Explosion in Athens followed telephone warning and comes as government re-enters bond markets after debt crisis

A car bomb went off outside a Bank of Greece building in central Athens early on Thursday, smashing windows in nearby shops but causing no injuries, police and witnesses said.

The blast happened hours before Greece planned its first foray into the international bond markets since it plunged into a debt crisis four years ago, and a day before a visit by the German chancellor, Angela Merkel.

An anonymous caller warned a newspaper of the attack about 45 minutes ahead of the explosion, which took place just before 6am. The caller said the car contained about 70kg (155lb) of explosives, said a police official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Ranked as America's most challenging military action since WWII, the US is faced with the task of transporting millions of pieces of military assets out of Afghanistan as possible exit routes - including through Russia - are blocked.

The US military is learning the hard way from its lengthy experience in Afghanistan that it is far easier to get bogged down in a foreign adventure than it is to extricate oneself from it. Landlocked, isolated and surrounded on all sides by potential enemies, Washington's withdrawal of its troops and equipment from the Central Asian country by the end of 2014 is beset with numerous obstacles.

One US military planner compared the moving operation to the minute logistics of transporting a mail shipment.

"The FedEx model, if you will," Tony Shaffer, a senior fellow at the London Centre for Policy Research, told RT. "You gotta know where it's at, what it's doing, where it's moving, and what's going to happen when it gets somewhere."

The EU is taking seriously President Vladimir Putin's letter to 18 European countries, in which he warned that Ukraine's debt crisis could affect gas transit from Russia, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said.

"There are many reasons to seriously take into account this message [...] and for Europe to deliver a joint European response," Itar-Tass reported Merkel as saying.

She said the issue would be discussed in a meeting between European Union foreign ministers Monday.

Speaking in Athens on Friday, Merkel stressed that the price on natural gas should be negotiated. She also said that EU Energy Commissioner Gunther Oettinger and representatives of European states should talk to Russia's biggest gas producer, Gazprom.

"When we take all these steps, we can be sure that we have reached a joined response for the countries that face this problem because they are getting gas from Gazprom," Merkel said, adding European states "would like to be good clients but we would also like to be sure Russian gas supplies are not interrupted."

Arseniy Yatsenyuk meets officials in Donetsk, where pro-Russian groups demand a referendum on independence from Kiev

In an attempt to quell the deepening crisis in eastern Ukraine, the interim prime minister has offered to devolve more power to the regions.

Arseniy Yatsenyuk met officials in Donetsk on Friday, where pro-Russian separatists are occupying government buildings and demanding a referendum on independence from Kiev.

Yatsenyuk did not meet with representatives of the protesters, nor did he offer any detail on how his vision of devolution differed from that of the separatists.

It came as the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said Russia did not want to take over more Ukrainian territory but repeated a call for Kiev to grant more powers to regional authorities. "We want Ukraine to be whole within its current borders, but whole with full respect for the regions," state-run RIA quoted Lavrov as saying.

The officials whom Yatsenyuk met asked him to allow referendums on autonomy for their regions, not on secession.

Meanwhile, on Friday, European energy commissioner Guenther Oettinger said the EU was working on a plan to help Ukraine pay some of its gas bills to Russia, telling Austria's ORF radio there was "no reason to panic" about Russian gas supplies to Europe.

I have always found discussions on democracy in the U.S. curious and at times hilarious. While I have always been impressed by the skillful way elites construct a narrative of democratic values and practice in a country that is, in reality, the antithesis of a democracy, the fervor with which that fairytale is embraced, even by intellectuals, has always been a source of curiosity for me. But at other moments, like the one we are in now, I can't help but find some of the arguments used to support the U.S. Supreme Court's recent McCutcheon decision - and even some of the comments lamenting how the decision will destroy democracy in the U.S. - somewhat funny.

Of course, these are deadly serious times and the McCutcheon decision, which makes it easier for the corporate and financial elite to buy elections and candidates, is a serious ruling that conveys a devastatingly simple message: that the furtherance of the neoliberal project and the maintenance of the U.S. Empire require the evisceration of democracy.

U.S. House Republicans narrowly passed a new balanced budget plan from Representative Paul Ryan on Thursday in a vote that will help shape the debate ahead of November's congressional elections.

The plan authored by Ryan, the influential House Budget Committee chairman, would eliminate deficits within 10 years, due largely to deep cuts to social safety net programs, grants for college students, and research and infrastructure spending. It also seeks to boost defense spending over the next decade without any increase in tax revenues.

