A prominent Japanese politician has raised hackles as Barack Obama visits Tokyo by claiming it's an 'open secret' that he and the first lady are headed for divorce, and that the president has been using Secret Service agents to cover for him as he pursues extramarital affairs.

Kazuyuki Hamada, who sits in the upper house of Japan's parliament, earned his PhD a half-mile from the White House at George Washington University, and emerged as a shrill commentator on America's economy and foreign policy.

In 2009 he also joined the ranks of the so-called 'birthers,' arguing in a book titled 'Who is Obama?' that the president likely wasn't born in the United States.

But it's his more recent writing that's capturing the attention of the international press this week.

Hamada complained April 5 on his official blog about Obama's decision to visit Tokyo without first lady Michelle Obama in tow. 'His approval numbers are dragging down near 30 per cent,' Hamada wrote, according to an English translation.

'The president has been criticized for having no visions or leadership to solve domestic and diplomatic problems, some even ridiculing him as the worst president of the postwar era.'

'The biggest reason - of many - for the collapse of his reputation is his failed relationship with his wife,' Hamada claimed

Some 4,000 combatants supporting the Kiev authorities have been brought into Odessa, Georgy Fyodorov, deputy head of the Russian Civic Chamber's Committee for Coordination of Aid to Residents of Ukraine said Wednesday.

"Very alarming reports are coming in from our friends in Odessa," he said. "They suggest that control over the city has practically shifted to (tycoon Ihor) Kolomoisky because Igor Palitsya, the new governor of the Odessa region, is his henchman."

"Unfortunately, we have reports that armed militants of the Right Sector, fighters of the Dnipr and Kyiv-1 special task force battalions, and ultras of the FC Dnipro have been brought into the city and the overall number of the combatants propping up the Kiev regime exceeds 4,000 there now," Fyodorov said.

"The most dangerous thing is that local police have handed them the lists of the pro-federation movement activists," he said. "In addition, we have the information the whole city is blocked by checkpoints and traffic inside is practically paralyzed."

Fyodorov said the reports coming from Odessa were "a cry for salvation". "People are asking the Public Chamber and me personally to appeal to international organizations and to the authorities in Kiev to avert the planned actions of terror and to stop the city's slide into genocide."

"We're working on this very scrupulously now and watching the situation inside and outside of the city," he said.

Powerful Ukrainian oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky was appointed governor of Dnipropetrovsk region by the incumbent government in March 2014.

The U.S. Supreme Court decision to refuse to hear our case concerning Section 1021(b)(2) of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which permits the military to seize U.S. citizens and hold them indefinitely in military detention centers without due process, means that this provision will continue to be law. It means the nation has entered a post-constitutional era. It means that extraordinary rendition of U.S. citizens on U.S. soil by our government is legal. It means that the courts, like the legislative and executive branches of government, exclusively serve corporate power - one of the core definitions of fascism. It means that the internal mechanisms of state are so corrupted and subservient to corporate power that there is no hope of reform or protection for citizens under our most basic constitutional rights. It means that the consent of the governed - a poll by OpenCongress.com showed that this provision had a 98 percent disapproval rating - is a cruel joke. And it means that if we do not rapidly build militant mass movements to overthrow corporate tyranny, including breaking the back of the two-party duopoly that is the mask of corporate power, we will lose our liberty.

"In declining to hear the case Hedges v. Obama and declining to review the NDAA, the Supreme Court has turned its back on precedent dating back to the Civil War era that holds that the military cannot police the streets of America," said attorney Carl Mayer, who along with Bruce Afran devoted countless unpaid hours to the suit. "This is a major blow to civil liberties. It gives the green light to the military to detain people without trial or counsel in military installations, including secret installations abroad. There is little left of judicial review of presidential action during wartime."

Afran, Mayer and I brought the case to the U.S. Southern District Court of New York in January 2012. I was later joined by co-plaintiffs Noam Chomsky, Daniel Ellsberg, journalist Alexa O'Brien, RevolutionTruth founder Tangerine Bolen, Icelandic parliamentarian Birgitta Jonsdottir and Occupy London activist Kai Wargalla.

Anyone who looks carefully behind the veil of words cannot find democracy in America. For years I have been writing that the US government is no longer accountable to law or to the people (see, for example, my book, How America Was Lost).

The Constitution has been set aside, and the executive branch is degenerating into Caesarism.

Government is used to impose agendas that result from the symbiotic relationship between the neoconservative ideology of US world hegemony and the economic interests of powerful private interest groups, such as Wall Street, the military/security complex, the Israel Lobby, agribusiness, and extractive industries (energy, mining, and timber).

Dollar imperialism, threats, bribes, and wars are means by which US hegemony is extended. These agendas are pursued without the knowledge or approval of the American people and in spite of their opposition.

Professor Martin Gilens at Princeton University and Professor Benjamin Page of Northwestern University have examined American governance and have concluded that the US is an oligarchy ruled by powerful rich private interest groups and that the US government has only a superficial resemblance to a democracy. Their analysis is forthcoming in publication in the journal, Perspectives on Politics.

Dmitry Firtash, a Ukrainian businessman who amassed his fortune in Russia's gas trade, was indicted on U.S. bribery charges tied to a $500 million Indian mining project in a case he says is politically motivated.

Firtash, 48, allegedly conspired with five other men and met with Indian government officials as part of an effort to pay $18.5 million in bribes to facilitate the project, aimed at generating titanium product sales to firms including an Illinois-based company that wasn't identified in the indictment.

"Firtash was the leader of the enterprise," Chicago U.S. Attorney Zachary Fardon said yesterday in a statement.

