insane, and she's not stupid. "When you get beat up so often, you just get very cautious," says Mike McCurry, her husband's former press secretary, who joined the White House team to find a first lady traumatized by the coverage of her failed Hillarycare initiative. "She [has] had a very practical view of the media. ... 'I have to be careful, I'm playing with fire.'"

Read more here.

In the past few days, US officials have resumed a drumbeat of denunciations against the Venezuelan government of President Nicolás Maduro.

In response to an appeal from a right-wing Venezuelan émigré in Miami, President Barack Obama described himself as "deeply troubled by the continued repression of protestors in Venezuela," and declared that he was "working behind the scenes" to influence events in the South American country.

Speaking Monday via an Internet video connection to a conference in Estonia of the "Freedom Online Coalition," which includes the governments of 23 countries, Secretary of State John Kerry made unsubstantiated claims that the Venezuelan government had blocked access to some web sites and lumped it together with Russia as a country that suppresses Internet freedom and constitutes a place "where we face some of the greatest security challenges today."

Needless to say, the US secretary of state - who had earlier condemned the Venezuelan government for waging a "terror campaign" against its own people - made no mention of Washington's own role in the wholesale spying on Internet activities of hundreds of millions of people around the globe.