In a simple model of democratic politics, there are three basic drivers of political decision making:

• The collective opinion of average citizens
• The collective opinion of the affluent
• The lobbying of interest groups

But which of these really matter? Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page studied 1,779 policy outcomes over two decades and came to a pretty simple conclusion: the collective opinion of average citizens doesn't matter a whit:

A woman was taken into federal custody Thursday after throwing a shoe at Hillary Rodham Clinton as the former secretary of state began a Las Vegas convention keynote speech.

The incident happened moments after Clinton took the stage before an Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries meeting at the Mandalay Bay resort.

Clinton ducked, and she did not appear to be hit by the object. She then joked about it.

"Is that somebody throwing something at me? Is that part of Cirque de Soleil?" Clinton quipped.

Many in the audience of more than 1,000 people in a large ballroom laughed and applauded as Clinton resumed her speech.

"My goodness, I didn't know that solid waste management was so controversial," Clinton said. "Thank goodness she didn't play softball like I did."

Brian Spellacy, U.S. Secret Service supervisory special agent in Las Vegas, said the woman was being questioned and would face criminal charges. Spellacy declined to identify the woman, and he said it wasn't immediately clear what the charges would be.

Author's note: The world is currently commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide. The official story is that the genocide directed against the Tutsi population was triggered by the Interhamwe militia of the Habyarimana government in the wake of the plane crash which led to the death of president Habyarimana. The evidence suggests that the United States played a covert role in shooting down the plane.

The geopolitics underlying the Rwandan genocide should be understood.

Whereas France was accused of supporting the Habyarimana government. the United States played an undercover role in triggering the genocide.

The ultimate objective was to displace France from Central Africa. It is worth noting that that a similar situation is unfolding in the Central African republic which historically has been an area of French influence. Ethnic divisions between Christians and Muslims are being fomented the ultimate objective is to establish a US proxy states in the Central African republic.

The 1994 Rwandan "genocide" served strictly strategic and geopolitical objectives. The ethnic massacres were a stumbling blow to France's credibility which enabled the US to establish a neocolonial foothold in Central Africa. From a distinctly Franco-Belgian colonial setting, the Rwandan capital Kigali has become - under the expatriate Tutsi led RPF government - distinctly Anglo-American. English has become the dominant language in government and the private sector. Many private businesses owned by Hutus were taken over in 1994 by returning Tutsi expatriates. The latter had been exiled in Anglophone Africa, the US and Britain.

The Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA) functions in English and Kinyarwanda, the University previously linked to France and Belgium functions in English. While English had become an official language alongside French and Kinyarwanda, French political and cultural influence will eventually be erased. Washington has become the new colonial master of a francophone country.

In the words of former Cooperation Minister Bernard Debré in the government of France's Prime Minister Henri Balladur:

"What one forgets to say is that, if France was on one side, the Americans were on the other, arming the Ugandans, who armed the Tutsis. I don't want to portray a showdown between the French and the Anglo-Saxons, but the truth must be told." 43

Originally written in May 2000, published on Global research in May 2003, the following text is Part II of Chapter 7 entitled "Economic Genocide in Rwanda", Second Edition of The Globalization of Poverty and the New World Order , Global Research, 2003.

From access to healthcare and education, gender equality, attitudes toward immigrants and minorities, the U.S. looks like a second-rate nation.

If America needed a reminder that it is fast becoming a second-rate nation, and that every economic policy of the Republican Party is wrongheaded, it got one this week with the release of the Social Progress Index (SPI).

Harvard business professor Michael E. Porter, who earlier developed the Global Competitiveness Report, designed the SPI. A new way to look at the success of countries, the SPI studies 132 nations and evaluates 54 social and environmental indicators for each country that matter to real people. Rather than measuring a country's success by its per capita GDP, the index is based on an array of data reflecting suicide, ecosystem sustainability, property rights, access to healthcare and education, gender equality, attitudes toward immigrants and minorities, religious freedom, nutrition, infrastructure and more.

The index measures the livability of each country. People everywhere depend on and care about similar things. "We all need clean water. We all want to feel safe and live without fear. People everywhere want to get an education and improve their lives," says Porter. But economic growth alone doesn't guarantee these things.

While the U.S. enjoys the second highest per capita GDP of $45,336, it ranks in an underperforming 16th place overall. It gets worse. The U.S. ranks 70th in health, 69th in ecosystem sustainability, 39th in basic education, 34th in access to water and sanitation and 31st in personal safety.

More surprising is the fact that despite being the home country of global tech heavyweights Microsoft, Cisco, IBM, Oracle, and so on, the U.S. ranks a disappointing 23rd in access to the Internet. "It's astonishing that for a country that has Silicon Valley, lack of access to information is a red flag," notes Michael Green, executive director of the Social Progress Imperative, which oversees the index.

If this index is an affront to your jingoistic sensibilities, the U.S. remains in first place for the number of incarcerated citizens per capita, adult onset diabetes and for believing in angels.