There will be no more delays for Ukraine to start paying for gas it gets from Russia, gas giant Gazprom announced. After failing for months to cover its gas bill, Kiev now has to pay for any gas it wants in advance.

"This decision was taken due to systematic failure of Naftogaz Ukraine to pay. The debt of the company for Russian gas stands at $4.458 billion, including $1.451 billion for November and December 2013, and $3.007 billion for April-May 2014," Gazprom said in a statement posted on their website.

"They've paid zero. Correspondingly we deliver zero," Sergey Kupriyanov, a Gazprom spokesperson said in a press conference following the announcement.

Reuters reports that gas supplies to Ukraine were restricted off as soon as the deadline at 10:00am in Moscow passed.

Apparently, the bloody wave of Islamic extremism gripping Iraq is an internal occurrence and was in no way facilitated by the Western invasion. This is former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair's version of events concerning the entire Middle East.

In fact, the former prime minister describes at length how it's necessary to rid oneself of any feeling of responsibility that the crumbling country and region have been pushed over the edge by well-meaning Western interventionism.

An extensive essay of Blair's, posted on his website argues that the crisis in Iraq involving the explosive expansion of the jihadist Sunni militant group the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL/ISIS) is actually the fault of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's Shiite minority government, as well as the war in Syria.

In the essay entitled Iraq, Syria and the Middle East, Blair laments on how "the problems of the Middle East are the product of bad systems of politics mixed with abuse of religion" and that in places where there was less direct Western intervention, the situation was much worse. To illustrate this, Blair brings up Syria, adding that "inaction" by the West resulted in it being in the "worst state of all."

The essay comes shortly after revelations that the US has been supplying both the Syrian political and civilian opposition with "lethal aid."

© Anjum Naveed/APPakistani troops training in the tribal region along the Afghan border. The army said it has launched a 'comprehensive operation' against foreign and local militants in North Waziristan.

Up to 30,000 troops thought to be involved in operation to destroy bases of terrorist groups operating from North Waziristan

A long-awaited military campaign to destroy militant safe havens in a Taliban-dominated part of Pakistan's borderlands began , years after the US first demanded action.

The army said it had launched a "comprehensive operation against foreign and local terrorists who are hiding in sanctuaries in North Waziristan", the troubled tribal region that has served as a staging area for attacks across Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Military sources said as many as 30,000 troops could be involved in the operation to secure the border region, which the army believes must be completed before the end of Nato combat operations this year in Afghanistan.

An official statement said "Operation Zarb-e-Azb" had been launched "on the directions of the government", but the decision follows months of public controversy over the issue, with leading politicians arguing any attempt to seize control of the area would provoke a violent backlash by the Pakistani Taliban in the country's cities.

Pakistan's prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, had instead tried to negotiate a peace deal with militants, something most experts said had no chance of success given the record of militants breaking ceasefires.

Sharif's obstinacy in the face of army demands for North Waziristan to be dealt with before summer has exacerbated tensions between Pakistan's civilian and military leaderships, who have clashed over the treason trial of former military ruler Pervez Musharraf.

The military statement said the country could not afford to wait any longer. "Using North Waziristan as a base, these terrorists had waged a war against the state of Pakistan and had been disrupting our national life in all its dimensions, stunting our economic growth and causing enormous loss of life and property," it said.

Attorney General Eric Holder's Justice Department gave bad advice to President Obama and the Pentagon in the controversial Bergdahl prisoner trade that the president could ignore federal law requiring prior notification to Congress. This is just the latest example of how Holder helps the administration ignore the rule of law and crafts his "legal" opinions based on the desired political outcome, not the actual state of the law.

Under Eric Holder, the Justice Department has stood the old Ronald Reagan maxim "trust but verify" on its head and adopted a "trust and we won't let you verify" approach to its activities.

Even Jill Abramson, the former executive editor of the New York Times, has said that "the Obama administration has moved beyond protecting government secrets to threatening fundamental freedoms of the press to gather news."

How much is the Justice Department's uncooperative and secretive approach the product of Eric Holder's management style and how much is in response to President Obama's wishes? We would argue that the most likely explanation is that a president almost always appoints the attorney general he's most comfortable with, someone who will watch his back on institutional issues and vigorously pursue his enforcement priorities. In Eric Holder, Barack Obama has found both a kindred spirit and a heat shield against criticism that would often be directed at the White House. And Holder has made it clear that he is "part of the president's team."

