Over 750 plaintiffs are suing Johns Hopkins University over its role in medical experiments in Guatemala in the 1940s and 1950s. Hundreds were deliberately infected with sexually-transmitted diseases as part of a US government program.

The lawsuit in Baltimore seeks $1 billion in damages for individuals, spouses and children of the victims, who were infected with diseases including syphilis and gonorrhea. It seeks at least $75,000 in damages for each of nine counts.

Former research subjects and their families claim Johns Hopkins officials had "substantial influence" over the studies and were involved in masterminding the experiments. The plaintiffs also feature the estates and families of 124 people who died from complications of diseases that they contracted through the hazardous experiments.

While an attorney for the university has called the suit "baseless," officials from the institution described the experiments as "deplorable" and "unconscionable," while arguing they didn't "initiate, pay for, direct or conduct" the Guatemala studies.

Since November 11, 2011, with the introduction of the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, American spy agencies have been pushing laws to encourage corporations to share more customer information. They repeatedly failed, thanks in part to NSA contractor Edward Snowden's revelations of mass government surveillance. Then came Republican victories in last year's midterm Congressional elections and a major push by corporate interests in favor of the legislation.

Today, the bill is back, largely unchanged, and if congressional insiders and the bill's sponsors are to believed, the legislation could end up on President Obama's desk as soon as this month. In another boon to the legislation, Obama is expected to reverse his past opposition and sign it, albeit in an amended and renamed form (CISPA is now CISA, the "Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act"). The reversal comes in the wake of high-profile hacks on JPMorgan Chase and Sony Pictures Entertainment. The bill has also benefitted greatly from lobbying by big business, which sees it as a way to cut costs and to shift some anti-hacking defenses onto the government.

Kiev will restart importing Russian gas should the $250 per thousand cubic meters price tag be confirmed at the trilateral talks in Berlin on April 13-14, according to Ukrainian Minister of Energy and Coal Vladimir Demchishin.

The minister also said Ukraine was seeking to reach a deal with Russia that would last till the end of a 2016 heating season.

"We need to sign an agreement not for the second and the third quarters, but till the end of the next heating period," the minister said Wednesday at a briefing in Kiev.

The situation with gas supplies for the next three months is "more or less clear", but Kiev "needs an agreement," he said.

Demchishin's statement comes after Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed Tuesday to extend the terms of the so-called 'winter package' till the end of June. The deal signed in October 2014 includes a $100 discount.

The minister said Naftogaz is buying gas from Europe for about $280 per thousand cubic meters. If Russia reduces the price from the $329 it paid in the first quarter to about $250 in the second, in accordance with the 2009 contract and the discount, gas purchases from Russia will become economic, he added.

The 'take or pay' provision included in the 2009 contract but annulled by last October's agreement will remain excluded. "The 'take or pay' principle doesn't work," said Demchishin.

The situation with gas supplies in Ukraine is currently balanced, according to the energy minister. Gas storage is above 7.7 billion cubic meters, with daily consumption at about 110 million cubic meters.

The Minister also added that Ukraine gets about 40-45 million cubic meters of gas in reverse supplies daily, and produces another 55 million cubic meters on its own. This is almost completely balancing the demand, Demchishin said.

Increased US military posturing, troop buildup in Eastern Europe and a continued effort to show strength destabilizes the region and creates a scenario where one wrong move could spark a global conflict, journalist Marcus Papadopoulos told RT.

RT: Does Europe really need this huge show of American strong armed bravado?

Marcus Papadopoulos: Let's say it as it is. That American military parade was dangerous, provocative and foul-hearted, and it is aimed at Russia. And it is hardly conducive to ensuring peace and stability in Europe, in regard to the European sentiment. Have the people of Europe been asked whether they want an American military parade going through their countries? No they have not. And it is all very well for policy makers in Washington to come up with these antagonistic spectacles because they don't live in Europe, because they don't live near to the Russian border. And of course Russia is going to interpret that American military parade, quite correctly, as being very, very aggressive. And the European people don't want to get caught up in a potential conflict between America and Russia. Because that of course could mean potentially devastation for them.

RT: What is the public opinion in the areas of Eastern Europe where all these personnel carriers are rolling through?

MP: Well it is certainly the case in Germany, in the Czech Republic, that thousands of people object not just the American military parade but to the American military presence in their countries. Because, once again, they are extremely fearful of getting caught up in a potential war between Russia and America. And until policy makers in Washington understand that it is ordinary peoples' lives potentially on the line here, then we will keep on seeing these parades.