The businessman, who is fighting extradition from Austria, may possess information about deals involving Russian state gas exporter OAO Gazprom (OGZD) that the U.S. would consider corrupt, according to Mikhail Korchemkin, a former analyst for the Soviet Union's Gas Ministry and founder of Malvern, Pennsylvania-based East European Gas Analysis.

That information might help U.S. lawmakers develop harsher sanctions against the inner circle of Russian President Vladimir Putin over Russia's annexation of Crimea, Korchemkin said. U.S. prosecutors said the arrest isn't related to the Ukraine crisis.

The US approach to violence in Ukraine is hypocritical, executive director of the Ron Paul Institute, Daniel McAdams, told RT. Holding an election in such a climate is impossible, yet the US will accept any result of the "wonderfully democratic" vote.

RT:The US has repeatedly praised Kiev for trying to de-escalate the situation, yet we all saw what happened in Odessa and what looks like it was allowed to happen...How do those things tally up?

Daniel McAdams: Well it is interesting, because in Kiev, not that many months ago, a couple of months to be exact, unarmed police forces were sent out against the violent protesters, and the US government - including the president and the secretary of state have - said they were "disgusted" by the show of force against these protesters. And you see in Ukraine, it is obvious that the government in Kiev is using the military against its own citizens. It is blockading cities, starving people out. This is exactly what the US used as a pretext for attack in places like Libya and elsewhere. So the hypocrisy of the US side is absolutely stunning.

RT: We heard Marie Harf from the US State Department again praising Ukraine's "restraint," where she said that Kiev has a "responsibility to maintain law and order for their own people," and that "the onus really is on the Russian government to pull back." What is your comment to that?

DM: You have to wonder what reality these people are occupying. They have tried pulling a fast one, the State Department did. A couple of weeks ago when they put out those phony photos what they claimed were the Russian forces in Ukraine. The person who took those pictures, as you know, said they are completely phony. The New York Times was burned on the US State Department lies. To its credit, the NYT has actually sent some people into eastern Ukraine, and they have reported just a couple of days ago, that actually these militias don't contain any Russians whatsoever and the people are not necessarily wanting to join Russia anyway. They are using old, worn out weapons, so the State Department just continues to pile lie upon lie. It is absolutely revolting.

France's new environment minister Ségolène Royal has taken to Twitter to deny claims of a cover-up in her office.

Le Point reported that she has banned female staff at her ministry from wearing plunging necklines.

She tweeted: "I deny of course the ridiculous rumour concerning the prohibition of low necklines in the ministry."

She added: "The only instruction given regards greater rigour in the use of public funds, as the French expect from us."

Le Point had also said that she has outlawed smoking in the ministry's courtyard and gardens in her presence, claimed that an usher orders other staff to stand aside whenever she walks around the ministry, and reported that she insists on peace and quiet during meals.

The IMF has approved a $17 billion loan to Ukraine. The first $3.2 billion tranche has arrived on Wednesday.

It's essential to identify the conditions attached to this Mafia-style "loan." Nothing remotely similar to reviving the Ukrainian economy is in play. The scheme is inextricably linked to the IMF's notorious, one-size-fits-all "structural adjustment" policy, known to hundreds of millions from Latin America and Southeast Asia to Southern Europe.

The regime changers in Kiev have duly complied, launching the inevitable austerity package - from tax hikes and frozen pensions to a stiff, over 50 percent rise on the price of natural gas heating Ukrainian homes. The "Ukrainian people" won't be able to pay their utility bills this coming winter.

Predictably, the massive loan is not for the benefit of "the Ukrainian people." Kiev is essentially bankrupt. Creditors range from Western banks to Gazprom - which is owed no less than $2.7 billion. The "loan" will pay back these creditors; not to mention that $5 billion of the total is earmarked for payments of - what else - previous IMF loans. It goes without saying that a lot of the funds will be duly pocketed - Afghanistan-style - by the current bunch of oligarchs aligned with the "Yats" government in Kiev.

The IMF has already warned that Ukraine is in recession and may need an extension of the $17 billion loan. IMF newspeak qualifies it as "a significant recalibration of the program." This will happen, according to the IMF, if Kiev loses control of Eastern and Southern Ukraine - something already in progress.

It seems the US "costs" are not working on Russian assets. Apparently on the back of diplomatic-sounding comments from Putin, Russian stocks, bonds and currency are the new fear-of-missing-out trade and are soaring:

• *GAZPROM +7.3%, MOST SINCE MARCH 4; ROSNEFT +4.6%, MOST SINCE SEPT 2013; SBERBANK +10% MOST SINCE NOV. 2011
• *RUBLE EXTENDS ADVANCE VS BASKET, STRENGTHENS 1.1% TO 41.2082
• *RUSSIA'S 2027 OFZ BOND EXTENDS GAINS, YLD DROPS 28BPS TO 9.19%

Unfortunately US equities are not so exuberant...

Russian stocks are soaring...

Thailand's Constitutional Court has ousted Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra from office over abuse of power.

The court ruled unanimously on Wednesday that Yingluck acted illegally when she transferred Chief of National Security Council Thawil Pliensri to another position in 2011.

"Her prime minister status has ended... Yingluck can no longer stay in her position acting as caretaker prime minister," Judge Charoon Intachan said in a televised ruling.

The ruling came a day after Yingluck appeared in the court and denied the charges.

"I deny the allegation... I didn't violate any laws, I didn't receive any benefit from the appointment," she told the court on Tuesday.

Several cabinet ministers could also be dismissed over charges of supporting Yingluck's decision to transfer Pliensri.