As its citizens brace for all-out civil war in Iraq, President Obama at noon on Friday updated his administration's assessment of the highly volatile situation in Iraq by confirming he was not contemplating putting U.S. troops back on the ground in Iraq, but that his national security team is considering various military and political options which could include airstrikes.

The government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has been increasingly public in its request for additional U.S. assistance in the fight against the Sunni militia known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) that has claimed large swaths of territory in the country in recent days.

"We will not be sending US troops back into combat but I have asked my national security team to arrange a number of options," said Obama on the south lawn of the White House. "I will be reviewing those options in the days ahead."

Nearly 95 per cent of terrorist arrests have been the result of FBI foiling its own entrapment plots as a part of the so-called post-9/11 War on Terror, a new study revealed.

According to the report entitled 'Inventing Terrorists: The Lawfare of Preemptive Prosecution', the majority of arrests involved the unjust prosecution of targeted Muslim Americans.

The 175-page study by Muslim advocacy group SALAM analyzes 399 individuals in cases included on the list of the US Department of Justice from 2001 to 2010.

"According to this study's classification, the number of preemptive prosecution cases is 289 out of 399, or 72.4 percent. The number of elements of preemptive prosecution cases is 87 out of 399, or 21.8 percent. Combining preemptive prosecution cases and elements of preemptive prosecution cases, the total number of such cases on the DOJ list is 376, or 94.2 percent," the report concluded.

It is no secret that as the Fed's centrally-planned New Normal has unfolded, one after another central-planner and virtually all economists, have been caught wrong-footed with their constant predictions of an "imminent" economic surge, any minute now, and always just around the corner. And yet, nearly six years after Lehman, five years after the end of the last "recession" (even as the depression for most rages on), America is about to have its worst quarter in decades (excluding the great financial crisis), with a -2% collapse in GDP, which has been blamed on... the weather.

That's right: economists are the only people who will look anyone in the eye, and suggest that it was harsh weather that smashed global trade, pounded retail sales (in the process freezing the internet because people it was so cold nobody shopped online), and even with soaring utility usage and the Obamacare induced capital misallocation still led to world's largest economy to a 5% plunge from initial estimates for 3% growth in Q1. In other words, a delta of hundreds of billion in "growth lost or uncreated" due to, well, snow in the winter.

In an incident that may be a first in diplomatic history, Kiev's top diplomat publicly 'effed' the head of another state. Foreign Minister Andrey Deshchitsa chanted "Putin's a f**ker" with a cheering crowd that earlier vandalized the Russian embassy.

Deshchitsa arrived at the scene of the heated protest - which involved overturning cars belonging to embassy staff, the desecration of a Russian flag and pelting the building with firecrackers and paint - in an apparent attempt to defuse the crowd.

He confronted some of the protesters - or rather sided with them. Footage of the encounter shows the minister saying he is all for the protest and its goals.

"I would stand up here with you can say, Russia, get out of Ukraine," he said. "Putin's a f**ker, right!"

A few hundred Ukrainian protesters rallying at the Russian embassy in Kiev have overturned several diplomatic cars and piled up tires to block entry into the building. They have also and thrown stones, smoke grenades, eggs, and paint at the premises.

Police stood idly by as the anti-Moscow crowd blockaded the site, expressing its anger over the Russian government's alleged involvement in the Ukrainian crisis.

The protesters have thrown a Molotov cocktail at the embassy, causing a minor fire which has been extinguished. As of midnight local time, the situation had calmed down. However, protesters still remain at the site.

The State Department said Friday that Russia had sent tanks and other heavy weapons to separatists in Ukraine, supporting accusations Thursday by the Ukrainian government.

A convoy of three T-64 tanks, several BM-21 multiple rocket launchers and other military vehicles crossed the border near the Ukrainian town of Snizhne, State Department officials said. The Ukrainian Army reported Friday that it had destroyed two of the tanks and several other vehicles in the convoy.

"This is unacceptable," said Marie Harf, the deputy State Department spokeswoman. "A failure by Russia to de-escalate this situation will lead to additional costs."