People want peace ... But the military-industrial complex wants war

U.S. Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter said that a deal with Iran wouldn't necessarily prevent war.

Military.com reports:

The U.S. will reserve the right to use military force to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon even if a deal is reached Iran's nuclear program, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said Tuesday.

"The military option certainly will remain on the table," Carter said as negotiators in Lausanne, Switzerland, struggled to reach an agreement ahead of a March 31 deadline.

"One of my jobs is to make sure all options are on the table,' Carter said in remarks at Syracuse University and earlier on NBC's "Today" program.

We thought that Iran getting nuclear weapons was the main reason we were thinking of bombing them. So if a peace deal is signed with the U.S., why are we still talking about bombing them?

What's going on?

In reality, top American and Israeli military and intelligence officials say that Iran poses no danger.

But the hawks have desperately been trying to stir up war with Iran for decades, as part of a 65-year program of regime change all over the world carried out by the U.S.

And the U.S. has inserted itself smack dab in the middle of a religious war ... and is backing the most violent side. And see this.

The American people want peace, but the military-industrial complex wants war.

U.S. President Barack Obama praised the world powers that have agreed on the general terms of a deal meant to keep Iran's nuclear program peaceful. "I am convinced if this framework leads to a final, comprehensive deal, it will make our country, our allies, our world safer," Obama said Thursday from the Rose Garden at the White House.

"If Iran cheats, the world will know it," Obama said.

The preliminary agreement on Iran's nuclear program will not put an end to the country's enrichment activities, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said. "None of those measures include closing any of our facilities. The proud people of Iran would never accept that," he said. Iran will, however, abide by the agreement, which would limit enrichment activities to one location, he said.

The fact that the Israel-Palestine conflict grinds on without resolution might appear to be rather strange. For many of the world's conflicts, it is difficult even to conjure up a feasible settlement. In this case, it is not only possible, but there is near universal agreement on its basic contours: a two-state settlement along the internationally recognized (pre-June 1967) borders -- with "minor and mutual modifications," to adopt official U.S. terminology before Washington departed from the international community in the mid-1970s.

The basic principles have been accepted by virtually the entire world, including the Arab states (who go on to call for full normalization of relations), the Organization of Islamic States (including Iran), and relevant non-state actors (including Hamas). A settlement along these lines was first proposed at the U.N. Security Council in January 1976 by the major Arab states. Israel refused to attend the session. The U.S. vetoed the resolution, and did so again in 1980. The record at the General Assembly since is similar.

There was one important and revealing break in U.S.-Israeli rejectionism. After the failed Camp David agreements in 2000, President Clinton recognized that the terms he and Israel had proposed were unacceptable to any Palestinians. That December, he proposed his "parameters": imprecise, but more forthcoming. He then stated that both sides had accepted the parameters, while expressing reservations.

Israeli and Palestinian negotiators met in Taba, Egypt, in January 2001 to resolve the differences and were making considerable progress. In their final press conference, they reported that, with a little more time, they could probably have reached full agreement. Israel called off the negotiations prematurely, however, and official progress then terminated, though informal discussions at a high level continued leading to the Geneva Accord, rejected by Israel and ignored by the U.S.

US warships joined the strikes against the Houthi rebels' positions in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa on Monday, a military source told Sputnik.

"American ships participated in yesterday's airstrikes on Sanaa, specifically, they launched a cruise missile on a strengthened missile brigade," the source said Tuesday.

According to him, the US airstrikes began after a Saudi Arabia-led coalition did not manage to hit the Houthis' weapons depots.

Amazingly the Obama administration still calls Yemen a "template" of success when it comes to its counterterrorism efforts. Closer to the truth is probably still another poorly thought out foreign policy adventure. And double standards abound - what is deemed legitimate for Yemen is denied in the case of Ukraine.

The so-called Islamic State intercepted and destroyed hundreds of boxes of US-produced chicken, which had been part of a humanitarian aid convoy bound for people starving in war-torn Syria.

On Wednesday, the group posted pictures of men and children setting fire to the boxes in the town of Akhtarin in northern Syria, according to the SITE jihadist monitoring service. The militants claimed the chicken had been "slaughtered unlawfully." According to the boxes' labels, however, the chicken was halal, meaning slaughtered in accordance with Islamic law. The boxes are emblazoned with the Illinois-based Koch Foods logo.